JUST AN ANGEL - SHE’S ONLY LENT
By Pam Kent
(An excerpt from her memoirs)

It isn't easy being an angel. I know. In the days before antibiotics, my granny tries to console my mother as I lay deathly ill with pneumonia.

"She’s only lent, Rita. Too good to live. Never even cries, does she? God wants the angels back, Rita. That’s what she is - a little angel." Grannie convinces my parents that I have been loaned out for a few months, but that I have a place ready and waiting for me back in paradise, where I really belong.

In truth, I am probably too weak to cry, but my distraught parents, anxious for any kind of relief from the terrible anxiety of watching their thirteen-month-old toddler's hold on life get more and more fragile, agree. An angel I become.

Granny’s dire predictions come to naught, but the typecasting sticks for most of my childhood. Not an easy thing to live up to and not appreciated by my older siblings. How would you like to have an angel for a little sister? I am my mother's little duckie-quackie, my father's little ray of sunshine and the worst thing that ever happened to my sister and brother. I spend the rest of my childhood being good, quiet, obedient, fetching and carrying for Mum and Dad. How can an ‘angel’ refuse to do something when she is asked?

My birth is inauspicious. I hear the story often. "You were an easy one to have," Mum says. "I was busy making a pie for your Dad when me water broke." (At the tender age I am when my mother first relates the events of my birth, I don’t know what it means when a woman’s water breaks, but I know better than to ask too many questions about things I am not supposed to know about. Like children everywhere, I put it in that part of my memory where I can retrieve it later, when I have a few more pieces of the puzzle to put together. Eventually, with the help of my older brother and sister and school friends, the puzzle is complete and the whole birth process revealed - with a few erroneous facts thrown in for good measure.)

"Knew I’d be stuck upstairs for two weeks once you were born - I didn’t really want to stop baking - your Dad never could cook anything.. Had to crawl up the stairs on me hands and knees. Your Dad went to get Nurse Lawrence."

"Who’s Nurse Lawrence, Mum?" I know who Nurse Lawrence is. I’ve heard the tale so often I could tell it - verbatim - myself. That is the problem. I want it verbatim, every time - no short cuts, no deviations allowed.

"Nurse Lawrence is the midwife. Our Joe was born in the hospital. Mean, they were, those nurses. One of ‘em slapped me when I cried. Told me not to make such a fuss. Probably never had a baby herself. Swore I’d never go back. Never did. You and Rita and that stillborn I had were all delivered at home by Nurse Lawrence."

"And then Dad went to get Nurse Lawrence?" I ask, eager to get on with this fascinating tale.

At the mention of his name, like a cue from the wings, Dad takes over the story.

"Got on me bike and peddled like mad over to Nurse Lawrence’s house, but she wasn’t in". When Dad comes to this part of the story, I always feel anxious about the outcome - even though I’ve been told the story dozens of times before. Like listening to an oft-told fairy story, I want to guide it along through all its steps, to its happy conclusion.

"What did you do then, Daddy?

"Well, luckily, Nurse Lawrence had a chalk board and a piece of chalk by her door where you could leave her a message, so I wrote ‘Please come at once to 1, Lincoln Road’. Then I got back on me bike and rode home as fast as I could. When I got back home, I felt somethin’ under me arm. D’you know what it was?"

I shake my head. I play my part in this little charade as well as Mum and Dad..

"It was the chalkboard."

That is my favourite part of the story. Dad, with an innate sense of timing and comedy, raises his eyebrows and waits for the inevitable laughter before carrying on.

"So, I had to ride all the way back again to Nurse Lawrence’s, but when I got there this time, she was home."

"Then what, Daddy?"

"We both rode back home on our bikes and then you were born."

"Aye. Just a little thing you were", Mum says. "Only weighed five pounds. Joe weighed seven pounds, Rita weighed six, and you weighed five."

"Good job we didn’t have six or seven. If we’d kept that up, number seven wouldn’t have weighed anything at all." Dad is always ready to inject a little humour into the situation. Mum isn’t.

"Take no notice of yer father. He’s talking daft". Mum says, anxious to reclaim the story in which Dad only had a supporting role, after all. "You had red hair when you were born."

"Did I?"

"We were going to call you Valerie, because you were born on St. Valentine’s day, but Nurse Lawrence wanted to call you Pamela. She’d just finished reading a book called ‘Pamela’ and the Pamela in the story had red hair."

I am a little disappointed to learn that my mother has been so easily influenced by the midwife. Few of us are happy with our given names. Valerie sounds much better to me.

(My father, a sickly child, wasn’t baptized until he was five; at which time, after his father had read ‘Eric, Or Little By Little’ to him. He wanted to be called ‘Eric’. According to Dad’s story, he wailed all through the baptismal service when he found out he was to be called ‘Joseph’ instead, and was carried out of the church, shouting "I want to be called Eric. Let me be called Eric.")

I never tire of hearing the story of my birth; never tire of asking the same questions, knowing the answers will remain the same - that I will always be an easy birth for my mother, always weigh just five pounds and always have red hair. There is a lot of comfort in those unchanging facts, especially as my hair lightens to a platinum blonde after those first few months. I need to know that even though my hair is now a different colour, it was still me born that day and not some changeling - or every child’s worse nightmare, not an adopted baby. Like a lot of older siblings, when she is mad at me, Rita tells me that I am adopted. I don’t really believe her, but it is good to be reassured by the familiar story.

Mum likes to tell me about the time I had pneumonia too. She is really the hero in this part of the story. Her face takes on a different appearance - firm, strong.

"Dr. Walker said " (and here Mum’s face becomes very grim) ‘Well, Mrs. Stewardson, I’ve done all I can for her, now it’s up to you. She’s got no blood pressure and without that she can’t live’" I can feel my tummy turn over when Mum says this. For an awful second my life seems to be hanging in the balance. I wonder if I'm going to make it.

Then comes the bit of the story that I hate to hear. "We had to feed you brandy and sugar and water in an eye-dropper through your bottom. Took us half an hour to get it in you. We had to do that every two hours. Your throat was so swollen you couldn’t swallow. We took it in turns sleeping. Once, your Dad and I were so tired, we both fell asleep and when we woke up, you ‘ad no clothes on you and the fire had gone out. The room was cold and you were freezing. ‘Joe, we’ve killed her’ I said. Your Dad lit the fire and we rubbed you all over and wrapped you up again and you seemed to turn the corner after that. Dr. Walker said he didn’t know how I’d done it." Mum’s expression changes to one of satisfaction.