Authors: Anne Bennett
‘If you’re so determined to fuss and keep me in bed unnecessarily, you might as well fetch my things,’ she said grudgingly and with a sigh, but Rosie allowed herself a secret smile of triumph.
Later, she discussed Betty with Ida and Rita, who also agreed to help care for her. ‘I’m worried to death about her,’ she said. ‘She’s a funny colour and her eyes are heavy. I just know it’s something. She says it’s a cold, but…’
‘You don’t think it’s bloody flu?’
‘I hope not.’ All three women gazed at the ceiling where Bernadette, Georgie and Ida’s three, now home for the Christmas holidays, were playing. This flu affected the young and old, wiped them off the face of the earth, and sometimes within a few short weeks. What if Betty had the flu and Rosie brought it back home to Bernadette, or indeed any of the youngsters. ‘We’ll have to be very careful,’ she said, ‘in case Betty has caught the flu, not to spread the infection.’
‘I’ve heard you soak a sheet in disinfectant and hang it over the door opening,’ Ida said.
‘I’ve heard that too,’ Rosie said. ‘And we must wash our hands when we leave the sick room with warm water and
carbolic soap. We must have plenty of water in so that we can heat it and hope to God the tap doesn’t freeze over.’
‘D’you think we should contact her sons at all?’ Ida asked.
‘You don’t think we’re overreacting?’
‘Maybe, but if we don’t…’
‘I know,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll tell you what, if she doesn’t rally in the next few days, we’ll call the doctor and go on what he says.’
‘I shouldn’t think it would be easy to come home from America anyway,’ Rita said. ‘Not just after a war.’
‘No, maybe not, but if Betty doesn’t get better they ought to be told,’ Rosie said. ‘We owe that much to her.’
Betty didn’t rally and by Christmas Eve, when she’d been ill for a week, Doctor Patterson was called in.
‘Has she the flu, Doctor?’ Rosie asked as he came down the stairs and entered the room where she was waiting.
‘Yes, I think so,’ the doctor said gravely. ‘You’re not related to her, are you?’
‘No, Doctor,’ Rosie said with a smile, ‘just a neighbour. There’s three of us seeing to her.’
‘You know it’s very infectious,’ the doctor said.
Rosie lifted her head. ‘I know that, Doctor, but Betty is my friend,’ she said simply. ‘And as I explained, I am not the only one that sees to her. We’ve tried to minimise the risk, pinning the sheet doused in disinfectant across the doorway, and we wash with warm water and carbolic soap when we come out of the room.’
‘Both good measures,’ the doctor said. ‘But there is still a risk for there’s no cure.’
‘I know that. Isn’t it down to your constitution?’
‘It is,’ the doctor said, writing on a prescription pad. ‘Get this from the chemist, they’ll make it up. The quinine will stabilise the temperature and the medicine may help the cough, and keep on with the warmed camphorated oil on the chest.
She probably won’t eat much, try coddled egg, chicken soup and beef tea, and give her all the drinks she wants.’
‘Doctor,’ Rosie said suddenly. ‘Betty has two sons in America. Shall we send for them?’
There was a few seconds’ silence before the doctor nodded his head briefly. ‘That would be wise, I feel,’ he said, and Rosie promised to see to it.
Christmas passed in a blur. As there was no sign of Rosie’s Danny coming home, and no word from America, the women and five children celebrated at Rita’s because it was the nearest to Betty’s, and they took turns to seeing to her over the holiday.
The doctor’s medicine did little good and the women tried to bring Betty’s temperature down by bathing her with tepid water, but it gave only limited relief and even that didn’t last. They encouraged her to drink as the doctor had suggested and spent hours making appetising soups she would only sip at.
On New Year’s Eve, when Rita went in to check on Betty in the morning, she found the pillow and bed soaked with blood, a scarlet stream of it still pouring from Betty’s nose. It was the first of many bleeds that day and the following one, and even when the doctor was called in he was little help. ‘Nosebleeds are one of the symptoms,’ he said. ‘Sit her upright and hold the nose until it stops. It’s the only solution, dropping keys down the back is no good at all. I’m worried about her temperature. Can someone come to the surgery, I’ll make up a stronger mixture that may help.’
‘I think we should start sleeping in her room,’ Rosie said. ‘She might need us in the night. If one of you will have Bernadette, I’ll take my turn.’
‘I don’t mind watching Bernadette,’ Rita said. ‘And I don’t suppose Ida does, either, but do you think it’s necessary?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosie, ‘I do. She can’t lift herself if she coughs and the nosebleeds must be terrifying.’
‘I just wonder if we’re taking too many risks,’ Ida said. ‘I mean, the women up the yard and in the streets are already treating us like bleeding lepers. They ask how Betty is, all right, but they shout it out from the bloody doorstep. They never come near.’
Ida was right. The other women from the yard were only too keen to help, they’d do any shopping needed and even wash the bedding to help a little, but they wouldn’t go into the house any further than the threshold. They couldn’t be blamed, the speed this flu spread was frightening and the death rate, if you caught it, was also rising at an alarming level.
Everyone knew of someone who’d caught it and everyone could talk of tragedies, children orphaned with the father killed in the war and their mother dying with the flu, or whole families wiped out. It was indiscriminate too, because your survival was determined by your ability to fight it and that alone. No money in the world was any good to you, but when Rosie said that, Ida put in, ‘Yeah, but the rich have better food than the rest of us in the war, like. Stockpiling it they was, before rationing, and even then they could go out for dinner and things like that. All I’m saying is that they would be better nourished and that probably means better able to fight off the flu or any other damned thing.’
Rosie had to admit Ida had a point, for many around them were ill-nourished and inadequately clad for the elements. What chance would they have against a killer disease? She, like many mothers, would go without to make sure Bernadette hardly ever went hungry or cold, but mothers with more mouths to feed would be hard-pressed.
‘I’m wondering whether we should ask the doctor about sending Betty to the hospital.’
Rosie stared at her friend, appalled. ‘You know what manner of hospital the likes of us go into,’ she said. ‘And what care would she get there that we can’t provide?’
Rita couldn’t answer that, and they shelved the hospital idea. That night, despite her fears, Ida was glad to be there when Betty began being sick, for she was too weak and too disorientated to lift herself up. ‘Leave me.’ she cried when the spasm was over and Ida was gently wiping her face. ‘You have a family to see to. Get away.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Ida said. ‘Come on now, let’s get you cleaned up first and then I’ll see to the bed.’
And that night set the pattern of the next few days and nights. The nosebleeds continued and so did the vomiting, over and over again, even when there was nothing to bring up. The women were constantly changing and washing sheets and nightdresses, which were often damp with sweat, and the bedding was draped about the houses, for the January weather was not conducive to drying anything.
As well as this, there was their own work to do, their own washing and shopping and cooking for the family, despite help from the women around them.
It wasn’t surprising that Rosie’s head was often pounding so much that she felt sick, and she put it down to overtiredness. She also felt guilty about the little time she spent with Bernadette and the way she seemed to keep her at arm’s-length. She seldom picked her up or tucked her in bed or sat down in a chair with her for a story. This was partly lack of time and also because she was afraid of infecting her with this killer flu. Danny, still nowhere near demob from the army, sent a censorious letter telling Rosie to take more care of herself and Bernadette. He liked Betty but didn’t really want Rosie anywhere near her, risking all he held dear.
Rosie’s reply was swift. Wouldn’t he have put himself at risk for a comrade, injured or in trouble? she’d asked. What was the good of God giving us compassion and kindness if we turn our backs on our fellow human beings because of fear for ourselves?
Scared though he was for Rosie’s well-being, Danny had
to admit that she was right. He’d lost count of the times he’d dragged an injured man to the relative safety of the dugout. Then there was the time he’d freed his commanding officer from the barbed wire. Danny remembered he’d been so intent on his task he’d been almost unaware of the bombs and shells falling all around him, for the officer had already had his leg blown off and his lifeblood was seeping into the muddy field. Danny knew his only chance of survival was getting him to a field hospital and fast, but he couldn’t have got himself free of the barbed wire without help.
Was that any different from what Rosie was doing? Weren’t things done in the heat of the battle that you’d never attempt if you had time to think about it in peacetime?
He didn’t know, but he knew of Rosie’s stubbornness and also of her loyalty, so his next letter was more understanding. Rosie had little time to peruse it, for when she woke in Betty’s room the following morning she found the woman had given up on the fight for life. She approached the bed quietly and looked down at the woman, who in such a relatively short space of time had become a staunch friend, easing her passage in the munitions factory and helping her in all ways, and she knew she would miss her greatly.
She closed Betty’s eyes gently. She’d never done the laying out of a dead person until she helped Ida with Gertie, but now she began to remove Betty’s clothes tenderly. She wished she’d had the benefit of a priest come to see her, to pray with her. The Catholic Church was comforting in that way, it somehow gave dignity to death. But Betty, like Gertie, had not been a churchgoer. She supposed she’d go back to Reverend Gilbert, he seemed a good man. God knows how they’d pay for it. Rita said Betty must have plenty stashed away in the Post Office, but none of the women had searched for the book. If they had found it they couldn’t have cashed it and wouldn’t think they had a right anyway. If only there was news from America.
The day before the funeral, arranged for the Monday 20th January, two strangers alighted from a petrol-driven taxi, an unfamiliar sight in those streets.
The men who stepped out of it were unfamiliar too. Little could be seen of their faces under the trilby hats they both wore except for the fact that one was clean-shaven and one sported a beard. Apart from that they were identical, and wore black, well-cut coats with dark grey trousers peeping beneath and shiny black shoes of the finest leather on their feet. They were dressed for the weather too, with mufflers at their neck, and everyone watching was amazed at their smart leather gloves. Gloves on a man, except for working gloves, was considered a sissy thing to wear, but these men looked anything but sissies.
The children not yet old enough for school stopped playing on the pavements and in the gutters and gawped openly at the strange men. But most of the women knew who they probably were, though they’d not seen them for many a year.
They came out onto the steps as the men disappeared down the entry.
‘Come at last, then?’
‘Too late, though. Poor old sod’s dead and gone.’
‘Proper toffs, ain’t they. Gloves and all.’
‘Looked after Betty, though. Fair’s fair,’ another put in. ‘Sent her dollars in every letter they did.’
No-one could argue with that, or with the fact you can’t come from America in five minutes. And that’s what the two men who introduced themselves as Hugh and Chris were explaining to the three women they found in their mother’s house, who were startled to see them. ‘We should have sent a telegram,’ the younger man, Chris, said. ‘But we thought it might frighten you to death.’
Rosie remembered how the sight of the telegraph boy through the war had reduced her to jelly. Even now, with the war over, telegrams seldom signalled good news. She looked at Ida and
Rita and remembered the telegrams they’d both received and she shivered. ‘It probably would have done,’ she said.
‘We came as quickly as we could,’ Chris said. ‘’Course, both of us had to arrange time from work, and to tell you the truth it isn’t a good time at the moment. Jobs are hard enough to come by and with the soldiers coming back too it will be worse.’
‘I know,’ Rosie said with feeling, for she knew whenever Danny was released from the army he would have a tough job finding anything.
‘We decided to come as soon as we got the letter,’ Hugh said. ‘We knew no-one would have written that way if things hadn’t been serious and so as soon as we were assured we could have the time off and our jobs were safe, we booked a passage straight away.’
‘Aye, and we arrived too late,’ Chris said.
‘She wouldn’t have known you,’ Rosie said soothingly. ‘She knew no-one at the end and you did your best. I’m glad you’re here because there are things to sort out. We’ve arranged the funeral service to be held at St Paul’s. That’s in Park Road, but you may remember that. The vicar there is a Reverend Gilbert and he buried the old lady that lived in the house I have, and I found him very nice. We didn’t know if Betty…I mean, I hope that is all right for you.’
‘I’m sure that will be fine,’ Hugh said. ‘But may I ask how it was paid for?’
Rosie blushed. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t paid for everything. We had a whip-round and instead of buying flowers we put it to the funeral.’
‘Hadn’t our mother any money?’ Chris asked. ‘She told us she had a fair bit saved and we sent her more every week.’
‘We don’t know what she has,’ Rosie said. ‘We’ve never looked. Had we received no word after the funeral, I suppose we’d have had to go through her things. It isn’t something I was relishing.’
Hugh and Chris had noted the poverty of the area and knew many husbands were away, or dead, and that money wouldn’t be plentiful. ‘We’ll reimburse you, of course,’ Hugh said.