Ah, we’ll see soon enough.

But that man said—

I couldn’t restrain a small snort. Groyne was a military stretcher-bearer, I told her. He picked up a lot about wounds and fevers, no doubt, but not much about childbearing.

I thought that might make Mary O’Rahilly smile, but she was too rigid with worry. Like most of my patients—even the multigravidas—she’d probably never been admitted to hospital before.

As I carried on taking her history, I was looking out for hints of problems ahead. Rickets, above all, such a curse in the inner city—children’s teeth came in late, they didn’t walk until two, they had curvature of the ribs or legs or spine. But no, Mary O’Rahilly was only small, with a pelvis in proportion to the rest of her. No puffiness to suggest her kidneys were acting up. She’d had a perfectly healthy pregnancy until she’d caught this grippe.

She shivered, coughed into the back of her little hand. I’ve been so careful, Nurse. Gargling with cider vinegar and drinking it too.

I nodded neutrally. Some placed their trust in treacle to ward off this flu, others in rhubarb, as if there had to be one household substance that could save us all. I’d even met fools who credited their safety to the wearing of red.

I rested my hand with the watch in it on Mary O’Rahilly’s chest so I could count her breaths without her noticing. The rate of respiration was up somewhat, between her spluttering coughs. I tucked a thermometer under her tongue. Pulse regular but slightly weak, I added to her chart. By the way, these blue marks on your wrist, did you have a fall? Were you dizzy, was that it?

She shook her head. I just bruise easy, she mumbled.

When I checked the mercury after a minute, her temperature was only a little above normal. I told her, Yours isn’t a bad case at all.

Bridie and I helped her into the middle cot. (Eileen Devine’s deathbed.)

Stop, don’t think that way, would you jinx this poor girl?

Mary O’Rahilly said, in her breathy murmur, People are afraid to go near each other, it can pounce so fast! The other day, the peelers smashed down a door in the tenement behind ours and found a whole family expired on the one mattress.

I nodded, thinking it rather awful that the neighbours hadn’t gone near them before that point…but how could one judge in times of such general dread?

I needed her on her back so I could feel her abdomen. It might hurt if the bladder was full, so I asked if she wanted the lavatory first.

She shook her head.

Delia Garrett snappishly: I need to go, as it happens.

Bridie offered to bring her.

I dithered. All right, I suppose, if you keep a firm hold of Mrs. Garrett so she won’t fall.

Why on earth would I fall?

When they were gone, I checked on Ita Noonan, who was still in her vaporous daze.

Back to Mary O’Rahilly. I lifted up her nightdress but covered her privates and thighs with a sheet. Like many an adolescent mother, she had dramatic purple claw marks on the underside of her bump; tight young skin wasn’t used to being stretched so. However, the good thing about her age was that her body should bounce back afterwards.

I sat on the edge of the bed, facing her head. I rubbed my palms hard to take the chill off them, but she jumped when I put them on her.

Sorry, they’ll warm up. Try to relax your belly for me.

I slid my hands from one spot to the next without lifting them; crucial not to tap as if playing piano because that made the muscles contract. I shut my eyes and tried to picture Mary O’Rahilly’s inner landscape based on what my hands told me. There it was, the firm top of the uterus, six finger-widths above her navel; she was full term or close to it. So the flu hadn’t managed to shake this particular nut out of its shell early, thank God.

One foetus only. (We dreaded twins.) Normal presentation, head down and facing the spine. I found the small bottom and traced the arc of the back downward. Your baby’s in just the right position.

It is?

The head seemed nicely lodged in the pelvis. Not that this told me whether she was in true labour or not, because in first-timers, the skull could lock into place a full month before birth.

Bridie came back in with Delia Garrett, perched on the bed on the other side of Mary O’Rahilly, and took her hand without asking. What are you doing now, Nurse Power?

If you’ll get me that thing on the top shelf that looks like an ear trumpet, I’m going to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. Nice deep breaths for me, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

I placed the wide end of the wooden horn against her belly on the side where I’d felt the back but below the midpoint, and I put the narrow end to my ear.

What—

That was Bridie; I shushed her with a finger to my lips. I counted, staring at the second hand on my watch.

Foetal heart rate 138 beats per minute, I recorded, quite normal.

A cough spasmed through Mary O’Rahilly, so I got her sitting up and sent Bridie over to the kettle to make her a hot lemonade. In the meantime, I had the young mother drink a tall glass of water. When her next pang started, I checked my watch—twenty minutes since the last. I settled her on her left side and told her to breathe in for a count of three, out for three, and repeat. If these were only warning shots, the combination of water, position, and breathing should ease them.

I checked on Ita Noonan—still asleep.

All right, Mrs. Garrett? Any more looseness?

She clucked her tongue. Quite the other way around, I’m all bunged up now.

It puzzled me how she could be feeling constipated so soon after diarrhea.

Mary O’Rahilly’s small, uneasy humming stopped.

I asked, Would you say that that one was about the same or milder?

She answered confusedly: About the same?

Probably true labour, I decided. But if her pangs were still coming at only twenty-minute intervals after more than a day…oh, dear, the girl could have a long way to go still.

Though of course, the last thing I wanted was for one of my patients to start delivering in this cramped little room when there wasn’t a single obstetrician in the hospital.

An internal examination to find out how far the cervix was dilated would tell me more, but I was holding off because it had been drilled into me that every time one’s hand went inside a woman, one ran some risk of infecting her.

When in doubt, I’d been taught, watch and wait.

You know what might help is if you felt able to walk around, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

(That could help the cervix dilate, and it distracted the woman and gave her something to do.)

Startled, she asked: Walk where?

I wracked my brain. I couldn’t send infectious patients to roam the corridors, but there wasn’t room to swing a cat in here…Just up and down, around your bed. Here, we’ll get these chairs out of the way. Sip your lemonade as you go.

Bridie had the chairs stacked and tucked in under the desk before I could ask.

Mary O’Rahilly stepped cautiously around the bed and back again in a U.

All right? Are you warm enough?

Yes, thank you, miss.

Nurse Power, I corrected her gently.

Sorry.

No bother.

Mary O’Rahilly was clutching her bump through the nightdress, poking one finger into her navel.

I asked, Is that where it hurts?

She shook her head and caught a cough with the back of her hand. Just wondering how I’ll know when it’s about to open.