Read Gypsy for Free Online Page A

on to a chamber pot because she couldn’t get down to the privy, then doing all the washing and other household chores. The snow still lay thickly on the ground and most days there were more flurries. It was so dark inside the flat that Beth often had to light the gas during the day. When she rushed out to get groceries, she didn’t linger, for however inviting Church Street looked, with the shop windows all decked out for Christmas, the hot-chestnut sellers and the organ grinders, it was too cold to stay outside.
    She had become entranced by her baby sister. Looking after her was a pleasure, not a chore, and she didn’t feel hard done by with everything else she had to do either. But within a week the joy was replaced by anxiety about her mother.
    At first Alice had seemed to be getting progressively better. On the third day after the birth she asked Beth for an omelette, and she’d eaten every scrap of it, and some rice pudding. She was holding Molly for long periods after she’d fed her, and she was glad to talk to Beth, explaining little things about babies and cooking to her.
    On the fourth day she was much the same until the evening, when she suddenly said she was very hot. By the following morning Beth had to run round and get Dr Gillespie because she was feverish.
    The doctor said women often became that way on the fourth or fifth day after confinement, and recommended Beth make her drink lots of fluids and keep her warm. But Alice grew worse and worse, so feverish she hardly knew who she was. A nasty smell was coming from her, and she was racked by terrible pain in her stomach that even the medicine the doctor had given her didn’t stop.
    Mrs Craven called it childbed fever, but Dr Gillespie had a much more fancy name for it. He came in twice a day, irrigating Mama’s womb with some kind of antiseptic solution and then packing it with gauze.
    They carried on putting Molly to her breasts, even though Alice couldn’t hold her, but this morning Mrs Craven had brought in a glass bottle with a rubber teat. She didn’t have to explain why; it was evident that Alice’s health was so poor that she couldn’t produce enough milk.
    Molly took to the bottle with gusto and Beth got a great deal of comfort too from sitting in the comfortable chair by the stove nursing her. She loved the way Molly’s eyes opened very wide as she began to feed; they looked like two dark blue marbles, and she waved her tiny hands as if that helped her to get the milk down faster. But as she reached the end of the bottle, her eyes would droop and her hands would sink to her sides.
    Often Beth would sit for an hour or more holding Molly up by her shoulder, rubbing her back the way Mrs Craven had advised to get her wind up. She loved the smell and the feel of her, the little sighs of contentment and everything about her. Even when she’d finally changed her napkin, swaddled her in a blanket so just her little head was visible and tucked her back into the cradle, she would stand and watch her sleeping, marvelling at the miracle of new life.
    Yet the joy was marred by her mother’s poor health. Neither Dr Gillespie nor Mrs Craven had even hinted that Alice wasn’t going to recover, but however hard Beth tried to be optimistic, she could sense death approaching in the next room.
    Their goodhearted, competent neighbour was popping in every two or three hours now, and Beth knew by the increase in bloodstained sheets, the foul smell, the way Mrs Craven kept piling more coal on the bedroom fire and the tightness of her expression that it was only a matter of time.
    Beth didn’t tell Sam of her fears, for she knew he was worried about money. Mr Hooley at the hosiery shop had taken a dim view of Beth wanting time off at his busiest period, and there was no question of him holding her job open until she could return. On top of that Sam was freezing in the shipping office and he said that it was hard to write neatly when his fingers were numb with