“Oh fuck . . . ,” I said, my voice loud, desperate.
“It’s okay,” Nurse Howe said. Reaching for her walkie-talkie, she summoned assistance. Within moments, two large male orderlies were by the bed. One of them had a shaved head and sported an earring; the other was a thin wiry Sikh.
“So sorry, so sorry . . .” I managed to mutter as the two orderlies helped me sit up.
“Don’t you worry about it, darling,” the shaved head said. “Most natural thing in the world.”
“Never happened to me before,” I said as they lifted me off the sodden mattress and put me in a wheelchair. My hospital nightgown was stuck against my body.
“First time, really?” Shaved Head asked. “Ain’t you had a charmed life. Take my mate here. He pisses his pants all the time, don’t you?”
“Don’t listen to my colleague,” the Sikh said. “He needs to talk rubbish.”
“Colleague?” Shaved Head said. “Thought I was your mate.”
“Not when you accuse me of pants pissing,” the Sikh said, starting to wheel me down the ward. Shaved Head walked alongside him, their repartee nonstop.
“That’s the problem with you Sikhs—no sense of humor . . .”
“Oh I laugh all the time . . . when something is funny. But not when an oik . . .”
“You callin’ me an oik?”
“No, I am making a generalization about oiks. So, please, try not to take it so personally . . .”
“But if you is making a sweeping general . . .”
“If you are making a sweeping generalization . . .” the Sikh said, correcting him.
“Know who my friend . . . sorry, colleague . . . thinks he is?” Shaved Head asked me. “Bloody Henry Higgins.”
“And why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?” the Sikh said.
“Shut it.”
It was like listening to an old married couple in the midst of the sort of comic bicker that had been going on, nonstop, for twenty years. But I also realized that they were carrying on this banter for my benefit—to divert me from my humiliation, and stop me feeling like the bad little girl who’d wet herself and was now in a helpless state.
When we reached the bathroom, the two orderlies helped me out of the wheelchair, then positioned me standing up against the sink and waited with me until a nurse arrived. Once she showed up, they took their leave. She was a large cheery woman in her late forties with an accent that hinted at Yorkshire. She gently lifted the drenched nightgown over my head.
“Get you cleaned up in no time,” she said, while running a shallow warm bath. There was a mirror over the sink. I looked up and froze. The woman staring at me appeared to be a victim of domestic abuse. Her nose—shrouded in surgical Band-Aids—had swollen to twice its normal size and had turned a slightly purplish color. Both eyes had been blackened, and the areas around the eyelids were also discolored and puffy.
“A nose injury always appears worse than it is,” she said, immediately aware of my distress. “And it always clears up very quickly. Give it three, four days, and you’ll be back to your beautiful self.”
I had to laugh—not simply because I never considered myself beautiful . . . but also because, at the moment, I looked like I belonged in a freak show.
“American, are you?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“Never met an American I didn’t like,” she said. “Mind you, I’ve only met two Yanks in my entire life. What you doing living here?”
“My husband’s English.”
“Aren’t you a smart girl,” she said with a laugh.
She lowered me into the warm water and gently sponged me down, handing me the washcloth when it came to the area around my crotch. Then she helped me back up, dried me off, and dressed me in a clean nightgown. All the while, she kept up a steady stream of trivial chat. A very English way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation . . . and one that I liked. Because, in her own gruff way, she was actually being gentle with me.
By the time she wheeled me back to the ward, the soggy sheets had been stripped away and replaced with clean linen. As she helped me into bed, she said, “Don’t you worry about anything, luv. You’re going to be fine.”
I surrendered to the cool, starched sheets, relieved to be dry again. Nurse Howe came by, and informed me that a urine sample was needed.
“Been there, done that,” I said laughing.
I eased myself out of bed again and into the bathroom, filling a vial with what little pee I still had on reserve. Then, when I was back in bed, another nurse came by and drew a large hypodermic of blood. Nurse Howe returned to tell me that Tony had just called. She’d informed him that Mr. Hughes would be here at eight tonight, and suggested that he try to be at the hospital then.
“Your husband said he’d do his best, and was wondering how you were doing.”
“You didn’t tell him anything about me wetting the . . .”
“Don’t be daft,” Nurse Howe said with a small laugh, and then informed me that I shouldn’t get too cozy right now, as Mr. Hughes (having been alerted to my condition) had ordered an ultrasound prior to his arrival. Alarm bells began to ring between my ears.
“Then he does believe that the baby’s in danger?” I said.
“Thinking that does you no good . . .”
“I have to know if there’s a risk that I might mis—”
“There is a risk, if you keep getting yourself in an anxious state. The high blood pressure isn’t just due to physiological factors. It’s also related to stress. Which is why you fell on your face last night.”
“But if I’m just suffering from high blood pressure, why is he ordering an ultrasound?”
“He just wants to rule out . . .”
“Rule out what?” I demanded.
“It’s normal routine.”
This was hardly comforting. All during the ultrasound, I kept staring at the vague outline on the fetal monitor, asking the technician (an Australian woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-three) if she could see if anything was untoward.
“No worries,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”
“But the baby . . . ?”
“There’s no need to get yourself so . . .”
But I didn’t hear the last part of that sentence, as the itching suddenly started again. Only this time, the area most affected was my midsection and my pelvis . . . exactly where the ultrasound gel had been smeared. Within the space of a minute, the itch was unbearable, and I found myself telling the technician that I needed to scratch my belly.
“Not a problem,” she said, removing the large ultrasound wand that she had been applying to my stomach. Immediately, I began to tear at my skin. The technician looked on, wide-eyed.
“Take it slow, eh?” she said.
“I can’t. It’s driving me crazy.”
“But you’re going to hurt yourself . . . and the baby.”
I pulled my hands away. The itching intensified. I bit so hard on my lip that it nearly bled. I snapped my eyes shut, but they began to sting. Suddenly, my face was awash with tears—the action of shutting my eyes provoking all the bruised muscles around the upper part of my face.
“Are you all right?” the technician asked.
“No.”
“Wait here for a sec,” she said. “And whatever you do, don’t scratch your belly again.”
It seemed to take an hour for her to get back to me—though, when I glanced at the clock, only five minutes had elapsed. But by the time the technician returned with Nurse Howe, I was gripping the sides of the bed, on the verge of screaming.
“Tell me . . .” Nurse Howe said. When I explained that I wanted to grate my stomach to pieces—or do anything else to make the itching stop—she examined me, then reached for a phone and issued some orders. She leaned over and clasped my arm.
“Help’s on the way.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Give you something to stop the itch.”
“But say it’s all in my head,” I said, my voice verging toward mild hysteria.
“You think it’s in your head?” Nurse Howe asked.
“I don’t know.”
“If you’re scratching like that, it’s not in your head.”
“You sure?”
She smiled and said, “You’re not the first pregnant lady to get an itch like this.”
An assistant nurse arrived, pushing a tray of medication. She cleaned off the ultrasound gel. Then, using what looked like a sterile paintbrush, she covered my stomach with a pink chalky substance—calamine lotion. It instantly alleviated the itch. Nurse Howe handed me two pills and a small cup of water.
“What are these?” I asked.
“A mild sedative.”
“I don’t need a sedative.”
“I think you do.”
“But I don’t want to be groggy when my husband gets here.”
“This won’t make you groggy. It will just calm you down.”
“But I am calm.”
Nurse Howe said nothing. Instead she deposited the two pills in my open palm, and handed me a glass of water. I reluctantly downed the pills and allowed myself to be helped into a wheelchair and transported back to the ward.
Tony arrived just before eight with a few newspapers under his arm and a grim bunch of flowers. The pills had taken full effect—and though Nurse Howe didn’t lie about the lack of grogginess, she didn’t say anything about the way they deadened all emotional agitation and left me feeling flat, benumbed, muffled . . . but also very aware of the way Tony was trying to mask his disquiet at the state of me.
“Do I look that awful?” I asked quietly as he approached the bed.
“Stop talking rubbish,” he said, leaning over to give me a peck on the head.
“You should’ve seen the other guy,” I said, then heard myself laugh a hollow laugh.
“After the way you pitched forward last night, I expected much worse.”
“That’s comforting to know. Why didn’t you call me today?”
“Because, according to the head nurse, you weren’t with us until after three.”
“But after three . . .”
“Conferences, deadlines, my pages to get out. It’s called work.”
“You mean, like me? I’m work to you now, right?”
Tony took a deep annoyed breath, a way of informing me that he wasn’t enjoying the route this conversation was taking. But despite my flattened drug-induced state, I still continued to play vexed. Because, right now, I felt so completely furious at everything and everyone—most especially, at the diffident man sitting on the edge of my bed, who had gotten me into this mess in the first place by knocking me up. The selfish shit. The little fucker. The . . .
And I thought these pills were supposed to smooth everything right out . . .
“You could ask me if the baby’s all right,” I said, my voice a paragon of tranquilized calm.
Another of Tony’s exasperated intakes of breath. No doubt, he was counting the minutes until he could flee this place and rid himself of me for another night. Then, if his luck held out, I might just fall on my face again tomorrow, and I’d be incarcerated for another couple of days.
“I have been worried about you, you know,” he said.
“Of course I know. Because you so radiate worry, Tony.”
“Is this what’s called ‘posttraumatic shock’?”
“Oh, that’s right. Try to write me off as Little Ms. Looney Tunes. Rue the day you met me.”
“What the hell do they have you on?”
A voice behind Tony said, “Valium, since you asked. And from what I’ve just overheard, it is not having the desired effect.”
Mr. Desmond Hughes stood at the edge of the bed, my chart in his hand, his bifocals resting on the extreme edge of his nose. I asked, “Is the baby all right, doctor?”
Mr. Hughes didn’t look up from the chart.
“And a very good evening to you, Mrs. Goodchild. And yes, all seems fine.” He turned toward Tony. “You must be Mr. Goodchild.”
“Tony Hobbs.”
“Oh, right,” Hughes said, the only acknowledgment of Tony’s name being the slightest of nods. Then he turned back to me and asked, “And how are we feeling tonight? Bit of a ropey twenty-four hours, I gather.”
“Tell me about the baby, doctor.”
“From what I could see on the ultrasound scans, no damage was done to the baby. Now I gather you were admitted suffering from cholestasis.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Chronic itching. Not uncommon among pregnant women . . . and it often arrives in tandem with preeclampsia, which, as you may know is . . .”
“High blood pressure?”
“Very good . . . though, clinically speaking, we prefer to call it a hypertension disorder. Now the good news is that preeclampsia is often characterized by a high level of uric acid. But your urine sample was relatively normal—which is why I consider you not to be suffering from preeclampsia. But your blood pressure is dangerously high. If left unchecked, it can be somewhat treacherous for both the mother and the child. Which is why I am putting you on a beta-blocker to stabilize your blood pressure, as well as an antihistamine called Piriton to relieve the cholestasis. And I would also like you to take five milligrams of Valium three times a day.”
“I’m not taking Valium again.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I don’t like it.”
“There are lots of things in life we don’t like, Mrs. Goodchild . . . even though they are beneficial . . .”
“You mean, like spinach . . . ?”
Tony coughed another of his nervous coughs. “Uh, Sally . . .”
“What?”
“If Mr. Hughes thinks that Valium will help you . . .”
“Help me?” I said. “All it does is gag me.”
“Really?” Mr. Hughes said.
“Very funny,” I said.
“I wasn’t trying to be amusing, Mrs. Goodchild . . .”
“It’s Ms. Goodchild,” I said. “He’s Hobbs, I’m Goodchild.”
A quick exchange of looks between Tony and the doctor. Oh God, why am I acting so weird?
“So sorry, Ms. Goodchild. And, of course, I can’t force you to take a substance that you don’t want to take. At the same time, however, it is my clinical opinion that it will alleviate a certain degree of stress . . .”
“Whereas it’s my on the spot opinion that the Valium is doing bad things to my head. So, no . . . I’m not touching the stuff again.”
“That is your prerogative—but do understand, I do think it is inadvisable.”
“Noted,” I said quietly.
“But you will take the Piriton?”
I nodded.
“Well, that’s something at least,” Hughes said. “And we’ll continue to treat the cholestasis with calamine lotion.”
“Fine,” I said again.
“Oh, one final thing,” Hughes said. “You must understand that high blood pressure is a most dangerous condition—and one which could cause you to lose the child. Which is why, until you have brought this pregnancy to term, you must essentially put yourself under no physical or emotional strain whatsoever.”
“By which you mean . . . ?” I asked.
“By which I mean that you cannot work until after—”
I cut him off.
“Can’t work? I’m a journalist—a correspondent. I’ve got responsibilities . . .”
“Yes, you do,” Hughes said, interrupting me. “Responsibilities to yourself and to your child. But though we will be able to partially treat your condition chemically, the fact of the matter is that only complete bed rest will ensure that you stay out of jeopardy. And that is why we’ll be keeping you in hospital for the duration . . .”
I stared at him, stunned.
“The duration of my pregnancy?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
; “But that’s nearly three weeks from now. And I can’t just give up work . . .”
Tony put a steadying hand on my shoulder, stopping me from saying anything more.
“I’ll see you on my rounds tomorrow, Ms. Goodchild,” Hughes said. With another quick nod to Tony, he moved on to the next patient.
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
Tony just shrugged. “We’ll deal with it,” he said. Then he glanced at his watch and mentioned that he had to get back to the paper now.
“But I thought you’d already put your pages to bed?”
“I never said that. Anyway, while you were unconscious, the Russian deputy prime minister was exposed for his involvement in a kiddie porn ring, and a little war’s broken out among rival factions in Sierra Leone . . .”
“You have a man on the scene in Freetown?”
“A stringer. Jenkins. Not bad, for a lightweight. But if the thing blows up into a full-scale war, I think we’ll have to send one of our own.”
“Yourself, perhaps?”
“In my dreams.”
“If you want to go, go. Don’t let me stop you.”
“I wouldn’t, believe me.”
His tone was mild, but pointed. It was the first time he’d directly articulated his feelings of entrapment. Or, at least, that’s how it came across to me.
“Well, thank you for making that perfectly clear,” I said.
“You know what I’m saying here.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“I’m the foreign editor—and foreign editors don’t dispatch themselves off to cover a pissy little firefight in Sierra Leone. But they do have to go back to the office to get their pages to bed.”
“So go then. Don’t let me stop you.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that tonight.”
He placed his gift of newspapers and wilting flowers on the bedside table. Then he gave me another perfunctory kiss on the forehead.
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 72
