Winnie of the Waterfront (34 page)

‘Those legs are a great improvement, kiddo,’ he whispered hotly. ‘I really am glad you can walk better! I still think this is the quickest way to get you into bed, though,’ he added, as he swept her up in his arms and strode towards the stairs.

The days that followed were like a second honeymoon for most of the time. There were some occasions when Sandy sank into dark despair, when he talked bitterly about the wrong that had been done to him, the time he had wasted in prison and how his future was scarred by all that had happened.

Winnie handled the situation with patience and tact, remembering some of the incidents from her own early life and how hurt and resentful she had often felt. Sandy was back home again, and for her that was all that mattered. She was sure that given time they could build a good future. They might never make a fortune from the café, but they could enjoy a decent life. They had somewhere to live, and now that Sandy was home and they’d be working side by side again, they might even be able to expand the business.

That wasn’t all she wanted them to do. It was too soon to talk to Sandy about it, he needed more time to readjust, but soon, very soon, she wanted to talk to him about them having a baby.

Chapter Thirty-six

WHEN WINNIE TOLD
Sandy that she wanted to start a family he looked shocked.

‘Us, start a family? What the hell are you thinking about? Haven’t we got enough to worry about as it is?’

Her face clouded. She felt crushed. She’d picked her moment to broach the subject so carefully that she had expected his eyes to light up, and for him to be as eager as she was about the idea. ‘Why ever not?’ she asked bluntly.

He shook his head, avoiding her eyes.

‘Come on,’ she persisted, ‘tell me why you are so much against my suggestion.’

He shrugged dismissively. ‘I can see your mind is made up so why waste time talking about it. You don’t really want to hear my opinion, now, do you.’

‘Of course I want to hear it! If you’ve got some valid reason why we shouldn’t have children then tell me.’

He ran a hand through his thick hair until it was standing up on end. ‘To start with, I’m an ex-jailbird,’ he muttered.

Winnie laughed. ‘So are half the population of Liverpool.’

‘That’s only one reason,’ he said dourly.

‘And it’s certainly not the main one by the sound of it,’ Winnie replied dryly.

Sandy picked at one of his fingernails and didn’t answer. There was a more pragmatic reason, but it was one he didn’t want to voice.

‘Well, come on,’ she said impatiently, ‘tell me what you’re thinking. Don’t you like kids?’

He shrugged. ‘They’re all right when they’re someone else’s.’

‘Well neither of us have any brothers or sisters so unless we wait for Joy and Gregg to get married and start a family there’s not going to be many of those in our lives.’

He scowled. ‘We’ve got each other, isn’t that enough for you?’

‘No, not really. While you were in prison I realised how very much alone in the world I am. If anything happened to either of us then the other one would be left without a soul to care about them.’

‘Or to be responsible for, either,’ he retorted.

Winnie was silent for a moment, thinking over what he had said.

‘Is this to do with responsibility?’ she asked at last. ‘Do you feel pinned down when you know you’re responsible for someone else’s wellbeing? Is that what you don’t like about the idea? Does it mean you feel I’m a burden to you, Sandy?’

He looked away. ‘No, don’t be daft, that’s got nothing at all to do with it,’ he muttered.

She noticed the hesitation in his voice and seized on it. ‘Then tell me what it is that’s bothering you. We don’t have to turn this into a guessing game.
It
seems as if it has something to do with me, so what is the problem?’

Sandy walked over to the window and stared out unseeingly. ‘I’m shit-scared,’ he mumbled.

‘Scared! What about, for heaven’s sake? I’m the one that’s going to have the baby, not you.’

‘It’s because you would be having it …’ He swung round and faced her, clenching his hands into balled fists at his side, his face grim. ‘Supposing it was born crippled!’ he blurted out.

She stared at him, open-mouthed, then she began to laugh almost hysterically.

‘Oh, Sandy, what utter nonsense! I wasn’t born like this! I’m only crippled because I had infantile paralysis when I was a little kid. It’s not anything that you pass on to your children.’

He looked shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry. I’d forgotten about you having polio as a kid. I’ve been thinking all this time that infantile paralysis was something you inherited!’

She shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. Until I was four years old I could run and jump with the best of them. Anyway, now that’s all cleared up are you going to change your mind about us having a family?’

He still looked doubtful. ‘What about you, though? Will you be able to go through it?’

‘As far as I know it won’t make any difference, but if you’re willing to consider us having a baby then I’ll check up with a doctor first.’

‘If he says it’s OK then I’m game if you are.’ He smiled broadly. ‘Having a baby of our own would be great. When I was a kid I dreamed about being
grown
up and having my own family,’ he enthused. ‘I’d really love it! It will change our lives, mind. Kids do, you know! Everyone says they do. The fellows I met up with in Walton Jail all said they did. They were always passing pictures of their sprogs around. Right little monsters some of them looked, yet they talked about them as though the sun shone out of their little arses,’ he grinned.

‘You’ll probably do the same when you have one of your own,’ Winnie teased.

It took a week for Winnie to make an appointment with a doctor to find out if he thought it was all right for her to have a baby.

She listened intently, with mounting excitement, as he told her that pregnancy was perfectly feasible and that her condition would in no way affect the baby. He did warn her, however, that the extra weight might impede her mobility. He also agreed that because of her disability there might be minor complications when it came to delivering the baby, but he’d be there to deal with her progress so there was nothing she need be worried about.

‘Doctor Richman said that there was no reason at all why I shouldn’t have a perfectly healthy baby,’ she told Sandy jubilantly when she came home.

He looked at her speculatively, almost as if he didn’t believe her, then he hugged her enthusiastically. ‘We’d better get started then and see what we can do, hadn’t we?’ he teased.

‘This very minute?’

‘Why not? We’ve got to make up for lost time!’

Their enthusiasm for the idea never waned, but at first it seemed that their hopes were going to be in vain.

‘Perhaps you should give up working at the café and take things a bit more easy,’ Sandy told her.

‘Rubbish! What would I do moping at home all day. It only takes me a couple of hours to clean the place from top to bottom. I’d go mad sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting for you to come home.’

‘I was pretty sure that’s what you’d say and I’ve thought of the answer to that problem.’

‘Go on.’

‘We could move to a bigger house.’

Winnie frowned. ‘What’s wrong with the one we’ve got. It’s handy for the café and it’s in the most respectable part of the Scotty Road area. We’d have to move a lot further afield to find anything better, and then we might end up having to do a lot of travelling to get to work.’

‘Not necessarily. I thought perhaps we’d find ourselves a place on the other side.’

Winnie looked puzzled. ‘Do you mean we should move to New Brighton?’

Sandy shook his head. ‘No, the ferry to New Brighton doesn’t run often enough, especially when the holiday season is over. I thought that perhaps we could look for a house in Seacombe or Egremont. The boats from Seacombe are every ten minutes and there’s a bus service linking the boats with every part of Wallasey. And on this side
it’s
only a few yards walk to the café from the landing stage.’

‘It sounds a good idea, but can we afford to do that?’ she challenged, her eyes sparkling.

‘The rents over there aren’t all that much higher than they are here in Liverpool,’ he pointed out.

It was certainly something to think about, Winnie agreed. She hoped it would take their mind off the fact that there was still no baby on the way. Perhaps moving away was the right thing to do and would give them a completely fresh start, she decided. The other three men who had been sentenced at the same time as Sandy would be coming out of prison soon and it would be reassuring to know that there was less chance of him meeting up with them again.

Even though she knew Sandy would not want to have any more dealings with them, while they lived in a street off Scotland Road, which was so close to Paddy’s Market, there was always the chance of bumping into them.

They could always track Sandy down, of course, either at the café or even across the water, but somehow she didn’t think they’d bother to do that.

Looking for a place that was suitable, and that both of them liked, would be a great way to spend the rest of the summer, she decided. Sailing across the Mersey to the other side made a very pleasant outing on a fine evening or at the weekend, she thought dreamily.

Before they were successful in finding somewhere else to live, Winnie discovered she was pregnant.

‘All the more reason for us to move as soon as possible so that you can find a doctor over there to take care of you,’ Sandy pointed out.

Winnie frowned; she hadn’t thought about that. She immediately wondered whether perhaps, after all, it would be better if they stayed where they were for the time being. In Liverpool there were bigger hospitals, and there was always the slight possibility that she might need special attention when the baby was born.

Sandy was impatient for them to move, but because this was niggling away in the back of her mind Winnie kept delaying matters. It wasn’t too difficult to do this since it was almost the end of October and the summer was over. Early mornings were cold and misty, and looking out across the Mersey was grey and dismal.

She waited until she was a little over three months pregnant and then, as agreed, she went back to see Dr Richman for a check-up.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Sandy volunteered, ‘then we can ask his opinion about moving. If he thinks it would be better for us to stay in Liverpool until after you’ve had the baby we’ll forget all about doing so until next year.’

The doctor frowned after he’d examined her. ‘There are no real problems at the moment,’ he told her, ‘but you do realise that your pregnancy may affect your walking. As I told you when you first came to see me, the extra weight as your pregnancy advances will probably make it necessary for you to use your wheelchair most of the time,’ he explained. ‘You see, your balance will be
affected,
so it will be risky for you to merely walk with sticks, especially if you are feeling tired.’

‘Is that the only problem?’ Sandy asked anxiously.

There was a short silence. Dr Richman removed his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them briskly.

‘As a result of her physical handicap, Mrs Coulson may experience considerable discomfort towards the end of her pregnancy. There are also bound to be minor problems in coping with the baby after it is born.’

‘What I really meant was is there any danger to my wife’s health, with her being crippled,’ Sandy probed.

Dr Richman looked thoughtful. ‘There might well be a slight risk to your wife’s health. I’m not saying it is certain, but …’ his voice trailed away.

Winnie’s heart pounded. She wondered whether that meant he didn’t really know or whether he did know something and was reluctant to tell them.

‘Can you tell us more? What do you think we should do?’ Sandy demanded.

Again there was a silence, a much longer one this time.

‘Pregnancy is bound to be a considerable strain for your wife because of her many years of disability and partial immobility,’ Dr Richman prevaricated.

‘What about the baby?’ Sandy asked anxiously. ‘Will that be affected in any way?’

‘No, I can see no reason to have any concerns about the baby, but, as I have already said, your
wife
may find it difficult to cope with caring for it if she is confined to a wheelchair afterwards. If you are both worried about this then I might be able to arrange for a termination based on the state of your wife’s health,’ Dr Richman said briskly.

‘Get rid of it, do you mean?’ Winnie gasped.

‘You should both go away and talk about it,’ he advised, ‘but you must let me have a decision as quickly as possible. There is a time factor. Termination must take place within the next …’

‘No, never!’ Winnie almost shouted the words. ‘There isn’t going to be a termination so you can forget all about that,’ she told him furiously. ‘I want this baby whatever happens. I don’t care if I feel ill or uncomfortable. As long as the baby will be all right, no one is going to do anything to stop me. Neither of you are,’ she declared, staring defiantly at Sandy, ‘so don’t even think of trying.’

Chapter Thirty-seven

THE FACT THAT
Winnie was expecting made Sandy all the more determined that they must move to a bigger house.

‘We’ll start looking right after Christmas,’ she promised. ‘There’s so many other things to do at the moment.’

‘I thought the sooner the better so that you aren’t worried about moving at the last moment?’ Sandy persisted.

‘The baby isn’t due until the beginning of June so we’ll have plenty of time in the New Year to find somewhere. Anyway, I thought we agreed to stay where we are until after it’s born because I want Doctor Richman to deliver it?’

Sandy could see the sense in that. Dr Richman had accepted that Winnie was determined to go ahead with her pregnancy and he had promised to keep a very close eye on her progress.

‘There are going to be quite a few problems so she will need your support,’ he told Sandy privately.