Chapter 21 Joyce
Joyce
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
Friends. We’re back in London. I know I can trust you to keep our secret. We did the right thing, didn’t we?
Joyce
Adela was propped against the historical fiction bookcase in the travelling library, her fingers gripping the stacks, her head resting against the books. Every so often she would clench and moan, a long, low, drawn-out sound that pulled Joyce out by the roots.
‘It’s important we don’t panic,’ Annie said. ‘I’m going to fetch the midwife. Beth, you go and get some hot water and towels.’
‘I don’t think we’re at that stage yet,’ Evelyn remarked.
‘Aren’t we?’ Jo asked.
Only Harry was actually doing anything, laying down blankets in the back of the library van.
‘Let’s give Adela some privacy. Don’t worry, my love,’ he said, utterly unflappable. ‘On the second day of the Blitz, I helped deliver a baby during a raid. At least we ain’t got Jerry bothering us.’
‘It’s too soon,’ Adela gasped.
‘I’m not sure the baby agrees,’ Harry replied, keeping his tone light as he bundled up blankets into a pillow. ‘You lie down and rest. The midwife’ll be here soon . . . please God,’ he added under his breath.
Beth and Jo were already gone, off to fetch the midwife. Annie went off to close up the library.
‘I can’t do this,’ Adela whimpered.
‘Take her shoes off, Joyce,’ Harry ordered. ‘Her ankles are so swollen.’
Joyce eased her pumps off and reached for her hand.
‘Don’t worry, my love, everything’ll be just fine,’ she soothed, removing first her shoes, then helping her out of her slacks.
Adela cried out as another contraction took hold.
As she gripped hold of the bookshelf, her eyes wide with terror, Joyce felt so helpless.
Adela looked so young. She was so young.
Only seventeen and on the cusp of becoming a mother.
In the library and during the bombings, she had been so capable and calm, so grown up and composed, Joyce had somehow convinced herself she was older than her years.
But the truth was, she was utterly unprepared for this birth and the trauma that would follow.
Joyce saw the tightening of her belly and braced herself.
Adela cried out as more pain ripped through her body, and Joyce felt a tidal wave of guilt. She should have given her more information and helped her access some support for the birth. She imagined there would be time for that, but now the baby was coming and none of them were remotely ready.
‘I want Mama and my sister,’ Adela cried. She fixed her bewildered gaze on Joyce’s. ‘Do you think they’re alive?’
Her eyes were unfocused, the sweat pouring from her.
‘I dreamt my sister had died,’ she gasped. ‘My beautiful Dorotha. Please God forgive me. I’m so ashamed. They sacrificed everything to get me here. She’s dead . . . she’s dead . . .’
Adela was rambling now, incoherent with pain, guilt and fear.
There was so much Joyce wanted to say in that moment. This is not your shame to bear. That bastard raped you. You were a vulnerable young refugee and he took advantage of you in the worst possible way.
Instead, Joyce locked eyes with Clara and Evelyn, feeling utterly helpless.
Evelyn sat down next to Adela and took her hand. Instinctively, Clara did the same and took her other.
‘Look at me,’ Evelyn said calmly to Adela. ‘Breathe, breathe . . . that’s it.’
Gradually, Adela came back to herself.
‘Next time a contraction comes, you squeeze the hell out of our hands with your fingers,’ Evelyn ordered. ‘You hear me?’
Adela nodded.
‘Good girl. Draw blood if you must. We can take it can’t we, Clar?’
Clara nodded and smiled encouragingly.
‘You’re the strongest of us all, Adela. Look at what you’re already survived. You can do this.’
Adela locked eyes with Joyce. ‘Will you make sure the baby is safe, Joyce?’ she whispered.
‘Of course. I promise . . . but you . . .’
Joyce didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence, for another contraction took hold and Adela gripped Evelyn and Clara’s fingers and bellowed with surprising ferocity.
From that moment, things moved at speed.
Beth came back with hot water and soap. Harry scrubbed his hands and coaxed Adela to move onto all fours.
‘It’ll make the birth easier. Trust me, when I helped in the birth during that air raid, this is what the midwife had the mother do.’
‘Surely we should wait for the midwife before we start talking about birthing positions?’ Joyce flustered, but her words were drowned out by a low, feral, keening sound that shattered the peace of the quiet countryside.
Thirty-eight minutes after they’d arrived in Devon, Adela gave birth in the travelling library.
The baby girl was delivered by Harry, who even cut the cord. Her baby was small but healthy, according to the midwife, who arrived just a few minutes later and took over, and Harry’s calm in delivering the child rated commendable.
Joyce was utterly floored by the birth. She had never imagined it could be so visceral or so brutal.
But as soon as the baby was with them, all of Adela’s hysteria and pain had vanished.
How could she be roaring one minute and the next be so calm?
She sat propped up, holding the tiny baby, which was swaddled in a blanket.
The fear in the little library had been replaced with a sort of silent wonder.
The midwife went outside to call for an ambulance so mother and baby could be transported to hospital and checked over.
‘You were the first person to touch her, Harry,’ Adela breathed. ‘Will you hold her?’ she asked, not waiting for the answer and handing the baby to him.
Harry was spellbound. All the tightness in his face evaporated. Joyce had seen him shifting great chunks of masonry with brute force on bomb sites, but here, now, he was pure putty.
‘She’s beautiful,’ he breathed. A tear slipped down his cheeks as he stood stock-still, a tiny scrap cradled in his arms.
‘Look at her,’ he wept, shaking his head. ‘Just look at her.’
They all gazed at the baby, fascinated. She was so small. Like a porcelain doll. If it weren’t for those tiny fists, curling and uncurling, Joyce’s mind might have tricked her into believing she wasn’t real.
‘It’s like a miracle,’ he said, unable to tear his face away from the baby’s. ‘Look at those fingernails. And her eyelashes!’
He kissed the soft downy fuzz of her head, seeming to breathe in the newness of her.
‘Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infant’s head,’ he murmured. ‘Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy, silent, moony beams.’
He tore his face from the baby to look at them, eyes glowing. ‘William Blake.’
Harry was so enraptured he hadn’t noticed Adela’s face. But Joyce had.
The hysterical young woman had vanished. In its place was the self-possessed and determined Adela that Joyce knew only too well.
‘I have something to ask you both,’ Adela said, composed as she pushed back a damp tendril of hair from her face.
She hesitated and Joyce found herself holding her breath, willing time to stop still. A strange sixth sense came over her.
I know what you’re going to ask.
‘I want you both to please consider adopting her.’
The sudden stillness in the library was crushing, pressing in on Joyce’s temples, her throat, until she felt she couldn’t breathe.
‘S-Sorry,’ Joyce stumbled, stupefied. ‘You want us to do what?’
Adela was gazing at Harry, still holding the baby.
‘I can’t think of two more perfect people. I know you’d raise her with love.’
She looked from Harry to Joyce, and the enormity of what Adela was asking dawned on her.
‘I know it’s a lot to ask.’
‘A lot to ask!’ Joyce gaped. ‘We aren’t even married.’
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I am desperate.’
Joyce looked to Harry, trying to read his thoughts, but his gaze was fixed on the baby.
‘I can’t raise her myself, you know that,’ Adela went on. ‘An unmarried seventeen-year-old mother? I’d be turned out of every boarding house, shunned, vilified. But I can’t give her to strangers either.
‘Please,’ she wept. ‘Please help me. My situation is impossible. I have nowhere else to turn.’ Outside, they heard the crunch of the ambulance tyres on the gravel.
‘Please at least consider it.’
Joyce looked down at the little scrap in Harry’s arms, so raw and unvarnished a person. What should she do? What would anyone do?
One hour later, the ambulance men slammed shut the doors as the vehicle whisked mother and baby away to the nearest hospital to be checked over, with the midwife in attendance.
Joyce wanted to go with them, but her friends insisted she and Harry sit down and do that most British of things in a crisis – have a cup of tea.
‘You’re both shattered,’ Evelyn said softly to her and Harry, guiding them inside the closed library.
In the reading room, Annie poured them all tea from a giant brown teapot.
‘Well, that’s a first for me, a birth in a travelling library,’ Evelyn remarked, attempting to make light, but not one of the Secret Society responded.
‘What’ll happen to them?’ Annie asked, her voice splintering the silence. ‘Will they go to a mother-and-baby home?’
‘Is there really no way she can raise her as a single parent?’ Beth ventured, looking round the group.
Jo shook her head. ‘When my sister got divorced, it shocked the whole of Exeter. There’s still people who cross the road when they see her coming! A divorce pales into comparison with daring to raise a child alone.’ She gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Trust me, she’ll be a social pariah.’
‘Jo’s right. Sadly,’ Clara said. ‘There’s a single mum in Bethnal Green who gets bricks through her window, for pity’s sake.’
‘Aside from anything, I . . . I’m not sure she even wants to keep the baby,’ Joyce admitted, keeping secret the disturbing story of the child’s conception. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Then I suppose it’ll have to be some god-awful mother-and-baby home, poor girl,’ Evelyn said.
‘NO!’
The group jumped at the vehemence in Harry’s voice. He’d been quiet for so long, it was almost as though he wasn’t there.
‘Sorry,’ he went on, lowering his voice. ‘But surely not? Joyce, you made a promise to keep her baby safe.’
‘And she will,’ Clara pointed out gently. ‘There’s a family out there somewhere desperate to adopt or foster a baby.’
‘Do you have any idea how many orphaned kids there are from the bombings still waiting for a family?’ Harry asked Clara.
‘I do. Believe me, that baby girl will be in an institution for months and months.’ Harry looked at them individually, imploring them to understand.
‘She might have nourishment, but will she have love?’
‘Harry,’ Beth said, disbelievingly. ‘Do you realise what you’re asking of Joyce? She can’t do it on her own.’
‘She won’t,’ he replied, turning to look at Joyce.
‘We can do this together. We must do this. For Adela.’
He reached for her hand, his voice low and feverish. ‘Please, Joyce,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not as barmy as it sounds. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather raise a child with.’
He sunk down onto one knee. The air in the library turned electric.
‘I wanted to do this in a special moment, but events have overtaken me.’
Harry gulped and looked nervous under the scrutiny of so many women.
‘Come on, Harding, get it together.’ He scrubbed his face, drew in a deep breath.
‘I love you, Joyce Kindred. I think I loved you the moment I first saw you run past me into a burning house.’ He grinned, his eyes crinkling at the edges.
‘I remember thinking of all the reckless, daft things to do, but then I realised why. You were acting on instinct to rescue a friend. And I guess, that’s what I’m doing now. ’
Something inside her folded as she gazed at his stubborn chin, those silver eyes, so clear and focused. She loved him back. Of that, she was sure. But the enormity of what he was asking her!
‘Marriage and parenthood,’ she replied, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘All in one go? Harry, that’s a lot of commitment.’
He shrugged. ‘True, but we have a lot of love to give.’
And in that moment, Joyce knew he was right.
They had both witnessed incalculable, unfathomable loss over the past seven months.
Innocent human lives stolen away by savagery and evil.
They had the chance to create a beautiful, albeit unconventional family, and help a desperate friend in the process.
Maybe, in the midst of so much madness, it really was that simple.
‘Harry,’ she whispered. ‘I will. I will marry you.’