by Emma Fraser
Margaret repeated her examination now that Chrissie’s bladder was empty. After giving her some ether, she inserted the forceps, one blade at a time, ignoring the cry of pain from her patient as she did, and slid them in place on either side of the baby’s head. The next bit was tricky. Could she get the blades to line up and lock? They seemed so high in the pelvis, almost too high. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. But at last she had the baby’s head in the grip of the forceps. This was the most difficult part. Her heart was pounding so hard, it felt as if everyone in the room could hear it.
As Chrissie was so drowsy with the ether she couldn’t say when her contractions were coming, so Margaret instructed the nurse to put her hand on Chrissie’s abdomen and tell her when the next contraction came.
‘Now,’ Anne said.
Margaret placed one foot on the edge of the bed, leaned back and pulled firmly but steadily downwards on the forceps. The forceps’ blades moved a few inches but came to a stop.
‘Could you check the baby’s heartbeat?’ she asked the nurse. She couldn’t do it herself as she had to keep pressure on the forceps.
Anne waited until Chrissie wasn’t contracting before bending over her with the Pinard stethoscope.
‘Heartbeat is fifty,’ she mouthed at Margaret.
That wasn’t good. The baby’s heart was failing. Margaret probably only had a few more minutes at the most. Then she would have to make a decision. Risk the baby dying in utero, which would almost certainly result in the death of the mother, or crush its skull and deliver a dead baby. She was damned if she was going to do that.
She gritted her teeth and pulled again. Perspiration continued to roll down her forehead and into her eyes. There was a chance that she might injure the baby or worse but, given the alternative, it was a risk she had to take.
She lowered herself on her knees almost to the floor. She clutched her elbow tight to her side and leaned down harder than she had before, harder than she wanted. A second pull and then a third. Just when she thought she had no more strength left to keep pulling she felt the baby move and a slight give as the baby’s head appeared under the pubic bone. Lifting herself slowly, she made a cut to the right of the vaginal opening, then let the forceps slide upwards with the curve of the mother’s pelvis as the baby’s head slipped out. Margaret didn’t wait for another contraction but quickly delivered the shoulders and body, placing the baby gently on the bed between his mother’s legs. Anne had left the top of the bed to come around to where Margaret was standing and clamped and cut the cord. The newborn was limp and blue and wasn’t breathing.
‘Go on, baby, breathe for me,’ Margaret whispered. The nurse folded the baby in a fresh towel and began to rub his limbs and chest vigorously.
‘Is my baby all right?’ Chrissie asked, her voice trembling.
‘You have a son, Chrissie. I’m just going to have a look at him while Nurse McAllister delivers the afterbirth.’ Margaret exchanged places with the nurse, who handed over the baby with a grateful look. The rubbing had done nothing to prompt the boy into taking a breath. Margaret bent over him and placed her mouth over the tiny lips and nose and blew gently and regularly, watching the small chest as it rose in response. Between each few breaths she checked the baby’s pulse with her fingers across his chest. Slow, very slow. He had to breathe.
Then at last, just as she was giving up hope, the baby gasped, coughed and began to whimper gently. Within moments he was a healthy pink colour and the house was filled with his cries. The child was going to live. Thank you, God. Now she had to see to Chrissie.
Nurse McAllister checked the baby’s observations while Margaret stitched up the cut she’d made in Chrissie’s perineum. When she’d done that she gave Chrissie some ergot.
‘How is baby?’ Margaret asked Anne, who was still bending over the infant.
‘Perfect. Everything’s how it should be.’ Anne looked over at her as she said it and Margaret knew that she was also telling her that the baby’s pulse and respirations were normal. The nurse turned to her patient. ‘I’m just going to give you – and him – a wee wash, Chrissie, then you can feed him.’
Chrissie propped herself onto her elbows. ‘Let me see him, please.’ Although she still looked exhausted her child’s arrival seemed to have given her a burst of energy.
Anne carried the child over to Chrissie and handed him to her.
‘He’s so beautiful,’ Chrissie breathed. When she looked back up at Margaret her eyes were wet. ‘I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you, Doctor.’
Margaret smiled back. ‘I was only doing my job.’
‘I’m not stupid, Doctor. I know I was in trouble. I know my baby could have died. We owe you our lives and I’m never going to forget that.’
While Anne bathed mother and child, Margaret went to tell Charlie that he had a son who he could see in a little while. In the meantime, she asked him to send a message to the surgery to let Dr Alan know he was no longer required.
The elation she felt was something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. She’d saved the child and the mother. Her medical skills had been there when she’d needed them.
Nurse McAllister had other visits to make so Margaret excused her, well aware she had probably made her first enemy. But if pulling the nurse up ensured she would call out the doctor sooner, it was worth it. However, Margaret didn’t want to leave; not until she was sure there wouldn’t be any abnormal bleeding. She settled herself in the armchair. Chrissie was sleeping, her baby wrapped in her arms. The bedroom door opened quietly and the husband peered in.
‘Is it all right if I come in, Doctor?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Margaret replied softly.
Charlie tiptoed across the room and eased himself down onto the edge of the bed. His gaze rested on his wife and newborn son, his eyes alight with amazement. ‘He’s perfect, a bonny wee lad, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he’s a beautiful baby. Congratulations.’
He turned towards her, his eyes shining. ‘Thank you, Doctor. For doing your best for both of them. If you hadn’t been here I hate to think what could have happened.’
‘Well, don’t. It all turned out fine in the end. So there’s no need to think of might-have-beens.’
‘Aye, you’re right.’ Charlie leant forward and with a gentleness that belied his size, stroked his son’s cheek. ‘Just you get some shut-eye while you can, wee man, as there’ll be a right old ceilidh tonight to wet your head. Oh aye, all your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and half the blooming village will be squeezing into this room to gawp at you.’
This is how a family should be, Margaret thought with a pang. A child should be born into the world knowing that he, or she, had not only the parents’ love, but the love of the grandparents too. She wished it could have been like that for her. Most of all she wished it could have been like that for Elizabeth and James.
The loud cry of a baby demanding to be fed shook Margaret from her reverie. She helped Chrissie put him to the breast and, confident both mother and infant were doing well and were now in the capable hands of several neighbours, she took her leave of the MacPhees.
The rain hadn’t let up and she trudged wearily over the moors, the elation from the delivery slowly evaporating. She thought of the day Elizabeth had been born, Alasdair’s delight and relief mirroring Charlie’s. Then three years later, James’s birth.
She remembered how she’d felt on both occasions. Tired, delighted, relieved, but most of all overwhelmed with love and gratitude for her new family. Back then, she could never have imagined that she’d be living apart from her husband and her children.
But as she thought back to the image of the little boy in his mother’s arms, her spirits lifted. Although she would have given anything to change the circumstances that had brought her here, she couldn’t help but be happy she was practising medicine again. She had done something amazing today. She had saved a mother and baby. More than that, she’d sa
ved this little family.
The knowledge warmed her soul.
Chapter 28
Despite being kept busy it felt as if the weekend she was to see the children would never come. The only dampener to her happiness was the discovery that she couldn’t spend the night with them. The islanders, Dolina had snapped, did not travel on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was for attending church, reading the Bible and resting. No one, except for the doctor in emergencies, worked, and that included Johnny Ban. But not even Dolina’s quoted passages from the scriptures and caustic tongue could diminish Margaret’s joy at the thought that soon she would see Libby and James, even if it were only for a day.
Given that she couldn’t travel on the Sunday there was no option but for her to arrange to return to Lochmaddy on Saturday evening. She knew the children would be distraught, and if she could have done anything to stay the night with them she would have – even walked. But it was simply too far. When Saturday finally arrived she was up before it was light. She boiled some water in pans on the stove and washed her hair, grateful that since she’d cut it short it no longer required more than a quick brush. When it was dry she pulled on the pair of trousers she wore to ride Dobbin and a warm sweater. She wrote to Alasdair and dawdled over her breakfast but she was still ready long before Johnny appeared at the house.
This time the tide was out so she was able to walk across the sands. She was almost at Sandbank when she heard a shout and she looked up to find Elizabeth running towards her, hair flying, small feet kicking up clods of sand in her wake.
Margaret scooped her into her arms and Elizabeth clung to her, wrapping her arms tightly round her mother’s neck.
‘Oh, Libby,’ Margaret breathed, ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I’ve been watching for you all morning,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘Watching and watching and waiting. Annie and Mary have as well.’
Margaret’s heart ached for her child. She could just imagine her daughter’s face, pressed up against the window, her brow furrowed in the way it did when she was concentrating.
‘And James? How is he? Have you been helping Aunt Flora look after him?’
‘Everyone makes such a fuss over him he doesn’t care about me any more,’ Elizabeth complained. ‘I told him you were coming today and he didn’t even want to come and meet you.’
Margaret’s heart tightened further. She was happy her little boy was settling in and didn’t appear to miss her too much, but she hated the thought that he might be beginning to forget her.
‘Can we go and get our bag now? How are we getting to your house?’ Elizabeth demanded.
Margaret had hoped that she’d have some time with her daughter before she gave her the news that she couldn’t take her back with her and that she was only here for the day.
She placed Elizabeth back on her feet and stood there for a few minutes just drinking her in. Her child had changed in the couple of weeks since she’d last seen her. Her hair was tangled, her feet covered in sand like short socks, but she had colour in her face and a sparkle in her eyes that hadn’t been there after Alasdair’s arrest. And now she was to be the one to remove the light from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Libby, but I can’t take you and James home with me tonight. There’s no way of bringing you back here before school starts on Monday.’
‘But you promised, Mummy.’
‘I know I did. And I wish that I didn’t have to break my promise. But,’ she gently squeezed her daughter’s shoulders, ‘I promise that it is the last promise I shall ever break. Now, let’s go and say hello to James and Aunty Flora and the children.’
Margaret strongly suspected that Flora had held her brood back from running out to meet her so she and Elizabeth could have the first few moments together. Now unleashed, they ran outside, shouting with excitement. Flora had James on her hip and when he saw his mother his face lit up and he leaned towards her, holding out his arms. It seemed he hadn’t totally forgotten her after all.
‘I’ve news,’ Flora murmured as they walked back to the house, the girls alongside them, Flora’s two each holding one of James’s hands. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, but I think it’s good.’
Margaret’s pulse skipped a beat. ‘Alasdair? Has he written?’
‘No. The letter was from Mairi. I’ll tell you everything when we’re alone.’
The next hour or so sped by in a happy whirlwind. They had tea in the cosy kitchen with Flora’s children. As soon as the children had finished and were excused from the table they tumbled out of the house. Elizabeth looked after them longingly, clearly torn between staying with her mother and going out to play. James, on the other hand, had refused to be put down and was ensconced on his mother’s lap.
‘Why don’t you go with them, Libby?’ Margaret said. ‘So I can have a chat with Aunty Flora. I’ll come and look for you in a few minutes so you can tell me everything you’ve been up to while you’ve been here.’
Elizabeth needed no second bidding. ‘But don’t be too long, Mummy.’
‘What did Mairi say?’ Margaret asked Flora as soon as her daughter had scampered off. She’d been burning to know.
‘I got a letter from her yesterday.’
‘And?’
‘I’m to tell you that Toni and his friends haven’t been sitting twiddling their thumbs while Alasdair’s been in prison. The union have been making noises to get the case looked at again and they’ve got some important people on their side. Toni has been asking around. You do know they never stopped trying to find the real murderer, don’t you?’
Margaret nodded impatiently. Toni had taken the news that Alasdair couldn’t be persuaded to escape hard. He had little faith in the justice system and she knew without him having to say it that he thought Alasdair had made a mistake. However, he’d promised to double his efforts to find who had really killed Tommy Barr.
‘Well, Toni has found someone who saw something that night. Someone who says she knows who really killed Billy Barr’s son.’
Margaret’s heart started beating light and fast. ‘Who? Why didn’t they go to the police?’
‘Wait now and I’ll tell you exactly what Mairi said.’ Flora took out the letter and, agonisingly slowly, unfolded it.
‘She says the woman – Mary Murphy she’s called – heard a racket coming from her back lane the night Tommy was killed. She looked out of the window and saw two men – one of whom she thought she recognised – running away. A minute or so later she saw a different man hurrying into the lane. He knelt down by something she thought was a bundle of clothes. Almost straight after, she saw two policemen go into the lane and cross over to the man. She didn’t want to get involved – the police were there, after all – so she shut her window and went to bed. The next day she went to stay with her sister in Dunoon for a month. She never thought anything more about it until she happened to overhear Toni asking her neighbour if he’d heard anything the night the lad was killed. She hadn’t even known about the murder. Says she never reads the papers. It was the second time Toni and the lads had been to all the houses asking, but of course she wasn’t there the first time.’ She looked up at Margaret and smiled. ‘So there is another witness, after all.’
It was as if a light had been lit inside Margaret’s chest. ‘Does Mr Firth know? Does Alasdair?’
Flora laughed. ‘Now hold on. One question at a time. Toni has been meeting with the new lawyer. He’ll tell him about this woman. I’m sure they will go together to see her.’ She squeezed Margaret’s hand. ‘This is the news we’ve been praying for.’
‘Alasdair could be released! I should go back…’
‘Toni says you’re to stay where you are. Your father has sent people in to Govan to ask about you. I doubt he’ll find out anything but you never know. Toni says you are to have patience and that you are not to get your hopes up. It could all still turn out to be a dead end.’
‘But it can’t be! I always knew somebody had to have seen what really happened.’ Margaret gripped Flo
ra’s hand. ‘It is good news. Alasdair was right when he told me to have faith!’ She didn’t know whether she was laughing or crying.
James placed chubby hands on either side of her face and gave her a resounding kiss. ‘Not cry, Mummy!’
Margaret kissed him back. ‘Mummy’s not crying any longer. And it’s only because she’s happy.’
‘Now, tell me. How have the children been?’ Margaret asked after she’d dried her tears and blown her nose.
‘James is such a contented child. Libby was a little tearful her first night, but since then she’s been fine – except at bedtime. I think that’s when she misses you the most. She lies in bed with that fob watch you gave her pressed up to her ear, looking a little lost and forlorn.’
Some of the joy went out of the day.
‘But the girls have found a way to distract her – they make up stories to tell her at night. I’ve been listening outside the door. I think there’s a few about her hen. According to Annie and Mary that hen has more adventures than Oedipus.’