‘Jessie, the authorities don’t know Michael is German—is that it?’
‘Just mind your own business Miss Jones, go home and leave us in peace. You know Meryl is safe down here with me, just go away, forget Michael. He’s not for you—do you understand?’ Jessie’s tone was fierce. Hari faced her.
‘That’s not for you to decide, is it?’
‘So you do have a fancy for him then?’ It was a direct challenge.
‘I don’t know what I feel, I hardly know Michael. You’re making a fuss about nothing.’
‘Am I?’ Jessie didn’t look at her. ‘Well, that’s all right then, isn’t it?’
Later, dusk was closing in over the fields when Hari walked with Meryl at her side towards the jeep. Hari hugged her, realizing Jessie was right, Meryl was filling out, growing up.
‘Bye, little sis. Be good, be careful… be safe.’ She climbed in the jeep and drove away. In the mirror she could see Meryl’s face was just a pale unfamiliar blur in the growing darkness. Suddenly she was painfully, very painfully sad.
Fourteen
The house was plain, set back from the road, away from the other small cottages. Kate took a deep breath and glanced at Doreen. ‘This is it then?’
Doreen nodded. ‘Moira knows we’re coming, she’ll be ready—it won’t take long.’
Moira was friendly. She had a cup of tea ready and a few dry-looking biscuits on a plate, spaced out to look more plentiful and resting on a neat doily. A good try considering it was wartime.
Kate’s mouth was dry and her stomach was bunched up into a tight ball as if to protect the barely formed child within her. Doreen spoke.
‘This is a serious thing, mind; slipping out a baby isn’t a picnic. I just want you to know that.’ She sighed. ‘But a lot of girls are coming to me now so you’re not alone. I’m a good midwife, I’m clean as I can be and I’ll look after you when it’s over. Your chap dead is he?’
Kate nodded. ‘I think so, he’s been reported missing, that’s all I really know.’
‘Do you care about him?’
Kate nodded miserably. She just wanted to get on with it before she screamed out her fear and revulsion at what she was about to do. She was from good Irish stock and her mammy would be horrified if she knew what Kate was doing. But then she would be equally horrified to learn Kate was having a baby in the first place.
Moira took her cup away and led the way into a little lean-to at the back of the house. There was what looked like a doctor’s examination table, long and narrow and spread with a white sheet that was spotlessly clean. A metal bowl stood at the side and a wicked-looking scalpel that glinted in the overhead gas light.
Kate got on to the table and lay back. Moira lifted her skirt and pressed her knees apart. ‘You’ll have to take your underwear off, you silly girl.’
Kate sat bolt upright. ‘I can’t go on with it.’ She scrambled down from the table, pulling her skirt into place. ‘I’m sorry to waste your time. I’ll pay you, of course.’
Moira sighed and shook her head. ‘No need, I was half expecting this. You’re just not the sort. The Good Lord only knows how you’ll manage but manage you will I’m sure.’
Moira rested her hand on Kate’s shoulder. ‘Look, let me make you a cup of tea and we can talk, perhaps that will help.’
Kate sat on the shabby, comfortable sofa in the parlour of Moira’s house and looked at the faded wallpaper. It was once grand in Regency stripes, now the stripes had faded to indistinct beige. She felt numb.
‘Want to tell me about it?’ Moira handed her a cup of tea and Kate was glad of the hot liquid pouring down her dry throat.
‘Same old thing—fell in love, let him have his way—when I fell for the baby it was all too late.’ Suddenly she felt the urge to confess.
‘He wasn’t the first. I thought I was helping the boys face the thought of war and death but all I was doing was getting myself a bad reputation. When Eddie, my boyfriend, found out, he lost all his faith in me and do you wonder?’
‘It will never change. I expect when women got the vote they thought the world would be theirs, that they would be equal to men in all ways, but though a man will take a woman with very little thought for her reputation, when he marries, the hypocrite wants a virgin.’
Kate knew Eddie wasn’t like that. He had loved her, he had respected her, what would he think of what she was doing now? At last, beaten, she left the midwife’s house.
When she met Doreen outside, she shook her head. ‘I didn’t have it done, I couldn’t.’
‘Oh, Kate—’ Doreen sounded exasperated—‘you’ve done me out of a few bob now!’
Kate looked at her hard. ‘So to be sure it wasn’t concern and friendship that you offered me then, just a way to make an extra bit of money. I knew Moira gave you a few bob but I didn’t realize that’s the only reason you helped me. Thanks a million.’ She forced back the tears. ‘I thought you were quick off the mark realizing I was expecting a baby, trained to it now I expect.’
She walked away from Doreen, her eyes running with tears, could she trust no one to be a real friend? There was Hari of course but could she tell even Hari what she nearly did to her baby?
She didn’t sleep that night and she got up for work on Monday heavy-eyed and with a pounding headache. Mammy didn’t notice. She pushed a breakfast of bacon and eggs under Kate’s nose and got on with the business of making a pot of tea.
Even the tea tasted off. Kate hated being pregnant, she would never do it again so long as she lived. How she was going to cope in the coming months when it was all showing and she grew fatter and fatter she had no idea. No doubt Mammy would throw her out for the shame of it.
‘I’m late.’ She pushed her food away. ‘I’m going to have to run for the bus, Mammy. See you later,’
‘Not eating, all right are you?’
For a moment Kate thought of telling her the truth and getting it all over and done with but her courage failed her. ‘Just a bit too much to drink last night, Mammy, I’ll be all right. I’ll get something in work.’
She met Hari on the bus and sank beside her with a sigh of relief. The feeling of nausea was still with her but at least it was better now that the smell of greasy food was out from under her nose.
Hari was leafing through some papers. ‘What’s that—another letter from your dear little sister?’
‘It’s a love letter.’ Hari spoke in a tone that was so matter-of-fact that Kate almost thought it was a joke. Then she saw the sprawled signature.
‘Who is Michael?’ she asked, bewildered. She’d never heard of any Michael, not among their crowd.
‘He’s the son of the woman who owns the farm where Meryl is staying. Meryl hints he’s got German blood but his mother’s as British as we are so I suppose he’s allowed to stay. In any case, Jessie needs Michael on the farm. It’s war work, isn’t it?’
‘You’re keen on him?’
‘I don’t really know.’
‘Is he gorgeous?’
‘He’s very gorgeous.’ Hari’s cheeks were pinker than usual behind her fall of long red hair.
‘You do like him.’
‘I suppose I do.’
‘Well, don’t let him anywhere near you.’ Kate’s voice was rueful and she knew it and knew what Hari would read from it. She did.
‘What are you going to do about it, Kate?’
Kate shrugged. ‘I just don’t know Hari, live with it I expect.’
At the gates to the sheds Hari hugged Kate and then held her at arm’s length. ‘You look too small and frail for all this and you shouldn’t be carrying buckets of powder or anything else in your condition. I’m going to see if I can get you a transfer to the canteen or something.’