It was a perfect June day, the leaves dappled in the sunshine, the scent of cut grass. Adam had done the lawn and was edging it now with the half-moon. She glanced across at him and then at the baby. Their baby.
‘Hello!’ She stared into the dark eyes. She looks so wise, Kay thought, as though she’d got it all worked out. She stroked the miniature hand with her little finger and was rewarded by the small fist clutching tightly. ‘You are strong,’ she said. ‘Are you getting hungry? Mmm?’
Kay yawned. She had barely slept the last two nights. Excitement almost like a fever had bubbled around her body and she had risen countless times to check that the baby was safe. When she woke for a feed with small cries, Kay felt nothing but relief. She persuaded Adam to move the crib into their room after the first night. ‘She can go in the nursery when she’s bigger. I want to be able to hear her.’ But even in the same room she couldn't hear the infant breathing and had to keep reassuring herself. So she was very tired and completely exhilarated. Once or twice she’d felt a moment of terrible panic, her stomach dropping and fearful thoughts assailing her like blows. They’d got the wrong baby, the mother might change her mind, they’ll come and take her, we can’t look after her properly. Unsettling moments that passed quickly but frightened her and cast a shadow on her happiness. Of course, it was possible the mother would change her mind, refuse to sign the papers when it came to court. You heard of that happening. She pushed the thought away.
‘We’ll be all right, won’t we?’ She spoke to the baby. ‘Of course we will.’ She closed her eyes, praying again. Prayers of thanks that now after all this time she had what she longed for.
Adam came over and knelt beside her, lit a cigarette and took a long pull on it. He was an attractive man – people said he reminded them of the singer Adam Faith with darker hair. He had that slightly rugged look and the dimple in his chin. Very occasionally she wondered if he’d like her to be slimmer. Lord knows, she had tried but nothing helped. She put on a few pounds every year and it never came off. She was big, not fat – she didn’t like to think of it like that – but generously proportioned. Everybody couldn’t be thin, after all. And she was big in all the right places. Like Marilyn Monroe. And Kay always made sure she looked her best: she had her hair permed and she never went out without doing her make-up. She wore scarlet lipstick. Adam never mentioned her size and he obviously enjoyed her in bed.
He sat back on the grass in the sun. ‘She’s awake?’
‘Lunch time, nearly.’
‘I could give her the bottle. While you get ours.’
‘Yes?’
‘Can’t be that tricky.’
She laughed. ‘You’d be surprised. Oh, Adam, she’s so lovely. I can’t imagine that some people wouldn’t want her just because of that ear. It’s nothing.’
She looked at the baby’s left ear, which was little more than a whorl of flesh, the shell of the ear had obviously not grown properly prior to birth.
‘She is lovely.’ He leaned forward to look at the baby. ‘Aren’t you? Theresa, my pet.’
‘Are you sure?’ Kay glanced at him. ‘About keeping the name?’
‘We both like it.’
‘And we could have Lisa for her middle name.’
‘Theresa Lisa Farrell. Theresa Farrell. I prefer it without.’
‘Yes, but if she has a middle name it gives her a choice. Some people don’t like their first name, she could use Lisa then.’
‘We don’t need to decide yet.’ He lay back and put his cigarette to his mouth again.
The baby’s face furrowed and she turned a deep red. She twisted her head left and right and began to cry, a lusty sound as though some sudden calamity had befallen her.
‘Oh, dear. Here -’ she held the child out to Adam – ‘mind your cigarette.’ He ground it out between the roots of the tree. ‘There. I’ll make her bottle.’
He held the baby in the crook of one arm and walked over the grass singing ‘The Grand Old Duke Of York’, loudly and off-key.
Kay went in close to tears, the swell of emotions overwhelming her. I am a mother, she thought. She is my daughter. She wanted to dance and pray and never, never forget the moment. She put a stack of records on to play, sang along to Jerry Keller’s ‘Here Comes Summer’ as she got out the ingredients for salmon salad sandwiches. Jived round the kitchen to ‘Three Steps to Heaven’ by Eddie Cochran.
Caroline
Caroline was accepted into the nursing school at Manchester Royal Infirmary and began work in January 1962.
The regime was extremely strict. The new recruits lived in fear of the senior staff and Matron enjoyed a ferocious reputation and a godlike status.
The job was demanding. Caroline was responsible for bed-making, emptying bedpans, assisting other staff, lifting and assisting patients to use the toilet, serving drinks and changing dressings. She knew she hadn’t much of a bedside manner and preferred the patients who were too ill to make small talk.
She missed the open air. The nearest park, Whitworth park, was a flat space with trees and shrubs. She hungered for hills and huge outcrops of rocks, clean air and breathtaking views. Manchester was filthy. Her uniform was thick with grime before she’d finished her shift and the smog was awful. Caroline shared a room in the nurses’ home with Victoria and Doreen. Doreen had come from Ireland, she was little and doll-like and made them laugh with her Irish sayings and her occasional bad language. Two months after they all started she disappeared.
‘Her clothes have gone.’ Victoria showed Caroline the empty drawers. ‘Everything.’
‘Maybe she was homesick?’
‘She never said anything. Do you think we could ask someone?’
Caroline shrugged. She didn’t fancy trying to talk to anyone about it. They’d bite your head off soon as look at you.
A new girl was allocated to take the room and still nothing was said.
In the end Victoria persuaded Caroline to join forces with her and approach Sister Mahr, one of the younger nurses who had a lot of contact with the new girls.
She led them into the nurses’ station and shut the door.
‘I’m afraid Doreen let herself and everybody down. She behaved improperly and found herself expecting.’
Caroline felt her face go cold, a prickle brushed across her neck and upper arms. She stared at the floor.
‘Instead of throwing herself on the mercy of the societies that are there to help, she…’
Caroline swallowed, remembered the corner in the garden, the feel of the shawl, the weight of the baby cradled in one arm.
‘… she tried to kill her baby.’
Victoria drew her breath in sharply, her hand flew to her mouth.
There had been no rumours, Caroline thought, not a whisper. If she’d collapsed in the hospital someone would have seen something, overheard enough to pass on.
‘She went to an abortionist.’ The word was shocking. Like a big, dark-red blood clot in the nurse’s mouth. ‘The police are involved.’
Caroline could feel heat blooming through her, replacing the shivers, pressure in her head. Oh, Doreen.
‘What will happen to her?’ Victoria asked.
‘Nothing now. She didn’t survive. They found her by the canal.’ Her voice was bitter.
‘Oh,’ Victoria said softly.
Doreen. Little Doreen with her bright eyes and her delicate features. Why hadn’t she gone to St Ann’s? How on earth did she know where to find a person who did that? What did they use? She imagined a knife, a grappling hook, balked at the pictures.
A ewe had haemorrhaged once up on Colby’s Farm. So much blood and the ewe had struggled until its wool was crimson and then it had jerked, spasms racking it until it lay still.
Doreen. Did her family know? Would she get a proper burial? Caroline couldn’t find the words to ask. Why had they come here? It would be better not to know, to imagine that Doreen had just gone home, fed up of the place.