Cath Staincliffe - Trio

‘I’m not pregnant, Duncan.’ She funnelled the words through tightly held teeth. ‘I could have been but nothing happened. Just like Catherine. Looks like the problem lies with you.’ She saw the remark meet its target, piercing his self-esteem and rocking all that superior certainty. He pressed his lips together and turned away. She felt cheap and mean but it was his own fault. She blinked several times and resumed typing. Hitting the keys and banging the carriage return far too hard, the stinging in her hands a welcome distraction from the coil of fury breaking around her heart.

Caroline

She bent to pull the sheet from the bed, adding it to the pile in the cart. The effort made her grunt. She was big now, enormous. She felt like a clumsy giant. The skin of her belly was all stretched and you could see the veins like blue threads criss-crossing it. Nearly lunchtime and her feet were already aching. She could feel her bones pressing against the floor, her ankles swollen and hot.

‘What will you do after?’ Megan had been put on to laundry with her. Cook wouldn’t put up with her rushing out to be sick every half-hour. Megan worked quickly. She was like a bird, Caroline thought, small and swift and she had those alert bright-blue eyes.

‘Go home.’

‘Have you finished with school?’

Caroline nodded. She had not been able to complete her final year and get her certificate. She’d be too old now, no one ever went back to school. She liked the idea of farming but the only way to do that was to marry a farmer and even thinking of Roy and the farm made her belly turn over and her mouth dry up. She liked to grow things. She’d helped Grandma on her allotment since she was a tiny child and had absorbed all her tips and sayings and become familiar with the cycle of the year. Last year she’d grown enough vegetables on her own patch to be able to feed the family and give stuff away. There wouldn’t be anything this year. The weeds would be waist high. By the time she went home it would be too late to sow anything. If she went home…

She was making a plan. Not something she could share with anyone. Especially not Megan, who was always up to the minute on the latest rumours. So Caroline kept pretending that she was going to behave just like all the others. Give in, give her baby up.

Between them they dragged the cart to the next beds.

One of the worst things about being in the home was not being able to go out. She couldn’t just go off for a walk, not that her ankles would let her go far, but even trips to the park were discouraged. As if the girls were contagious. She felt cooped-up. She wanted to be up on the ridge or down at Shudder’s Force, where the water cascaded from the limestone cliff into the pool at the bottom; see the drops spraying on to the ferns and reeds that ringed the pool, spy the deadly nightshade. Drink in the smell of wet stone and drown in the roar from the falls.

She wrestled with a pillowcase. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do. Look for a position in Bolton. There’s not much out our way.’

‘Factories pay well, they’re always taking people on.’

Caroline nodded. She might have to do that but the thought of being stuck in a shed all day amid the clamour and commotion and the gangs of girls with their flashy make-up and endless joking made her skin clammy. She was a country girl, not like Megan and Joan, who had lived in the city all their lives; who were used to the bustle and the noise and the hard edge everything had.

‘Will you go back to the same place?’ Caroline asked Megan.

‘If they’ll have me. It’s only five minutes down the road and they’re a great bunch. We all go down the Mecca Ballroom of a Friday.’ Megan stretched her hands out and began to dance, rolling her big stomach from side to side and clicking her fingers.

Caroline laughed. ‘Give over.’

‘Something funny?’ Sister Vincent swept into the room, acid on her tongue.

‘No, Sister.’ They both replied.

‘No. I don't think there’s much to laugh at, is there? Your time would be better spent meditating on your transgression and begging Our Lady to intercede for you.’ Her eyes were steely, her lips pursed with dislike.

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘When you’ve done this, fetch the laundry from the nursery too.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Caroline listened to the rustle of long skirts and the clap-clap of her shoes as the nun withdrew. Megan pulled a face but neither of them spoke.

Caroline didn’t like going down to the nursery. All the cots and the babies bundled in them. She didn’t like to see that, it made her think of her baby destined for one of those cots, bound for another life, and how she must stop that happening. As she bent to fold the blanket, she felt the baby turn and butt up against her ribs. She stopped and put her hand there.

‘You OK?’

‘Kicked.’

‘Mine’s at it a lot. Reckon I’ve got the next Jimmy Greaves in here. It’s either a footballer or a clog dancer.’

But you’ll never know, Caroline thought. We’ll never know anything of what becomes of them – who they are – if we leave them. And the heavy dread settled on her like a rock.

Joan

There was only one person who knew that Joan had not gone to London; her friend Frances whose rooming house Joan was supposedly living in. Joan wrote to Frances explaining her situation, begging her not to let her down and asking if she would forward letters from Joan to her family.

I couldn’t bear to see them hurt because of my own dreadful mistake. It would be hateful for them to lose their reputation too. Please say you’ll help?

‘Of course I’ll help,’ her friend replied by return of post.

It’s not my place to judge you and you’re right, why should everyone else suffer? What does the man say? Hasn’t he offered to marry you? It was such a shock to hear your news. Perhaps you could come to London after all when it is all over. It is so thrilling Joan, you should see Oxford Street and Carnaby Street and all the new styles. I’ve just treated myself to a new spring coat. Bright pink and utterly gorgeous. I've also been out several times with a boy from work called Harold. We go to the Palais jiving, it reminds me of the Plaza back home – we had some wonderful lunchtimes there, didn’t we? Not sure what I think of Harold yet but he has dishy eyes and he’s very keen. That’s enough about me. I hope you don’t feel too wretched and that time passes quickly.

Your friend always,

Frances.

Joan lay in the dark and thought about Frances. What would she have done without her? She couldn’t sleep. Someone had said it was preparation for when the baby came, so they would be used to broken nights. Joan had heartburn, ghastly and constant, she had to sleep virtually upright. She would hear Caroline snoring softly and Megan coughing.

They never really talked about it, Joan thought. Here they were, all in the same boat and plain as the nose on your face, but it was alluded to almost as if it was happening to someone else. They were all stand-ins, she thought. She felt the baby swivel, moved her hand across her stomach and felt a hard lump through her belly. The lump moved, she took her hand away. How could she do this? She didn’t want this child moving inside her, she didn’t want a baby. She was fearful of the labour. Women died, some of them, their life bleeding away. The panic gripped her and the acid reflux rose in her throat. She shuffled further upright, rubbed at her chest with one hand, trying to soothe the burning pain. There was no way back. It was like Hansel and Gretel without the white stones or the kindly white bird. She closed her eyes and made a simple prayer. Please God, let it be all right. Let it be over soon. Don’t let me die. They thought she was so poised, Megan and Caroline, she could see it in their glances and hear it in their questions. They were little more than children themselves, too young for all this, and she… If they only knew, she felt as lost as they did, but because she was older they expected her to be measured and grown-up about it all, like a big sister they could rely on.