The Pull of the Stars(55)

Another pang seized Mary O’Rahilly. I held her under the armpits as she cried, crouched, and sagged. I knew I should take her pulse to see if she was going into shock again, but I didn’t have a hand free.

I told Bridie, That’s it.

Or, rather, it would have to be, since there were no more bedrests.

She let the mattress fall. It was tilted up now, as if there’d been an earthquake. The sheets were loose but she pulled them straight.

Lucky that Mary O’Rahilly was so tiny; this mad arrangement would never have worked with a tall woman. I said, Let’s get her bottom on the end of the bed and her legs hanging right off.

Bridie stared but then helped me move the young woman into place.

Finding her hips lifted higher than her head, her back arched, helpless as a pinned insect under her huge bump, Mary O’Rahilly wailed, No!

Trust me, I told her. The weight of your own legs will help open you up to let the baby down, to let it out.

(That made it sound as if Mary O’Rahilly was the captor, but wasn’t she a prisoner too?)

Oh, oh, but the pain’s coming—

She let out a scream loud enough to be heard all down the passage. She sobbed, couldn’t catch her breath. I’ll snap in two!

I was a torturer, breaking this girl on the wheel. No more than two to four uterine contractions. Did that mean I should give up after two? Three? Four? Wait for MacAuliffe to arrive with his saw to do his necessary butchery?

You’ll be all right, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

But there was no relief for this girl, no respite. She was a canoeist shooting the rapids; nothing stood between her and her fate. The air in the narrow ward seemed to prickle with static.

Hold her so she doesn’t slip, Bridie.

I ducked and squatted between Mary O’Rahilly’s dangling feet. I fixed my eyes on the violent red flower of her privates. Your strongest push this time, Mrs. O’Rahilly. Now!

As she growled and heaved, a dark disk revealed itself just for a moment.

I told her, I saw the head! One more big effort. Third time’s the charm.

Collapsed, she barely breathed the words: I can’t.

You can, you’re splendid.

Then I had a wild idea and stood up. Your baby’s head’s right there. If you felt it…

Red in the face, Mary O’Rahilly writhed and panted.

I seized her right hand, to be ready.

Her pain stalked around her, doubled back, waited, hit.

Push!

But this time I pulled her hand around her bump, between her splayed thighs. Not hygienic, but maybe just what she needed. As soon as I glimpsed the black circle I pressed her fingers to it.

Mary O’Rahilly’s face went stark with surprise.

In the brief lull, I straightened up. A shilling-size bit of the head was still visible.

She gasped. I felt hair.

I said, The same black hair as yours.

Now the baby was crowning, I could free Mary O’Rahilly from Walcher’s position. I lifted her right leg up and set the flat of her foot against my belly.

Bedrests out, Bridie.

She tugged them away.

The mattress jerked back down and Mary O’Rahilly with it. I thrust one of the wedges behind her head and helped her up until she was semi-inclined.

Will I put them back—

Leave them, Bridie! Just hold her other leg for me.

She ran around the bed and lifted Mary O’Rahilly’s left foot.

Shrinking back against the wall, in the cot on the left, Honor White was transfixed.

Here it comes, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

She held her breath and shoved so hard with her feet, I staggered backwards.

A conical head, gummy with blood, facing sideways, straight across the room.

Bridie cried, Janey mac!

Half in, half out; always a weird moment, between worlds. The colour was good but I couldn’t tell anything more. I said, The head’s here. Nearly over, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

As I spoke I was checking for the cord. So as not to introduce germs, I didn’t use a finger, only tipped the tiny face towards the mother’s spine and…yes, there was the cord, wound around the neck. In this position, the cord might keep the body roped inside, or it might get compressed, which would starve the baby of blood; either way, I had to free it. At least it was only looped around once. I hauled on the cord till it was long enough to pull over the small skull.

A hasty physician would grab the head now and deliver the body himself, but I’d been taught better. Watch and wait.

On the next pang, I said: Come on, now, bring out your baby!

Mary O’Rahilly went quite purple.

The most extraordinary thing, one that I’d seen so many times and never tired of seeing: the pointed head turned down like a swimmer’s and the infant dived out into my hands. Alive.

Bridie laughed as if she were at a magic show.

As I wiped its nose and mouth, it was mewing already, breath animating the wet flesh. A girl. Her legs were skinny, her privates dark and swollen.

Well done yourself, Mrs. O’Rahilly. You have a fine girl.

Mary O’Rahilly let out something between a cough and a laugh. Maybe she couldn’t believe the impossible job was done. Or that girl was the word for her minute daughter now, never again for her seventeen-year-old self.

While I waited for the thick blue cord to stop pulsing, I checked the baby for the basics—all her fingers and toes, no tongue-tie or sunken fontanelle, no imperforate anus or clicky hips. (Almost every infant did come out perfect, even from women who bore all the stigmata of poverty, as if nature designed babies to take as much as they needed, no matter the cost to the mothers.) No signs of asphyxia despite those hours jammed against the pelvic bone. No sign that the mother’s illness had done the baby any harm.