The Midwives of Raglan Road

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Sylvia will want to know that you’re all right,’ Hazel murmured. ‘You don’t need to stay long – just come in and see her.’

  John parked the car by the ginnel. ‘Gladys, why don’t we wait here and give Norman a few minutes alone with Sylvia?’

  ‘Yes, and I’ll see to the baby,’ Hazel agreed. She got out of the car and opened Norman’s door, afraid that any second he would turn tail and run. ‘My ankle’s swollen up something rotten – do you mind if I lean on you?’

  He too got out and together they made their way down the ginnel into the yard, where lights were still on in many of the houses. Rose and Ada were at their window, Cyril stood on his doorstep, cigarette in hand. They watched as Hazel and Norman made their way slowly across the yard.

  ‘Ready?’ she asked.

  The corner of his mouth twitched and he hesitated. Still he said nothing.

  Hazel took a handkerchief from her pocket to dab away the blood. ‘Here, let me clean you up a bit. Just see her, talk to her,’ she urged.

  He nodded slowly and let her walk up the steps into the front kitchen.

  ‘Sylvia – Norman’s here,’ Hazel called up the stairs.

  After a few anxious moments, Ethel came onto the landing carrying the baby, followed by Jinny.

  ‘Is she asleep?’ Hazel asked.

  Jinny shook her head. ‘No, she’s wide awake. She’d like you to come up with Norman.’

  Ethel carried the baby down the stairs with Jinny close behind, then paused just long enough to hand the baby over to Hazel. ‘Take her in with you,’ she whispered as she and Jinny went down into the kitchen.

  So Hazel accepted the baby and led Norman up to the bedroom. She felt the warm softness of the sleeping infant and breathed in the sweet, newborn smell of her skin. Behind her on the landing, Norman glanced at the baby’s face just long enough to take in her features then quickly turned his head away.

  ‘Norman?’ Sylvia’s shaky voice reached them from inside the room.

  He breathed in quickly and went ahead of Hazel.

  Sylvia sat up in bed, her hands resting on the turned-back sheet, Rose’s cream-coloured shawl around her shoulders, her hair and eyes very dark. She saw Norman and gave a startled cry. ‘Your face!’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ He stared down at his feet, up at the ceiling – anywhere but at her.

  ‘This is all my fault. I should never have lied to you. I was a stupid girl trying to make everything all right.’ Words caught in her throat and came out strangled and wrong.

  Norman took a step towards the bed. Hazel stayed in the doorway with the baby.

  ‘I knew the minute I saw her who the father was.’ His voice was fierce, his knuckles white as he formed his hands into fists. ‘We all did.’

  Sylvia turned to Hazel in mute, trembling appeal.

  ‘I kept my word,’ Hazel promised. ‘Earl Ray didn’t hear about it – not from me, anyway.’

  Her words brought a shudder of relief and she rested her pleading gaze on Norman. ‘Good. He mustn’t. It was horrible. I can’t bear ever to see him again.’

  Another step brought Norman to her bedside. He knelt beside her and spoke gently. ‘I’m sorry I ran away. It was the shock.’

  She stared at him with trembling lips then took his hand. ‘You’re not the one who should be sorry. It’s me. I am – I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘No, there’s no need.’ Slowly and gently, with his eyes fixed on Sylvia’s face, he raised her hand to his lips.

  She gave a sob. ‘Can you … will you …?’ The plea for forgiveness lay half formed on her lips.

  ‘I do and I will,’ he said as he sat on the bed and drew her to him. ‘Bring me the baby, Hazel. Let’s have a proper look.’

  Next day, Hazel’s swollen ankle put paid to any thoughts of walking out to Dale Head Farm. Instead, she and John stayed in the car as they revisited his favourite haunts – the stretch of river where he’d fished for trout as a boy, the larch copse where he and Fred had camped out under the stars.

  ‘By the way, tell Norman and Sylvia not to worry about bumping into Earl Ray,’ he said over a drink in the Red Lion. ‘I doubt that our American friend will be back in our neck of the woods any time soon.’

  Hazel bridled at the mention of the name.

  ‘Reggie made sure of it.’ Deliberately mysterious, John paused to take a sip of beer.

  ‘How? Don’t keep me in suspense,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Let’s put it this way. Reggie happens to be a good pal of George Lockwood, the wool merchant who owns half of the buildings in the town centre, including the one where the jazz club is held. Once Reggie learned the facts about Earl Ray and the baby, he went early this morning to drop a word in Mr Lockwood’s ear about the fight last night, making sure to lay the blame for the damage fair and square at Earl Ray’s door and building up his reputation as a troublemaker – without going into details, of course.’

  Hazel’s eyes opened wide and she gave a short laugh. ‘Oh dear – Miss Bennett will be disappointed to lose her lodger. So will Gladys. No – I take that back. Gladys is gunning for Ray now, just like the rest of us.’ The Drummonds and the Prices – in fact, all the residents of Raglan Road and Nelson Yard – had joined forces in a chorus of condemnation.

  ‘That’s how it is if you have friends in high places. Mr Lockwood took Reggie’s word for it. From now on, Earl Ray’s name will be mud.’

  ‘Quite right and good riddance.’ Hazel was glad that, despite the damage done to Sylvia, the band leader had in part got his comeuppance.

  John wasn’t so sure. ‘You and I both know he got off lightly. He didn’t get what he deserved.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ she agreed. Hazel forced to one side the memory of Sylvia’s haunted, fugitive face when she and Norman finally tracked her down on Bridge Lane. ‘Then again, who does?’

  ‘Us?’ John queried as they finished their drinks and left the pub hand in hand. ‘We did, didn’t we?’

  Light white clouds scudded across a blue sky, driven by a stiff breeze and she leaned in towards him. ‘What did we get?’

  ‘Each other.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, low and soft, slipping her arm around his waist.

  They went back to the car and set off for home, driving in sweet silence for most of the way.

  ‘Sylvia wants to call her baby Joy,’ Hazel reported as they came to Brimstone Rocks. From here they had a long-distance view of their valley – rows of houses lined up on the hillsides ready to topple like dominoes, the canal cutting straight through the middle of town, the snaking railway. ‘Joy Bellamy. It’s a good sign.’

  ‘Yes. They’ve been through a lot. I hope they can put the past behind them and be happy – Norman, Sylvia and Joy.’

  ‘I hope so too – now that it’s all out in the open.’ Hazel saw that the very thing that had threatened to pull them apart could after all be the making of them.

  ‘Bring me the baby,’ Norman had said. ‘Let’s have a proper look.’

  Sylvia had covered her mouth with both hands and seemed to stop breathing as she watched him gently take her daughter into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Well,’ he’d murmured after an age of holding and looking before he’d passed her on to her mother. ‘We’ll have to see what we can do.’

  Now John slowed the car and pulled into a lay-by. The wind shook the newly green buds on the hawthorn hedges and laid flat the long grass on the roadside verge.

  ‘We’ve all been through a lot,’ Hazel said as she took his hand and looked into his eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ He kissed her and breathed her in, his lips against her cheek.

  What she loved about this moment – what she would always remember with joy – was the feel of John’s warm hand in hers and the light in his clear brown eyes, his smile. She rested in its grace, looking neither forward nor back.

  Acknowledgements

  I’m grateful to Sylvia Vida for sharing with me her long experience as a practisin
g midwife and for passing on her knowledge of midwifery in the 1930s. Her help proved invaluable.

  About the Author

  Jenny Holmes has been writing fiction for children and adults since her early twenties, having had series of children’s books adapted for both the BBC and ITV.

  Jenny was born and brought up in Yorkshire. After living in the Midlands and travelling widely in America, she returned to Yorkshire and brought up her two daughters with a spectacular view of the moors and a sense of belonging to the special, still undiscovered corners of the Yorkshire Dales.

  One of three children brought up in Harrogate, Jenny’s links with Yorkshire stretch back through many generations via a mother who served in the Land Army during the Second World War and pharmacist and shop-worker aunts, back to a maternal grandfather who worked as a village blacksmith and pub landlord. Her great-aunts worked in Edwardian times as seamstresses, milliners and upholsterers. All told stories of life lived with little material wealth but with great spirit and independence, where a sense of community and family loyalty were fierce – sometimes uncomfortable but never to be ignored. Theirs are the voices that echo down the years, and the author’s hope is that their strength is brought back to life in many of the characters represented in these pages.

  Also by Jenny Holmes

  The Mill Girls of Albion Lane

  The Shop Girls of Chapel Street

  and published by Corgi Books

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Corgi Books

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Jenny Oldfield 2016

  Jenny Holmes has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473525016

  ISBN 9780552171519

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