She made a face. They placed me in service when I first came up to Dublin, but the lady sent me back—said I had a lip on me.
Yes, I could see there was a spark about Bridie that the meaner kind of employer would resent.
I sometimes go out to char by the day, she said. Hotels, schools, offices.
And the wages you get—
Bridie’s face made me realise that she never saw a penny. She said, We still owe the nuns for our rearing and education.
My voice was furious. If the order takes your pay, that’s bonded servitude. Are you boarders not free to leave?
I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, Bridie admitted. Let’s talk about something more fun now.
She was shivering, I saw. I huddled farther down and pulled her under the blankets.
The stars inched across the sky. I told Bridie the plot of every Mary Pickford film I’d seen. Then of other films, anything I thought she might enjoy.
She enjoyed them all.
At one point we were talking about children. I volunteered, I won’t be having any myself.
No?
I don’t know that I ever wanted to marry, exactly. But in any case I’ve missed the moment.
Bridie didn’t say, Thirty’s not old, as any other woman would have. She just looked at me.
I said, I was never exactly beautiful, and now—
But you are beautiful.
Bridie’s eyes, the gleam of them. And you haven’t missed this moment, she told me.
Well, I suppose not.
She took hold of my face and kissed me.
Not a no, not a word, not a movement to stop her, nothing. I just let it—
Her—
I let the kiss happen. Never before, never this way. Like a pearly moon in my mouth, huge, overwhelming, the brightness.
This was against every rule I’d been reared by.
I kissed her back. The old world was changed utterly, dying on its feet, and a new one was struggling to be born. There might only be this one night left, which was why I kissed Bridie Sweeney, held her and kissed her with all I had and all I was.
Lying on the cold slant of the slates, trying to catch our breath.
My eyes brimmed.
Bridie noticed at once. Ah, don’t cry.
It’s not—
What is it, then?
I said rashly, I bet your mother remembers your real birthday. There must have been a moment when you were put in her arms and she thought, Oh my.
A grim chuckle from Bridie. Oh, my burden, more like.
Oh, my treasure, I said. (Taking her hands.) The sweet weight of you on the day you were born—imagine.
Bridie put her mouth to mine again.
We got colder and colder as the night wore on. We kissed and we talked, on and off. Neither of us mentioned the kissing so as not to burst the bubble by touching it. So as not to think about what it meant for the two of us to kiss.
We got onto the war, and I found myself telling her about Tim’s best friend, Liam Caffrey, how the two fellows had signed up together, bold as brass, grinning away in the photograph that still hung a little tilted, the only picture on my brother’s wall. I told her, Liam didn’t make it home.
What happened to him?
He was shot in the throat last year at the Battle of Jerusalem.
(I moved Bridie’s finger to the dip at the base of my own throat. The same spot where Tim wore his little touchwood, which had saved his skin, perhaps, though not the rest of him.)
She wanted to know, Was he there, your Tim?
As near as you are to me now. Splattered with bits of his friend.
Oh, janey mac, poor lad. Poor lads.
It struck me now that war might just have heated and forged that friendship into something harder to name, impossible to describe. Was I a fool not to have thought of that before? It wasn’t something I could imagine ever asking Tim, any more than I’d know how to tell him about this night on the rooftop with Bridie.
No matter how cold we got, she and I didn’t stir from that spot. Every so often our mouths were speaking so close, they stopped for a while and kissed. I was so happy I thought I’d burst, and in the moments between the kissing I was almost more so.
When had that spark between us first caught, glowed, begun to singe? I hadn’t noticed; I’d been too busy. With births coming pell-mell after deaths, when would I have had time to wonder at something as unimportant as my own new feelings, much less worry about them?
We were both yawning. I said, This was mad, coming up here. You need your sleep.
And you don’t?
I’ve been trained to stay up, hardened—
I’m harder, Bridie said with a grin, and younger and tougher.
Point taken.
Sure we can sleep when we’re dead, she told me.
I was groggy but exalted, felt as if I’d never sleep again.
But we must have lapsed into silence and dropped off without realising it, because I woke when Bridie moved beside me against the pitched roof. I straightened my stiff neck. The Great Bear had crawled across the sky; hours must have passed.
Cramp in my leg! Bridie gasped as she straightened it.
I admitted with a shiver, I can’t feel either of mine. I thumped one foot on the slates; it felt as if it were someone else’s.
I’m awful thirsty, said Bridie.
I wished I had another orange for her. Do you want to go down to the canteen for a cup of tea?
I don’t want to go anywhere.
Her eyes were so fond, they made me dizzy. It was as if this rooftop were an airship floating above the soiled world, and nothing could happen as long as we stayed up here gripping each other’s icy fingers so hard we didn’t know whose were whose.
After a bit, I insisted we stand up for a minute to get the blood flowing. We levered each other to our feet, shook ourselves doggishly. Even danced a little, stiffly, laughing, our breath making puffs of white on the dark air.
I’d like to go to that place where you lived, Bridie, and knock it down. Tear it apart, brick from brick.
It was stone, actually.
Stone from stone, then.
She said, What bothers me most to remember is the little ones wailing.
I waited.
Your charge would cry and cry, see, and there was nothing you could do.
Your charge?
Whatever toddler they put in a crib beside your bed to look after once you got big.
What do you mean by big—fourteen, fifteen?
Bridie’s lip pulled up on one side, almost a smile. More like eight or nine. And here’s the thing—if your charge got into mischief, you’d both be punished. And if she took sick, that was on you too.
I struggled to take this in. You’re saying you’d be blamed for her illness?
Bridie nodded. And the little ones were sick all the time. Loads of them went in the hole at the back of the buildings.
I’d lost the thread. You’re saying they caught something from playing underground?
No, Julia! That’s where they got put…after.
Oh. A grave.
Bridie said, Just one big hole, with nothing written.
I thought of the Angels’ Plot in the cemetery where Delia Garrett’s unwoken girl would be buried. Small children did die, poor ones more often than others, and unwanted ones even more often than that. But…
The injustice of that, I said, to hold an eight-year-old child accountable for a toddler’s death!
Well, said Bridie flatly. I have to tell you, the odd time I was so hungry, I couldn’t help robbing my charge.
Robbing her of what?
She hesitated, then said, I’d eat her bread. Drink half the milk from her bottle and fill it up at the tap.
Oh, Bridie.
We all did it. But that’s no comfort.
My eyes were prickling. This young woman had survived by whatever means necessary, and I found I couldn’t wish that it had been otherwise
.
I’ve never told anyone these old stories, said Bridie.
(Old stories, she called them, as if they were legends of the Trojan War.)
She added, I probably shouldn’t be telling you either.
Why not?
Well, you know what I’m like now, Julia.
What you’re like?
Bridie said it very softly: Dirty.
You are not!
Eyes shut, she whispered: Things happened.
To you?
Things were done to lots of us. Most of us, I bet.
My pulse was thumping. Done by whom?
She shook her head as if that wasn’t the point. A workman, a priest maybe. A minder or teacher, she’d pick one girl to warm her bed and give her a second blanket after.
I was sick to my stomach.
She added, Or a holiday father.
What on earth’s a holiday father?
A local family would request a child for the weekend, to give her a little holiday, like. You might get sweets or pennies.
I wanted to block my ears.
She went on, One of the fathers gave me a whole shilling. But I couldn’t think what to do with that much money or where to hide it, so I ended up burying it in the ashpit.
Bridie, I said. (Trying not to weep.)
It’s probably there still.
None of this dirt is yours, I told her. You’re as clean as rain.
She kissed me, but on the forehead this time.
Voices on the roof behind us; strangers coming out of the same small door we had.
Bridie and I lurched apart.
I said in a loud and false voice, Well, I suppose we’d better get some breakfast.
(I promised myself that there’d be more time for kisses and for telling all the stories.)
By the time Bridie and I collected our blankets and picked our way past the orderlies, they were lighting their cigarettes and agreeing with each other that it would be over any day now. Uprisings in various German cities, the tossing down of bayonets, secret negotiations, the kaiser on the very brink of abdication…
I hoped the dark hid my flush.
Fancy a smoke, girls?
No, thanks, I told him politely. I held the door for Bridie but she stumbled into the jamb. Careful!
She laughed. Clumsy me.
I said, That’s what we get for staying up all night out in the cold.
But I found I was wide awake, entirely alert.
On the main staircase, as we went by the big windows, I looked down at the electric beams of a motor launch creeping by. No, a motor hearse. Another funeral, then; the day’s cavalcade was starting up before sunrise. As if some dread angel were flying from house to house, and there was no mark one could put on one’s lintel to persuade him to pass over.
Two haggard older doctors passed us as they plodded upstairs.
One of them said, I was pulled over for having only one light on my car, and I found myself rather hoping they’d send me to jail so I could have a rest.
The other’s laugh had a hysterical edge to it. I must admit, I’m sucking Forced March like barley sugar.
When they’d passed, Bridie asked me, What’s Forced March?
Pills supplied to soldiers, or anyone who needs to stay awake and sharp. Powdered kola nuts and cocaine.
Her eyebrows went up. Do you take them, Julia?
No. I tried once, but I got a racing heartbeat and the shakes.
She covered a long yawn.
Are you shattered, Bridie?
Not a bit.
In the lavatory, we splashed our faces with water, and she bent down and lapped at the stream from the tap, puppyish.
At the mirror, using my comb to neaten myself, I met my eyes. I was old enough to know my own mind, surely, and to be aware of what I was doing. But I seemed to have stumbled into love like a pothole in the night.
On the landing, yesterday’s poster hooked my attention:
WOULD THEY BE DEAD IF THEY STAYED IN BED?
I had an impulse to rip it down, but that probably constituted conduct unbecoming to a nurse as well as treason.
Yes, they’d be bloody dead, I ranted silently. Dead in their beds or at their kitchen tables eating their onion a day. Dead on the tram or falling down in the street, whenever the bone man happened to catch up with them. Blame the germs, the unburied corpses, the dust of war, the random circulation of wind and weather, the Lord God Almighty. Blame the stars. Just don’t blame the dead, because none of them wished this on themselves.
In the basement canteen, Bridie and I lined up for porridge.
She didn’t want any sausage; she seemed fuelled by hilarity this morning.
I asked her in a low voice, What’s the worst that could happen if you just never went back to the motherhouse?
Sure where would I go, Julia?
I had an idea. I wanted to ask her to come home with me tonight and meet Tim. But would that sound rash, even unhinged? I couldn’t decide how to phrase it; the words died on my lips. I told her, I’ll think of something.
Yoo-hoo, you’re in early.
Gladys! I blinked at my pal from Eye and Ear. All I could add was Yes.
She asked, Keeping your chin up?
Rather.
Gladys frowned a little as if she sensed something off about me this morning. She sipped her coffee. Her eyes didn’t even go past me to the young woman with the cracked shoes; she wouldn’t have had any reason to guess that Bridie Sweeney was anything to me.
The queue loosened ahead of us.
I took two steps forward and gave Gladys a wave. Well, ta-ta.
When she’d left, I wondered how I should have introduced Bridie.
And what in the world would Gladys have thought if she’d seen us kissing on the roof? More than that, what would she have done?
I’d stepped so far away from my old life, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back.
When Bridie and I entered Maternity/Fever together, Sister Luke looked up from the desk. She didn’t like our being friendly, that much was obvious. She asked, Well rested, I hope, the pair of you?
I assured her that we were. If she didn’t know about the nurses’ dormitory having been shut, I wasn’t going to mention it.
The small room stank of eucalyptus. Honor White was out of view behind a steam tent of sheets, but I could hear her coughing. Her baby was in his crib, bundled legs stirring.
Sister Luke reported that he’d taken his first two bottles all right.
I had to grant the nun this much—her prejudices didn’t get in the way of her looking after patients.
Bridie poured herself a glassful from the jug of boiled water and drained it with a gasp. Then she set to work tidying up the ward like an old hand.
Delia Garrett told me, I’m leaving today, Nurse Power!
Really?
Dr. Lynn was in, and she says I’ll do better convalescing at home.
It was unorthodox but I couldn’t object, given the state of the hospital. The Garretts were comfortably off enough to hire a private nurse, whereas for most of our patients, this was their only chance to be looked after.
Sister Luke told me, Father Xavier was gone last night, and he’s out at a funeral at the moment, but I’ll see can I find another priest to christen that one. (Nodding at the White baby.)
Once the nun had left, I met Bridie’s eyes. Her smile was dazzling.
She asked, What now?
In her steam tent, Honor White was crimson. I decided it was time to get her out.
I wiped her face with a cool cloth. Is that any better, Mrs. White?
She only muttered another of her prayers.
I checked her chest binder. Barely damp; her milk hadn’t come in yet. I loosened the fabric further so it wouldn’t constrain her noisy breathing. Bridie, could you ever make Mrs. White a hot lemonade while I check on Mrs. O’Rahilly?
The young mother was nursing her little girl, whose head was rounding out nicely already. Mary
O’Rahilly’s face was serene, and the tray beside her looked as if she’d eaten well. But my eyes went compulsively to the shadowed insides of her wrists—the blue marks.
As if she’d read my mind, she mentioned him. Mr. O’Rahilly’s coming for Eunice tomorrow, she said, for her to be christened. They’ll let him in as far as the visitors’ lobby, and she’ll be brought down.
Very good.
I was watching her face. Was she longing to go home to her husband, dreading it, both?
Stay out of it, Julia. Marriage was a private business and a mysterious one.
I turned to Delia Garrett. I see you’re packed up already. I’ll change your binder before I dress you.
When I unwound her bandage, it came away soaked with milk.
She kept her face averted.
Such a waste, those plumped-up breasts; I wondered how long it would take them to register and accept that there was no one to feed.
I wrapped Delia Garrett up again with a fresh bandage. Then I looked in her bag and pulled out a loose dress.
Not that old thing!
I found a skirt and blouse instead, and Bridie and I got her dressed, very gently.
I looked back at Honor White, who’d already dropped into a doze, her lemonade untouched on the cabinet. Sleep was the best thing for her, I supposed; we had no medicine any more effective.
In his crib, her boy made a catlike sound as his legs stretched. No need to carve a crescent on my watch for this one. Despite being premature, he was doing grand. Already his asymmetrical mouth hardly startled my eyes anymore; just two pieces of lip that didn’t quite join up, a brief hiatus.
It occurred to me that this tiny stranger had some of my blood in his veins. Would he always be kin to me under the skin?
Shall I show you how to feed him, Bridie?
Do.
I found the crosscut teat and bottle where Sister Luke had left them in soda after boiling them. I shook up the jar of infant mixture (pasteurised cow’s milk, cream, sugar, and barley water, according to the label), then diluted it with warm water, not cold, so as not to chill his stomach. I fitted the teat onto the soldered spout.
I had Bridie take the White boy in the crook of her left arm. He tried to curl up like a grub, but I made sure his neck was straight. I let the liquid down gradually into the twist of his mouth, slowing the flow by putting my finger on the teat’s second hole as if I were playing the tin whistle.
The Pull of the Stars Page 22