A Song for Joey (3 page)

Later, though, in the night, her sleep was shattered when the stillness was broken by a
scream. Gladys stumbled from her bed and ran to Rita's room, where she found her
daughter sitting up in bed with an expression of horror on her face. What she saw made
her shudder: Rita, her clothes and her bed were crimson with blood.

The poor girl lifted her bloody hands and stared at them, then up at her mother. "What's
happening, Mum?" she pleaded.
"It's just your waters breaking, " Gladys lied. "You're losing a bit of blood at the same
time. Don't worry, it looks worse than it is; it often happens."
She pulled a blanket from the wardrobe and covered her daughter's shivering body.
Keep this over you, love, while I phone for an ambulance."
This was bad. In all her own pregnancies, and those of her daughters that she had
attended as acting midwife, she had never encountered anything like it. She ran
downstairs to the telephone on the hall stand and rang 999. When she had explained the
situation, and been assured an ambulance would be on it's way, she ran back upstairs to
her daughter.
"Right, my love," she said softly to Rita, who was sobbing and shaking, "the ambulance
will be here in a jiffy."
She brought a bowl of water and a flannel from the bathroom, then took her daughter's
hand and began to wash the blood off it, smiling reassuringly. "You'll be fine, lovie.
Millions of women have given birth, it will all be ok."
In truth, however, she was worried. Rita's skin had turned white, with a waxy sheen, and
her eyes had started to drift and close. She kept talking to her, asking questions, forcing
her to stay awake.
She heard the bells of the ambulance in the distance, racing through the dark streets of
Yarmouth. With agonising slowness, they came closer.
When they stopped outside, she ran down to open the front door, and the crew, in their
smart black uniforms with red piping, entered and took over. They carried Rita, now
unconscious, out to the ambulance on a stretcher, and Gladys climbed into the back with
her daughter. With bells ringing, they set off for the cottage hospital as fast as the tight
streets would allow. She held Rita's hand and talked to her, hoping she could hear.
After a while, Rita's eye's flickered open. "I'm scared, Mum."
"Don't worry, dear, you're in good hands, you'll soon be holding your baby."
"Mum, I know you're lying. I'm going to die, aren't I?"
What could she say? Rita was right, she had little hope that her daughter would survive
this. "Honestly, darling I don't know. You have lost a lot of blood, and I don't know what's
caused it."
The girl visibly gathered herself. "Mum, I want you to promise me you will raise my
baby if I die."
Gladys could see that her little girl was slipping out of consciousness again. "Alright,
dear, I promise. If it comes to that, I will take care of him for you. But don't think about
that now, just save all your strength."
"There's something else, Mum." Her voice was now scarcely audible, and Gladys had to
lean close to her daughter's face to hear what she said. "Please, mum, give my baby my
married name, Paolo's name."
With tears running down her face, she whispered "Yes, darling, I promise. Your little
baby will have the best I can give him, and he will be proud of his mother."
She saw Rita's eyes close again, and heard her breath escaping slowly from her mouth.
She was dead.
The ambulance stopped and the rear doors opened. Gladys watched in a dream as the
crew quickly carried Rita into the hospital. She followed, dejectedly, then stood alone in
the corridor as her daughter was rushed away through swing doors. After a few minutes,
the doors opened again and a nurse came through. She ushered Gladys into a little room.
"Mrs Cartwright, I'm Sister Ruby," the nurse said. "I'm sorry to have to tell you that
there is nothing they can do for your daughter, but they are trying to save the baby."
She reached out her hand and touched Gladys's arm, gently. "Would you like a cup of
tea?"
Gladys nodded, and Ruby left her, returning shortly with a mug of tea.
She was still sipping it when Ruby came back, carrying a small bundle of rags in her
arms. The bundle was making snuffling and coughing noises, and Gladys realised it was a
baby, wrapped in a sheet.
Ruby smiled. "Gladys, would you like to hold your granddaughter?"

Nobody believes me when I say I can remember my own birth, but I can see every detail
of it in my mind. As I write now, so images float in the air around me, like smoke from a
cigarette; I have total recall, I can watch it as many times as I like.

But the memory is strange, because I don't see it through the eyes of the little baby me.
Rather, it is as though I am an observer, floating above the scene, looking down on
myself, like a camera filming from up near the ceiling.

I can see the room - white walls and tiled floor. I see green-robed figures, their eyes
blinking between masks and caps, and metal tools glinting in the glaring lights. Laid out
on the table below me is my mother's pale corpse, opened up - like the carcase of a
Christmas chicken - as the little body in which I am to live is lifted from her womb by the
surgeon, his tunic spattered with her blood.

"When did you start singing?" - Penny Wardle, journalist of the New Musical Express,
interviewing me in February 1964.
"The day I was born," I replied ...

For eight months and three days, I was part of her body - I shared her blood, took
oxygen from her lungs. Every sound she heard, I heard; every feeling she experienced, I
experienced. I lived through her. When she died, part of me was wrenched away, and part
of her is forever in me.

We passed, my mother and I, at the place where this world touches the next. We were
like two people meeting at the elevator doors, one of us waiting to emerge into the world,
the other about to depart.

She seemed surprised to find me there. '
Oh, my beautiful baby!
' she cried. Her hand
reached out and she brushed my cheek with her fingers. There were tears in her eyes. '
I
will never see you grow up, will I? Won't be around to help you. But you'll have your
Gran, she'll be better at it than I would have been, anyway.
'

I couldn't answer, of course.
Then she drifted past me into the lift - the doors closed and she was gone. It was time
for me to join myself. As I floated down, I watched the surgeon pass my tiny body to a
nurse, and as I snuggled into my cosy new home, she carried me into another room and
held me out to another woman.
"Gladys," she said, "would you like to hold your granddaughter?"

Let me tell you about Gran - my lovely Gran, short and plump, with her rosy cheeks and
her grey hair tied back. She is the constant of all my best childhood memories - strong and
kind, her warm smile and soft touch helping me to grow.

She ran a guest-house,
The Nest
. It was hard work, but she was willing and
uncomplaining. Early every morning she was in the kitchen, cooking breakfasts for the
lodgers. Then, when they went out, she would clean their rooms, before returning to the
kitchen to begin the dinners.

There were always a few people staying; three or four of them at a time, usually - less in
winter, more in summer. Sometimes they were itinerant workers, or fishermen between
trips, occasionally a smartly-dressed door-to-door salesman, but often they were
entertainers - singers, actors and dancers from shows in the various theatres around Great
Yarmouth, who returned to stay with Gran every season. Some only stayed a short while,
while others remained for the whole summer season.

The place always seemed full and lively. After work each evening, the performers
would return to the B & B with bottles of beer or whiskey and get drunk together. Then
they would sing bawdy songs, laughing and joking until, one by one, they passed out or
staggered upstairs to their rooms.

I was usually sent to bed before the party really warmed up, but, while I was allowed to
stay, I loved to listen to the music and the stories they told. I joined in when I could, if I
knew the words of a song. If not, I would dance. And when I didn't understand the jokes,
which was usual, I laughed anyway. Gran kept a sharp ear on the proceedings, and if
anything became too risqué for her granddaughter, she soon told the men to behave.

When the evening ended, however, and the men were asleep, there was little rest for
Gran. She would clean the place before retiring to bed herself, then be up again before
dawn, repeating her daily routine.

But she was always cheerful, content with her life and a constant source of wisdom and
encouragement for me.
Whenever she could, she involved me in the things she did. She took me shopping, and
discussed the needs of the guest-house. She introduced me to all the tradesmen who called
to deliver her orders - the milkman, the greengrocer and the butcher. She showed me how
to lay the fire in the front parlour, how to repair a torn cushion, and how to make a
"proper cup of tea".
When we had a quiet hour or two on a warm day, we walked to the park, or, if it was
cold or wet, we set up a little folding table near the window and played Ludo or SnakesAnd-Ladders, watching the trees swaying on the green opposite, or the raindrops sliding
crazily down the glass.

Gran taught me a little bit about babies, and mummies and daddies. Not the impersonal,
biological facts, but the way families grow and fit together.
"Your mummy was my baby," she said, brushing my hair back from my eyes as we sat
together in the window seat, watching the leaves being swept in eddies by the winter
wind. "She died while you were being born."
"Why?" I asked, as children will.
I understood about death; Gran had explained about that when I found a dead bird in the
garden, but I couldn't think why anyone would want to die.
She smiled sadly. "We don't usually get to choose. I expect God wanted her to be one of
His angels," she said quietly.
"She was very pretty," I said after a moment.
Gran looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Yes, she was - a beautiful girl. But how
do you know?"
I shrugged. "I met her, when I was born," I said. "She was on her way to Heaven. She
stopped and touched my face. She said she couldn't stay to look after me, but you would
do it better, anyway."
I could see tears trickling down her cheek, so I sat on her lap and wrapped my arms
around her neck. She held me tightly, and I could feel her body shaking.
"Come with me," she said suddenly, sniffing. We stood and she led me to the big
mahogany dresser that occupied the whole of the opposite wall. Opening the glass doors,
she reached up to the top shelf, way above my line of sight, and took down a photograph
in a pretty porcelain frame. It showed a young man and woman standing in a garden,
smiling. "Do you know who this is?" she asked, handing it to me.
I studied the picture carefully, then shook my head, unsure what to say. The young
woman in the photo looked a bit like my mummy, but not exactly.
"That's me and your Granddad on our wedding day," she said, taking the picture and
looking at it wistfully for a moment, before putting it back into the cabinet. "How about
this one?" She produced another, larger one, this time in a silver frame.
It showed a group of people, posing formally around a settee, some seated, some
standing behind. I recognised Gran at once, sitting in the middle, surrounded by younger
people, men and women. One face stood out. "That's my mummy," I said, pointing,
smiling with the recognition.
Gran seemed to freeze, staring first at my finger, then at my face. "Yes," she whispered,
"it is your mummy, my baby girl Rita, with all her brothers and sisters."
Suddenly, a strange expression on her face, she reached up once more and, groping to
the back of the cabinet, produced another photograph. It was just a plain picture, no
frame, and showed two people, like the first she had shown me, though the clothes were
very different.
"There's my mummy again," I said.
She nodded, watching my face carefully.
I looked at the man standing beside her. They were both smiling, holding each other
close. I pointed to him. "Is he my daddy?"
"Yes, he is Paolo, your daddy.
"What happened to him? Did he die, too?"
She shook her head sadly. "No, petal, he had to leave, to go back to Italy."
"Why?"
"It was where he was born. He and your mummy had a big argument and he left."
"He shouldn't have left us," I said fiercely.
"No, petal," she replied quietly. "He shouldn't have gone."

Here's another snapshot; from my private album, the one in my head. Me, aged four,
playing out front, sitting on the stone steps, with the bright blue front door open behind
me.

As I show you this memory, I can hear the seagulls shrieking, feel the warm sun against
my skin on that summer day, smell the flowers in the colourful hanging baskets that Gran
always tended so carefully. I'm making a little home for my doll, Rosie, out of cardboard
boxes and odd things I had collected. Gran was usually busy in the mornings, so I found
things to keep me occupied, and Rosie was my play-friend.

I didn't have any other friends. Some kids would occasionally pass, but they never
played with me. They called me 'Wop' and, even though I didn't know what it meant, it
still upset me, because of the disgust in their voices and the sneers on their faces. I told
them, angrily, to go away, but they didn't stop, they just laughed and chanted it over and
over again, until I ran indoors to get away from them.

Italy. You have heard of Italy, haven't you?"
"It's where my daddy went."
"Yes, that's right. Italy is a country a long way from here; a beautiful country, warm and