A Sixpenny Christmas (5 page)

Chapter Two

MOLLY AWOKE, AND
wondered for a moment where on earth she was. The ceiling was far too high; the one in the cottage was so low that if you jumped out of bed carelessly you might easily bang your head on a beam. Momentarily disorientated and frightened, Molly stretched out a hand, groping for Rhys’s broad and comfortable back, but all her fingers met was a starched, chilly white sheet, and with the touch she remembered. She was in hospital, in bed on one of the wards, and it was all over! Her baby had been born the previous night in the middle of the most fearsome thunderstorm she could ever remember, but despite the conditions everything about the birth had been fine, or as fine as such an experience could be, at any rate. Molly sat up on her elbow and gazed around the room. There was a clock at one end of the ward and in the moonlight that shone through the windows she saw it was still only five thirty. Remembering that hospitals always roused one early, Molly sighed. Because of the power cut she had only had the briefest glimpse of her new little daughter before she was taken off to the nursery adjoining the ward, and now she wondered whether she had time to visit her baby before that wretched strident bell began to ring, announcing that the staff were about to come round to their still sleepy patients,
since the day, in the hospital’s opinion at any rate, had begun.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, reaching for her slippers, when a voice spoke near her ear, causing her to jump quite six inches. ‘Mornin’! Is you goin’ along to the nursery? I’ll come wi’ you.’

Molly swung round. She was being addressed by a large fat woman who must be in her forties; surely too old to have had a baby? But then Molly remembered the woman who had greeted her the previous evening as the nurse helped her into bed. She remembered, too, that the woman had said she had had a girl but would have been glad of any baby, so now she greeted the older woman pleasantly, adding: ‘I remember you now! We must have been in the delivery suite at about the same time and we both had little girls. You were saying you were going to give yours a fancy name, but I feel I have to consult my husband.’

The woman snorted. ‘My feller’s a docker; he wouldn’t care if I called the baby Barnacle Bill,’ she said. ‘He’ll come a-visitin’ tonight, of course, same as your feller will no doubt, but I’m tellin’ you, this ’un’s my baby and I’ll give her any name I want. If it had been a boy, Sam might ha’ felt differently, but he’s got no time for girls.’

‘Oh,’ Molly said rather feebly. She took the dressing gown from its peg at the end of her bed and began to put it on just as a nurse, wheeling a trolley, pushed through the swing doors at the end of the ward. ‘Tea, ladies,’ the girl shouted. ‘Come along now, rise and shine! I’ll give you ten minutes to drink your tea and then we’ll bring the babies through and you can feed them.’

She began to distribute cups of tea from a large urn,
and as she came level with Molly she gave her a friendly smile. ‘Well, Mrs Roberts, you’re an example to all these mothers,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The staff in the delivery room said you didn’t give so much as a squeak. Baby won’t be hungry, because a full milk supply doesn’t come in until the third day after the birth, but she’ll still need a cuddle, so she’ll be brought in with the rest.’

‘Wharrabout mine, nurse?’ Molly’s new friend asked plaintively. ‘She’s me first; will she need to be fed?’

The nurse gave the other woman a reproving look. ‘Didn’t you listen to what I was telling Mrs Roberts here? Baby O’Mara will need exactly the same treatment from you as that which we advocate for all babies, regardless of the mother’s age or previous experience. Now drink your tea, because we nurses have a great deal to do today, thanks to the storm and the power cut last night.’

As soon as the nurse had gone further down the ward, Mrs O’Mara picked up her cup of tea and carried it round so that she might sit on Molly’s bed and talk as they drank. ‘I’ve decided I’m a-goin’ to call me baby Lana after Lana Turner, what’s me favourite film star,’ she announced in a breathy whisper. ‘What’s more, no one can’t shorten Lana. I hates being called Ellie instead of Ellen, so she’ll be spared that. What’ll you call yours then?’

‘I told you; I can’t decide until I’ve spoken to my husband,’ Molly said, trying not to sound impatient. Was the woman deaf, or merely so bound up in her own affairs that she did not bother to listen to what was being said? ‘I chose our little son’s name – he’s called Chris – so I think it’s only fair that Rhys should have the final word on what we call our little girl. I rather like Sally-Anne, or Laura-Jane, but as I said, I mean to let Rhys choose.’

The older woman drained her teacup noisily, then turned back to Molly. ‘Do you
like
your feller? I mean really like him?’ she asked incredulously. ‘I don’t like my old man; can’t imagine why I ever wed him . . . well, I can, actually. I were in the family way and he were the father all right.’ Her mouth drooped and Molly saw with some distress that the older woman’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘But the baby never come to nothin’ and though we stayed together I never quickened again until now. So you see, I reckon I’ve earned the right to name the baby and to say she’s mine.’

‘I see,’ Molly said slowly. ‘Do you blame your husband for losing that first baby, then?’

‘Yes I does, ’cos he wouldn’t never leave me alone, too handy with his fists when I were upright and his boots when I were down,’ Ellen said, causing Molly to gasp with shock. Ellen, however, gave her a grin, and patted her shoulder. ‘’Sawright, chuck, now I’ve got the baby I’m goin’ to kick him out, big though he is,’ she said breezily. ‘I won’t have him ill-treating my little Lana, and these days the scuffers can put some sort of order on a feller what stops him from approachin’ your house or even speakin’ to you in the street. Besides, I hit him with the coal scuttle last time he tried it on, and he’s never been the same since. Still an’ all, I won’t take no chances in future. My Lana will need me and she won’t never need Sam . . . eh up, here come the nurses with our babies. Ain’t they the prettiest things?’

Molly had explained to Sister that the farm was so remote that Rhys might arrive late that evening, but despite her fears, when visiting time arrived and a stream of men,
all looking self-conscious and smart, came on to the ward, Rhys was among them. Alerted by the interested postmistress, he had left Chris with their nearest neighbour, promising to return just as soon as possible, and now he told Molly regretfully that he doubted he would be able to visit her again whilst she remained on the ward. ‘But I’ll come and pick you up when they discharge you and baby Rhiannon,’ he assured her, for they had agreed that the baby should be named after Rhys’s much loved mother, and Molly thought it was a pretty name and went well with Roberts. ‘After that storm last night – only I don’t suppose you got it here – I’ve a heap of things to do on the farm and can’t simply go off and leave the stock to manage for itself. What’s more, I’ve left Chris with the Pritchards, and though Mrs Pritchard is very good, they’ve got their hands full running their own place. Chris thinks Rhodri is wonderful, follows him round everywhere, which means the poor lad has to keep an eye on Chris all the while, and he’s only ten himself.’

‘I know, or I can imagine,’ Molly said rather wearily. ‘I’m sure they took Chris in willingly, but they’re both old, and Mrs P doesn’t speak much English, which must make things harder for them.’

Rhys laughed. ‘Chris was chattering away in Welsh when I left him; it’s amazing how quickly children pick up a language if they don’t realise they’re learning,’ he said. ‘Believe me, sweetheart, our children will be bilingual before they start school.’

Molly laughed with him, but inside she was dismayed. She had lived in the valley for a while now, loved every stick and stone of it, yet still could not speak the language
herself, though she tried diligently to learn. She was grateful to the neighbouring farmers’ wives, who gave her every assistance though they themselves spoke little English. Their husbands, too, might have little in common with Rhys, but their helpfulness in times of trouble could not have been bested.

When the fathers had seen their babies, talked to their wives and taken their leave, she turned to Ellen, who had been visited by an even fatter version of herself and no one else. A nurse told Ellen and Molly later that Mr O’Mara had tried to gain admittance to the ward after visiting time was over. It had taken four brawny porters to eject him but he had left at last, screaming threats of what he would do to his blankety blank of a wife when he got her home again.

‘I suppose your visitor was your mother; she is very like you to look at,’ Molly said as the two women sat on their beds drinking the hot milk which was supposed to help them to sleep. ‘She was thrilled with the baby, wasn’t she? Is it her only grandchild?’

Ellen laughed scornfully. ‘Nah! I’ve got three sisters and a brother, though none of them live local, ’cept for me brother. Between them they must have a dozen kids, but me mum and meself have allus been close. She’s been on at me for a while to kick Sam out and she’s rare glad I’m going to do it at last. She don’t hold with violence, so I never told her I’d crowned him with the coal scuttle, and near on cracked his head open when I locked him out and he came yellin’ at me winder.’ She chuckled. ‘I meant to empty the chamber pot over his head but it slipped out of me hand and landed right on his noggin. Laid him out flat and cold it did, and left
him with a scar slanting right across his forehead and chopping his eyebrow in two. He thinks he’s such a handsome feller but really he’s ugly as a pan of worms, with or without the scar.’

‘Goodness! Did you call an ambulance?’ Molly asked, but was not really surprised when her new friend shook her head.

‘Did I hell! I just slammed the winder shut and got back into bed. When he come round, I told him the pal he’d brought home with him from the pub had whacked him on the head with a bottle of porter. I’d already cleared up the broken china, but I reckon he were suspicious so I cleared out. I’d already quickened with Lana, you see, so I didn’t mean to give him no chance to hurt the babby. To be fair, once I told him I were in the family way again, after more’n twenty years, he give me a wide berth, knowin’ the neighbours would call the scuffers if he attacked a woman in my condition, but as I said, from the moment I go home, I’ll have one of them police orders placed on him, so he can’t come near nor by.’

‘Gosh,’ Molly said faintly, ‘and I thought I had problems! Only they aren’t in the least like yours because Rhys is a wonderful husband. Why, he’s taking care of Chris whilst I’m in hospital, making their meals, running the farm and doing the jobs of two people. We’d like to employ a farm labourer but to be honest we can’t afford it yet. You see, it’s like this . . .’ and for the first time she confided, in someone other than Rhys, how hard it was to make ends meet. She had been ashamed to mention it, but Ellen’s problems cast her own into the shade, and made it easier to tell her that life on their little farm, though it might sound idyllic, had its drawbacks. ‘But
at least we’re making enough money to cover our expenses,’ she concluded. ‘If you throw Sam out, though, Ellen, what will you live on? Will he pay you maintenance, or whatever it’s called?’

‘I’ll work,’ Ellen said briefly, ‘I’ve always worked. Don’t you worry about me, queen, I’ll be a deal better off without that bugger stealin’ every penny I earn.’

‘Yes of course,’ Molly said feebly. A Liverpool girl herself, but living in one of the suburbs outside the city and attending a convent school, she knew very little of the life of the enormous number of impoverished people who lived in the tiny courts and alleys in the centre of the city. She knew she had been lucky, for despite the fact that both her parents had died before she was five years old she had never really suffered as a result and now could not even remember them. She had been brought up by maternal grandparents who had given her love in abundance. They had enrolled her as a pupil in the nearby convent school, then had sent her to a secretarial college, actually selling their house and moving into a flat when their money began to run out.

They had not been young before the war, but now, thinking back, Molly realised how the conflict had aged them. Queuing, traipsing around the city in search of the necessities of life which they had once taken for granted, patching their own once good clothes in order to save their coupons for their adored granddaughter, even the terrifying raids, though the docks were several miles away from their suburban home, had affected them deeply.

Molly had worked hard at secretarial college, wanting to reward her grandparents in some way for the many
sacrifices they had made for her, and in a way she had managed to do so, for she had come out head of her year, knowing that she was in line for a first rate job with excellent prospects of promotion after the war.

Then she had met Rhys. They had had a whirlwind courtship, and had married with her grandparents’ blessing, though Molly had reflected later that had they lived long enough to see Cefn Farm they might not have been so delighted.

In the event, they had both died before Rhys was demobbed, which was probably as well, Molly thought now. Rhys, a dozen years older than herself, had tried to describe the kind of farm for which he yearned, but his deep and abiding love of his homeland must have made him see it through rose-coloured spectacles. Molly could still remember the shock she had felt when the ancient baby Morris had turned in to the first of the rocky, unmade-up drives on their list and Rhys had pointed proudly at what at first glance she had taken to be a cattle shed. ‘That’s the sort of farm I want. Take a good look, because something like this will be your future home, my darling,’ he had said proudly. ‘I know you’ll love Snowdonia as I do.’

Molly was just thinking that Rhys had been right, though he had not realised, any more than she had, how very hard was the life of a hill farmer in the Welsh mountains, when her thoughts were interrupted.

‘Here we are, Mrs Roberts; Baby Roberts has come for a bit of mothering and a nice drink of milk.’ The nurse thrust the shawl-wrapped infant into Molly’s arms and the second one she was holding she handed to Ellen. ‘There you are, Mrs O’Mara . . .’ She heaved a deep sigh.
‘How many times have I told you ladies not to sit on the beds? There’s a perfectly good padded bench which you can pull out if you must sit and gossip, though during feeding you should be in your beds because the pillows give your back something to rest on, and we don’t want mothers complaining that their bad backs are our fault.’