Authors: Anne Bennett
‘I must work,’ she said firmly when he expressed concern. ‘My husband is unable to find employment and we have a wee girl. Now there is the funeral to pay for. We will inherit Gertie’s house when she passes away and so I couldn’t live easy if I let her lie in a pauper’s grave.’
Reverend Gilbert admired the young woman’s plucky stance. The lilting voice told him where she’d come from and he guessed she was a Catholic. They always seemed to make much of death, often having a party after the funeral that some might think unseemly. They seemed to celebrate the life of the deceased and yet openly mourned their passing, and the vicar had a sneaking regard for that philosophy. To be able to grieve as well as remember with a certain amount of joy and pleasure the years the deceased had had on earth, was surely more healthy than the stiff upper lip many of his parishioners portrayed.
So he understood Rosie’s need to have the old lady buried decently when her time did come. ‘Shall I come and have a wee chat with her?’ he said.
‘You can come and welcome, Reverend, but Gertie is not up to chatting. She doesn’t know where she is half the time, her mind is wandering d’you see?’ Rosie told him.
But for all that, he did come, Danny told her one evening
just a few days later. He sat by Gertie’s bed and talked to her and held her hand and Danny seemed impressed with him. ‘I’m glad he held her hand,’ Rosie said. ‘She likes that. When I hold her hand she is aware of it and her grip tightens. I think it comforts her. We don’t really know what goes through her mind. She may be afraid of dying. We’d never know, would we?’
‘No,’ Danny said. ‘And we can only do so much. And for now, you’ve done enough. You’ve coughed non-stop since you’ve come in and you’re puffing like an old steam train. Bed is the best place for you.’
Rosie didn’t need persuading. She tried valiantly and for quite a few days to hide the severity of her cough from her employer, fearing losing her job. She also tried hiding it from Danny and muffled her coughs in a pillow at night. The cold and damp didn’t help, nor did the cloying, acrid green-grey fog that often lingered through the day, seeping through anything a person held over their mouths. Gertie’s house too, like most houses in the court, was so damp the walls were often wet and none of this helped Rosie. Small wonder she didn’t seem to be getting better, but worse.
She looked down on Bernadette sleeping in the cot, tracing her face lightly and gently with one finger. The child stirred slightly and sucked more intently on her thumb and Rosie’s stomach contracted with such love for this child. She wondered if she’d ever love another baby as she loved her darling daughter. She was such a delight and a pleasure to rear, and so sunny and usually happy that she was a bit of a favourite in the court. Rosie prayed she would stay fit and healthy and catch nothing, including he mother’s cough, for the houses were breeding grounds for disease which often ran rampant through the entire place.
She shook herself mentally as she undressed and climbed into bed. What was the matter with her, worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet? Hadn’t she enough cares that she
had to search for more? She closed her eyes and when Danny came up with a cup of tea, he found her fast asleep.
Gertie died on Monday 6th December and Rosie couldn’t be truly sorry, for she felt sure Gertie had wanted to go. The women collected from door to door for flowers and Rosie knew it was their way, but she’d have been glad of the money put towards the cost of the funeral; for even the price of the plainest of coffins alarmed her and it made a large hole in the money she had saved.
She wasn’t able to attend the funeral service the following Friday, for Catholics were not allowed to go to any service in another church, but she followed the hearse to Witton Cemetery to see her laid to rest. ‘You don’t need to do this,’ Danny had said. ‘Let me go. I could go along to the cemetery after I’ve taken the children to nursery.’
‘No,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘I must do this last thing and say goodbye to Gertie. Really, considering the age of her and the years she’s lived here, there will be few enough to show respect.’
Danny shook his head but didn’t argue further. He knew how obstinate Rosie could be at times, but later, after she’d gone, he watched the large raindrops slapping on the black ash, which he knew would in time turn it into dirty slurry, and heard the wind gusting against the windows, and worried about his wife. For now he could do nothing about Rosie, but he made sure he wrapped Bernadette and Georgie up well for their tram ride to Hunter’s Road.
The Reverend Gilbert would have told Danny he had reason to worry about Rosie. She stood surrounded by her friends, Ida and Rita and Betty, who’d each taken a day off work, more for Rosie’s sake than Gertie’s. The vicar was glad the woman had some support. She stood in the rain-sodden cemetery with the wind whistling around them and coughed the entire time he was intoning the few prayers over the coffin being lowered into the earth.
When Rita moved away from Rosie she staggered and would have fallen if Betty hadn’t held her. ‘Come on, girl,’ she said. ‘Home for you. You should never have come.’
‘I had to, for Gertie…’
‘Gertie wouldn’t have wanted you to put yourself at risk, would she now?’ Betty said. ‘Not if she was in her right mind she wouldn’t.’
‘We must put the clods of earth on top of the coffin,’ Rosie protested as Betty steered her away.
‘D’you think for one minute the poor old sod will worry about that?’ Betty said firmly.
‘Betty’s right,’ Ida said, worried at her friend’s pallor. ‘Gertie is at rest now and worrying about nowt.’
The Reverend Gilbert had watched them go and he knew that unless great care was taken of Rosie, she could easily be the next candidate for the undertaker’s service. He called Rita to one side and advised her to call the doctor.
However, a doctor wasn’t called in lightly, for they cost money, and so Rita said nothing to Danny of the vicar’s advice. He could see for himself that Rosie had overtaxed herself and when he said she should get into bed without delay they supported him, despite Rosie’s protests that she was fine.
‘You’re not fine. Don’t be a bloody fool altogether,’ Betty said sharply. ‘You’ll have to have a few days from work I’m thinking, get yourself properly right.’
‘Oh no…I…’
Rosie made to rise from the chair she’d almost fallen into, but Rita pushed her back. ‘Stop it, Rosie, and show a bit of sense for God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘You have a wee child to think about and another you’re carrying. Think of them if you won’t think of yourself.’
Rita’s words did make Rosie think, and she eventually agreed to go to bed, but didn’t admit how glad she was to undress for she felt far from well. Her whole body ached and
her chest burned. The coughing shook her whole frame, making her head swim, while the pain went in a band from her chest round to her back and then everywhere else, even to her fingers and toes.
‘Is this flannelette petticoat you took off the only one you have?’ Rita asked suddenly, for the women had followed her upstairs.
‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘I have another in the drawer in the chest. I bought two with the winter coming on.’
‘Do you mind if I cut the hem from this one?’ Rita said, holding it up. ‘Flannel soaked in warmed camphorated oil and placed on your chest helps. It brought our Georgie round when he had the whooping cough last year and I have some camphorated oil in the house.’
Rosie nodded her head, knowing she’d agree to anything that might help, and Rita began tearing the petticoat hem into strips.
Despite the women’s loving care, Rosie worsened as the day wore on. The women stayed with Rosie while Danny went to fetch the children home, and shortly after he returned Rita went home with Georgie and took Bernadette too. Eventually there was only Betty left, for Ida had gone home too to see to her family. ‘Should I fetch the doctor, Betty?’ Danny asked her. ‘I’m worried sick about her.’
‘I would,’ Betty said. ‘You should catch him at evening surgery if you go now.’
‘Will you stay with her?’
‘’Course I will. I ain’t got the same calls on my time as Rita and Ida.’
‘I’m grateful, Betty.’
‘Get away with you,’ Betty said. ‘What are neighbours for if it ain’t for helping each other? Go and fetch the bloody doctor and see what he can do to put our Rosie right.’
Danny was glad to go, glad to get away from having to
watch his wife struggling to breathe. She was semi-delirious and sweating so much the sheets were damp, and she threshed on the bed and was too weak to lift herself when the coughing fits shook her whole body.
He hated to see her suffering so and he castigated himself for ever bringing Rosie to this disease-ridden place of squalor.
She might not have been safe at the farmhouse, though. Desperate things were happening in Ireland, although perhaps she could have been left in Dublin. Maybe the nuns or Father Joe could have found her and Bernadette a safe place to live.
Instead of giving that any thought at all, he’d fled to Birmingham, where they lived in a damp slum, and he hadn’t even the wherewithal to pay the rent or put food on the table. So he’d allowed his wife to work in a dangerous factory and couldn’t even insist she stopped when she became pregnant, or when she first developed that hacking cough. He felt he could insist on little while he had no job himself. And now he had the doctor’s bill to look forward to, from savings depleted already by the cost of Gertie’s funeral. However, none of this mattered. That was just money, for God’s sake. What mattered was getting Rosie fit and healthy again.
‘Bronchitis,’ Doctor Anthony Patterson said after examing Rosie. ‘And a bad dose of it. I should have been called much sooner. Keep a sharp eye on her, for if she’s not careful she’ll develop pneumonia and then we’re really in trouble.’
‘I’ve been putting hot camphorated oil on flannels and laying them on her chest,’ Danny said. ‘A neighbour told me it helped her son.’
‘Probably did,’ the doctor commented. ‘And it can’t do any harm, but your young wife is in a bad way. I’ll make up a lotion for you to put on her back as well as her chest and something to ease that cough. That’s all I can do.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Danny said. ‘Is…is Rosie very infectious? You see we have a little girl.’
‘Keep her well away if you want her to survive,’ the doctor
said. ‘Children often haven’t the strength to fight diseases such as these. As for the child she’s carrying…well, we’ll just have to wait and see. Call me in again if you need me.’
All through Saturday and Sunday Bernadette stayed at Rita’s, for after the doctor’s warning, Danny couldn’t risk having her in the house. Rosie, meanwhile, coughed and spluttered and fought for each gasping breath and tried to ignore the griping pains encircling her stomach from her back. Occasionally she couldn’t prevent a groan escaping her, but if one of the women attending her asked if she had pains, she always shook her head.
She told herself she’d be fine. Bed was the best place. That’s all she needed, a wee rest and she’d be grand again in time, and the baby would be born in just over three months’ time, fine and healthy. She tried to curb her coughing and when she couldn’t help herself she put her arms around her stomach protectively.
She knew Danny was worried about her and she told him not to be, she’d be better in time and he was the one lying on a tick mattress beside the bed, which Betty had loaned them. It could be neither comfortable nor warm enough with just the one blanket, but whenever Rosie said anything, Danny told her not to waste her concern on him but to concentrate all her energies on getting better.
Then, on 14th December, Ida was staying with Rosie while Danny took the children to nursery and she’d popped down to make a drink for them both when she heard Rosie give a cry. She galloped up the stairs to see Rosie in bed, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘Oh help me, Ida. Please, please do something.’
Ida threw back the covers and saw the water soaking the bedding and knew, early or not, Rosie’s waters had gone and she doubted the baby could be saved.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry, duck,’ she said, giving Rosie’s arm a squeeze.
‘Do something, Ida,’ Rosie cried desperately. ‘God, I’m not even six months gone.’
Ida shook her head slowly, although her own eyes glistened with tears.
And then Rosie gave an agonised moan and drew her legs up to her chin, just as Danny came in the front door. He heard the sound and came bounding up the stairs.
‘Oh Jesus Christ, what is it?’ he cried, seeing his wife in so much distress.
‘She’s miscarrying,’ Ida told him quietly. ‘Her waters have gone.’
‘Shall I fetch the doctor?’
‘No, I’ll ask one of the nippers to go,’ Ida said and Danny nodded his head.
‘Please, I’d be grateful,’ Danny replied and then with another look at his wife said, ‘and the priest. Ask Father Chattaway to come too.’
‘It’s too soon,’ Rosie gasped. ‘Much too soon.’
The doctor knew that too, but also doubted that Rosie could have carried the child full-term, for even as he examined her, her coughing racked her body and she groaned with the pains encircling her stomach.
Instinctively, Rosie tried to keep hold of the child, trying not to push when the contractions came. But then she’d be overcome by a spasm of coughing, and through each one the child seemed to slip further away from her, nearer to the world it would never grow up in.
Father Chattaway sat before the fire, keeping Danny company and fearing for the emotional turmoil of the woman above them, seriously ill and in the throes of a childbirth that was months too early.
‘Hush, easy,’ the doctor said to Rosie. ‘Gently now.’ But tears of helplessness ran down Rosie’s face. ‘Dear God,’ she cried. ‘Help me, please.’
However, she knew in her heart it was no good. God wasn’t listening to her. She knew she would eventually give birth to a child she wouldn’t rear and she wanted to scream and hurl things, but she hadn’t the energy to do either.
‘Come on now,’ the doctor chided, but gently for he was smote with pity for the young woman. ‘It’s got to come out, you know that. You must push.’