Kay Brellend - Rosie’s War

John studied his wristwatch. ‘Time for her bottle. I’ll watch her if you want to go and get it.’ Muffling moans of pain, he wriggled closer to peer at the baby’s dust-smudged face. He took out from a pocket his screwed-up hanky.

‘No! Don’t use that, Dad. It’s filthy; I’ll wash her properly later … when we go upstairs.’ Rosie smiled to show her father she appreciated his concern. But she wasn’t having him wiping her precious daughter’s face with his snot rag.

‘She’s hungry,’ John said, affronted by his daughter’s telling off.

Rosie made to get up, then sank back down to the mattress again. ‘Kitchen’s blown to smithereens. Won’t find the bottles or the milk powder; won’t be able to wash her either, if the water’s off.’ She began unbuttoning her bodice. ‘I’ll feed her,’ she said. Turning a shoulder to her father so as not to embarrass him, she helped the child to latch onto a nipple. Her breasts were rock hard with milk, hot and swollen, but she put up with the discomfort, biting her lip against the pain. She encouraged the baby to feed with tiny caresses until finally she stopped suckling and seemed to fall asleep with a sated sigh.

‘What you gonna call her?’ John whispered. He had rolled over onto his side, away from mother and child to give them some privacy. His voice sounded different: high-pitched with pain still, but there was an underlying satisfaction in his tone.

Rosie smiled to herself, wondering how her father knew she’d been thinking about names for her daughter. ‘Hope …’ she said on a hysterical giggle. ‘Seems right … so that’s what I’m choosing. Hope this bloody war ends soon … hope we get a place to live … hope … hope … hope …’

‘Hope the doctors sort me bloody leg out for us, I know that.’ John joined in gruffly with the joke.

‘You’ll be right as rain with a peg leg … Long John Silver,’ Rosie teased.

They both chuckled although John’s laughter ended in a groan and he shifted position to ease his damaged limb.

In her mind Rosie knew she’d chosen her daughter’s name for a different reason entirely from those she’d given. Her greatest hope was that her daughter would forgive her if she ever discovered that she’d abandoned her like that. The poor little mite could have suffocated to death if she’d not been uncovered in time. Or the weight of the shattered window frame on top of the pram might even-tually have crushed the hood and her daughter’s delicate skull. The idea that Hope might have suffered a painful death made bile rise in Rosie’s throat. She closed her eyes and forced her thoughts to her other hope.

She hoped that Nurse Johnson would forgive her. The woman desperately wanted to be a mother, and Rosie had promised her that her dream would be real. Rosie sank back on the mattress beside Hope and curved a protective arm over her daughter as she slept, a trace of milk circling her mouth.

But Rosie had no intention of allowing anybody to take her Hope away now. She’d do anything to keep her.

‘Hear that Dad?’

‘What … love?’ John’s voice was barely audible.

‘Bells … ambulance or fire engine is on its way. You’ll be in hospital soon,’ she promised him. While she’d been cuddling her little girl she’d heard her father’s groans although he’d been attempting to muffle the distressing sounds.

‘Ain’t going to hospital; they can patch me up here,’ he wheezed.

‘Don’t be daft!’ Rosie said but there was a levity in her tone that had been absent before. She couldn’t be sure which of the services was racing to their aid and she didn’t care. She was simply glad that somebody might turn up and know what to do if her father passed out from the pain that was making him gasp, because she hadn’t got a clue.

‘Anybody home?’

The shouted greeting sounded cheery and Rosie jumped up, clutching Hope to her chest. This time she emerged carefully into their wrecked hallway rather than plunging out as she had when in a mad scramble to rescue her daughter. A uniformed woman of about Doris’s age was picking her way over the rubble in Rosie’s direction.

‘Well, you look right as ninepence,’ the auxiliary said with a grin. ‘So does the little ’un.’ The woman nodded at Hope, now asleep in Rosie’s arms. ‘Can’t say the same for the house though, looks like a bomb’s hit it.’ She snorted a chuckle.

Rosie found herself joining in, quite hysterically for a few seconds. ‘Dad’s in the cellar … broken leg. He caught the blast in the back garden.’

‘Righto … let’s take a shufti.’ The woman’s attitude had changed to one of brisk efficiency and she quickened her pace over the rubble.

Even when she heard her father protesting about being manhandled, Rosie left them to it downstairs. She had instinctively liked the ambulance auxiliary and she trusted the woman to know what she was doing. A moment later when she heard her father grunt an approximation of one of his chuckles Rosie relaxed, knowing the auxiliary had managed to find a joke to amuse him too. Stepping carefully over debris towards the splintered doorway she stopped short, not wanting to abandon her father completely by going outside even though the all clear was droning. She found a sound piece of wall and leaned back on it, rocking side to side, eyes closed and crooning a lullaby to Hope, who slept contentedly on, undisturbed by the pandemonium in the street.

‘My, oh my, look how she’s grown. Only seems like yesterday little Hope was born.’ Peg Price stepped away from the knot of women congregated by the kerb. They were all wearing a uniform of crossover apron in floral print with their hair bundled inside scarves knotted atop their heads. Peg ruffled the child’s flaxen curls. ‘She’ll be on her feet soon, won’t she, love?’

To a casual observer the meeting might have seemed friendly, but Rosie knew differently and wasn’t having any of it. She attempted to barge past the weedy-looking woman blocking her way. But Peg Price was no pushover and stood her ground.

‘Some of ’em are late starters,’ another woman chipped in, eyeing the toddler sitting in her pram. ‘Don’t you worry, gel, kids do everything in their own sweet time.’

‘I’m not worried about a thing, thanks.’ Rosie gave a grim smile, attempting to manoeuvre around the trio of neighbours stationed in front of her. They were all aware that her daughter was walking because they spied over the fences and watched Hope playing in the back garden.

Even after two years the local gossips hadn’t given up on probing for a bit of muck to rake over. Rosie knew what really irked them was that she had so far managed to remain unbowed by their malice. She’d never crept about, embarrassed. She’d brazened out their snide remarks about her daughter’s birth. And her father and Doris had done likewise.

After the Gardiners’ home had been destroyed at the bottom end of the street the council had rehoused them in the same road, so they were still neighbours with the Price family.

‘Coming up to her second birthday, by my reckoning.’ Peg stepped into the road to foil Rosie’s next attempt to evade her.

‘She’s turned two.’ Rosie glared into a pair of spiteful eyes.

‘Shame about yer ’usband, ain’t it? Proud as punch, he’d be, of that little gel.’ May Reed chucked the child under her rosy chin. ‘’Course, she’ll ask about her daddy, so you’ll be ready with some answers for the kid, eh, love?’

‘Yeah, I’ve already thought of that, thanks all the same for your concern.’ Rosie’s sarcasm breezed over her shoulder as she moved on, ignoring May’s yelp as the pram clouted her hip.

‘Looks like you, don’t she, Rosie? Just as well, ain’t it?’