The Pull of the Stars(32)

I’m just getting over a little dose of this flu.

If I may, Father—

I put the back of my hand to his forehead, which was warmish. Shouldn’t you be in bed, then, to be on the safe side?

Ah, I’d rather walk it off, said Father Xavier. I might as well be useful on the fever wards.

But the strain—considering your…

He raised his tufted eyebrows. Considering my age, young lady, how much would it matter in the greater scheme of things if I were taken this very night?

Bridie let out a snort.

Father Xavier winked at her. I’ll be grand. I hear the old are getting through this better than the young.

I qualified that: Well, as a general rule.

The priest said briskly, His ways are mysterious.

Delia Garrett’s eyes were open now, her gaze following the old man out the door. She looked hollowed out.

I couldn’t bear to see her this way. Hot whiskey, Mrs. Garrett?

As soon as I handed her the cup, she drained it. Then lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes.

Quiet again. A chance to catch one’s breath after going like a juggler from minute to hectic minute.

I stared at the slumped figure of Ita Noonan. Head up, to ease her breathing, or feet up, for better pulse force? Or keep her flat—would that be the best compromise or no good for either problem? Every symptom was a word, yes, but I couldn’t understand them, couldn’t follow.

Bridie was mopping the floor, unasked. Such generous stamina this young woman had. I thanked her.

You’re welcome, Julia.

She said my first name a little shyly, as if trying it on for size.

Outside the window, it was black; all the light had slipped away now.

Bridie remarked, I hate the old evenings.

Do you?

When the night draws in and you have to go to bed, but you can’t get to sleep no matter how you try. Cursing yourself because you’ll be sorry in the morning when you can’t drag yourself up at the bell.

That sounded like a bleak life. I wondered whether the Sweeneys were in very straitened circumstances. Were Bridie’s parents harsh with her?

A thump.

I looked at the cot on the left but it was empty, the sheets a risen wave. For half a stupid moment, I couldn’t tell where Ita Noonan had gone.

I ran around Mary O’Rahilly’s bed, barking my shin on the metal.

Against the skirting board, Ita Noonan thrashed like a fish, eyes rolled back. Her legs were trapped in the blankets, her arms lashing out. She banged her head on the corner of the little cabinet.

Bridie cried out, Jesus wept!

I couldn’t tell if Ita Noonan was breathing. A stink went up from her bowels. I knelt over her, crammed a pillow behind her head. One hand whacked me on the breast.

Should we stick a spoon in her mouth? asked Bridie.

No, it’d smash her teeth. More pillows!

The thud of her feet, the slam as she ransacked the cupboard.

I stayed helplessly on my knees, trying to keep Ita Noonan from breaking any bones as she convulsed under me. Rose-streaked foam leaked out the side of her mouth. I needed to get her lying on her side so she wouldn’t choke, but it was impossible, wedged as she was in this gap. Her feet were still up on the cot, knotted in the blankets.

The childhood prayer threaded through my head: Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour— Bridie dropped three pillows into my arms.

But Ita Noonan was limp now. No writhing; no rise and fall of her chest.

I wiped her mouth with my apron, bent, and put my cheek to her lips.

What are you doing?

Shh!

I waited. No breath against my face, nothing at all. Help me turn her over, facedown.

Here on the floor? But even as she asked this, Bridie was wrenching the bed linen loose so Ita Noonan’s lower legs came unstuck and slid and dropped down, the huge white one and then the skinny one.

We got her prone, one cheek to the floorboards. I should have been sitting at her head but there wasn’t room. I pressed on her back as hard as I could, trying to pump the lungs. I straddled her and folded her arms with her yellowed fingers under her face, hauled her elbows back towards me to open the chest, as I’d been trained. I pushed on the back of her ribs, pulled up her elbows. Push, pull, push, pull. Kneading a vast lump of dough that was so dry, it would never make bread.

When at last I stopped, the room hung very still. I checked my watch: 5:31.

Is she…

I couldn’t answer Bridie. This day was too much for me. I closed my eyes.

My hand was seized. I tried to jerk away.

But Bridie wouldn’t let go; she only squeezed tighter.

So I gripped her hand. I held on to her fingers, hard enough to hurt.

Then I took my hand back so I could wipe my face. Just sweat; I couldn’t afford to cry.

I was busy counting in my head. Sister Finnigan had measured the height of the uterus above the pubic bone and estimated that Ita Noonan was twenty-nine weeks on. In which case, all I should do right now was have a doctor certify her death. Theoretically, a foetus was viable from twenty-eight weeks on, but in practice, babies delivered before thirty weeks’ gestation rarely survived, so if they were unresponsive, hospital policy was not to revive them.

Then again, because the uterus dropped in the final days of pregnancy, nine months could look more like eight, perhaps even seven. So there was a slim but awful chance that Sister Finnigan’s estimate was wrong and that Ita Noonan—her belly sagging particularly low under its twelfth load—was actually at full term.