by Jane Yeadon
‘I’ll either have to grow or get a lower seat,’ Seonaid said, looking at her bike, its saddle at her eye level. ‘I can’t reach mine. Would there be an adjustable spanner anywhere?’
‘Here! Let me,’ said Sister Marks. She took a thing like a monkey wrench from her pocket and, with a deft flick, reduced the seat’s height in a second.
Seonaid swung on, held the brakes then stood on the pedals. From an unaccustomed height she was looking down on us. ‘Right! Let’s go.’
‘Tally-ho, ting-a-ling and forward!’ agreed Moira, Cynthia’s friend. She was a welcome addition to our class and popular with her ready laugh and sporty outlook. She even made Cynthia lighten up. I could easily cope with the fact that she’d been blessed with a lean figure and curly red hair, but I really couldn’t manage her fronting the group now heading for the Falls Road.
This was surely my field of excellence. With the urgency of a despatch rider, I pedalled hard after her, determined to be leader.
We’d been given uniforms of lugged caps and navy blue gabardine coats. Mine kept flapping open and acting as a drag because, in my haste, I hadn’t tied the belt. Still, I managed to get past most of the others and overtake Lorna, pedalling with the professionalism of a careful driver, and close to the front. She pulled down her ear flaps and pointing to them shouted, ‘Handy if you break the sound barrier, but what’s the hurry?’
Ignoring that as much as my thundering heart’s protest under pressure , I pushed the pedals harder. The sky was blue, the sun was warm and flashing past the others had given me a surge of triumph. The distance between Moira and myself was shrinking fast.
‘Nurse, Nurse, I’m getting worse but mind where you’re going,’ a small boy called from the Falls Road pavement. In an exaggerated way he threw himself against a shop window as if he was in danger of being run over. I was too breathless to reply but now drawing parallel to my quarry.
It was so easy! I must be going very fast. Either that or she was slowing down. With a casual wave I sailed past her.
She’d looked shocked. Leadership, I figured, surely couldn’t be that important to her, then with some surprise I saw a bus stopped in the middle of the road. Cars were beginning to stack up behind it.
I rang my bell and began to overtake them. The drivers might well think I was heading an emergency team. Maybe with a little practice our class could learn to cycle in formation. As leader, I’d show them it was easy.
I looked back to see if the girls were following but instead they were so far behind I could only see their open mouths and gesticulations . They seemed to be shouting but I couldn’t hear them. This was a pity.
Had I been concentrating on looking ahead, I’d have seen the coffin bearers making for the Falls Road cemetery. Following them and taking up the entire street was a group of mourners on whom I was now bearing – with no exit strategy in mind.
29
A BIT OF A NIGHTMARE
I’d arrived at the surgery, energy so spent I had to use the bike like a zimmer frame. I was still trying to get my breath back when Moira arrived.
Looking like a healthy-living advert, she slung her bike against a wall. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t run anybody over!’ She sounded almost respectful. ‘When you did that crazy zig-zag round the coffin bearers, I thought you were going to either fall off or take off.’
She took deep and apparently energising breaths whilst looking round as if savouring the view of raw liver-red buildings crammed closely together. ‘I do so love a bit of exercise. Such fun!’
Any minute now, I thought, she’s going to start running on the spot. With her bright cheeks and sparkling eyes she looked ready for another six miles. When it came to stamina, Moira was the outright winner.
Just managing to straighten up, I wheeled my bike alongside hers. Between wheezes I explained, ‘As soon as the coffin bearers heard me shout it was an emergency, they gave me enough space to get by. No wonder I got here first. I’d to keep up that breakneck speed until well out of their sight.’
‘You’re telling me. I’m only here on account of your slipstream,’ chuckled Moira. ‘I’ve never followed anybody jet-propelled before.’
Remembering the coffin-bearing group wheeling round in well- drilled formation out of harm’s way made me feel guilty because I’d lied about an emergency, but I was honest when I said, ‘Belfast folk are wonderful. Even the mourners flew to the side so I could get past.’
The others arrived, Seonaid taking the lead in mockery. ‘Some emergency! Even if you were really far ahead, we still heard you.’ Her imitation was frighteningly accurate. ‘“Keep your eyes on the road!” Eh?’
As the girls, sniggering, parked their bikes they kept a watchful eye on a cluster of children nearby. Whilst four were making a game of jumping off the surgery steps, one surely just out of nappies was jiggling a well-used pram to try and soothe its bawling occupant.
‘Shouldn’t at least some of those children be at school?’ said Cynthia, frowning at the tallest who was orchestrating the step liftoffs .
Shouting ‘Higher now, higher!’ she was, despite the pudding bowl haircut, very pretty and very young.
Cynthia, apparently immune to the charms of a group with all the vitality and aimless grace of leaves blowing in the wind, said, ‘With them around I wonder if it’ll be safe leaving our bikes here.’
‘I shouldn’t worry. Any minute now, they’re all going to be air borne,’ said Lorna undoing her earflaps as if to hear better. ‘Sure wouldn’t their laughter break your heart?’
By now, the minute baby minder had moved from rocking to hanging on the pram handle. It obviously presented ideal leverage, if not balance, but made the infant, a less adventurous spirit, scream louder. Any minute now that pram was going to topple over.
We moved in but weren’t as quick as the grey-haired woman coming out of a nearby butcher’s shop and sprinting to the rescue.
With bike or not, it’s amazing the ground you can cover if needed, I reflected. Even though she was carrying a large parcel and was wearing slippers and a stride-defying tweed skirt, the lady could shift.
‘Ah, Granny! We never thought you were coming. Can we go home now?’ asked the eldest, having a last leap and joining the breathless woman who was hanging onto the pram much like its last minder.
Apparently deaf to the sound of an infant bawling, the woman seemed more concerned with getting her breath back but at last she managed to utter, ‘Ah, Deirdre, your Mammy won’t be long.’ Then, as the children gathered about her, she showed them the parcel. ‘Look, a nice neck of mutton, so it is. We’ll all go home and start to make the tea. Something nice for your daddy.’
‘Must be the da’s ma,’ whispered a cynical Lorna.
All but Deirdre piled into the pram, their waving arms and legs making it look like an octopus on wheels. As the woman pushed it down the road, Deirdre, her short blue frock blowing about her skinny legs, kept one hand on the handle. ‘One day I’m going to fly,’ she said, hopping to miss the cracks on the pavement, ‘if I practise enough.’
They disappeared. The street, despite having people on it, seemed drained of vitality. Then Sister Marks screeched up in a Mini, providing noise if not colour with her car the blue of a sulky sky. Had it not been for the red of her uniform peeking out from under her grey coat, she’d have been lost in the drab surroundings. Wherever we were, I thought, this sure wasn’t Belfast’s leafy suburbs.
Quickly checking a kiss curl in the wing mirror, Sister Marks apologised for being late. ‘At least I see you lot managed to beat the traffic and get through that funeral hold up. Let’s go in. Come on! They’ll be waiting for us.’ She raced up the steps two at a time, then bounded into the surgery.
We followed with Cynthia bringing up the rear with a little more dignity. ‘It’s easy to see she didn’t have to cycle here,’ she grumbled, then stopped, astonished. ‘Good gracious!’
She’d just seen what had startled the rest of us. Inside
and waiting in a group of antenatal patients was Deirdre; only older. With the same angular body, high cheekbones, dimpled chin and thin legs the resemblance was extraordinary. The difference was that Eileen Ferguson must have had a bigger bowl for the haircut, was Deirdre’s mother, and was shortly to have her sixth baby.
So soon, in fact, that a couple of weeks later I was in a taxi heading for her house. It was the middle of the night and my first time on call. I’d never thought I’d sleep but Sister Marks had had to shake me awake.
‘Get up!’ she hissed with a lack of finesse impressive in someone of the caring profession. ‘Mr Ferguson’s just phoned. I heard coins clinking so he must’ve been in a kiosk. You’ll need to remember that, and give him time to get back to it so he can tell me when she’s nearer delivery. At the moment, she’s just started to feel uncomfortable so just you go and assess her to begin with. They don’t live that far from here so I’ll soon nip out. I know it’s your first delivery but you’ll be fine and you know her from the antenatal clinics, which should help.’
‘No problem,’ I lied, throwing myself out of bed thinking it was just as well our overnight accommodation was in the single-storey District unit. Had I been in Bostock, I might have jumped from the seventh floor instead.
Still I wasn’t having the nightmare Marie had on her first delivery.
Whereas my taxi driver actually knew where Eileen’s house was, on Marie’s delivery she’d been called by a community-based midwife she didn’t know, to a patient she’d never seen. She had no idea where she was going – neither did her taxi driver, and it was two in the morning.
For some time, he’d said nothing. He just drove for what seemed to Marie to be ages and in increasingly frustrated circles. Eventually he’d snapped.
‘Wee bastards!’ His cry banshee-screamed through his open window but the huge and faceless housing estate through which they were driving responded not one iota.
Marie had come back to the unit ashen-faced and, though she had been up all night, very wide awake. ‘Ah, girls!’ she reported. ‘I thought he meant he hated babies so much he might just throw me out of his taxi for delivering them.’ Her wide-eyed gaze encompassed the class. For once we were all attentive and, anxious to avoid a similar experience, hanging on every word.
‘And what did he mean?’ asked Moira, scratching her nose, a sign, if rare, that she was anxious.
‘He wasn’t one bit friendly but all he meant was there were little tearaways who pull down street signs. So he didn’t have a clue where we were.’ Marie sighed as if in absolution for someone who’d nearly given her a heart attack. ‘We did get there eventually, but if it hadn’t been for one house light and the midwife sending neighbours out to look for us, I might still be in that taxi.’
‘Well! If we’re called out in the middle of the night I can’t think why we don’t just use our bikes,’ said Moira, stretching her arms as if readying for a warm up. ‘From what you’re saying I think we’d get there just as quickly.’
Seonaid, her imagination activated by reading a lurid murder thriller, all but screamed, ‘In the middle of a dark, dark night? You’d never know who was lurking about. I can’t believe you’ve just said that. Ach, sure, but your head’s cut!’
Moira must have looked blank because Cynthia explained, ‘It’s the Belfast way of saying you’re off your head and actually I think, Moira, she may have a point.’
Coming back to my own call out, glad enough not to be relying on two wheels, I still wasn’t all that happy about it. Yet, there was something pleasant about being carried safely through Belfast’s silent streets in a taxi. Enfolded in a cocoon of warmth and gazing straight ahead, I wondered if the driver needed to clear his windscreen. Visibility didn’t look that good.
I hoped this wasn’t a precursor to fog. Unlike in Aberdeen where a horn moaned its sick-cow message to the universe, the Belfast one didn’t seem to have the same range. Occasionally, silently, chillingly and unexpectedly, a cold mist would sneak into town. It would linger, killing vision, muffling sound and staying like an unwelcome guest until a temperature or wind change came to lift its depressing presence.
There was more than a suspicion of it as I glimpsed a window, its light slightly haloed, in the street where we now stopped.
‘This is us,’ said the taxi driver, nodding at a man hovering outside, ‘and there’s the Da. Poor thing, he’ll be worried sick.’ He wound down his window and sniffed the air. ‘I’m thinking I should get home now. I don’t want to get caught in fog. It comes so quick too. Ah but it’s the very divil!’
Before I could get a chance to see my patient and convince her that, in the interests of safety, she should be whisked into fog-free hospital care, the taxi with a crash of gears was gone, its shape swallowed into the night, its tail lights blurring into the distance.
Silence dropped into a damp and menacing air.
There was nothing for it. I was in charge.
‘Quick deliveries a speciality.’ I held up my black bag to the ridiculously young-looking man whose face broke into a smile.
‘Ah, the wee Scots girl! My wife said she hoped it was you. She said you’re great craic, so you are.’
He couldn’t have said a more worrying thing.
30
GOING SOLO
Unlike Marie, I’d seen my patient a couple of times at the surgery. She was only a year older but I couldn’t imagine myself coping with five kids, never mind looking forward to another. I respected her in many ways, not least because she was happy to acknowledge her mother-in-law and the help she gave.
‘My own mammy died in childbirth,’ she’d explained on one of her visits to the clinic. ‘I don’t know how I’d manage without Dermott’s. But she’s getting on a bit now. We thought it’d be easier for everybody if I’d this babby at home.’ She’d grinned. ‘The children’ve hardly got used to the last one and it’s an awful work getting them ready for a hospital visit. At least if I’m at home, they’ll see this wee one when and if they want and it’ll stop them thinking babbies only come from hospitals.’
‘I suppose you’ve sometimes thought that yourself,’ I’d answered, ‘and it’s no use saying it’s the light that’s attracting them but …’ I’d dared to say, ‘after this one’s born, what would you think about taking the Pill?’
She could have been offended. Instead she’d looked thoughtful. ‘It’s really against our religion. It’s difficult, but we’re supposed to use the rhythm method.’
I’d raised an eyebrow and did a boogie movement whilst spreading my fingers over her bump as if it was a piano. ‘Safer moving on the floor.’
‘As well?’
‘No, instead.’
She’d laughed but said she’d have a word with Dermott. But right now might not be the best time to ask if she had. Probably not. Dermott was more welcoming than any hospitable host as he ushered me into the cramped hallway of an unnaturally quiet house.
I wondered how such an obviously small home managed to accommodate so many people even though most of them were little. ‘Have you gagged and bound the wee ones?’
Dermott, scrubbing a mass of black hair too luxuriant for any bowl to cover, considered the question seriously. ‘No. They’re with my ma,’ he said, opening a door into a living room, ‘but they’ve left their linen.’ He pointed to small garments drying in front of a blazing fire and a clothes-horse on which nappies hung as if it were a flag day. ‘I’m trying to get them dried before tomorrow.’
On the mantlepiece standing beside an ornate, if stopped, clock was a jar of Thovaline, a cream to stop nappy rash. Its pot was blue and matched the colour with which someone of artistic bent had painted two of the tiles on an otherwise drearily brown fireplace. Even though the linoleum was the same drab colour, the wallpaper with its peony rose sprays made colourful splashes on a navy background. The house may not have been grand but it was warm and felt welcoming.
‘Now, Nurse,’ Dermott said, rubbing his big knuckled h
ands together. They made a sound as rough as sandpaper on wood. Like a squaddie about to take orders, he straightened his shoulders. ‘Eileen’s upstairs. I’ve looked out the delivery pack and put the kettle on.’
‘Good. Two sugars please and no milk – I’m trying to diet.’
Eileen seemed remarkably cheerful for someone in labour. Wearing a thin nightdress, she sat by the window on a hard chair, resting her feet up on another.
‘What’s it doing out there? Dermott said it was a bit misty.’ She pointed to the faded blue-velvet curtains, efficiently blocking out the night.
‘The stork might have a problem locating Belfast,’ I said, hoping I was wrong. I handed her a thick mug of tea much the same colour as the lino. ‘Dermott’s finest.’
Ignoring the weather report, she said, ‘He makes a grand cup, so he does,’ and drained its contents in one.
It wouldn’t have been like this in hospital! Once patients were in the labour ward they wouldn’t be fed. Fluids would be limited to the odd ice cube, essential liquids given by an intravenous drip. It made the patients safer candidates for an anaesthetic if needed: and thirsty.
Eileen wouldn’t be that. Plainly fortified, she now pointed to a bulky package on top of a wardrobe masquerading as an upright coffin. ‘It looks like a Christmas parcel. Dermott put it there out of the children’s way. We’ve had a terrible job keeping them out of it.’
‘I think they’d have been disappointed.’ I said and took it down, unpacking it quickly. Disregarding spotlessly white dressing towels, a pack of sterile delivery hardware and enough cotton wool to cocoon an elephant, I searched out a plastic sheet. ‘Look! This’ll keep your bed safe.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ she said and winced as she stood up.
‘Just you stay there.’ I’d noticed a small telephone under the bed. Phew! I must’ve dreamt Sister Marks said there wasn’t one in the house.
