The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

  ‘All right, craythur, let Sheela have a look to see what’s going on.’

  Ellen tensed as her clothing was loosened. Then she felt the bony hands exploring, probing for a reaction, an intake of breath, a flinch of pain. Sheela was tracing the outline of the child’s body with her hands when suddenly she dropped her face against Ellen’s stomach to listen. It recalled for Ellen the time Katie and Mary had done the same thing, their faces so still and bright and soft against her. Now she felt only revulsion at the unwashed face of this woman next to her skin. This woman who, she hoped, would deliver her child safely.

  Now what was the old cailleach doing? Ellen wondered, feeling the vibrations from the low sounds Sheela was making enter the pores of her skin and become part of her.

  ‘Ahh! Mmhh! Mmhh! Aahh!’

  It was like the drone of some subliminal chant. The sound entered, not through Ellen’s ears, but through her bones and tissue and up into the back of her throat, mixing with her own moans, journeying together with them to some inner ear in her head. The life forces of herself and this old woman were coming together in a way that she could neither understand nor do anything about to stop.

  At long last, Sheela lifted her head from Ellen’s stomach, and her hands resumed their work. Pushing, prodding, each gnarled finger on Ellen’s body like it was some sort of instrument. Drumming and tapping, long notes and short notes, playing and pausing. All the time the eyes watched for telltale, inaudible signs, and the ears listened for what the eye could not hear.

  Eventually, the old woman spoke. ‘Your time is not yet come, Ellen Rua …’

  Ellen raised her head and caught the old woman’s arm. ‘Then what is it, Sheela, what ails me?’ she demanded, at once afraid for her child.

  ‘The child has turned. You should have sent for me before.’

  ‘Will it be all right?’ she asked, shaking the midwife’s arm. Now her life and the life of her unborn child were both completely in the hands of Sheela-na-Sheeoga.

  The woman pushed Ellen’s hands down, away from her. Ellen searched beyond the cold veils of her eyes for a sign of comfort.

  ‘There is work to be done. Much work. We will see the light go down and rise again before we are finished.’

  Ellen’s thoughts were in a panic. What was the old woman saying? More double talk – and no talk. More riddles.

  She wanted to get rid of the pressure, to push down hard, pull in her pelvic bones, and crush the dam within her. Then the torrent of water could come, could rush uncontrollably, spilling warmly, comfortingly, out of her body, bearing her baby in its wake.

  ‘No, Ellen Rua!’ Sheela commanded. ‘You must hold back until I tell you. You must wait for my word, if the child is not to be still-born!’

  Through the haze of her consciousness, Ellen heard the words. She felt a cold sweat ooze up from within her. Think! Think! her mind told her, as her body wanted to give in, wanting to be rid of the burden it had carried for nine months. Wanting relief.

  The child! Think of the child! her mind fought back.

  ‘Think of the child! Think of the child!’ Her mind’s voice was getting louder, demanding her body’s attention – until Ellen realized that it was not her mind which had spoken but Sheela-na-Sheeoga.

  ‘Think of the child! Hold back, Ellen!’ the woman repeated.

  Ellen could hardly see Sheela’s face through the mist of sweat and pain before her own.

  She felt the old woman rise and heard her say something. Panicked now, she wondered where Sheela was going? Was the old woman leaving her? Leaving her alone to have her still-born child? Taking revenge for the way Ellen had slighted her?

  And what about Michael? Who would watch over him if she were gone? And Mary, and Katie, and Patrick?

  From somewhere in the room, Ellen heard a voice say: ‘Sheela, don’t leave – the child! The child!’

  ‘Sheela-na-Sheeoga has not gone from you, Ellen Rua,’ came the reply from the midwife.

  Ellen had a sense of something being passed beneath her nostrils. The sweet aroma seemed to seep through her eyes, making her sleepy. Its vapour escaped down the back of her nasal passage, finding the roof of her mouth. There it seemed to crystallize for a moment, like flower-scented dewdrops frosting over her tongue, then melting with its heat, imbedding themselves, sailing into her blood through the pink, fleshy, muscle of her mouth.

  ‘Méaracán Púca!’ she thought she heard the midwife intone. Ellen was drifting, relaxing, the need to expel this pressure from her body retreating.

  ‘Méaracán Púca.’

  She tried to focus on the words. Méaracán Púca – the finger-covering of the Pooka – the Foxglove. The plant whose purple flowers fit perfectly over little fingers. But fingers which had been dipped in the foxglove must never be placed in your mouth. Ellen was forever warning the children that the beautiful flowers of the Méaracán Púca could kill them. They were poisonous.

  ‘Ellen Rua, Ellen Rua …’ It was the voice of the Méaracán Púca that was calling her. ‘Don’t sleep now … There will be time later … Not yet … Not yet … The child, think of the child,’ the voice went on, hypnotizing her.

  Ellen felt the cold wetness on her belly even before she felt the woman’s hands. It wasn’t, as she thought at first, perspiration running down her body, cooling it. No, now there was another smell, rising from the lower part of her body, joining with that of the Méaracán Púca. This new scent of leaves and bark and flower came from an oily liquid which Sheela was applying to the child-holding area of her body.

  ‘Sheela, what is it you’re doing to me?’ the words came out dislocatedly.

  ‘You don’t worry what it is I’m doing at all, only you be doing what I tell you!’ the woman scolded. ‘This is nothing but oil of sandalwood and lavender. It will relax the place where you hold the child. Then it will help my hands find the shape of him, and move him back again to where he should be,’ she continued. ‘After he’s settled right, we’ll have to move quickly. But that’s a while aways yet, so you lie back now and let Sheela do what has to be done.’

  Ellen hovered between sleep and consciousness, drifting over the borderline this way then that. And all the while, the old woman worked to save her child.

  She felt the midwife’s hands massage her stretched body with up-strokes and down-strokes, with strokes which went deep into her aching tissue, relaxing her. Then the hands turned her, first on her right side, then on her left. Using her knuckles, the old woman kneaded the back muscles of Ellen, which had borne so much strain over the past few months. From below the shoulder-blades to the base of the spine and over Ellen’s buttocks, the woman worked.

  Ellen’s original resistance to Sheela’s touching her had, over the hours, slowly evaporated. Now she delivered her body to the old woman. Sheela-na-Sheeoga would, after all, be the saviour of her child. Her own saviour.

  The old woman worked untiringly, never stopping for food or respite. As evening’s shadows crept in, slanting across the cabin, still she worked.

  Then the hands stopped, and the midwife examined her, the oils highlighting on Ellen’s skin where the head, bottom, arms and legs of this unseen child were positioned. Again Sheela placed her hands on Ellen, and with great care, began working in opposing motions, gradually, painstakingly, turning the baby.

  Every so often Ellen was aware of the old woman stopping to put an ear to her stomach, checking that, in the turning, in the life-saving movement, life itself hadn’t been extinguished. Hadn’t been strangulated by the twisting cord.

  The old woman continued to make the low ‘aahh! mmhh! aahh! mmhh!’ sounds, signifying that she heard a heartbeat. That the child lived. Then she began talking to the child, her face separated from the womb within only by the thickness of Ellen’s shining, almost translucent, skin: ‘Come on now, a stóirín, give Sheela a little bitteen of help,’ the woman coaxed. ‘Just a bitteen more now, a mháinlín, one little turn more in the womb water … Just dip that shoulder, you
little bundleen, and the rest will follow …’

  Ellen, more awake now, was aware of every movement within her body as the position of her baby was corrected. There was still pain, but it was a different kind of pain from that she had experienced earlier. This was more like what she remembered feeling when the others were born. Now, she joined with the old woman, willing her child to move, sending the signals down through her body to the blood of her blood, the flesh of her flesh.

  The light had long since faded, and now only the lick of the firelight lit the cabin. Somehow, in the midst of everything, the midwife had found time to stoke up the fire, though Ellen couldn’t remember Sheela at any time stopping her ministrations. Perhaps Michael had come in and tended to the hearth …

  Michael and the children would be worried about her by now. It must be midnight, she thought. The old women in the village would be gathering round the fire in Biddy’s cabin to see if there was any news, casting things over this way and that, whispering behind their shawls so Michael and the children wouldn’t hear them.

  ‘Ah, sure, she couldn’t have luck after she insulting the priest. Then driving him out of the house! Ah, no – no luck for that!’

  And another would add: ‘And wasn’t it badly off she was too, bringing Sheela-na-Sheeoga down from the mountain with her spells and potions.’

  And the round of the fire would continue until it came back to the first one again: ‘Sure, anyway – God between her and all harm, the craythur.’

  As Sheela toiled, the fire threw licks of light across her face. Ellen saw the beads of perspiration spring from her forehead, the brow furrowed, knitted in concentration, the eyes below never showing a quiver of emotion. No tiredness, no hint of doubt. No possibility of defeat.

  She did not mind any more that the old woman’s hands were on her, or the closeness of her face, or the sweat from her brow falling on to her, mixing with her own. This woman, this shape in the firelight moulding her body, was giving her all for Ellen’s child. She would work as long as it took.

  So Ellen prayed in silence for Sheela-na-Sheeoga and the life of her unborn child: ‘O Mary, Mother of the Christ-Child, give strength to this woman. Bond us together in our hour of need as Mary of Magdala, reviled by others, knelt – bonded in grief with you – at the foot of your Son’s Cross. Holy Mother, by the death of your Child, grant life to mine.’

  Now and again the silence broke, the sound rising between them of the breath-chant of the old woman: ‘Aahh! Mmhh! Aaah! Mmmh!’ as she continued to find life.

  When the first light of the sun at last released them from the darkness, Sheela spoke. ‘Now, Ellen Rua, my work is done. Your child is ready for deliverance. Now you must deliver it!’

  Now it was her time. Ellen drew together all of her bodily strength and power of mind. Focusing the untapped energy of six years of waiting on this moment, she held it poised, contracting her whole being. Then it happened.

  First it was a tremor, a rippling, gaining in strength until her whole body shuddered. The force which had been welling up inside her broke its walls and burst forth in one gigantic wash of release. Her cry rang out, rebounding off the mountain walls and around the valley. Anguished, freed, joyful, it echoed into infinity. In Martin Tom Bawn’s cabin, the old women heard it and were silent.

  ‘Now, Ellen, push when I tell you – stop when I say,’ the voice said. ‘Now – breathe in deeply, and push! Again! Good!’

  Ellen forced herself to keep in rhythm with the woman’s voice, anticipating its command.

  ‘Push!’ the voice said. ‘Now, stop!’

  Ellen resisted the urge to keep pushing. She felt the woman work, freeing the baby’s head and neck, positioning its shoulders.

  ‘Now, Ellen Rua. This is it! Soon you will see your baby! Now, Ellen. Now!’

  Ellen drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs, and drawing the air down into the pit of her stomach. Then, in one powerful surge, she expelled the air with all the force she could muster. At the same time, she pushed down towards her pelvis. Feeling the initial resistance of the child, she almost gave up, but Sheela shouted at her: ‘No, no, Ellen Rua – don’t stop! Don’t breathe in! Do it! Do it! Push! Push!’ and, in one final heave, Ellen did.

  From where her strength came she knew not, but she experienced a sense of exhilaration as she felt the baby’s shoulders slip from her body. The old woman worked the arms free, touching both child and Ellen. The two women, fused in this moment of sacred intimacy – the one delivering the new life, the other receiving it – looked at each other.

  ‘Now, once more, a ghrá,’ Sheela said softly. ‘Then you can sleep.’

  Ellen gathered herself for a final effort to free the baby of her body. When she had done this last thing she would see her child. This miracle child. This child won against the long day into night.

  Less exertion was required of her this time before the baby’s hips left her body. Then Sheela caught the child, sweeping it out, independent of Ellen, holding it up to the light, as if it were her own.

  Ellen was filled with a great emptiness, now that the child had left her, but she was suffused with an even greater, all conquering joy.

  Then she heard her baby’s first cry in its new world.

  She felt Sheela separate the cord between them, the lifeline through which she had nourished and nurtured this child, with her own blood, her own spirit.

  As Sheela worked on, silently cleansing the remnants of womblife from the child, Ellen looked at the ceiling of the little cabin. ‘Thanks be to God!’ she murmured, her words carrying up through the roof to the heavens above. ‘Thanks be to God and His Holy Mother.’ Her relief at the safe birth of her child was so overwhelming that she was lost for any other words. It had been a difficult birth, harder than any of the others. And there had been times early on when she thought neither she nor the child would come through it.

  Now the old woman had finished her work. As she handed the white-shawled bundle of life to Ellen, her lined face glowed with pure tenderness. She looked down at the child who, without her, would have been still-born, a faraway light in her eyes. A sad light, Ellen thought, as if the old woman were pondering the might-have-beens of her own life.

  She felt Sheela’s hands deliver the baby into her waiting arms. Then, her baby safely cradled into her left shoulder, Ellen clasped the old woman’s hand before it was withdrawn. A moment passed between them. Nothing was said. Nothing could have been said. They had worked together to give life. Words would only shatter the sacredness.

  Ellen looked into the face of her child. She touched it, anointing its forehead. Then she stroked the streaks of almost jet black hair tinged with an auburn hue, a mixture of her own colour and Michael’s, but mostly Michael’s. He would be pleased. The eyes, pale blue with a hint of green, looked straight into her own, unseeing as yet, until the thin gossamer of eye skin disappeared. Above the child’s eyes were set unusually long, dark lashes and narrow, slightly curved, eyebrows. As the thought hit her, she heard Sheela say, ‘It’s a girl!’

  ‘My God,’ Ellen gasped, her hand flying to her lips, disturbing the baby. ‘Oh, I never thought to ask, to look – I was just so thankful it was all over! Oh, she’s beautiful, she’s so, so, beautiful! It’s a girl!’ she laughed. ‘It’s a girl!’ she laughed again, as if by repeating it she would quell her own disbelief at not asking before.

  ‘Oh, Mary and Katie will be so pleased to see you, my little dark-haired princess! And Patrick will be too, once he sees you – I know it!’

  Ellen ran the tip of her finger along the perfectly formed red-blush lips of the baby, who immediately opened them and sucked on her mother’s finger, demanding food after such an incredible journey.

  ‘She’ll be hungry, the little mite, after all that shifting around we did of her. But she won’t take much. Then she’ll sleep, and you can rest too, before we call the others back,’ Sheela-na-Sheeoga said, moving to help Ellen.

  ‘I’m grand thanks, Sheela
, I think I can manage this,’ Ellen said gently, not wishing to offend the woman, but anxious to do something on her own.

  She rubbed the surface of her nipple where the milk was. Slowly she drew her infant daughter to her, wanting to prolong the moment, but the dark beauty she held had other ideas, and voraciously clamped those tiny lips on her mother’s nipple. Then Ellen felt the warm flow of the interchange between her and her baby, whose eyes, now closed, seemed to be rolling in perfect pleasure with the rhythm of each sucking motion.

  Ellen closed her own eyes, enjoying the wonder of the moment – mother and child nourishing each other. She felt Sheela move behind her, still tidying up, making the cabin ready for when Michael and the children and the village would come. Something touched her hair. At first Ellen, her whole being already full with the pleasure of feeding her baby, could not identify this new feeling. Then she realized: Sheela-na-Sheeoga was brushing her hair, gently stroking the matted sweat-sodden mess and untangling the knots in it. Ellen tensed for a moment, but then relaxed, her eyes closed. At last, the brushing stopped, and Ellen could feel the tresses being laid out behind her, a few draped forward over each shoulder, but carefully, so as not to interfere with the nursing.

  Now the old woman dampened a cloth, mopping Ellen’s face and neck, followed by her shoulders and arms. Then, each hand – not a finger missed – and she continued until Ellen’s weary body had been bathed from top to toe. Ellen marvelled at how the old woman kept going, how she attended to every last detail.

  ‘You must be very tired, Sheela. Haven’t you done enough for me? You should go home now, and rest.’

  ‘I am nearly through here, Ellen Rua. It’s a bad handmaid that leaves unfinished work. See, she sleeps!’ the old woman observed, nodding towards the infant. ‘Look at her now – as peaceful as the snows of spring, and as beautiful as the bright May morning that’s in it. I think she has the look of you, Ellen Rua, although she’s dark too, like the father.’ The object of Sheela’s observations lay back in the crook of her mother’s arm, fast asleep to the world, her rose-petalled lips fuller than before, moist with milk, slightly open. At peace.