The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers Read Free Page A

bed. I winced. My back hurt from lugging it for so long. ‘Have you come far?’ she asked, putting her pen and pad to one side.
    I shook my head. ‘Not very,’ I replied. ‘Just a few miles on the bus. I’ve been staying with a friend since . . . well, since all this happened.’
    I turned to smile back, as I opened up the case and began sorting out the contents. I’d been given a list of what to pack for the baby. As well as my few maternity clothes, nightwear and
toiletries, I’d packed terry nappies, vests and some nighties and booties that, touchingly, my close friends from work had contributed. I also had matinée jackets, knitted by my
sister-in-law Emmie, and a cold-weather outfit that I’d seen in a shop in Elm Park and bought in white, as I didn’t know the baby’s sex.
    On the top of the pile was the intricate knitted shawl that Emmie had made for when the baby was to be handed over for adoption. Seeing it again now made me start. Like the baby, it would not be
mine for very long. I quickly put all thoughts of what was to come out of my mind, as they reminded me just how soon I’d be giving birth. It felt scarily real now that I was here. I reached
to open my locker and began filling the tiny space inside with my possessions.
    ‘How about you?’ I asked Mary, whose accent made me suspect she’d travelled a great deal further than I had.
    ‘Oh, a long way,’ she confirmed. ‘I’ve come from Ireland. Wexford. Do you know it, by any chance?’
    I nodded. ‘I’ve not been there, but I have family in County Waterford. My mother comes from there. You’re right; it is a long way,’ I said.
    She nodded glumly. ‘It feels like it, to be sure. No one at home knows I’m here. I told them I was coming to London to find work.’ This wouldn’t have been an unusual
scenario: the economic situation in Ireland was pretty grim in the sixties, and lots of young Irish girls came to England to get work. ‘So now I’m a waitress,’ she told me,
smiling ruefully, lifting the pages of carefully written untruths from beside her on the bedcover. ‘I’ve been telling them all about it – what a grand job it is.’ The smile
was still there, but it was a bleak one.
    ‘So you’ve not told anyone ?’ I asked her. ‘Is there no one you’ve confided to at all?’ I couldn’t imagine how isolating and horrible that must
be. Thank goodness I had Emmie and a couple of dear work friends to support me.
    ‘Not a soul. I dared not. Can you imagine the consequences?’
    I nodded. I could. To be pregnant and unmarried in England was bad enough, but for a young Irish Catholic girl it was unthinkable. She would be shunned, unmarriageable, thought the lowest of the
low. The level of hatred and vitriol against young unmarried mothers there was well known. It was something that could disgrace a girl for life.
    ‘Except the father,’ she added, her expression darkening further. ‘He knows, all right. But he’s married. And he already has two children to support. So what can he do to help me?’ She sounded like she was reciting the very words he’d said to her.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘That’s awful . . .’
    ‘Not so awful as getting pregnant, let me tell you, and only then finding out he’d got a family.’ She sounded and looked distraught now, her eyes filling with tears. I
wasn’t sure if I should stop what I was doing and go and comfort her; I nearly did, but something about her body language told me not to. She pulled a piece of tissue from the sleeve of her
jumper and dabbed angrily with it.
    ‘I’m a fool, is what I am,’ she said. ‘Blind. Just plain blind.’ She pushed the tissue away back out of sight and spread her hands. ‘But aren’t we all
sometimes? I loved him. I still love him – much good it’ll do me. But mostly I’m just so homesick.’
    ‘I’m sure you are.’
    ‘And terrified, of course. Can you imagine if someone finds out where I really am?’ she asked