She didn’t spend much time alone, however. Dolly was forever sailing through the door with news and advice, telling her how Frances Wray had fixed up for Charlie to go and see people at the Workers’ Educational Institute. He wanted to apply for something called a Ruskin scholarship to go to college in the autumn. Katie O’Hagan and Jack Allenby had scraped together the money to pay for their tickets on a boat bound for America at the end of May. Bertie Hill was now trying to palm off Eden House on to some poor ignorant buyer, who didn’t suspect it was riddled with dry rot from top to bottom. ‘The sooner they pull it down the better.’ Dolly was sick of living near the place; it harboured rats and dragged down the tone of the whole court.
‘Don’t let Mary O’Hagan hear you going on like that,’ Amy advised. ‘Where would they go if they pulled the old place down?’
‘They’d get re-housed by the council,’ Dolly said, with superior knowledge of the new welfare state. ‘Into a brand-new place with their own bath and toilet, instead of the slum they’re in now.
‘And who’d pay?’ Amy couldn’t see it; she’d heard of great new government building plans, but they were far away in Wehvyn Garden, and impossible to imagine.
‘The penny rate and the council, of course,’ Dolly assured her. ‘It’s the latest thing. A bath of your own. A garden.’
‘Hmm.’ Amy wasn’t immediately taken with the idea. ‘And bleeding miles from anywhere and all.’ She’d read in the newspaper that tenants were being shifted out there against their will, and that they kept coal in their baths, and pigeons too. ‘It ain’t for me.’ She liked being able to walk downstairs on to the street, to the market, the shops, the pub.
Gossip with her ma kept Amy going through the early months of 1925, and the time she spent with Rob more than made up for the loss of her old, more worldly lifestyle. Pregnancy gave her a matronly air and she lost her flirtatious edge, dedicating herself instead to domestic life with a pleasant, humorous optimism that made her laugh at her husband’s occasional grumpiness, and bully him into doing something to reinstate his old mechanic, so the whole family could get back into something like their old harmony.
Rob resisted. He swore it was none of her business. Sadie had chosen to slight them over the wedding invitation, and if she was having a hard time now, she had only herself to blame. He got angry. He pointed out how Walter would feel if they brought Richie back to work at the depot. He knew he couldn’t find steady work, but he deserved everything he got.
‘But Sadie don’t,’ Amy insisted. She never beat about the bush. ‘She only made a mistake, Rob. It makes me miserable to think of her sticking it out without no one to help. I never thought she had it in her.’
Rob looked at his heavily pregnant wife in bed beside him. Their baby, conceived in August, amidst the chaos of Wiggin’s murder, was due any day now. ‘You know how to get under my skin,’ he said, moved to be unusually gentle as he stroked her face and kissed her. He sighed. ‘Wait till their kid arrives. Then I might go over and see her.’
Amy settled into a satisfied sleep. At two in the morning, she woke Rob to tell him to go down and fetch Dolly. Her mother came. At eight she sent for the midwife, and at eleven a healthy baby boy was born.
Four or five weeks went by, but the weather reverted to winter on the day that Sadie’s baby, Margaret, was born. A cold, north-eastern wind got up, and brought a flurry of light snow in the middle of May, so that people looked out of their windows and shivered and complained at the dark, unseasonable skies.
It was the middle of the afternoon, a Thursday, when Sadie seized the poker and hammered at the hollow chimney-back to let her neighbour, Sarah Morris, know that she needed help. The baby was early. Richie was out on what had degenerated into a regular, day-long wander through the streets without any real prospect of work. He spent hours hanging about in shop doorways, rolling thin cigarettes and longing for a drink, along with two or three pals in a similar situation. When her labour started, and Sadie hammered for help, Richie couldn’t be reached. She would have to manage by herself.
Sarah came running in. She got Sadie to bed and sent for the doctor, at the younger woman’s insistence. Sadie was glad of Sarah: a woman who took childbirth like a bad case of measles, a nuisance that disrupted the rhythm of everyday life and meant you got behind with your daily chores, by dint of the fact that you were flat on your back and in agony. ‘Time the pains,’ she advised. ‘When they come bad and often, count your blessings, ’cos it’ll soon be over.’
Sadie responded well. She waited for Dr McLeod and measured the pain. It was bearable. The next time, still bearable. She tried to judge how much worse it could get before she was forced to cry out. Quite a bit, she thought. She would grit her teeth and try not to make a fuss.
Sarah boiled water, great pans of it, on her own kitchen range. She asked Sadie for towels and sheets. ‘That doctor had best get a move on,’ she said, as if doctors were a modern invention, designed to complicate women’s ability to give birth. She wiped Sadie’s face. ‘Else he’ll be too late.’
Sadie gripped Sarah’s wrist and kept her mouth clamped shut as the contractions tore through her and the groans rose to her throat.
‘Her,’ she managed to gasp. ‘Dr McLeod, it’s a woman.’
Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘That’s a step in the right direction, any rate.’
Sadie smiled back.
‘Lie with your legs crooked up, like this. Breathe deep.’ Sarah was poised, ready for business.
The doctor arrived in the nick of time, with a young district nurse. The baby had presented in an awkward position, and for all Sadie’s pushing and Sarah’s practical encouragement, it was stuck in the birth canal, with just an ear and the side of its lace evident to the doctor’s experienced probe. There was the added complication of the cord possibly caught around the infant’s neck. The doctor and the nurse prepared Sadie for a difficult delivery with a shot of local anaesthetic. Sarah held her hand tight.
And Sadie did scream as they cut into her and used forceps to deliver the child. They worked quickly, asked her to push, through the pain, through the panic that the baby might not survive. Sadie pushed and cried out.
‘Harder,’ Sarah urged. She saw the head emerge between the forceps, then the shoulders. The cord was round the neck.
Sadie wished she was dead. Tears streamed down her face, her neck ran with sweat. She pushed harder.
The doctor waited until she could grip the slippery shoulders, laid aside the forceps, and with a little twist and a final pull, the baby was born. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Very good.’ The nurse cut the cord and released the half-strangled infant. She cleared its mouth, willed it to breathe.
‘Boy or girl?’ Sadie mumbled. The words rolled like heavy pebbles inside her mouth.
The doctor began to stitch. ‘A little girl, Sadie. You have a little girl.’
Sadie sobbed. She wanted her baby to live.
The nurse concentrated, on the tiny stained shape lying inert in her arms. Gently she tipped the infant upside down and applied the smart slap that was meant to make a child’s lungs kick into action. Again; a second slap. The baby’s arms shot wide, and in a surprised gasp, she drew her first breath.
The nurse smiled. She reached for a towel and wrapped the baby in it, wiping her face and head, handing her over to her mother. ‘A beautiful little girl,’ she said. ‘And none the worse for wear.’
Sadie held the featherweight of her own child in her shaking arms. She searched her small, creased face, slid her own little finger inside her daughter’s curled fist, speechless with joy.
‘She’s a bit on the small side,’ Sarah said, bending forward for a closer look. ‘But then, you’re on the small side yourself.’ She patted Sadie’s hand.
‘You did very well,’ Dr McLeod told her, finishing with the stitching and trying to make her patient as comfortable as possible. She eased her legs straight and the nurse put clean sheets under her.
‘Hmm.’ Sar
ah warned them not to make the young mother’s head swell. ‘Tell her that in twenty years,’ she advised. ‘Time enough then for compliments.’
Sadie smiled and sighed. She handed the baby back to Sarah. ‘There’s a crib made up over there.’ She pointed to the corner of the room, where she had padded and lined the bottom drawer of her dressing-table with blankets and cut-down sheets. There was a tiny lace pillow, donated by Jess. ‘Bring it up close,’ she pleaded, ‘where I can keep an eye on her.’
Sarah did as she was asked, her heart softening at the feel and sight of the new child. ‘She’s got your eyes, see. What you gonna call her?’
‘Margaret. Richie and me decided on that for a girl.’ Sadie turned her head sideways to gaze at her daughter. ‘She’s beautiful, ain’t she?’
‘Worth it?’ the nurse asked. She bustled to pack away her things.
‘Yes,’ Sadie sighed. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to wake up and find Richie there by the bedside, holding their little girl.
Throughout May, Amy was too wrapped up in her baby’s feeding and general needs to look outside her own little world. They called the boy Robert, after his father, but this was soon altered to Bobby by all his fond relations, who cooed over his crib and adored his round chubbiness. He had Amy’s light colouring and blue eyes. They’d never seen such a bonny baby, such a contented child. Amy walked out with him in his high pram – another contribution from Jess – through the park in the warm spring weather, enjoying the blossom and the birdsong. Rob would worry about taking him out too soon into the traffic and the noise. He worked out the quietest route to the park, and rationed the time Bobby spent in other people’s arms. ‘He ain’t a parcel you’re posting.’ He told her off for allowing Dolly and Annie too free an access. But Amy wallowed in the grandmothers’ praise, and passed Bobby around as much as she pleased.
Straight away, Rob loved his son with a proud, exclusive fierceness. Though he didn’t soften his public face, pretending a disdainful amusement when the womenfolk cooed, he would spend quiet time in the evening by the baby’s crib, drinking in his sleeping features, keeping time with his light breathing, planning the very best for his future.
He would work even harder at the taxi business with Walter. They would build up savings until they could afford at least one smart new cab. Setting up a haulage division wasn’t entirely out of the question in the long run. Talk of unemployment, strikes and slumps wouldn’t deter him. They would undercut their rivals, they would come out on top.
In this mood of determined optimism, he drove across the water one morning in late May. He planned to get to Mile End early, to catch Richie Palmer before he set out on his day’s tramp after casual work. There’d be no fuss; he’d offer Richie his old job back, tell him that Walter was behind the move, let Sadie know he was doing it for the sake of the family.
Only, when Sadie came to the door of the tenement rooms, and he saw how pale and thin she looked, how her colour and life had faded, and how she greeted him with a silent, unresponsive gaze, he felt stricken with guilt.
‘I come to see the kid,’ he stammered. Amy had parcelled up some clothes already too small for Bobby, and some spare blankets. He offered them to Sadie across the threshold.
Sadie motioned him in. ‘Don’t worry, Richie ain’t here,’ she said as she noticed him looking around. ‘Wait while I go and fetch her.’ She didn’t show it, but she felt the enormity of the move Rob had made. When she came back from the bedroom with Meggie nestled in her arms, she entrusted her to him; a kind of peace offering.
Rob gazed at the baby. ‘Ain’t she tiny?’
Sadie nodded. ‘Under six pounds when she was first born. She’s gaining now, though.’ She kept Meggie clean and dry and warm. She fed her on demand. She’d learnt the ropes quickly, with help from Sarah next door, and felt that every day she grew into a better mother; calmer and more confident.
Rob handed her back. ‘Our Bobby’s twice that size.’ He told her all about his son as Sadie made him sit at the table and offered to make him tea.
He shook his head. ‘I gotta be off soon. I came over to see Richie, as a matter of fact.’ He looked round again, though he knew Sadie had said he wasn’t in. ‘Where’s he got to?’
For a moment Sadie tried to brush it aside. ‘He ain’t here. Like I said, he’s out.’ She knew that Rob’s unannounced visit could only mean one thing; he wanted to give Richie his job back. She gave a half-angry little laugh. ‘You missed him, Rob.’
He took in the drab, bare walls and floor; Sadie’s curtains and tablecloth, her early attempts to make a home. He saw how poverty had defeated her. ‘When will I catch him in, then?’ he asked, doubly stricken by conscience, determined to help set Sadie back up.
‘You won’t,’ she said quiedy. She felt she might as well admit what she’d kept hidden from her sisters when they’d come visiting to see the baby.
After the birth, Sadie had fallen into an exhausted sleep, dreaming of Richie holding the baby in his arms. She’d woken to an empty room. Sarah came in and said she sent word to fetch Richie back home. They’d have to wait and be patient. Daylight faded, the time came when he would trudge up the step and fling down his cap, empty handed. It passed. The slow hours of night ticked by.
Meggie cried to be fed in the dark. Sadie held her close. Morning came, grey and pale. The sun never shone down the side of the tenement. Sarah looked in to report that no one had set eyes on Richie since he’d set off yesterday morning. She warned Sadie to prepare for the worst. ‘Waiting’s bad,’ she said. ‘It’s the worst bit.’
For two days there was no news. Sadie began to see that Richie wouldn’t be there to share their beautiful baby. She was given to understand that it was a deliberate choice on his part. Sarah said there was no point telling the police: she’d heard on the grapevine that Richie had gone off of his own accord. ‘’Course, he never knew you’d go and have the baby straight off,’ she reminded her. ‘Maybe he went and got a spell of work on a boat?’
But Sadie had heard that tale too often; men deserted their women and called it taking a job at sea. She remembered Annie and Wiggin. She counted the days.
Now, after she’d covered up to Jess, Hettie and Frances, she admitted the truth to Rob. ‘I ain’t seen Richie since Meggie was born. He’s gone and left us. It’s just Meggie and me; we’re all on our own.’
Part Three
The last laugh
Chapter Twenty-One
June 1925
The pain of being abandoned by Richie struck deep at Sadie, and stunned her. Although on the surface she coped for little Meggie’s sake, and held up her head in the Mile End neighbourhood, inside she felt numb. For him to leave without explanation, for him not to get in touch for news about the baby was something she refused to comprehend. How could he cut off so completely from his own flesh and blood?
‘Don’t take on,’ Sarah Morris advised. She appeared in Sadie’s doorway one morning early in June. ‘You got your hands full now, girl, without bothering your head about things you can’t change.’ She’d caught Sadie wiping away the tears.
Sadie looked up and dried her eyes. Her neighbour’s down-to-earth approach acted like a tonic. It wasn’t as if she was alone in the world, like some women in her situation, she realized. Rob had heard the news about Richie and gone straight home to fetch Annie and Duke. Annie took one look at the room and swore to get her back to Duke Street. She would move heaven and earth to make it happen.
‘I ain’t got much money put by,’ Sadie admitted. ‘What I got left won’t run to renting nothing posh.’
‘But you want to come back?’ Annie noticed Duke paying quiet attention to the baby in her makeshift crib.
Sadie nodded, not trusting herself to speak out.
‘Yes, and I don’t blame you.’ Annie hurried on. ‘What must it be like, stuck up here with no one on hand? Well, we gotta see what we can do, your pa and me.’
They’d gone off, and the whole family had ral
lied round with extra clothing, food and money. Her good neighbour, Sarah, kept an eye on her and Meggie, while Annie ran up and down the market on Duke Street, in and out of the shops and eating-houses, to catch word of a good room going at a low rent.
‘I brought you a bite to eat.’ Sarah came in now and put a bowl of mutton broth on the table. She never changed out of her drab brown dress, roughly pinned and patched. As a concession to summer, she took off the woollen headscarf and replaced it with a faded cotton one. But nothing changed her routine of scraping a living through taking in home work: mending, washing, labelling, picking, and sitting during these long evenings humming her ukelele songs, reminiscing about the days before the war.
Sadie nodded gratefully. As she sat down to eat, she returned to her usual theme. ‘You ain’t heard nothing?’ Sarah was her eyes and ears on the outside world.
‘About Richie?’
‘Of course about Richie. Ain’t nobody heard from him yet?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘He don’t do nothing by halves, that one. He takes it into his head to do something and he makes a proper job of it.’
Sadie’s mind flew back to their courtship; Richie’s almost silent, dogged pursuit of her.
‘If he wants to drop out of sights ain’t no one better at it than Richie Palmer. Not even Chung Ling Soo, the famous vanishing. Chinaman!’ She got into her stride. ‘That Chung Ling Soo, he came from Lancashire. Ain’t no more Chinaman in him than in this little finger! My Harry told me that for a fact.’ She rambled back through the years. ‘Men like Richie, they don’t know they’re born, running away at the first: sign of trouble. Not that little Meggie’s trouble, mind, but men see babies that way. He’s young and strong, ain’t he? He can lift a shovel and carry a sack, not like some of them poor bleeders, the returnees. You ain’t seen nothing like it. They was blinded in them trenches. They was gassed. And what did it leave them fit for, besides selling matches on a street corner?’
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