Page 77 of Heartbreak for the Irish Midwife

Maisie bent to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Just you rest, love. Everything else can wait.’

‘Aye.’ The girl’s eyes were heavy. Maisie went out quietly, her heart sore. Maggie-Ann was little more than a child; she had done nothing to deserve what was happening to her. But at least she would get good care, here in the Royal Maternity Hospital.

25

Maisie took her seat next to Peggy, looking around the ballroom. As ever, the Orpheus was filled with lights, noise, and energy. It was a far cry from the quietness of the A Ward side room where Maggie-Ann was settling in.

Thankfully, Mr Russell had explained the situation with great compassion, and Maggie-Ann and her mother had cried with that understandable mix of grief and relief. Knowing the baby was fated to die as soon as it was born, they no longer needed to worry about the effect on Maggie-Ann of having to raise her assailant’s child. Instead, they would now hopefully allow themselves to mourn the child for its own sake, even before its passing.

The band were tuning their instruments, random notes and sounds emerging in a discordant cacophony from the stage. Peggy was chatting to Dan who was sitting on her other side, and Maisie briefly felt as though she was playing gooseberry. Everything was slightly wrong, off-kilter. Alex should be here. Especially after the day we’ve had.

How quickly she had come to rely on him! They saw one another almost every day, and had never yet run out of conversation, for she found him endlessly fascinating. Even now she could see him in her mind’s eye – his handsome face, his smile, his serious expression. Both could make her heart turn over and her pulse skip.

No words of love had passed between them, yet they loved one another deeply. She knew it. Sensed that he knew it too. And yet because of religion, and class, and politics, they could never properly be together. Keep it light.

The bandmaster performed his introduction, sending couples – including Peggy and Dan – skittering to the dance floor, and a wave of young men moving swiftly towards the unaccompanied young women left behind.

‘Would you like to dance?’ The man in front of her was in battledress, as all of the young officers were.

‘No, thank you.’ There was no question of dancing with anyone else. Until Alex arrived, she wouldn’t dance at all.

‘Ah, why not? I don’t bite, I promise.’ His face twisted in a half-leer, half-smile, and she saw anger in his eyes.

Her heart sank. Why did some young men not understand that No meant No?

‘I’m waiting for someone.’

‘Huh. Boyfriend?’

‘Yes.’ She looked away, praying that the first dance would end soon and Peggy and Dan could return to rescue her.

He looked around theatrically. ‘I don’t see no boyfriend.’

She shrugged. The less she said, the better. Reaching for her handbag, she withdrew a tiny mirror and used it to check her hair, patting it with a hand that was only trembling a little.

He slid onto Peggy’s chair, causing anxiety to make her mouth suddenly dry and her heart to race. ‘Captain Hugo Marston, Royal Army Service Corps.’ He seemed proud of it. ‘We look after transport and supplies for the forces.’

Her stomach lurched. Surely that was the part of the army that Gerald had belonged to? Transport, and supplies, that sort of thing. It occurred to her as she sat there that she hadn’t thought of Gerald for months, now. Sweet, kind, caring Alex had re-set her brain, had made loving and being loved feel doable again. She hadn’t been particularly interested in the details of Gerald’s battalion or whatever it was called, back in London, and she had long ago stopped checking the faces of the officers at the Orpheus. But maybe . . .? Glancing across the room, she saw a small gathering of men in battledress near the entrance door, but they were too far away for her to recognise anyone.

Captain Marston had stuck out a hand, and she lightly touched her fingers to his before rising. ‘I must go. It was nice to meet you,’ she lied – a lie that every woman she knew had had to tell at some point in order to defuse a situation with a persistent man. At least this particular persistent man wasn’t alone with her in a dark alley. She shuddered, thinking briefly about how frightened Maggie-Ann must have felt during her ordeal.

Leaving her new acquaintance behind she made her way around the edges of the room towards the entrance, which also led to the conveniences. Somewhere safe for her to hide while she waited for Alex. As she did so, she made sure to glance at the army officers as she passed them – not because she had any actual expectation of Gerald being among them, but because she had to check he wasn’t. And so when her searching gaze landed on a familiar figure, her insides seemed to freeze in shock.

‘Well, well, well.’ The sneer in his voice and the disdain on his face as he stepped towards her was entirely familiar.

‘Gerald Somerville,’ she managed, stopping as he approached. She felt sick inside. Actually sick. Some of his comrades seemed to be watching, which added to the anxiety now racing through her mind and body.

‘My fair Rosalind.’ He bowed theatrically, his expression twisted. ‘I wondered if you’d be here tonight. You always loved a social.’ There was a familiar edge to his words, leaving her uncertain as to whether they were a statement of fact or a criticism. God, how that had used to wreck her head!

‘Whereas I had no idea you’d be here,’ she retorted, relieved that, so far, she sounded reasonably normal. ‘What brings you to Belfast?’

‘Ah, you know – we have to sort out the paddies.’ She winced at the insult. The paddies – the stupid Irish. In his upper-class accent it sounded like peddies. ‘For some strange reason,’ he added, ‘I had put Belfast on my request list a long time ago.’

‘Must have been a very long time ago,’ she returned.

‘A different era entirely,’ he concurred, his gaze pinning her like a trapped butterfly. The old feelings began resurfacing within her. Anxiety, fear, helplessness . . . She could feel the confidence draining from her, feel herself lessening, becoming as mouse-like as she had been with him in London. She was becoming invisible simply because he was in the room.

He looked her up and down. ‘Still wearing the same sad old dress that you wore in London, I see.’