Although the journey back was downhill, it was harder than the outward
one. If it hadn’t been for them practically dragging her, Maddie might not
have made it. Not on her own.
Her saviour was Alice, who chivvied her along. This was Alice
Wainwright’s second baby, and she had a straightforward way of explaining
the future Maddie had let herself in for. No drama. No grisly details. And a
lot of common sense – far more than Maddie had credited the girl with.
‘Just remember, you’ll need to be seen soon. And the pains might come
any time.’
‘But my waters,’ whispered Maddie. ‘You said they’d just broken.’
‘Don’t take no mind to that. Sometimes they goes with a whish just
before. Sometimes the babe comes out on the wave of them, like it’s
swimming. And sometimes they breaks in the cinema in the middle of an
Abbott and Costello flick.’ Alice chuckled.
‘But I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means that now this little babe of yourn has lost the sack around ’im,
it could be dangerous for the kid. Could be infection, least that’s what my
ma says, and she should know. She’s had six of us. And lost two.’
‘So…?’
‘So, get Nurse to give you an internal. And cross yer fingers and think
of England.’
‘Oh… right?’
‘Don’t help to scream,’ said Alice, helpfully. ‘That only upsets the
babbie and holds stuff up. And that crabby old midwife loves to hear you
scream. So don’t give her no satisfaction.’
‘I’ll try to remember that.’
‘You ain’t nowhere near yet,’ grumbled Sister Bennett, following the rough
internal exam. The woman had large hands and being gentle hadn’t been her
priority. ‘Stop making such a fuss and get yerself on to the dormitory. I’m
off to my bed too, and I’ll check on you in the morning.’
The pains came throughout the night. In waves, as she’d expected, but
not nearly as bad as Maddie had feared. Then they went away again. Gave
her a bit of a rest. And the next morning, she was ordered to work as usual.
Washing dishes, light duty.
They did have a heart here, after all.
She was sent out to scrub the front step. ‘Work and exercise,’ Sister
Bennett told her. ‘The best medicine for girls like you.’ The woman grinned
at her. ‘No doubt we’ll be seeing each other later, Miss Brady.’
‘But what about Doctor Harries,’ asked Maddie, ‘shouldn’t we call
him?’
‘And what makes you so special?’ said the midwife. ‘You got nothing I
haven’t seen before.’
‘But my waters,’ said Maddie, ‘they’ve gone already. Shouldn’t we be
careful? I don’t want my baby to get an infection, to get sick.’
‘So, you’re the expert now? Maybe I’ll just take myself off for a wee
holiday. Seems you won’t be needing me.’
But she needed something. She wasn’t sure what. Anything to take her
mind off the agony that held her in its grip. Hour after hour. Getting fiercer
as the time went on, until at the end of the day, Matron came and ordered
her into the birthing room with its austere white tiles and its grim medical
instruments.
The old woman sat with her for a while; she even smiled once. It was a
little bizarre: Matron rattling on about social responsibility and patting
Maddie on the stomach to remind her that what she had in there was a life
she would need to take care of, bring up under the eye of The Almighty.
Time and again Matron stressed just how difficult that would be. People
would be against her. She would be a pariah, an outcast. Annexed from
normal society. ‘Will you be able to do it?’ the woman asked. The inference
was that she couldn’t. That Maddie would be unable to look after a young
baby, all by herself; that the best thing for this child of hers would be to
give it up.
The voice in Maddie’s ear was persistent. And maybe the old woman
was right, for she’d seen a lot of babies born there. It would be easy. So
easy just to close her eyes and block this baby from her mind. Except easy
was never good. And she wanted this baby now with a passion that had
turned to fury. Fury against the woman sitting on the end of her bed,
droning on in her self-righteous voice.
Maddie raised herself painfully from the bed and threw a pillow at her.
Matron stormed from the room, vowing all sorts of Old Testament
retribution.
But Maddie didn’t care. What more could they do to her? Her whole
body was already in the grip of a massive vice that threatened to swallow
her up in its waves of indescribable pain. She imagined Rudi’s face in her
mind. Held onto the image. Spoke to it. Told him she was doing this for
him, for them, for their baby. They’d packed a lifetime into two short days.
They’d talked and laughed and loved. She remembered the things he cared
about: his homeland; his father, Gunter; his brother Werner who had died.
His mother, still waiting for her son. And her. He loved her too. A special
love, he’d said. She prayed that he was safe, and made herself a promise
that he would get to meet his child.
Another wave of pain crashed over her, and she thought of Alice in the
dormitory. Alice who had told her that screaming was no good. That it
didn’t help.
But in the long night there was a lot of screaming. People drifted in and
out of her feverish vision. The midwife. Matron, standing there with her
arms crossed, a frown sketched deep into her face. But no doctor. And no
angelic nurse. Nurse Ethel Ryder had gone to look after her mother,
wouldn’t be back for days. Maddie had hoped to have her here, mopping
her brow, holding her hand in comfort. Maybe then she would not have
screamed so much.
And finally, born on the end of one of those many terrifying screams,
came a final tsunami of pain and a tug and the sound of ripping skin and a
strange sloshing noise, and a baby shot out of her.
But no cry. No small infant noise.
Sister Bennett slapped the small person on its tiny bottom. She did it
several times, and still there was no cry. Maddie weakly raised her head,
reached out her arms, aching for her child. Imploring, begging them to
bring her baby to her side. But they ignored her. Instead, the midwife
rushed urgently from the room. But not before Maddie had seen the glance
between them. A look of concern.
There was a lot of activity. Maddie could hear feet moving noisily and
doors being slammed and soon a nurse came in to see her and delivered the
placenta. The woman also put some stitches in where Maddie had torn
giving birth. Pain on top of other pain. Layers of it. But she didn’t scream,
didn’t complain. For the worst pain of all was in her mind, and that would
go when they brought her baby back.
‘I need to feed my baby,’ she said.
The woman didn’t reply or look at her. It was the nurse who’d taken
such delight in taking Rudi’s photograph.
‘And I want my photograph back,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving here, I’ll be
taking it with me.’
The woman left the room in a hurry. She seemed flustered.
Young Alice popped her head around the door nervously. Came over to
sit on the bed and took Maddie’s hand in hers. ‘I’m sorry about your babbie.
We’re all sorry. How d’you feel?’
‘What?’ said Maddie. ‘What about my baby?’
‘Better run,’ said the young girl. ‘They find me here, I’m dead meat.’
With that, she was gone, as silently and swiftly as she’d come.
Maddie heard herself scream. Except the voice wasn’t hers, but some
stranger’s.
Sister Bennett came into the birthing room with a wheelchair and pulled
Maddie roughly from the bed. ‘Stop all that fuss. You’re being moved next
door to the lying-in room. Somebody’s just gone into labour,’ she said,
tersely.
It was surreal. The trip in the wheelchair with the ceiling above her head
spinning around like she’d had too much to drink.
‘Right, you need to get yerself in bed now, young woman. I haven’t
time to fuss. In you get.’ The midwife tried to coax her out of the chair, but
Maddie wouldn’t move.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she shouted. ‘Why haven’t you brought my
baby? I need to feed my baby.’
‘You won’t have to do that. But we’ll get you something to dry your
milk up.’
‘Where’s my baby? I want to feed my baby now.’
‘What baby?’ said Sister Bennett. ‘Did you hear a baby cry? There is no
baby. God’s retribution for sinners,’ she said, cruelly.
Maddie lashed out and smacked the woman hard across her smug, self
righteous face. A small trickle of blood ran down where Maddie’s nails had
caught.
The midwife reeled in shock, wiped the blood away with the back of her
hand. ‘You’ll be sorry you did that,’ she said, angrily. ‘I was going to help
you, but not now. And you can sign these papers.’ She pulled a document
from the pocket of her uniform, thrust it in front of Maddie along with a
pen. ‘Right there. Sign it.’
Maddie could hardly see the thing for the tears choking her. Her baby.
There was no baby. She’d lost her and Rudi’s baby. Maybe it was her fault.
Something she’d done. She’d been selfish and gone to the cinema and her
waters had broken and her lovely little baby had got an infection, like Alice
said.
‘What is it? What’s it for?’ She pointed at the paper.
‘It means you can leave here. That’s what you want, isn’t it, you
ungrateful girl? It releases you. Sign it and you can forget all about us.’
Maddie didn’t even read the document – she just signed, because this
awful woman was right. She didn’t want to stay there a minute longer than
she had to.
