Authors: Yelena Kopylova
majority would never groan again.
They all now seemed to lose count of time until a distant voice yelled, ”God! I think there’s a
bairn here. Aye, aye; yes, there is.” At this Dick pressed forward and lowered himself once more
down into the mangled depths. As he went to scramble over the
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head of Florrie’s couch that was sticking en«NijWi-aian gripped his arm and said, ”Steady! Wait
on. Steady.” ; -’ ’
”The bairn, is it alive?”
”Aye, yes, I should say so, we heard it whimpering. But it’s fast under a woman; she must be
lying over the cot.”
Dick drew his lower lip tightly between his teeth; then he said quietly, ”Let me give a hand, she’s
. . . she’s a relative.”
”We’ll all give a hand, mate, but slowly does it. Don’t go too close. Help to move this stuff here
so as to make the way clear for her when they get to her. She’s fast held across her back from
what I can see, but it’s just her arm caught in the front.”
Dick looked in the direction in which the man was pointing, but all he could make out at first was
bits of twisted wood that could be remains of anything. Then he saw the broken bedhead over
which was draped a narrow strip of velvet curtain. He knew it was velvet and he knew it was red;
Florrie had them hanging both in the bedroom and her sitting-room. . . . And then he saw the
form, at least the humped back. He couldn’t see the legs, and from the top of the hump an arm
protruded; the head and the other arm were lost behind a jagged slab of plaster.
Quickly and silently they worked now, passing the debris from one hand to another. Once he
stopped and muttered, ”It hasn’t cried again,” and the man said simply, ”No.”
When they managed to dislodge the piece of plaster that was covering her head, it also exposed
part of the cot over which she was lying, and at that moment the cry came again from the baby.
They stopped all activity for a moment to listen to the loud, natural, hungry cry.
”Careful, careful. Easy, easy.”
These words were said over and over again; then they were changed to, ”There you are then.
There you are then,” and at this point he saw that one of the men had eased the child from under
Florrie’s contorted body. He didn’t pass it to the man next to him, but came stumbling over the
rubble with it, saying, ”There doesn’t seem to be a scratch on it, it’s face is hardly dirty. And
that’s a healthy yell, isn’t it ?” Then he stopped as Dick said, ”I’ll take it; it’s . . . it’s my niece.”
He could have said, ”my sister”, but that would have complicated matters.
Yet when the man put the child into his arms he knew he couldn’t get out of the hole with it, he
knew he’d have to pass it
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on. But now lifting his head, he shouted as he held out the child to further waiting arms, ”Give it
to my . . . my mother. She’s up there waiting.”
Hilda and Molly were standing some way back from the hole now but they heard clearly each
word that Dick had yelled, and they glanced at each other. Then Hilda drooped her head forward
and looked towards the ground; but only for a moment before she took four slow steps to where
the men were standing waiting. When the dust-laden bundle appeared over the rim of the hole as
it passed from one set of arms to another, she stared at it, her body stiff, her arms by her sides,
until there was a movement from a Red Cross uniformed figure beside her; then her arms almost
shot out and the child was in them, Florrie’s child, Abel’s child.
”All right, missis ?”
She moved her head once.
”You’ll see to her? There’ll be a doctor at the dressing-station wagon if you want him.”
Again she moved her head.
Molly was at her side now, and Hilda turned to her and went to speak, but no sound came from
her throat. She coughed and swallowed deeply before bringing out in a cracked voice, ”I’ll. . . I’ll have to get her home and . . . and cleaned up. Will you stay and see what’s happened to ... to our
Florrie ?”
”Yes, yes, I’ll do that. Can you manage?”
Hilda merely nodded as she moved away, her head bent over the baby.
Molly watched her for a moment; then she turned swiftly back towards the hole again, there to
see a man carrying a medical bag being lowered down into it. Her voice a whisper, she asked the
man next to her, ”Is she ... is she alive . . . the mother ?”
”I don’t know, lass, but somebody down there is, they’ve just called for a doctor. This one
they’re bringing up now though doesn’t look as if there’s any life left in him.”
Molly now looked down on the thin crumpled figure they were laying out on the stones.
Although the face was covered with lime she immediately recognized Mr Donnelly and she
thought, Poor soul! Poor soul!
She didn’t know how many times she repeated these words during the next half-hour, or was it an
hour, until she found Dick standing by her side. She hadn’t noticed when he came up, all her
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attention had been on the makeshift stretcher to which one of the victims was strapped. When
Dick stumbled away, she went by his side holding on to his arm, and she was surprised when his
steps took them over the tangle of pipes running from the fire engines, past the row of army
lorries, and towards the still standing wall that separated the garden from the street. Here, pulling himself gently from her hold, he leant his face against the stone and began to cry. Molly said no
word as she turned him from the wall and into her arms, until he straightened up and, drying his
face, said, ”I’m sorry.”
”Don’t be silly. ... Is ... is she dead?”
”No.” He shook his head. ”Perhaps it would be better if she ’ were. The doctor had to take one
arm off and her foot is crushed, but her back’s got it worst of all I think.”
”Poor, poor, Florrie.” Molly’s voice was breaking now.
”Yes, poor, poor Florrie.” He did not add, ”And poor, poor Dad.”
There was a jinx on his father, he seemed fated never to be happy. He would be Tom to shreds by
this latest blow of fate, blaming himself for not being with her. If he had loved her before he
would love her more now ... if she lived. And she must live, at least until he came out, otherwise .
. . well . . . His mind refused to take him further.
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The child lay gurgling in its new cot. She kept the cot mostly in the kitchen where she could keep
looking at the child. She wanted to keep looking at it; she sat for hours looking at it, whether it
was awake or asleep. She kept telling herself not to do this, she kept telling herself that she only had it for a short time, she kept telling herself that Abel would be out any day now and he would
take the child. . . . But where would he take it ? He had nowhere to take it to. She was going to
tell Dick today to tell him that she would look after it until he got settled, and she knew that that would take some time because wherever he went it would have to be a pkce where a wheel-chair
could be taken in. And another thing, Florrie wouldn’t be out of hospital for weeks, months, so
she could have the child with her all that time. . . . That’s if he agreed to let her stay. But what was the alternative ? He could put her in the care of a council home. No, no ; she wouldn’t stand
that. She’d even go to him herself.
Turning from placing a kettle on the stove, she went to the cot and, bending over it, she smiled
and chuckled down into the laughing face, saying, ”There now. There now. You’re either
laughing or you’re crying, and either means you want to be lifted up, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?”
Having given herself the usual excuse to hold the child, she was about to take it from the cot
when she heard Dick’s familiar quick step coming up the yard, and she straightened herself and
went back to the sink. She was scouring it out when he opened the door.
Any faint semblance of the boy that might have remained up till a week ago was gone, so also
had the stammer and the twitch to his shoulder, which in a lesser form had persisted even after
the court case. Stark reality had replaced the subconscious fears.
He didn’t speak, but going to the cot he looked down on the child. Then he took off his coat and
threw it over the back of the
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chair before walking towards the fire. After staring down at it for a moment, he said, ”I couldn’t
tell him.”
She turned sharply towards him now, saying, ”You should have; he’s got to be told some time.”
Slowly sitting down in the wooden armchair, he said, ”I daren’t risk it, not in that place. He
might have gone berserk and tried to escape, and it’s only another week or so. He ... he couldn’t
understand why she hadn’t come. I told him she’d had a bad dose of flu. By the way” - he turned
his head towards her - ”I . . .1 called at the hospital on my way back. She would like to see you.”
”What!” Her hand went to her throat. ”She said that?”
”Yes.”
She, too, now sat down.
”You’ll go?”
She moved her head slowly from side to side while looking down towards the floor. ”I ... I don’t
know; I don’t think I could face her.”
”You shouldn’t hold anything against her now.”
”Oh, I don’t. I don’t.” Her head was up and shaking now. ”It’s just that . . . well -” She rose from the chair, her fingers twisting each other as if her intent was to wring them off. Then with her
back to him, she muttered, ”I’ve wished her ill, I ... I don’t think I could face her.”
He came and put his arm around her shoulder; then on a small laugh, he said, ”Join the gang.”
”What?” She turned her head up quickly towards him as he said, ”Molly went through purgatory
because she had wished her mother dead. For years and years I wished my mother dead so that
Dad wouldn’t have to go through what he is going through now. Retaliation is a natural feeling,
we all experience it. You go and see her. She needs someone, someone belonging to her.”
”No, that’s silly. We don’t belong, you know that.”
”Yes, you do; you were brought up belonging. Birth has nothing to do with it, it’s the early years
you spend together I think that matter. Why do I feel about you the way I do and not about the
woman who bore me ? Come on.” He squeezed her to him for a moment. ”We’ll go along
together tonight; Molly will look after the bairn. But now” - he released his hold on her and
pushed her gently away from him - ”I’d consider it a favour if I was offered a cup of tea.”
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This gentle bullying of her about his food and drink was the »’ only tactic he seemed able to use
in an effort to divert her, but she didn’t smile at him, she merely bowed her head and went
towards the stove and took the kettle off and mashed a pot of tea. *|-
The nurse had opened the ward doors and the horde of visitors had swarmed in, scattering to this
side and that as if driven by a powerful wind, but Hilda still stood in the corridor. Her body stiff, her throat tight, she looked pleadingly at Dick now as she said, ”You go in first, go on, please.
I’d rather see her on my own. . . . Just sort of prepare her.”
He shook his head for a moment, then turned away, and she remained standing where she was,
waiting. But when she saw him returning in a matter of minutes her eyes widened and she shook
her head slowly in protest against a sudden thought, but he reassured her, smiling and saying,
”It’s all right, she’s just been moved into a side ward, number two.” He turned and pointed.
”That’s it.”
”Is she worse?”
”I don’t know. Just stay put.”
She stayed put for five minutes this time and when the door opened and he came out unsmiling
now, he said to her, ”She’s got to go down again to the operating theatre, in the morning.”
”It’s bad?”
”Well, she doesn’t look any different, but. . . but I think there’s something gone wrong with . . .
with her spine. Go on.” He pushed her gently. ”She’s waiting for you.”
She moved towards the door, she went through it, she was in the room, then she was standing
looking at the stranger lying flat in the narrow bed. Oh my God! my God! she couldn’t move
either backwards or forwards until the voice, the known voice, said, ”Hello, Hilda.”
She had to force her legs towards the bed, and then she was looking down on to the face that she
had been jealous of all her remembered life.
”How are you?” It wasn’t her asking the question but Florrie.
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What could you say to that ? She bowed her head, and when the tears rolled down her cheeks
Florrie said, ”Now, now. Look.”
”I’m • I’m sorry.” The words were the most sincere Hilda had ever spoken in her life, and in
answer to them Florrie said, ”It’s me who should be saying I’m sorry, Hilda. You’ve . . . you’ve
gone through so much, and . . . and I’ve added to it. It’s been on my mind. Yes, I’m the one that
should say, Tm sorry’.”
Hilda closed her eyes for a second and when she opened them she found herself staring down on
to the one hand that lay limp on top of the bed cover. Then her eyes travelled to the cage
covering the bottom of the bed and in her imagination she saw the mangled foot. She’d had
lovely feet, lovely legs ; she had always envied her her legs, long, slim, springing legs. Her own
had always been short and thick. But hers were still whole. Oh God! God! why had this to
happen ? She wouldn’t have wished this on the devil himself. And at this moment she felt that
she was the cause of it all. It had all come about through her thinking. ;