The Pull of the Stars(57)

She asked, Won’t I suffocate her?

Delia Garrett said, Not a chance.

Watching Mary O’Rahilly with her baby, Bridie wore a soft but uneasy expression.

I wondered if she’d been nursed by her mother, the one she’d been told hadn’t been able to raise her. Would Bridie ever even have seen this done, in fact, growing up in a strange little society of outcast children?

Things were beautifully quiet. The baby was soon asleep on the teat—there wasn’t much to suck, the first few days—but Mary O’Rahilly wouldn’t have her disturbed, not even to let us change her own sheets. I knew that letting the newborn spend so much time in her mother’s arms might increase her risk of catching her flu, but then again, there was nothing so conducive to a baby’s sleep and growth as breastfeeding. I tucked the shawl around her again to keep them both warm.

Bridie left, holding a tray of dirty things to be sterilised in one hand and a bucket of soiled linen for the laundry chute in the other.

I made tea all round. Delia Garrett wanted three biscuits, which I took as a sign of life.

When Bridie returned, she slurped her tea and sighed. Lovely.

I sipped mine and tried to appreciate the flavor of woodchip and ash. It’s really not, Bridie. Before the war, people would have spat this stuff out.

Well, but you brewed it fresh for us, she pointed out. And three sugars.

I wondered how many spoonfuls the boarders at the motherhouse were allowed—one each?

And a biscuit.

You’re a tonic, I told Bridie. Just what the doctor ordered. Have another biscuit, if you like—you must be half dead.

She grinned. Not even one per cent, remember?

I stand corrected. We’re all one hundred per cent alive.

I drank my tea down, thinking, Dust of the Indies.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Mary O’Rahilly had dropped off. I went over, rescued the baby from the crook of her mother’s elbow, and set her in the crib.

Bridie murmured, Like the story.

Which story?

About the mother who comes back.

From where?

You know, Julia. The other side.

I got it. She’s dead, this mother in the story?

Bridie nodded. The babby won’t stop crying, so the mammy comes all the way back to nurse it.

I knew some ghost stories but not that one. I watched the O’Rahilly baby. How long had the spectral mother stayed with her child? Not for good; that wouldn’t be allowed. Maybe all night, till cockcrow.

It struck me that the newborn girl hadn’t been registered yet. I found a blank certificate in the desk and began a chart for her. I wrote O’Rahilly under Family name and noted the time of birth.

Bridie, could you ever hold the fort while I go find a doctor to sign this?

I paused in the doorway.

I know that I know nothing, Bridie recited.

That made me smile. Well, I conceded, you know a bit more than you did yesterday morning.

Sister Finnigan would still be outraged, I thought as I headed for the stairs. So many rules I was getting used to breaking, bending to an unrecognizable degree, or interpreting in the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Only for the duration, of course, for the foreseeable future, as the posters said. Though I was having trouble foreseeing any future. How would we ever get back to normal after the pandemic? And would I find myself relieved to be demoted to mere nurse under Sister Finnigan again? Grateful for the familiar protocols or forever discontented?

Snatches of conversation were smoke winding around me.

Between the sixth and eleventh days.

(That was one black-suited doctor to another.)

Oh, yes?

Typically, with this flu. If they’re going to go, that’s when.

By go, he meant die, I realised. I thought of Groyne and all his colourful euphemisms for it.

I could have got any doctor to sign the newborn’s certificate, but I kept asking after Dr. Lynn until a junior nurse directed me to the top floor of the hospital, a room at the very end of a corridor. I heard soft music coming from behind the door, but it was already dying away by the time I knocked.

A small, shabby box room. Dr. Lynn looked up from the table she was using as a desk. Nurse Power.

I found I was shy of mentioning the police. Instead I chanced asking, Did I interrupt you…singing, Doctor?

A half laugh. The gramophone. I like to restore my spirits with a little Wagner when I’m catching up on paperwork.

I couldn’t see a gramophone.

She pointed it out, on a chair behind her. It’s a hornless model, or, rather, the horn is hidden within, behind slats. Much easier on the eye.

So that was the wooden case I’d seen her lugging in yesterday morning. Oh, I just came to say that Mary O’Rahilly delivered her baby in Walcher’s position without surgical intervention.

Good work!

Dr. Lynn put her hand out for the birth certificate. I gave it to her, and she signed it. Do you need me to come down and suture the mother? Give the infant the once-over?

No, no, they’re both doing very well.

She gave me back the document and said, I’ll tell the office to phone the husband with the news. Is there anything else?

I hovered uneasily. I wonder…should I have thought to try Walcher’s much earlier? Might it have shortened her labour and kept her from going into shock?

Dr. Lynn shrugged. Not necessarily, if she wasn’t ready. At any rate, let’s not waste time on ruminations and regrets in the middle of a pandemic.