“Oh, have you seen the woman in our ward, ladies? She’s already well into her years”
“Yes, she’s practically grey. She must have grandchildren somewhere, but she stays hereperhaps a little one begged for her care at her age”
“My mother looks younger than her, I wonder how old her husband is?”
“She’s quiet and gloomy, keeps to herself.”
“That’s why she doesn’t mingle. We all try to be friends with her. I don’t even know what to call her. They say her name is Agnes.”
“But perhaps it’s better to use her full name”
In the maternity ward a heated discussion broke out as one of the expectant mothers stepped out for a moment.
Agnes’s fate had been hard. When Emily was four, her whole family caught typhoid. Her mother, father, a oneyearold brother and her grandfather all succumbed. From then on Emily was raised by her stern, domineering grandmother Eleanor, a woman who knew nothing of affection.
By 1941 Emily and James each turned thirteen. They lived in different hamlets, but both moved to the county town of Sheffield to work in a steel mill where labour was scarce.
They lived near the mill, met there, and from those early years they toiled alongside the older men.
At fifteen James was drafted to the front. Emily, a lively girl with fiery red hair, was ready to go with him, but they turned her down. “We need you here,” they said, “more useful on the home front, we still need workers.”
When they were eighteen Emily and James married; there was no time for a grand celebration, the postwar years were too bleak for festivities.
Against Eleanor’s wishes Emily moved in with James. Their villages lay about thirty miles apart.
A year later they welcomed a son, William. The young parents were happy, their home filled with peace. After so many hardships in their youth they finally earned a little happiness.
It was shortlived.
When William turned six, Emily and James were still as close as ever, the envy of the whole village. James worked as a furnaceman, his kilns famed throughout the district.
He was sent to install a furnace in a neighbouring village on the other side of the River Don. He took William with him, as Emily was at work. It was a bitterly cold day; the river was frozen as they crossed.
James lugged a heavy toolbox, never trusting anyone else’s tools. William romped about, paying little heed to his father’s warnings to stay close. With about twenty metres left to the bank, the boy slipped into a snowcovered hollow. James lunged to save him, but
Agnes had gone grey at twentyfive when she lost her husband and child. Unable to stay in a house full of memories, Emily returned to her native village, to Eleanor.
Emily shut herself away; life lost all meaning. She thought of forming a new family, but the idea never crossed her mind.
Now Agnes was fortythree. At Emily’s age, alone and without a partner, she decided to try again, fully aware of the difficulties ahead, though the prospect of loneliness frightened her more than any future hardship.
The village where Emily lived was remote, hard to reach. A fierce wind blew, and fearing help might be delayed, she arrived at the hospital early, worrying constantly about the child’s health.
Since that morning she felt like a ghost drifting through the corridors; eighteen years ago she had lost her husband and son, and time had not eased the pain.
Emily became mother to a healthy boy she named Thomas. She always remembered how William had once begged for a brother.
“Buy me a little brother,” he had said. “Dad made me so many toys! Ill play with my brother.”
“What will you call him?” his father asked.
“Thomas!”
“Then he’ll be Thomas!” James beamed, exchanging a smile with Emily.
At that moment Emily clung to hope; James knew it too. They decided not to mention William for a while. When her husband and son died, Emily felt she had lost everything.
Now Thomas had arrived, just as William had dreamed.
Grandma Eleanor met Emily at the hospital, cradling the infant, and muttered, “Well, why are you crying again, my dear?”
Emily soothed the baby, “Shh, my love.”
Eleanor snarled, “Bah, youre a disgrace, love. The whole village will gossip about your shame.”
“I havent shown my face in a week. Theyll start asking questions. What will I tell them? That my old granddaughter has gone mad?”
The village gossiped endlessly. Nothing stirred a rural community more than a thirtythreeyearold unmarried woman and her newborn.
Eleanor berated Emily mercilessly, but a year later the old woman, still spry for her age, fell ill and passed away.
Emily mourned, even though it was her grandmother who had raised her.
Thomas grew into a handsome young mantall, darkhaired, with striking eyes, nothing like his mother, whom he adored.
At seventy Emily became a grandmother. When Thomas learned his sister had been born, he and his wife Laura drove to the hospital. Laura, lying on the first floor, was called out, “Laura, Laurashow us the baby!”
Laura approached the window, cradling the child. Emily smiled through tears.
“Look, Mum, shes a little redhead! She looks just like you!” Thomas grinned. Seeing her grandson so happy brought peace to Agness memory; the future no longer seemed so frightening.
