He unzipped Emily’s bag now to put them in. He found a plastic bag on the top marked ‘Food’. Mystified, he opened it, and two Mars bars tumbled out, along with crisps, energy drinks, Nutri-grain bars, and those chocolate-covered peanuts he liked.
Didn’t she know they would feed her in the hospital?
He consulted the list again. And he saw that she had ticked off in highlighter pen, ‘Snacks for your birth partner during labour’.
They were for him. She would not be allowed eat anything during labour in case of emergency surgery. But she hadn’t minded about that, she had thought about him and the fact that he might feel like a bite to eat while she writhed in agony beside him.
“Oh, Emily,” he said.
He did not know if he would be there for the birth. He wanted to, very much, and he felt he had a right to be there. But birth partners were there to support and encourage and whether Emily thought he could give her that was up for grabs. Or whether she wanted him to. She might just want to ring him afterwards and he would traipse in like any other visitor to see his daughter or son.
He sat on the bed with the two bags either side of him and the big suitcase at his feet and he had a pain in his chest.
He would go to Cork and stay until he had worn her down. He’d worked out all his arguments last night; there were so many reasons for staying together, even apart from the baby, and he would give them to her one by one. Emily often caved in to his logic. Probably because she was usually put in the position of looking illogical, he realised now.
But if he could at least persuade her not to make any final decisions about the two of them, to give them a breathing space. He was trying to buy time.
He hadn’t got beyond that, really. He knew there was a leap required on his part but he didn’t know how to make it. He did not want to pretend that he had mutated overnight, or that he had seen the light. Nobody could do that, except born-again Christians, and Conor didn’t believe in God.
But he did believe that the situation was very dangerous right now. Apart from anything else, the baby, when it came, would rightly demand all their time and energy, and there would be nothing left over for anything else. More importantly, the hurtful things that had been said yesterday had opened gaping wounds, and he felt that if he did not move now, immediately, all would be lost.
He picked up the suitcase and bags and went out to the car.
Some of them in Cork thought it was quite funny. A gang of pregnant women holed up in Martha’s! What were they doing, holding a couple of breast pads out the window with ‘No’ written on one, and ‘Surrender’ on the other?
All the management had to do was threaten to withdraw the epidural. They’d cave in fairly quickly then. Or close the sweet shop on the ground floor. They wouldn’t last long without chocolate.
Mind you, it wasn’t a bad idea as ideas went. Nothing guaranteed to embarrass the politicians more than the prospect of women dropping babies on the pavement outside. It could set their entire equality drive back a good ten years.
But the general consensus was that nobody would do anything. Let them sit in Martha’s. Let them have their babies there. And then just quietly close the place down when they had all gone home.
Secretly, a lot of them in Cork had wanted to give the Health Board a good boot up the arse for years and were quite envious that somebody had finally had the guts to do it. They didn’t want Martha’s patients in any case; they were already overworked, underpaid and disillusioned. In the meantime, it was certainly entertaining to watch the show, and it passed the time nicely in the canteen.
Mr Chapman did not go anywhere near a communal eating area that morning. He did his usual rounds, delivered two babies, met with his junior doctors and gave no indication at all that he even knew what was going on in Martha’s. And if he did, that he didn’t care.
He very much cared, because he had been taken for a fool. Last night, Martha’s Board of Management had said nothing about a sit-in. They had just insisted that Emily Collins be given an appropriate bed. Mr Chapman had spent an hour reviewing charts to see who could be discharged as quickly as possible. In the end, Duggie Moran had found a couple of patients who were outstaying their welcome and they had been dispatched. Then, a quick reshuffle of beds until a lovely, big private room with a fresh coat of paint had been secured. And then Hannah informs him that it was on the radio that there was a sit-in!
Hannah played the radio a lot these days. It helped to drown out the screaming matches between Mr Chapman and Killian. Mr Chapman had done his level best to show the boy that there were other ways of dealing with this.
“We’ve decided, Dad,” Killian kept saying. “We’ve decided, okay? Will you just stop pushing!”
Mr Chapman had made a big effort to calm down. “Killian, I understand that for certain people, abortion is the only option. But it isn’t for you and Andrea. You have supportive families. We’ll help you every step of the way. I promise.”
He was holding out his hand in a way he never had to his son before.
But Killian just shook his head again. “It’s for the best.”
“The best for you, you mean. It’s the easy way, Killian, the cop-out!”
Killian had looked at him very coldly. “This isn’t your decision.”
“I’m just trying to stop you doing something you may end up regretting for the rest of your life!”
“You are not. You’re just trying to control me, like you try to control everybody!”
Mr Chapman started now as Duggie Moran banged into his office without even knocking on the door.
“Aren’t they right bloody bastards? To keep you in the dark like that?”
Mr Chapman sensed that Duggie’s sympathy was manufactured. He was loving this, but then again he had always been pathologically jealous of Mr Chapman’s standing in the medical community. Duggie Moran knew as well as Mr Chapman that this was a no-win situation. What was Mr Chapman supposed to do? Go up and drag Emily Collins out to his car and drive her down here. Or go up obediently to see her as he had done thus far? Whatever way he moved, it would look like he was taking sides.
They were all watching this one very carefully. And him.
On the face of it, Cork’s management was very laid-back about it all. All new patients from Martha’s catchment area would still be coming into Cork’s system on Monday week as planned. The sit-in was Martha’s problem, not theirs, they declared.
And Mr Chapman’s, because she was his patient.
“Do you know what I’d do?” Duggie said.
“What would you do, Duggie.”
“I’d go up and induce her on the spot.”
Mr Chapman found jokes of this nature distasteful and very disrespectful. But that was young consultants for you. In it for the money, half of them, he often thought. What happened when you had all the money you could ever need or want? What were you in it for then?
“Either way, I’d check my medical insurance if I were you,” Duggie advised.
What was the point? Mr Chapman already knew that his medical insurance did not cover Acts of God. Or Acts of Emily Collins.
“You’ve eaten all the caramels,” Karen said crossly to Darren.
“I have not! I always eat the strawberry ones that nobody else likes! And the bloody coffee ones!” Darren was very indignant. “Tell them, Vera!”
Vera just continued with her notes.
“I like the coffee ones,” Christine interjected.
“Since when?” Darren said a bit spitefully.
The supply of Roses had abruptly dried up as ward after ward in Martha’s had closed down. Now you couldn’t find a box for love nor money, and tempers could flare quickly and violently over the last few chocolates that nobody had previously wanted.
“You shouldn’t be eating them anyway. You’re not even supposed to be working today!” Christine returned triumphantly.
This was true. Martha’s should have been down to a skeleton staff. But D
arren had received a phone call asking him to come and do a day shift on his day off. Vera had been asked to stay on after her night shift was over. It was a mystery.
But not to Vera, who chewed imperceptibly on a caramel. The board of management were avoiding any knee-jerk reaction to the sit-in. Someone very sensible, probably the Health Board’s legal team, had advised them not to give the patients any cause for complaint about neglect or coercion. Under no circumstances were emotions to be riled further.
So they laid on extra nursing staff. Extra catering staff too. Mr O’Mara and Mr Dunphy were both on call, and the equipment in Delivery had received an unscheduled service that morning. Even the heating in the place had been turned up, lest the patients might want to complain about the cold. No, Vera thought, there wasn’t a hospital in the country safer than St Martha’s right now.
Maureen huffed past pushing the lunch trolley, leaving an unusually delicious aroma in her wake.
“Chicken chasseur,” Christine said, tight-lipped. She had been down in the kitchen earlier. “They’re giving them fecking corn-fed chicken chasseur! And look at the muck we’re still getting in the canteen!”
“What, has she demanded special menus?” Karen wanted to know. She wouldn’t put anything past Emily Collins any more. And to look at her you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“The food is a management decision, Karen. You know that,” Vera said mildly. If it were up to her, she’d give Emily and Maggie and the whole lot of them caviar and champagne.
“What are they going to do about them?” Darren wanted to know, round-eyed.
“I hope they’re not thinking of staying open until they all drop their sprogs,” Christine said, peeved. “I’m going to Ibiza Monday week.”
“That’s the spirit,” Karen said disparagingly.
“They haven’t done anything yet,” Vera clarified.
This worried her. There had been no attempt to talk to the women. Apart from laying on extra services, the management was proceeding with its daily business as though the sit-in didn’t exist. Indifference was often the death of strikes and protests, Vera knew. Even the local radio station had cooled off a bit, when they couldn’t get any juicy quotes from anybody in authority.
The national media had yet to display any interest. There had been so many strikes and protests in the public sector in recent times that it would take something special to make them notice this one.
Still, Vera thought hurriedly, fair do’s to the girls. Fair do’s to Emily Collins in particular. At least she tried.
“What are we supposed to be doing exactly?”
“I don’t know, do I!” Maggie returned a bit impatiently. “Sitting in!”
Dee, Mary and Laura had come down to Brenda’s Ward, and they were all perched uncomfortably on the end of Maggie’s bed.
“Does it mean literally?” Dee wanted to know, trying to stretch out her legs. Maggie’s bed wasn’t big enough for four pregnant women. And that Laura one was hogging more space than she was entitled to. Just because she was expecting twins!
“We are breaking for lunch, I hope,” Laura said. “I’m starving.”
“I want to go to the loo. Am I allowed?” Mary wanted to know.
“You’ll have to ask Emily,” Maggie returned testily. Honestly! All the griping and grousing, and they only a few hours into the sit-in! Maggie had expected it to be much more exciting and glamorous, which was why she had gone around the rest of the wards with a rallying cry: To Brenda’s Ward, everyone! The sit-in starts there! Up the revolution!
But now that they were all there, it was a bit of an anticlimax. At the very least they’d expected some men in suits to come in and threaten them. Maybe even a solicitor or two. Maggie had angled the bed towards the door in anticipation. But nobody came except Vera, who said it was handy to have them all in one place for blood-pressure readings. Mr Dunphy’s arrival had caused a bit of excitement. Dee, his patient, was not in her bed where she was supposed to be. But he just said it was good to see her up and about and left. Just like that! Dee had felt very slighted.
“At least they know we mean business,” Maggie said valiantly, trying to rally the troops.
“I suppose,” Dee said doubtfully. “Oh, scoot over, Laura!”
“It’s a waiting game,” Maggie persisted. “They’ll have to do something eventually.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know!” This was Emily’s department! Maggie was only second-in-command. It wasn’t fair to leave her to field all the questions like this! But Emily was over in her own bed, with that Neasa friend of hers. Chatting away like she hadn’t a care in the world – and the sit-in crumbling all around her! (Maggie’s pains yesterday had turned out to be indigestion and she was very cross with the world in general.)
“Mick down in Vincent’s Ward thought he might join us,” Mary offered.
“Great, we can do with all the support we can get,” Maggie said, relieved.
“But he changed his mind.”
“Oh.”
“Said he wouldn’t be comfortable around pregnant women.”
“This isn’t a pregnant-women-issue,” Maggie said with a sigh. “It affects everybody!”
“But we’re the only ones sitting in,” Laura pointed out.
“And we need to up the anti,” Maggie decided. If Emily wasn’t going to bother her barney, then Maggie would have to.
“What’ll we do?” Dee asked.
“Well, we could start refusing food.”
“It’s chicken chasseur today.”
There was a small beat.
“We have to think of our babies,” Laura said.
“Oh, we do.”
“Absolutely! We can’t be refusing food.”
Maggie thought again. “In prisons they refuse to wash.”
Dee wasn’t enthusiastic. “Is it fair to do that to the nurses?”
“Not really, I suppose,” Maggie reluctantly conceded. “Maybe Emily will have some ideas.”
They all looked over at Emily, who was drinking a nice cup of tea and obviously telling Neasa some very amusing story.
Dee, Mary and Laura exchanged little looks. They couldn’t quite credit that Emily Collins had started this in the first place. She wasn’t a woman to be taken very seriously by the management, in their opinion. No, they wouldn’t be at all surprised if this sit-in was a flash in the pan and would all be over by tea. Which was salmon en croûte with new potatoes, according to Maureen.
“She’ll think of something,” Maggie repeated strongly, seeing their faces. They were underestimating Emily. In truth, Maggie’s faith in Emily was slowly eroding, but she bravely hung on to her loyalty.
In the meantime, she hoped that Emily would finish up with Neasa soon. She was dying to go to the loo too.
“Until someone comes up with an idea, will we have a game of bridge?” Dee suggested.
“Ooh, let’s.”
“You see, I had this dream.”
“Really.”
“I fell off the bed.”
“That’s very interesting, Emily.” Neasa smiled kindly, much the way she had done for a whole week while her grandmother had rambled on in the hospice. Neasa wondered whether she should buzz for a nurse, or a psychiatrist or something. Poor Emily had tipped over the edge this time.
“It is interesting, isn’t it?” Emily ruminated.
“And now you want to take the Department of Health to court,” Neasa clarified.
“Not actually the Department of Health,” Emily said. “Just the regional Health Board.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” Neasa said.
“And I suppose Martha’s Board of Management. You’d have to include them.”
“Why not? How about the Minister for Health himself?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“He might feel left out.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“No, I’m not. Because
you’re fucking bonkers!”
Emily wasn’t offended. “The sit-in isn’t going to achieve anything, not really. We have to decide this thing one way or the other.”
“We?” Neasa said incredulously. “Don’t include me in this!”
“Hangover?” Emily asked sympathetically.
“Well, yes, absolutely wicked, but I’m still in possession of all my faculties. Which you are plainly not!”
“You haven’t even listened to it all yet.”
“I don’t want to!”
Expecting Emily Page 24