Anne Bennett - Forget-Me-Not Child

‘I’m not looking that far ahead,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll worry about it if it happens. As for Kate Bishop, she seems not to be able to conceive one so easy, so I doubt they’ll ever be that many eventually.’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ Norah said. ‘I’ve seen it before. They have trouble catching for one and then as if the body knows what to do, they pop another out every year or so.’

‘Proper Job’s comforter you are,’ Mary said and added with a smile, ‘Are you going to put the kettle on or what? A body could die of thirst in this place.’

There was no change in the McClusky household over the next couple of years. Sean, now halfway through his apprenticeship, got a rise, but it was nothing much, and Matt too was earning more so the purse strings eased, but only slightly. Towards the end of that year, Norah told Mary she was sure Kate Bishop was pregnant. There was a definite little bump that hadn’t been there before. By the turn of the year Stan was nearly shouting it from the rooftops and though he was like a dog with two tails, Kate was having a difficult pregnancy and was sick a lot and not just for the first three months, like the morning sickness many women suffered from.

Many women gave her advice of things they had tried themselves, or some old wives’ tale they had heard about, for all the women agreed with Mary that Kate Bishop couldn’t afford to lose weight for she had none to lose. She was due at Easter and she hardly looked pregnant as the time grew near. ‘God!’ Mary said to Norah. ‘I was like a stranded whale with all of mine. I do hope that girl is all right. I saw her the other day and couldn’t believe it, her wrists and arms are very skinny and her skin looks sort of thin.’

‘She’s still singing every Sunday morning though,’ Norah said. ‘And she practises through the day, does her scales and everything.’

‘I suppose it helps keep her mind off things.’

‘Maybe. Can’t be long now though.’

On the fifteenth of April Kate Bishop’s pains began in the early hours and though Stan had engaged a nurse, it was soon apparent that the services of a doctor were needed and he booked an ambulance, and while he was waiting for it to come Kate had a massive haemorrhage and died.

Stan was distraught at losing his beloved wife and he couldn’t cope with his new-born son. Both Mary and Norah were often in the house with Stan, mainly caring for the baby and making meals for Stan he had no appetite to eat. Sometimes he seemed almost unaware of their presence and both Mary and Norah felt quite helpless that they could do nothing to ease Stan’s pain and were glad when Kate’s older sister Betty arrived.

She was married to Roger Swanage and though they lived in a nice house that Roger had inherited from his widowed mother, still they had no children though Betty had been trying for years to conceive. She took charge of Stan’s son and Roger took it upon himself to organize the funeral for Kate because Stan seemed incapable, though he did insist on choosing the hymns because Kate had favourites and he chose those.

Betty seemed surprised at the numbers who turned out for the funeral but Kate had been popular and very young to lose her life in that tragic way, so the church was packed, including many men, as the foundry was closed that day as a mark of respect. Even those not going to the Mass stood at their doorways in silence as the cart carrying the coffin passed, some making the sign of the cross, and any men on the road removed their hats and stood with bowed heads.

The Requiem Mass seemed interminable and Mary heard many sniffs in the congregation as Father Brannigan spoke of the grievous loss of the young woman leaving a child to grow up without a mother’s love, and the loss would be felt through the whole community, but particularly by her grieving husband and her family, and the choir where she had been a stalwart member. Eventually it was over and the congregation moved off to Key Hill Cemetery in Hockley, as St Catherine’s didn’t have its own cemetery.

The wind had increased during the Mass and it buffeted them from side to side, billowing all around them, and when they stood by the open grave the wind-driven rain attacked them, stabbing at their faces like little needles – a truly dismal day. As the priest intoned further prayers for the dear departed and they began lowering the coffin with ropes, Stan gasped and staggered and would have fallen, but Matt reached out and put a hand upon his shoulder. ‘Steady man. Nearly over.’ The clods of earth fell with dull thuds on to the lid and they all turned thankfully away and walked back through the gusty, rain-sodden day to the back room of The Swan where a sumptuous feast was laid out, made by the landlord’s wife and her two daughters.

Everyone seemed to think that it was right and proper that Kate’s childless sister should rear the motherless child. Even Father Brannigan saw it as an ideal solution when he called to see them a week after the funeral to discuss the child’s future and baptism.

‘And you are fully prepared to take on the care of the child?’ he asked Betty, though his gaze took in Roger too.

It was Betty who answered, ‘Oh yes, Father,’ she said. ‘Kate was my own younger sister and I’m sure she would wish me to do this, and how can I not love her child as if he were my own?’

‘And have you children of your own?’

‘Sadly no,’ Betty said. ‘The Lord hasn’t seen fit to grant me any and we have a fine house waiting for a child to fill it.’

‘Well I think that eminently suitable,’ the priest said. ‘What of you, Stan? Are you in agreement with this?’

Stan turned vacant eyes on the priest. He wondered how he could explain to the priest, without shocking him to the core, that he cared little for the tiny mite held in Betty’s arms so tenderly, the mite his wife had died giving birth to. And he contented himself giving a shrug of his shoulders.

Father Brannigan saw the intense sorrow in his deep eyes and knew for Stan the pain of his loss was too raw to discuss things to do with the child, and so he thought it a good thing his sister-in-law was there. He turned again to Betty. ‘And have you chosen names?’

‘Yes,’ Betty said decidedly. ‘I want him called Daniel.’

Stan’s head shot up at that and the priest was pretty certain he hadn’t known of Betty’s plan. And he hadn’t, and though he and Kate had discussed names, Daniel hadn’t been mentioned, yet Betty said Kate would approve of Daniel. ‘It was the name of our late father,’ she said to Stan.

Stan hadn’t the energy to protest and felt anyway he had no right. Betty was going to raise the child, therefore she should have the right to name that child too. And Betty could be quite right – since it was the name of Kate’s father she might have called him Daniel in the end. ‘I don’t mind what the child is called,’ he said, ‘but I want Matt and Mary McClusky as godparents.’

Mary was delighted to be asked but she noted the jealous way Betty held on to the child. While she was willing for Mary to take him from her and hold his head over the font so that the priest could dribble water over it, she took him back afterwards and would let no one else, not even his own father, hold him and Mary felt the first stirrings of unease. Stan on the other hand was pleased initially to leave everything to Betty and for Daniel to be taken back to their fine house in Sutton Coldfield after the christening.

‘Where is Sutton Coldfield?’ Mary asked Matt a few weeks later

‘I’m not sure myself,’ Matt said. ‘I know it’s a fair distance and a posh place, so Stan was telling me. He said Betty and Roger live in a big house built of red brick with a blue slate roof. And although it’s not on the doorstep it’s easy enough to get to because a little steam train runs from New Street Station and then the station in Sutton is just yards from their house.’