I hurried to collect the three patients’ charts, placing Mary O’Rahilly’s on top.
Delia Garrett cut in before I could say anything, her voice thunderous: I want to go home.
The doctor said, Of course you do, you poor creature. But the hard fact is, the week after delivery is actually more perilous to the health than the week before.
(I thought of my mother holding Tim for the first time. Thought of all the mothers on these wards I’d seen smiling over their newborns before they got the shivers on the second day and died on the sixth.)
Delia Garrett pressed the heels of her hands to her puffy eyes. I didn’t even have a bloody baby.
Dr. Lynn nodded. Your daughter’s in God’s arms now, and we must make sure Mr. Garrett and your little girls don’t lose you too.
Delia Garrett sniffed and subsided.
Next, the doctor listened to Honor White’s chest and ordered heroin syrup.
Breathlessly: I don’t take intoxicants.
My dear woman, it’s medicinal. We use it to calm a cough in bad bronchial cases.
Still.
I murmured, Mrs. White’s a Pioneer.
Dr. Lynn said, So’s my uncle, but he takes what he’s prescribed.
Honor White wheezed, No intoxicants.
A sharp sigh. Aspirin again, then, Nurse Power, but no more than fifteen grains, and hot lemonade, I suppose.
Finally the doctor scrubbed and gloved up and went to the middle cot to examine Mary O’Rahilly. I got the girl into position, on her side with her bottom hanging over the edge.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!
Dr. Lynn stripped off her gloves.
I helped Mary O’Rahilly onto her back. She stared down at the thrusting prow of her belly.
The doctor told me, She’s reached the pushing stage, so she may have chloroform now that there’s no risk of it slowing things down.
Mary O’Rahilly shut her eyes and made a low hum of protest as the pain came back.
On her way out, Dr. Lynn added, But do hold off near the end, won’t you?
I nodded; I knew the drug could get into the infant and impair its breathing.
I took the chloroform down from the shelf, dripped a spoonful onto an inhaler’s little pad, and handed it to Mary O’Rahilly. Breathe in some of this whenever you feel the need.
She drew hard on the inhaler.
I told her, You’re open wide inside, at last.
I am?
On your left is the best position, now, with your feet at the top of the bed so you can jam them against this pillow here.
I was moving bedding, tugging it out of the way.
Awkwardly, Mary O’Rahilly reversed herself on the mattress.
I’m going to tie this long towel just by your head so you can pull on it, I told her. Wait for the next pang, and be ready to push.
I had such long acquaintance with other women’s pain, I could almost smell it coming. I said, Look down at your chest, Mrs. O’Rahilly. You’re going to hold your breath and haul on the towel with all your might, like you’re ringing a church bell. Here we go. Push!
She did, the weary girl; she set her teeth and gave it a good go, considering that she’d never done it before in her life.
Afterwards, I said, That’s a start. Now rest for a minute.
She suddenly wailed, Mr. O’Rahilly won’t like me staying away all this time.
My eyes met Bridie’s across the bed and a bubble of laughter rose up in the back of my mouth.
Don’t worry about him, Mrs. O’Rahilly. Sure how can you get his baby out any faster than it comes?
I know, but…
Bridie set her hands around the labouring woman’s on the looped towel.
I said, Put all that out of your mind. You’ve nothing else to do today but this.
Sweat broke out on Mary O’Rahilly’s forehead and she lashed about in the sheets. I can’t.
Sure you can. Here it comes. Push!
But she’d lost control of that pang; the wave crashed over her head. She writhed and sobbed and coughed. I really don’t know how, Nurse, I’m awful stupid.
My eyes slid to Bridie. Not a bit, Mrs. O’Rahilly. Nature knows how.
(Knows how to serve her own ends, I didn’t say. I’d seen nature crack a woman like a walnut shell.)
I’ll be right here to help, I’m not going anywhere, I swore.
Mary O’Rahilly gasped out, And Bridie.
Bridie said, Too right.
I gave the girl the chloroform inhaler to suck on.
Oh, oh—
The next pain seized her.
Push!
She held her breath till she was purple in the face, humming through gritted teeth.
I crooned into her ear, Save your strength. Go limp as much as you can in between the pangs.
But there was only a couple of minutes’ grace.
Bridie and I moved Mary O’Rahilly’s legs in their sockets while she coughed and panted. I rotated her pelvis and did hip squeezes, but none of it seemed to be easing the pain.
She gasped, The breathy thing?
I gave her back the inhaler with more chloroform sprinkled on. I checked her pulse, temperature, respiratory rate.
The waves kept coming, bigger every time. I tried all my tricks. I massaged Mary O’Rahilly’s locked jaw. When her right calf went into spasm, I set Bridie to kneading it.
Forty minutes had passed like this, I saw by the clock.
Bridie whispered in my ear, How many pushes does it take?
I admitted, There’s no rule.
Mary O’Rahilly’s voice was almost inaudible: I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.
Bridie ran for a basin.
Over the next quarter of an hour, I began to let myself worry. The foetus didn’t seem to be budging. Mary O’Rahilly’s drawn face told me that this prolonged labour was wringing her out—and of course she had the flu to fight off too.
I took Bridie aside. Go find Dr. Lynn, would you? Say Mrs. O’Rahilly’s been pushing an hour. Or, no, hang on—
A first birth often took two hours of pushing. How to put my finger on what was bothering me? I wondered if it might be a case of uterine inertia—did the tired girl’s contractions just not have enough power to move the foetus down the passage? Or was something blocking the way? The ticker tape of dangers ran through my head: swelling, rupture, haemorrhage, infection.
I added in Bridie’s ear, Tell the doctor I’m concerned she may be obstructed. Will you remember the word?
She repeated, Obstructed.
And dashed off.
I was in a blue funk now, but I couldn’t let my patients see it. Not that the other women were paying more attention to me than they could help; Honor White was praying with her eyes tight shut, and Delia Garrett lay in a spiritous doze, her bound chest as barrel-shaped as a man’s.
I put my knee against Mary O’Rahilly’s back and braced her as her feet shoved against the pillows.
When Bridie came back there were two men on her heels, each tightly buttoned in a navy jacket and wearing a tall egglike helmet marked with a star.
I stared, then stood and whipped a sheet up and over Mary O’Rahilly. How dare you barge in here? Out, out! This is a women’s ward.
The Dublin Metropolitan Police retreated only as far as the door. The smaller constable said, We’re looking for—
The taller butted in. It’s the woman doctor we want. Lynn. We’ve a warrant. (Patting his breast pocket.) War crimes.
The first fellow asked uncertainly, This is the lying-in ward?