Page 34 of A Family Affair
‘Nora, Nora wake up. Baby needs feeding, come on. Robert needs you. He’s hungry and wants his mam.’ My heart was breaking for the baby I held in my arms, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down right beside him. Join him in another world so it wouldn’t hurt any more. Instead I remained upright.
I waited a while and tried, once, twice, and just when I was about to give up I caught my breath when her eyes opened. I was right. Eyes clear and green as the shamrock leaf on my dad’s lapel pin, stared back.
‘I can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t.’ Nora’s voice was barely audible, and I noticed that as she tried to lift her arm, and move Robert who lay in its crook, her limb flopped back onto the bed.
Her baby cried out for nourishment, but she was deathly pale and as she closed her eyes again I remembered one of our Linda’s gruesome stories. About a neighbour who bled to death after giving birth. Shifting my weight slightly I pulled back the filthy sheet that covered her to reveal the horror beneath. The crimson-soaked mattress told me all I needed to know. Without a word, I hid the truth and sucked in courage.
Looking down on my little boy I knew there was nothing I could do for him so, after laying him on the bed, I picked Robert up and unbuttoned my dress to feed him. He was tiny, like my Joseph, and I wondered if he’d come early, too.
He latched on immediately and whilst I was overwhelmed with a sense of relief I was racked with such immense guilt and disloyalty towards my own baby who lay silently on the bed.
I’d only just buttoned up my dress and placed Robert back by Nora’s side when she roused. I picked up Joseph and hugged him to my chest as her eyelids flickered. When she revealed her emerald eyes, I noticed they had dimmed. No longer intense.
‘Thank you…’ Nora’s free arm rested on her midriff, and I saw her fingers twitch, so I reached over and took her hand in mine.
‘Shush, rest now. They’ll start searching soon…’ but Nora interrupted.
‘He’s a good boy, your little one… not a peep. They’ll be like brothers, best friends.’
I swallowed and nodded. ‘Let’s rest now. The danger’s over. You sleep and I’ll watch Robert… it’s been a long night.’
‘Please hold my hand, don’t let go. I don’t want to be alone when…’ she didn’t end her sentence but drifted off, not away, and I thought she might be able to hang on. Just for a few more hours till they found us.
I did as she asked and, although I was dog tired and my body could barely hold itself up, I kept vigil, watching her chest rise and fall. I closed my eyes and jolted awake, no idea how long I’d slept for, seconds or minutes. Eventually I couldn’t stay upright so lay back on the bed at an awkward angle, holding onto Nora’s hand, with Joseph on my chest while Robert slept by his mother’s side.
My eyes didn’t respond at first to what my ears were hearing. Disobeying my brain that demanded I woke up.
‘There’s someone down there, I can see. Hello, love, can you hear me?’
And then Robert began to cry, and I heeded that voice rather than the one from the Home Guard who’d found us. I forced open my eyes and listened.
‘I can hear a baby crying. Hello, hello! Can anyone hear me?’
Finding my voice as I let go of Nora’s hand I raised my aching body and called out, ‘Yes, I can hear you.’
And then the words I’d waited all night to hear. ‘Don’t you worry, love. We’re going to get you out… I’ll be back soon with help.’ And then he was gone, his footsteps sending a cascade of dust and earth from above.
My attention turned to Nora and Robert, the baby first, who grizzled and waved angry fists. And then to his mother whose lips were tinged with blue and the gut-turning grey pallor of her skin.
Whether it was the cold, or lack of sustenance or horror but the combination made the room spin and as I gasped for air, I clung to Joseph and waited for it to stop. When it did, I gathered what strength and courage I had left.
‘Nora, wake up. They’ve found us.’ Reaching out a shaking hand I touched her face that I knew would be cold, and then I tried her wrist, feeling for a pulse like the nurse had done when I was admitted. Nothing.
In desperation I gave her a nudge and begged her again to wake up, but Nora didn’t hear me. She was gone.
While Robert kicked his legs in temper beneath his blanket, I sat and stared at the woman who had no friends, or family or home and in it all, surrounded by destruction and mayhem, that’s what made me cry. The futility of it all. Because there I was, ready and willing to take her in, be the friend and share the family she so desperately needed. I would never have the chance to show her kindness, love. Whatever her own kin were incapable of.
And then I looked at my little baby boy who would be missing out on the same. Joseph was gone too. Which is when I realised I couldn’t help either of them anymore, but I could help Robert. He had nobody, that I knew from what Nora had told me. All I could think was he’d end up being adopted when I could love him as much as the next person, more. Neither baby wore a name tag, perhaps due to the state of emergency, but it made it all much easier.
I was on auto-pilot. And what happened next I could argue was a result of many factors. My mind being unbalanced by trauma. A body overflowing with hormones and confused further by fatigue. It wasn’t. I knew exactly what I was doing.
I pulled Robert towards me on the bed, and then gently kissed my Joseph goodbye, telling him I would love him forever and remember him always. I placed him in the crook of Nora’s arm and wrapped it around him. Then I picked Robert up and fed him.
While he guzzled milk, I waited for the rescuers to return, and gazed upon Nora and Joseph who slept side by side, him tucked into her arm, and I asked a favour. One mother to another.
‘Will you look after my boy while I look after yours, Nora? Take him with you to heaven. I’ll take good care of this one, I promise. He’ll want for nothing, and I’ll love him as my own.’
The sound of the Home Guard returning interrupted the tranquillity of the moment, but there was nothing more to say. So I sat on the bed, keeping Nora and Joseph company right until it was time to leave.
