Chapter Thirty-Two
Kate staggered up the staircase, stopping every few steps to gather her strength. She hadn’t been sleeping well the last few weeks, what with the baby moving and her mind churning. Despite all her best efforts, this baby would be born in the workhouse after all.
She eventually made it to the top floor when the first pains started.
She held her arms under her belly as if to stop the baby falling out.
She could feel her stomach muscles hardening, preparing for the arrival of her child.
She knew that babies often took a long time to come into the world.
She’d heard her own mother’s moans often enough.
Very soon now they would both be mothers, for at the end of May, Ida had brought a letter to the workhouse announcing the birth of Tilly, a new baby sister for Kate.
How could she go to them now? If she arrived at their door with her child and no money there would be two more mouths to feed. She couldn’t do it to them.
‘Ah, I wondered when you’d be coming to us,’ a grey-haired old woman said as she saw Kate enter the ward. ‘So, he’s ready to join us then, is he?’
Kate hoped it would be a boy, a part of Philip to be with her always.
The woman hobbled towards Kate on ulcerated legs, her two crooked teeth visible through cracked lips. Kate instinctively drew back from her.
‘She might not look pretty but she knows how to birth a babe,’ a voice called behind her.
Kate turned. A younger woman with her sleeves rolled up and wispy, pale hair falling across her face was changing sheets.
‘Been seeing nippers into the world since you were in your own cot,’ the young woman said, standing upright. ‘I’m Sara and that’s Old Alice. We’ll be by your side when you push yours out, don’t fret.’
Kate looked around her. The infirmary was just one ward, with beds lined up on either side of the room. No screens or curtains, no privacy. She’d be in labour in full view of all the other inmates.
Her thoughts must have been etched on her face, for Sara came to her and whispered, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll put you in that end bed, so that when the final stage comes, you’re as far away from the rest of them as possible. You’re lucky that no one else is ready to pop today!’
Kate didn’t feel lucky. She prayed silently to herself that the labour would be quick.
Ronald Philip Truscott was born six hours after Kate felt the first birth pangs. Old Alice placed his little form gently in her arms and said, ‘Welcome to the world, little man, though what a world it is!’
Kate looked down at his screwed-up face and held his tiny hand in hers, looking at each perfect pink fingernail.
She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it.
He began to whimper and she stroked him tenderly on the forehead smoothing his puckered brow, her fingers holding memories of Philip’s scars.
‘Sssh, sssh my little one,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all right; everything’s going to be all right.’
Part of her knew that she shouldn’t promise what she couldn’t deliver, but one thing she did know was that she was never going to let this baby go. She would cling on to him just as he clung on to life. If only his father could be with her now too!
Just a few days after giving birth, Kate was sent back to work.
She had lost a lot of blood and was continuing to bleed heavily.
There was too much heavy lifting in the laundry.
The work master said he didn’t want to have to call any doctor, so she was to go to the rope workshop.
Here the women were tasked with unpicking the oakum, pieces of old rope which had to be untwisted and pulled apart to repair holes in wooden boats and ships.
Her fingers were shredded and sore with the picking and unravelling but Ronnie could be with her, swaddled to her breast.
Most of the time Kate kept herself to herself but sometimes, when the women worked, they told one another stories of their past lives and how they longed to be free to return to their previous existence.
Kate never talked about Philip and the assumption was that she was yet another young woman who had to suffer the consequences of an employer’s lust. It was during one such session that Kate was warned of what would happen when Ronnie was weaned.
‘Ya need to get out of ’ere before they takes him from ya,’ sniffed Peggy, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
‘Don’t frighten her, Peggy. They don’t always,’ Joan said.
‘They do. They take ’em and they sell ’em for adoption or keep ’em in the nursery until such times they’re old enough to work,’ Peggy continued.
‘When they’re still small they can fit inside the cooking vats to clean them out.
Or they’re set to work scrubbing potatoes or floors, whatever it is that needs doin’.
If they’re lucky, when they gets older they’ll be taken for a ’prentice. ’
Kate didn’t want Ronnie scrubbing vats and floors.
He was going to be better than that and she was going to see to it that he had the opportunity.
And no one was going to take him away from her either.
That was not going to happen. The workhouse had served its purpose, a temporary shelter for them both, but now she must get away as soon as she possibly could.
Why hadn’t Carnforth replied to her letter? Where was she to go now?