Behind the Sun

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Rachel’s asked me to help with the birthing, but I’m not a midwife, I’ve only assisted with a few deliveries. I’d rather you were doing it, Mary Ann. I’m feeling quite sick about it.’

  ‘Well don’t: I’ll be here to help. She knows you and it’ll calm her nerves. The last thing we want is her pitching one of her fits. Don’t worry, Harrie, we’ll manage.’

  When Rachel got up to use the bucket at four in the morning something slippery came out of her and, in the darkness, she thought she was bleeding. Wadding her shift between her legs she woke Harrie, who had only been dozing anyway.

  ‘What is it, love?’ she whispered.

  Rachel tried to stifle her panic and failed, her voice loud in the relative quiet of the pre-dawn dormitory. ‘I think something’s wrong. I think it’s coming out.’

  Harrie rose to fetch the single lamp near the doorway.

  Janie stirred and sat up, Rosie still fast asleep beside her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Rachel sank to her knees on the mattress, clutching her belly. If she lost the baby now, Lucas would be utterly heartbroken. What would she say to him?

  ‘Shut up, you lot!’ a voice rasped from the shadowed darkness.

  ‘Shut up yourself, you blind cow!’ Janie shot back. ‘Her baby’s coming!’

  ‘Then get her away t’hospital! We’re tryna sleep!’

  Harrie held the lamp high and thrust the slops bucket at Janie. ‘What’s that?’

  Janie held her nose, looked, then patted Rachel’s leg. ‘You’re all right, love. You’ve just had a show. It’s the snotty bit that stops the babe from falling out before it should.’

  Harrie inspected Rachel’s shift for signs of blood, just to be sure. There was nothing she could see.

  Rachel felt so weak with relief she wasn’t sure she could stand. But her ‘sort of’ pains were turning into proper cramps now and she didn’t want to be in the dormitory any more. She wanted to be in the hospital.

  And there was another pain, too. A familiar one, inside her skull. A pinprick for now, but it would grow.

  ‘Will you want help getting her across?’ Janie asked.

  Harrie touched Rachel’s arm. ‘Will you be all right, just me and you?’

  Rachel looked at Janie; she would love both of them to take her to the hospital, but Lucas would expect her to be strong and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

  ‘Rosie’s still asleep.’

  But Janie had seen the expression on Rachel’s face. ‘Old sack-of-spuds Rosie?’ Expertly she fashioned a sling from the cloth in which the baby was swaddled, tied it and Rosie around her torso, and stood. ‘See, didn’t even stir. Let’s be off then.’

  ‘Bleedin’ hell, will you lot bugger off!’

  ‘Jesus, blind and deaf! I just said we’re goin’!’ Janie retorted as she helped Harrie pull Rachel to her feet.

  Outside, dawn wasn’t far away. Overhead a ribbon of bats were on the wing, heading home after a night’s feeding, gliding black and soundless through the moist summer air. Rachel came to a halt, her face tilted skywards to watch them, mesmerised. Wait for me, she called silently. Wait for me. Growing dizzy, she staggered, and Janie took a firmer grip on her arm.

  ‘You and them bloody bats,’ she said, shaking her head.

  Mary Ann had managed to get Rachel a bed to herself in one of the smaller rooms, but as soon as she eased herself onto the mattress she had to get off it again to use the pot.

  ‘I don’t know if I’ve finished,’ she said to Harrie as she climbed back onto the bed. ‘What if I shit myself when the baby comes out?’

  The room’s other occupants, three women also lying-in and two recently delivered, burst into raucous laughter. Once — a long time ago — Rachel might have taken offence, but now she didn’t care. She had peed and shat and vomited and been naked and wept and made a spectacle of herself in public so often now nothing like that mattered any more. Nothing.

  Mary Ann laughed, too. ‘We’ve seen it all before, love. It’s only shite and it washes off. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Can I have Angus in here?’ Rachel suddenly craved the silky feel of his fur and the low, soothing rumble of his purr.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ Harrie replied. ‘He’ll only be in the way.’

  Rachel said nothing, but knew if she wheedled enough, Harrie would eventually let Angus in: she knew Angus always settled her.

  While Harrie was off getting water in a basin, she massaged the back of her head, digging a thumb knuckle into the spot from which the pain radiated. It never stopped the headache, but did help to ease the tension a little. Another contraction squeezed down through her innards and she bent forwards and hugged her knees, groaning.

  ‘Your first?’ a woman opposite asked. She was hugely pregnant, but looked far more relaxed than Rachel felt.

  Rachel nodded, puffing out her cheeks and leaning back.

  ‘Well, just do as you’re told and Mary Ann’ll see you right. She’s a good midwife, Mary Ann Neale.’

  A shaft of pain drilled through Rachel’s head and she put more pressure on the spot with her knuckle. She felt sick and bone weary already at the thought of the agony to come, not from the birth but from the rapidly worsening headache. But she’d made her decision; she wouldn’t take laudanum for it even if they forced it down her throat. She would spew up the lining of her stomach before she swallowed a drop of it. If she did and the baby suffered, she could never face Lucas again.

  Harrie returned and gave her a thorough wash with soap and water.

  ‘How are you feeling, sweetie? No headache?’

  ‘No headache.’ But then she made the mistake of rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand.

  ‘Let me see, love.’ Harrie lifted her right eyelid and had a long look.

  Rachel thought Harrie looked worried, which made her feel nervous. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, really. Your eye looks a bit red.’ Harrie wrung out the cloth and draped it over the side of the basin. ‘I might get Mr Sharpe to have a look when he comes in. He’ll be seeing you anyway, I expect.’

  Mary Ann bustled in with several folded, worn towels and a small knitted blanket. Leaving them on the end of the bed she washed her hands in the basin.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you then, love.’ Raising the hem of Rachel’s shift, she peered between her raised knees. ‘I’m just going to have a bit of a feel, all right?’ She slid two fingers into Rachel and, her eyes fixed on the wall behind Rachel’s head, felt about, then withdrew her hand and palpated Rachel’s belly, gently pushing and prodding. ‘It’s the right way up, anyway,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s a good start. But you’ve a few hours to go yet.’

  Rachel’s waters broke, not in a gush but in a series of trickles that collected beneath her on a square of oil cloth spread over the mattress. Janie came back, Rosie awake this time, to see how things were going, and obliged when Harrie asked her to fetch Angus. Matilda Bain, deemed too old and infirm to be assigned and still at the Factory, also visited, bringing Rachel a handful of raggedy greenery pinched from the garden in front of Mrs Gordon’s apartment. Rachel liked Matilda, which was odd because no one else did. Even Harrie had little patience for her whining and endless petty complaints. Matilda, however, thought Rachel was a witch and Angus her familiar, and Harrie was sure she’d only come by in the hope of catching a glimpse of the birth of some sort of demon child, and so to curry supernatural favour.

  What Matilda did catch a glimpse of, before Harrie sent her away, was Rachel crying, moaning and swearing like a drunken tar. At first Harrie assumed it was the birth pains, regular but not close together yet, but perhaps more vigorous and unpleasant than Rachel had been anticipating. She’d been that ill and confused over the past months she might not have contemplated the actual delivery at all, though Janie had gone to some lengths to explain to her what would happen.

  But when Harrie noticed Rachel covering her eyes with her hands, her heart plummeted.
r />   ‘Is it your head? Have you a headache coming on?’

  Rachel turned her face away. ‘No, it’s just that the light hurts.’

  This, Harrie knew, was a sure sign Rachel had a headache. When she’d looked before the sclera of her right eye had been shot with angry red veins, and now it was completely scarlet. It appeared grotesque, surrounding the black, fully dilated pupil, and looked extremely painful.

  Rachel grimaced as another contraction rippled through her.

  Harrie didn’t know what to do. ‘Is your head bad?’

  More tears trickled down Rachel’s face, but she remained silent, refusing to admit anything was wrong.

  Mary Ann appeared at Harrie’s elbow. ‘Is something amiss?’

  ‘She has a headache. A bad one.’

  ‘Oh Lord. Mr Sharpe can probably give you a very small dose of tincture of opium, dear. A tiny one. Just to help a little bit.’

  ‘No!’ Rachel winced and clutched her head. ‘No, I don’t want anything! I’m not having it!’

  Harrie and Mary Ann exchanged glances.

  ‘She’s getting into a state,’ Mary Ann said. ‘That isn’t going to help.’ She checked again to see how far along Rachel was. ‘Another hour maybe? Mr Sharpe will be here by then.’

  Harrie thought she looked relieved.

  The surgeon did suggest a drachm or two of tincture of opium — a small enough dose to ease the pain in her head slightly but not enough to render her senseless — and Rachel had an almighty temper tantrum. Not one of her fits, but a spectacular show of bad behaviour all the same. Even though it sent waves of agony pounding through her skull, she screamed and swore and spat and wound herself into such a lather she vomited and all thoughts of administering any medicines were abandoned.

  The women sharing the room with her were taken out and temporarily accommodated elsewhere in the hospital, though her shrieks and foul language could be heard as far away as the gatehouse and the top floor of the dormitory building. Angus relocated himself to an evacuated mattress, watching Rachel from across the room through unblinking eyes.

  By the time she quietened, her contractions were occurring regularly and often, and Mary Ann expected the baby to arrive within the next thirty minutes. The neck of Rachel’s womb had opened adequately, the baby was in the birth canal in the right position, and its heart still beating — the midwife could feel a pulse in a tiny vein on the top of its head. Harrie was hugely relieved to step aside and allow Mary Ann to take control; it made her far happier to sit on a stool and hold Rachel’s hand.

  Rachel, however, felt as though her head were being slowly and inexorably crushed in a blacksmith’s vice. Each time she bore down the pain increased tenfold and an enormous, drilling pressure continued to build in her skull behind her bad eye. She kept thinking she was going to be sick again, and was, and she couldn’t feel her hands and feet properly any more, and it was getting dark in the room.

  Someone wiped her brow with a damp cloth. She was cold. She was freezing.

  She could feel the baby lodged somewhere so far down her body she thought it must be nearly out. It was pressing on her spine down by her bum and it hurt…and then even that sensation began to fade.

  ‘Another good hard push now, love,’ someone said. ‘Nearly there.’

  Rachel looked at Lucas. He was smiling and holding her hand and she couldn’t feel his touch.

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and bore down as hard as she could.

  A vicious, tearing sensation flared inside her head. There was a giddy moment of falling before her wings swept open and she righted herself. She banked, catching the breeze, and spiralled up and up into the great southern sky, lighter than the wind itself, higher than she’d ever flown before.

  And this time she didn’t come back.

  Sunday, 7 March 1830, Parramatta Female Factory

  James crossed the courtyard and entered the hospital, looking for Harrie. Under his arm he carried a parcel containing a small, good-quality winsey blanket, a gift for Rachel’s infant, due, he knew, in the next week or so. He hadn’t a clue what to buy but the woman in the shop had told him he couldn’t go wrong with a blanket. He was sure she’d thought he was the father, especially when he’d mentioned the Female Factory, which had been rather embarrassing.

  He couldn’t see Harrie in the larger of the hospital rooms, but Sidney Sharpe, doing his rounds, would know where she was.

  ‘Mr Sharpe, good afternoon.’

  His fingers still pressed against the wrist of his patient, Sidney Sharpe nodded. He was counting, so James waited until he had finished.

  ‘I’m looking for Harriet Clarke,’ James said when he had.

  ‘I believe she’s in the store room.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mr Sharpe waved him closer. ‘Just a moment, Mr Downey, before you speak with her I should tell you that her friend Rachel Winter died yesterday.’

  James felt as though he’d been struck very hard in the face.

  ‘During accouchement. I thought you should be aware.’

  ‘I — yes — thank you.’ James blinked, feeling a lump in his throat the size of an apple and hot tears behind his eyes. ‘Cause of death?’ he managed to ask.

  Mr Sharpe shrugged, though not without sympathy. ‘Not entirely sure. As usual I will be entering “childbirth” on the death certificate. Apoplexy, perhaps?’

  Harrie was indeed in the store room, or what passed for the store room; James had noted during earlier visits there wasn’t much in it. She was sitting on the floor rolling up laundered bandages. He knocked and when she looked up he was shocked at the state of her face. She had been crying so much her puffy eyes were half closed, her nose was bright red, a rash was developing beneath it, and even her mouth looked swollen.

  His heart swelled painfully and instantly he was back sitting in the grubby chair in the foyer of the King Hotel, reading the letters from Beatrice and Victor. He knew how Harrie was feeling, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

  ‘Sidney Sharpe just told me,’ he said at last.

  Harrie nodded and returned to her bandage-rolling.

  ‘I’m so very sorry, Harrie, I really am.’

  Another nod.

  ‘Do Sarah and Friday know yet?’

  Quick shake of the head.

  James wondered if he should just go. But there was something he had to know. ‘The child: was it healthy otherwise?’

  At last, a spark of life: Harrie gave a watery smile. ‘Do you want to see her?’

  James almost fainted — he’d just assumed! He felt an idiotic grin stretch across his face. ‘I would very much like to see her, Harrie, thank you.’

  Harrie led him through the hospital to a small room filled with pregnant women and new mothers. And there was Janie Braine, sitting on a chair with her child Rosie in a basket at her feet and a swaddled infant at her breast.

  ‘Hello, Mr Downey,’ she said. ‘Come to see the little one?’

  James noted that Janie’s poor, unattractive face didn’t look much brighter than Harrie’s, but at least now she had a replacement for Willie, whom James had known she’d loved.

  ‘Fancy a cuddle?’ The infant’s mouth made a popping noise as Janie disconnected her from her nipple and handed her up to James.

  To a round of somewhat sarcastic applause from the other women, he settled the child in the crook of his arm, grateful he was accustomed to juggling Beatrice’s children, and looked down at her. Given how beautiful her mother had been, she wasn’t actually very pretty. She had large, round, protuberant eyes that were almost black, a tiny pursed mouth, a scrawny neck and a shock of wheat-coloured hair. In fact, she looked a lot like a pink-and-gold monkey.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Harrie said.

  ‘Very much so,’ James agreed. ‘Does she have a name yet?’

  ‘Charlotte. That was Rachel’s choice.’ Harrie fiddled with the swaddling cloth around the baby’s head. ‘Or Lucas, if it was a boy.
After his father.’

  There was a flat silence.

  Harrie said, ‘In the end, Keegan did kill her, didn’t he?’

  ‘Where is the body now?’ James asked.

  Sidney Sharpe dried his hands on a towel. ‘In the mortuary.’

  ‘Will you be performing a post-mortem?’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘I for one would be interested in knowing what actually caused her death. You said yourself you couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘I have never performed a post-mortem on a Factory patient. There has been the occasional inquest after a death, but to be frank those deaths have never attracted enough import to warrant a post-mortem examination.’

  ‘Would you have any objections if I did?’

  ‘A post-mortem? On Rachel Winter’s body?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mr Sharpe stared at James. ‘Where would you do it?’

  ‘In the mortuary, I suppose.’

  ‘Then you’d better hurry up. The hearse is arriving at four o’clock.’

  The Factory mortuary was located just inside the outer wall, a short distance from the gatehouse. The interior was very cool, as was intended, and dark, no windows having been built into the structure’s walls. James lit all four lamps, as well as two borrowed from the gatehouse. The combined odour and smoke emitted in the airless environment was a little distracting, but helped to disguise the faint but distinct whiff of decomposition coming from the mortuary’s three occupants.

  In the centre of the chamber was a waist-high wooden bench on which to rest caskets when corpses were being collected. James had covered it with an oilcloth to collect any body fluids, though he was anticipating little mess, given that Rachel’s heart had stopped beating almost twenty-four hours earlier.

  He laid the body out, firmly reminding himself that this was simply a cadaver, an empty shell, that the bright, headstrong, troubled girl he had known as Rachel Winter had gone. The arms were crossed over the chest; as rigor mortis was still evident there was little he could do to alter that, but in any case he doubted he would have need to investigate the chest cavity.