The Pull of the Stars(36)

The bells of hell go tingalingaling

For you but not for me…



With Bridie’s help I got Honor White into a nightdress while Dr. Lynn examined her. No fever, but her pulse and respirations were rather fast. Straining for breath, the woman denied being hungry, wanted only to rest.

Dr. Lynn told me to give her a spoonful of ipecac to loosen her chest.

Does it hurt when you cough, Mrs. White?

She rubbed her sternum and whispered: Like a knife.

You’re not due till the end of November?

Honor White nodded. A doctor said.

And this was how long ago?

A while back. A couple of months.

I don’t suppose you remember when were the first movements?

I knew Dr. Lynn was asking because the quickening usually happened by the eighteenth week. But Honor White only shrugged.

She started coughing again, so I passed her a sputum cup with carbolic sloshing in the bottom. She brought up greenish stuff with dark streaks.

Start her on daily iron for her anaemia, Nurse, said the doctor, but do watch to see if it upsets her stomach.

I went to the jar in the cupboard to fetch a pill.

Dr. Lynn said, I believe you’ve got a pneumoniac infection, which means the flu’s lodged right down deep in your lungs.

The patient’s eyes glistened. She tugged on her holy beads.

But don’t worry yourself, Nurse Power will take great care of you.

(I thought, As I did of Ita Noonan and Eileen Devine?)

Honor White confided in a whisper, Doctor, I think I’m going to split.

She put her fingers to the centre of her bump.

When you cough, you mean?

She shook her head.

Dr. Lynn assured her, It’s common to feel full to bursting this far along.

No, but—

Honor White tugged up her nightdress as modestly as she could, revealing the great pink shiny ball between hem and sheet. She pointed to the brown line that ran straight up past her navel to her ribs. It’s darker every day.

Dr. Lynn managed not to smile. That’s just the linea nigra, nothing but a streak of colour.

Some women get it under the eyes, I told Honor White, and on the upper lip too.

Truly, said the doctor, the brown skin’s as strong as the white.

But I didn’t have it…

Last time, I guessed Honor White must mean.

Delia Garrett spoke up suddenly: My streak stops at the belly button.

Honor White twisted to her left to see her neighbour.

Bill’s mother said that meant I was going to have a girl.

Then Delia Garrett’s eyes flooded with tears.

I couldn’t think of anything to do for what ailed her. No medicine for that grief.

I gave Honor White her iron pill with a hot whiskey for her cough.

But she recoiled from the alcoholic waft, wheezing, I’m a Pioneer.

I remembered the little Sacred Heart on her coat. Oh, it’s medicinal.

She shook her head and crossed herself.

Dr. Lynn said, Quinine for Mrs. White, then, with a hot lemonade. Now, how’s our primigravida progressing?

I looked at Mary O’Rahilly, who was lying back with her eyes shut. Her pangs are still about fifteen minutes apart, I’m afraid.

No sign of her membranes rupturing yet?

I shook my head.

The doctor pursed her lips and went to scrub her hands at the sink.

Ah; that meant it was time to risk an internal.

I said, Mrs. O’Rahilly? The doctor’s going to check you’re coming along nicely.

The seventeen-year-old was meek, doll-like. But when I got her into the examining position—on her side, with her bottom right out over the edge of the bed—and lifted her nightdress, she cried, I’ll fall!

No, you’re grand. Bridie will hold you steady.

Bridie perched on the other side of the bed and took the young woman’s hands in hers.

I told her, I’m making you ready now…

I disinfected her vulva with Lysol solution, scrubbed it with soap, and then douched her vagina with a syringe to make sure the doctor wouldn’t pass any germs from outside to inside.

Dr. Lynn murmured, Relax your muscles, dear, I won’t be long.

Mary O’Rahilly made no protest, but I could hear her breathing quicken. She coughed convulsively.

I knew the doctor was feeling with one finger for the edge of the cervix, hoping not to find it; only when the tissue thinned so much it was undetectable would the woman be ready to start pushing.

Dr. Lynn pulled out her gloved hand. I believe I’ll break your waters now to move things along.

She turned her head to me and murmured, Given the circumstances.

Clearly Mary O’Rahilly wasn’t much further on than when she’d come in this morning. A few months ago, we’d have let her take as much time as she needed, but the doctor wanted to spare the young woman the double burden of the grippe and days of exhausting labour in this makeshift ward.

So I went and got the tray with the long sterilised hook.

She burst into tears at the sight.

Oh, the doctor won’t be poking you with that, Mrs. O’Rahilly. It’s just to make a little opening in the bag of fluid the baby’s swimming in.

She’d probably never heard of the amniotic sac either.

Two towels, please, Bridie?

I folded them under Mary O’Rahilly, who let out a rat-a-tat-tat of nervous coughs. I douched her again. This wretched brownout; I took out my small battery-powered torch and aimed it so Dr. Lynn could see what she was doing. (German manufacture, of course. A miracle it had lasted four years; I never let it out of my sight.) The doctor deftly opened Mary O’Rahilly with her left hand and slid the hook in, guarded by the fingers of her right, then stared into the distance as if navigating a mountain pass by night.