I set the chilled sausage shape between her legs and safety-pinned it to the under-loop of the foot-wide belt. I cinched the three straps tight.

What’s that for? asked Bridie.

To support her poor stretched middle. Oh, could you bring this note to the office on the third floor?

Bridie almost snatched it from me in her eagerness to help.

Delia Garrett moaned a little in her sleep.

I needed to get the still out of her sight before she woke up. Over at the narrow counter, I took down an empty shoebox from the stack. I spread out wax paper, uncovered the basin, and lifted out the blanket-wrapped body. I set it down on the wax paper and made as neat a package of it as I could. My hands shook a little as I put the lid on. I parcelled it up in brown paper and tied it with string, like an unexpected gift.

No need for a certificate of birth or death; legally speaking, nothing had happened here. Garrett, I wrote on the shoebox, October 31.

I hoped Delia Garrett’s husband would come to collect the box tomorrow. Though in these cases some fathers preferred not to, so Matron would wait until we had several shoeboxes, then send them to the cemetery.

Dr. Lynn was palpating Mary O’Rahilly’s bump and listening to it with her stethoscope. Patience is what I recommend at this stage, Mrs. O’Rahilly. I’m going to have Nurse Power give you a sleeping draught to help pass the time and restore your forces.

She came over to the desk and told me, Chloral. It can incline the cervix to open too. But no chloroform, as we don’t want to suppress these early contractions.

I nodded as I noted that down.

The doctor added under her breath, I’m somewhat concerned that it’s taking so long. The mother’s not fully grown yet, and poorly nourished. If I were in charge of the world, there’d be no whelping before twenty.

I liked Dr. Lynn for that bold comment.

Mary O’Rahilly took her medicine without a word.

Here was Bridie, back already.

I set the shoebox in her hands. Now take this down to the mortuary in the basement, would you?

The what?

I whispered: Where the dead go.

Bridie looked down, realising what she held.

I asked, All right?

Perhaps I was demanding too much of one so untried. About twenty-two. Had she some reason to be vague or was it possible in this day and age that she really didn’t know how old she was?

All right, said Bridie.

She shoved back a nimbus of bronze fuzz and was gone.

Dr. Lynn remarked, An energetic runner you’ve got there.

Isn’t she?

A probie?

No, just a volunteer for the day.

Mary O’Rahilly seemed to be dropping off already. But Ita Noonan was stirring, and there was a distinct creak to her breathing. Dr. Lynn took up her wrist and I hurried over with a thermometer.

How are you feeling, Mrs. Noonan?

Her coughs were a hail of bullets but she smiled. Lovely and shiny! Never mind the wax.

Six days of fever, Dr. Lynn muttered. Did she already have white leg when she came in?

I nodded. She said it’s stayed that size, and cold and hard, since her last delivery.

Ita Noonan’s temperature was down almost a degree, but Dr. Lynn reported that her pulse and respirations were higher. She put her stethoscope to the concave chest. Hm. Under ordinary circumstances, she said, I’d send her for a roentgenograph, but there are patients queuing halfway along the corridor up there.

I tried to remember when things had last been ordinary—late summer?

The doctor added, At any rate, X-rays would only draw us a picture of exactly how congested her lungs are, not tell us how to clear them.

Ita Noonan addressed her in a gracious gasp: Will you be staying for the hooley?

I will, of course, thank you, Mrs. Noonan.

Dr. Lynn murmured to me, I see her left arm is slightly palsied. That can happen with this flu. Has she seemed dizzy at all?

Yes, I thought perhaps she was when I was bringing her to the lavatory earlier.

Dr. Lynn wrote that on the chart. Tantalising not to be able to get precise answers out of the delirious, isn’t it? Every symptom is a word in the language of disease, but sometimes we can’t hear them properly.

And even if we do, we can’t always make out the full sentence.

She nodded. So we just shush them, one word at a time.

I asked, More hot whiskey for Mrs. Noonan, then? Dr. Prendergast said—

She answered a little wearily: Mm, it’s looking as if alcohol’s the safest for grippe patients, all things considered.

There was a junior I didn’t know at the door. Dr. Lynn? You’re wanted in Women’s Surgical.

The doctor adjusted her glasses and said, On my way. Over her shoulder she told me, I’ll send up a chaplain for a word with Mrs. Garrett.

And may she have whiskey too, for her afterpains and cough?

Indeed. With any of these patients, use your good judgement.

That startled me. You mean—I should give medicine without a specific order?

That would be scorning protocol. If I’d misunderstood her, I could lose my job for overstepping.

Dr. Lynn nodded impatiently. They have me running between half a dozen wards today, Nurse Power, and you seem awfully capable, so I authorise you to dose any of your patients with alcohol or, for bad pain, chloroform or morphine.

I was filled with gratitude; she’d untied my hands.

Coming in, Bridie almost crashed into the doctor in the doorway. She was panting a little, with a sheen on her speckled cheekbones; had she taken the stairs three at a time?

Dr. Lynn said, Catch your breath, dear.

I’m grand, said Bridie. What do you need next, Nurse Power?

I sent her off to the incinerator chute with the bundled mess of Delia Garrett’s delivery and then to the laundry one with the ball of bloodied sheets.

I scanned my narrow domain, and my eye fell on the pot the thermometer had cracked in. I poured the cooled water down the drain, leaving the small glitter of glass and the mercury droplets rolling around in the bottom. I formed a packet out of newspaper and tipped it all in.

Bridie came back in and saw. I’m such an eejit to have broke that.

Not your fault. I should have warned you that boiling water would make the mercury expand too much and crack the bulb.

She shook her head. I should have guessed.

If a lesson’s not learnt, I said, blame the student. But if it’s not taught right—or not taught at all—blame the teacher.

She grinned. So I’m a student now? There’s posh.

I wrapped up the packet of newspaper and murmured, I’m afraid I’m not much of a teacher at the moment.

Ah, well, sure everything’s arsewise right at the minute.

Bridie said that under her breath, as if worried her language might offend me.

I smiled to myself to hear her come out with Tim’s phrase.

In her stupor, Delia Garrett shifted around on the pillows.

Bridie nodded at her. Your one would have bled to death if you hadn’t dug that lump out of her, isn’t that what the doctor meant?

I grimaced. Who knows?

Her eyes were starry blue. Never seen the like!

The girl’s worship weighed on me. If I’d been even a little clumsy this afternoon, I might have ripped Delia Garrett apart, left her barren or dead. I didn’t know any nurse without a few big mistakes on her conscience.

Bridie went on as if to herself: I suppose she’s as well off.