An Unsuitable Mother

But there the invented smile was to slip. With her expanding girth under tight control from the corset, until now no one had commented on Nell’s radiance, but Aunty Phyllis had not seen her niece for some time, and was quick to remark as her guests took off their coats.

‘Good Lord, someone’s been eating too much Christmas pudding!’

Nell flushed as everyone’s eyes turned to her, and, with her jaw agape, it was left to Thelma to retort, ‘Christmas pudding? Which of us has enjoyed Christmas pudding with no dried fruit to be had?’

Thankful to have the attention diverted, Nell struggled to regain her equilibrium, whilst Aunty Phyllis made a sound of disbelief. ‘Thelma Spottiswood with no dried fruit? I don’t think!’

Her sister-in-law laughed. ‘As a matter of fact, I have been holding on to some, but it was a choice between cake or pudding, and the cake’s so much more versatile and it keeps all year. So I tore a recipe out of the press for Christmas pudding using carrots – you wouldn’t think they’d be an especially good substitute, but I had to tell Wilfred and Eleanor after they’d eaten it, they couldn’t tell the difference. Shovelled it in, they did!’

‘I can see that!’ Aunty Phyllis’s eyes were on Nell again, looking her up and down. Then she rubbed her niece’s arms in fun. ‘Mrs Roly-Poly! Well, I hope you’re not going to be disappointed with what I’ve got for your tea, I’m not so clever as your mother.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be lovely!’ Nell had managed to revive her smile, and hoped that her voice did not betray tension as she and her family were shown to their seats. But she was already making a premature New Year resolution to eat less, and wondered bleakly if she were the only person at that table who was thankful for wartime rationing.

Dark days ahead, His Majesty had warned in his festive speech, and for sure, the old year went out on a violent note. With an intense bombardment, the Germans had distorted the familiar outline of London into a huge inferno. Even upon viewing those cinema newsreels, it was impossible to comprehend what it must be like to endure this night after night, and this gave Nell fresh cause to worry. For, since Mrs Kelly’s poignant letter, she had corresponded with the grandmother of her unborn child, as if to keep another little part of Bill alive. Hence, she was to worry over her safety, and that of Bill’s brothers and sisters. She might soon need their help if her parents were to throw her out. Still, she refrained from confiding in the Kellys for now, partly through fear of rejection. She would never be able to bear it, if they too spurned Bill’s child.

She would have to tell her parents soon, though. Another month was almost up, propelling her towards the inevitable. How, though? thought Nell, as she shivered through one January evening after another, nursing her secret, listening to the news with her parents. One could not just slip it in between the items from the wireless, say – ‘Oh, such good news that the price of custard powder’s been frozen, and by the way, I’m expecting a baby.’ Equally wrong, when Father was rejoicing over those allied victories in Tobruk, and inviting his daughter to partake in a celebratory glass of sherry with him and Mother. Nell just could not bring herself to wipe away those smiles, nor to invoke the overwhelming sense of let-down that would surely follow her confession.

Hence, both that month and the next were allowed to roll by, Nell’s situation worsening with every day, aided only by ingenuity. Her own corset now too small, she had rummaged through her mother’s old clothes and found a replacement. There was a shop in town that specialised in nurses’ uniforms, including the one she herself wore; thus was she to acquire a larger size to accommodate her growing girth, and no one would be any the wiser. For much of the day, too, she was able to disguise this under a capacious apron, and because it was winter a navy-blue cardigan provided an extra shield. Tall and large-boned, never slender at the best of times, she had managed to conceal it perhaps better than someone more delicate – though surely being surrounded by those with medical knowledge meant that one of them must observe it any day soon.

At least the baby did not sap its mother’s strength, and she had copious amounts of energy to devote to her work, which seemed to be all that mattered to her superiors. One of her peers, though, had certainly become alert to the amount of times Nell had taken to excusing herself to the lavatory of late.

‘Bloomin’ heck, why don’t you just set up residence in there?’ sighed Joyson, as Nell broke away from her group of friends as all were on their way to lunch one day.

Though blushing deeply, Nell managed to form a sarcastic reply. ‘I’m so sorry, Joy, I didn’t realise you were doing a thesis on my bladder movements.’ Egged on by her other colleagues’ laughter, she enquired in the same whimsical tone, ‘Would you care to come in with me to measure how much urine I excrete?’

‘Well! You’re always disappearing in there,’ complained Joyson, looking her up and down. ‘Anyone’d think you had a problem.’

‘My only problem is you,’ stated Nell, made even more uncomfortable by everyone’s eyes being upon her. Had one of them finally noticed the rippling bump, and would they draw attention to it? She herself was acutely aware of it moving under her apron, so violently did the baby protest at being restricted by its mother’s corset. It felt as if it were trying to kick its way to liberty, shoving its feet underneath her ribs and pressing with all its might.

‘Leave the lass alone!’ Beata was still chuckling over Nell’s last comment. ‘It’s the cold weather, isn’t it, love?’ she prompted the one under scrutiny. ‘I have the same trouble.’

‘Ooh, me and all,’ revealed the owlish Green.

Their grateful friend turned for the lavatory. ‘Right, you all go on, I’ll catch you up – I wouldn’t want to keep Joy from her dinner.’

‘Don’t mind her, love, we’ll wait,’ replied the kind-hearted Beata.

Which was all very well, but it added to the pressure Nell felt herself under, as she hurried to the lavatory, unbuttoning and unhooking, then seating herself for a few moments’ relief.

Granted more freedom, the one in her abdomen stretched its limbs, knees and elbows, distorting the shape of her belly. Despite the awfulness of her situation, and not for the first time, Nell felt an overwhelming wave of love for it, and placed her hand upon the mound that rippled from its subterranean movement. ‘I suppose you’ll want some clothes,’ she told it fondly, before biting her lip so as not to cry at the thought of its poor father. Stop! Stop thinking of him, she scolded herself, biting down hard, you can’t start blubbing again.

Forcing herself to concentrate on practicalities, she listed the items that she would need. One thing was certain, she would not have the outlay for many of these, perhaps a bonnet or a bib, but she would need every penny if the worst came to the worst. Well, her mother had shanks of wool from the WVS, she could filch a little of that, a tiny amount wouldn’t be missed; it might mean an unsuitable colour for baby, but she could trim the items with ribbons. Nappies, she would need those too. The word thief had never been ascribed to Nell, but desperation lured her to contemplate it now. Perhaps by volunteering to do more hours at the Infirmary she could inveigle her way onto the nursery ward, and take some nappies one by one. She was aware that every piece of linen was counted, for this had been amongst her chores, but was anyone really going to hold an inquest over the odd missing item? A feeding bottle could perhaps be spirited away from there too. But what about a pram – and a cot? She couldn’t secret either of those under her clothes. Never mind, they were not necessities. The child could be carried whilst it was small. She stroked her abdomen thoughtfully, imagining its resident five years hence, all the things it would need then – indeed, where would she be herself? When would she be able to pluck up the courage to tell anyone? When would it actually arrive? What on earth was she going to do?

But as and whenever this last thought came, Nell drove it away. In any case, she was soon yanked from her ruminations by Joyson’s hammering on the door.

‘Come on, Spotty, I want me dinner!’

Pawing her heart, and shutting her eyes with barely contained patience, Nell shouted, ‘Coming!’ this begetting a hasty and awkward fastening of clothes.

But after rejoining the crew, with Joyson setting the pace and almost dragging her along, she was to acquire a dreadful stitch in her side that had her begging them to leave her behind, so that she might catch up at a more leisurely rate.

‘I know what’s wrong with her,’ speculated Joyson, upon Nell having finally reached the restaurant where she now sat picking at her meal in absent-minded fashion. ‘She thinks she’s getting too fat so she’s started pecking like a sparrow – it’s upset all your metabolism,’ she told the astounded Nell directly.

Having suffered a moment’s fright that her dilemma was about to be announced to all and sundry, Nell’s relief was to emerge in an outpouring of uncharacteristic impatience. ‘Honestly, Joy, are you never satisfied?’ She clattered her fork onto the plate and sat back to roll her eyes. ‘One minute I’m eating too much, the next too little – apparently I’m not even allowed to go to the lavatory when I want – could you please mind your own business!’

There was momentary silence, and a few sideways glances from other diners. But, though surprised by this show of temper from one so normally placid, none of her colleagues chose to ask what had caused it, for Nell’s raw sense of bereavement was a good enough excuse for them. And the subject was hastily changed.

Feeling extremely foolish, Nell abandoned her meal, instead seizing advantage of the lately relaxed ruling that allowed nurses to enjoy a post-luncheon cigarette, lighting up and dragging on it as if there were no tomorrow, then blasting a stream of smoke at the ceiling. Then, trying to appear less agitated, she was to while away the rest of her break, listening half-heartedly to the others discussing the Germans’ latest invasion of yet another country, and damning herself for being such a coward as not to confide.

And yet again she was left to plod on alone towards her fate, alternating the days of hard work with evenings of knitting baby clothes in the secrecy of her room.

Spring brought daffodils to enhance the medieval Bar walls, pink blossom to the trees that lined Nell’s avenue, a fresh coat of paint to the Spottiswoods’ front door and sills, and an increasingly murderous blitz upon London. Having maintained a sporadic correspondence with Bill’s mother via the Preciouses household – though still not having told her nor them about the baby – Nell could only guess how terrible life must be in the capital, and, appreciating the safety of a York barely damaged, she had lately shelved her plan to throw herself on Mrs Kelly’s mercy should her own parents disown her. It was far too dangerous.

So, too, was her recent habit of pilfering from the hospital, and it looked to Nell as if matters had finally come to a head. After a long shift, partly maintaining the casualty evacuation train and undergoing a futile exercise in which she dressed mock injuries on fellow nurses, but much of it helping out with more genuine work at the Infirmary, she had been anticipating a warm meal and a comfortable bed as she made ready to go home. Instead, just as she was due to leave on that damp spring evening, an authoritative voice accosted her in the echoing corridor: ‘One moment, Nurse Spottiswood!’

Nell stopped dead, and quaked in her shoes, fearing that someone must have seen her take the baby’s napkin that she was hiding under her coat, requisitioned during her opportune bout in the nursery. Her heart beat rapidly as she turned to face her superior’s wrath.

But to her confusion, and not a little relief, others from the crew were being summoned as well, Matron Fosdyke announcing to all, ‘I’ve received word that the casualty evacuation trains are required – yes, you’re finally needed at last!’ she said at their looks of expectation. ‘So, if any of you have family who’ll be concerned at your absence, those without a telephone may go home and inform them of your whereabouts, then you must immediately present yourself to Matron Lennox at Leeman Road.’

Simultaneous to that wondrous flush of reprieve, Nell could also have wept from sheer exhaustion at the thought of being robbed of her bed. Though, adhering to duty, she was to act without question, as were her friends. Yet even in the rush to obey, she saw that Beata was eyeing her in a sympathetic manner, and it drew to Nell’s cheeks a crimson tinge, her instantaneous thought being that her pregnancy was finally to be unveiled.

Beata was not so candid as to mention it outright, though. ‘I’m sure they’ll understand if you can’t manage it,’ she simply murmured to her friend. ‘You really shouldn’t push yourself.’

Nell bristled, immediately wishing she had not, but it was too late now, as she yelped, ‘What are you talking about? I’m as fit as everybody else! We’re all in the same boat – why, if there’s anyone that should be resting it’s you!’

In the furious hiatus, she sensed that Beata was about to say more, but just then Sister Barber happened past, took one look at the other’s ankle, which was hugely inflated and spilling over its shoe, and declared in her usual brusque manner, ‘Spottiswood’s right! You needn’t bother coming back, Kilmaster, that leg will be exploded before we reach Doncaster. Get yourself home and put it up – come along, Spottiswood, get yourself weaving and tell your parents, then hurry back!’

Observing that Beata seemed about to plead lenience for her friend, Nell suppressed her with a thunderous glance. Then, issuing a hasty goodbye, and wrapping her coat around her abdomen, already afflicted by a stitch, she lumbered off to catch a bus.

Thankfully, its arrival at the stop coincided with hers, and within ten minutes she was almost home, though the latter part of her journey was delayed by the horde of human traffic that streamed from the carriage works, both on bicycle and on foot.

Home at last, she babbled the news to her mother. Then, still wearing her coat, and under pretext of visiting the lavatory, there was only enough time for Nell to hide the stolen napkin in her room alongside the rest of the layette she had accumulated, before rushing back out again, a hastily compiled sandwich in her hand.

Once she was on the train, though, and on the way down to London, there was at least an opportunity to take the weight off her feet, and, with many jarring hours ahead, the chance to succumb to the hypnotic rackety-rack of the wheels, Sister being charitable enough to allow her nurses a nap.

Nell was to fall into a deeper sleep than most, and this was to leave her disorientated when she woke from it with a start to find that they were emerging from a tunnel to a packed platform. Suddenly she remembered where she was heading. London – maybe she’d see Billy! Maybe he wasn’t – maybe it had all been a mistake – there were tales in the newspapers every day of men being presumed dead, then turning up alive, and not just isolated cases either, was it not possible that Billy could be one of them? That his mother could have been duped? It might not have been him, the witness might have been unreliable. Please, oh, please, let it be …

Forlorn as this hope might seem, with the train squeaking into its destination and the other nurses opening its doors, the still-hypnotised Nell found herself beset with an overwhelming mass of activity, much of it in khaki, and her immediate reaction was to scour every face on the platform. Almost at once she saw him! She called out, couldn’t help herself, took a few steps onto the platform and cried out his name. ‘Bill!’

A dozen men turned, then all shared a grin. ‘Last thing anyone needs is a lot o’ bills,’ quipped one, though he and his friends moved to gather around the attractive nurse, and ply her with cigarettes and chit-chat.

Poor bewildered Nell was in the midst of a flustered explanation, when an ever-vigilant Sister bellowed from the train, ‘We haven’t time for canoodling, Nurse Spottiswood! Here come our patients!’

Nell’s sense of outrage was immeasurable. How could anyone possibly accuse her of that after so recent a loss? Freshly bereaved, she broke through the masculine fence, wanting for all the world to shut herself away, and to heave with agony and tears.

But there was no time, for as Sister was so keen to point out, a fleet of ambulances was arriving with elderly infirm, and the logistics of getting all aboard and stacked one above the other was a nightmare in such cramped conditions – and in the middle of all this the air-raid sirens began to wail and the bombs began to fall, and people scattered. But there was no escape for Nell and her comrades, who had to don tin hats and remain courageously at their posts, and try to reassure their patients above the clanging of fire engines and the thunderous explosions, as one after another was stretchered into the pilchard tin and fitted onto the racks.

Only in the early hours did they manage to load the wagon to capacity. With their final patient handed over, the ambulance drivers slammed their doors and issued a chipper, ‘That’s your lot, dearies!’ And made their own escape.

Though almost prostrate themselves, Nell and her colleagues were full of admiration for the London crews. ‘How can you stand this night after night and stay so cheerful?’ Sister called after them.

‘This?’ Her female informant merely laughed at the tumbling bombs. ‘Why, it’s not half so bad as normal!’ And she jumped into her ambulance and drove away.

But it was terrifying enough to Nell, who, on top of her mauled senses, was physically bruised from the cramped conditions, and despite a swift impulsive urge to run and seek out Bill’s poor mother, she deemed it a mercy when the order came for their train to vacate the station at once.

Even after the throb of the Luftwaffe could no longer be heard, its pilots’ devilish games continued to trigger mayhem, the casualty evacuation train barely escaping the outer reaches of London when it ground to an abrupt halt. Everyone moaned at being forced to wait in pitch blackness. The squeaking of the wheels had completely stopped now. There was no sound at all.

‘Oy!’ Even through the darkness an ARP warden caught Nell’s head sticking out of the wagon as she tried to ascertain what was amiss. Unable to make out her face, the white veil identified her. ‘Get your tin hat on, Nurse! There’s an unexploded bomb on the line.’

Having only just taken the uncomfortable thing off, Nell looked abashed and quickly redonned her tin helmet, asking politely as the man travelled past, ‘How long are we likely to be?’ With the leadenness of her abdomen putting a great strain on her neck and shoulders, all she yearned to do was in get home.

‘I don’t know!’ His expression called her a bloody idiot. ‘When it goes off or gets fixed, one or the other!’ And he continued on his way down the track alongside their train, reminding everyone, ‘Tin hats on!’

‘Nurse, stop trifling!’ At Sister’s shout Nell jerked her head in, and hurried about tending her patients.

‘Nurse, Nurse!’ They all seemed to want a part of her, pulling her this way and that, and there was scarcely any room for a normal-sized person to squeeze a passage between the bunks, never mind someone of her girth. Fit to drop, Nell took a moment to flex the aching tendons of her neck and shoulders that were stretched beyond endurance by the tonnage of her belly.

‘It’s raining in, nurse!’ warbled an elderly voice.

Pulling herself together, Nell edged her way to the complainant, and found that the patient on the uppermost bunk was incontinent, and his urine was dribbling onto the man below. Clapping her hands to her cheeks, she stood there feeling helpless, trying to concentrate on what to do, whilst overwhelmed by her own exhaustion and worry, and the heavy burden of the child.

‘It’s raining in, Nurse,’ came the woeful cry again.

Finally coming to her senses, acting only on instinct, Nell took hold of the old fellow’s hand and gripped it reassuringly. ‘We’ll soon get you sorted out, Mr …’ she quickly read the old man’s label, ‘Mr Oak – but I’ll just have to see to the chap above you first as he’s copping most of the bad weather!’

With this, she summoned Avril Joyson from along the wagon. ‘Joy, could you help me change these patients’ sheets please?’

Joyson squeezed herself grumbling between the bunks. ‘What, both of them? You should’ve fetched them a bottle!’

‘Sorry!’ whined the elderly culprit, like a little child.

‘That’s all right, it’s certainly not your fault,’ Nell reassured him in a kind voice. Then she hissed under her breath at Joyson, appalled that a nurse could show such a lack of compassion. ‘It’s only the poor chap on the upper bunk who’s incontinent – and we wouldn’t have had to change two lots of bedding if someone had thought to catheterise him! Now are you going to help me or not?’

Joy became all hoity-toity, clicking her tongue and demanding, ‘What did your last slave die of?’ – though partly out of conscience, and partly because Sister had come into earshot, she was forced to help her colleague struggle to exchange sodden linen for dry. At the end of this ordeal, though, she was quick to slip away, leaving Nell to dispose of the wet sheets alone.

‘Are you comfortable now, Mr Oak?’ Nell hoped she projected sincerity when feeling so abominable herself. ‘I don’t think it should rain in again now we’ve closed the window.’ Then, having settled the two old men, it was off to tend someone else.

Hour upon hour they waited on the track for the bomb disposal team to arrive and for the detonator to be made safe, elderly patients having constantly to be nursed in the meantime, pulses to be taken, medicines to be handed out, charts to be filled in, bedpans and bottles to empty. Finally, at six o’clock in the morning, the train jerked into motion, and the exhausted crew thanked heaven to be on their way.

By now, the debilitating gravity of Nell’s abdomen seemed to have crept all the way down her limbs and into her feet, making them feel as if encased in boots of lead. Her ankles were bloated to the size of Beata’s, and further tortured by pins and needles. Unable to bend and get at them over her fecund dome in its iron corset, she held on to one of the poles that supported the stretchers and, amidst all the jerking of the wagon, tried to balance on one leg. Moving her other foot in a circle, she worked to improve her circulation, and whilst thus involved was to ponder on the way she had snapped at her friend. The mere thought procured a blush. She would have to eat humble pie when she saw Beata again … perhaps own up about the baby. The latter was unusually quiet at the moment, which was one small mercy, for even now she had no time to rest, but was at another patient’s beck and call. Not to mention Sister’s.

‘They shouldn’t have to call.’ her superior came up to deliver in hushed tone, though this was only out of consideration for the patients, and there was reproof in her eyes for Nell. ‘Forethought, Nurse Spottiswood, forethought, how many times do you have to be told? Anticipate the patient’s every need …’

‘Yes Sister, sorry Sister!’ And off Nell went again, every cell of her pregnant body screaming for a bed, yet forced to endure this for many an hour to come.

It was ten thirty in the morning when she finally staggered home. She had been on her feet for well over twenty-four hours. ‘Don’t wake me,’ she begged her mother in piteous tones, ‘not even for food. I just want to sleep.’ And she had only the energy to wash down a few bites of toast with a gulp of tea, and to undress for bed, before oblivion claimed her.

She was to sleep for all of that day, only rising in order to eat some supper, then it was back to bed again for the rest of the night.

‘You deserve the rest,’ agreed her mother.