In a Class of Their Own (6 page)

Swiftly Sister lifted Alice, laid her on both knees and gently yet firmly patted her back. Then she turned the child over and placed one finger in her mouth. Rachel flinched and gasped. The Sister was hooking out
three times
as much phlegm as she had ever been able to do.

“Isolation Ward for this one, Nurse,” Sister announced, placing Alice into a nurse’s waiting arms.

“Isolation?” gasped Rachel as she grabbed hold of the Sister.

Before answering, Sister removed Rachel’s hand from her arm. “Yes,” she nodded. “Your child has whooping cough, possibly with severe complications. First thing in the morning she’ll be transferred to the City Hospital. All infectious diseases have to go there.”

Rachel shook her head in disbelief once she realised that Alice was to be transferred to isolation. “Please, could I see her once more before you take her?” she pleaded urgently.

“No,” replied Sister firmly. “But this is her number: five, one, three. Now do you know you can either consult the
Edinburgh Evening News
or listen into the BBC six o’clock bulletin on the radio?”

Rachel looked blank.

“Look, when you hear you child’s number being called out, a message will also tell you how she is progressing.”

“Are you saying I won’t be allowed to see her?” Rachel croaked.

“Yes. I’m sorry, but there is no visiting unless a child’s life is in imminent danger.”

Sister was about to end the conversation but, seeing Rachel’s obvious distress, she added, “You see, my dear, visiting is so upsetting for the children. It has them crying for home. Much better for them to get quickly used to the hospital routine. Then they settle down and recovery is much quicker.”

Rachel stared long and hard at Sister. How could this woman – who had never given birth, never nourished a child at her breast – possibly know that to take a child away from its mother was the cruellest thing that anyone could do? A child who is ill needs its mother, Rachel argued to herself. Needs to be reassured. Not left alone and frightened in a hospital ward tended by strangers. Rachel knew all this because her own mother had been taken from her. She could vividly recall the clinical setting of the Poorhouse Orphanage where she had spent the first four years of her life. That Poorhouse where it was useless to cry for attention because no one had time to give you any.

Lost in these memories Rachel hadn’t noticed the nurse had left the room with Alice. Once it dawned on her, she made to run and snatch Alice back. Sister instantly barred the way and looked directly into Rachel’s eyes. The warning stare told Rachel what she didn’t want to admit – that Alice was very ill and needed the expert medical attention that Rachel now knew she couldn’t possibly provide.

When Rachel arrived home she wheeled the soaking wet empty pram into the stairwell. Her hand lingered on the handle and scalding tears sprang to her eyes before she took the front door key from her pocket. Once inside, she became aware that Carrie, Sam and Hannah were all waiting up for her. Immediately they clamoured to know what had happened and in graphic detail she told them everything – even those memories of the Poorhouse that had stayed with her while she trudged home. These confidences frightened Hannah and terrified Carrie.

**********

Carrie had been sitting hunched up in the corner for half an hour or more with an open library book on her knees. In all that time she hadn’t turned a single page or noticed that the book was upside down. She’d been thinking how frightened, really terrified, she had been every day since Alice was admitted to hospital. For three weeks now she’d been haunted by the threat of having to face the loss of Alice. She knew that would be even worse than the loss of her Daddy had been. What would she do if someone told her that Alice had … ? No! She would never say that word. To say that might make it happen. Especially now that she knew, because her pal Bernie had told her, that deaths always happened in threes in the same street. Why, she wondered, did old Mrs Baird and Jimmy Burns have to die right now? Carrie nodded to herself and gave a slight smile as she thought: maybe Bernie was wrong and maybe Captain Hyde would count even although he had lived in the private houses across the street. And if he did count that would be the three which would mean that Alice, her darling Alice, would be safe.

“Carrie,” said Hannah, brusquely breaking into Carrie’s thoughts. “Mam’s trying to tell us something important and you’re not listening.”

“Did you say something, Hannah?” Carrie muttered absently, letting her book clatter to the floor.

Hannah shook her head in exasperation. “You can go on now, Mam. She’s stopped daydreaming.”

“About time too,” said Rachel emphatically. “Now you all know I haven’t been at work since the week before Alice went into hospital?”

“Aye, because you had a right bad dose of the flu,” said Sam.

Rachel eyed each of the children in turn. She knew that they knew it was more than flu that had been wrong with her. This time her recurrent depression had been blacker than ever and she’d taken to her bed. She had lain there, simply drifting to and fro between merciful oblivion and unbearable distress. She’d hardly been able to lift her head off the pillow for more days than she could remember. All she could recall was that the children had taken it in turns to lift a cup of water or sweet tea to her parched mouth. It was the thought of what might happen to the children that had finally made her face life again.

Nevertheless, five weeks had passed without any money coming in and … Her thoughts were interrupted when a fit of coughing overtook her.

“Oh, Mam,” Hannah cried. “You’re just no well enough to go back to work yet.”

“And you dinnae need tae,” Sam shouted. “Carrie and me hae been pinching tatties, tumshies and onything else we can find in the fairmers’ fields and sheds. So we’ll nae stairve.”

Rachel shook her head. “Look, what I have to tell you is this.” She took a deep breath before announcing, “We’re goin’ to be evicted on Tuesday!”

“Evicted?” Hannah and Carrie chorused.

“Ye mean pit oot on the street?’ Sam said in horror.”

“’Fraid so. You see, I didn’t have the money to pay this month’s rent.” Rachel turned away from the children to look out of the scullery window.

“But they allow you one month,” Hannah interjected.

“That’s true. But I couldn’t pay last month’s either,” Rachel continued, beginning to wipe over the table with a damp cloth.

“But why Tuesday? I mean, that doesnae gie us much time to find the money,” protested Sam.

“To tell you the truth, it was to have been this Thursday but it’s not Christian to toss poor beggars out just before Easter.”

“Surely, you’re not saying that all their charity rolls away on Easter Monday,” Hannah snapped bitterly.

Rachel nodded.

“But this is oor hame,” said Sam angrily. “You fought to get it for us. We’ve all slaved to keep it – so there just has to be somethin’ we can dae.”

“’Fraid not,” Rachel said wearily.

“But, Mam, if we’re evicted, where will we go?” asked Carrie tearfully.

“A Home,” Rachel replied.

“Like that one you were once in?” queried Hannah.

Rachel dearly wished now she hadn’t told them about the orphanage. No one had ever heard her condemn the orphanage. There were just too many children and not enough resources. Feeding, washing and beating the fear of God into the children was all they could achieve.

She’d been lucky though, because her mother’s friend had petitioned the board when Rachel reached her fourth birthday. Anna had pleaded to be allowed to foster Rachel and they had readily agreed, providing Anna took Gabby, Rachel’s father, to court for her maintenance.

Auntie Anna had always assured Rachel that she’d have taken her immediately Norma, her mother, had died were it not for the fact that she’d already taken in her brother’s three motherless bairns. And Rachel accepted that caring and providing for Bella, Jimmy and Rab had made it quite impossible for her to take on an infant too.

As to Gabby providing maintenance – some hope! Rachel still cringed with shame as she remembered all too vividly how every Friday night Auntie Anna would sigh and mutter, “Hoo that Orphanage Board expects
me
to get yer ne’er-do-well faither to come up with yer keep when
they
couldnae, I just dinnae ken?”

While Rachel was reminiscing, Carrie had started to have a tantrum – screaming, kicking, jumping and throwing anything she could lay her hands on up in the air.

“Carrie!” her mother yelled, grabbing hold of her and shaking the girl until she stopped. “What the hell d’you think you’re up to?”

“I just don’t want to go into a Home. I’ve got to be here when Alice comes home. And she’ll come here because this is our home. She knows we’re here and that we’re all waiting for her.” Carrie broke away from Rachel but spun around and continued at the top of her voice, “It’s been three weeks since you took her away. You’d no right to take her. No right at all, Mammy! I’m the one who pushed her pram and took her to school. She always waited for me, every day, so we could walk back together. I’ve
got
to be here when she comes back.”

“Look, Carrie, it’ll be all right because Alice’ll go into a Home along with you,” her mother reasoned, trying to pull Carrie towards her again.

Far from pacifying Carrie, this only served to make her scream louder and kick out. “No! No! No! We’re
not going
into a Home. Alice isn’t going. Paul’s not going. Sam’s not going. And I’m not going.”

“And what about me?” Hannah asked. “Am I the only one that has to go?”

“You can do what you bloody well like, Hannah,” sobbed Carrie. “You’re so smart you should be able to take care of yourself.”

“That’s enough of that, my lady,” warned Rachel as she managed to grab Carrie again. “Haven’t I spent the last few months getting you all to speak properly, and here’s you talking like a guttersnipe. Now, just calm down. All of you.”

Rachel let go of Carrie and walked over to the mantelpiece. She looked at the Dresden shepherd and shepherdess standing there and felt a hot flush of remorse suffuse her. “Don’t worry. Don’t panic. I’ll think of something in the end. I always do,” she said to herself reassuringly.

Carrie’s eyes too were now on the ornaments that she loved so much. For all their poverty and deprivation she reckoned she was as good as anybody else as long as those ornaments adorned the mantelpiece. She truly believed that they possessed some kind of magical power that would eventually make things better for them all. “You’re not thinking of selling my ornaments, Mam?” she nervously questioned.

Rachel’s eyes remained fixed on them. “No, Carrie, selling them would be the last card in my hand.”

“But if it means keepin’ this roof ower oor heids, then why no?” demanded Sam.

“Cos they’re the only link I have with your Granny. I told you, didn’t I, that my mother was Jewish. Married out of her class and her religion, so her family would have nothing more to do with her.”

“No wonder, when you look at Granddad,” growled Hannah.

“Upper middle-class your Granny’s people were,” said Rachel, pulling herself up.

“Aye, and that’s a richt big help.”

“What d’you mean, Sam?” demanded Carrie.

“Just that we’ve got bugger-aw to eat the nicht, but that’s okay, cos we’re better class than the folks next door who’re nae doubt stuffin’ their gobs wi’ egg and chips and no gettin’ chucked oot on their erses next week.”

Rachel ignored Sam’s outburst and went on. “When my Mam was having me, she caught TB and they took her off to the Poorhouse Infirmary in Seafield Road. I was born there and was just a few months old when my Mammy died. Just afore she died my Dad married her.”

What Rachel didn’t tell the children was that Gabby, her father, had been too drunk to stand or repeat his marriage vows and her mother, Norma, too weak. Nor did she explain that her mother’s last wish had been granted and that, by marrying Gabby, she had removed the stigma of illegitimacy from her precious daughter.

“Anyway,” she continued, “one day, a woman – some far-off relative of my mother’s – came to the door and handed me these ornaments. Said she wanted me to have them because - just like you, Carrie – my mother loved looking at them. No! Selling them would be like selling my own mother. They’re my heritage. All my hopes and dreams are in them.”

The following evening, Rachel was getting ready for work and combing her hair in front of the scullery mirror. “Oh no!” she gasped, leaning closer to get a better look, “These just can’t be. But they are! Blooming grey hairs. Grey hairs! At thirty-eight? Surely I’m far too young for grey hairs.” She was about to pull out one of the invaders to get a closer look when she was distracted by muffled sounds from Sam. “You saying something, Sam?” she asked.

“Just that I dinnae suppose us going wi’ milk and papers does onythin’ to get us oot the mess we’re in?”

Rachel shook her head, realising that premature grey hairs were the least of her worries right now.

“Not really. But I’m glad of the ten bob I get from you each week.” She sighed. “But let’s face it. There’s no way it even pays for what you eat.”

Sam nodded and blushed deeply. Rachel knew he was regretting having supped the tinned milk and having taken two pieces of bread spread with dripping after she’d rationed them all to one each.

She went over to Sam and gently ruffled his shock of ginger-tinted blonde curls. “Don’t you worry, Sam. I’ll take care of things. I’ve got things in hand and I’m sure it’ll all be …” She broke off and smiled, leaving her hopes only half-said.

For Sam though, the threat remained. If his mother didn’t get the money they needed, they were all fated to be taken into care. The thought made Sam bite his lip so hard that it drew blood.

Rachel had turned back to finish her grooming and didn’t witness his distress. She turned to face him. “Now, tonight I want you all to stay here in the scullery,” she said firmly. “That means no one is to light the gas in the living room. That clear?”