Where Memories Are Made

by Lynda Page

  ‘While we wait for your mother, I think we need to try the baby with some …’ Beryl’s voice trailed off as she realised she was addressing an empty room. Her thoughts raced. Had Teresa decided to go and break the news to her mother herself or was she terrified of facing up to her and now in hiding?

  She couldn’t leave the baby on its own so there was nothing Beryl could do until Teresa’s mother arrived or the girl herself came back. In the meantime she would take care of the new infant herself.

  Still holding the baby in her arm, Beryl went and found an empty box and lined it with clean towels. She laid the child gently inside, then covered her up with another clean towel and put the box down in a draught-free corner of the room. While the baby slept she went off to the surgery store cupboard where thankfully they kept several tins of Cow and Gate formula, just in case of emergencies when mothers of young babies ran short, having miscalculated how many tins they’d need on holiday. Beryl made up a bottle ready for the baby should Teresa refuse to feed it herself.

  That done and the baby still asleep, she returned to the medical room, stripped and cleaned the bed, and remade it with fresh covers ready for the next patient. She had just returned to the office to check on the baby when she heard a tap on the outside door. She arrived in reception to find that Bert Simmons had entered.

  He looked perturbed. ‘Ah, Sister, I just need to check that you gave me the right chalet number, only the ones in four six five haven’t got a daughter called Teresa. Weren’t happy about being knocked up at this time of night neither. Anyway, I must have taken the number down wrong. I am sorry, Sister. You did say to tell the woman she was needed urgently at the surgery … something to do with her daughter.’

  Beryl silently scolded herself. How stupid not to suspect that Teresa would give her a false chalet number considering her state of mind after her traumatic experience and its life-changing aftermath. It seemed in the circumstances she had two choices. Either she should ask Bert Simmons to summon the police and let them deal with this situation or she could give Teresa an hour or so to return before she took drastic action which could have far-reaching consequences for the baby.

  Beryl was aware that Bert was beginning to wonder why she hadn’t responded to him, considering she had called him out to help her with an urgent matter. She hurriedly made her decision. No harm would come to the baby if she gave its mother time to come to terms with what had transpired. If Teresa or her mother hadn’t returned by six in the morning then Beryl would have no choice but to take matters into her own hands.

  Telling Bert that she was sorry she must have given him the wrong number, but it didn’t matter now as the urgent situation had resolved itself in the meantime, Beryl went back to sit in the consulting room with the baby, waiting for its mother or grandmother to turn up and claim it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Beryl woke with a start, nearly jumping out of her skin to find herself staring straight into a face so close to hers that it appeared grotesque through her unfocused eyes. ‘What the …’ she exclaimed.

  The face withdrew and a relieved voice cut her short with, ‘Oh, thank God. I thought you were dead, Beryl. All the time we’ve worked alongside each other, I can’t ever remember arriving for a shift change and finding you asleep. Had a busy night?’

  Beryl stared at April Stephens blankly for a moment until her sleep-fuddled brain cleared enough for the events of a few hours ago to come flooding back. Her face grim, she said, ‘Oh, so she never came back then? Well, that leaves me with no choice but to alert the authorities and hand the problem over to them.’

  April was looking at her in confusion. ‘Beryl, what problem do you need to alert the authorities about?’

  She pointed down to the box by the side of her. ‘This problem, April.’

  April looked inside the box, and when it registered with her just what was inside, she let out a gasp of shock. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘I didn’t find it. I delivered it. And it’s a “her”. The mother was thirteen, can you believe, and thought it was all right to have sex with a lad she met at the fair because her mother had warned her not to let a man touch her, but he was only fourteen so a boy and not a man.’

  She then told April all that had transpired and finished off with, ‘Well, it’s obvious no one is coming to claim the child so there’s no alternative but to call in the authorities and let them take charge.’

  April, the mother of three children herself, was shaking her head sadly. In contrast to Beryl whose head ruled her heart, April’s heart very much ruled her head. ‘Oh, dear. I don’t know who I feel more sorry for … the child or its mother. The poor girl is going to feel guilty for the rest of her life for abandoning her baby, albeit she’s hardly more than a child herself, and this baby is going to go through life knowing it wasn’t wanted by its mother or her family, so it seems.’

  ‘Well, we can’t judge the girl’s family too harshly as we don’t actually know if Teresa has told them. I can’t even be sure her name is actually Teresa.’

  April’s eyes settled on the baby sleeping peacefully in the box and she said wistfully, ‘Oh, Beryl, she’s such a sweet little thing. I’d take her myself if I hadn’t got my hands full already with my three, and Roy’s adamant there should be no more. I don’t think they’ll have any trouble finding a couple to adopt this little one. She’s perfect, isn’t she? Who could fail to fall in love with her? But what worries me is that it’s the luck of the draw whether that couple can love her the same as they would if she was their own. People fall instantly in love with kittens and puppies, not seeming to consider that they don’t stay small and adorable for long. It’s the same with children, of course. What fills me with dread, though, is that this little mite is going to spend time in a children’s home while they seek out a new family for her. Have you ever been inside a children’s home, Beryl?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I have. Horrible places. Before I took this job with Jolly’s I applied for a job at one. It broke my heart to see how babies and children are treated there. The babies are left for most of the day lying in their cot, mostly in soiled nappies which as you can imagine causes terrible nappy rash. The staff just haven’t time to spend with them except for feeding, and then as soon as they’re burped they’re returned to their cots until next feeding time – no cuddle or anything. It’s not the staff’s fault but the authorities’ for not hiring enough people to provide proper care and attention.

  April dragged her eyes away from the baby and fixed them on Beryl meaningfully. ‘Whether we like it or not, we have this child’s future in our hands. Before we take the drastic step of handing her over to the authorities, we really should give her mother more time to come back and fetch her … another day or so at least. Look, it’s only hours since the birth, it’s not like it’s days. Maybe Teresa hasn’t built up the courage to tell her parents yet. Maybe she has but the parents are still reeling themselves. This is going to be one hell of a shock for them, isn’t it? If we’ve had no sign of them come Monday then we take action. That’s the fair and just thing to do, for the sake of the baby, don’t you agree?’

  Beryl looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before she nodded her agreement. ‘And what do we do with the child meantime? We can’t keep her here, can we?’

  April looked thoughtful. ‘Mmm … no, we can’t. I’d take her myself if it was just for the weekend. Roy wouldn’t have any objection so long as it was no longer, but it’s your weekend off so I can’t, can I?’ She looked at Beryl meaningfully. ‘That just leaves you.’

  She exclaimed, ‘Me!’ The thought of having a baby to care for, even for a short time, filled Beryl with horror. Trevor would panic just as much.

  April was well aware of Beryl’s feelings about children, couldn’t fail to see the panic in her eyes at the thought of having the care of one for even a short time. She knew her colleague was about to come out with all manner of excuses not to take the baby, but Ap
ril herself was adamant that this child was not going to face an uncertain future unless there was no other choice. Smiling broadly she said, ‘That’s settled then. You’ll take the baby for the weekend and I’ll telephone you immediately Teresa or her family show up. And if they don’t come by Monday morning then we hand her over to the authorities.’ April got up. ‘I’ll go and sort out the things you’ll need for her from the store cupboard. I’m sure there’s a couple of old nightdresses and nappies in the box of stuff people have left behind.’

  Beryl sighed heavily. She wasn’t at all happy about having her much-looked-forward-to weekend scuppered, and wasn’t relishing informing Trevor of it either.

  He wasn’t back home by the time Beryl arrived. This signalled to her that he must have had a busy night and still be at the station handing over to the day relief. Whoever got home first when they both happened to be on night shift would make a start on breakfast so they could eat together before they went to bed, but she had a baby to deal with first. She needed to find something better than a cardboard box for the child to sleep in during her stay with them, and any time now she would be waking for a feed so Beryl ought to have a bottle ready.

  Putting the kettle on to boil she went in search of a makeshift cot.

  She had just settled the baby down, after her feed and change, into a dressing-table drawer she had emptied of its contents and lined with a blanket, then she had gone into the kitchen to make a much-needed cup of tea and a start on the breakfast when the back door opened and her big husband lumbered in. He smiled lovingly at his beloved wife, saying as he took off his helmet and stripped off his uniform jacket, ‘Sorry I’m late, love. Had a hell of a night. A drunk decided to take out the window of the pub because the landlord refused to serve him, and we had to stop a husband from trying to throttle his wife because he caught her in bed with their neighbour when he arrived home from his shift earlier than was expected.’

  Pulling out a chair from under the kitchen table, Trevor eased his large bulk down on it and began to pull off his boots while he carried on talking. ‘Thank God I’ve got a long weekend to look forward to with my darling wife. I thought we could go to the pub and have dinner, save you from cooking tonight.’ He stopped talking to look pointedly at the stove when it struck him there was no sizzling pan on it and no smell of cooking sausages and bacon assailing his nostrils. ‘I take it you’ve had a busy night and just come in yourself too, love? Let me finish taking my boots off then I’ll help you with breakfast.’

  She told him, ‘Eating at the pub tonight sounds good but I’m afraid we won’t be able to. You see, we have a visitor.’

  ‘Eh!’ His face fell, voice lowering to a whisper as he said, ‘Don’t tell me your mother has descended on us? I could cope with anyone else but not her.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine then. You’ll be able to cope with a baby.’

  Trevor sat speechless for a moment. Then, his face paling, he ventured, ‘You did say a baby?’

  She nodded and proceeded to tell him just how they had ended up looking after one.

  By the time she had finished, Trevor was looking perturbed. ‘Oh, goodness me, what a turn up for the books. As hard work as she is, I’d sooner you had told me it was your mother we had stopping. I don’t know about this, love. You ran a mile if your sisters so much as hinted about you holding one of their babies when they were little. All I know about them is that it’s a continuous job, filling them up at one end and cleaning them up at the other.’

  ‘Well, that’s all you need to know because at this little one’s age that’s all that needs doing.’

  ‘But what about our weekend? We were so looking forward to …’

  Beryl snapped, ‘Don’t you think I’m as upset as you are about having our weekend disrupted? Whether we like it or not, we’re lumbered with this baby for the next couple of days unless the mother or her family turn up to claim her meantime. We have no choice but to get on with it. In the meantime, I suggest we’d better get some sleep while the baby is. We’re going to need it.’

  Beryl woke with a start, eyes darting to the alarm clock on her bedside table. It was three-thirty. She made to turn over and go back to sleep. She’d be up in just over three hours to get ready for work. Then suddenly panic struck as she remembered the baby. She had been due a feed at two but hadn’t woken for it. Beryl hoped that meant she had slept through, not that something was wrong with her and neither Beryl nor Trevor had heard her cries. Diving out of bed, she grabbed her robe, pulling it on as she hurried over to the spare bedroom where the baby was sleeping in the drawer on the bed.

  A shaft of light beaming down from a crescent moon was bathing the makeshift cot in a soft glow, casting everything else around it into eerie darkness. Padding quietly over to the bed, Beryl leaned over and placed one hand gently on the baby’s chest, mortally relieved to feel it rising and lowering. The child was fine, just peacefully sleeping. She made to return to bed when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, all her senses telling her that she and the child were not the only ones in the room. ‘Who’s there?’ she whispered.

  It was Trevor who whispered back, ‘It’s only me, love.’

  Peering hard, she just made out the outline of him, lying on the bed to the other side of the drawer, one arm bent, head resting in his hand. She tutted. ‘Oh, you daft lummox, you gave me such a scare! I was so worried when I realised she hadn’t woken for her feed at two, I didn’t notice you weren’t in bed beside me. Just what are you doing here?’ Beryl quizzed.

  ‘Actually, the baby did wake at just after two. I was on my way back from a visit to the toilet when I heard her. I was awake already and it seemed a shame to wake you, so I fed her myself.’

  ‘You fed her!’ exclaimed Beryl, astonished.

  Trevor gave a small laugh. ‘Don’t sound so shocked. Men are as capable of feeding babies as women. I’ve watched you do it enough times over the weekend to know what to do. I made sure she was well winded and changed her nappy too. And before you ask, no, it didn’t fall off when I picked her up. She went straight to sleep when I put her back down.’ He looked tenderly into the cot and stroked one finger gently down the side of the baby’s face. ‘She really is a good little thing, isn’t she? Hardly cried all weekend.’

  Beryl was astounded by this turn of events. In all the time she had known Trevor he had broken out in a sweat if anyone asked him to hold their baby for so much as a couple of minutes while they saw to something. So for him voluntarily to feed one and change its nappy, and to speak about it so affectionately, was just incredible to her. All she could think of by way of response was, ‘No, she hasn’t been much trouble.’ Then she asked, ‘You must have finished dealing with her a while ago. Why haven’t you come back to bed?’

  There was silence for a moment before Trevor awkwardly responded, ‘Well, I was just … er …’

  His voice trailed off. Knowing her husband as well as she did, Beryl realised he was finding it difficult to tell her the reason, which was upsetting for her as they told each other everything. Perching on the side of the bed, she coaxed him, ‘Tell me, Trevor. You were just what?’

  He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before answering, ‘I was just watching the baby, love.’

  ‘Why? Were you worried something wasn’t right with her? You should have fetched me to check on her.’

  ‘No, no, I wasn’t worried.’ He took another deep breath before he continued. ‘I was just watching her, that’s all. I can’t explain it, love, but I’ve got used to having her here. I’ve found myself feeling very protective towards her, which is natural enough, but when I was holding her in my arms feeding her tonight that feeling … well, it overwhelmed me and I started worrying about what was going to happen to her when you hand her over to Social Services later today. We’ve had no telephone call from April so the family obviously have abandoned her, haven’t they? I’m worried about what sort of people will adopt her. Will they love her like she was their own and ta
ke care of her properly?’ He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Tell me I’m an old fool, Beryl. I’ve never felt remotely like this about any kiddy before so I must be having a mid-life crisis or going doo-lally in my old age.’

  Beryl was looking at him thoughtfully. The emotions he was describing were familiar to her as well. She had fought hard to shut them out, but there was something about this baby that had purely and simply captured her heart. Beryl desperately wanted to care for her and protect her. Now it seemed that Trevor felt the same.

  He was looking back at her hopefully. ‘You’re not telling me I’m an old fool, Beryl?’

  She sighed. ‘No, love, I’m not. Because if you are, then so am I.’

  He said in astonishment, ‘You mean, you feel the same about the little mite as I do?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’ve tried not to … God, how I’ve tried … because I like my life the way it is, just you and me, doing what we want, when we want. But since this little girl arrived in our lives, I just can’t picture our future without her being part of it. The thought of handing her over in a few hours, walking away from her, leaving her whole life in the lap of the gods … well, it fills me with dread. I don’t think … no, I know … I’ll never sleep soundly again, worrying what’s become of her.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I will either.’

  They looked at each other for several long moments more before Trevor took the lead. ‘So … what are we going to do, love?’

  Beryl sighed. ‘If we both feel like this then there’s only one thing we can do, isn’t there.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Taking on this child is going to change our lives out of all recognition. I’m going to have to give up work so money will be tight. Holidays will be a thing of the past; so will lying in bed on Sunday mornings reading the papers until we feel like rising. We can expect to be mercilessly ribbed by families and friends over this turn of events, considering we’ve always been adamant children are not for us. So are you sure about this, Trevor, because once we set the ball rolling there’ll be no going back?’