Lifting buckets of water all day long, her back ached that much she didn’t even realize she’d started till her waters broke. The supervisor told her to walk—walk? Was she joking? — across the yard to the infirmary, where she got undressed and hauled herself onto the bed. Sister Mortimer stood at the end, watching her. “Not as much fun getting it out as it was putting it in, is it?” Wasn’t that much bloody fun putting it in, she wanted to say. Didn’t, of course. Oh, and you didn’t dare groan. “Shut that noise up. You’ll be worse before you’re better.” Not a shred of sympathy, not a grain. Oh, she could’ve told them a thing or two, might’ve done, only another pain was building, and she needed every bit of breath…And then, amazingly, all in a great rush, there he was.
Purple. Was he supposed to be that color? Oh, but what a pair of lungs, couldn’t be that much wrong with him. She wanted to hold him, but they wouldn’t let her. She watched as he was wrapped, expertly, in a white cotton blanket and taken away. She caught one more glimpse of him, just the top of his head, as Sister Mortimer turned to push the door open with her hip, and she whispered, but only to herself: Good luck, son.
Back on the streets, with leaking breasts and a craving for sweetness no amount of cake could satisfy, she palled up with a lass called Millie and they went to Glasgow together. Back in munitions, earning good money, she thought Albert might disappear, just fade away, but he didn’t. If she got upset — oh, and she did, she couldn’t stop thinking about the baby — Albert was there. Some days he was in and out that often she lost track of things. There were holes in her memory, so many holes it was like lace, or a cabbage leaf when the caterpillars have been at it.
But then she met Howard. The best thing that ever happened to her. And the worst. In the twinkling of an eye — Howard’s eye, needless to say — she was pregnant, only this time she knew what to do. Howard was more or less disabled—gas, he said, though forty fags a day didn’t help much, either the budget or his lungs — so she had to work. So there she was, walking round the back streets looking for an address. Mucky old woman come to the door, you could’ve planted a row of tatties in her neck — now there was a warning — but really there was no choice. Up on the bed, spread your legs. Sometimes, looking back on her life, she thought she’d never done anything else. Well, yes, she had — she’d opened her mouth and let the dead speak through her.
Five days after, she collapsed in the street. Temperature sky-high. “You silly, silly, silly girl,” the ward sister said. Bit more sympathetic than most.
No more babies after that. Not that Howard minded — he was a baby himself.
Last bed now, last basin. She was free to go, get her hat and coat from the cupboard. Nice hat, she was very fond of it, it always made her feel good — and it hadn’t cost a lot, she’d picked it up for a penny in a jumble sale. Still, with a bit of green ribbon and some artificial roses it didn’t look too bad. Cheered her up, anyway — she could see the roses bobbing as she walked. She was passing the door of his ward now. Perhaps she better leave it? Just walk past? But no, she couldn’t do that.
The bed was empty, stripped, the screens folded and pushed back against the wall. Of course, she’d known he was going — but still, it was a shock. For a minute, she just stood and stared, then rested one hand lightly on the mattress. Mam. Probably the last thing he’d ever said. Ah, well. Never any hope, not with a head wound like that, the only mystery was why he’d lasted as long as he had. She patted the bed and turned away.
She was just leaving the ward when Sister Wilkinson caught up with her. “Would you mind taking this down to the laundry?”
“This” was a trolley loaded with soiled sheets. His sheets, probably. She could’ve said: ’Course I bloody well mind, I’m off duty. Still, it paid to stay on the right side of the sisters — and Wilkie was nicer than most.
So she took the trolley and began trundling it along the main corridor. Like a lot of the trolleys, it had a mind of its own and would keep veering to the left. Like a bloody wrestling match, sometimes. So she lurched and swayed along, the roses in her hat bobbing, thinking how nice it would be to put her feet up when she got home, have half an hour on the bed…At least, though, she could take the lift — you were allowed to, if you had a trolley.
She hated the basement: so dark, gloomy and deserted, though not, of course, the laundry: that was the same hellhole of hissing steam and clanking buckets she remembered from the home. As she pushed the swing doors open and pulled the trolley through, she was breathing in smells of soap and disinfectant, her eyes were watering — horrible stuff, that disinfectant — and she was remembering the girl whose waters had broken all over the damp floor. And they’d made her mop it up. Had they? Now she come to think of it, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t always remember things right, on account of Albert.
“Can I help you?”
The supervisor, drying her red, wet hands on a towel. Friendly words, but not a friendly tone, no, not at all. Bertha pushed the trolley in her direction and turned, wordlessly, away. Outside, in the corridor, she stopped to consider. No conveniently empty trolley to take back to the ward, so she was going to have to face the stairs. And she was feeling a bit peculiar, the way she sometimes did when Albert was on his way. Perhaps she could chance the lift? No, better not. She started to walk the length of the corridor towards the staircase at the far end. No windows, no natural light, the strip light overhead kept flickering, keeping time with the pulsing in her head. She had a headache starting — always one-sided, her headaches. The throbbing turned to muttering, low, at first, but getting louder. She must be passing the morgue. Normally, she’d have said: Sorry, love, not working. But not today. After a second’s hesitation, standing outside the door, she pushed it open and walked in.
A barred window set high in the opposite wall let in a grudging light, but enough to see three figures, draped in white sheets, and lying stretched out on slabs like huge dead fish. A fan churned up the heavy, lifeless air. The muttering had stopped, probably because he’d heard the door open, but then it started again. It was coming from the nearest slab.
As she walked towards him, she saw the sheet wasn’t quite long enough to cover him. He’d grown tall, her boy. Reaching out, she touched the thick yellow soles of his feet. Her fingertips, rasping over hard skin, found no lingering warmth, but farther up, in the folds of his groin, he was warm still. At last, standing by his head, but with no recollection of getting there, she pulled back the sheet and looked into his face. Smiling a little, she waited for his eyes to open, for the moment when he’d know her again, and say it, say that word: Mam.
“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
A man in a white coat, Adam’s apple jerking in his throat. Dumbly, she stared, then forced herself to say something, anything. Laundry, she managed to get out at last. She’d been sent to fetch clean laundry.
“Well, you won’t find any in here. The laundry’s back there.”
She could tell he didn’t believe her. Dropping the sheet, she said, “I thought he moved.”
“Moved? Good God, woman, are you mad?” Then, when she didn’t answer: “Where do you work?”
“I’m a ward maid.”
Shouldn’t’ve said that. Now he’d report her to matron and she’d get the sack. There’d been several complaints about her work, already — she was on borrowed time here. She started to edge past him, hardly breathing till she reached the door. He didn’t try to follow her or ask any more questions, just stood and watched her go. As the door closed behind her, she looked back, seeing his accusing face narrow to a crack and finally disappear.