The Pull of the Stars(23)

Oh, oh! A wave took Delia Garrett.

In the next respite, I got the woman on her side and had Bridie cup her right hand around Delia Garrett’s right hip and set her left flat on the small of the back. I started the rotation. Like pedaling a bicycle, see?

Bridie asked, Is it?

It baffled me that this young woman seemed to lack experience of the most ordinary things—bicycles and thermometers and unborn babies. Still, she was so grateful for everything from skin lotion to ashy tea. And how quickly she got the knack of whatever I taught her.

Delia Garrett ordered, Don’t stop.

I left Bridie to continue the pelvic tilts and went to check on the other two.

Fiery-faced, Ita Noonan was tossing and turning. I was at a loss as to how to quench this fever without our usual standbys, aspirin and quinine.

Mrs. O’Rahilly, how’re you doing?

The young woman shivered and shrugged.

Her pangs were still twenty minutes apart, according to my notes. I suggested, Have a sleep if you think you could drop off.

I doubt it.

Maybe walk a bit more, then?

Mary O’Rahilly turned her face to the pillow to muffle her cough. She clambered out and started pacing around the bed again, a lioness in a too-small cage.

Delia Garrett let out a long groan. Can I start the bloody pushing?

Panic flapped in my chest. Do you feel the urge to bear down?

She snapped, I just want to get this over with.

Then please wait a little longer, till the doctor comes.

A mutinous silence. Delia Garrett said, I believe I’m leaking.

I checked. Hard to tell amniotic fluid from the water that had dripped from the compress, but I took her word for it.

Just then a boyish stranger in a black suit swept in and introduced himself as Dr. MacAuliffe, a general surgeon.

My heart sank. He looked no more than twenty-five. These inexperienced doctors rarely knew one end of a woman from the other.

He wanted to do an internal, of course. At least he wasn’t slapdash about hygiene; he asked for boiled rubber gloves. He had a brief conversation with Delia Garrett while I fetched a paper packet and then unwrapped it for him. He soaped and nailbrushed his hands and snapped on the gloves.

I got Delia Garrett’s thighs up at a right angle to her back, her bottom sticking out over the edge of the bed, to give the doctor more room to work.

When he began, she yowled.

MacAuliffe said, Well, now, madam—

(He’d clearly judged from her southside accent that she should be addressed that way rather than as missus.)

You’re coming along very nicely indeed.

That was vague.

He tugged the gloves off.

I gestured to Bridie to put them in the bucket of items to be sterilised.

Fully dilated, Doctor? I murmured.

Ah, so it seems.

I gritted my teeth. Couldn’t he tell? If he was wrong and the rim of the cervix was still in the way, and Delia Garrett pushed hard enough to make it swell up and block the passage…

MacAuliffe told her, Just take your ease and let Nurse Power look after you.

Her cough was a harsh bark.

I asked, May I give Mrs. Garrett something to make her more comfortable, Doctor?

Really, at this late point in the proceedings, it seems hardly—

And to calm her down, I urged. Dr. Prendergast’s been worried about her elevated pulse force.

That had a visible effect, because Prendergast was his senior. MacAuliffe said, Chloroform, then, I suppose, the usual dose.

I should have asked him about Mary O’Rahilly next, but I was reluctant, somehow. Young doctors had a tendency to treat nature the way one would a lazy horse—with a crack of the whip. They particularly distrusted primigravidae, who had no record of being able to give birth unaided. Especially if the strain on a labouring woman was exacerbated by an illness such as the flu, a young general surgeon such as MacAuliffe might well panic at the delay, order a manual dilation, then go in with forceps. Despite how long the seventeen-year-old had been enduring her pains, the last thing I wanted was for this pup to start brandishing tools that could harm as easily as help.

Instead, I drew his attention back to Delia Garrett. When may she start pushing?

Oh, whenever she likes. As soon as you glimpse the head, call me down to deliver her, he added on his way to the door.

I doubt it’ll be very long now—can’t you stay, Doctor?

We’re all stretched madly thin, he threw over his shoulder.

The ward was silent when the door had shut.

Acting ward sister, I reminded myself. I straightened my spine. I was a little wobbly, light-headed. It had been a long time since my bread and cocoa.

My helper was watching.

I summoned up a smile. Bridie, sorry, I never did send you down for lunch.

Sure I’m grand.

At least I had permission to give Delia Garrett some relief now. I went to the medicine cabinet for an inhaler and measured chloroform onto its stained cotton pad. Roll back onto your left side, Mrs. Garrett. Put this over your mouth and breathe it in whenever you like.

She sucked hard on the mouthpiece. I felt her pulse; it didn’t seem much more bounding than before. Oh, why hadn’t I remembered to remind MacAuliffe to check the foetal pulse with his stethoscope? Maybe Delia Garrett would let me try with the wooden horn if I asked now.

But here came another contraction already.

I pressed hard on the small of her back with both fists. How long a full minute of pain lasted, even for someone who was only observing it. I pushed and pulled her pelvis as if I were working some heavy machine. Waiting for the pang’s grip on Delia Garrett to loosen, I realised I couldn’t imagine enduring such sensations, and yet this was something most women all over the world did. Was there something uncanny about me that I only ever hovered over the scene, a stone angel?