Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking. Pauline Prescott

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СКАЧАТЬ to St Bridget’s, a bus ride away. We hardly said a word on the journey, which was just as well because I could barely swallow. Mum just held my hand tightly the whole way. When we arrived, we found the place was more like a church than an institution. It had cloisters and was deathly quiet. Nuns padded silently by, heads down, in long black robes. I was terrified. We were led down a long corridor to the main office and if I hadn’t been so pregnant I think I might have turned and run.

      I needn’t have worried. Mother Superior was warm and friendly as she welcomed me to St Bridget’s and offered to show us both around. She led us into the kitchens first where I was relieved to find several pregnant girls, some much bigger than others, all smiling at me and waving shyly. I’d had no contact with any other pregnant women before and seeing one who looked as if she could have her baby any minute I stopped in my tracks. Oh my God! I thought, staring at her huge tummy. That’ll soon be me!

      Mother Superior then took us to the nursery, where crib after crib of newborns lay sleeping, closely supervised by nuns. It was like a room full of perfect baby dolls, their tiny hands and feet just like the gorgeous one I had at home. Then we were taken to the laundry where we found more pregnant girls ironing and folding sheets. My mother was impressed with how clean and neat everything was. As we were led along the cloisters towards the chapel I found myself shivering. There’s bound to be a ghost here, I thought. I was almost more frightened of the ghosts at St Bridget’s in those first few hours than of what might happen to me and my child.

      When it was time for Mum to go, I could tell she was as upset as me. We hugged and said our goodbyes and she promised to visit every weekend. I dried my eyes as a nun led me to an upstairs dormitory and my metal-framed bed, one in a room of twelve. I was given a locker and began to unpack my case. Slipping into my new brigkt red pyjamas which did up to the neck, I felt a little embarrassed as fellow dormmates wandered in to introduce themselves and admire my clothes. They seemed terribly nice, though. There was no cattiness as I had feared and everyone was happy to help each other because we were all in the same boat. After a supper that was surprisingly good, we retired to the dorm until lights out when I lay shivering under my blanket as some of the girls told scary stories in the dark. ‘There’s definitely the ghost of a girl in the laundry,’ one announced. ‘Oh, yes, and several ghostly nuns who walk the cloisters at night!’ piped another. I didn’t sleep a wink.

      Over the next few days, the other girls became curious about my story and I about theirs. Some, it seemed, had been too promiscuous and were paying the price. Others were the victims of sexual abuse, which horrified me. Two girls had been raped by their fathers. I had only ever known kindness and love from my dear old dad and I couldn’t imagine what they had gone through. Strangely, though, they still defended the men who’d abused them. I found that even harder to understand. Most of the girls were relieved to be giving up their babies for adoption but a handful were taking their infants home to be cared for by their relatives, something I was still convinced would happen to me.

      The nuns kept us busy, running and managing our own little kingdom. There were strict routines and everything was well organized. We went to chapel every morning and evening but we were never preached to and were mainly left to quiet prayer and contemplation. If we weren’t washing, ironing or cooking, we were cleaning the walls and floors, but we didn’t really mind and soon got into the swing of things. I liked working in the kitchen best. The cook was a lovely woman who used to tell us to strain the cabbage water and drink it for the extra iron. Her food was good and wholesome. It reminded me of my mother’s cooking, and we all gained weight as our babies thrived.

      There were six nuns under Mother Superior, each in charge of a dorm. Sister Joan Augustine was in charge of mine but for some reason she didn’t take to me. I think it was because I had more visitors than most. My mother came every weekend, often taking me out to the pictures, but Miss Jones and some of the girls from Quaintways would sometimes come too, always fussing me and bringing me nice things. Sister Joan Augustine clearly thought I was rather spoiled, especially as I kept going back and forth to the laundry to wash and iron my new clothes, determined as always to look my best.

      When she showed us the cream and grey Silver Cross pram that had been donated to the home as a Christmas present and told us that the first baby born in our dorm would receive it, my heart sang. Looking around the room, I knew that there were two other girls as close to giving birth as me and I prayed I’d be the first. I was due at the end of December but I knew babies sometimes came early and I did all I could to make that happen. I even volunteered for floor-scrubbing duties, thinking of what Sister Joan Augustine had told us when we were on our hands and knees with a scrubbing brush and Vim. ‘This helps get the baby’s head into position,’ she’d insisted.

      Beyond the former convent walls, life went on as usual. The American film star James Dean had just been killed in a car crash. Princess Margaret had announced that she wouldn’t be marrying Group Captain Peter Townsend. People who could afford televisions were able to watch a new commercial channel called ITV with its advertisements for soap powder between festive programmes. For us, Christmas came and went, and none of our babies showed any signs of arriving. On New Year’s Eve, I took part in a little show we put on for each other as we counted in 1956. Even though I was so heavily pregnant, I did a full Fred Astaire tap-dance routine that had been one of my dad’s favourites in the hope that it might bring something on. As midnight struck and the most momentous year of my life drew to a close, we were each handed a mug of celebratory cocoa.

      I couldn’t help but wonder what the New Year would bring. It was less than three years since I’d lost my father and in that time my brother had almost died and my mother had suffered terribly with her hand. It was two months before my seventeenth birthday; I was still so young, physically and emotionally. I had no idea what to expect in the coming days and months and instead of dwelling on how painful the birth might be or how I might cope afterwards, I could only focus on beating the other girls in my dorm to win my prize.

      It was the early hours of 2 January and I was lying in bed when my waters suddenly broke, drenching my nightdress and the sheets. My immediate reaction was one of elation. ‘This is it! I’m going to get the pram!’

      Then the pain began.

      Hearing my cries, one of the girls ran to get Sister Joan Augustine, who called an ambulance. She came with me to Chester City Hospital, the place to which my family’s fates seemed inextricably entwined. The contractions were getting stronger and stronger and I’d never known pain like it. With only the nun who least liked me for company, I lay on a bed in the labour ward feeling so frightened I thought I might die.

      I longed for my mother through wave after wave of contractions, but I tried to be brave. The sisters had explained what would happen during the birth but none of what they’d told us prepared me for the reality. Someone clamped a rubber mask over my face for gas and air but it reminded me of the Mickey Mouse gas mask I’d had during the war and I began to panic. The gas it pumped only made me feel more nauseous. As I retched and writhed, I tried not to engage in eye contact with the doctor and at least six nurses around me. My ankles were tied with bandages to metal poles at the end of the bed. I’d always been such a shy and private person. I had only ever shown myself to one man. Now everyone was seeing everything – and there was so much blood.

      ‘It’s a big baby but you’re doing really well,’ the doctor told me encouragingly. ‘Push when I tell you.’

      There was no anaesthetic, no epidural. The pain was excruciating and became worse and worse as the hours progressed. Where was my mum? Where was Jim? He should have been there, waiting in the corridor outside for our son or daughter to be born. I wept with pain and bitterness.

      At seven in the morning, my eight-pound baby boy finally pushed his way out into this world. He was a little jaundiced and covered in blood but they laid him on my chest straight away. Completely overwhelmed, more exhausted than I had ever felt in my life, I cradled СКАЧАТЬ