Authors: Catrin Collier
‘What’s in it?’ she demanded sceptically.
William balanced the bag precariously on his outstretched palm and peered theatrically inside. ‘Now what do I see?’ he mused in a loud voice as he gathered a hushed crowd around the stall. ‘I see two neck of lamb chops ...’ he looked up and beamed at a plump, toothless old woman who’d pushed her way to the front, ‘a pair of sweetbreads. Just what you need to get yourself going, eh, Mrs Jones?’ he winked impudently, a dark curl falling low over his forehead.
‘Come home with me and I’ll show you what I need to get myself going, Willie Powell!’ she chuckled throatily.
‘Willie! Willie! I’m not sure you know me well enough to call me Willie ...’
‘Get on with it,’ a man shouted impatiently.
‘On with what, Ianto? Courting May Jones here?’ He held up his hand to silence the raucous crowd. ‘The remainder of what’s in this bag, is a ... a ...’ he opened his dark brown eyes wide as he scanned his expectant audience. ‘Mystery,’ he hissed in a stage whisper. ‘And one that will only be solved after you’ve dug in your pockets.’
Alma opened her purse. She wasn’t going to get cheaper this side of the nine o’clock bell, and she couldn’t wait.
‘I’ll take a bag, please, Charlie.’ She thrust a three penny bit and a penny at William’s boss, a stocky, broad built, muscular man with white-blond hair and possibly the palest skin in the valleys. She’d always thought of Charlie as tall, but now, seeing him standing next to William she realised that he was a good three or four inches shorter than William’s six feet two.
He picked up a bag from the back of the row laid out on the slab behind him. ‘Keep it separate from the rest of your shopping. The blood will stain everything it touches,’ he warned in a guttural accent that sounded exotic to ears accustomed to the Welsh lilt. ‘And Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas to you, Charlie.’
‘Catch!’
A soft parcel wrapped in newspaper flew through the air, landing on top of the bag Charlie had given her. She peeled back a corner of the paper and saw shining green wool. ‘Happy Christmas, Alma.’ Bobby Thomas was already out of reach, separated from her by the mass of bargain hunters homing in on the offer on Charlie’s stall. ‘I’ll be around to pick up my present in the New Year,’ he leered over the heads of the crowd.
‘I don’t want this ...’
It was too late. Bobby had his back to her and was halfway through the door. She’d never catch up with him now. A sick feeling stole over her as she stared at the parcel. She could throw it away, but if she did it would only get picked up by someone who might or might not keep it. And if they didn’t, where would they take it? To the police station? Without a name or address, the constables wouldn’t be able to return it to Bobby. She could take it back to Wilf Horton but there was no guarantee that he’d be seeing Bobby either. Either way it was doubtful Bobby Thomas would get to hear of her gesture, and come next rent day he’d turn up on her doorstep to claim the ‘present’ he expected in return.
She’d begun to dread rent days since Ronnie had left. Bobby had taken to lingering in their kitchen, making lewd suggestions, and when she’d threatened to report him to her landlord he’d pointed out that he was the one with position and standing in the town, not her.
Rage at the gossips who’d destroyed her reputation vied with an anger directed against Bobby as she thrust the parcel under her arm and struggled out of the crowd into the haberdashery, toy and sweet market.
‘Christmas bag do you, Alma?’ Mrs Walker asked, as Alma hesitated before her stall.
‘How much?’
‘Three pence for two giant coconut ice sticks, a bag of toffee scrapings, assortment of boiled sweets and liquorice laces. Sixpence for a bigger helping of everything except the coconut ice sticks, plus four chocolates.’
Alma’s mouth watered at the prospect of chocolates, but she remembered the extravagance Bobby had driven her into at Horton’s stall. ‘Three penny bag, please.’
‘Seeing as how it’s you, and Christmas, I’ll do the sixpenny offer for five pence,’ Mrs Walker offered temptingly.
Alma hesitated. It
was
Christmas Eve. Perhaps a customer would leave a tip. One of the bus crew perhaps...’I’ll take it,’ she answered impulsively. ‘Thank you Mrs Walker, and a Merry Christmas.’
‘And a Merry Christmas to you, dear. Remember me to your mother.’ She handed over a paper cone of confectionery.
Pushing the sweets deep into the carrier bag of clothes, Alma turned on her heel and elbowed her way to the fruit market. Picking a stall that sold Christmas trees as well as fruit, she negotiated the price for the lot down to nine pence. If she didn’t spend another penny, she’d be able to pay the rent –just. She blanched at the thought of the grocer’s bill they’d run up in Hopkins’ corner shop. If she didn’t settle something off it soon, they’d lose their credit. She really needed a Christmas tip. St Catherine’s clock struck again as she left the indoor market for Taff Street. She’d better get a move on or there’d be no Christmas tips to pick up.
‘Want me to take some of that home for you, Alma?’ Iorwerth Hopkins, the son of Edna who ran the shop near the house she shared with her mother in Morgan Street, held out his hand for the tree.
‘That would be good of you, Iorwerth. It would save me carting it to the café.’ She smiled as she suddenly thought of a solution to her problem. ‘You know Bobby
Thomas don’t you, Iorwerth?’
‘Yes,’ he answered suspiciously in a tone that said knowing and liking were two different things.
‘He dropped this at Wilf Horton’s stall.’ She handed him the newspaper-wrapped jumper. ‘It’s his wife’s Christmas present. I don’t know where he lives so I was going to leave it at the police station, but it would be better if you could take it to his wife.’
‘They live in Bassett Street. I’ll drop it in to her when I take Madge home.’
‘Thanks a lot, Iorwerth.’ She breathed easier. ‘You’ve taken a load off my mind. I hope it isn’t far out of your way.’
‘Not far. Have you met Madge?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Alma murmured absently, offloading her tree on to him.
‘Madge, come over here!’
A pretty girl with dark hair and eyes and a glowing complexion left a queue at a fruit stall, sidled up to Iorwerth and smiled shyly at Alma.
‘Madge and I are getting married in the New Year,’ Iorwerth announced proudly from behind the Christmas tree.
‘Congratulations.’ Alma almost choked on the word. Most days she was too busy scraping a living to think about love, marriage, how much Ronnie had meant to her, or how empty her life had now become. She smiled hollowly at the couple as she dumped the remainder of her packages into Iorwerth’s arms. Why did everything, especially lack of money and Ronnie’s absence from her life, seem so much worse just because it was Christmas?
The room was an unprepossessing place in which to spend Christmas Eve. High-windowed, its bare walls were painted sickly hospital shades of dark green and rancid cream that appeared to have been selected to blend with the complexions of the most diseased patients imaginable. But as delivery rooms went, it was no better, and no worse, than the ones Bethan Powell had worked in as a trainee midwife in the Graig Hospital in Pontypridd.
Simply a dismal, uninspiring place in which to make an entry into the world.
‘Darling, are you all right?’ Andrew, her husband of three months hovered ineffectually at the foot of the iron bedstead, an anxious frown creasing his handsome face.
‘Of course she’s not all right!’ Lettie the cockney nurse snapped tartly. ‘Men!’ she grinned sympathetically at Bethan as she took her pulse. ‘They get us into these states and then have the nerve to ask if we’re all right.’
‘I’m fine,’ Bethan smiled weakly, valiantly trying to ignore the discomfort of the thin mattress and rickety bedsprings. ’Really, it’s not that bad.’
‘Not yet it’s not,’ the nurse agreed. ‘But believe you me; it’s going to get a lot –’
‘ ... worse before it gets better,’ Bethan finished for her.
The phrase was one she’d used often enough herself during deliveries.
‘Midwives! They always make the worst patients. Wouldn’t you agree, Doctor John?’
Andrew smiled vaguely, too preoccupied with Bethan’s pain to follow Lettie’s conversation.
‘I’m only half a trained midwife,’ Bethan corrected, gasping as another pain gathered inside her.
‘And it looks as though you’re going to be too busy for a while to see to the other half. Doctor John?’ Lettie looked enquiringly at Andrew. ‘Do you intend to deliver your baby yourself?’
‘No. Doctor Floyd’s coming in,’ Andrew replied quickly, deferring to his immediate superior.
‘Then it’s time I called him. You’ll be all right for five minutes?’ she asked Bethan.
‘Ten if you can’t reach him.’ Bethan continued to smile with clenched teeth.
‘I’ll reach him.’ Lettie marched out of the room, closing the door behind her.
‘Are you really coping?’ Andrew grasped Bethan’s hand as he sat on the bed beside her.
‘You’re the doctor. You tell me.’ Her smile deteriorated into a grimace as yet another pain sliced through her abdomen. Sharper and more intense, it made her feel as though she were being torn in two. ‘I never minded this happening to anyone else,’ she joked feebly.
‘Neither did I.’ He enclosed her hand within both of his. ‘If you want me I’ll be just outside the door.’
‘Coward!’
‘Absolutely.’ He squeezed her hand mutely. The door opened and the nurse returned.
‘Doctor Floyd’s coming, and you,’ she glared at Andrew, ‘can get off that bed when you like. I shouldn’t need to remind you, of all people, of the rules.’
Andrew rose quickly.
Lettie studied Bethan for a moment. ‘Doctor John, if you’re not here in a medical capacity, I think it’s time you left.’
‘Midwives are the same the world over,’ he complained. ‘Bossy.’
Bethan wasn’t fooled by his mild protest. She read the relief in his eyes as he walked to the door. ‘See you later, Mrs John,’ he whispered as he disappeared into the corridor.
‘Husbands! When the going gets rough they cut and run, even doctors,’ Lettie Harvey said in a voice loud enough to carry outside. ‘Now look at what I’ve brought you. A nice smart hospital-issue gown, the absolute latest in maternity wear.’
Bethan struggled to sit up but another pain prevented her. The nurse pressed her gently back on to the bed. Laying her hand firmly against Bethan’s abdomen she pulled out her watch and timed the contraction. ‘Nice and regular now, Mrs John, it won’t be much longer.’
‘Thank you,’ Bethan murmured, drifting helplessly as the pain ebbed. The bare light bulb wavered overhead.
The atmosphere was tainted by a strong smell of disinfectant and rubber from the sheeting she was lying on. She stared blankly at the ceiling. It was meshed with a myriad hairline cracks. She traced their origins, following them backwards and forwards, her mind meandering through black and crimson tunnels of pain as a dense cloud floated towards her. It drifted slowly, gradually sinking over her. Soft, warm, it obliterated everything from view.
‘Mrs John! Bethan! Bethan ...’
‘What’s the problem?’ Andrew’s voice, rough with concern, penetrated her consciousness.
A face loomed overhead, bushy eyebrows and curling grey hair above a white mask.
‘You’ll soon be all right, Mrs John. We’re just taking you to somewhere more comfortable.’
She tried to say she was quite comfortable where she was, but her mouth was dry and her lips refused to open when she tried to speak. A damp-stained ceiling flowed rapidly overhead.
She saw Andrew, wide-eyed, white faced, his back pressed against the tiled wall of the corridor. A different room flooded around her, bright with lights and the silver glint of chrome. Again the pungent nauseating odour of rubber assailed her nostrils and she plunged downwards, swinging backwards and forwards ... backwards and forwards ... backwards and forwards ... clinging for dear life to a thin, stretched, bouncing strand of rubber.
Fear clawed at her throat as she realised that her tenuous grip on the elastic frond was all that kept her from falling into the black abyss that lapped at her feet.
The rubber band lengthened ... snapped ... and she hurtled helplessly downwards.
‘Bethan, can you hear me?’
She struggled to open her eyes. A mask pressed over her face, white gauze tented over a metal frame. She could smell iron as well as chloroform. Chloroform! Sweet, overpoweringly soporific chloroform –Andrew had been using chloroform the first time she’d seen him, when she’d been asked to assist him in that dingy, delivery room off the maternity ward in the Graig Hospital.
A pain pierced the numbing effect of the anaesthetic, shattering the sides of the abyss into a million crimson fragments.
‘Andrew,’ she moaned.
‘I’m here, darling. Right here.’
‘No!’ she screamed as loudly as she could. ‘No!’ She thrashed her arms wildly as agonising pain after pain pierced her body. It was worse than anything she’d ever experienced –she knew only that she wanted it to end, whatever the price. She should never have allowed Andrew to make love to her. He had made her pregnant and then left her –alone. No, not alone. Not entirely alone. She’d turned to her hidden comfort: the bottle of brandy she’d secreted behind the drawer in her dressing table away from her mother and sister’s prying eyes.
At first she’d believed that brandy could make anything go away but then she’d learned that it couldn’t help with the things that mattered, only the unimportant things, like blotting out the here and now.
It hadn’t taken away the baby –or brought Andrew back when she’d needed him most, but he’d come later ...
‘Andrew!’ she screamed again into the black void only to hear her cry fall unanswered, on deaf unhearing ears.
‘We’re going to have to use forceps.’
‘There’s something seriously wrong, isn’t there?’ Andrew’s voice, sharp, anguished, echoed outside the darkness that had closed around her again.
“There’s nothing wrong. Nothing at all, darling. How could there be when you came back for me. I left Pontypridd. Went to London with you.” She spoke but he didn’t hear. Warm, opiate-seasoned tides washed over her, filtering out the pain. She wanted to think of something pleasant. Not the time Andrew had left her.