The Pull of the Stars(25)

Men’s Fever, sorry. They wouldn’t let me up there, but they’ve sent him a message.

I shut my eyes just for a second. I reminded myself that I knew how to deliver this infant. Lucky hands.

Again I waited for a gap between contractions. Heel of right hand, fingers of left, straining for a grip on the slippery scalp like a climber on a rock face in the rain. Now, with all your strength, Mrs. Garrett— Urghhhhhhhhhhhh! A blue vein inflated at the woman’s temple. Delia Garrett was a key in a lock, jammed, jammed, then suddenly turning— She roared. She ripped, a wet parcel. Blood seeped through my knuckles. Not just a head but the whole baby shot out on the sheet.

I cried, Magnificent!

But the infant had dark cherry lips. Skin bruised in places, peeling as if after sunburn though it had never seen the light. A girl. A tiny, still girl.

I picked her up in an infant blanket. A big head for such a meagre body. Just in case by some chance I was wrong, I smacked her on the back.

I waited.

I hated to do it, but I slapped Delia Garrett’s baby one more time.

Nothing.

I smoothed the flaking skin. The wide face, exquisitely moulded eyelids.

Bridie goggled at the limp creature in my hands. Why’s it all—

Dead, I mouthed.

Her face shut like a book.

On the middle cot, Mary O’Rahilly was propped up on one elbow, watching with appalled eyes. She read our expressions and turned away, contracting around her cough.

Give Mrs. Garrett back that inhaler, would you, Bridie?

Finding it in her mouth, Delia Garrett drew on it with a hiss.

My fingertips rested on the small, cooling limbs. Silently moving my lips: Mother of God, take home this sleeping child.

Then I shrouded her and asked Bridie to fetch me a basin.

I set the swaddled still into it. A clean cloth now, please.

I stretched it over the top. My eyes swam. I knuckled them dry.

It was so hushed in that close little room. Delia Garrett was slumped with her eyes shut, worn out from her work. I felt her pulse. Not bounding at all; that was good, at least.

The woman stirred. A girl?

I summoned all my strength. I’m afraid I have to tell you, Mrs. Garrett…she was born sleeping.

She didn’t seem to understand.

I spelled it out: A dead birth. I’m awfully sorry for your loss.

Delia Garrett coughed as if she were choking on a rock and began to sob.

Bridie was rubbing the woman’s shoulder, stroking her damp head, murmuring to her: Shush, now, shush.

It wasn’t protocol, but there was such instinctive gentleness in it, I didn’t say a word.

I made a reef knot around the bright blue cord two inches from the still’s belly as if this were a live child. The second ligature I tied just past Delia Garrett’s swollen parts. My fingers slid on the cord’s jelly. Half an inch above the baby’s knot, I cut through its rubbery toughness.

I picked up the basin.

Bridie whispered, Mrs. Garrett, do you want to see your daughter?

I stopped in my tracks. I’d been taught to take away a still as soon as possible and encourage the mother to start putting the loss out of her mind.

Delia Garrett squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Water leaked down her cheeks.

Only then did I carry the draped basin across the ward and set it down on the desk.

Bridie, could you get her right way round in the bed now?

In the silence, I remembered to check on my other patients. Mary O’Rahilly, in the next cot, was lying as rigid as a statue, but I could tell by the way she’d wrapped her arms around herself that she was mid-pang.

Mrs. O’Rahilly, are you all right?

She nodded with her eyes averted, as if embarrassed to be intruding on the other woman’s tragedy. But wasn’t a maternity ward like that, a random tin of buttons, one thing always jostling the next?

Over by the wall, Ita Noonan seemed asleep again.

Mrs. Garrett, we’re just waiting for the afterbirth now, so I need you on your back.

Bridie’s face showed me she’d never heard of it.

I explained under my breath: A big organ at the end of this cord that was keeping the baby alive.

(Until it failed to do that.)

The cord dangling out of Delia Garrett resembled a length of bladder wrack washed up on the shore. I kept up a very light traction on it while pressing a sterile cloth to her laceration.

Bridie stroked and murmured as if the mother were an injured dog.

Fifteen minutes passed by my watch. Fifteen minutes of the cloth reddening, and Delia Garrett crying. Fifteen minutes of holding the top of her belly to encourage the uterus to contract and expel its useless load. Not a word spoken in the small room. The cord wasn’t lengthening at all; the uterus wasn’t rising or firming or getting more mobile. And Delia Garrett was bleeding more than before.

But our policy was to give the placenta an hour to come out on its own. Up to two if the patient had been given chloroform, which could slow down this stage.

A whisper from Bridie: Can’t you give the cord a yank?

I shook my head. I didn’t say that it might break off or I might rip out the whole womb. I’d seen the latter happen to a worn-out grandmother, forty-seven years old, even though Sister Finnigan had been scrupulously careful, and whenever I recalled the moment, I thought I’d throw up.

Delia Garrett’s curls were flattened on the pillow. I put the sticky back of my hand to her throat to be sure she had no fever. Give nature an hour, I reminded myself.