The Pull of the Stars(47)

Bridie had probably never ridden a bike. Her having been in a home made sense of so many things: ringworm marks; melted arm from a kitchen accident; outsize gratitude for canteen grub, skin lotion, and hot water. No wonder she’d had no understanding of how a foetus lived and moved inside its mother—she’d grown up in a house of orphans and ended up boarding with nuns she couldn’t stand for want of anywhere else to go.

I pedaled past the shackled gates of a school where a fresh-painted notice said CLOSED FOR FORESEEABLE FUTURE BY ORDER OF BOARD OF HEALTH. I thought of the young Noonans; if slum children weren’t going to school these days, they couldn’t be getting their free dinners there.

Clouds hissed and billowed from the high windows of the shell factory, which meant the fumigators were steaming the workrooms; maybe they’d been toiling in their sulphurous fog all night. Outside, in a line that snaked from the door, munitions girls shifted from foot to foot as they chatted, stained hands pocketed against the dawn chill, impatient to get in and get at it.

In my head, I told Ita Noonan: Your work’s done.

I pedaled faster. Thirty years old. Where would I be at thirty-five? If the war was over by then, what would have taken its place?

Back to this moment—what would be asked of me this morning? Delia Garrett, weeping into her sheets. The gasping, husbandless one, Honor White: Let her lungs be winning the fight. Mary O’Rahilly: Please, her travails over and a baby in her arms.

I locked my cycle in the alley.

Passing the shrine to the fallen soldiers, I noticed that a rebel had daubed NOT OUR WAR across the paving stone at its base. I wondered if he could possibly be the same lout who’d attacked Tim.

But wasn’t it the whole world’s war now? Hadn’t we caught it from each other, as helpless against it as against other infections? No way to keep one’s distance; no island to hide on. Like the poor, maybe, the war would always be with us. Across the world, one lasting state of noise and terror under the bone man’s reign.

I joined a knot of people waiting at the stop; they were far enough apart to be out of coughing range of each other but not too far to reach the door of the tram when it drew up. A drunk sang, surprisingly tuneful, oblivious to the scowlers:

I don’t want to join the bloody army,

I don’t want to go to bloody war.

I’d rather stay at home,

Around the streets to roam,

Living on the earnings of a—



We all braced ourselves for the dirty rhyme.

…lady typist, he warbled.

The tram came and I managed to squeeze on.

From the lower level, I counted three ambulances and five hearses. Church bells rang ceaselessly. On a newspaper inches from me, I tried not to see a headline about a torpedoed liner: Search Continues for Survivors. Below, the words Likelihood of Armistice snagged me. Twice already, the papers had declared the war over; I refused to pay any attention until I had proof it was true.

It was a relief to get down outside the hospital in the dawn light and breathe a little before I went through the gates. Nailed up under a streetlamp, a new notice, longer than usual:

THE PUBLIC IS URGED

TO STAY OUT OF PUBLIC PLACES

SUCH AS CAFéS, THEATRES, CINEMAS,

AND PUBLIC HOUSES.

SEE ONLY THOSE PERSONS ONE NEEDS TO SEE.

REFRAIN FROM SHAKING HANDS, LAUGHING, OR CHATTING CLOSELY TOGETHER.

IF ONE MUST KISS,

DO SO THROUGH A HANDKERCHIEF.

SPRINKLE SULPHUR IN THE SHOES.

IF IN DOUBT, DON’T STIR OUT.

In I went, in my sulphurless shoes, through the gates that said Vita gloriosa vita.

I wanted to go straight up to Maternity/Fever, but I made myself get some more breakfast first in case today was even half as hectic as yesterday.

In the basement, I took my place in the queue. I had reservations about what they might be bulking out the sausages with these days, so I decided on porridge.

I listened in on speculations about the kaiser being on the verge of surrender; the imminence of peace. It occurred to me that in the case of this flu there could be no signing a pact with it; what we waged in hospitals was a war of attrition, a battle over each and every body.

A student doctor was telling a story about a man who’d presented himself at Admitting, convinced he had the grippe because his throat was closing up. The chap turned out to be sound as a bell—it was just fright.

The others sniggered tiredly.

But wasn’t panic as real as any symptom? I thought about the unseen force blocking my brother’s throat.

Our queue shuffled forward past the latest sign, which said, in strident capitals, IF I FAIL, HE DIES.

I ate my porridge standing up in the corner and couldn’t manage more than half the bowl.

No russet head when I hurried into Maternity/Fever; no Bridie Sweeney.

Indefatigable in pristine white, Sister Luke moved towards me, a broad ship. Good morning, Nurse.

I found I couldn’t bear to ask about Bridie, as if she were the young woman’s keeper.

On the stairs last night, I’d wasted time chattering about film stars, and Bridie had never actually said anything about coming back, had she? I’d jumped to conclusions simply because I wanted her help so much. It shook me to realise that I’d been irrationally counting on her being here today; she was what the poster called a person one needs to see.

Over on the right, Delia Garrett seemed to be asleep.