Forget-Me-Not Child

by Anne Bennett

  Mary positioned herself at Angela’s head and suffered with her though every pain as she bathed her face, which was shiny with sweat, and she offered her sips of water and encouraged her gently. ‘Come on, my bonny lassie,’ she said, using the endearment Matt always used. ‘You can do this. Ride the pain, lassie.’

  Sometime in this maelstrom of pain and discomfort Barry came home from work. Mary would not let him see Angela who she said wasn’t fit to be seen and also said she had work in the room above and if he wanted anything to eat he had to make it himself. Such a thing had never happened before to Barry, and yet this was a special day and, please God, at the end of it he was going to be a father.

  That exhilarating thought coursed through his body and he had no intention of sullying the day with any trace of ill humour and so he said, ‘I’ll knock up a sandwich for myself, never fear. Go back to Angela. I’d say her need is greater than mine.’ Mary scurried back upstairs and took her place again at the head of the bed and she hadn’t been there that long when Angela said she wanted to push.

  This last stage of the birth was what had worried Mary the most, thinking Angela might tear herself badly, or even haemorrhage if the strain on her slim young body was too great. Iris knew what Mary was concerned about because she told her that morning as they walked to the house and so she examined Angela swiftly. ‘She’s wide enough,’ she said reassuringly to Mary and to Angela she said, ‘Push away, ducks. This baby is anxious to be born.’

  Now Angela understood the reason for the towel which she pulled on so hard she threatened to pull the bedhead down on top of her because she had never experienced such pain. She felt as if she was on fire and was trying to give birth to a red-hot cannon ball and her low moans had turned to shrieks. And Mary and Iris were encouraging her to give one more push and yet one more. She wanted to tell them to shut up but hadn’t breath left to do it.

  Just when she really thought she could do no more Iris called out, ‘I can see the head! Come on, Angela, give it all you’ve got.’

  Angela gathered all her strength and pushed with all her might. ‘Good girl,’ Iris said approvingly. ‘Give another like that.’

  Angela did but then she lay back on the bed and said, ‘I can’t do any more.’

  ‘Every woman feels like that,’ Iris aid airily. ‘Have a breather and when the urge to push comes again then go with it and push with all your might. One more decent push might do it.’

  The urge to push couldn’t be ignored and when it came Angela’s whole face was contorted as she pushed with all the strength she had left. There was a sudden extreme pain and her breath left her body in a scream and then she felt something slither between her legs and newborn wails filled the room.

  ‘Oh Angela, you clever girl,’ Mary said and her voice was husky with unshed tears as she went on, ‘You have a beautiful little daughter.’

  ‘Oh let me see her,’ Angela said, struggling to sit up.

  Iris wrapped her in the shawl Mary had ready and placed her in Angela’s outstretched arms. She gazed into her beautiful face and the milky-blue eyes flickered shut as Angela rocked her gently. She felt such a powerful tug of love for the child that she gave a gasp. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to love a child as much as this,’ she said in awe. ‘I love Barry but this is …’

  ‘Mother love, that’s what that is,’ Iris said. ‘I think it’s the most powerful emotion in the world.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ Mary said. ‘Matt always said it was nature’s way of ensuring that mothers would protect their young.’

  ‘Yes, fortunately human beings don’t have to do much of that,’ Iris said. ‘Now where’s that young husband of yours, for I’m sure he would like to get acquainted with his new baby daughter?’

  ‘Don’t know where he is,’ Mary admitted. ‘Thought he’d be wearing the floorboards out in the room below to be honest. I best seek him out.’

  In the end there was no need to do that. Barry had been pacing the room like a caged tiger but each time he opened the door to the stairs he heard his young wife’s moans and it tore at his heart-strings. He wanted to run up and see what was happening to her but he knew his mother and the midwife wouldn’t let him in.

  So, as he could do nothing to help her, he had to be somewhere where he couldn’t hear her suffering and the only place was outside and so he went out. He needed to keep moving, to walk, but he didn’t intend to go far from the house and so he was walking aimlessly along Bell Barn Road, down Bristol Passage to Bristol Street and back again.

  He was approaching the house when a neighbour sitting on her doorstep taking the air said as he passed, ‘Hope everything’s all right, Barry. Your Angela gave out such a scream a few minutes ago.’

  The blood ran like ice in Barry’s veins and he tore down the street to the house, wrenched open the door of the stairs, leapt up them two at a time, yanked open the bedroom door and just stood and stared at the woman he loved so dearly holding a baby, their baby, in her arms as if she had done it every day of her life. He had eyes for no one else and his eyes were so full of love and amazement it was beautiful to see.

  Iris whispered to Mary, ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea. I’ll have to clean the baby up later and check she’s all right, but it can wait. I think those two need some time to bond with their baby.’

  Neither Angela nor Barry were really aware of Mary and Iris leaving the room and Barry continued to gaze at his child as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘It’s a girl, Barry,’ Angela said gently. ‘Are you disappointed that I haven’t given you a son?’

  ‘Disappointed?’ Barry repeated as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears. ‘My darling girl, what are you thinking of? Between us we’ve created this perfect child and she’ll grow to be as beautiful as her mother, inside and out, and gladden our hearts with every passing year, and you ask if I am disappointed? I am not, not in the slightest and I don’t care if I never have a son.’

  Angela sighed with relief. ‘The next one will be a son,’ she said.

  ‘Son or daughter will make no odds when the time comes,’ Barry said. ‘But I meant what I said before this one was born. I want you fully recovered from the birth and to have a few years enjoying our daughter before we give her a playmate. Have you a name for her? You would never discuss it before the birth and as you did all the work it should be your decision.’

  Angela smiled. She had never discussed names with anyone, thinking it unlucky, but she had decided almost from the time she realized she was pregnant what to call a girl and she said, ‘I would like her called after my mother and yours, Constance Mary. D’you like it?’

  ‘I love it,’ Barry said. ‘And it’s right that you should honour your mother in that way and my mother will be over the moon.’ Barry leant forward and kissed the baby’s soft, soft skin gently and said, ‘Hello, Constance Mary McClusky, welcome to our family.’

  And Angela thought she just might burst with happiness.

  Neighbours had streamed into the house those first few days after Connie’s birth all carrying a gift of some sort, a rattle or teething ring, a small cardigan or pretty nightgown, and they all admired the child who they said was the image of her mother. Even George came and Angela was delighted to see him and he brought a complete pram suit for the baby to wear as she got older when the winter set in. Barry’s brothers sent a couple of beautiful dresses trimmed with lace and bedecked with ribbons that they said were all the rage in the States.

  ‘And they might well be too,’ Mary said. ‘But they’re not very practical. When you are out of your lying in we’ll take a dander up to the Rag Market for more everyday clothes for Madam here.’

  However, before they could do this Mary opened the door to see Maggie outside with a pram full of baby clothes. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Hello, Mrs McClusky,’ she said, ‘I’ve come to see Angela and the baby and these are from me mother. She had a clear-out and thought you might like these old baby things and the pra
m because she doesn’t need that either.’

  ‘How kind of her,’ Mary said. ‘Is she sure?’

  ‘She is,’ Maggie said with an emphatic nod of her head and added with a grin, ‘She said she is giving up all that sort of nonsense now and said my father must tie a knot in it. I think Mammy is glad to get rid of the stuff for wee Maurice is six now. And it’s too cramped in the attic to keep clothes she has no use for. She said take them and welcome.’

  Angela was very grateful for the bag of clothes, which were lovely and she lifted one after the other with a cry of delight. ‘There’s a christening gown at the bottom,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s well-worn for we have all been christened in it.’

  It didn’t look at all well worn, Angela thought as she peeled back the tissue paper it had been wrapped in and sat gently stroking the silken fabric. ‘It’s so soft and so white,’ she said. ‘It looks brand new.’

  ‘Oh that’s Mammy,’ Maggie said. ‘She has this thing that the gown shouldn’t ever look second-hand and so every time it’s worn she washes it in that soft Lux soap and whitens it with Becket’s Blue in the final rinse water and when it’s dry she wraps it in tissue paper and stores it in a drawer in her room because the bedroom is not as damp as the attic.’

  ‘Well it worked, will you tell her, and I am very grateful,’ Angela said.

  ‘I will,’ Maggie promised and added, ‘She’s sent over her old pram as well, that she was glad to be shot of I think.’

  ‘Oh I will be so glad to have that,’ Angela said fervently, her face a big beam of happiness because she hadn’t known how they were going to afford a pram and though the baby would be fine in a shawl for now, when the winter came she would like her tucked up warm and cosy.

  ‘Hey,’ Maggie said suddenly, ‘can I have a wee cuddle?’ Angela smiled as she lifted the sleeping baby from the cradle at her side of the bed and placed her into Maggie’s outstretched arms. The baby just wriggled a little, protesting at being disturbed, and then she settled and her breathing became steady as she slumbered on. Over the child’s head, Maggie’s smiling eyes met those of Angela and she hugged the baby a little tighter and said, ‘Oh isn’t she just lovely? You are so lucky, marrying the boy of your dreams and having this beautiful baby and still just seventeen. Everyone is envious of you.’

  ‘Oh I hope you’re wrong about that,’ Angela said. ‘Being envious is not a good thing to be.’

  ‘It’s not said in a horrible way,’ Maggie assured Angela and went on, ‘People are pleased for you. I suppose it’s because you had such a bad start and people are just glad it has turned out so well for you.’

  ‘I never felt I had a bad start really,’ Angela admitted. ‘I mean, I know I lost my entire family and that might be thought of as sad, but I was too young to remember them and I was lucky enough to be given a whole new family, the McCluskys. I never lacked love or care and that’s really what matters to a child. And as for Barry, though I love him dearly I never think of him as the boy of my dreams, he was just always there and I always felt safe when he was around.’

  ‘But you don’t think of him as a sort of brother, do you?’

  ‘Not now I don’t,’ Angela said. ‘Anyway, what about you and Mike Malone?

  Maggie gave a shrug. ‘Oh he’s just a neighbour, a friend that’s all.’

  ‘No great passion then?’

  ‘No,’ Maggie said, but a smile played around her mouth and Angela could make a good guess that Maggie would have liked Mike to be more than a friend. She liked him too because he was a really nice lad and as he was the same age as Barry, they had been firm friends when they had been at school together.

  So Angela said, ‘You don’t know that your feelings won’t change. They often do as you grow. I mean, look at me and Barry, I only thought of him in a brotherly way for years. But then I began to realize that I loved him in a different way and now our love has deepened and become stronger.’

  ‘There’s still hope for me then,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I’d say.’

  ‘And you do truly love Barry now, I mean properly like a husband?’

  Angela smiled as she said, ‘Yes, well it isn’t as though I’ve had a plethora of other husbands to practise on, but for example we didn’t get young Connie there from holding hands.’

  Maggie’s peal of laughter caused the baby to jump slightly before settling again to sleep as Maggie said, ‘I never thought for one moment you did. But didn’t you miss your mother more when you had a child of your own?’

  ‘How could I miss what I never had?’ Angela said. ‘This is all I have of my parents.’ And she opened the locket she always wore around her neck for Maggie to see. ‘This was given to me on my wedding day. It was my father’s present to my mother when they married and it will be Connie’s on her wedding day. I look at that picture sometimes and try to remember, but it’s still all a blank to me. I have named the baby Constance after my mother, though, and Mary as well after Barry’s mother.’

  ‘Constance Mary,’ Maggie said. ‘They’re good names’

  ‘Glad you like them,’ Angela said, ‘because I’d like you to be Connie’s godmother.’

  Maggie was astounded because it was the last thing she’d expected, but she was obviously pleased. She grabbed at Angela’s arm and cried, ‘Oh my God, do you mean it? I would be so thrilled … Oh I never expected that. Oh Angela I am so thrilled.’

  Angela was quietly amused by Maggie’s reaction because she had thought of Maggie straight away and Stan Bishop was to be godfather.

  ‘I take it you’ll accept? she said.

  ‘You bet I accept,’ Maggie said. ‘You couldn’t have said anything that would please me more.’

  And so, a few days afterwards Constance Mary McClusky was baptized at St Catherine’s Church. Even Father Brannigan seemed a little more human. At Mass he announced the baptism that would take place that afternoon and a great many people congratulated Angela and Barry outside the church. When she saw Maggie Angela said quietly, ‘Did you see Father Brannigan? He almost had smile on his face.’

  ‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘I thought so too at first, but I think it was just a touch of wind he had.’

  Angela bit her lip to stop a giggle escaping for she could see Father Brannigan making his way towards them and she remembered Maggie had whispered things like that to her before at school, causing her to laugh at inappropriate times and get into trouble, and she could hardly laugh in the priest’s face. ‘All ready for this afternoon?’ he asked Angela.

  ‘I think so, Father.’

  ‘I do think the names you have chosen eminently suitable,’ the priest said. ‘It’s right that you honour the woman who gave birth to you and the woman who reared you.’

  Angela nodded. ‘I thought that, Father, and Mary was so pleased to be included and she deserved to be for she was a wonderful mother to me. Now she is so much looking forward to having a baby in the house again.’

  ‘And you having Maggie here to look after her spiritual welfare.’

  Maggie gave a grin and said impishly, ‘I’ll do my best, Father. And I will have Stan Bishop to help me so, between the two of us, we’ll endeavour to ensure that Connie McClusky turns out a good little Catholic.’

  Father Brannigan frowned slightly, not sure that Maggie wasn’t making fun of him. It wasn’t the words she said, but her manner, yet her face looked innocent enough and he decided he might have imagined it and he turned back to Angela. ‘So I look forward to seeing you all this afternoon at four-thirty sharp.’

  Angela thought how different a church is with so few people in it. Voices seemed to carry further and had an echoing sound and even shoes sounded loud on the marble floor and despite the fact that it was now early June, it was chilly in that stone edifice with its vaulted ceilings.

  Connie bawled her head off when she was roused from her slumber by some strange person pouring cold water on her head. Mary said it was good to yell, it was getting the devil out of her. Angela looked
across at the baby in Maggie’s arms and thought she was innocent and pure and had no devil inside her, but now was not the time to argue about it. Everyone, including Father Brannigan, was going back to the house for a bite to eat for it was a special day and she had helped Mary make a fair few fancies as well as lots of sandwiches. Connie behaved angelically once the water-pouring was over and in the house she was passed from one to another with barely a murmur. ‘Isn’t she a little star?’ Barry said that night as they undressed for bed with the baby slumbering in the cradle beside them.

  ‘She is,’ Angela said and added with a grin, ‘Takes after her mother there.’

  ‘Ho! And one who thinks a lot of herself as well,’ Barry said and gave Angela a playful tap on the bottom and then he turned her around and kissed her.

  Angela felt frissons of desire run through her body and when Barry said huskily, ‘My darling girl, you have made me the happiest man in the world,’ she answered, ‘If you come to bed, I know a way to make you happier still.’ And Barry lost no time in getting beneath the covers and cuddling up to Angela and she sighed in contentment.

  TWELVE

  Angela never forgot the wonderful summer of 1913. The whole family doted on the child. Just to look at her made Angela’s heart melt and she wasn’t the only one, for she helped to mend Mary’s heart, which Angela thought had been broken when she lost her sons and badly bruised too at the death of Matt.

  In fact, Connie’s birth helped everyone because she was a sunny, happy child and Angela took her out every day, pushing the pram proudly. She went to see George when Connie was just over a fortnight old and he had tears in his eyes as he gazed at her.

  The lack of any child of his own to follow after him hit him afresh. A grocery shop was cold comfort next to a living, breathing child to hold in his arms. So though he was pleased for Angela, he was also envious of the love shared between her and Barry, which was obvious from her radiant smile and the softening of her voice when she spoke of him. And most of all George envied her the child that she was so clearly besotted with and he knew she would hardly relish leaving her and returning to work in the shop again.