Expecting Emily
Page 31
“At least we got covered,” Emily said shortly. Maggie expected miracles! Emily wished that Maggie would have her blasted baby and stop driving them all mad.
Maggie rooted in her locker and looked up at Emily accusingly. “Have you been using my toilet roll again?”
“I have not been using your toilet roll. I wouldn’t dare.”
“That’s not fair! Aren’t I always letting you use my Sure?”
It was like they were eighteen again and sharing a cramped flat, with all the attendant squabbles and minor irritations. Maggie’s toilet habits and the way she picked at her teeth after meals were greatly getting on Emily’s nerves. Emily, of course, couldn’t see anything about herself at all that might annoy Maggie. Apart from borrowing her deodorant, which was such a minor offence! But that was Maggie for you.
“I’m going for a walk on the corridors,” Emily said loftily.
“Go then! It might improve your mood.”
The corridors were depressingly familiar. Emily looked in vain for a stray wheelchair. She’d had a ride around in one yesterday just for something different.
She walked on fast, edgy and impatient. The baby insistently jabbed at her ribs, and she suddenly felt sick and tired of being pregnant, of carrying this lump around day and night. She looked down balefully at her belly. Oh just come out and be done with it!
The intense desire that the baby would stay safe inside her forever had gone, she realised. There was still that anxiety over the unknown, and the fear that a newborn naturally brings with it, but something had changed. Emily found that she wanted the challenge. She was restless for it.
It wasn’t just the baby. Martha’s had been a sanctuary of sorts, affording her security and refuge at a time when she had needed it most. But that had changed now too. She had changed. There was a great urge in her to take back the reins of her own life.
And she couldn’t. Take the court case. Here she was dependent on Neasa to do the job for her, while she waited in vain for her to drip-feed her information!
And Conor was moving out today and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about that either. This enforced separation was rapidly turning into a great disadvantage. It was leading them down the path of action, not discussion.
She felt a great pressure to do something concrete too, instead of waiting here passively for his next move. But what could she do? Threaten to break her waters?
It was all most unsatisfactory. And here she was, back at bloody Brenda’s Ward again! Even the hospital corridors seemed to have shrunk.
“Emily?” Maggie called.
What was she going to accuse Emily of stealing now – her 7up? It had been flat anyway.
“Come here, quick! Look!” Maggie was pointing out the window.
Emily reluctantly joined her at the window. “What is it now, Maggie – oh!”
Both of them hung on the windowsill looking down.
“And it’s raining and everything, aren’t they great?” Maggie cried. “That’ll show TheExaminer!” Laura was coming out of the loo in the corridor. “Laura! Come in here and see this!”
Dee followed fast and they all huddled together at the window looking down.
“Who are they, RTE?” Maggie asked, breathless, as the camera crew down below moved a few feet to the left of the entrance, where the nurses and locals walked up and down with their placards.
“I don’t think so.”
“It is. That’s Charlie Bird!”
“It’s not Charlie Bird.”
“It is! I’d know him anywhere!”
“He’s under an umbrella. You can’t see anything.”
The umbrella moved slightly.
“I told you it wasn’t Charlie Bird! It’s a woman!”
“Sweet Jesus! It’s Marian Finucane!”
“Maggie, would you shut up. It’s not Marian Finucane. Marian Finucane is radio.”
“David Davenport then,” Maggie said valiantly, refusing to accept the fact that it wasn’t RTE.
Laura had great eyesight and it was she who spotted the letters TV4 on the side of a microphone.
“Oh. Still, isn’t it great that we’re getting the coverage?”
“Absolutely, even if it is in Irish.”
The crew below moved another few feet to the left.
“They’re trying to get some of the protesters into the shot,” Maggie said.
“And the sign for St Martha’s,” Dee said expertly. They all watched a lot of news on the TV in this place. “Would you look at that Christine one elbowing her way to the front of the pickets!”
“She’s putting on fresh lipstick!”
They all groaned.
“Oh, what’s she saying?” Maggie strained to see as the reporter below turned to the camera and her lips began to move.
Laura’s expert eyesight again came in handy. “She’s saying that they’re going to have to wait until the pissing rain stops.”
“You can make that out, even in Irish?” Maggie was very admiring.
Emily ignored their chatter, peering down. The protesters on the pavement outside, sensing a media presence, had gone rather shy and embarrassed, apart from Christine. There was lot of giggling and awkward wielding of placards at any rate.
“Save Martha’s!” they squeaked, looking at the ground.
“Oh come on! Give it more gas! We say NO to closure,” Emily muttered restlessly. Where was Vera when you needed her? She’d fire them up!
Now the camera crew were packing up and retreating to a car until the downpour passed. It mightn’t take much to make them leave altogether, Emily thought grimly.
She turned to the women.
“I think we should go down,” she said.
Predictably, they thought she was mad.
“Why not?”
“Well, um, because we’re pregnant?” Laura hazarded. In fairness, she was having twins.
“So what? Does that mean we’re incapable of walking up and down for a few minutes?” Emily felt a bit giddy now, like a prisoner about to make a break for freedom. “Come on, girls. We’re the main players here! Why should Christine hog the limelight?”
“Vera would never let us,” Maggie said, worried.
“Vera need never know.”
“I think you’re insane,” Dee said bluntly.
“She hasn’t been herself today,” Maggie explained to Dee.
“None of us are ourselves!” Emily returned sharply. “We’re like a crowd of battery hens cooped up in an incubation factory!”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Laura said.
Emily’s frustration spilled over. “I certainly find it harsh to be stuck in here for weeks on end because somebody put me in a little category labelled ‘at risk’! Our entire regime revolving around producing safe, healthy babies, like there was nothing more to any of us! And there is!” She belted her dressinggown tightly. “I’m going down there, and I don’t care what Vera or the consultants or the management or anybody else says! Neither do I care whether any of you come with me!”
She told herself afterwards that she certainly would have gone on her own, but it was a great relief all the same when Laura blurted, “Feck it. Wait for me. I haven’t had a breath of fresh air in weeks. I feel like I’m going to explode.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any law against it,” Maggie added reluctantly. “I mean, they can’t stop us.”
“Stop us? I’d like to see them try!” Dee said indignantly.
They all wanted to come now, of course.
“Maggie, there’s no time for make-up.”
“It’s just a bit of powder. I’ve a big nose. I don’t want it accentuated on television. And I might go into labour after all the marching, you never know. I want to look okay.”
Dee and Laura hurried off to change into fresh nightdresses. “I’ve egg down this one,” Laura explained. Even Emily succumbed and exchanged her bunny slippers for the sensible navy ‘official’ ones in her maternity bag.
Maggie called urgently, “Susan’s gone into labour down in Elizabeth’s Ward.”
Karen went scurrying off in the opposite direction, and they all looked at Maggie, greatly impressed by her cleverness.
“There’s more to me than babies too,” she said loftily.
At the end of the corridor, they piled into the lift.
“Sorry, you’ll have to take the stairs, Laura.”
Laura lumbered off unhappily, supporting the twins with her hands. As the lift descended, they hoped that Tommy-the-porter was on one of his innumerable fag breaks, and wouldn’t catch them.
He was, and reception was empty. They slowed down now, less sure as it appeared that nobody was going to stop them at all.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Laura ventured.
Emily stepped forward and threw open the front doors of St Martha’s.
“It’s freezing!” Maggie squealed. Emily didn’t find it cold at all. It was crisp and clear and fresh, apart from the diesel fumes from the road and the stench of something unmentionable from Maureen’s kitchen, and she lifted her face to it.
“Right. Are we ready?”
Without waiting for a reply, she went. The first step was the hardest. Then she was off, marching right down the middle of the car park. Her nightie was flapping around her ankles, her slippers slapping in puddles, and she was smiling.
“Wait for me!” Maggie was the next to take the plunge, and she scuttled after Emily, puffing asthmatically. Emily looked back to see Dee and Laura bringing up the rear, their bellies swinging in unison.
“Hi, Tommy!” Emily sailed past him. His cigarette fell from his open mouth to the ground.
It started to drizzle slightly again, but Emily didn’t care. Her dressinggown fell open and she didn’t care about that either. Let people stare. She was only pregnant.
“Emily, you’re going too fast for Laura.”
“Oh, sorry.”
On they marched towards the entrance gates. At the picket-line, and she saw somebody notice them, and nudge her friend. More people turned towards them. Emily rounded the bend towards the entrance gates smartly, the women flanking her now. An approaching car was forced to stop, or else drive through them.
“And what are you looking at?” Dee enquired of the driver belligerently as they strode past.
“Isn’t this marvellous?” Maggie cried, whooping loudly. She even forgot for a moment that she was overdue.
The chanting at the gates petered out as more people turned to look. Emily saw with satisfaction the TV team in the car sit up and look out. They’d get out for this one, rain or no rain.
Now they were approaching the entrance gates, and they slowed. There was dead silence as the protesters were confronted by the sight of four pregnant women in their nighties and slippers. The protesters shifted uneasily; had they come to give out to them about the noise?
“Oh, hello, Mrs Conlon,” Emily called.
Her next-door-neighbour peered back suspiciously. “Emily?”
“How’s the kitchen extension coming along?”
“Um, they refused planning permission.”
“That’s an awful shame,” Emily lied cheerfully.
Nurses Christine and Darren stepped up quickly.
“Are you looking for Vera?”
“No, no, we’re joining the protest.”
Christine and Darren looked at each other blankly. This wasn’t allowed. This exact situation wasn’t covered in their nurses’ handbooks, of course, but they just knew it wasn’t allowed.
“Have you checked with any of the doctors?” Christine finally asked, hoping to shift the responsibility onto someone else.
“Oh Christine, are you going to give us your placard or not? You can share with Darren.”
Nurse Yvonne from the now-defunct Jude’s Ward muscled forward. “Here. You can have mine.”
“Thank you,” Emily said.
“And will someone support Laura here?” Yvonne said crisply. “Just to take some of the weight.”
Old Reggie Dwyer and Yvonne’s husband Bill found themselves squiring Laura. She thanked them profusely and their cheeks pinkened with pride. The rest of the protesters weren’t quite sure how to respond to the new arrivals. Then the doors of the TV4 car flew open. Everyone turned to look.
“Save MARTHA’S!” a lone voice at the back of the crowd shouted.
That did it. With a shuffle and a squeak, the protest started again with new vigour, bearing Emily, Dee, Laura and Maggie off down the pavement in its midst.
“We say NO to CLOSURE!” Maggie yelled, losing the run of herself altogether.
They marched for twenty minutes before a member of management was sent out to politely inform them that if they wished to continue, then they would have to discharge themselves from the hospital for legal reasons.
Liz looked different.
“Have you done something with your hair?”
“Washed it,” Liz said.
And unless Emily was very much mistaken, Liz was wearing make-up. Just a scraping, mind, but the last time she’d seen Liz made-up was for Willy’s christening ages ago.
“Is that a new coat?”
“You’re so nosy, Emily! I’ve had this coat ages, I just never wear it. Beige shows up every speck of dirt, and with that lot . . .”
She jerked her head towards the five boys. Willy was out of his sling and lying on one of the spare beds, while the other four took turns trying to pull him off.
“Are you sure he’s . . .?” Emily asked.
“Oh, he loves it,” Liz said.
“We might be on the television this evening,” Emily couldn’t help saying. TV4 had captured the whole lot. It had been exhilarating.
“Right,” Liz said with a modicum of interest, and Emily deflated. “Eamon’s coming over this evening to see the boys – I’ll be hours getting everything ready. I won’t have time to watch the television.”
“He was in here yesterday, you know.”
“I know. Funny how he goes to see you, not me.”
She looked very hard, and Emily could see how Eamon might find it difficult to admit failure to her.
“He says he wants to talk about the maintenance tonight,” Liz said tightly. “Like I intend to blow it on myself! Like I live the high-life or something!” She jerked her sleeve up to check her watch, and Emily got the whiff of perfume. Perfume?
She looked more closely at Liz and detected an unmistakable air of excitement about her. This, combined with the clothes, the make-up, the perfume, raised her suspicions. Could Liz be up to something daft, like . . . well, Emily didn’t want to imagine what.
Liz furtively looked towards the door, as though she were late for a rendezvous or something.
“Emily, I need a huge favour.”
Emily looked at her a bit nervously.
“I need someone to look after the kids for an hour.”
“What?”
“I know. I know. It’s not ideal. But Mammy’s had palpitations again. Mrs Spencer says she won’t take them after the last time – her garden ornaments, remember? I’m really stuck.”
“Can’t you ask Eamon?”
“No. I don’t want him to know.”
What on earth was she up to?
“Why, Liz?”
“Look, it’d just be for a hour.” This wasn’t washing, she saw. “Oh, you’re so niggly, Emily! I’m going for a job interview, okay?”
She looked very defensive. Emily was hugely relieved.
“Where?”
“Just back in the chemist. They’re not really looking for anybody at the moment, they said, but they must have some work if they’re going to interview me.”
“That’s great, Liz.”
“It’s not, I probably won’t get it. I’ll be too rus
ty after all these years.” She looked at her hands, which she’d tried to make presentable with moisturiser and nail polish.
“You couldn’t get rusty rearing five boys,” Emily encouraged. “All the organisation it takes! The hard work! The patience!”
“Well, patience . . .” Liz said doubtfully. “They have a new computer system in there and all. I won’t know how to work it.”