I saw the moment Dr. Lynn decided not to cut. A slight shake of her braided head; no layperson would have understood what she was communicating.
I felt groggy with relief.
Death from febrile convulsions consequent on influenza, she scrawled at the bottom of Ita Noonan’s chart, then signed K. Lynn.
I wondered what the K. stood for.
I’ll inform the office myself, Nurse Power.
I wondered if this was the first patient Dr. Lynn had lost today.
I tried back pressure on Mrs. Noonan, I told her, and arm lifts.
Resuscitation’s always worth attempting, she confirmed flatly. It sets one’s mind at rest to have done all one can.
(But my mind was not at rest.)
If I’d realised how fast she was slipping away, I asked, should I have tried a stimulant—smelling salts or a hypo of strychnine?
Dr. Lynn shook her head. That might have bought her a few more minutes of pain but wouldn’t have saved her. No, some flu patients are dropping like flies while others sail through, and we can’t solve the puzzle or do a blasted thing about it.
Mary O’Rahilly coughed in her drugged sleep.
Dr. Lynn went over and put the back of her hand to the girl’s pink cheek to check for fever. Then she turned on the spot and looked at the grieving woman.
How’s your cough, Mrs. Garrett?
A shrug as if to say, What does it matter.
The doctor asked me, No signs of puerperal infection?
I shook my head.
Once Dr. Lynn had gone, Bridie sidled up to me at the counter where I was counting packets of swabs. What was all that about twenty-nine weeks?
I hesitated, then said very quietly, If the foetus had been farther on—more ready—the doctor would’ve taken it out.
How on earth—
By opening up the belly.
I gestured, using my finger as the scalpel.
Her light blue eyes widened. That’s disgusting.
I managed a small shrug. To save one life out of the two…
And send it home with no mammy?
I know.
It was now 5:53 by my watch. I wondered when exactly the scampering heartbeat of the last Noonan child had stilled. What did it mean to die before ever being born?
Bridie, could you go for a couple of orderlies to collect Mrs. Noonan?
Certainly.
In her absence I cleaned the dead woman, working gently, as if Ita Noonan could still feel everything. I had time on my hands, and somehow I couldn’t bear to leave the preparation to the mortuary attendants.
Delia Garrett had turned towards the wall as if to give her fallen comrade a bit of privacy.
I got Ita Noonan into a fresh nightdress, and I unclasped the miniature tin crucifix from around her neck and tucked it under her thumbs. I put a white cloth over her face.
I packed up her few things. A paper bag I found turned out to hold her shorn hair—that almost broke me. Those Noonans waiting for her to come home, the barrel-organ man (when would he hear that he’d been widowed?) and the seven children, would receive instead of her this bag of limp curls.
Groyne followed Bridie in, serenading her:
When I leave you, dear, give me words of cheer,
To recall in times of pain.
They will comfort me, and will seem to be
Like the sunshine after rain…
I snapped: I asked for two men.
Sorry, I could only find Mr. Groyne.
He glanced at the cot on the left. Ah, now, don’t tell me the mad shawlie’s croaked?
I spoke through my teeth. Mrs. Noonan was only delirious.
He was unperturbed. So she’s joined the choir invisible, then, the heavenly chorus. Answered the great call, poor biddy. Crossed the border. She’s—
Shut up!
That was Delia Garrett, growling from her bed.
For once, Groyne held his tongue.
I pushed the crib towards him, and one wheel squeaked. Could you please get this out of here and come back with one of the other men and a stretcher?
Subdued, the orderly took the crib and rolled it out of the room.
I checked Delia Garrett’s temperature, pulse, and respirations. Physically, she was making a perfect recovery.
Bridie wiped down the counter and desk with disinfectant, mopped the corner where it was daubed with Ita Noonan’s fluids, then changed the water to clean the rest of the floor.
We all pretended a dead woman wasn’t lying among us with a cloth draped over her face.
What seemed like hours later, Nichols and O’Shea carried in a stretcher tipped on its side, like a ladder or a pane of glass.
Mary O’Rahilly blinked at the men, one hand over her mouth, as if she’d woken to find herself in a bad dream. Mother of God!
Nichols kept his eyes down. Sorry, ladies.
I realised that she hadn’t encountered his metal mask before. I was struck by the misery of the man’s situation: to walk among his kind but with a copper half-face—better than the grotesque crater it hid, but still eerily unlike.
I spoke to the orderly in a kind tone: Carry on, Nichols.
Bridie was right by Mary O’Rahilly, arm around her, whispering in her ear. She had to be explaining what had happened to Ita Noonan.
The men got the body onto the stretcher easily enough; Shaky O’Shea was capable, for all his tremor. Was it his hands that had been damaged at the front or his brain? So many veterans, such as my brother, had come back damaged goods though they hadn’t a scratch on their bodies, only invisible bruising of the mind.
We all crossed ourselves as the orderlies carried Ita Noonan out.
After a long silence, Bridie asked, What happened to his face?
I said, The war.
How much of it’s left, though, underneath?
I couldn’t tell you, Bridie.
I took down Mary O’Rahilly’s chart to get the loose nail because I hadn’t recorded Ita Noonan yet. I pulled out my watch and looked for a space among the scratches crowding the silver disk. I’d reached the point of each woman’s round moon having to overlap with that of one who’d gone before her or with the crescent or broken line of an infant lost after or before birth. I gouged Ita Noonan’s small circle with the nail as neatly as I could, but it skidded and finished at a sharp point. I gripped the watch as if I were counting its ticks. The hieroglyphic tally of the dead floated past me, a stream of stardust.
Everything dimmed, and for a moment I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. Then I registered that it was the ward lights.
Mary O’Rahilly gasped.
Another brownout, I said mildly. Apologies, all.
This had come to be a regular occurrence in the early evenings as hour by hour more workers came home and got the tea on, huddling around the limited light we all had to ration out.
In the murk, Bridie stripped the cot on the left without being asked.
I asked, Did you have a nice sleep, Mrs. O’Rahilly?
She spoke confusedly: I suppose so.
I felt her bump to check the foetus was still in the right position; I took down the horn and found the faint, rapid heartbeat. And the pains now—are they different at all?
Not really, I don’t think.
She shivered and coughed.
I made a hot whiskey and set it in her hands.
Mary O’Rahilly gulped it and spluttered; it nearly slopped over the rim.
Little sips, now, if you’re not used to spirits, I told her. This should help with the pangs as well as your cough.
I was secretly concerned she mightn’t have the strength to deliver when it finally came to it. Could you fancy an egg flip, Mrs. O’Rahilly? Beef tea?
She shook her head in revulsion.
A bit of dry bread?
Maybe.
As I got her half a slice from the packet on the shelf, Mary O’Rahilly fretted aloud: Himself would rather I’d stayed at home than come to h
ospital. They’re not even letting him in to see me.
Delia Garrett spoke up hoarsely: Well, at least you’ve no other children at home to worry about.
Mary O’Rahilly nodded and nibbled her bread. Though I look in on my five brothers and sisters morning and night, she mentioned, so I don’t know how Dadda’s going to manage.
Bridie asked, Can’t your husband keep an eye on your brothers and sisters for you?
The young woman shook her head. Mr. O’Rahilly used to be a stevedore, but the port’s at a standstill right now, so he’s started as a conductor. Only a spare man, though, not a permanent, she added breathlessly. He’s obliged to turn up at the tram depot every morning, rain or shine, and if they’ve no work for him, he’s had the trip for nothing.
It was probably the whiskey loosening her tongue. I said, That must be inconvenient.
When she answered, her voice was small, as if she were on the verge of a cough. It maddens him! And now I’m getting behind on my work too.
Bridie asked, What kind of work?
I used to work on the slob lands, cinder-picking, but Mr. O’Rahilly didn’t like that.
(I was taking against the man without ever having met him.)
The young woman went on, So now I draw threads at home. A boy delivers a bundle of handkerchiefs and I pull threads out of them to make a pattern with what’s not there, see?
Delia Garrett said, I have a set like that.
Maybe I did them!
Then Mary O’Rahilly went ramrod stiff as a pain seized her. She coughed hard into her hand, four times.
I checked my watch in the faint lamplight; a quarter of an hour since the last.
When she flopped back, I suggested, Maybe walk around some more, Mrs. O’Rahilly, if you’re able?
Obedient as a puppet, she got out of bed.
Here, let me help you with your shawl.
I wrapped it around her shoulders and over her head.
Her face contorted. She whispered, Nurse, why won’t my baby come out? Might it be…like hers?
A slight tip of the head towards Delia Garrett, just feet away.
I took the girl’s warm hand, the skin a little scaly. I told her, I heard its heartbeat loud and clear with the ear trumpet, remember? It’s just not quite ready yet.
She nodded, trying to believe it.
I said, Nature works to her own clock, but she knows what she’s doing.
Mary O’Rahilly stared back at me, one motherless daughter to another. She knew as well as I did what a lie I was telling, but she took what comfort she could.
To think, she’d come in here this morning expecting her navel to open. Practically a child herself, but soon she’d be transformed; she’d have to be the mother.
Knock-knock! A man’s voice at the door.
In walked Groyne with a girl in his arms, like a bride he was carrying over the threshold.
Groyne, what do you think you’re—
He plonked her down on the left-hand cot and said, Shortage of wheelchairs.
(What, had I expected Ita Noonan’s bed to stay empty?)
The new patient doubled over, spluttering. Only when she straightened up could I see, squinting in the brownish light, that she wasn’t as young as Mary O’Rahilly, just similarly undergrown. Wide eyes under straw-coloured hair, and a vast belly.
I put a hand on the knob of her shoulder. I’m Nurse Power.
She tried to answer me but she was coughing too hard.
Wait till you have a sip of water.
Bridie rushed to fill a glass.
The new patient persisted in speaking, but I couldn’t make out a word. She had rosary beads wound twice around her arm, imprinting the skin.
It’s all right, Mrs.…
I held my hand out to Groyne for the chart. I tilted it towards the dim bulb: Honor White, second pregnancy, twenty-nine years old. (Same as me.) Due at the end of November, which put her at thirty-six weeks right now. She’d caught the flu a full month ago, but as so often happened, there’d been complications.
Can’t shift this nasty cough, then, Mrs. White?
She hacked on, eyes streaming. Anaemic, I guessed from that paper-pale skin.
I noticed a little red Sacred Heart on the lapel of her thin coat when I hung it up and an odd bulge in the pocket. The dry layers fragmented and shed in my hand. Is this…garlic?
Mrs. White gasped out, very low: For warding off the grippe.
Groyne let out a yelp of laughter. Much good that did you.
The new patient’s accent was from the far west, I thought. I couldn’t change her clothes until the orderly left.
He was dawdling. So, Nurse Power, how’re you getting along with the diehard?
The word confused me for a moment. Oh, Dr. Lynn? She seems highly experienced.
Groyne snorted. Experienced at agitation and anarchy!
Come, now.
Bridie put in, I heard she was nearly executed.
I stared at her thrilled face. Was my runner taking the orderly’s side now? I asked: Heard where?
On the stairs.
That’s a fact, Groyne assured us. After the Rising, they handed down ninety death sentences—but they spared all the ladies, he added discontentedly, and called off the firing squads after the sixteenth go!
Well. (I was uneasy that my patients were hearing all this.) At least we have a doctor with some obstetrical expertise in today.
Sure Miss Lynn’s probably only here to dodge the peelers, he told me.
I frowned, not following. Why would the police still be after her at this point? Didn’t the government let the rebels out of prison last year?
Groyne snorted. Don’t you read the papers, Nurse Power? They tried to round up the whole traitorous crew again in May for gunrunning with the Germans. I don’t know how Her Nibs slipped through the net, but I tell you, she’s on the run as we speak, she—
He froze.
I turned to see Dr. Lynn sweeping in. Behind her glasses, her face gave no indication that she’d heard a word, but mine burnt.
She scanned the low-lit ward. Good evening Mrs. Garrett, Mrs. O’Rahilly…and who’s this?
I introduced Honor White.
The doctor’s coiled plaits were so sedate, her collar so prim, I told myself it couldn’t be true what Groyne had claimed about her conspiring with a foreign power.
Stay alive, ladies, said Groyne. He sauntered out, singing:
Oh, death, where is thy stingalingaling,
Oh, grave, thy victory?
The bells of hell go tingalingaling
For you but not for me…
With Bridie’s help I got Honor White into a nightdress while Dr. Lynn examined her. No fever, but her pulse and respirations were rather fast. Straining for breath, the woman denied being hungry, wanted only to rest.
Dr. Lynn told me to give her a spoonful of ipecac to loosen her chest.
Does it hurt when you cough, Mrs. White?
She rubbed her sternum and whispered: Like a knife.
You’re not due till the end of November?
Honor White nodded. A doctor said.
And this was how long ago?
A while back. A couple of months.
I don’t suppose you remember when were the first movements?
I knew Dr. Lynn was asking because the quickening usually happened by the eighteenth week. But Honor White only shrugged.
She started coughing again, so I passed her a sputum cup with carbolic sloshing in the bottom. She brought up greenish stuff with dark streaks.
Start her on daily iron for her anaemia, Nurse, said the doctor, but do watch to see if it upsets her stomach.
I went to the jar in the cupboard to fetch a pill.
Dr. Lynn said, I believe you’ve got a pneumoniac infection, which means the flu’s lodged right down deep in your lungs.
The patient’s eyes glistened. She tugged on her holy beads.
But don’t worry yourself, Nurse Power will take great
care of you.
(I thought, As I did of Ita Noonan and Eileen Devine?)
Honor White confided in a whisper, Doctor, I think I’m going to split.
She put her fingers to the centre of her bump.
When you cough, you mean?
She shook her head.
Dr. Lynn assured her, It’s common to feel full to bursting this far along.
No, but—
Honor White tugged up her nightdress as modestly as she could, revealing the great pink shiny ball between hem and sheet. She pointed to the brown line that ran straight up past her navel to her ribs. It’s darker every day.
Dr. Lynn managed not to smile. That’s just the linea nigra, nothing but a streak of colour.
Some women get it under the eyes, I told Honor White, and on the upper lip too.
Truly, said the doctor, the brown skin’s as strong as the white.
But I didn’t have it…
Last time, I guessed Honor White must mean.
Delia Garrett spoke up suddenly: My streak stops at the belly button.
Honor White twisted to her left to see her neighbour.
Bill’s mother said that meant I was going to have a girl.
Then Delia Garrett’s eyes flooded with tears.
I couldn’t think of anything to do for what ailed her. No medicine for that grief.
I gave Honor White her iron pill with a hot whiskey for her cough.
But she recoiled from the alcoholic waft, wheezing, I’m a Pioneer.
I remembered the little Sacred Heart on her coat. Oh, it’s medicinal.
She shook her head and crossed herself.
Dr. Lynn said, Quinine for Mrs. White, then, with a hot lemonade. Now, how’s our primigravida progressing?
I looked at Mary O’Rahilly, who was lying back with her eyes shut. Her pangs are still about fifteen minutes apart, I’m afraid.
No sign of her membranes rupturing yet?
I shook my head.
The doctor pursed her lips and went to scrub her hands at the sink.
Ah; that meant it was time to risk an internal.
I said, Mrs. O’Rahilly? The doctor’s going to check you’re coming along nicely.
The seventeen-year-old was meek, doll-like. But when I got her into the examining position—on her side, with her bottom right out over the edge of the bed—and lifted her nightdress, she cried, I’ll fall!
No, you’re grand. Bridie will hold you steady.
The Pull of the Stars Page 11