A Crimson Dawn

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘That’s grand, isn’t it, Emmie?’

  ‘Aye.’ Emmie mustered a smile, then closed her eyes as a new sharper pain gripped her.

  ***

  The room grew hot and fetid as the day wore on. Helen opened the small window, but it brought little relief. She organised Nell into sitting by her sister, wiping her face and arms with a damp cloth. Nell did it distractedly, while chattering about her itinerant life.

  By tea time, word had spread to the Currans. Louise and her mother came hurrying round.

  ‘Fancy taking Emmie over to Blackton in her state - and calling out the minister,’ Tom’s mother scolded her son. Tom was hovering in the doorway, anxious yet embarrassed by the sight of Emmie in bed surrounded by helpers. ‘And to a variety show,’ Mrs Curran said with such distaste that Emmie wanted to laugh.

  ‘It was very sweet of Tom to do so,’ Nell defended him. ‘Otherwise I would never have been reunited with my dear sister. You should be proud of your son, Mrs Curran, for his mission of mercy.’

  Mrs Curran flashed her a look of disapproval, unsure if she was being made fun of. Emmie glanced at Nell, knowing full well her sister was mocking Tom’s upright mother. She lay back, letting them spar with each other, too hot and uncomfortable to care. The contractions continued, weak but robbing her of rest. Helen left to see to her own family and the Curran women to their husbands.

  ‘Fetch Mrs Haile from upstairs if the pains get stronger,’ Mrs Curran commanded her son.

  Nell declared she would make them all cheesy potato pie, commandeering Tom to peel the potatoes. Amazingly, Tom did not protest. Emmie listened to them clattering about in the kitchen, joking and chatting over the task. She heard Nell offer Tom a brandy in a loud stage whisper.

  ‘A nip for the cooks,’ she laughed conspiratorially.

  Emmie longed to get up and join them, but she was pinned to the bed with nagging pain and fatigue. She lay awake through the long night. Tom came to bed late, lying on top of the covers as if she was somehow contaminated.

  For the second night running, she smelled alcohol on his breath and felt a stab of annoyance at Nell for encouraging it.

  In the early morning, she shook Tom awake. ‘Can you get your own breakfast?’ she asked, as he sleepily pulled on his work clothes. He grunted an agreement.

  ‘Mam’ll be down shortly,’ he told her, with a peck on her forehead as he left.

  Twenty minutes after he left for the pit, Emmie was seized by a wave of acute pain.

  ‘Nelly? Nell!’ she cried out. When her sister did not stir, she screamed her name louder.

  Nell came stumbling in, dishevelled and bleary-eyed.

  ‘Emmie, what’s happened?’

  Emmie shouted in pain, ‘Gan and fetch Auntie Helen - quickly - please, Nell!’

  Nell looked aghast. ‘I’ll have to get dressed, Emmie. Can you hang on?’

  ‘Just hurry,’ Emmie groaned, and clutched the bedclothes.

  Nell fled. Emmie could hear her pulling on clothes and brushing out her hair. Beyond the door, she could see Nell in front of the mirror, pinning up her dyed hair. Emmie felt a sudden pushing sensation between her legs. She shuddered and gasped at the acuteness of the pain.

  ‘Nelly, don’t go!’ she called out. She flung back the covers, her body drenched from the heat of the wool blankets. She screamed again for her sister.

  Nell appeared in the doorway. ‘Emmie, you’re not…?’

  ‘Aye, I am. You’ll have to stay—’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Nell protested.

  ‘Well, neither do I!’

  Nell inched round the bed, nose wrinkling at the stench of labour.

  ‘Help me sit up,’ Emmie panted. Nell took hold of her arm and hauled her upright. Emmie pulled up her sodden nightgown and let her legs fall open.

  Nell screamed in disgust. ‘My God, Emmie! It’s coming.’

  She would have fled if Emmie had not been clinging on to her like a limpet. Nell stared in fascinated horror at the birth unfolding before her reluctant gaze. One moment Emmie was roaring at the agony, the next a bloodied, slippery creature was lying on the crumpled brown paper between her shaking legs.

  ‘Is - it - all right?’ Emmie gasped, breathless.

  Nell stared at the ugly specimen covered in mucus and blood. She snatched a towel from the rail at the end of the bed and threw it over the baby, dabbing at the blood and trying not to retch. This provoked a querulous howl from the infant. Emmie reached forward and pulled the bundle into her arms. She pressed her lips to its tiny crinkled face.

  There was a call at the back door, and the neighbour from upstairs came in.

  ‘I heard the noise and thought you might— By heck, it’s here already!’ Mrs Haile exclaimed.

  Emmie beamed, exhausted but triumphant. ‘Me sister helped me, Mrs Haile.’

  Nell swiftly recovered her composure and smiled. ‘It came so quick - I couldn’t have left Emmie to fetch anyone.’

  Mrs Haile nodded. ‘You look a bit green round the gills. You put the kettle on, lass, and I’ll see to the clearing-up.’

  Nell sped from the room, grabbed one of Tom’s rationed Woodbines and rushed into the back yard. She lit up the cigarette, coughed as it burned the back of her throat and breathed in the aromatic smoke, trying to rid her nostrils of the sweet stench of blood. She swore to herself, then and there, that she would never make her sister’s stupid mistake of getting pregnant.

  Yet, when she returned to the bedroom later and saw the cleaned-up baby nestling beside Emmie, swaddled in a white sheet, she felt a surge of envy. Emmie lay dozing, her smile tired but happy, her wavy black hair streaming across the pillow. Nell was struck by how beautiful her sister looked, a grown woman. She had never noticed before. Jealousy twisted inside. Why was Emmie always the lucky one, the one everyone fussed over and took to their hearts - their mother, the MacRaes, even Dr Flora? And now she had handsome Tom and this baby to love her. Life was so unfair.

  ‘He’s a little laddie,’ Mrs Haile told her.

  Emmie smiled. ‘You’ve got a nephew, Nelly. Tom said if we had a boy, he wants to call him Barnabas after his father.’

  ‘Well, if Tom wants it, Tom must have it,’ Nell said breezily.

  Mrs Haile threw her a cautious look. ‘Will you be all right looking after them?’

  ‘Of course,’ Nell beamed. ‘I’ll make us some tea and toast. How about that, Emmie?’

  Soon afterwards, Helen arrived to help, as did the Curran women. Nell took up the role of hostess in the kitchen, presiding over the teapot and regaling visitors with the drama of the birth and the crucial part she had played in it all. By the time Tom returned, Nell was the heroine of the hour, and even Mrs Curran was giving her reluctant approval to Emmie’s brash sister.

  Tom was overjoyed with his new son, at first hardly daring to touch him for fear of harming him. Then, encouraged by Emmie, he boldly held him in his arms and paced back and forth, talking and whistling to him in delight. That night, Emmie fell into an exhausted sleep to the sound of Tom and Nell clinking cups of brandy and toasting young Barny. She woke in the night to a strange noise she could not locate, then realised it was the baby crying for milk. Tom hardly stirred as she reached across and put Barny to her breast, the way Mrs Haile had instructed.

  At dawn, she was roused from a deep sleep by Tom shaking her awake.

  ‘You’ve let me sleep in, lass. I never heard the caller,’ he said in annoyance. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  Emmie blinked at him in confusion. ‘Sorry, Tom, but the baby kept me awake half the night…’

  Tom peered over at the sleeping infant and smiled. ‘Divn’t worry. You’ll soon get used to it. Is he feedin’ canny?’

  Emmie nodded. The baby seemed to know exactly what to do.

  ‘It’s grand having your sister around to help, isn’t it?’ Tom grinned. ‘Nell says she’ll stop as long as you want.’

  Emmie looked at him in dismay. ‘I thought she
was ganin’ to Newcastle to find work?’

  Tom glanced away. ‘She will - once you’re up and about.’

  ‘Tom,’ she stopped him, ‘don’t you think Nell should stop at the MacRaes’ of a night? It’s a bit awkward having her sleep in the kitchen.’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Doesn’t bother me. You sort it out if you want.’

  But Nell was so reproachful at the suggestion, Emmie quickly backed down.

  ‘Haven’t seen you for ages, then you want me out,’ she chided. ‘Suppose you think you don’t need me now the baby’s here.’

  ‘Course I don’t want you out,’ Emmie said hastily. ‘Just thought you’d be more comfortable at Auntie Helen’s with your own bed.’

  ***

  Nell soon tired of helping with Barny, disgusted by the mess and smell of changing and washing nappies. So, while Emmie was confined to the house with the baby, Nell came and went as she pleased. She would leave in the morning to do any shopping and not return for hours. Emmie could not imagine how she filled in the time, but from Helen she heard how her sister paraded around the village in her green high-heeled shoes, chatting to anyone who had the time of day. Soon she was being invited into people’s houses to drink tea and eat scones; she went to support Tom in a football friendly against Blackton and she sang for Mr Attwater at the chapel social. The chapel summer picnic came and Tom took Nell. Louise called round afterwards and told Emmie that Nell had larked around like a giddy foal and pushed Tom in the river.

  ‘Me da wasn’t best pleased, but Tom’s a married man now and he can’t tell him what to do.’ Louise was forthright. ‘I wouldn’t let my husband carry on like that.’

  Emmie blushed. ‘How can I stop him when I’m stuck in here?’

  ‘You should tell her to go.’ Louise was blunt. ‘She’s making a play for our Tom, that’s what I think.’

  But Emmie could not believe Nell would be so heartless.

  ‘She’s just enjoying a bit attention - and not having to kip in a different place every night, that’s all.’

  Yet Emmie’s doubts about her sister were growing. She yearned to take her baby out in the July sunshine, but until she was ‘churched’ she could not leave the house. Left alone for long hours by Nell, sore from breast-feeding and short-tempered from lack of sleep, Emmie began to resent her sister’s presence. Most of all, her anger was growing over Nell’s monopolising of Tom.

  In the evenings, he would rush in and pick up Barny for a few minutes. While he hardly spoke to Emmie, he was quick to agree to walk Nell round to someone’s house, or go with her to the shops for something she had forgotten, or sit at the back door as the sun set, drinking tea laced with brandy. This was not how she had imagined their family life to be. Louise was right: whether Nell meant to or not, she was undermining her marriage.

  The Sunday came when Emmie and the baby could come out of confinement and the Currans laid on a special meal after the long service. Still, Nell showed no sign of leaving. When Nell and Tom pushed Barny out in his pram one summer evening, leaving her to wash up the dishes, Emmie could take no more.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you paid a visit to Dr Flora?’ Emmie suggested the next morning after Tom had gone to work.

  ‘There’s plenty of time.’ Nell was offhand.

  ‘Did you really steal money and jewellery from her?’ Emmie blurted out in frustration.

  ‘Is that what she said?’ Nell sniffed. ‘Well, I might have taken the odd fiver - but she had plenty to spare - owed it to me really - I worked hard for her.’

  ‘And the jewellery?’

  ‘I only took the worthless paste necklace and earrings - needed them to make me look respectable when I was looking for work. It wasn’t asking much. I could have taken far more by rights.’

  Emmie was amazed at her sister’s lack of contrition. ‘And when are you ganin’ to look for work now?’ she demanded.

  Nell’s look was hard. ‘When I’m good and ready. I like it here; I’m in no hurry to leave.’

  Emmie lost patience. ‘Well, we can’t keep you for ever - not now there’s the bairn to pay for - and you spend the housekeeping quicker than water. I want you to go, Nelly.’

  Nell surveyed her. ‘You’ve turned into a right little nag. I wonder Tom puts up with it.’ She picked up her green felt hat, arranged it neatly on her well-groomed hair. Emmie caught her by the arm.

  ‘You leave my Tom alone. He’s a good lad, but he’s easily taken in by fancy clothes and a posh accent. He might not see you’re leadin’ him on, but I do.’

  Nell was dismissive. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. Tom just likes a bit of a laugh. You bore him, Emmie; he told me so.’ With that she walked out.

  Emmie stood there shaking with anger and disbelief. Had Tom said such a thing or was Nell being malicious? Why did her sister hate her so? She had the world at her feet, free to go where she pleased, yet never seemed satisfied. Nell was never going to change. She would always be resentful towards Emmie for some reason and desire whatever she had. Well, Tom would have to choose.

  Emmie stormed back into the bedroom and got dressed. Wrapping Barny in his new shawl, she pulled on her coat over her too-tight skirt and blouse, bundled some spare clothes into the pram and went out. She would not stay a minute longer while her sister swanned around the village making a fool of her and her marriage.

  Still weak from confinement, she was nearly finished by the walk to China Street. She arrived breathless and shaking at Helen’s door. Her aunt took her in at once.

  ‘I’m stoppin’ here till she gans,’ Emmie declared. ‘If Tom wants me and the bairn then he’ll have to come and ask.’

  That evening, Tom came banging on the MacRaes’ door, demanding to know if they were hiding his wife and son. Emmie confronted him.

  ‘Nobody’s hidin’. It’s a wonder you noticed me gone, Tom.’

  ‘Where’s Barny?’ he demanded, puce-faced.

  ‘Sleepin’, so don’t you gan waking him with all your shoutin’.’

  ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ he hissed. ‘All the neighbours are talkin’ - makin’ a laughing stock of me.’

  ‘You’re doing that yourself - carrying on with me sister.’

  ‘There’s no carry-on and don’t blame me,’ he said angrily. ‘You’re the one wanted her here in the first place.’

  Jonas came to the door. ‘Come inside - I’ll not have you shouting at Emmie on my doorstep, laddie.’

  Tom glowered. ‘I’ll speak to me wife how I want.’ He grabbed Emmie’s arm. ‘Haway, fetch the bairn, you’re comin’ home with me now.’

  Emmie shook him off. ‘Not till you’ve told Nell to leave.’

  Tom struggled with her. ‘You’re me wife and you’ll do as I say.’

  Jonas stepped between them and shoved Tom off the step. ‘Away you go. She’s told you what she wants. Look to your marriage, Tom, and tell that besom to go.’

  Tom’s look was livid, but Jonas was more than a match for him and Emmie knew he would not risk a fist fight in the street. He stalked away, glaring at the neighbours watching from their open doors. Emmie retreated inside, avoiding Helen’s anxious look.

  Peter gave her a puzzled frown. ‘Should I not call tomorra for me custard pie, Emmie?’

  Emmie said gently, ‘Not this week, Peter. I’m sorry. But we’ll be back to normal soon.’ She glanced at the others. ‘Once Nell’s gone, things’ll be canny again.’

  ***

  By the next day, word of Emmie’s leaving Tom had spread around the village. Barnabas confronted his son outside the pit bank at the end of his shift.

  ‘What sort of husband are you?’ he said angrily. ‘Running about with this common actress instead of looking after your wife and child. You’re bringing disgrace on the name of Curran!’

  ‘It’s Emmie’s fault,’ Tom snapped. ‘I just did it to please her.’

  Barnabas’s look was withering. ‘You’re weak. You can’t control your wife and you let h
er sister lead you a merry dance. Your duty is to provide for your family, not neglect them. What sort of father is that?’

  Tom was stung. ‘How can I be a father when the MacRaes have kidnapped me son?’

  Barnabas was blunt. ‘Fetch them home - or become the laughing stock of the village. And get rid of that Kelso woman. Your mother doesn’t want to see you till you do.’

  Tom marched home in a fury. Emmie and her sister had made a fool of him. He had done nothing wrong. He had indulged Emmie’s wish to have her sister to stay and then been blamed when she had stayed on too long. To be humiliated in front of his workmates by his overbearing father was the final straw. It hurt him deeply to think that his mother had been turned against him too. Fuelled by anger, he screwed up his courage to confront Nell.

  She was not there. She would be out at the shops, spending his money, he thought in irritation. There was no tea cooking on the stove, no hot water in the hanging pot. Tom looked around more closely. Nell’s bags had gone from under the sofa, her hairbrush and eau-de-Cologne from the mantelpiece. Quickly he checked his secret store of money in the linen drawer. It was gone, all twelve pounds of it; money he was saving for Emmie and the baby. Stunned, he sat down on a stool.

  There was a noise at the back door, a baby’s grizzling. Tom sprang up. Emmie stepped into the kitchen, carrying Barny. They hesitated, eyeing each other.

  ‘How did you know she’d gone?’ Tom demanded.

  ‘Louise came and told me,’ Emmie said, rocking the fretful Barny. ‘Your sister told her to get out - the way you should’ve done, Tom.’

  ‘I was ganin’ to,’ he said hotly.

  ‘Louise gave her a bit money to find lodgings in Newcastle.’

  ‘Gave her money?’ Tom cried. ‘She’s run off with all our savings, the thieving bitch!’

  Emmie gasped, ‘Oh, Tom -’

  ‘Don’t blame me. If you’d stopped at home like you should, you could’ve kept an eye on her. I’ve been too soft on the pair of you.’

  ‘Well, she’s gone now, so there’s an end to it.’ Emmie kept her temper. ‘I’ll not let her come between us again.’

  ‘And what about my hard-earned money?’ Tom demanded.