‘I’ll think about it, Stephen,’ she said gently but she knew she wouldn’t. Her poor stomach was scarred, her belly hung around her like a huge grotesque belt, she could feel it hard and shiny and criss-crossed with wheals and lines. She was fat, hideous, though in her loose clothing Stephen couldn’t see any of that, he saw only her face, remembered the young taut-muscled girl she’d once been.
‘Take me back home, Stephen, there’s a love.’ She slipped her arm through his, at least she could treat him as a friend, he was humbled now by his experiences, he’d become a man, more sensitive than the callow boy he’d been. The war had changed them all.
Several weeks passed and Kate still hadn’t given Stephen an answer. To his credit he didn’t press her and for that she was grateful. As she drank her cocoa with Hilda one night, she began to feel an ache in her stomach. She winced and Hilda was at her side in a moment. ‘What is it, girl?’
‘Just a twinge in my belly—as you said, things settling down inside me after the explosion.’
Kate went to bed, perhaps she would feel better if she lay down. It was chilly in the bedroom and she wished there was enough coal to light the fire. She shivered as the pain squeezed her belly. It became worse as the night hours wore on and Kate thought she was going to die.
Hilda heard her moans and came into the bedroom and put on the gas light.
‘It hurts so much, Hilda, I think I’m going to die.’ She clutched her belly and writhed as the pain curled around her; the bones in her back felt as if they were being torn apart. ‘I feel as if my insides were going to fall out so I do.’
‘Here, let me take a look for God’s sake.’ Without worrying about dignity Hilda pushed up Kate’s nightgown and felt her taut belly.
‘God almighty!’ she said, ‘you’re about to give birth, your waters have just broke.’
Kate felt sick and then happy and then—terrified. ‘A baby, how can that be? The explosion, my scars, could a baby survive all that? It can’t be a baby, Hilda.’
‘Listen, girl, I’ve had four myself and lost all of them. It will be an hour, perhaps two, but by morning there will be another addition to my family.’ She sighed. ‘Our Eddie’s baby.’
Kate was grateful to Hilda for not questioning the paternity but then Hilda knew more than most what a hermit Kate had been since Eddie had gone missing.
‘Shame poor mite will be called a bastard,’ she almost whispered, ‘and you a good Catholic girl.’
‘No!’ Kate said, ‘it will not be a bastard! Fetch Stephen, fetch the priest, we will have a father for my child even though it won’t be the man I truly love. The baby will be made legitimate even if it only be minutes before it’s born.’
Kate hardly knew what was happening after that. In a swirl of pain she told Stephen the truth. ‘Are you willing to have me now?’
He took off his signet ring. ‘This will do for now, darling,’ he said.
The priest was old and wise and swept through the ceremony with as much dignity and speed as he could muster.
‘Another push now, good girl.’ The midwife had miraculously appeared. ‘The head is coming, bear down, Kate, like the good Irish girl you are.’
Feeling as if she was going to explode, Kate put all her strength into pushing the child out of her straining body.
The midwife looked anxiously at the deep scars on Kate’s belly. ‘Pray to God they hold,’ she said, ‘it’s a miracle a babe survived all that but then I’ve learned by now mother nature will do anything to preserve humankind. Now one strong push, Kate, one more strong push and it will all be over.’
Kate pushed her chin into her chest, there was a burning sensation between her legs and then she felt the head emerge and the slide of the little body and her belly relaxed.
‘It’s a big healthy boy!’ Hilda said joyfully, ‘my Eddie’s got a son.’
The baby was put against Kate’s chest. He wriggled and cried, and a great wash of tenderness swept over her. She managed to grasp a flailing arm, felt for the fingers and they curled around hers as though her son recognized her as his mother. And it was then that Kate began to cry. Great tears rolled down her face as she held her squirming baby close to her and prayed to God that he would never have to go to war.
Stephen took her hand and she clutched at him gratefully, realizing she had become a wife just an hour before she became a mother.
Twenty-Three
Hari looked at Michael across the tea-stained tablecloth in the cheap cafe across the road from Swansea beach. The bay was rimed in frost on this early February day. He’d come for Meryl.
Meryl had been home for yet another visit to Father; it was good to see him and his daughter growing close, but now it was time for Meryl to go back to the farm and her schooling. Hari forced herself to break the silence that had come between her and Michael.
‘Why did you want to see me alone, Michael?’
He shrugged, ‘I borrowed a little car and managed to get some petrol. This visit I thought I’d save you the bother of driving to Carmarthen.’
‘But you asked to meet me first, why?’ She took a deep breath, she knew they were attracted to each other, she felt drawn to Michael more and more each time she saw him. Now that Meryl came regularly to see Father Hari had spent a great deal of time with Michael. She knew she cared for him and knew it would never work.
‘I could never live in the country. I love my job in Bridgend so much I couldn’t leave it.’ Today she had learned that Germany had suffered its first defeat of the war, Stalingrad having at last fallen after months of fighting; the Germans were in retreat. It was good news but news she felt unable to share with Michael.
‘My little sister has enjoyed her visit to Swansea,’ she said awkwardly. It was true: Meryl visited the munitions as often as she was in Swansea; she loved the business of the office, the radio signals, the codes, loved it all.
She had picked up the codes with remarkable swiftness, her young mind making mincemeat of what Hari had struggled so hard to learn.
‘And yet Meryl thinks of the farm as her home. I’m a town girl to the soles of my feet,’ Hari said casually, hoping to deflect what he was about to say but realizing he was going to speak his mind anyway.
‘I’m falling in love with you, Hari.’ He rested his hand on hers across the table and she looked down into her cold cup of tea without seeing it.
‘It’s no good,’ she said, ‘there’s so much wrong, the timing is all wrong. There’s the war, my father, my job and, not the least, Meryl.’
‘She’s only a child.’
‘Wake up Michael, she’s sixteen, she’s grown into a woman. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘Physically she might have changed but she’s still a girl, she’ll fall in love many times before she settles down.’
‘You don’t know her like I do.’
‘Hari, this isn’t about Meryl, it’s about you and me.’
She felt his hand press on hers and she turned her fingers to clasp his. ‘Just leave it for now, Michael, please, I’ve enough to worry about with my father and work and Kate and… well, I can’t handle any more.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going home to get Meryl ready for the trip, give us an hour and then come for her and for heaven’s sake don’t mention—’ she waved her arm—‘any of this.’
She walked away quickly before she gave in to his pleading eyes. Her heart was pounding, she felt more than attracted to Michael and she was enchanted by his hardly discernible lisp on certain words. She knew he shouldn’t draw attention to himself, he was half German and shouldn’t be in this country at all. He had risked a great deal to come to talk to her in Swansea.
Meryl had already packed her small case. Hari smiled as she saw them sitting together, father and daughter, Meryl’s head bent over the newspaper as she read out the daily news.
‘Father! Some more American soldiers and airmen are to be stationed just outside Swansea.’
