The Pull of the Stars(31)

Call me Julia, if you like.

I surprised myself by saying that, very low.

I added, Only not in front of the patients.

Bridie nodded. Julia, she repeated softly.

Sorry if I’m snappish sometimes.

You aren’t.

I admitted, under my breath, My temper’s not the best since the flu. I’ve felt a little bit deadened.

You can’t be a little bit dead. If you’re not in the ground yet, you’re one hundred per cent alive.

I grinned back at her.

Bridie glanced to make sure Mary O’Rahilly was asleep and Ita Noonan and Delia Garrett weren’t listening before she whispered: Down in the canteen I heard talk about one fellow deranged with the flu who up and slaughtered his wife and kids.

I told her, That sounds like a story. (Hoping so.) But there’ve certainly been a few sufferers who’ve done away with themselves.

She sketched the sign of the cross on her chest.

One man went to buy medicine for himself and his family, I said. Cut through a park, went by a pond…and the constables found him facedown among the swans.

Bridie gasped. Drowned?

Though he mightn’t have been thinking straight. Maybe he was burning up and the water looked so deliciously cool? Or he stumbled in by mistake?

She eyed Ita Noonan. We should keep an eye on your one with the bad fever, so.

Oh, I never leave any sharp instruments near a delirious patient, or bandages.

Bridie’s smooth forehead creased. Where’s the harm in bandages?

I mimed winding one around my neck.

Oh.

I didn’t tell Bridie about a girl who’d managed to half throttle herself in the lavatory with a bandage before Sister Finnigan had found her. No fever, in her case, but a reason for despair: twelve years old and seven months gone. From hints she let slip, we suspected her father.

Standing by the cot on the left, Bridie gazed down at Ita Noonan. Bluish, she remarked.

What’s that?

Her fingernails. Is that from the thing you were telling me—red, brown, blue, black?

I hurried over. Ita Noonan’s nailbeds had indeed darkened, which could be advancing cyanosis, but her face was still red and clammy. What alarmed me more was her wheeze, like air trapped in bagpipes, the leather stretching. I counted her pantings by my watch—thirty-six respirations a minute, heart and lungs working full tilt. She was a rower frantically oaring towards the bank. She was also shivering, so I swaddled her up in her shawl and another blanket. Her pulse was up to 104 beats per minute, but the force seemed much weaker to me.

Are you dizzy at all, Mrs. Noonan?

She muttered something I didn’t catch.

For low blood pressure, I should elevate her feet on a square bedrest, but that would be the very worst position for her congested lungs. My mind went around and around in a panicky, defeated loop. So I did nothing; I watched and waited.

A tap at the door: Father Xavier.

The priest had the kind of lined, sweet face that made it impossible to guess his age; he could have been anywhere from fifty to a hundred years old. Nurse Power, he said in his wintry voice, do we have a Mrs. Garrett?

Dr. Lynn had sent the wrong chaplain. I pointed to her bed. But she’s a Protestant, Father. Church of Ireland.

Ghost-faced, Delia Garrett had slid halfway down the pillows, her tea cooling on the little cabinet beside her, a biscuit dissolving in the saucer.

The priest nodded. I’m afraid the reverend’s been struck down. There’s only me today, for right-and left-footers alike. Well, as they say, all cats are grey in the dark.

I explained to Bridie, Father Xavier used to be the Roman Catholic chaplain here till he retired and Father Dominic stepped in.

Only Father Dominic too went down with the flu last week, he said, so I’ve been summoned back.

I tucked a stool for him beside Delia Garrett’s bed. Sorry there’s so little room, Father.

No matter. I stiffen up when I sit for too long.

He positioned himself against the wall.

Mrs. Garrett, I’m standing in for my Church of Ireland colleague, as he’s under the weather, if you’ve no objection?

Her closed eyelids didn’t even flicker. Asleep, I wondered, or ignoring him?

He leaned over her. I’m very sorry for your trouble.

No response.

Father Xavier sighed. I believe Christians of all persuasions can agree on grounds to hope, at least, that in His infinite mercy, the Lord will provide some mechanism of salvation for those who pass away in the womb, unbaptised through no fault of their own.

A sob wracked Delia Garrett, then turned into a cough. I knew the fellow meant well, but I wished he’d leave her alone.

Didn’t Jesus say to let the children come to Him? So you must entrust your little one to His loving care now, and to the guardian angels.

She must have heard that, because she turned her face away sharply.

The old man straightened up painfully and said, I’ll let you rest.

Coming over to the desk, he asked, Have you a new junior, Nurse Power?

Just a skivvy, said Bridie before I could answer. A replacement, like yourself.

The priest looked back at me and jerked his head at her. I see she’s a quick one.

I said: Don’t I know it, Father.

He sneezed and wiped his great reddened nose. Excuse me, ladies.

I asked, Have you a cold brewing?