A Girl Can Dream. Anne Bennett
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‘Maybe he’ll take a grip on himself with another mouth to feed,’ Meg said.
‘Yeah,’ said Terry, with a rueful grin. ‘And maybe pigs fly.’
The following day, Meg and her aunt Rosie went to fetch the baby home. The nurse seemed a bit surprised and said, ‘I thought your father might be here with you today to discuss the little one’s care in the future.’
Meg’s eyes met those of her aunt, but she felt she had to defend her father. ‘He … he had to work,’ she said. ‘You know the funeral and all was a great expense.’
‘Of course, I understand,’ the nurse said, but Meg knew that she didn’t. It was small wonder: Meg herself didn’t fully understand why her father had never been to see his baby daughter since the day of her birth.
But she said to the nurse, ‘What do you mean about the baby’s care? She is all right, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, yes, she is,’ the nurse said, ‘but she is a month premature and so her feeds will have to be little and often – every two to three hours.’
Meg nodded and the nurse went on, ‘And she will be unable to regulate her temperature so you must ensure that she is kept warm. Be aware of that and add an extra blanket if the nights are cold. And guard against infection. Don’t let anyone nurse her if they have a cold or anything. In fact, keep visitors to a minimum for now.’
‘Little chance of that,’ Rose laughed. ‘Every woman in the street has been on pins all day, knowing the wee one is coming home. They mean her no harm, but want to welcome her properly.’
Meg nodded. ‘And they have all been good to us since Mom died and I’d hate to offend them, but if I see anyone with a cold, I will ask them not to touch her.’
‘Well, do your best,’ the nurse said. ‘And we will keep our eye on her too. So for now I’d like you to bring her in every week to be weighed to make sure she is gaining enough.’
Meg could see the logic of it but it was yet another thing she had to fit into her week. Rose had seen the resigned look flit over her face and said, ‘It doesn’t have to be you that brings the child back here. I could do it sometimes. Don’t be too independent. We can’t help you if you don’t let us.’
Meg smiled gratefully at her aunt and felt the burden of responsibility that had lodged firmly between her shoulders lighten a little.
Rose insisted on paying for a taxi as she said little Rose couldn’t be expected to travel home on a tram, which rattled alarmingly and was probably full of germs. Meg thoroughly enjoyed her second-ever ride in a car, while Ruth, snuggled tight against her, went fast asleep.
Rose was right about the neighbours eagerly awaiting the arrival of little Ruth Hallett. The children barely had time to ooh and aah over their little sister before they were invaded. Everyone brought something: matinée jackets, dresses, nighties, leggings or pram sets. One neighbour brought a rocking cradle and another an enormous pram she no longer needed, and a woman who had had twins five years before brought a selection of clothes that Meg was sure would fit Ruth because the twins had been tiny too.
That evening, Meg showed the things to her father, but he showed no interest in either the clothes or the child, his only comment being, ‘That bloody pram is too big for this house.’
Stunned and hurt – Meg could not believe that her father would keep up this antipathy to his own child – she snapped back, ‘Where d’you suggest I leave it then? In the street?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Yes, well, you’ve said, and unless you have an alternative place for it, it stays right where it is,’ Meg told her father firmly.
For a moment he glared at Meg for speaking to him that way in front of the children, but he said nothing. Instead he stood up so quickly that his chair scraped on the lino, and then he lifted his coat from the back of the door and went out, slamming the door after him with such gusto that Ruth, lying asleep in the pram, woke with a start and began to cry.
Meg felt desolation surround her as she lifted the baby, realising at that moment that her father was a weak man. She had hoped against hope that when she brought the baby home he would finally mellow towards her and start looking after her in the way he should. But she recognised now that he was unable to take responsibility for his part in making her mother pregnant, and knowing by doing so he had put her life in danger. Instead of accepting any blame, he laid it all on the shoulders of a tiny, innocent baby.
The children began to clear the table and wash up the pots as Meg dealt with the baby. Then Terry supervised their getting ready for bed before putting a cup of tea down beside Meg. None of them had spoken about the incident after dinner, or their father’s indifference to Ruth, and she imagined that they were as confused as she was.
‘Not looking forward to him coming home tonight,’ Terry said.
‘Don’t blame you,’ Meg said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have gone for him the way I did, but …’
‘None of us can understand the way Dad is with Ruth,’ Terry said. ‘I mean, when you see her, she’s just so helpless.’
‘I know,’ Meg said with a sigh. ‘I suppose I should be worried about his state of mind, really – I know he’s lost his wife – but I just feel angry with him for being so weak when we are all doing our best to muddle through.’
And muddling through it was. Despite the help that Meg had given her mother bringing up her siblings, she had quickly discovered that it was very different being totally responsible for a child. She hadn’t realised how loud and siren-like a baby’s cry was in the dead of night, and how crushingly tired she felt, having been roused every couple of hours. The fitful sleep that Meg would drop into eventually was shallow and far from refreshing, and she would be jerked out of it again and again before the night ended.
After four nights of this, she was bleary-eyed on the Friday morning as she ladled porridge into her father’s bowl, poured them each a cup of tea and sat down opposite him. As it was the school holidays she had left the others in bed until they needed to get up, and she was just about to broach the subject of housekeeping with her father – because she hadn’t a brass farthing to her name – when, as if he knew what was in her mind, he handed over what was left in his pay packet. Meg knew he got paid on a Thursday, but when she looked in the pay packet there was only one pound and one ten-shilling note left in there. She had no idea what her father used to give her mother to buy the food for them all, but she could bet it was much more than she had been given.
‘Is this all?’ she asked.
‘Aye, that’s all,’ Charlie snapped. ‘Your mother never moaned. Great manager, your mother was.’
‘Great manager!’ Meg repeated. ‘The rent is seven and six a week.’
‘I am well aware of that,’ Charlie said. ‘And you may as well know it all. We are three weeks in arrears. Our landlord, old Mr Flatterly himself, came and offered his condolences when Maeve died and told me I wasn’t to worry about the arrears, that I had enough on my plate. He’s a decent sort, not like his son, who I hear is taking over the properties from him now.’
‘Great,’ Meg said. ‘So I’ve got to meet with this son, who isn’t a decent sort, and give him just one week’s rent when we owe three weeks. And how am I going to find the money to pay even one week if we are going to eat as well?’
‘You’ll not likely meet him,’ Charlie said. ‘You know it’s Vince O’Malley collecting the money, and if you tell him you can’t pay anything off the arrears yet, he’s not going to bother about it, is he?’
‘But I don’t like owing money,’ Meg said doggedly. ‘Mom never held with it, but even with the basic rent paid I don’t see how I will make the money stretch. We have another mouth to feed now and little Ruth has to have milk.’
‘Well,