The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers (12 page)

‘What time do you have to be back?’ John asked, as we sped away.

‘Nine o’clock,’ I said. ‘Sharp.’

My brother grinned at me through the rear-view mirror. It was so good to see him. ‘Absolutely no problem,’ he replied. ‘Wouldn’t want to be in Reverend Mother’s bad
books . . .’

It was strange to be speeding along the deserted country roads in my brother’s car – strange but also lovely. The adult world seemed to be slumbering. Trees
twinkled behind net curtains and chimneys belched smoke, but outside it was a child’s world made sparkly by the frost. We passed children on bikes and scooters, red-nosed and laughing. We
passed others on foot, kicking balls and walking dogs. I felt a rush of emotion on seeing a small boy with black hair and realising I wouldn’t see my own child like this. I would just have to
imagine it, I thought bleakly.

But Emmie and John’s chatter brought me back to the present; it was a real tonic to see them and to have a chance to spend time with them. I had never felt uncomfortable in their presence
and they had never been anything but sympathetic and supportive. It was a chance to catch up properly with what John had been up to before being delivered to the less relaxed setting of my
mother’s house. He had left the army and, following his national service, had returned to his stockjobber firm in the London Stock Exchange, which he told me he was really enjoying again. And
Emmie, always so warm and such a friend to me, was her usual bright and chatty self.

I had been right about the likely atmosphere on arrival. As soon as we went into the house, I felt anxious and uncomfortable. I had not set foot in the bungalow, even to visit, since the
previous summer when I’d left to live at June’s. I felt disorientated to be there again now. I couldn’t quite believe that this would be where I’d be returning after the
adoption, that I’d be living here again, with my mother and Sam, just the three of us. It wasn’t simply an emotional response: after the Victorian spaciousness of the convent, the
bungalow felt overwhelmingly claustrophobic and confined.

I don’t think it was any easier for my mother and stepfather than it was for me, and consequently, though everyone was superficially cheerful and cordial, it seemed almost like an
out-of-body experience, particularly in my so recently post-natal state.

Paul was on my mind constantly. Presents were exchanged and opened, of course – I got new clothes from John and Emmie, practical slippers and pyjamas and some money from my mother –
and I couldn’t help wondering: would there be something for me to take back for him? At the same time I already knew the answer to that question. Of course there wouldn’t be any
presents for my baby. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. How could you buy a present for a child who couldn’t even be acknowledged? Whose very
existence was a terrible guilty secret? It felt so strange and so sad to be sitting in my own home, with my own family, and being unable to mention the very thing that mattered most to me in the
whole world. No one, at any point – not even fleetingly, as I walked in through the front door – so much as asked me how he was.

Were it not for the presence of the ‘elephant in the room’, it would have passed as a perfectly normal Boxing Day. As I’d not been there on Christmas Day, much of the time was
spent on the normal Christmas rituals, such as having a big lunch, followed by the presents, followed by tea, then several rounds of cards.

I’d been told I must be back in the convent by 9 p.m., so we started to think about setting off around 7.30, as we needed to be away by 8 at the latest. John would take me alone, and
return for Emmie on the way home. I was getting anxious to leave, in any case, because the image of Paul had been tugging at me constantly, drawing me home to him as surely as if it were his own
tiny hand pulling mine.

How would he be? Would he have missed me? Would he be fretful and distressed? I had found it hard to relax, feeling so much like a visitor in my own home, and I was keen to return to the safe,
familiar haven of the convent, with its community of other mothers and reassuring routine, where I realised I felt so much more at home. But most of all, I ached for my little baby.

It had long since grown dark, and we’d closed the curtains. When we opened the door, it was to find the road outside cloaked in an impenetrable fog.

‘Oh, my,’ exclaimed my mother to John, as she looked out. ‘How on earth are you going to be able to drive Angela back in that?’

‘Dear me,’ agreed Sam, coming up to peer over her shoulder. ‘That’s not looking too clever, is it?’

‘I have to get back,’ I responded quickly, panicking that they might suggest I sleep there for the night. ‘I have no choice.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ John said then, reassuring us. ‘Probably just local. You’ll see. Soon as we’ve set off, it’ll clear.’

‘Are you sure?’ my mother persisted. ‘It looks terribly thick to me.’

‘Yes, I’m completely sure,’ he said firmly, and I was so grateful for his firmness. I don’t know if he felt as confident as he sounded, but I could tell he sensed my
anxiety about getting back to Paul. ‘Come on, Angela,’ he said, picking up my bag of presents and clothes, and nudging me out through the door. ‘Let’s get going. Don’t
want to be late for Reverend Mother!’

But it very soon transpired that we would be. As we drove north, towards the convent, the fog only increased in opacity, and we were reduced to driving along the road at little better than
walking speed. After about an hour even John, who up until then had been so sure all would be well, began to express doubts about whether we’d make it.

‘There’s just no let up, is there?’ he said, peering blindly into the white swirls in front of us. He glanced across at me, conscious of me checking my watch every two minutes.
‘I’m sorry, sis, I daren’t go any faster, I really don’t. If there’s a car ahead going slower—’

‘No, no, that’s fine,’ I said. ‘Just as long as I get there eventually.’ I was terrified he’d decide to turn back.

‘Oh, don’t you worry, we’ll get there,’ he said. ‘Even if it is in the small hours.’

I was so grateful. But I also felt wretched for making him do this for me. This was all my fault, every single bit of it. If I hadn’t made the visit, if I hadn’t been in the convent,
if I hadn’t put myself in this terrible situation in the first place . . . But I had to get back. The thought of leaving Paul overnight was unthinkable. However long it took, I had to get
there.

The one thing I couldn’t bear to do was to telephone and warn them I’d be late, even had we managed to spot a public phone box by the road. Just the thought of their admonishments
– ‘You should have planned better! You should have thought about the consequences! You shouldn’t have been so cavalier! What about your responsibility to your baby?’ –
was enough to put the idea of phoning out of my mind. It would be crazy to detour to try to find a phone box, in any case. No, better just to get there and face the music.

It was almost midnight by the time the convent finally came into view, appearing like some sort of ghostly Gothic mansion as it took shape beyond the swirling mist. The fog was
almost opaque still, but through it we could see the lamp burning above the front door and the glow from an interior light casting a yellowy haze from beyond a window. Apart from that, the building
lay in darkness.

I was deeply distressed by now, not only because I feared how my poor little boy had fared without me, but also because I knew that Sister Teresa and the Reverend Mother would both be
furious.

I said tearful goodbyes to John – I simply couldn’t thank him enough for getting me back – and wished him the one thing he probably couldn’t count on: an uneventful and
safe journey home.

‘I’ll wait in the car, though,’ he reassured me, having tried but failed to convince me that he should come to the door with me.

I was insistent. He had done more than enough already, I thought, and didn’t need a dressing down for his efforts.

While he waited, engine idling, I turned towards the front step and approached the front door, knocking gently at first, and then with increasing strength, as it occurred to me that they had
probably given up on me altogether and gone to bed, assuming I’d decided not to bother coming back at all. In which case, I realised anxiously, I could be here for some time, since I doubted
if anyone would hear me.

Even though I was expecting Sister Teresa’s wrath, I’d underestimated it. She was almost beside herself with anger.

‘Where on earth have you been, girl!!?’ she barked at me, her crêpy, wrinkled face almost as white as the mist and her dark eyes flashing daggers as she dragged me inside.

She didn’t seem to want to waste time on explanations or recriminations, and immediately dismissed my attempts to explain what had happened. ‘I don’t want to hear your
excuses,’ she hissed at me, obviously mindful that we were now inside and might wake people. ‘Just go to the nursery and sort out your baby!’ she snapped. ‘He’s been
crying all day. All day long, Angela. And all evening, too, and he’s disturbing all the other babies. Causing such trouble to everyone! I really don’t know what’s the matter with
him. Now, hurry!’

Why did she need to tell me that he’d been crying all day? It was so cruel, so needless, so unnecessary. And her tone was so mean. It was as if I’d produced some freak of nature,
sent to try them and not, as was probably the case, that my baby was just miserable without me and had no other means to communicate that fact. No idea why he was crying? How ridiculous!

I needed no further encouragement to get away from her, and hurried off, as instructed, to take care of Paul. He had indeed been crying. I could see that straight away. His eyes were puffy and
his face scarlet. As I picked him up and held him to me, I could feel his little heartbeat, banging furiously against my chest.

I quickly changed him, which helped to settle him, conscious of Sister Teresa’s silhouetted presence in the doorway like some grim reaper. I could hardly see, because she’d only
allowed me to turn on one tiny lamp, so I settled him with nervous fingers, groping around in the dark. I so wanted to hold him to me, stay with him, tell him I was sorry for having left him and
promise I’d never leave him alone like that again.

Once I was done, under the glowering scrutiny of Sister Teresa, I tiptoed quietly up the stairs to the attic dormitory, where I lay down on my bed, still in my coat and clothes, and wept my
heart out. I felt exhausted, but my mind was full of guilt. How would I be able to cope with letting another man and woman have my baby? How could anyone look after him as well as I could? My
unexpectedly long absence had made the answer painfully clear: no one could.

J
ust as Christmas had, the New Year passed very quietly. It was a day that was spent in much the same way as any other. Though it heralded the
start of a new year, all I could think of, as we sat in the common room on New Year’s Eve, was how very different it felt from the previous one.

The London I’d known at the end of 1962 wasn’t swinging quite yet. It was an innocent time – more like an extension of the 1950s. The clothes were getting more colourful, the
pleasures were simple, and the music was upbeat and optimistic. My principal pleasures had been similarly chaste: going to coffee bars, listening to pop music and dancing.

Guthrie and Co.’s offices were on Gracechurch Street, in the City, just a short walk from the River Thames and the Monument. The previous New Year’s Eve I’d taken my going-out
clothes into work with me that morning; once I’d finished work, Tricia, my closest friend at the time, and I got changed in the office. We often went out straight from work, rather than going
home first. Because London is such a big city and many people commuted long distances, it made no sense to travel all the way out and return again.

We rarely ate in the evenings and existed mostly on cake. With luncheon vouchers being one of the perks of our jobs, we’d usually have a proper meal and a pudding at lunchtime. This left
us free to spend the evening dancing and having fun. On New Year’s Eve, we headed to Trafalgar Square, so we could join the growing throng assembling around the giant tree between the
fountains, then as now a gift to London from Norway.

That night I mostly recall laughing as people jumped in the fountain (back in those days it was de rigueur to climb in and splash around) and then losing a shoe when the crowd surged forwards as
Big Ben struck twelve. I had a big job on trying to retrieve my shoe before the Tube ride back to Tricia’s, in Dagenham, where I often stayed the night.

What a different New Year’s Day I’d woken up to the following morning to the one that lay ahead of me now.

Now I was concerned about the immediate future, and how I would get through the next days and weeks. During the first week in January, Pauline, the girl from Cromer, left with
her baby Alexander – the son she’d named after Alessandro, the Italian student who had abandoned her to her fate all those months ago. It was a horrible day, and one that would stay
with me forever, mostly because of the sound of Pauline sobbing.

I recall sitting in the nursery, doing our morning feed that day, and all we could hear was the anguished sound of her uncontrollable sobbing as she gave him the last bottle of milk she’d
ever feed him. I recall the silence, the atmosphere of bleak desperation, and how no one felt able to do or say anything to comfort her – we all knew that no words of comfort were adequate,
so it was better to say nothing. And we didn’t need to say anything, not really, because we understood how she felt. Our love and empathy didn’t need to be made vocal.

But I couldn’t bear it. As she was about to leave the nursery, I hastily put Paul down and followed her out. I wasn’t sure I’d have another chance to see her before she and
Alexander left.

‘Oh, Angela,’ she cried, turning as I called her name. I spread my arms and she half fell into them, sobbing against my chest.

‘Shh,’ I said, stroking her hair.