I didn’t bring one, but I’m all right.

No, no, meals are laid on for us in a canteen beside the kitchen.

She still hesitated. What about you?

Oh, I’m not hungry yet.

There was nothing to be done about her frock or shoes, but…You might just roll down your sleeves and tidy your hair before you go down.

Flushing, Bridie felt for the fuzz of bright curls that had escaped and pulled them back out of her face.

I regretted mentioning it; she was here only for the day, after all, so how much could her grooming matter?

She wrestled with the rubber band.

I asked, Don’t you have a comb with you?

She shook her head.

I went to my bag and found her a hard rubber one.

Bridie made her head smooth, then held out the comb. Thanks for the lend.

Keep it, I said.

No!

Really, I much prefer my other one. It looks like tortoiseshell but it’s made of celluloid.

Stop wittering, Julia, I told myself.

A baritone crooned in the passage—Groyne.

Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?

Do you think that we’ll be there before the night?

Delia Garrett complained: That awful man who brought me in yesterday.

The orderly pushed through the door backwards. He reminded me of that macabre servant out of Frankenstein.

In lieu of a greeting, I commented, Always a song on your lips, Groyne.

He sketched a music-hall bow in my direction, then spun the wheelchair around to present the new patient. A young woman—a girl, I’d have said, except for her bump—with coal-black hair and a face full of fear.

Another lovely for your select sisterhood. Baby coming soon, but Maternity wouldn’t have her on account of her cough.

I glanced at the chart Groyne handed me. Just one line scribbled at the top: Mary O’Rahilly, age seventeen, primigravida.

Women who’d given birth before were known quantities even if one could never be quite certain what would happen on the day. A first-timer such as Mary O’Rahilly was a different story. The admitting physician hadn’t even estimated a due date; he must be hard-pressed today.

Mrs. O’Rahilly, let’s get you out of that wheelchair.

She stood for me with no apparent difficulty but trembled. Chills, I wondered, or nerves, or both? Short and slim, dwarfed by her great bulge. I patted the chair at the end of the middle cot and said, Sit here till we get you changed.

The orderly pushed the empty wheelchair towards the door.

Groyne, any word of when we can expect to see this new doctor?

Ah, the lady rebel!

Gossip was meat and drink to the man. I wasn’t in the habit of encouraging tittle-tattle, but this time I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from arching.

He asked, Haven’t you heard of her?

You’re implying she’s one of the Sinn Féiners?

(The Gaelic phrase meant us-aloners. They went around ranting that home rule wouldn’t be enough now; nothing would content them but a breakaway republic.)

Implying nothing, Groyne told me. Miss Lynn’s a vicar’s daughter from Mayo gone astray—a socialist, suffragette, anarchist firebrand!

This sounded improbably lurid, and the orderly did tend to bad-mouth any woman set over him. But the details were so specific.

A vicar’s daughter, I asked, really?

Most of those green-wearing Erin-lovers may be Catholics like ourselves, but there’s the odd Proddy eccentric in their ranks, he said disgustedly. (He didn’t notice the cold look Delia Garrett gave him.) This one was a she-captain, no less, back in the Rising. It was her stitched up the bullet wounds of those terrorist pups on the roof of City Hall.

He pointed up towards the office on the third floor and added, Top brass must be really scraping the barrel, all right.

Well, I said uncomfortably, I suppose it’s hardly a time to be picky.

The new patient’s eyes were bulging as she said, The hospital’s hired a criminal?

The orderly nodded. Miss Lynn was deported with the rest of the pack, locked up in Britain—but then weren’t they let out last year, for all the blood on their hands, and came slinking back?

I had to rein in this conversation before panic spread.

Politics aside, I said, I’m sure Dr. Lynn wouldn’t have been called in today if she were not a capable physician.

My emphasis on her title made Groyne smirk. Ah, I’ll say no more.

That was the orderly’s inevitable phrase when he had a great deal more to say. He was settling in now, leaning on the handles of the wheelchair as if on a bar. These days, a fellow can’t let slip a word against the gentler sex—so called! A female delivering my post, munitionettes, girls putting out fires, even. Where will it all end?

We mustn’t keep you, Groyne.

He took my hint. Best of luck, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

He waltzed off, warbling to the wheelchair: Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?

Bridie remarked, He’s a gas, that fellow.

My lips twisted.

Don’t you care for him, Nurse Power?

Groyne’s humour is a little dark for my taste.

She said, Well, you have to laugh.

The two of us got Mary O’Rahilly’s shawl, dress, and drawers off, though we left her stockings on for warmth. She shivered and shuddered. We drew a nightdress over her smooth black hair. So you’ll be more comfortable, I always said, but changing their clothes was really a matter of hygiene; some patients came in crawling with lice. In a properly equipped ward, I’d have steamed Mary O’Rahilly’s own clothes, just in case, but as it was, all I could do was tell Bridie to wrap them up in paper and put them on the top shelf. I showed her how to draw the tapes of the nightdress closed at the patient’s sides. I got a bed jacket on the girl and a hospital shawl wrapped around her neck.

Mary O’Rahilly’s face creased up and she stiffened.

I waited till it was over. How strong was that pang, dear?

(We were trained not to call them bad.)

Not too strong, I suppose.

Then again, I thought, a first-timer had no basis for comparison. I asked, Do you know when your baby’s due?

Faintly: My neighbour says November, maybe.

Your last menses?

Her face flickered with confusion.

Your monthly?

She went pink. I couldn’t tell you, sorry. Last winter sometime?

I wouldn’t bother trying to reckon from when she’d felt the first foetal movements, because a primigravida rarely registered the quickening till it was too late to be a useful marker.

And these pangs—whereabouts have you been feeling them mostly?

Mary O’Rahilly gestured vaguely to her belly.

I knew that was more typical of false labour; warning shots, rather than the full onslaught, which tended to hit in the back. This girl might be weeks from delivery still.

I pressed her: How much of a break do you get between them?

An unhappy shrug.

Does it vary?

I can’t remember.

Irregularity, stopping and starting—that all sounded like false labour. And tell me, Mrs. O’Rahilly, how long have you been having these pangs?

I don’t know.

Hours?

Days.

One day and night for the dilating of the cervix was common enough. But surely, if this was the real thing, Mary O’Rahilly would be farther along after days of it?

A catch in her voice: Does that mean it’s coming?