Nancy sat up, rubbing her face where droplets of water had landed.
“Sorry,” Katharine said. She rummaged in her bag and brought out a camera. “Will you take a photo of us?” Before Agatha had time to register what was going on, Katharine bounded over and draped one arm round her shoulder.
“Smile!”
The camera clicked.
“Oh!” Agatha glanced down, dismayed at the thought of being captured on film in this state.
“Don’t worry—you can’t see anything!” Katharine chuckled. “We’ll get another one when we’ve dried off and got our clothes on. And when Max comes back, I’ll get him to take one of the three of us.” Agatha was behind the tree, fastening her stockings, when a cry from Nancy stopped her dead.
“What is it? Did something bite you?” Katharine’s voice came through the branches of the tree.
They both ran out, fronds of leaves catching at their faces. Nancy was clutching her stomach, an agonized look in her eyes.
Oh no, not the baby . . . Agatha’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh! Oh my God!” Nancy doubled over. “I . . . I . . .”
“I think her waters have broken.” Agatha heard the sudden difference in her own voice. It was her nurse’s voice. Forgotten for a decade, it had returned, unbidden, at the speed of light.
“What shall we do?” There was fear in Katharine’s face. Like most wartime nurses, she had only ever treated men. This was unknown territory. She clearly wanted Agatha to take charge.
Agatha opened her mouth and closed it. No good telling her that she didn’t know, that all she knew about giving birth was her own single experience. That wasn’t something Nancy needed to hear right now. She had to calm her down, pretend that she knew what she was doing.
“It’s all right, Nancy,” she said. “No need to panic. It’s just a sign that you’re in the very early stages.” As Agatha helped her out of the soaking-wet aba, she did a quick calculation. About six months . . . That’s what Nancy had said a week ago. But was that six months from her last period or six months from the time she found out? Either way, it was too soon. If her baby came now, its chances of survival were slim.
“What time is Max coming back?” Agatha mouthed the words over Nancy’s head.
Katharine held up three fingers.
Agatha glanced at her watch. Another two and a half hours. How were they going to cope for that long?
Nancy let out an agonized groan, digging her nails into Agatha’s arm. “S . . . sorry,” she gasped.
“No need to apologize.” Agatha rubbed her back. “Now: we need to get you into a more comfortable position. If you could just lie back, I’m going to put this cushion under your head and these other ones under your knees. Katharine, is there some water in the picnic basket?”
Katharine blinked, as if she couldn’t quite take in what was happening.
Nancy let out another yelp of pain.
“She’s going to get very warm, so she’ll want something to drink.” Agatha was struggling to keep her voice calm. She glanced at her watch. She needed to time the contractions. But she already knew they were coming too fast. Rosalind had taken hours and hours to arrive, but Agatha had heard of women whose labor came on so quickly, their babies were born on the bathroom floor.
Katharine leapt into action, dragging the picnic basket from its place by the tree and pulling out a tin mug, which she filled with water from a flask.
“Do you have another towel?” Agatha looked up as Katharine passed the mug across the blanket. “We need a dry one.”
“Yes, there’s one in my bag.” Katharine watched Agatha lift Nancy’s head so she could take a sip of water. “Is it . . . ?” She completed the sentence with an agitated look.
Agatha nodded. “We’ll need something warm and dry to wrap the baby in when it comes.” Turning to Nancy, she said: “I know it’s not very dignified, but I need to take a look down below. I think this baby’s in an awful hurry to meet you.”
Nancy’s mouth gaped in horror. “I c . . . can’t . . . not . . .” Her face contorted with pain.
“You’re going to be fine.” The words were for herself as much as Nancy.
“B . . . but . . . I . . .” Nancy’s jaw clenched as another contraction came.
“Women are made to have babies.” Agatha realized, too late, what a tactless thing this was to say within Katharine’s hearing. She glanced up, apologizing with her eyes. Katharine gave the smallest shake of her head, a gesture that said It doesn’t matter.
“Remember, I’ve done this before.” Agatha murmured a silent prayer that Nancy wouldn’t realize that her only experience of this was as a patient, not a nurse. She had to keep her calm. Make her believe everything was under control. Nancy’s life and her baby’s depended on her doing exactly as she was told until Max arrived with the truck.
“Do you feel the urge to push?”
Nancy nodded, her eyes snapping shut as the pain overtook her.
“You need to try to stop yourself from doing that—just until the baby’s ready,” Agatha said. “Can you breathe for me? Three quick pants and a long blow . . . that’s it! Keep doing that each time it hurts.” Turning to Katharine, she said: “Can you brace her against you? Raise her up and support her shoulders?”
Katharine dropped down onto the blanket, sliding her legs around Nancy and lifting her into a semisitting position.
“That’s better . . . Oh! I can see the head!” Agatha swallowed hard, terrified of what was happening, of this little life about to emerge into the world with only her to help it. She heard the voice of the matron at the hospital in Torquay. Come on, Nurse Miller: show some backbone!
She grabbed the towel and held it ready. If only she’d paid more attention to what the midwife had done while she was giving birth to Rosalind. Was it right to push when the head crowned? She could barely remember anything through the fog of pain that had descended on that August day nine years ago. But she must remember.
“Nancy, you’re doing really well.” Agatha’s voice came out louder and shriller than she meant it too, betraying her trepidation. “I need you to hold on just a tiny bit longer. Then, when I say the word, I want you to push as hard as you can.”
“Please, God,” Agatha whispered, “let it be all right.”
Nancy gave a heartrending scream, and blood surged into her face. Katharine wiped away the beads of perspiration on Nancy’s forehead with the sleeve of her blouse.
“Push now, Nancy! Push!” Agatha yelled.
The speed with which the little thing slithered out was a shock. Agatha just managed to catch it in the towel. She stared at it, paralyzed with wonder. A little boy. Almost as big as Rosalind when she was born. But not moving. And his skin was blue gray under the welts of blood.
“Is it . . . ?” Nancy gasped, collapsing into Katharine’s lap.
Agatha rubbed the little body with the towel, willing him to be alive. The cord hung, bloody, from his belly. It had not been round his neck when he came out—so why wasn’t he breathing?
“What is it?” Suddenly Katharine was there beside her. She took the baby and laid it on the blanket, bending low over its face. Agatha watched in horrified amazement as Katharine covered his nose and mouth with hers, as if she were kissing the tiny dead thing. She raised her head for a moment, took a breath, and did it again.
“Katharine! No!” Agatha grabbed her arm, but she wouldn’t budge. Katharine kicked out at her, pushing her away like a woman possessed. Oh God, Agatha thought, seeing this has tipped her over the edge.
A sudden sharp wail cut through the air between them. Katharine threw her head back, panting for breath. “Look!” she gasped. “He’s alive!”
CHAPTER 26
Nancy was in her bed at the expedition house, propped up on pillows with the baby nestled in the crook of her arm. She was very weak after her ordeal in the desert, but she had managed to give little James his first proper feed. He was to be James Frederick, after K
atharine’s father and Agatha’s. If it had been a girl, Nancy said, she would have named her after the two of them.
“Is she asleep?” Katharine whispered.
“I think so,” Agatha replied.
“Should we put him in his bed, do you think?” Katharine glanced at the makeshift cot—a drawer out of the chest in her bedroom, lined with a towel and square of the softest cashmere cut from one of her shawls.
“Yes,” Agatha whispered back, “if we can do it without waking him up.”
She watched Katharine gently lift the sleeping baby from his mother’s arms. If James had been made of solid gold and unearthed from the sands of Ur, she couldn’t have been more careful. Agatha had been amazed at the way she had taken control after the birth when all seemed hopeless. Somehow she had known just what to do.
When the baby was settled and they had crept out of Nancy’s bedroom for a well-earned cup of coffee in the courtyard, Agatha asked Katharine where she had learned the resuscitation technique.
“It’s what the Bedouin women do,” she replied. “I saw one giving birth outside in the desert once. It was our second season here. She was the wife of one of the workmen on the dig, and she’d walked miles to bring him the news that his father was dying. She collapsed a few minutes after she arrived and went into labor. She was completely calm about it—refused any help—and delivered the baby herself. When she saw it wasn’t breathing, she put her mouth over its face. I thought she was just grief-stricken, kissing it because it was dead, but then I saw that she was actually sucking away the fluid that was blocking its nose and mouth. Then she was taking breaths and breathing them into the baby.”
“And it worked?”
Katharine nodded. “Half an hour later we took them back to her village in the truck and the baby yelled at the top of its lungs every time we hit a pothole.”
“Well, thank goodness.” Agatha smiled. “And because of it you saved James’s life.”
“I . . . ,” Katharine hesitated, staring into her coffee cup. “I didn’t know if it would work. I had this moment, when I saw him lying there in the towel, all blue and bloody, when I knew what I should do—but I thought I couldn’t. He looked so . . .” She shook her head. “It sounds ridiculous now, but he reminded me of Bertram. I never saw him, of course: not after . . .” She trailed off, bringing the cup up to her lips, not drinking, just breathing in the smell. “I’ve seen so many dead people. Soldiers, during the war—and civilians: corpses the Germans left behind in the villages along the front. I’ve always prided myself on having a strong stomach. But somehow, when I saw James . . .” She closed her eyes with a sigh that sent coffee sloshing over the side of her cup. “Look at me! Clumsy idiot!” She dabbed at her skirt. “Fancy trusting me with a baby!”
In that moment, Agatha saw a glimmer of something she hadn’t grasped before. That in making the decision to try to save James’s life, Katharine had confronted something inside herself: something that must have haunted her since the day of her husband’s suicide. When that doctor had delivered his brutal verdict on her body, it was not just her marriage he was annihilating. He was telling her that she was incapable of doing the one thing every woman expects to be able to do. She would never have a baby.
For years Katharine had lived with that knowledge, alongside the other wretched facts of her medical condition. And she had dealt with it by throwing herself into a new career. Agatha could just imagine Katharine saying to herself that if she was a man on the inside, she would damn well live like one. And no one would expect a woman—a widow—who was so devoted to her chosen profession to be interested in having babies.
But what had happened out there by the river had changed all that. Agatha could see it in Katharine’s face. This baby of Nancy’s seemed to have unleashed feelings that she found utterly bewildering.
Max appeared in the courtyard as they were finishing their coffee. After transporting Nancy and her baby back to the expedition house with Agatha and Katharine, he had had to go straight back to the dig site to take Hugh Carrington to Ur Junction in time for his train. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand as he strode across to where the women were sitting.
“How is she now?” He pulled out a chair and sank onto it.
“She’s sleeping,” Katharine replied.
“And the baby? Is he all right?”
“I think so.” Katharine glanced at Agatha, who nodded. “What about the doctor? Did you manage to contact him?”
“Yes. I used the telephone at the station. He should be here in an hour or so.” He took the coffee that Katharine had poured for him. “You both did marvelously well.” He smiled at Agatha over the rim of his cup. “I don’t—”
“Katharine!” Leonard Woolley, calling across the courtyard, cut him short. “I need you in the Antiquities Room, please!”
Katharine’s face changed in an instant, apprehension dissolving her smile. “I’d better go,” she said, scraping her chair as she got up. “You’ll look after Nancy, won’t you, Agatha?”
“Yes, of course—but you’ll be able to help later, won’t you—after the doctor’s seen her?”
Katharine didn’t reply. She strode across the courtyard with her chin tucked against her chest.
Like Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine.
Agatha wondered why that image had jumped into her mind again. Something about the tone of Leonard’s voice and the expression on Katharine’s face made her think that a showdown was coming. But why now? If she had told him last night, the row would have happened then. And Katharine had had no chance to tell him this afternoon: she hadn’t seen him since they got back from the river.
“You were very brave out there, you know.” Max’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Keeping calm in a situation like that—well, not many people could do it.”
“I didn’t really know what I was doing.” Agatha shrugged. “I was terrified, actually.”
“It all turned out all right in the end, though, didn’t it? I was telling Hugh Carrington about it on the way to the station. Turns out he was at school with Nancy’s husband.”
“Really?”
Max nodded. “He was rather surprised, I think, that she was out here. Said the wedding was only about a year ago.”
“Less than that, actually.” In a few sentences Agatha told him as little as she possibly could to explain Nancy’s presence in Mesopotamia. She’d made a promise to be discreet and she was not going to break it now. Little James was going to have a tough enough time without people knowing he was illegitimate.
“Poor girl. What on earth will she do now?”
“She wants to stay in Baghdad. She’s going to keep on the house I’ve been renting. I think she hopes to get a job eventually.”
“Well, I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere in a hurry, do you? Will you stay on, too?”
“I’d rather not go back until she’s well enough to travel.” Agatha looked into his eyes, returning his smile. “I hope I won’t be a nuisance.”
“How could you possibly be?” He glanced over his shoulder, then reached across the table for her hand, lifting it to his lips. “You’re an angel. And I’m so glad you won’t be on that train tomorrow.”
Katharine’s hand was shaking as she opened the door of the Antiquities Room.
Leonard was standing by the sculpture of Hamoudi she had given him as a wedding present. Her letter was in his hand.
“Oh—you found it,” she said in a small voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” He sounded unnaturally calm, as if he was making a supreme effort to control himself.
“I’m sorry, Len, I . . . I was afraid of telling anyone.”
“But I’m not just anyone, Katharine. I’m your husband. Don’t you think I, of all people, had a right to know?”
“I thought . . . ,” she faltered, unable to look him in the eyes. “I thought perhaps it wouldn’t be an issue.”
She heard him draw in a long
breath. “Why would you have thought that?”
She swallowed hard. “Because unlike all the other men who have worked here over the past three years, you never showed me the slightest interest. In that way.”
“Oh, I see.” His feet shifted on the bare mud floor. “You had me down as a queer, did you? Someone who would leave you alone once the veneer of respectability had been established? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but as you’ve obviously gathered by now, I’m as normal as most men in that regard.”
“I suppose you’ll want me to leave?” Her throat felt tight. The words came out as a croaky whisper.
“Did I say that?”
She raised her head, perplexed. His face had lost some of that imperiousness. He looked more sad, now, than anything.
“But how can I . . . How can we . . .”
“Come here a moment, will you?” He held out his hand. “Come closer. I won’t try anything, I promise.”
She took a step toward him. He caught the ends of her fingers. “It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” She took another step, and another, until her face was just a few inches from his. Now she could see the film of tears in his eyes.
He made a small noise in his throat, as if he was about to deliver a well-rehearsed speech. But what he said took her completely by surprise. “Listen, Katharine, it’s not about . . .” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s not about the act. Not really. Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to if you’d been able to, of course—but what I truly long for is something far simpler than that.”
He turned her hand palm up, stroking her fingers. She held her breath, tried not to flinch. Despite his promise, she feared what might come next.
“Is this all right?”
She nodded slowly.
“You see, I’ve never done this before.” His fingertips felt warm. Years of digging had roughened the skin and turned it dry.
The Woman on the Orient Express Page 26
