The House by Princes Park Read Free

neighbour, then.’
    ‘Has my father given you his address?’
    ‘’Course. I’m to send him a telegram when the baby’sborn, aren’t I? “Package Delivered” I’ve to put, case anyone reads it. Unless you decide to keep the baby, that is, in which case he doesn’t want to know.’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of keeping it.’ Olivia shuddered. Once it arrived, she intended putting the whole episode behind her and finishing her training, to become a State Registered Nurse.
    Madge looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You might feel different when it’s born.’
    ‘If I do,’ Olivia said harshly. ‘I want you to tear it out of my arms and let my father have it.’
    ‘Your father can do the tearing, dearie. Not me.’
    The baby seemed even less real than Tom. It might well be in her womb, but it had nothing to do with her. She didn’t care what happened to it as long as it didn’t come to any harm.
    Christmas came and went, and soon it was 1919, the first New Year in half a decade with Europe at peace with itself, celebrated with a joy and enthusiasm that was infectious. Madge and Olivia watched fireworks on the River Avon and sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at midnight in Victoria Park.
    January became February, and February turned into March. The baby was due at the beginning of April.
    Desmond Starr, Madge’s ventriloquist son, came home for Easter, a cheerful, outgoing young man, just like his mother. He was booked to appear all summer at a theatre in Felixstowe and invited Madge and her guest. He could get free tickets.
    ‘Well, I’ll try,’ Olivia lied. By summer, she would have started afresh. She was fond of Madge, but never wanted to see her or her son again.
    She knew she had become very hard, very selfish. In days gone by, she’d been regarded as a soft old thing, too sympathetic for her own good. But now, there seemed tobe a barrier in her brain, stopping all thoughts from entering that weren’t concerned solely with herself.
    The baby signalled it was on its way one lovely sunny Sunday afternoon in April, dead on time. Olivia was reading one of Madge’s torrid romances when she had the first contraction, a strong one. It wasn’t long before she had another, stronger and more painful. She’d spent time on a maternity ward during her training and recognised it was going to be a quick birth.
    Madge was playing whist with her friends in the parlour. Olivia calmly made a cup of tea and waited for the friends to leave. She boiled two large pans of water and laid a rubber sheet on the bed. The worn sheets Madge had boiled to use as rags she put ready on a chair.
    She gritted her teeth when another contraction came, worse than the others, but was reluctant to disturb Madge while her friends were there. Not that Madge could do anything, but she wouldn’t have minded the company. The contractions were coming every ten minutes by the time the visitors were shown out.
    ‘By, God! You’re a cool customer,’ Madge gasped when Olivia called her upstairs where she was lying on the bed, already in her nightdress.
    ‘I’ve got a couple of hours to go yet.’
    ‘You’re too cool, d’you know that?’ She sat on the bed and took Olivia’s hand. ‘My other young ladies have cried themselves silly during the entire confinement, but there hasn’t been a peep out of you.’
    ‘I haven’t felt much like crying,’ Olivia confessed, wincing when another contraction gripped her stomach like a wrench.
    ‘It’s time you did. Didn’t you cry when your young man was killed? What was his name? Tom! You hardly ever talk about him.’
    Olivia permitted herself a wry smile. ‘I slept in adormitory with the other nurses. There was no place where I could cry in private. And I don’t talk about Tom because he doesn’t seem real. I can’t even remember what he looked like.’
    Madge sniggered. ‘Well, the baby’s real enough. You can have a good old yell, you know,’ she said when Olivia winced again. ‘Let yourself go.