by JB Rowley
If only her mother had explained then that her body was capable of making babies and how it might happen. The cryptic advice she had offered about boys had left her vulnerable and ignorant. Now here she was having a baby before her nineteenth birthday. It just wasn’t fair.
She sank back on the big bed staring at the ceiling rose. This bed must once have belonged to Henry’s parents. This musty room and its heavy dark furniture had been theirs. It was a far cry from the new home she had dreamed of for her married life. But you were just a stupid dreamer anyway she berated herself. It’s time you woke up to yourself, she repeated her mother’s often-uttered counsel.
That day—the first day of their married life together—she saw little of Henry. Later in the morning she went with the Bishop family to church, sure that everyone was staring at her and whispering. She longed to sit with her mother who sat in the pew behind them. As they left the church she hurried to her mother’s side. Etti smiled. For the first time Myrtle felt unsure with her mother. There was something different in the way Etti looked at her, the way she might look at her sister or a friend perhaps. It was not the look so familiar to Myrtle, the look of a mother gazing at her little girl. But Myrtle needed the security of being her mother’s daughter.
“Mum.”
“You’ll do just fine, love.”
She wanted to walk home with her mother but knew she had to stay with her new husband and his family.
In the afternoon she slipped through the gate in the back fence of the Bishop’s—the gate that Henry had often used to visit her. So many evenings she had waited, anticipating the creak of the gate’s hinges, her heart pounding when she heard his jaunty tap on the window. Those days seemed a long time ago. When Myrtle entered the flat she found her mother in the back room, sitting at the sewing machine. Etti looked up, her feet still pumping the treadle, lips tightly gripping the heads of several pins, their sharp ends pointing at Myrtle like a row of miniature darts. Noticing Myrtle’s long face she stopped pedalling, removed the pins and pushed them expertly into the soft dome of a pincushion on the sewing table.
“You’ve made your bed and you’ll just have to lie in it,” she said in a matter of fact tone.
Myrtle didn’t respond. Her mother had given her that advice many times before about one thing or another. It was advice she didn’t want to hear and yet it was somehow reassuring to hear those familiar words from her mother’s lips. Picking up a cushion cover she sat down and resumed the embroidery she had been working on before... before her life had changed. She listened to the familiar sound of her mother’s sewing machine and smiled, pretending for a moment that everything was the way it had always been. Later she made tea for her mother and herself wanting an excuse to linger at the flat, anxious to put off the inevitable return to the Bishop house as long as possible. But her mother firmly reminded her of her new role.
“You’d better go back, love. Agnes will be needing help with the Sunday roast.”
“You come too, Mum.”
“Haven’t been invited, love. Now off you go. Everything’ll come right. You wait and see. Concentrate on keeping healthy. You want things to be just right for the baby don’t you?”
Her mother’s shrewd diversion tactic worked. Myrtle began to wonder about the little one growing inside her, taking shape as a human being. She longed for the day when she could hold the tiny bundle in her arms and see two big brown eyes staring up at her. She was sure it would have brown eyes like its father and his parents. Her parents were also brown eyed. She was the odd one out with hazel eyes but her mother said it wasn’t unusual for a child of two brown-eyed parents to have hazel eyes, or even blue eyes for that matter.
Thoughts of her baby helped her to endure the first Sunday meal with her husband’s family. She comforted herself by gently rubbing her stomach area and sending a silent message of love to her unborn child. When Ma Bishop said grace Myrtle bowed her head but did not close her eyes. Her mother had not said grace before a meal since her father’s death. Myrtle had been thankful for that because she refused to believe in a god that would allow her father to die. She ate silently. Henry sat by her side but she felt his distance. John Bishop tried to put her at ease. He looked across at her kindly.
“How’re you settling in, Mrs Bishop?” he asked.
Ma Bishop made a grunting noise.
Myrtle smiled shyly at Mr Bishop. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to being called Mrs Bishop. Henry replied on her behalf.
“She’s fine, Dad. She’ll get used to us soon enough.”
His father nodded. “She eats like a bird. No risk of her eating us out of house and home, that’s for sure.”
He chuckled at his own joke.
“Eat up, little lady,” he added. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”
Myrtle smiled. She was grateful to him; realising he was trying to be helpful and his jocular remarks eased the tension at the table.
After dinner disappointment gripped her when Henry announced he was going to visit a friend.
“You haven’t forgotten your new bride?” said his father.
“Oh, Myrtle doesn’t mind.”
Henry looked across at her though his eyes did not meet hers.
“Do you Myrtle? I’d take you along but it’d be just too dull for a girl. Anyway I won’t be out for long.”
Myrtle didn’t know what to say. She shook her head trying to think of something sophisticated to say that might indicate she understood the ways of men. The words that fell from her lips left her feeling inadequate.
“I want to look at the baby patterns.”
She picked up one of the knitting pattern books from the dresser. Ma Bishop stacked the dishes at the sink.
“She’ll be fine here with us, Henry,” she said. “She can help me with the washing up. You go and enjoy yourself.”
That evening Myrtle went to bed early. When Henry returned late and climbed in beside her she pretended to be asleep. Would their life together always be like this? Would the warm and gentle Henry she had once known ever return?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Months later Myrtle settled comfortably on the familiar couch she had known since childhood. She pulled back a corner of the baby blanket to allow her mother a better view of her first grandchild.
“He’s beautiful, Myrtle. Perfect. He looks just like you, love.”
Snug in a soft cocoon of rugs the tiny baby rested peacefully in his mother’s arms, the innocence of the new-born still glowing in his pink face; his eyes shut tight, moist lips puckered with the satisfaction of having just been fed. Myrtle breathed in the musky perfume of talcum powder. She felt an urge to put her arms around him and squeeze him tightly and go on squeezing him until their bodies fused again. Instead, she looked down at him in wonder as she had often done since the day she had given birth to him eight weeks earlier. He was hers! He had come from her body. She had to keep looking at him to believe he was really there in the crook of her arm. It always looked perfectly natural and easy when she saw other mothers holding their babies like that. And it felt exactly that way to her—natural and easy—as if she had held many babies that way.
Sitting opposite her daughter Etti Webb beamed.
“Oh Mum, he looks like any other baby. He doesn’t look like anybody at all yet.”
Secretly Myrtle was pleased that the baby might look like her. She was pleased too at her mother’s interest in the child. Since the baby had arrived her mother’s drinking had decreased and she seemed to be going out less. Myrtle felt reassured when she saw her mother at home sewing and taking delight in knitting bootees and jackets for her grandson.
“I’ll have to knit a new pair of bootees every week for the little pet, the way his feet are growing,” Etti said one day.
Myrtle did not think Albert’s feet had changed in size much but she did not contradict her mother. There were changes in her little baby that was true. Every day brought something different. That morning sh
e noticed his eyes seemed to be changing from baby blue to a darker colour, probably brown.
She loved to bundle up Albert in the evening to take him out and escape through the back fence to visit her mother. Her mother-in-law disapproved of course.
“That child will catch its death,” was her tight-lipped prediction.
“It’s only a short distance,” murmured Myrtle. “I’ll be back before the air turns chilly.” With that she was out the back door with Albert in her arms before the older woman could say another word.
After a hot dry summer they were enjoying a mild autumn. It was almost a balmy evening. She was sure he did not need many rugs. Nevertheless she kept his head well covered on the short journey along the back path of the Bishop’s garden to the interconnecting gate that led to her mother’s flat.
Albert opened his eyes at the sound of Vera Lynn’s voice when Etti turned the wireless on.
“He likes music, Mum.”
“Maybe he’ll learn to play that piano Agnes has got in the parlour.”
Her mother gently loosened the baby’s covers to expose a tiny clenched hand.
“Look at those little hands. So tiny.”
She worked her index finger into the baby’s palm until he had it in a tight grip.
“He’s as strong as an ox, Myrtle. Look at that.”
Myrtle smiled proudly.
“He’s got a strong name too. Albert. It’s a good name for a boy isn’t it Mum? Henry wanted to call him Albert, after his grandfather.”
Etti Webb gave a grunt.
“Henry did? Or his mother?”
Myrtle lowered her eyes. Her mother was right of course. Henry didn’t seem to have any thoughts that weren’t put into his head by his mother. Ma Bishop insisted that her first grandson should be named after her father. As usual she had got her way. But Myrtle was too happy to care. What did it matter what his name was? He was her beautiful, healthy baby and he’d grow into a handsome young man.
“If it had been a girl I would have called her Audrey, after you Mum.”
Her mother’s second name was Audrey.
“I let Henry choose because it’s a boy. That’s fair.”
“Well Albert’s not suitable for such a tiny little baby. I’ll call him Bertie.”
A few hours earlier at the Bishop house Bertie had been crying loudly. Myrtle tried all she could think of to quieten him. She rocked him gently from side to side in the crib but his mouth opened wide to expose healthy pink gums and a fleshy corridor leading to what were obviously very strong lungs. She picked him up and hugged him, whispering soothing words that she hoped he could hear despite his deafening shrieks. Ma Bishop glared at Myrtle as though it were her fault.
Feelings of inadequacy overwhelmed Myrtle. The baby didn’t like her. She wasn’t a good mother. What was she supposed to do? When she watched other mothers they always seemed able to soothe their crying babies into gurgling playfulness.
“Let me take him,” said Agnes.
Reluctantly Myrtle allowed Agnes Bishop to take the unhappy baby. Her mother-in-law’s large round arms embraced the child. With the air of one who knows exactly what to do she held him over her left shoulder and rubbed his back in a gentle circular motion, alternated with a light tapping. Myrtle watched the baby’s distorted face begin to smooth out. His cries subsided. Cupid lips parted and milk spewed onto his feeder. Then he was quiet. Ma Bishop turned her back to Myrtle, cradling the baby and soothing him with soft words.
Myrtle suppressed her tears. She wanted so much to be a good mother. Being a wife and mother was what she had always dreamed of.
But it was all wrong.
Her marriage was wrong. Her husband was cool toward her, his mother barely tolerated her and even her baby didn’t like her. Henry’s coolness seemed to include the baby, as if any extension of his wife was to be afforded the same treatment as she herself apparently deserved. She did her best to encourage Henry to take an interest in his son but when she held the wriggling bundle out to his father. Henry refused to hold him.
“I don’t know how to hold a baby. I might break something,” he said. “When he’s old enough I’ll take him to the park. I’ll teach him how to play cricket.”
Well that was fair thought Myrtle. There wasn’t much a man could do with a baby after all. She was ready to forgive Henry but she resented his mother’s superior attitude. Not that she could really accuse the older woman of anything specific. It wasn’t so much what she said. Indeed she said very little to Myrtle but her eyes spoke volumes. Myrtle often felt those dark eyes on her back, like the time she held little Albert high above her head giggling at him as he gurgled back at her. She laughed, turning him and tossing him a few inches in the air. Ma Bishop was standing behind her sorting out the washing. Her mother-in-law’s hand slapped crumpled tablecloths and pillows cases into crisp submission before folding them and placing them carefully in their separate piles. Myrtle sensed the look of disapproval. When she turned and glanced in her mother-in-law’s direction she met the candid disdain and contempt in the older woman’s eyes.
“Don’t go tossing the baby about like that, girl,” she said. “It’s dangerous.”
Shame overwhelmed Myrtle. She had been reckless with her baby. Put him at risk. It had seemed like harmless fun. Once again her ineptitude as a mother was brought home to her. Not a day went by without some indication from Ma Bishop that she did not approve of Myrtle’s novice attempts at taking care of Albert.
At her mother’s it was different. She felt confident and maternal.
Vera Lynn’s voice faded away as the song on the wireless finished. Myrtle heard the announcer’s clear tones reading the latest news from around the world.
“… And in London citizens are preparing for the possibility of war by fitting themselves with gas masks.”
“Mum, did you hear that? Gas masks. They must really think there’s going to be a war.”
“What nonsense. Anyway we’re a long way from all of that.”
“I’ll put the kettle on, love,” her mother added with the practical good sense of a woman who knows it is better to attend to the here and now than worry about what might or might not happen in the distant future.
“I made some scones this afternoon. They’ll make a nice supper.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clackety clack, clackety clack. Myrtle recognised the sound coming from the street outside as Minnie Ha Ha’s bicycle pulling its old wooden cart behind it. Then Minnie’s rasping voice, ‘Hooray and up she rises…’ Myrtle had often watched this eccentric old woman riding her bicycle around the town. As a child she joined in with the other children who laughed at Minnie Ha Ha. Immune to their taunts Minnie did not seem to mind who laughed at her. Minnie was something of a mystery to most people but the popular story was that she grew up in Ettamogah as the only girl in a family of seven. She was christened Winifred and her parents shortened it to Winnie. But Winnie called herself Minnie, unable to make the ‘w’ sound and having already learned the ‘m’ sound after repeated production of that sound in Mummy. Her family followed her lead. They called her Minnie and the name stuck. Somewhere along the line somebody had added ‘Ha Ha’, perhaps because she laughed a lot.
As a young girl Minnie was courted by a young man from Albury one of Archie Young’s boys, Myrtle’s mother said. Charlie Young was the eldest of Archie’s five boys, described at the time by his father as a quiet boy who does as he is told and minds his Ps and Qs. He was a tall good-looking boy and, oblivious of his appeal to the fairer sex, was shy with girls.
Charlie met Minnie one day at the races. Archie and Charlie were standing next to Minnie and her father. Minnie was jumping up and down with excitement, eyes fixed on the horse her father had placed a bet on for her, urging it to ‘go, boy, go’. It must have worked because the horse made it across the line before the other horses. Minnie jumped and whooped in a most unladylike fashion. In her excitement she grinned at everyone including Charlie. H
e was captivated. His reticence and shyness with women was quickly overcome by Minnie’s exuberance. Soon after that he started regular visits to Ettamogah.
In due course Minnie and Charlie Young were engaged to be married. Everyone seemed happy with the situation. Archie Young was pleased with his son’s choice because she was a pretty little filly and Minnie’s parents were pleasantly surprised that their wild and rather unrefined only daughter had been able to make a suitable match. Their romance progressed smoothly. Then one day Charlie met a high and mighty miss from Melbourne. He had found a new love. He demonstrated his lack of breeding by jilting Minnie. Her reaction was passionate. Growing up in Ettamogah with six older brothers gave her a wanton wildness. This might have been what first attracted Charlie Young to her but it was also what filled him with fear when she unleashed it on him in anger.
Minnie accosted Charlie one day in Dean Street. She told him in no uncertain terms just what she thought of him as loudly as she could. A crowd soon gathered. Her verbal attack subsided before her anger. When she ran out of choice phrases and descriptive words she turned on Charlie physically.
He had turned to walk away to escape her torrent of reprimands. His retreating back infuriated Minnie and brought her rage to fever pitch.
“You deserve a good kick up the backside!” she said.
And that is exactly what she gave him. She lifted her leg high. Her white petticoat flashed from under her navy skirt as she aimed right at poor Charlie’s posterior. The sharp point of her patent leather shoe connected to Charlie’s anatomy with the powerful force generated by the fury of a woman wronged. Charlie was taken completely by surprise.
“And indeed he should be,” said the minister’s wife after the event, “for that sort of public display is not the behaviour anyone would expect from a lady, wronged or otherwise.”
Charlie teetered on the brink of falling flat on his face but managed to regain his balance and break into a run. Minnie stood glaring after him with her hands on her hips.