‘Could you tie me up, please?’ He turned his back towards her and before he had finished drying, he was out of the door and back into theatre. But not before he had looked her straight in the eye and left her in no doubt she had been noticed.
Sister Pokey was ripping open packets and letting the contents spill on to the trolley. The theatre instruments gleamed and were fanned out like place settings at a formal dinner. Pammy was with the patient, taking her pulse and blood pressure.
‘Tie Mr Gaskell’s face mask on, please, Nurse Harper,’ Sister Pokey said.
Beth hesitated, but only for a second, and the only person to notice was Oliver Gaskell. As she took the mask from his hand and fastened it, his skin felt hot beneath her fingers and then in an instant it turned clammy. He’s nervous, Beth thought. She was nervous too. They had all been taken unawares. The atmosphere was palpably tense.
‘Her blood pressure is dropping.’ Pammy’s voice cut through the air. ‘It’s been holding at one hundred over sixty, but it’s just dropped to a systolic of eighty and I can’t detect the diastolic.’ There was a hint of panic in her voice. ‘No, I’ve lost that now. It’s lower.’
Pammy looked down at the woman. Her face was as white as the sheet upon which she lay and cold droplets of perspiration covered her face. Her hands were damp and cold and her eyes flickered open.
‘My baby, where is he?’ she asked Pammy.
But there was no time for Pammy to answer as the anaesthetist said, ‘Quickly, here, please. Fast.’
The patient was lifted on to the operating trolley with little ceremony or dignity. The urgency of the moment took precedence. The sound of gas hissing from a tall canister filled the theatre and the anaesthetist placed the black rubber mask over the patient’s face even before she had been eased into position.
‘We can use this while you remove the packing and do what you can. I will never get a vein now,’ he snapped. And then, ‘She’s in complete peripheral shutdown,’ which was muttered more to himself than anyone else. ‘I’m going to have to do a venous cutdown,’ he said to Oliver Gaskell, who was pulling the light down by the long shiny chrome arm.
‘Right, let’s try this light,’ Mr Gaskell said, reaching his hand up.
The air sizzled with static as the bulbs flashed into life and the room filled with the brightest light. Pammy was busy hooking up the new blood to a giving set, ready to hand to the anaesthetist who was struggling to find a vein to use and, looking at Beth, she shook her head in dismay. He was failing. Beth wondered who was the whiter, Pammy or the woman. Everyone in the room knew that the chance of this woman ever setting eyes on the face of her baby were almost zero. Suddenly the anaesthetist shouted, ‘Eureka, pass me the cannula,’ and without a second’s hesitation, Pammy slapped it in his hand. Within seconds, the giving set was opened on to full and Pammy and Beth both watched in awe as the blood ran through on full, into the empty veins. Beth stood by Oliver Gaskell’s side, holding on to a large kidney dish, waiting to receive the bloodied packing.
He took the forceps from Sister Pokey and began to tease away the end of the wick from the now congealed mess. ‘No time to waste,’ he said almost to himself. Beads of perspiration stood proud on his brow and his top lip. As the packing came away, the patient’s blood fired out and hit his gown with force, pumping with the rhythm of her weakening heartbeat and filling the theatre with the familiar smell of metal. This was it. They were hovering somewhere in the void between life and death and in the splinter of a second, fate would make its call. Beth felt her own heart pounding five times as fast in her chest and she whispered a prayer. Please, God, save her. Without her knowing, Pammy had just done exactly the same. What else could they do? Oliver Gaskell would do his best, but if too much blood had been lost, if she was already in shock, if they couldn’t get the cold blood in fast enough, if they couldn’t find the source of the bleeding and stop it right now, if she had an adverse reaction to the cold blood, if it was her time… If fate was cruel.
The two young friends exchanged despairing glances, all too aware that between them lay a new mother, whose life was fading fast.
7
Finn Delaney flew down George Street as fast as his legs would carry him – so fast that he slipped on the moss-covered cobbles in the north-facing entry. Landing on both knees, he skidded on for another yard or so before coming to an agonizing halt. His screams from the scalding pain ripped through the air.
Maisie Tanner was not far behind him. She was returning home from the butcher’s, carrying potatoes and a scrag end of lamb in a string bag over her arm. ‘Oh, Finn, come here, love. Are you all right?’
She dropped her bag to the ground and helped Finn to his feet, trying to restrain him from jumping up and down and yelling ever more loudly. Taking her handkerchief out of her coat pocket, she spat on it, held his arm, bent down and tried to take aim with her linen and spittle. His knees were crusted in black dust and blood began bubbling through the grit and grime in several places. It seeped through and slowly dribbled down his shins towards his long socks, which were now bunched in folds around his ankles.
Finn could not stand still because of the pain and he began hopping from foot to foot, screaming at the top of his voice. ‘Mam! Mam!’
‘You poor love, what a mess.’ Maisie scored a hit with her handkerchief and managed to brush some of the compacted dirt away from one of the knees. There was no skin left beneath and the blood now flowed unhindered down his leg. ‘We need the iodine on that, Finn. Oh Lord, where are our kids when you need them?’
Finn had stopped screaming for a moment and was looking at his knee with fear on his face.
‘Come on, Finn, let’s try and get you up. You haven’t died, have you?’
Just then, Lorraine and Mary turned the corner into the entry, both running, having been alerted by the screams. The screams intensified at the sight of the girls approaching.
‘Oh, thank goodness. Here we go, girls. Lorraine, take my shopping in and put it on the press. Start chopping an onion and peel those spuds. Mary, help me get your Finn home, he’s in a right mess.’
Mary was alarmed both by the sight of Finn’s blood and by the volume of his screams. Somewhere within, unfamiliar sisterly concern was stirring. ‘Is he going to be all right, Maisie? He’s not going to die, is he?’
‘I doubt it, love,’ Maisie said distractedly. ‘Come here, Finn. Hold your breath. Oh God, look at the state of your socks. Hope your mam has a clean pair dry.’
A look of panic flitted across Mary’s face, and if Maisie had had the time, she would have laughed. ‘Oh, my giddy aunt. No, of course not. Of course he’s not going to die.’
It suddenly occurred to Maisie that Noleen might not have any iodine in the house. Most did, but Noleen struggled more than most. ‘Our Lorraine…’ She lifted her head to project her voice over the back-yard wall. ‘Lorraine, forget the spuds. Get the iodine out of our bathroom cabinet and follow me down to Noleen’s.’ That’s put me right out with the tea now, she thought. They’ll all just have to wait.
The journey was slow. Finn was in agony and refused to put his weight on his poorly leg, so he hopped all the way. One hand on the entry wall, the other clinging on to Maisie.
Maisie tutted and huffed and puffed. ‘Come on, lad, not far now. Nearly there. Another ten hops and we’ve made it.’ If this had happened a bit later in the day, she would have knocked on the nearest back door and got one of the men to give Finn a piggyback home. But the klaxon was yet to ring. The men were still down on the docks and the air was still busy with the sound of cranes lifting the jute from the holds of incoming ships and the horns of the tugs that guided them in and out.
‘How often do we tell you kids not to run on those George Street cobbles?’ she said. ‘They’ve always been treacherous. Even with no houses on one side, the sun never gets over that wall.’ Maisie was referring to the houses that had taken a hit during the war and were no longer standing. The entry down the ba
ck of George Street was known as the rat run to and from St Chad’s school for the kids who lived in Vince Street.
Finn wasn’t listening. The pain in his legs was the worst he had ever known and his sobs, punctuated by ‘Mam, Mam,’ filled the air.
‘Never cries for me, does he?’ said Mary to Maisie, ‘and I’m the one who’s here.’
‘There, there, love, we’re in your entry now. Not far and then we’re there.’
Lorraine had caught them up and held out a brown ribbed bottle for Maisie to inspect. ‘Mam, is this it?’
‘That’s the one, love,’ said Maisie as she comforted Finn in her motherly manner. They still had the entire length of the entry to walk and Finn knew it.
Mary looked ahead and noticed Lorcan slipping through the Ryans’ back door. ‘Lorcan, Lorcan,’ she shouted. ‘Here, would you give Auntie Maisie a hand?’
Lorcan pulled his cap tighter down on to his head, in case it should fall off, and sprinted towards them.
‘Our Finn’s cut his leg.’
Finn looked embarrassed. Suddenly the pain didn’t feel so bad and he placed the foot of his injured leg on the ground. ‘Shut up, our Mary. I’m fine. What did you do that for?’ His face turned bright red as he tried to wipe away his tears from his dirt-stained face, mortified that Lorcan could see he had been crying.
Lorcan pretended not to notice. ‘Come on here, Finn. Hup.’ He bent over with his hands on his knees.
‘Oh, isn’t that smashing,’ Maisie said. ‘You are a good lad, Lorcan. Not like your lazy, thieving, good-for-nothing brothers. Finn, come on, hup, on Lorcan’s back. I’ll help.’
And before Finn could object, Maisie, Lorraine and Mary had lifted him up on to Lorcan’s back, who, gathering Finn behind the knees, being careful to avoid the grazed fronts, linked his arms, shouted, ‘Hold on!’ and galloped down the entry towards the Delaneys’ house.
‘You wouldn’t think that Lorcan came from the same parents as the other lads, would you?’ Maisie said to Mary. ‘Look how fast he runs. Mind you, they were all good runners, even with their arms full of knockoff stuff from down the docks. Never saw a Ryan break his pace no matter how much he was carrying. Could outrun any of the bizzies on the docks.’
Lorcan had disappeared into the Delaneys’ house before she’d finished speaking and silence descended on the entry now that Finn was no longer screaming. All that could be heard was the rattle of the dark green chipped wooden gate as it clicked shut and the meowing of the hungry ginger tomcat who was staring down at Maisie from the top of the entry wall.
‘Someone needs to shoot that cat,’ she said. ‘There must be a hundred of his little buggers running round the entry. Pulled my bin out of the wall last night they did.’
‘Mam, I can’t believe you just said that.’ Lorraine looked upset. ‘How could you? You had better go to confession and tell Father Brennan you said that, and if you don’t, I’ll tell him meself. All God’s creatures, we are.’
Maisie sighed in exasperation. ‘Out of my way now, Lorraine,’ she said as the back door of the Delaneys’ house flew open and a tired-looking Noleen ran into the yard, drying her hands on her floral wrap-around apron. Her hair was in curlers, under her headscarf, ready to be removed before Mass on her way to work.
‘God in heaven, thank goodness you were there. Lorcan told me,’ said Noleen. ‘The lad’s a prize idiot. There isn’t a brain cell in his head. I tell him every day, “Finn, don’t run down that entry.”’
‘I know, love. He’s a boy, they just don’t listen. I’ve brought a bottle of iodine with me, just in case you had run out and the chemist will be closed now.’
Noleen sat Finn on the wooden draining board in the scullery and pressed his head into her chest while she ran the cold water fast and tried to splash his knees to remove the grit. But every time even a drop of water went near his wound, he screamed the kitchen down. His snot smeared the front of Noleen’s apron as he tried to escape.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ said Maisie. Both women knew that once Finn was alone with Noleen and had had five minutes to adjust, he would begin to calm down.
As his sobs became pitiful moans, Paddy shouted from the kitchen, ‘What’s up, Noleen? Bring him in here.’
Twenty minutes later, the Delaneys’ kitchen was full of wide-eyed children from almost every house in the street. This was a drama. Finn was sitting on the settle next to Paddy and Noleen was on her knees with a chipped enamel dish, white with a navy-blue rim, beside her. It was brimming with gritty, bloody water.
‘Change that water, please, Mary,’ said Noleen. ‘Quick.’
Maisie was standing at the range, mashing the tea. ‘Where’s our Pammy when you need her, eh?’ she said. ‘We need Nurse Pammy here, don’t we, Finn. She would have that knee fixed in no time.’
‘I think I can manage cut knees, thank you very much,’ said Noleen. There was a terseness in her voice, put there by concern for her son and the suggestion that someone else could bathe his knee better than she could. Pammy couldn’t bless the water with tenderness and love, that was a mother’s job.
Maisie caught the edge in Noleen’s voice and glanced her way. Noleen immediately felt guilty. She had known Maisie Tanner all of her married life. When Lorraine had been born in the air-raid shelter, prematurely, Noleen had taken food to the house and helped with Maisie’s mam, who appeared to lose her mind overnight, unable to accept the fact that half a street had been bombed, taking the people she had known all of her life with it. In the weeks that followed, Noleen had bathed Pammy and the boys and put them to bed while Maisie nursed little Lorraine as she hovered on the edge of survival.
‘But I am really grateful to you for bringing him home, Maisie. And you, Lorcan. Aren’t we, Paddy? I bet it’s put you behind with your jobs, Maisie.’
Paddy passed Lorcan the plate of biscuits that was being handed around the silent, observant children. On the dock side streets, drama was a spectator sport. ‘We are that,’ he said. ‘Your Pammy has really sick people to look after in St Angelus, Maisie, not a pair of knobbly knees like our Finn’s. She’d be wasted on your knees, wouldn’t she, lad? Knots on cotton, our Finn’s knees are.’ He was trying to make Finn smile and he succeeded. ‘There you go, Finn. Feeling a bit better, are you now?’
Finn nodded reluctantly and gave his dad a shy smile. He wiped his dripping nose with the back of his hand and shoved a broken custard cream in his mouth. The kids from the street who were sitting watching him smiled in relief. Finn was going to live. None of them was yet aware that the worst was about to come.
‘Are you ready?’ asked Maisie with a wink to Noleen as she pulled the knitted tea cosy over the pot.
‘As ready as we’ll ever be,’ said Noleen, who glanced at Finn. ‘You ready, Paddy?’ she asked, nodding towards Finn’s arms.
The atmosphere in the room had taken on a new tension and the assembled children felt it. Concern crossed their faces as they looked at each other and then to Maisie. No more words were needed, something awful was about to happen.
Lorraine had been in enough scrapes to know what. But little Stanley, Maisie’s son, had a shorter memory. He turned towards his mother, half a broken lemon puff in one hand and a garibaldi in the other. ‘Ready for what?’
‘What’s that smell, Mam?’ Cahill asked Noleen as he walked in through the back door and wrinkled his nose. ‘Is our Finn dead? Mrs Murphy in the shop said he was dying with the pain.’
‘Can someone tell me how that woman even knows?’ said Maisie, exasperated. ‘Here you go, love.’ She passed the opened brown-ribbed poisons bottle to Noleen, who held a roll of cotton wool in her hand.
The assembled children inhaled in unison. Now they’d smelt it, they knew it, and the awful thing that was coming.
‘Mary, Lorraine, would you come here and when I say blow, blow hard.’
Finn looked up and asked, ‘Why, Mam?’ As a boy who spent more time with books than playing football on the bombed-out wastelan
d, he had no idea what was coming.
‘Cahill, you too,’ said Paddy. He shuffled along the settle. Mary, Lorraine and Cahill stood to the side as Paddy placed one hand on each of Finn’s shoulders and Maisie stepped forward and placed the palms of her hands on Finn’s thighs.
‘Just a little sting, Finn,’ said Noleen as she teased the cotton wool into two, tipped up the brown bottle and turned the snowy-white pads a bright yellowy brown.
The clinical smell became stronger and filled the space. There wasn’t a child there who didn’t know what came next. The air ran from the room as, before Finn could object, each child breathed in hard.
‘Get ready to blow, kids,’ said Noleen as she placed the pads firmly down on to both of Finn’s knees.
His screams were so ear-piercingly loud, they could be heard out in the entry. Fifteen children blew and blew into the air, not knowing why but aware that the blowing somehow helped with the stinging. Then silence followed as Finn fainted clean away.
*
Mrs Ryan was dozing in front of the fire. She had been dozing most of the day, on and off. She wasn’t terribly sure what the time was and as she woke she looked around the room in a state of confusion. An aroma she was unused to hit her. It was the smell of cleanliness. The familiar stench of urine, smoke-stained curtains and a-dozen-times-fried fat had been replaced by soap and Dettol. The greasy grime on the windows had been cleaned away and the light shone through into the normally dark and dingy kitchen. The sink was clean and the table scrubbed, and the usual detritus of piled-up stale food, dirty dishes and newspapers had disappeared. She looked down at the floor and the quarry tiles beneath her feet were brown, not black.
Like the Mersey mist on a summer’s morning, her befuddled brain began to clear. ‘I haven’t drunk gin today. Do I have any? Do I?’ she asked herself.
She spotted her black woollen stockings, washed and hanging on the wooden clothes horse in front of the range. ‘Ah, Lorcan,’ she said out loud. Now she knew. It was Lorcan, that’s who it was. And she remembered, he had been cleaning for days, or was it weeks?
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 16