Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep

by Marion Lennox

‘Why ever not?’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pregnant.’

  ‘I had actually noticed,’ he conceded. She managed a smile, but the bleakness was still in her voice.

  ‘But did you notice there’s no ring on my finger?’ she asked. ‘No? Maybe to you it’s not important, but in my father’s eyes, having a baby out of wedlock is right up there with giving the finger to the Pope. Worse. You know, if I’d had an abortion and told him, no one else knowing, I’m guessing he’d have been appalled but I’d still be welcome home. A few rounds of the rosary beads and we’d move on. But coming home as a single mother... I can still hear my father. “You’ve brought shame to the whole family, Hannah. Get rid of it, get it adopted, do what you like, but don’t bring it near us. Keep your dirty business out of our sight and let’s hear no more about it.”’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘You said it. Ouch doesn’t begin to describe the way that made me feel.’

  He thought of it for a while, of the hurt, of the long-held prejudices that still had the power to cause rifts deep enough to drive family apart.

  ‘Your mother?’ he ventured.

  ‘Mam thinks what Dad tells her to think and there’s an end to it. So does my sister. Bridget and I were close as kids, she’d love to be an aunt but she has the spine of a jellyfish. I have a gran who I love to bits but she’s in a nursing home in Dublin, not in a position to give me support.’

  ‘But surely you have friends,’ he said, puzzled. ‘So few people think like your Dad any more.’

  ‘Of course, but Ryan and I have been travelling for so long we’ve lost touch. Then there’s the fact that I’m an Australian.’

  There was a pause at that. He looked at her flaming curls, her freckled nose, her green eyes, her almost translucent, very Irish skin. Plus there was her lilting Irish accent.

  ‘I can see that,’ he said dryly, and she managed a smile.

  ‘I’m not indigenous Australian, of course, but there’s plenty of folk here with my colouring and accent. There’s no want of Irish immigrants in Australia. Thirty years ago my family were immigrants, too. Failed immigrants, though. They came, they saw, and they scuttled back home as fast as money allowed.’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘Dad declared it’s a place full of heathens whose only God is the sun. He hates the beach, you see, so why he moved to Queensland... It was ridiculous. But they came at a low time in the Irish economy. Dad’s a builder and he was out of work at home. Aunt Moira—Gran’s sister—was already over here and she talked of how wonderful it was. But by the time Mam and Dad arrived, Moira’s marriage had failed. Moira suffered from the family trait of “what will people think?” so just when Mam needed her most, she retired into her hermit existence and didn’t want anything to do with my parents. Which left Mam alone. Mam hated the heat. She was dead lonely and after I arrived she seemed to sink into depression. Dad loathed the climate, loathed not having his local mates, his local pub. The experiment therefore failed. Home we went, with the only remaining legacy my Australian passport.’

  ‘I assume that after all this time, you’d have an Irish one as well.’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t help the money side of it,’ she told him, and sighed. ‘Okay, let’s get the second part—the Hannah-is-an-idiot story—over. You sure you want to hear?’

  He could say it was none of his business. He should.

  ‘From the top,’ he said, and she flashed him something that was something akin to a glower.

  ‘Okay, but I’ll keep it short,’ she told him. ‘There once was a girl called Hannah who fell in love with a toe-rag called Ryan.’

  ‘A toe-rag...’

  ‘Gorgeous to look at, charming, carefree, all the things my serious, dour family isn’t. Ryan wanted to see the world and so did I. I felt so confined at home. Even after I trained as a nurse, Dad seemed always to be looking over my shoulder. I love our village, our community, but I couldn’t stand his control. Even when I moved to Dublin he was always finding an excuse to visit, to judge. Oh, the fights we had... And Mam and Bridge...their passive acceptance of his every decree makes me feel ill.

  ‘So maybe it was part rebellion, but I fell for Ryan and off we went. Ryan’s a trained paramedic, so with my nursing training we could find work wherever we went. We lived pretty much hand to mouth, moving from country to country, working just enough to let us travel to the next spot. But we did have fun.

  ‘After a couple of years, though, I was getting more and more homesick. To be honest, I was also starting to have doubts about our relationship. Ryan’s the eternal Peter Pan. Where there’s fun and adventure, Ryan’s your man, but responsibility...not so much.’

  ‘There’s another ouch.’

  ‘You said it.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Anyway, instead of going home, Ryan convinced me to come to Australia. “One last adventure,” he said, “before we settle down to boring domesticity.” I was in two minds, but I made a quick visit home and nothing had changed. The way Bridget was turning into another version of Mam, I couldn’t stand it.

  ‘So we came. “Let’s stay for a while,” Ryan said when he saw the beaches, the climate, plus the number of Irish in the pubs. “A year in the one place. Will that do for you, Hannah?” I was unsettled, uneasy, but Moira was here and I knew my gran worried about her. I thought I’ll have a touch of family. And, as opposed to my parents, I love the sun and the beach. So we applied for jobs and settled—and then I found I was pregnant.’

  He was watching her face. Seeing pain.

  ‘So,’ he said, cautiously now. ‘I assume not planned?’

  ‘Of course, not planned.’ That came with a snap of anger. ‘What do you think? That’s exactly what Ryan threw at me, too. He said, “You planned this!” like I’d planned a murder.’

  ‘Maybe not the best of reactions.’

  ‘Not when he’d brought home a norovirus from his stupid night at the stupid pub with his stupid mates, which I guess is why the Pill stopped working. And it was Ryan who said I was being paranoid when I said not tonight because we needed extra levels of contraception for the rest of the month...’

  She stopped, took a deep breath, moved on.

  ‘Sorry. Too much information. I just can’t think of Ryan without knowing what an idiot I was, and for how long. One day I’ll remember him for all the fun we’ve had, but not yet. Things are too raw. Because the moment I told him I was pregnant and I wanted to keep our baby, he said, “It’s your baby, sweetheart, not mine.” I woke the next morning to a note on the fridge and that was the only trace of him left.’

  ‘Oh, Hannah.’

  How to respond? A hug in sympathy? He didn’t do hugs and, besides, there was enough defiance in her eyes to tell him a hug would be a bad move. For both of them?

  She decided for him.

  ‘So moving on,’ she said, doing just that. ‘I decided I’d go home but I was dumb enough to tell my family about my pregnancy before I booked the flight. Which was probably just as well. Dad told me exactly the reception I’d receive if I went home pregnant without a ring on my finger. Moralistic? You’d better believe it. It seems tar and feathering’s too good for the likes of me. No, don’t look like that. I’ve faced it now and I’m staying put.’

  ‘Alone.’

  ‘You know, I’m probably less alone than I’d be in Ireland,’ she admitted. Also less needy. There’s sense in my decision to stay. The hospital here’s short of midwives and they’ve liked my work. They’ll hold my job and I can stay on in hospital accommodation. There’s a creche I can use after my baby’s born. Plus, because I’m an Australian citizen, I can access your government’s wonderful maternity payments. That’s made the decision to stay a no-brainer. If I went back, well, I’ve been away for three years and I’m out of touch. I have hardly any savings. I’d be trying to find a job when I already look pregn
ant—how likely is that?—and I’d need to find accommodation. You think that’d be easy in my position? This decision is all about pragmatism.’

  ‘But it still leaves you isolated.’

  ‘I have friends here,’ she said defensively.

  ‘Friends who won’t worry that you’re not home tonight.’

  ‘Will you cut it out?’ she said, and huffed. ‘I’m doing well, thank you very much. I have my life sorted.’

  ‘Except you’re lonely.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? You’re the one who thinks being a hermit is a great life choice. So there you are, Dr O’Connor. You have my whole life story, or just about the whole if we’re not including the Ferris wheel incident of two thousand and six. So what about you? You want to tell Auntie Hannah or are you still being pig stubborn?’

  ‘Pig stubborn?’

  ‘Pig stubborn. Give.’

  ‘I’d prefer to hear about the Ferris wheel incident.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said darkly. ‘It was very undignified, and I didn’t even have my best knickers on.’ She sat back on her cushions and skewered him with a look that said, Don’t mess with me. ‘So now it’s your turn. I know I agreed we could make this one-sided but I’ve changed my mind. Start with the scar,’ she told him. ‘Not a Ferris wheel? A lover with a kitchen knife? Something worse?’

  ‘Car accident,’ he said, grudgingly.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘Bad?’ She shook her head. ‘No, that’s a crazy thing to ask. I can see by your face that it was bad, and it’s not the scar I’m talking about. I’m guessing really bad. Life-changing bad.’

  ‘My sister died.’

  ‘Oh, Josh...’

  What followed was silence.

  It wasn’t a bad silence, though, he conceded, as it stretched. The fire was crackling in the hearth, seeming somehow to mute the noise of the storm. In this room, with Maisie’s soft ears still under his hands, with the slight smell of newborn puppies, with the faint mewing sounds of their nuzzling...with this woman sitting waiting with her patient, non-judgmental eyes... It was okay.

  She was okay.

  Where others would have jumped in with horror, with sympathy, she sat silent and waited for him to tell or not to tell. It was his choice and whatever he decided, he knew it would be fine by her.

  ‘My fiancée killed her,’ he said flatly, and waited for a reaction. He didn’t get one. The wait stretched on until finally she cracked.

  ‘Well, that sounds dramatic but I’m assuming stupidity or mistake rather than malice. You might as well tell me the whole story.’

  Her response almost made him smile. Stupidity or mistake...a combination of the two.

  ‘Aisling’s a neurosurgeon as well,’ he told her. ‘A good one. Her father’s a politician with clout, and she’s always had family money. She’s smart, beautiful, witty, and she has pretty much everything she wants in life. And for a while she wanted me.’

  ‘That was...good for you?’ she ventured, and he shrugged.

  ‘Good, like Ryan was for you? Maybe stupid doesn’t begin to cut it for both of us.’

  ‘Ryan and I had a very good time,’ she said, almost defensively, and he shrugged.

  ‘I guess we did, too. We were surgeons at the top of our game. We had money, skill, respect and egos the size of large houses. Aisling also had the car of her dreams, an Aston Martin, arguably the world’s most gorgeous four-seater sports car. Don’t think the four-seater was because she was thinking of a family, though. She has two standard poodles, one white, one black, who sit in the back of that car like royalty.’

  ‘Yikes,’ she said, bemused. ‘That’s some picture.’

  ‘Yeah, and I bought right into it,’ he said grimly. ‘To be honest, her image suited my ego as well. Anyway, the short story is we took my little sister out to dinner one night. I have...had...two sisters. Madison’s older than me, actually my half-sister. Alice was an afterthought, conceived in a dumb attempt to save my parents’ marriage. She didn’t—how could she?—but she was loved, mostly by Madison and me. When she was eighteen she came to stay with me while she was on a break from uni. She thought Aisling was awesome, and Aisling played up to her. We went out to dinner one night and Aisling drove. By then our relationship was showing signs of strain. Aisling had Alice to sit in the front and I copped the poodle seat.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘The back seat in an Aston Martin’s hardly suffering,’ he said with a smile that contained little humour. ‘I was tired and I guess I pretty much zoned out. Then Aisling’s phone pinged with an incoming message. I couldn’t see what was happening, but it seemed Aisling was reading and texting while talking to Alice—and heading straight into oncoming traffic.’

  Hannah’s breath hissed in. She’d know, Josh thought. Every medic, every paramedic, every cop, every member of every devastated family knew by now that texting while driving was the new ‘drink driving’ stupidity. He closed his eyes for a moment as horror flooded back, as it had done over and over, for the last three long years.

  He thrust it back with an effort. Who wanted to go there? Not him.

  ‘So that’s it,’ he said flatly. ‘Aisling veered at the last minute and the passenger side copped the brunt of the impact. Aisling escaped almost unscratched. I was left with a compound fracture of my left leg, bruises and the laceration you can still see on my face. And the knowledge that Alice was dead.’

  ‘Oh, Josh...’

  ‘So that was that,’ he said, forging on grimly. ‘Aisling’s family spent a fortune on lawyers. She managed to get off with a suspended sentence, which she can ignore and get with her life. But Alice...’ He stopped.

  ‘Hell.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it,’ he said roughly. For a moment he let the ever-present guilt wash over him, the self-loathing for the man he’d been, for the lifestyle he’d drifted into without thought for the consequences. Aisling had been driving but where had he been? Not looking out for his little sister. Not caring enough.

  But then his thoughts were interrupted by a piercing howl, starting low but building to a yowl of despair, echoing ghost-like above the noise of the storm. ‘Uh oh,’ he said, seizing the distraction with gratitude. ‘Dudley.’

  ‘Dudley?’ she said, startled out of the horror of the story. ‘That sounds like the Hounds of the Baskervilles.’

  ‘I’ve locked him in the laundry, but he hates this weather. Now he’s started he may well howl all night.’ He eyed Maisie and her pups and came to a decision. ‘I thought it’d be better to keep the dogs separate, but looking at these puppies...’

  They both looked. The pups were a squirming mass of patchwork, brown and black and cream. The littlest one had momentarily lost its teat and was squirming to reattach. They had a glimpse of a tiny face, black with tiny brown eyebrows, a creamy white chest and matching paws.

  ‘You know, I’m guessing these might not be purebred Labrador,’ Josh said mildly.

  ‘You mean...?’

  ‘Total number of dogs on this island equals two, and Dudley’s brown and black. Do we need to be Einstein to figure the rest?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS GOOD to have a distraction. Or was it?

  Their combined stories had hurt, though Josh’s was far more gut wrenching than hers. She’d watched his eyes and seen bone-deep pain. The scar was stretched tight over his lean, almost sculpted face, but she knew it wasn’t the old injury that was hurting. To lose his sister...

  She had a sister back home, still living with her parents, but there’d be no use asking for her support. Once upon a time she and Bridget had been inseparable, falling in and out of scrapes but best of friends all their childhood. As adults, though, Bridget had finally caved in to her father’s bullying, while Hannah’s rebellious streak had seen her mo
ve further and further away.

  For the last few years she’d felt like she’d lost her, and she ached for her, but at least her sister, her family, were still intact. To have it any other way seemed unthinkable.

  She had an almost irresistible urge to lean forward and take Josh’s pain-etched face between her hands, to hold him, to hug him close. As a midwife she knew the power of touch. A woman in labour desperately needed someone to cling to, to grab, to swear at, to know they’d be there whatever. If there was no ‘someone’ then often a midwife had to step in and be that person.

  She wanted to step in now, but Josh was looking intently at the puppies and his body language was telling her to keep her distance. His pain was his business.

  Another howl echoed above the noise of the storm. Maybe the rising sound of the storm was sending Dudley to the edge of the dog’s tolerance.

  The storm should be uppermost in Hannah’s mind, too, she thought. However, this situation, this man... Josh himself...was enough to drive the threat of the storm to the background.

  Josh was focusing on the puppies because he wanted her to move on. Past the pain of his background. To present practicalities.

  Or maybe to present mysteries. A golden Labrador with puppies that were golden—with patches of black and brown.

  ‘I’ll get him,’ Josh said, and headed into the back of the house.

  In two minutes he reappeared, and by his side was the dog she’d seen momentarily as she’d arrived. A skinny, black and brown mutt—almost a kelpie but not quite. Josh had him on a short lead. He was cowering against Josh’s leg, as if he needed the comfort of human presence.

  He took a couple of steps into the room and then stopped. Stiffened.

  And Maisie’s head lifted.

  Another dog. A threat to her puppies?

  Apparently not. Dudley whimpered and pulled forward. Maisie’s tail thumped up and down against the rug.

  Cautiously Josh let Dudley pull him across to the hearth. Maisie’s tail still thumped.

  Dudley sniffed, nose to nose. His tail, previously tucked coward-like under his chest, tried a tentative wag of its own.