1960
In the warmth of the caravan under its blanket of snow, Alice is panting, her expression hopeful. Julia has pulled a blanket over her to keep her warm now that her exertions are over. She has re-emerged from the animal state that possessed her while she was giving birth, though her lips are tinged with blue from the effort.
‘Where’s the baby?’ she asks. ‘Can I see it?’
Julia looks down at the little boy in her arms. He is utterly still and silent. They used Donnie’s knife to cut the cord and unwrap it gently from the infant’s neck, and then they saw that he is a perfect little boy, but he is lifeless, now swaddled in a pillowcase, his eyes closed as though he is sleeping; only the pallor of his face tells them otherwise.
Alice groans with an after-pang. Her body is still contracting, still pushing. Julia wonders why, when the baby is here. When the pain has passed, Alice says, ‘Please, I want to see the baby.’
‘Oh, Alice.’ Julia’s voice breaks on the words. Her heart is aching for the dead child and for Alice who, she understands, is gripped by the ancient emotions of motherhood: a longing for her baby, an urgent physical need to nurture her offspring.
‘What’s wrong?’ Alice says, pushing herself up onto her elbows. ‘Something’s wrong. What is it?’ Her eyes fall on the little bundle in Julia’s arms. ‘Why isn’t it crying, don’t they cry?’
Julia cannot find any words. She offers the baby to her. It was warm with Alice’s body heat when it came from her womb but now it is cooling. She knows instinctively what the child should be: warm, pinking up, squirming, its mouth eager for milk as it cries for something it does not yet understand. It should be helpless but demanding, waiting for its needs to be met by the greater force that it senses is there to protect it, feed it and love it.
What happens, she wonders, to all the tiny babies who have no one to care for them? What happens to all the mothers who do not have their babies? She sees suddenly a huge sea of human grief, of wailing and mourning and crying; the devastation of loss and sorrow of the left behind. It’s too much. Her eyes are blinded with tears. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she says with a sob. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Donnie has retreated to the back of the caravan, staring out of the window at the sparkling snow. He is as still as stone.
Alice closes her eyes and shudders with another after-pang. When it’s over she opens her eyes and looks at Julia. ‘When will it be over?’ she asks plaintively. ‘Why hasn’t it stopped?’
‘I don’t know.’ Julia sobs again.
Alice lowers herself back to the floor, not looking at the bundle that Julia is holding out to her.
Julia asks, ‘Don’t you want to see it?’
Alice sighs. ‘I know that it’s dead.’ She turns on her side and stares away into the distance. ‘Things would be different if it weren’t. You wouldn’t be crying for one thing.’
‘Yes . . . yes, he’s dead. The cord was around his neck. Perhaps he was dead for a while, I don’t know, but . . . Alice, he’s perfect but for that. So small but perfect and beautiful. Don’t you want to see him?’
Alice lies there for a while, blinking into nothingness. When she speaks, her voice is flat and heavy. ‘No. He wasn’t going to be mine anyway. He was going to be Roy’s. His consolation.’
‘How did you know about the other baby?’ whispers Julia. ‘The one his wife lost?’
Alice turns to her, a spark of something in her eyes that quickly dies. ‘I didn’t know. Perhaps I did – but not from Roy. Maybe I felt it in the universe. But it’s all pointless now that my baby is dead too.’
Julia looks down again at the child in her arms. Then she looks up at Donnie, who has turned at the mention of Roy’s name. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asks wonderingly. The reality of the situation is beginning to sink in. Alice is here, still in the aftermath of labour. Julia is holding a dead baby. She cannot begin to understand what must be done.
‘What are we going to do?’ she asks again, now with an edge of fear in her voice. All she can think of is that they mustn’t be found out.
‘You can’t stay here,’ Donnie says roughly. ‘I know it sounds harsh, but there’s a lot at stake if you’re found. We can’t afford to lose our jobs. And if they find out that Roy is the father, he’ll be arrested.’
‘Arrested?’ Julia echoes.
Donnie nods. ‘Your girl is under age.’
Alice stirs at this. ‘Will they arrest Roy? I won’t let that happen. I won’t let him and his family suffer because of me.’ She starts to push herself up from the floor. ‘I’ll stop it.’
‘Lie down,’ Julia soothes, trying to keep calm. ‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see. No one will be arrested.’ But she turns frightened eyes on Donnie. ‘She’s just had a baby. What will we do? How do I get her back to school?’
Donnie looks out to the night beyond. ‘It’s still early. There’s a few hours yet before you’ll be missed. Give her a chance to get her strength back and I’ll carry her to the school so she doesn’t have to walk.’
‘What then?’ Julia asks, bewildered. ‘What do we do after that?’
‘You’re on your own after that. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’
Alice says in her flat tone, ‘Don’t worry, Julia. I’ll be all right. You’ll see. I always knew I’d go back without him. I’m ready for that.’
Julia wonders if she is talking about Roy or the baby. She must mean the baby. She turns her gaze again to the little body in her arms, wrapped in the flimsy pillowcase. The thought crosses her mind that if she could get a blanket for it instead, perhaps she could warm him back to life. No wonder he’s so cold in this piece of cotton. Then she remembers. Nothing will ever warm him.
She lifts her eyes to Donnie. ‘What about the baby?’
He gazes down at them. Then he says abruptly, ‘Leave him with me. I’ll look after him.’
‘Will you . . . be kind to him?’ she asks, her voice wavering.
‘Of course I will. You’ll see.’
The hours pass in quietness. The pangs continue until Alice’s body delivers a mess of blood and tissue and then they are over. Julia wraps the strange livid wobbliness and the remains of the cord in layers of newspaper for Donnie to bury somewhere. Alice does not say another word but lies staring into space, not wanting to see the tiny body that Julia has placed carefully on a cushion from the bench. It is as though everything has been drained from her and left her a heavy, dull weight that nothing can animate.
Julia cleans up as well as she can, warming water on the hot ring to wash Alice down. Alice lets her do it, neither helping nor hindering, with no sense of shame or embarrassment as Julia tenderly wipes her thighs free of blood.
While Julia does her best to make Alice comfortable, Donnie goes out and comes back with some small planks of thin wood. Julia makes them all tea and he sits at the back of the caravan with a hammer and some tacks, lightly tapping the boards. When he has finished, there is a small box prepared, with an ill-fitting lid.
‘There,’ he says, putting it down on the floor. ‘It’s the best I can do.’
Julia understands he has carefully made a coffin for the child. ‘It’s very nice,’ she says, her eyes full of tears again. ‘But it’s bare. Not very comfortable.’
‘Then we’ll put in a cushion,’ Donnie says. ‘You choose one.’
There is some comfort, Julia finds, in preparing the little box for the baby. She selects the softest of the small sofa cushions and wraps it in a clean pillowcase, then lays the little body, swaddled in another pillow case, upon it. It’s somehow not enough. Her gaze falls upon a picture on the wall, an arrangement of dried violets and pansies under glass, and she jumps up to get it. They prise the back off and take out the little flowers. Julia scatters them over the baby and on the cushion.
‘That’s better,’ she says. But there is still something missing. She turns to Alice. ‘Do you want to give something to the baby?’ she asks gently.
Alice has her back to the coffin, though she has been listening carefully to the proceedings and knows what they are doing. ‘No,’ she says. Then after a second she says, ‘Wait. Yes. Do you have any scissors?’
They don’t but Donnie has his knife. Alice says, ‘Take off some of my hair and put it with the baby.’
‘Are you sure?’ Julia asks.
‘Yes. Please.’ She allows Julia to lift one of her long fair tresses and saw slowly through it with the knife blade until the hank comes away in her hand.
Julia places it on top of the little body, curling it round into a golden circle. ‘Yes,’ she says pensively. ‘That’s right. That’s enough.’ She drops her gaze to the floor and feels this is the moment for a ritual of some kind, though she can’t think of anything except the Lord’s Prayer, so she begins solemnly. ‘Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name . . .’
Donnie joins in and they say the prayer together while Alice listens.
When it is finished, Donnie says softly, ‘That was very nice.’ He bends down and puts the lid over the dead child. Julia bites her lip as he disappears from view, her vision blurring with tears. ‘Don’t worry,’ Donnie says gently when he sees her cry. ‘I’ll take care of him. He’ll be safe with me.’ He looks over at Alice. ‘Do you reckon she’s strong enough to move now?’
Alice shifts under her blanket. ‘I’m strong enough,’ she says with determination. ‘You can take me back now.’
‘Come on then,’ Donnie says. He stares at Julia. ‘Time to go.’