The Pull of the Stars(52)

Afterwards, I said, That’s a start. Now rest for a minute.

She suddenly wailed, Mr. O’Rahilly won’t like me staying away all this time.

My eyes met Bridie’s across the bed and a bubble of laughter rose up in the back of my mouth.

Don’t worry about him, Mrs. O’Rahilly. Sure how can you get his baby out any faster than it comes?

I know, but…

Bridie set her hands around the labouring woman’s on the looped towel.

I said, Put all that out of your mind. You’ve nothing else to do today but this.

Sweat broke out on Mary O’Rahilly’s forehead and she lashed about in the sheets. I can’t.

Sure you can. Here it comes. Push!

But she’d lost control of that pang; the wave crashed over her head. She writhed and sobbed and coughed. I really don’t know how, Nurse, I’m awful stupid.

My eyes slid to Bridie. Not a bit, Mrs. O’Rahilly. Nature knows how.

(Knows how to serve her own ends, I didn’t say. I’d seen nature crack a woman like a walnut shell.) I’ll be right here to help, I’m not going anywhere, I swore.

Mary O’Rahilly gasped out, And Bridie.

Bridie said, Too right.

I gave the girl the chloroform inhaler to suck on.

Oh, oh—

The next pain seized her.

Push!

She held her breath till she was purple in the face, humming through gritted teeth.

I crooned into her ear, Save your strength. Go limp as much as you can in between the pangs.

But there was only a couple of minutes’ grace.

Bridie and I moved Mary O’Rahilly’s legs in their sockets while she coughed and panted. I rotated her pelvis and did hip squeezes, but none of it seemed to be easing the pain.

She gasped, The breathy thing?

I gave her back the inhaler with more chloroform sprinkled on. I checked her pulse, temperature, respiratory rate.

The waves kept coming, bigger every time. I tried all my tricks. I massaged Mary O’Rahilly’s locked jaw. When her right calf went into spasm, I set Bridie to kneading it.

Forty minutes had passed like this, I saw by the clock.

Bridie whispered in my ear, How many pushes does it take?

I admitted, There’s no rule.

Mary O’Rahilly’s voice was almost inaudible: I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.

Bridie ran for a basin.

Over the next quarter of an hour, I began to let myself worry. The foetus didn’t seem to be budging. Mary O’Rahilly’s drawn face told me that this prolonged labour was wringing her out—and of course she had the flu to fight off too.

I took Bridie aside. Go find Dr. Lynn, would you? Say Mrs. O’Rahilly’s been pushing an hour. Or, no, hang on— A first birth often took two hours of pushing. How to put my finger on what was bothering me? I wondered if it might be a case of uterine inertia—did the tired girl’s contractions just not have enough power to move the foetus down the passage? Or was something blocking the way? The ticker tape of dangers ran through my head: swelling, rupture, haemorrhage, infection.

I added in Bridie’s ear, Tell the doctor I’m concerned she may be obstructed. Will you remember the word?

She repeated, Obstructed.

And dashed off.

I was in a blue funk now, but I couldn’t let my patients see it. Not that the other women were paying more attention to me than they could help; Honor White was praying with her eyes tight shut, and Delia Garrett lay in a spiritous doze, her bound chest as barrel-shaped as a man’s.

I put my knee against Mary O’Rahilly’s back and braced her as her feet shoved against the pillows.

When Bridie came back there were two men on her heels, each tightly buttoned in a navy jacket and wearing a tall egglike helmet marked with a star.

I stared, then stood and whipped a sheet up and over Mary O’Rahilly. How dare you barge in here? Out, out! This is a women’s ward.

The Dublin Metropolitan Police retreated only as far as the door. The smaller constable said, We’re looking for— The taller butted in. It’s the woman doctor we want. Lynn. We’ve a warrant. (Patting his breast pocket.) War crimes.

The first fellow asked uncertainly, This is the lying-in ward?

I was on the point of telling him that the main one was upstairs. But if they were stupid enough to believe that a hospital this size might have only three women in its maternity ward, why should I correct them? I flung out my hand at the waiting baby crib. What do you think?

The taller one frowned and adjusted his chin strap. Then where would we find this Mrs. Lynn?

How should I know?

The fact was, I couldn’t do without the doctor, not right now, when there wasn’t an obstetrician in the building. If they arrested her—locked her up or deported her to England again—what would happen to Mary O’Rahilly? My patients’ welfare came first, and politics would just have to wait.

I demanded, What’s this warrant?

The constable fished out his piece of paper. Defence of the Realm Regulation Fourteen (b), he read a little stumblingly, being suspected of acting or having acted or being about to act in a manner prejudicial to the public safety.

What on earth does that mean?

Bridie took a breath to speak.

I threw her a look.

She said, I was upstairs just now, and I couldn’t find Dr. Lynn.