Goodnight Lady (49 page)

Rosalee clapped her hands together and made the deep-throated gurgle that meant she was happy.

Briony ran through her front door like a lunatic. Pulling off her coat, she raced up the stairwell, shouting to Cissy over her shoulder.

‘Tea, hot and steaming. I’m freezing.’

Cissy picked up the full length silver fox coat and tutted to herself as she went through to the kitchen.

Briony went into Kerry’s bedroom where the midwife was making Kerry comfortable.

‘How are you, Kel, all right? I came immediately.’

Kerry lay against the pillows, her face shining with sweat. ‘I’m all right, Bri.’

The midwife wiped her face with a damp cloth. ‘This is a quick birth, I’ve seen the type before. One lady I had was up and over it all in less than three hours! She won’t go long. The doctor’s seen her and he’s coming back later, he’s got two emergencies. Christmas is always the same.’

Briony smiled at her. ‘Go down and get yourself a cuppa, I’ll stay with her.’

The woman left the room gratefully. Briony Cavanagh was paying her a lot of money to deliver this child and keep it quiet. She had no intention of blotting her copybook, not where Briony Cavanagh was concerned.

Kerry moaned as another pain shot through her. ‘Imagine, a Christmas baby, Bri. In another half an hour it’s Christmas Day!’

‘And what a present, eh? A baby.’

‘Now I know how poor old Mary felt!’

Briony laughed, pleased at how well Kerry was coping.

‘At least she had a husband, Bri, that’s one thing in her favour.’

Briony sat on the bed and said, ‘Yeah, but he wasn’t the father of the child, was he? Poor old Joseph got all the hag and none of the pleasure!’

Kerry grinned, scandalised. ‘If Mum was here, she’d flatten you for that remark.’

‘Yeah, well, she ain’t, is she? And it’s only the truth anyway. How are the pains?’

‘Let’s just say they’re there, shall we? Give me a drink of water, Bri, I’m parched.’

She doubled up as another pain shot through her. The sweat was standing out on her brow and Briony picked up the cloth and wiped her sister’s face gently.

‘Oh, that’s lovely, Bri.’

‘Here you are, have a drink of water.’ She held the heavy crystal glass to her sister’s lips.

Kerry gulped at the water, the coolness easing the burning of her throat.

‘Have a guess what I heard today, when I was shopping.’

‘What, a bit of scandal?’

Briony grinned. ‘No, nothing like that. I heard your record being played in all the music shops. It’s selling wonderfully.’

‘Oh, good.’ Kerry had a lot more on her mind at the moment and sighed.

‘I wish this bloody baby would hurry up and come, I’m starving.’

Briony laughed.

‘Bri, would you do me a favour?’

‘Of course, anything.’

‘Get me Mum, would you? I want me mum.’

Briony heard the hurt in her sister’s voice and said calmly, ‘Of course I will, love.’

Standing up she walked to the door, saying over her shoulder,

‘I’ll send the midwife back up and go and get the old woman meself. Be back soon, all right?’

Kerry nodded, panting in the aftermath of a pain.

Briony ran down the stairs and through to the kitchen. ‘Can you go back up, I have to go out.’

‘I’ve just made your tea!’

‘Then drink it yourself, Cissy. Mrs H, make Kerry something light - she’s starving. Coddled eggs will do. Where’s me coat?’

Cissy went to the scullery where the coat was hanging up, dripping water from the snow. Shaking it, she took it out to Briony.

Dragging it on her slim frame, she smiled at everyone. ‘Be back in two ticks. I’m going to get me mother. Keep your eye on Kel for me, all right. And if Bernie rings, tell her to get herself home, though with a bit of luck Kevin Carter will have tracked her and Marcus down.’

‘All right, Bri. Get yourself off. And drive carefully, the weather’s atrocious.’ Mrs Horlock’s voice was concerned.

Briony felt a glow come over her. Kissing the old woman’s wrinkled cheek, she said, ‘Look after Kerry, won’t you?’

Mrs Horlock smiled. ‘Of course I will. Now you get going before this snow gets worse.’

After Briony left the kitchen, the midwife said: ‘She’s a lot nicer than you’d think, isn’t she?’

Cissy nodded. ‘Yes. But if anything happens to Kerry, you’ll see a different side to her, so get yourself back up the stairs.’

The woman didn’t need to be told twice. She left the kitchen in double quick time.

‘If Molly comes, I’ll be very surprised.’

Mrs Horlock shook her head sagely.

‘If Briony wants her here for Kerry, then she’ll come. Briony will see to that.’

Cissy poured herself a cup of tea and in her mind admitted to the truth of that statement.

If Briony wanted her, she’d get her.

 

Molly was trimming the small tree with Rosalee passing her the ornaments as she always did. Marcus and Bernadette had brought round presents for them both, and Molly looked at the gaily wrapped parcels with sweet anticipation. Briony’s presents to Rosalee were with them; Rosalee’s was a new coat of deep red wool that would keep her as warm as toast. Bernadette had told her that earlier. Briony had also bought Rosalee a collection of hand-made animals that she could put on to her dressing table. They were carved from hard wood and Rosalee would be unable to break them.

‘This cake is lovely, Mrs Cavanagh, did you make it yourself?’ He knew Molly had, but he also knew she liked to boast about the fact.

‘I did, it’s me own recipe. Boiled fruit cake it is. Quick and tasty, with just enough cinnamon to give it a kick.’

‘And a drop of brandy as well, Mum, if I know you.’

Molly laughed.

‘Of course. A drop of the hard doesn’t go amiss with dried fruit. They complement each other.’

The feeling in the house was festive and cheery. It was into this happy warmth that Briony came, bursting through the doorway in a flurry of snow.

‘Briony!’ Bernie’s voice was high with shock.

‘Hello, Bernie, I’ve been trying to locate you all afternoon. Kerry’s in labour.’

Rosalee had set up a screeching from excitement, her huge cumbersome body rocking itself in her chair by the fire.

‘Hello, Rosie darlin’.’ Briony kissed her sister who pulled her into a hard embrace.

Molly watched with contempt. So that whore’s time was on, was it? Well she hoped she had a dead child. That would make Molly’s Christmas.

Briony extricated herself from Rosalee’s arms and said, ‘She wants you, Mum.’

Molly carried on fiddling with the tree.

‘Oh, she does, does she? Well, she’ll have to know what it’s like to want then, won’t she?’

Briony stood up, staring at her mother with eyes narrowed dangerously. Bernadette closed her eyes. Marcus, on the other hand, watched in fascination as Briony went to her mother and said: ‘I don’t think you realise, Mum, but you haven’t got any say in it. You’re coming if I have to drag you there myself.’

Molly looked down at her tiny daughter and smiled grimly. ‘I’d like to see you try, madam.’

Briony lifted her arm and Bernadette jumped from her seat. Pulling Briony away, she said, ‘Come on, Mum. How long can you keep all this up? It’s Christmas. Poor Kerry’s got enough on her plate as it is. Try and have a bit of Christian spirit, you’re always going on about it.’

Molly sneered at her daughters.

‘That bitch of hell can go and die for all I care, that child is a stain on the earth. It’s ... it’s an abomination! She wants me — me! — to go to her in her labour. Well, she can want all she likes, the whore. I couldn’t care if Christ himself or the angel Gabriel appeared in me kitchen this second, I still wouldn’t go.’

‘You’re a vicious old cow, Mother. Come on, Bernie, help me get Rosalee’s coat on.’

Molly stood in front of Rosalee and shouted, ‘She goes nowhere.’

Briony laughed. ‘Oh yes she does, because this house is still in my name. I put you down as the lodger, Mother. I handed it to you only as a lodger. You won’t own it unless I die before you. It was my way of keeping Abel’s hands off it. So if I’m going to put you out - which I fully intend to, legally mind - then Rosalee is homeless, isn’t she? I don’t suppose they’d welcome her and all next-door. Also, the allowance stops so you’ll have to live off Abel who gets a good wedge from me, by the way, for doing fuck all! Or you’ll have to get yourself a job.’

Moll
^y
’s face paled.

‘You wouldn’t do that to me? You wouldn’t use your money to force my hand, surely?’

Briony smiled nastily. ‘Wouldn’t I? You don’t know me very well, Mother. In fact, you don’t really know me at all. You get your coat on, or me and you are really finished, Mum, I mean it. Not another penny do you get. I’ll make it my business to let everyone know me and you are old news. That anyone giving you a kind word will answer to me.’

Picking up her mother’s coat from the peg behind the door, Briony threw it across the kitchen at her. Molly instinctively caught it.

‘Come on, Kerry is well on her time and you must be there to greet your grandchild.’

Rosalee stood by the door, her huge bulk blocking it. She smiled at everyone with her wide grin and Marcus smiled back at her. He liked Rosie, which endeared him to Bernie and her sisters. It was not a fake liking. He genuinely accepted her.

‘Come on, Rosie, you come with me and your mum in my car. Bernadette, you go with Briony.’

She could have kissed him. He was trying to defuse the situation.

Walking out of the door, he took Bernadette and Rosalee with him. Briony and Molly stared into each other’s face. Molly was amazed at how beautiful this child of hers was. The white skin, standing out in contrast to her hair, and those deep green eyes really made for a beautiful woman. Yet at this moment she felt nothing for her except contempt. A deep-rooted contempt, because she was owned by this girl, owned by her own flesh and blood. Now she had to go to her whore of a daughter, the one daughter she had truly loved and who now disgusted her, or else give up her easy way of life.

Molly was an intrinsically selfish woman, and the decision once made was easy to accept.

She followed Briony from the house and out to her car.

 

Kerry was in pain, a deep racking pain that surprised her with its ferocity. Nothing had prepared her for the sheer agony, the feeling of having her body split into two.

‘Oh, it hurts, Bri. It’s a fucking nightmare!’

Briony smiled. ‘I know. I remember me own labour. Not the pain, you forget the pain. But the memory of being a part of something bigger than you doesn’t ever fade.’

‘Never again, I’ll never do this again.’

The midwife laughed now. ‘If I had a penny, love, for every time someone said that to me, I’d be a millionaire!’

Kerry grimaced as she was once more torn in two. ‘I want to bear down. It’s coming. I can feel it.’

Molly sat in a chair by the window looking out at the snow which was now a blizzard. A thick whiteness covered the roofs of the houses and all the gardens looked beautiful. She heard the grunting of her daughter as she pushed and bit on her lip.

‘Please, dear Mary at the throne of Christ, don’t let this child breathe. Let it be born dead.’

The prayer came from her mouth in a whisper. She heard her daughter grunting again, remembered her own births, particularly the dead boy. She wished now he had lived. He would have been coming up to manhood. A big strong son, with her blonde good looks and his father’s strength.

Kerry’s breathing changed and the midwife pushed everyone away. Pulling back the covers, she exposed Kerry’s bottom half. Her legs wide open on the bed, she lay back against the pillows and began to push.

Briony stared fascinated as a darkness appeared between Kerry’s thighs. A deep blackness. Briony shrieked with delight.

‘Its head’s here, I can see its head!’ She laughed out loud in excitement.

At the window, Molly closed her eyes, her prayers intensifying.

‘Dear God, in all your wisdom, take the child from her. Don’t let it ruin the rest of her life. Make it go away. Take its breath as it comes into the world.’

Kerry had her sweating face on her chest, a deep animal-sounding moan escaping her lips as she gave another great push.

Her whole body screamed out with the pain inside her. In her mind she begged God to take the child from between her legs before she fainted away with the pain!

Briony and Bernadette both clapped their hands in excitement as the baby pushed its head out from inside its mother.

The midwife looked at its face and stood stock still. It was so dark. Its skin was dark. Then, her natural instincts taking over, she said, ‘It’s got the cord caught. The cord’s around its neck.’

Hooking her little finger underneath the cord, she pulled it over the child’s head.

‘Now come on, Kerry, give one more push. It’s nearly over, love, nearly over... Come on, push.’

Kerry answered crossly, ‘I am pushing for fuck’s sake.’

Then, after one more almighty push, she felt a queer sensation come over her body. The child slipped easily from her and she felt a great peace. Relaxing back on to the pillows, she let out a deep-throated, heavy sigh.

Briony looked at the child on the newspapers underneath Kerry’s buttocks. It was covered in blood and vernix. It was not very dark! It was the cord around its neck that had made it look so black. It was nearly white. Foreign-looking, but not black.

‘Oh, Kerry, she’s beautiful. Gorgeous!’

Kerry pulled her head and shoulders off the bed and laughed delightedly.

‘Is it a girl? Let me have a look then!’

The midwife cut the cord and the baby gave a lusty cry. Over at the window, Molly felt the sting of tears. It was alive then, this baby. It lived.