THROWING THE BABY OUT IN THE LITERAL SENSE

Sometimes you just have to get out of the way of a story. This comes from Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee’s reminiscences of his childhood in a village in the Cotswold.

“But secretly, silently, aided by unknown forces, I hung on—though it was touch and go. My most perilous moment came when I was eighteen months old, at the hand of a neighbor, Mrs. Moore. My mother was in bed for the birth of my brother—we were all born at home in those days. Mrs. Moore had been called in to help, scrub the children and cook them soups. She was a jolly, eye-bulging, voodoo-like creature, who took charge of us with a primitive casualness. While still in her care I entered a second bout of pneumonia. What followed I was told much later.

“It seems that brother Tony was but two days born and Mother just beginning to take notice. Eleven-year-old Dorothy came upstairs to see her, played awhile with the baby, nibbled some biscuits, then sat in the window and whistled

How are you getting on?’ Mother asked.

‘Oh, all right,’ said Dorothy.

‘You behaving yourselves?’

‘Yes, Ma.’

‘And what you all up to?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Where’s Marjorie, then?’

‘Out in the yard.’                                       ‘

‘And Phyllis?’

‘She’s peeling spuds.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Harold is cleaning his trolley. And Jack and Francis is sitting on the steps.’

‘And Laurie?...How’s Laurie?’

‘Oh, Laurie’s dead.’

‘What!’

‘He turned yellow. They’re laying him out…’

Giving one of her screams, Mother leapt out of bed.

‘No one’s going to lay out Laurie!’

Gasping, she groped her way downstairs and staggered towards the kitchen; and lo, there I was, stretched naked on the table, yellow just as Dorothy said. Mrs. Moore humming gaily was sponging my body as if preparing a chicken for dinner.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ My mother shouted.

‘Poor boy, he’s gone,’ crooned Mrs. Moore. ‘Gone fled to the angels—thought I’d wash him for the box—just didn’t want to bother you, mum.’

‘You cruel wicked woman! Our Laurie ain’t dead—just look at his healthy colour.’

Mother plucked me from the table, wrapped me up in a blanket, and carried me back to my cot—cursing Mrs. Moore for a snatcher of bodies and asking the saints what they thought they were up to. Somehow, I lived—though it was a very near thing, a very near thing indeed. So easy to have succumbed to Mrs. Moore’s cold sponge. Only Dorothy’s boredom saved me.”