by Nancy Revell
‘She’s having an operation?’ Agnes said, panic-stricken.
‘I’m not sure if they’re actually operating on her,’ Helen said. ‘Or if they just need to have a look, as it were.’ She looked at Bel for help.
‘They’ll be looking to see if they can work out why her waters broke, Agnes. Perhaps try and stop it.’ Bel looked at her mother-in-law.
‘But if her waters have broken, that means the bab’s coming, doesn’t it?’ Agnes demanded.
No one said anything.
They didn’t have to.
They were all thinking the same.
Agnes, Bel and Helen waited in a private room that would later be charged to Mr Havelock. As would all the medical costs. If he objected, Helen would pay out of her own pocket, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t.
‘Are you sure you won’t let me get you both some sandwiches?’ Helen asked.
‘No, thank you, pet,’ Agnes said, ‘this tea’s all I’m wanting. Thank you anyway.’
Helen looked at Bel, who shook her head and forced a smile.
‘All right, but I’m going to go and get us a fresh pot and I’ll see if there’s an update while I’m out.’ She looked at Agnes’s and Bel’s upturned faces. Their heartbreak was plain to see.
As Helen left the room and walked to the canteen, she thought how lovely it must be to have a family that was so normal. So caring. So loving.
‘Helen!’
It was John.
She turned around.
‘Oh John, thank God you’re here.’
She took a deep breath.
‘Please tell me the baby’s all right?’ Her eyes bore into John’s.
Pleading.
Willing him to give her the answer she so desperately wanted – needed – to hear.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When Polly came round from the anaesthetic, it took her a while to work out where she was and why she was lying in a hospital bed and not in her own. Her head felt foggy and her mouth dry.
Then, all of a sudden, everything came back to her like a bolt of lightning.
She craned her neck and saw a nurse dressed in a blue uniform and starched white apron at the bottom of her bed.
‘My baby?’ Her voice was croaky and full of fear; of her terror at what the answer might be.
Her hand automatically went to her stomach.
Please, God, please, let my baby be all right, she begged silently in her head.
Seeing her patient was waking up, the nurse quickly walked out of the room.
Seconds later Dr Parker appeared.
‘Please … please tell me my baby’s all right?’ Polly asked. The desperation in her voice was heartbreaking. Tears were pooling in her eyes.
Dr Parker moved towards the bed and sat down on the chair next to her. His thoughts spun back momentarily to September when he had come to see Helen in this very room.
He took hold of Polly’s hand, as he had done Helen’s, and squeezed it.
Polly was staring at Dr Parker’s face, not daring to breathe until she knew.
‘Your baby’s fine, Polly.’ A reassuring smile appeared on his face. ‘You’re both going to be fine.’
Polly looked at Dr Parker.
He had saved the man she loved, and now he had saved her baby.
She wanted to grab him and hug him, but instead she simply burst out crying.
For the next few minutes, she sobbed from the very core of her being, all the while mouthing the words, ‘Thank you … Thank you.’
‘Much as I would love to take all the credit,’ Dr Parker smiled at Polly, ‘I have to tell you that it was another doctor who really saved your baby.’
Polly pushed herself up on the bed.
‘The one I met before you took me into theatre?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I vaguely remember him telling me his name. It began with B …’
‘Dr Billingham,’ Dr Parker said. ‘He’s one of the best obstetricians in the area. Probably in the country, to be honest. He did all the work. I was just there to assist.’
Polly tried to digest what he was saying.
‘But my baby is definitely all right?’ Polly said.
‘Yes, definitely … but I’m going to get Dr Billingham in to explain exactly what happened. Is that all right?’
Polly nodded.
Dr Parker stood up to leave and Polly grabbed his hand.
‘Thank you. I really can’t thank you enough … And Helen … I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t both been there.’
Dr Parker squeezed her hand, pushed himself out of the seat and left the room.
A few minutes later Dr Billingham bustled in.
‘Well, young lady, you have been a very, very lucky woman.’
He went to check her charts at the bottom of the bed.
‘Yes, you both had the gods on your side this evening. Without a doubt.’
He hooked the charts back and walked around to the side of the bed.
He remained standing.
‘I’m guessing you’re wondering exactly what happened?’
Polly nodded.
Dr Billingham took a deep breath.
‘First of all, do you know what a cervix is?’
Polly shook her head.
Dr Billingham sighed.
Why was it women were so ignorant about their own bodies?
‘The cervix is the neck of the uterus.’ He looked at Polly and saw her confusion. ‘The womb.’
He scratched his head, leaving a tuft of grey hair sticking up.
‘The cervix joins the womb and the vagina.’
He put his hands into the pockets of his white overcoat.
‘For some reason – and we don’t know why this is the case for some women and not others – the cervix isn’t as strong as it should be and when a woman’s pregnant, and the baby is growing, it can start to soften and expand.’
Polly shuffled herself up even more in the bed until she was sitting upright. This was important.
‘And because it’s not as strong as it should be,’ Dr Billingham continued, ‘it can start to open. And when that happens, some of the fluids that are in the womb, helping to make your baby, start to leak through.’
Polly nodded.
‘The water that came out?’
‘That’s right. Those waters are actually the fluids I’m talking about – they fill what is called the amniotic sac, and it is that sac which protects and cushions the baby in the womb. What you experienced was that amniotic fluid leaking out.’
Dr Billingham coughed to clear his throat.
‘And this is the part where you had the gods on your side … There’s never much warning with these things. Occasionally a little spot of blood, a few cramps, but by the sounds of it, you didn’t have any of that?’
Polly shook her head.
‘Just the water,’ she said.
‘If you hadn’t managed to get to the hospital as quickly as you did,’ Dr Billingham said, ‘you would have, without a doubt, lost your baby.’
Polly inhaled sharply. She could feel herself starting to shake a little.
‘What I managed to do before it was too late was something called a cervical cerclage,’ Dr Billingham explained. ‘This is really just a stitch in the cervix. “Cerclage” comes from the French word for the metal hoop around a cask. I suppose it conjures up an appropriate image. The hooped stitch closes the cervix and keeps your baby exactly where it should be until it’s ready to come out. At the proper time, that is.
‘I have to say that you were also doubly lucky that your waters didn’t break properly – you have two layers of membranes and thankfully they didn’t completely rupture. If they had, you’d have lost all your amniotic fluid, and if that had been the case, then there’s no way your baby would have been able to survive.’ Dr Billingham paused. ‘I know this is a lot to take on board, but I’ll be here tomorrow if you want to ask me any more questions.’
Polly nodded. ‘Yes, please, that would be good. Thank you … Thank you very much, Dr Billingham. I really can’t say how thankful I am. And I know my husband would be too if he knew what you’ve done.’
Dr Billingham smiled. John had told him the young girl was newly married and that her husband had worked for the Wear Commissioner and joined the navy as a mine-clearance diver. Brave man.
‘Well, you’ll be able to continue thanking me – and stroking my ego …’ he chuckled ‘ … for the next six months or so, because I’ll be keeping an eye on you. You’ll need to take it easy, and I will be wanting to see you for regular check-ups.’
Charles’s granddaughter had wanted Mrs Watts to have the full works. She had also stipulated that he was to be the one to deliver the baby. He had thought this was a little beneath him – what were midwives for, after all – but he’d been promised a handsome amount of money, which was not to be sniffed at.
‘Righty-ho.’ Dr Billingham brushed his hair back with one hand. ‘You get some rest and I’ll see you again in the morning. And all being well, you should be back in your own bed tomorrow night.’
Polly’s face broke into a wide smile.
It was the first time Dr Billingham had noticed how pretty she was. Her husband was a lucky man.
Or he would be if he made it back in one piece.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘Oh, my good Lord.’ Agnes came bustling into the room, followed by Bel.
They both took it in turns to give Polly a hug and a kiss.
‘How are yer feeling?’ Agnes sank down in the chair that Dr Parker had been sitting in. She took hold of her daughter’s hand, put it to her mouth and gave it a big kiss.
‘I feel fine, Ma,’ Polly said.
Seeing the sceptical look on both her mother’s face as well as Bel’s, she laughed.
‘Honestly, I do. I really do feel fine.’
Polly patted her sheets, gesturing for Bel to come and sit on the bed.
When she sat down, Polly took her best friend’s hand and kept hold of it as they all chatted away for the next half-hour.
Polly explained what the doctor had told her and Agnes and Bel listened intently, trying to make sense of it all. The only thing that mattered, though, was that Polly and her baby were both alive and well.
‘I should never have let you keep on working at the yard,’ Agnes said.
‘Ma, it wouldn’t have made any difference. What happened would have happened regardless, even if I’d been sat on my backside for the past three months,’ Polly said.
Seeing her ma’s mouth open and knowing exactly what she was going to say, Polly beat her to it.
‘But don’t worry, Ma, I won’t be welding – not until after the baby’s born,’ she reassured. ‘I might be stubborn but I’m not stupid.’
Agnes’s relief was clear to see.
Buoyed up by Polly’s well-being, Bel relayed how the curtains had been twitching along the length of Tatham Street when the chauffeur had turned up at the house, making Polly laugh as she hammed up the drama of their journey to the hospital, telling her how Agnes had verbally bullied the chauffeur, demanding to know why he couldn’t drive any faster. ‘I think she would have jumped into the front seat and taken the wheel if she could have,’ Bel said.
They all chuckled.
Neither woman, though, told Polly how truly worried they had been …
When Helen walked through her front door it had just gone half-past nine.
She’d gone to Gloria’s after leaving the hospital to tell her what had happened. Then, at Gloria’s suggestion, she’d nipped round to see Dorothy and Angie too. Gloria had been right in guessing the pair would drop what they were doing and go straight up to the hospital.
Catching her reflection in the mirror, she stopped in her tracks. She looked dreadful. Her hair was all over the shop, her mascara smudged.
When John had told her that Polly and the baby were all right, she’d managed to keep a semblance of restraint and dignity about her – until she’d reached the Ladies, where she’d had no choice but to let the rush of tears out and run their course.
She knew, of course, that those tears weren’t just for Polly and her baby, but also for her own.
Her baby girl, whom she still loved so much, and probably always would.
When she had finally managed to stop crying, she’d tried to spruce herself up, but it had been a losing battle and she’d only succeeded in making herself look worse.
Looking at her reflection again now, she had to laugh at the irony. She had been so meticulous about how she looked today in anticipation of her ‘date’ with John, and she’d ended up looking as if she had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
‘Oh, John …’ She spoke the words out loud. ‘Would you really want to be with a woman who has not only been with another man – but got pregnant by him?’
She had been so sure of herself just four hours ago.
Now, after this evening, she wasn’t so certain.
This evening had proved to her that she couldn’t simply erase the past.
Walking into the lounge, Helen saw the fire was still going. She put on another shovel of coal and gave it a poke. She had the house to herself for the next hour and a half at least. Her mother never made it back from the Grand until eleven, if not later.
She looked down at her dress and felt the tear at the bottom. She’d give it to Kate – she’d put it to good use.
Walking over to the drinks cabinet, she poured herself a large gin and tonic and went to sit in the armchair nearest the fire. It wasn’t particularly cold, but she felt she wanted the comfort of the heat. She also hoped the gin would slow down the rush of thoughts and feelings swirling around inside her.
Images of the day she had lost her baby kept flashing in her mind’s eye.
Her baby girl would be about three months old now.
About the same age as Polly’s unborn baby.
How strange.
Helen rose and put the fire guard up. The coal was spitting as the fire got going.
When John had come to find her, he’d said it’d been a close shave. If Polly hadn’t found Helen when she did, if they hadn’t got her to the hospital so quickly, if Dr Billingham hadn’t been on hand to do the procedure … So many ifs.
Helen stared into the flickering flames.
The warmth and the gin began to do their work.
She sighed.
She mightn’t have been able to save her own baby, but she had helped to save another.
And for that she would be eternally grateful.
Chapter Forty
The following day
Friday 26 March
It was just after a quarter-past seven in the morning. Gloria still had her overcoat buttoned up against the usual early-morning chill drifting in from the North Sea, but her face felt warm as the sun was up and ready to show off its full glory.
She had come into work a little earlier than usual to catch Rosie before the start of the shift to tell her about Polly. Last night Helen had offered to go to Brookside Gardens and tell Rosie about Polly’s near miscarriage, but Gloria had put her off, knowing that Rosie was probably working at Lily’s.
‘And the baby’s definitely going to be all right?’ Rosie asked, her face showing concern, as well as guilt. They’d been working at full pelt yesterday on Denewood’s top deck – on their feet all day, either bent double or doing tricky vertical welds. She’d stopped herself moving Polly onto the lower deck to do some flat welds, where she would at least have been able to sit down while she worked. She’d been worried Polly would accuse her of fussing. She wished she had now. Wished she’d insisted Polly lay off welding altogether until after the baby was born.
‘Yes, it sounds like the baby should be all right now, but I think Pol’s gonna have to take it easy from here on in. They’ve put some kind of stitch in her to keep the baby in.’
‘That sounds awful.’ Rosie sat down on on
e of the pallets. ‘Honestly, nothing goes the way it’s supposed to, does it?’
Gloria let out a bitter laugh. ‘God forbid!’
‘So, she’s still in hospital?’
Gloria nodded, sitting down next to Rosie and getting out her flask of tea.
‘They’ll probably discharge her today. Apparently, she’s perfectly healthy. As is the baby as far as they can tell. She’s just got a weak cervix.’ She looked at Rosie. ‘That’s the neck of the womb.’
Rosie nodded. The cervix was something she unfortunately knew a lot about.
‘I don’t think she’ll be able to do any welding work, though,’ Gloria said. ‘Doctor’s orders. Nothing too physical or strenuous. Mind you, even if the doctor had said she could, I think Agnes would have had a complete fit. The way she was talking last night, she wants Polly bedbound for the rest of her pregnancy.’
‘I can’t see Polly agreeing to that,’ Rosie said.
‘Me neither.’ Gloria looked up to see Dorothy and Angie chatting to Hannah, Olly and Martha. She guessed they were telling them about Polly.
‘The doctor said she can do some kind of desk job, but nothing that’s too physical,’ Gloria relayed.
‘I’ll go and see Helen later on. See what we can work out,’ Rosie said.
‘I was just coming to see you.’ Rosie had walked through the main doors of the admin building to see Helen hurrying down the stairs towards her. The lunchtime klaxon had just sounded out.
‘I’m guessing it’s about Polly?’ Helen said.
Rosie nodded.
‘I’m off to see her now. They’re keeping her in until early evening. Just to be on the safe side.’
Rosie turned and opened the door and they both walked back out into the yard.
‘But don’t worry,’ Helen said, ‘I’ve got an idea. Not exactly a job swap, more of a reshuffle.’
‘Brilliant,’ Rosie said. ‘Tell Polly I was asking about her – and that I’ll pop round to Tatham Street tomorrow after work with Charlotte. That’s if she’s up to it.’
‘Will do … Chat later,’ Helen said, before hurrying off across the yard to the main gates.