34. RUSHING HOME

Back to Brumpton earlier than intended

Poor Wallace and Maureen! Their honeymoon was cut short when she became aware of sudden pains in her stomach early on the morning of the third day and thought her baby may have started clamouring to get out. They had a choice: seek local help or catch the next train home and see her own midwife. She was sure she could manage the journey so that was the option they decided on, possibly rather too hastily.

“I know her,” she confided in Wallace, “and she knows me. If I am going to have the baby it won’t be straight away. I’ve friends that said they were in labour for days, and anyway I don’t think it’s due yet, if I’ve got my dates right.”

Wallace didn’t know anything about dates or the mysterious world of childbirth and chose to keep his ignorance to himself. “We’d best get home as quickly as we can then,” he said, “and I think there’s a train at ten.”

“Hurry up and pack then,” urged Maureen, holding her stomach, and Wallace did the packing in record breaking time. There wasn’t a great deal, and some was already in their one and only suitcase. After all, the year was nineteen sixty one and most people had smaller wardrobes than they might be expected to have have today.

It fell to Wallace to tell Tom Berkely, so he ran to the office and was overjoyed to find it open so early in the day because he felt that leaving without settling up would seem too much like them doing a moonlight flit, and he was too honest to want to be seen in that light.

“She’s afraid the baby might be coming,” he told Tom, “and we’d better go home as soon as we can.”

“Is she sure?” asked the other, “there are facilities here, in Skegness,” he added.

“Well, she’s never been pregnant before and doesn’t exactly know what it’s like, but she’s got these pains...” began Wallace, ”and she wants to see her own midwife.”

“Better safe than sorry then, lad,” agreed Tom, “and the good news is I’ve seen the dragon at that hotel and she was overjoyed to refund your deposit after I mentioned a few things to her. And when I saw how much she was going to keep, and you getting nothing in return, I was shocked! Now you’ve only been here for, let me see, three days, so I’ve got a bit left over for you after I’ve taken my charges out. Here you are, lad, here’s your change, and you get to see to that pretty lady of yours, make sure she’s all right.”

And that was very much that. A taxi took them to the station in Skegness and as luck would have it there was already a fast train in the station that would drop them off in Brumpton. So not much more than two hours later they were making their way the short distance from the Railway Station in Brumpton to home.

Home was still the large council house where Wallace had been brought up after his father had died. He had applied for continued tenancy to the council, explaining that his wife (though she hadn’t exactly been his wife when he’d made the application but the Register Office had been booked) was expecting their first child, and his tenancy had been agreed with the proviso that as he was under the age of twenty-one Maureen would have to sign all the documents and agreements.

When they finally settled in Maureen rushed to the bathroom, one hand over her mouth as though she was going to burst if she took it away.

“I feel sick,” she moaned, and slammed the door behind her before he could get to her in order to help her.

Ten minutes later she announced that she was feeling very much better, having suddenly emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

“That’s what it was,” she said, grimly, “I was just feeling sick.”

Wallace was relieved, to say the least, but the down side was he soon found himself developing stomach cramps the like of which he’d not had before.

“Have you eaten anything odd lately?” asked the doctor when they called him, and Wallace, almost without thinking, shook his head.

“There were those cockles,” put in Maureen, “we stopped at a sea-front bar and had some cockles,” she added. “I wondered at the time about the taste, but the vinegar disguised anything odd about it.”

“Oh dear,” the doctor shook his head, “it is possible… but you’ve got a mild dose of food poisoning. I’ll give you some medicine that should sort things out, but remember, when you’re eating sea food make sure that it’s fresh. I’m not saying it was the cockles, but it might have been.”

Then he took a good look at Maureen. “You’re coming on nicely,” he said, smiling, “I always like to see young ladies in your condition. They always look blooming with health.”

“I wasn’t feeling so healthy first thing,” Maureen told him.

“You had some of the seafood too, then?” he asked, and she nodded. “That about confirms it then,” he concluded, and left them as he dashed away to look after other patients with other problems.

By next morning they were both feeling very much better and looked back regretfully on their shortened honeymoon.

“You know, darling,” murmured Maureen before they got up that morning, “I’m rather glad that we’re here, in our own home, and not in that caravan, even though it was lovely.”

“It was very good of Mr Berkely to rescue us,” reminded Wallace.

“And lucky that he was passing by at exactly the right moment, too,” agreed Maureen, and she snuggled up as close to her husband as possible.

“I can feel something moving in your tummy,” exclaimed Wallace suddenly, “have you got wind or something? Are you going to be sick or have diarrhoea?

“No, silly,” laughed Maureen, “you really are a wally, aren’t you!”

“There! I felt it again!”

“It’s the baby kicking,” she laughed, “it does it a lot. If it’s a boy I bet it’ll be a footballer!”

“Is it really? Here, let me feel it.”

He gently put his hand under her nightie and rested it on the bump of her stomach, and right on cue the unborn child flexed its muscles.

“I felt that!” he almost shouted.

“Shh! Not so loud! The neighbours will hear!”

“Let them” We’re going to have a baby and it’s alive and kicking right now! Oh, Maureen, you are such a clever lady! And I can’t wait, now, until it’s born and we know what sex it is and everything! I want it to be a boy, don’t you?”

“Or a girl,” she said to him, “a boy or a girl, whatever it wants to be, as long as it’s all right.

“Yes,” he agreed, as long as it’s all right. And I hope it is. It’s stopped kicking! It has, it’s stopped! There isn't anything wrong, is there?”

She laughed at him. “Of course not, silly! Even baby needs to get forty winks some times!”

He smiled, and kissed her fully on the mouth/ “Of course,” he whispered, “but I don’t want forty winks, do you?”

“What are you suggesting?”

He smirked at her. “Just that I don’t half love you,” he purred.

© Peter Rogerson 11.07.19