The Pull of the Stars(50)

That was a man’s voice. I turned around to see Groyne’s head in the door.

He added, I suppose it’d be a shocking breach to ask which birthday?

I didn’t smile. Can I help you, Groyne?

The orderly pushed a metal crib into the ward on squealing wheels. Sister Luke said this might be wanted today for Mrs. O’Rahilly.

Delia Garrett made a small sound of pain and turned her back.

Was it the same crib that had stood ready for her baby yesterday? But there was no way to spare her such sights.

Ignoring my question, then, Nurse Power? Groyne sniggered. That’s an answer in itself. I find girls are happy to give the figure till they hit twenty-five.

I said, I’m thirty years old, and I don’t mind who knows it.

Ooh, a grown woman!

Groyne leaned one elbow on the door frame, settling in. I suppose you’ll be picking our next members of Parliament and all that. If you’re a female householder, that is, he added mockingly, or an occupier of a premises rated at five pounds?

My name had been down as the householder ever since Tim had enlisted, but I’d no intention of discussing my domestic arrangements with this fellow.

Bridie asked, Aren’t you in favour of votes for women, Mr. Groyne?

He let out a scornful plume of air.

I couldn’t make myself stay out of it. Haven’t we proved our worth to your satisfaction yet?

The orderly grimaced. Well, you don’t serve, do you?

I was taken aback. In the war? Many of us most certainly are serving, as nurses and drivers and—

The orderly waved that away. Don’t pay the blood tax, though, do you? Not like we fellows do. Ought you really get a say in the affairs of the United Kingdom unless you’re prepared to lay down your lives for the king?

I saw red. Look around you, Mr. Groyne. This is where every nation draws its first breath. Women have been paying the blood tax since time began.

He snickered on his way out.

Bridie was watching me with a one-sided grin.

Mary O’Rahilly moaned quietly.

Unprompted, Bridie pushed on the young woman’s shins to ease the pain.

When that one was over, I said, Only five minutes between them now.

Mary O’Rahilly asked faintly: Is that good?

Very good.

Over her shoulder, Delia Garrett was watching Mary O’Rahilly with resentful, drunken eyes.

That crib; I didn’t want to set it at the end of the girl’s cot in case it would make her feel hustled. But over by the sink, it would only get in our way. Besides, it might keep her spirits up by reminding her what all this pain was in aid of. So I trundled it to the end of the middle cot, close to Mary O’Rahilly’s feet. Just getting everything ready, dear.

Her eyes closed and she let out a groan as her head tipped back.

I went over to the supply cupboard to lay out the things that might be required for a delivery. Bridie was already boiling gloves and instruments in a bag. You never seem to need telling, Bridie.

She liked hearing that.

I asked, So when’s your birthday?

Haven’t got one.

I waved that off. Everyone has a birthday, Bridie.

Well, I suppose it’s a secret.

I said, a little huffily, Don’t tell me if you prefer not—

Bridie spoke in a low voice. I mean that no one ever told me.

Just then Honor White coughed so hard I went over to check the sputum cup to be sure she hadn’t brought up a piece of lung. I reapplied the camphor rub to her chest.

Then Mary O’Rahilly asked if she might lie down for a while, so I got her into bed on her left side.

When I next had a chance for a word with Bridie, we were by the sink. I murmured, Didn’t you ever know your people?

Not that I remember.

Are they still alive?

She shrugged in her oddly playful way. They were when I was given over to the home, or taken. They weren’t able, that’s what the nuns said.

What age were you then?

Don’t know. From then till I was four, I was a nurse-child.

My face must have shown I didn’t know the term.

Bridie specified: Boarded out. With a foster mother, see? If I got to four years old with the use of all my limbs, she must have minded me well enough.

Her calm tone made me feel sick for her—or, rather, for the small, bewildered girl she’d been.

She went on: Maybe it was her called me Bridie, for Saint Bridget? I’d had another name before. They wouldn’t tell me what it was except that it wasn’t a saint’s.

I was trying to follow this bleak narrative. By they, you mean the nuns?

And the teachers and the minders at the home. It was called an industrial school, though it wasn’t really any kind of school, Bridie said with scorn. Two nuns were the managers but they went back to the convent every night and left a couple of lay staff in charge.

I remembered my question about her birthday that had prompted all this. So none of these people ever told you what day you were born?

Nor what year, even.

It hurt my throat to swallow. I said diffidently, Share my birthday if you like. Say yours is today too—it might very well be.

Bridie grinned. All right. Why not?

We worked on in silence at the counter.

She said out of nowhere, You’re lucky your dadda kept you after your mammy died.

I was taken aback. Why wouldn’t he have?