There was nothing they could do. That’s what the doctors had said. On the
fifth of September, a day that was as black outside as the depression inside
the tiny room where Maddie now sat at her friend’s bedside, Gertrude
Adams had lost her baby. Its tiny heart stopped beating.
The elderly doctor who examined her had been kind. Had explained that
sometimes these sad things happened and there was no one to blame. She
mustn’t feel guilty. She just seemed frozen when they’d told her, her face
immobile as if in shock, but it was her eyes that upset Maddie the most.
They had a lost, empty look in them. And Maddie understood. For her
friend had joined the sad ranks of sorrowful women whose babies had died
in the womb.
Stillbirth. That’s what the doctor called it. A small, innocent-sounding
word which made it seem even more brutal because Gertie had lived for
months with this new life inside her. She’d knitted baby clothes, her face
wreathed in smiles. Had spoken to her child. Told it stories. Told this baby
about its father, a brave man off fighting for his country.
Maddie tried to picture it. The baby, still there, in Gertie’s womb. Still.
Unmoving. No longer alive. Her own labour had been bad enough, but at
least she’d always imagined that there would be a child to cuddle and love
at the end of it. But to go through the pain of childbirth, all the time
knowing that your baby wouldn’t be alive? To deliver a dead child? Maddie
could only imagine how terrible that would be.
She’d held Gertie’s hand as they wheeled her precious friend off to the
theatre, already in an induced labour. It had been hard to prise that hand
from her own, but Maddie understood. And the pleading look in Gertie’s
eyes – she understood that as well, for they were like twins, the pair of
them: Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But this was something that Gertie had
to do on her own. No one could take that physical or mental pain off her.
Maddie had tried to be strong, as she’d waited in the draughty corridor
painted a bilious green and the overpowering hospital smell of disinfectant
making her queasy. The smell revived the memory of her own pregnancy
and images of Rosemundy House spooled vividly across her mind. The
frightening birthing room.
Once again, Maddie Brady relived her own failure. She’d failed at the
most basic thing a woman could do. Failed to bring her child safely into the
world. To protect it. The guilt that somehow it had been her fault was
embedded too deeply in her to be erased. She hadn’t told Gertie that she too
had lost a child. And now didn’t seem the right time to talk about it, to
muscle in on her friend’s grief. And Gertie knew nothing about Rudi or
anything that had happened in Maddie’s life before the two women met.
Maybe one day they would share the grief of their missing children, but for
now, her own sorrow needed to be smothered, had to take second place. For
she had lost a baby, it was true, but Gertie had lost a baby and a husband.
She sat rigidly in the hard chair, the sounds of hospital life filtering
through her sadness. Somewhere in the distance a baby cried. The shrill
first cry of a newborn. The sound of new life sent a jolt through her raw
nerve endings; the thought that while Gertie’s baby had been dying another
was being born.
Maddie wanted to cry, but no tears would come. It wasn’t until a
friendly nurse came along with tea for her that the dam finally broke its
fragile banks. Kindness could do that every time.
She mumbled her thanks to the nurse and warmed her hands on the tin
mug. No fancy china teacups here. But the tea tasted like nectar. And
Maddie marvelled at the resilience of folk who managed to carry on
through the trials of war and still maintain their humanity. The woman was
professional without being overbearing. Kind without being sentimental.
Nurses were a special breed, staying at their posts throughout the bombing
and the exhaustion of long shifts. Heroes, all of them.
Maddie woke up in bed with a sickening jolt, instantly thrown into the
sorrow of the day. She’d organised the funeral herself, for Gertie had
neither the strength nor energy for the task, nor the space in her head to deal
with any more grief. Maddie had taken the burden off her friend’s
shoulders.
Gertie was home from hospital now, back at the billet, but she was still
weak. And there seemed to be a numbness inside her that appeared to
swallow up the confident and vibrant, life-loving person that had gone
before. The woman who had fearlessly danced the Lindy Hop.
Two funerals in one. A strange affair that hadn’t been easy to arrange: a
funeral for a tiny baby girl called Alice, and a symbolic funeral for her
father who was buried somewhere in a distant desert. A father that little
Alice Adams, even had she lived, would never have met. But maybe they
would both be together now. In that magical place that people spoke of.
Heaven. Maddie liked to think that it was real, especially now, when her
friend Gertie needed the comfort of such a place. Were father and daughter
together in that beautiful place in the sky, surrounded by rainbows,
laughing, each finding joy in the other?
Maddie truly hoped so. But she didn’t think so.
They stood arm in arm throughout the melancholy little ceremony. Only a
few people had been at the graveside: some ATS friends and two of the
younger officers from Inglis Barracks. They were representing the
Middlesex, which Maddie thought was kind and decent of them but Gertie
didn’t even notice they were there. And afterwards, the chaps had come
back to the house in Sunnyfield, had brought a bottle of sherry with them.
But they didn’t stay long. It wasn’t a celebration. Or even a wake.
The day was a sad affair. Just a vessel for grief. But it was necessary,
thought Maddie. The whole while Gertie clung to her, afraid to let go, as if
Maddie was the one constant in a world that had been flipped on its head.
Later, they both sat in armchairs by the fire watching the patterns in the
flames. Only three of them were left in the room now; people had slipped
away, self-conscious – it was easier to leave than try to find words of
comfort. There were none. Only platitudes. Betty Wooten stayed, practical
as always. Doling out the sherry. Being a mother hen.
Maddie had tried to smile at her friend. The sort of comforting smile
that says I’m here. Ready to help. To hold you up in your grief. But Gertie
had just stared back with those huge saucer eyes of hers. Eyes now sunk
into a thin, pale face. It had been a look of fear, not like the courageous
woman that used to live behind that face.
‘Maddie? You won’t ever leave me, will you?’
‘What?’
‘You’re the only family I’ve got left now. No husband, no baby. No Ma,
no Pa.’
‘Gertie, I’m right here. You know that.’
‘I know, but promise me. Say you’ll always be here. I need to hear it.’
‘Of course I’m here,’ said Maddie.
‘Now, yes. But promise me. Tell me you won’t die. You see, everybody
dies on me.’ The last words were said in a flat, emotionless monotone. Like
their truth was obvious, could not be disputed.
Betty suddenly materialised right behind them. As if she’d been
hovering, preparing for a moment like this. ‘Now that’s just daft, isn’t it?’
she said, her voice crisp with authority. ‘I’m here. You’re here. Maddie’s
here. Nobody’s going anywhere.’
‘I know, but…’ Gertie trapped an escaping tear, knuckled it away
fiercely.
‘Listen, kiddo,’ said Betty, ‘people die in wars, it’s true. But that ain’t
nobody here in this room. You got that?’
‘Got it.’ Gertie sniffed.
‘Right, get yerself off to bed,’ said Betty. ‘I’ll bring in some of that nice
Bournville cocoa you like. Steadies the nerves.’
Betty was right about one thing. People did die in wars. Hundreds of
thousands of people. But she was wrong about something else. Only two of
the three ATS women in the lounge in that rambling old house in
Sunnyfield would see the end of the war.
