An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘But –’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eleanor! For heaven’s sake you are eighteen years old, what possessed you to ruin your life?’

  ‘I’m nineteen!’ Nell was dismayed that her mother seemed to have forgotten. ‘It’s my birthday – and it doesn’t have to be ruined!’

  ‘Oh, I’m well aware of what day it is!’ The response was brittle. ‘It’s you who are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. You were stupid enough to get yourself into this, but even you can’t be so dim-witted as not to realise what dire straits you’d be in should you attempt to bring it up yourself.’

  ‘I could move away!’ wept Nell, clutching at straws.

  ‘And do what? How would you work, how would you live?’

  ‘I could hire a nanny!’

  ‘Who would employ you with an illegitimate child?’

  ‘Matron said I could return after I’d had him!’

  ‘So, let me see,’ mused Thelma coldly. ‘With earnings of two pounds per week you’d pay how much for this nanny? And how much for rent? How much for food, and fuel – stop being ridiculous and sign the form!’

  ‘I can’t!’ Nell threw the piece of paper aside and fell upon her pillow, sobbing. ‘I haven’t even held him, and you want me to give him up. How can you be so cruel?’

  ‘Because it’s in everyone’s best interests! It’s you who are cruel – can’t you see what kind of a life that poor brat will have? You’ve obviously no care for your parents, but for God’s sake think of him!’

  ‘I am!’ sobbed Nell. ‘He’s already lost his poor father, he shan’t lose his mother too!’

  The rattle of breakfast pots along the ward accompanied Thelma’s gasp of frustration. ‘So you’re willing to ruin your life? To end up a prostitute?’

  Nell recoiled – feeling as if a cigarette had been stubbed out on her.

  ‘Because that’s what it will come to: no decent man will marry you if he should find out your shameful secret. That’s what your father and I are attempting to spare you from, trying to protect your future, in spite of you bringing such shame on us …’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ blubbered Nell. ‘But please, oh, please …’

  At the end of his tether, Wilfred decided to put an end to this, and, with a peevish flick of his trilby, signalled for Doctor Greenhow to take over the persuasion.

  ‘This is doing no one any good. Please, can we all calm down.’ The elderly doctor grunted as he stooped to retrieve the crumpled piece of paper from the floor, but for now he did not return it to Nell, saying quietly to her, in a voice that made her want to clear her own throat, ‘Eleanor, I want you to consider this seriously, put aside your histrionics and listen to reason. If you refuse to sign this form of release for the child, then you must compel me to resort to another option.’ The liver-spotted hand withdrew another article from an inner pocket. ‘I had hoped, we all hoped, that you’d choose to do the right thing by your parents, the ones who chose to adopt you, and to give you everything you might otherwise not have had – a stable home, a good education, everything a married couple could provide. Don’t throw it all back in their faces. Give your child the opportunity that was granted you. Otherwise,’ he played his trump card, ‘I shall have no option but to sign this.’

  Her face still damp with tears, Nell could make head nor tail of the form, but guessed what it might be. ‘You’d force me to give up my baby?’

  ‘If you are so resolved, I shouldn’t tear it from your arms, no.’ There was a vestige of humanity on his face, and in his tone. ‘But I should then surmise from your mania that you’re unfit to make rational decisions, and therefore you should remain here until sanity’s restored.’

  Again, panic rose in Nell’s breast, more violently than ever, threatening to engulf her as she thought of Cissie, who had come to the Infirmary to have her first illegitimate baby, and was still trapped here two decades later. Her heart began to sprint, pumping the blood through her veins in a deafening gush. Last night she had prayed that none of her friends would be here to witness her shame. Now, she prayed ever more ardently for dear Beata – any of them – to speed to her aid and prevent this monstrous abduction. Oh, how rash she had been not to tell anyone before!

  ‘I can do it, Eleanor.’ Doctor Greenhow saw a hint of defiance begin to arise, and assured her calmly, ‘This only needs my signature and you will be detained, perhaps for good.’

  Forgetting all physical pain, rent by an agony much worse, Nell cried out to her parents, ‘Please, please don’t let him do this!’

  ‘You have a choice, Eleanor, which is more than you granted us when you sullied our home with your big belly.’ Her father seemed to think he represented the voice of reason as he laid down the rules. ‘If you sign the form you can come home immediately, and no more will ever be said, you’ll never hear another recrimination. But there is no way I’ll be persuaded to have that bastard in my house –’

  Nell burst into heart-rending tears.

  ‘– do the right thing by it, give it a good home.’

  He’s not a dog – he’s a child! Nell wanted to cry, but such resistance against one’s parents was unthinkable, would earn her short shrift, and so she could only sob, ‘But how do I know he’ll get a good home?’

  Seeing her weaken, Thelma felt able to show compassion. Hurrying to grip Nell’s hand, she coaxed, ‘Don’t you think you can trust Doctor Greenhow to find it a suitable place, and good parents? How long have you known him, hasn’t he always been a pillar of strength whenever you’ve been ill? Look how he came to visit you every single day when you had influenza, would a man like that hand a child to any old couple?’

  ‘I know the perfect family for him, Eleanor,’ came the gravelly voice.

  ‘Who are they? May I meet them?’ Yet still Nell could not give credence to this nightmare.

  ‘That wouldn’t be wise,’ he replied gently. ‘Won’t you take my word for it that they are a good, kind, respectable couple just like your parents, who’ve longed for a child of their own for many years?’

  ‘They could have someone else’s, it doesn’t have to be mine!’

  ‘Don’t be so rude to the doctor,’ accused Thelma.

  But old Doctor Greenhow held up his hand to show it did not concern him, and continued speaking kindly to Nell. ‘You’ll be giving him the very best, believe me, Eleanor.’ Putting away the more sinister form, to show that he would much rather do this amicably, he set the crumpled adoption paper before her again, his smile inviting her to look at it.

  Against all her instincts and desires, almost blinded with tears, Nell studied it through the blur, seemingly too long for her father, who snatched an impatient look at his watch, then looked away to the ceiling.

  ‘If I sign, do I have to give him up straight away? Couldn’t I be allowed a few months …?’

  The sympathetic doctor glanced from one parent to another, only the mother showing any sign of compromise.

  ‘If you’re willing to stay hidden in here,’ delivered Thelma. ‘Which I doubt you are.’

  ‘There must be someone I could stay with!’ implored Nell.

  ‘What decent person wants to be saddled with a girl like you?’ answered Thelma. ‘And I absolutely forbid that any relative of ours is ever going to find out about this.’

  Still, Nell held on, clinging to the hope that she could somehow get by without them. The pen in her hand faltered.

  Doctor Greenhow saw that her eyes flickered beyond the edge of the screen, as if to gauge how fast she could make the exit. He cocked his head in a kind but stern manner.

  ‘Don’t let us involve the police, Eleanor. Haven’t your parents suffered enough?’

  She broke down again, sobbing, her throat raw and her tone nasal. ‘At least let me hold him once! Mother, I beg you!’

  Whilst Wilfred stamped the floor in frustration and despair, Thelma gripped her hand reassuringly, her own face distraught now. ‘The moment you’ve got the formalities out of the way I’m s
ure it would be all right to have a cuddle, won’t it, Doctor?’

  At his kindly affirmation she helped Nell to hold the pen. ‘There, just a little signature, then it’s all over.’

  How could she fight them? She was so young, and at her weakest ebb. An air of finality about her, with the look of a beast resigned to slaughter, Nell directed the nib at the form, and scrawled a signature without looking, to her parents’ obvious relief and her own immense suffering. She fell back against her pillow, the only thing to prevent her from going completely berserk being the thought that this was to be the one supreme act of her life, unselfishly giving up her baby so that he might have a better life, with a proper family. Even so, she was racked with fresh sobs.

  The whole atmosphere changed then. Doctor Greenhow took quick possession of the form and the pen, tucking both in his pocket. Her parents seemed visibly to relax, there was even sympathy on her mother’s face as she watched Nell’s eyes and nose stream.

  ‘Let’s just go home now,’ she began kindly, ‘it really won’t do the baby good to witness your distress …’

  ‘You promised!’ Face blotched with anguish, Nell almost leapt at her as one possessed.

  ‘All right, all right! Calm down.’ The situation was bad enough for Thelma without attracting the curiosity of all those old people on the ward. ‘Doctor will send for a nurse to fetch him.’

  ‘I’ll be late for work,’ rasped Wilfred, apparently taking no further interest in this affair, as he was already ramming on his trilby.

  ‘Yes, you go, dear,’ his wife needlessly permitted. ‘Doctor and I will take Eleanor home.’ And by the time his grandchild was put into Nell’s arms, her father had vanished.

  But Nell did not care, her whole consciousness at once focused on this tiny crumpled being, her body completely overtaken by a visceral, all-encompassing wave of passion and the urge to protect, the deepest, most intense, most glorious love that superseded even the devotion she had felt for his father.

  ‘I wanted to put him in the clothes I made.’ Shaken by the immensity of her feelings, the new mother wept quietly now. ‘To give him something to remember me by, but I’ve left them at home – they will tell him about me when he’s older, won’t they?’ Her face was distorted by anxiety.

  ‘I’m sure they will.’ Thelma made glib reply, whilst inwardly boiling that her daughter had knitted a layette without her ever having guessed. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll have the very best. Come on now, say goodbye to him.’

  Weeping copiously, her whole body shaking with grief, Nell kissed the peach-soft cheek, inhaling deeply of his scent – she would never, never forget that scent – her tears dappling his face as he fixed her with confused and innocent navy blue eyes.

  And then the nurse reached to take him. For one second Nell lusted to defy them all, to hold him to her breast as a mother should protect her newborn, to scream at them that they could all go to hell. But in her heart she knew that they were bound to win. Shunned by her family, she could offer him no kind of life at all, at least not one befitting a son she loved above all else.

  ‘His name’s William,’ she said on a shuddering sigh, as her arms were relieved of his featherweight – oh why did he go so meekly? Why did he not cry and protest as did his mother? – and she swore that one day they would be reunited, if it took every breath of her body. I’ll come and find you one day, William, she gave solemn oath in her head, as she watched him go.

  Then, having to be helped to dress by her mother, too delirious to know which arm went where, she allowed herself to be chaperoned obediently to the doctor’s car. But her submission concealed a deeper frame of mind. Nell had set her heart against her parents. Never would she allow them to make her weep like this again.

  In fact, she did little but weep for the entire day. Under strict instruction from her mother not to divulge a word as she was helped along the garden path, Nell managed to contain her grief to such an extent that she had no word at all for Mrs Dawson, who came out to enquire after her health.

  But Mother had hurriedly explained that, ‘She’s doing remarkably well after her operation! Well, enough to be at home – they need the beds, you see – sorry, must dash, we’re expecting the district nurse any moment!’ And in they had gone.

  Once over the threshold, both were forced to drop this façade. However, with the midwife arriving soon afterwards to occupy half an hour of her time, Nell managed to hold out a little longer, not breaking down until later in the morning.

  Having left her tucked up, Thelma arrived with a tray of vegetable sausages to catch her daughter out of bed and blubbering over a pile of tiny clothes. ‘Oh, that’s going to do you a lot of good, I’m sure!’ Putting down the tray, she went to snatch the clothes, not viciously but deftly enough to excise them from Nell’s reach, and to drive her back to bed. ‘There’s poor women who’ll appreciate these, someone who’s been bombed out.’

  ‘Mother, for pity’s sake, leave me those if nothing else!’

  ‘What do you mean, nothing else?’ demanded Thelma. ‘What, may I ask, do you call all this?’ She swept her arm around the room, indicating the material comforts that Nell had been privileged to resume. ‘You should consider yourself very lucky, my girl – and do not speak to me in that fashion!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry – but I wanted him!’ keened Nell.

  ‘Eleanor, we all wants things we can’t have! Your father would dearly have loved to study horticulture, but his father knew it was a waste of his abilities and steered him in the right direction. Parents know best – that’s why I’m getting rid of these.’ She set the baby clothes firmly aside, in order to attend Nell’s bedcovers. ‘Now, lie down.’

  ‘But they’re all that’s left of my baby!’ Face protesting, wincing in discomfort, Nell allowed herself to be tucked up again.

  ‘And will moping over them bring him back? No!’ Thelma underwent a brisk smoothing of the covers. ‘So stop being so selfish, so self-pitying, and let them go to someone deserving.’

  Nell reached out to implore as the clothes were spirited away. ‘Mother, just one!’

  ‘No!’ Her mother’s face was adamant as it turned to deliver riposte. ‘One or six, it would all be the same, you’d sit there looking at them, growing more maudlin until you’ll have to be locked up after all! And if I’m to run up and down these stairs for ten days, I’m damned if I’m going to put up with all this mawkish behaviour as well. So you can pull yourself together, knit some blanket squares, or I could fetch you some bandages to roll, anything to take you out of your self-indulgence.’

  Nell plumbed the depths of her mother’s eyes, desperate for any hint of emotion. She herself still reeled from her passionate encounter with baby William, but this woman before her had never experienced such ferocious maternity, her senses not primed by the act of giving birth. ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ whimpered Nell, her eyes and nose stung crimson by despair.

  Only the coldest of hearts could fail to be moved by a daughter’s plight. A struggle took place in Thelma’s eyes. Then she captured Nell’s hand and shook it, trying to imbue optimism. ‘There’ll be other children! When you’re old enough to be married.’

  But this only made Nell wail all the more. ‘I don’t want anyone else!’

  ‘You’ll change your mind once you’ve got over it.’

  Nell’s tearful eyes condemned her with a glare.

  Under such tacit accusation, Thelma could stand no more. She wheeled away, and vanished briefly, taking the layette with her. In her haste a ribbon slithered from the pile of baby clothes. Nell tossed aside the covers and, ignoring her tender flesh, pelted to seize it from the carpet, tucked it inside her nightdress, and was back in bed by the time her mother returned empty-handed.

  ‘And the minute those ten days are up,’ continued Thelma in businesslike fashion, ‘you can go and ask the matron to take you back! You should think yourself jolly lucky that she’ll have you, Eleanor. You’ve been given a clean
slate, and I’d advise you to treat it with value. We’ll hear no more about this – now eat your rissoles, they’re going cold!’

  Fiercely guarded, the ribbon was to remain beneath her clothes, tightly affixed now to Bill’s wedding ring on its golden chain, the weight of these small mementoes causing almost as much agony as the breasts bound with bandages. Yet they were to be her lifeline too, in those desperate days imprisoned in her room, knitting, crying, reading, crying, along with the oft-repeated thought that she would find him one day. Oh yes indeed, she would, pined Nell. But in darkness there were other thoughts that dragged her down to meet cruel truth. She could state as often as she liked that she would find him, but he would no longer be hers, would he?

  Another question was to arise whilst she was still trapped in her bed, a question that had made little impact on her comfortable life before, but one that was truly heartfelt now: was this the situation in which her natural mother had found herself? Nell had felt no affinity before, but oh how she empathised now. Surely she must have been bullied into the same awful sacrifice, for what other reason would anyone submit to be rent of their own flesh and blood? Until this day, she had been a stranger, and Nell’s threats to go and look for her had only been issued on childish whim. Now, for the first time, she regarded herself as on intimate terms with the one who had borne her, and the desire to go and find her had never been stronger.

  But then, would the act of reaching out to one who had suffered the same ordeal take away this terrible pain? No, nothing would. And who was to say that Nell had been given away for the same reason? Her real mother might be as cold as this one, might have given her away from pure indifference – might well reject her again, should she manage even to find her. So what was the point?

  Apart from the midwife, there were to be no visitors to encroach on her grief. The neighbours might have had to be fobbed off with the lie about her having appendicitis, but Mother had managed to conceal it altogether from her relatives. With their get-togethers restricted to Christmas and special occasions, it was rare for any of them to call on the off-chance – which was such a relief when one was cursed with a daughter prone to bursting into tears when someone even looked at her the wrong way. Father did not show his face at all.