Read The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow Online
Authors: Maureen Reynolds
The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow
I dedicate this book to Grandad Dwyer,
my mother Molly and
brother George.
1
It was May 1941 and Rosie was expecting a baby. It was an event which filled our family with dread and consternation – except for Rosie and Lily who were both delighted.
We all remembered Mum who had died almost ten years ago after giving birth to Lily. Because of this tragedy, we were all deeply worried – especially Dad. After all, Rosie was forty-five and this was her first child. Rosie’s mum, Alice, and our granny didn’t discuss it when we were in the house but I knew they weren’t happy about it.
Dad, as usual, did his head-in-the-sand act and didn’t talk too much about it but I knew he was also desperately worried about Rosie’s well-being. As for me, well, I just hoped and prayed that, should anything go wrong, he wouldn’t go back to his old ways of drinking away his sorrows.
In the two months since their marriage, Rosie had been a tower of strength and comfort to him and I hoped he would be the same for her. We were all still living in the same house on the Hilltown, the house we had before Dad’s marriage, but it was becoming really cramped now that Lily was growing up fast.
I had been looking for another place for Lily and me but now this bombshell of Rosie’s pregnancy had put an end to that. She needed my help because she was suffering from the most horrendous morning sickness as well as midday sickness and afternoon sickness. She had lost some weight before her marriage but she now looked thin, grey-faced and drawn. To say I was alarmed was an understatement.
I still had my job at Connie’s newspaper shop but before going off in the early morning, I would get Dad’s breakfast and see him off to work with his dinner-time piece box. I hated his look of relief as he set off through the door and I wondered if all men looked like this during their wives’ pregnancies.
Rosie did try her best to get up before he left for work but she was no sooner on her feet when a feeling of faintness and nausea swept over her, making her slump back on the bed. When this happened, I made her lie still and drink a cup of tea with a Rich Tea biscuit. But, within a few minutes, she was sick. As I held the bucket under her grey, sweating face, I felt my own stomach heave but I tried to be strong for her sake. So I concentrated my gaze on the wallpaper while she was being sick.
Lily would stand wide-eyed at the door but I told her to get dressed for school as there was nothing she could do.
Afterwards, as Rosie lay prostrate on the bed, I would go around with a pail of water and Dettol and try to mask the ever-present smell.
Even Lily’s usual robust appetite had waned a bit in this atmos phere, I noticed. Fortunately she was now able to go to school herself which was one chore less for me. We would leave Rosie to go back to sleep while we made our way to the shop. Connie would give Lily small jobs to do before she set off for school.
Connie tried to be cheerful when Lily was around but, like everyone else, the memory of Mum’s death was on her mind as it was for all of us.
‘Well, Lily, how are you today?’ Connie asked as she handed over a pile of comics. ‘You can put the names on these so the paper girl can deliver them.’
She gave me a look and whispered, ‘How’s Rosie?’
Lily, with her sharp little ears, overheard. ‘She’s terrible, Connie. Ann had to hold the bucket because she was awfully sick and, although Ann cleans the house with Dettol, we can still smell it.’
Connie gave me a look which meant we would discuss it later but it wasn’t to be. All our neighbours and a lot of the residents of the Hilltown had heard the news and they weren’t slow in coming forward with all kinds of advice. Even Joe, who was one of Dad’s oldest pals, made a daily comment on the dangers of older mothers. Still, it made a change from his daily, doom-laden accounts of the war.
‘I aye mind one of my neighbours who had a late bairn and there was something wrong with him,’ he said, touching his head. ‘You know – mentally.’
Connie was annoyed. ‘Thanks for sharing that with us, Joe. You’ve made Ann feel so much better.’
‘Och, I don’t want to alarm the lassie but I’m just telling it like it was. It’s not a good thing to have a late bairn and I don’t care if I say it.’
It was a relief when Lily was away to school. She, at least, wouldn’t have to listen to these tales of doom and gloom.
‘How’s your dad coping with it?’ Connie asked.
‘In his usual way – by not talking about it. By the time he gets in at night, Rosie is feeling a wee bit better. Still, maybe that’s a blessing because I know he’s worried sick by the thought that it might happen to us again – that we might lose Rosie.’
Connie sounded morose. ‘And there’s this awful war to worry about too. Things look bad for us with the Jerries overrunning everything and America not coming into the conflict to help us.’
‘I wonder what Rudolf Hess wanted when he flew into Scotland?’ I asked.
Connie was cynical. ‘The papers are saying it’s either a peace treaty or that he’s a mental case. Still, it’s a strange situation and the papers aren’t saying what he wants.’
Halfway through the morning, Connie let me run home to check on Rosie. I found her lying on top of the bed and I saw by the bucket at her side that she had been sick once more. She looked dreadful and I saw she had been crying.
Wiping her face, I asked her, ‘What’s wrong, Rosie?’
She tried to sit up. ‘Ann, I’m such a wreck. What does Johnny think when he sees me like this?’
I was annoyed by her worries about my father and I told her so. ‘You’ve got to think about yourself, Rosie. You’re the one that’s suffering – not him.’
‘But you remember when he was married to Margot. Remember how attractive she was.’
Margot – I hadn’t given her a thought in ages but I could understand Rosie’s torment in the comparison. Dad had certainly been taken in by the glamorous widow a few years earlier and he had married her – a marriage that, fortunately for him, had been a bigamous one on her part.
‘I hear she didn’t get a long sentence for the bigamy, Ann, and maybe she’s back as glamorous as ever.’
Poor Rosie. I knew Dad had been glad to be rid of Margot but I also knew he was a bit of a fool over good-looking women.
‘Look, Rosie,’ I said, ‘tonight, before he comes in, I’ll put some make-up on your face and you can wear something nice. What do you think?’
She smiled weakly before retching painfully over the bucket.
I felt quite grim when I did the shopping in the afternoon and standing in the endlessly long queues didn’t help my mood. Just about everything was on the ration and it was becoming more difficult to feed a family. Still, I was lucky to get a marrowbone from the butcher which meant I could make a big pot of soup that hopefully would last a few days.
Lily and I usually went to our grandparents’ house in the Overgate every evening so that Dad and Rosie could have a little time on their own. That evening, before his return, I put some rouge on Rosie’s grey cheeks and applied a little slick of lipstick. It didn’t really help but her blue frock made her look a bit better. And there was the appetising smell of soup in the house which made Dad’s eyes light up when he walked through the door.
He gave Rosie a quick kiss. ‘You’re looking better, love.’ Glancing at the pot on the stove, he said, ‘What a smashing smell of soup. I’m starving.’
Men, I thought.
Fortunately bread wasn’t rationed so I had a whole loaf cut up to go with the soup but I noticed Rosie hardly ate a thing.
Later, Lily and I set off for the Overgate. While Lily went off to play with her friends, I sat in the kitchen with Granny and Alice who was Rosie’s mother as well as being Granny’s neighbour.
Alice was worried about her daughter. ‘How is she today, Ann?’
I didn’t know what to say as Rosie had warned me not to worry her mother or indeed anyone. I told them she was fine in spite of the sickness.
Alice shuddered. ‘That morning sickness is a damned awful thing. It fair brings you down.’
Granny agreed. ‘Aye, it is, Alice, and some poor folk get it worse than others. Some don’t even get it at all but poor Rosie is unlucky to have it so bad.’
At that moment, Hattie arrived. My aunt, Dad’s sister, looked as elegant as usual in spite of the clothes rationing but this was because she’d had such a fabulous wardrobe before the war.
Alice was on the verge of leaving when Hattie arrived and she couldn’t be tempted with another cup of tea. ‘There’s a programme on the wireless, Nan. I want to listen to it so I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Hattie twisted her face into a grimace as she pulled off her gloves. ‘And how is the little mother today, Ann?’
Before I could answer, Granny leapt in with a sharp word. ‘Don’t speak about Rosie like that, Hattie. It’s not her fault she’s ill.’
Hattie flared up. ‘I’m not running Rosie down. It’s that stupid brother of mine.’ She glared at me. ‘Your father! What in heaven’s name made him want to become a father again at his age? And Rosie is forty-five which is no spring chicken in the motherhood stakes.’
We were all used to Hattie’s outbursts in the family and normally we took her statements calmly. Still, Granny was annoyed. ‘Well, I expect it wasn’t planned, Hattie, but these things happen. Rosie did tell Alice she thought it might be the change of life but it wasn’t.’
A cold shiver went through me as I recalled hearing the same excuse given by my mother during her pregnancy ten years ago, before giving birth to Lily and dying from a haemorrhage a few hours later.
Hattie was still annoyed at what she saw as recklessness on Dad’s part. ‘Well, all I’m saying is this. Let’s hope Rosie comes through this and that both she and her baby are well.’
Granny stayed silent and didn’t look at me which made my heart grow cold. I could always depend on her to cut through Hattie’s statements and denounce them as rubbish but I knew this time even she wasn’t a hundred per cent happy or certain about Rosie’s outcome.
I felt I had to add something positive. ‘Rosie and Dad are both delighted by her condition and so is Lily.’
Hattie gave me a pitying look. ‘They would be, wouldn’t they? A first-time mother, a stupid husband and a little girl who doesn’t know any better.’
I gave up. There was no way of coping with Hattie when she was in this mood. I changed the subject.
‘I haven’t seen Maddie or Daniel since last week. How are they?’
Hattie’s face brightened at the sound of her grandson’s name. ‘Daniel is growing bigger every day and Maddie sends her love. She says you must visit her soon although she knows you’re busy with Rosie.’
Granny appeared with more tea. ‘Is Maddie more settled now, Hattie?’
Hattie gave a sigh of relief. ‘Oh, she is, thank goodness. Ever since she had the letter from the Red Cross saying Danny is a prisoner of war, she has settled down to wait till the end of this awful war. She sent a letter by return to the Red Cross to let Danny know he had a son but we don’t know if he got it. There hasn’t been any more word back.’
I well remembered Maddie’s state of mind at the end of 1940 when Daniel was born. Danny had been in the Dunkirk retreat and had been reported missing, presumed dead. I recalled the rejoicing when the letter arrived saying he had been very badly injured but was alive in a German hospital.
Lily then bounded in and it was time for us to leave. As we walked along the busy streets, the sun was dipping low behind the tenements of the Hilltown. I was dreading going back to the house. What if Rosie had been sick again? She would have hated Dad to have been a witness to her distress. What should have been a happy event was fast turning into a family melodrama, full of doom and gloom.