Does Your Mother Know?

by Maureen Jennings

  “Thank goodness you know what you’re doing.”

  I did not share her confidence. As cops, we all had fundamental emergency training, but the one time I’d had first-hand experience of a delivery assist, the baby died. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

  I got Mairi to lie down on the tablecloth, and Lisa managed to remove her jeans and underwear. Mairi was finding it impossible to keep still and thrashed from side to side, groaning.

  However, the answer to all our prayers came hurrying into the room. Gillian, the midwife. She was on the stocky side, middle-aged and grey-haired, the kind of sensible, brisk woman who immediately inspires confidence.

  “Little wretch couldn’t wait, eh?” she came over to Mairi. “When did you have your last contraction?”

  “Now,” said Mairi, and I saw the ripple down her stomach and she did her “ow, ow, ow” cry again.

  The midwife crouched down beside her. “I doubt you want the bairn to make his entrance in here. Let’s get you on your feet and up to the bedroom. Wrap the cloth around her. All right Mairi, stand up, then Lisa will get you under one arm and I’ll get the other. Fast as you can make it. When a contraction comes we’ll stop, but I do want to get you upstairs. Perhaps you can open the door for us,” she said to me.

  Mairi leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder and the little procession proceeded upstairs. I let them go; I was the stranger here. I went back into the dining room. At the least I could clean up for them.

  I located a bucket and mop and a bottle of disinfectant and set to work. The mingled stench of vomit and liquor was depressing-ly familiar, as was my task of cleaning up the mess. Joan had gone through a particularly bad period when I was fourteen, just before I went to live with the Jacksons. Most days I’d come home from school and find her passed out on the couch. There was invariably cleanup to do. I wrapped the broken shards of glass in some newspaper and dumped them in the wastebasket.

  As I said, I’d had experience with an impromptu delivery once before — and it wasn’t a good one. I was a young constable on the night beat in Toronto. We received a call that a woman was acting strangely down in Nathan Phillips Square, which was in front of the city hall. It was deep winter, and we found the woman pacing up and down, making grunting sounds. I tried to talk to her but no luck. She was both stoned and mentally challenged and she ignored me. A small crowd of late-night skaters gawked at her.

  “I pissed myself,” she kept repeating. “I pissed myself.”

  I’ve never forgotten that image of her large, wide face as she stared in bewilderment at what was flowing down her fat legs. It was late, almost the end of my shift, and I was tired and irritable.

  “What’s your name? Where d’you live?”

  No coherent answers, only louder cries. “Come on, we’ll take you home,” I said, and I tried to get her into the cruiser, where at least we could talk in relative comfort. She resisted violently and my partner, Joe Csonka, got out of the car and came over to help me. That really set her off, and she swung at him. I grabbed her arm, pulled it behind her back, and snapped on the cuffs, forcing her to the ground. It was only then I realized she was in the last stages of pregnancy. She was so bundled up in a stained winter parka that it wasn’t at all obvious. Somebody in the crowd guffawed. There’s always one. We radioed for an ambulance, but they took a long time to get there while I did what I could to comfort the woman. Finally, the paramedics arrived, brusque and unsym-pathetic. Even as they were loading her into the ambulance, one of them was tugging off her pants. When I followed up on the case a couple of days later, I found out the infant had died from birth complications. Probably nothing to do with the rough struggle, but I had been troubled by the memory many times. The baby had not been born into love and the mother received no tenderness.

  After my cleanup, the bar area had a pleasant, tarry smell from the disinfectant. Other than the stirring of painful memories, it hadn’t bothered me to wipe up the barf. I’d been a front-line cop for seventeen years and, if you are going to survive at that, you have to get used to every known variation of bodily fluid. I’d even been able to assess what Mairi had had for lunch. Automatic response. You never knew when you’d be called on to make a report on what had been emitted.

  I was stowing away the mop when Lisa came in.

  “I thought I’d come and clean up the mess.”

  “I did it already.”

  “You did! Oh my God, thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome. I was glad to make myself useful. I’d have boiled water if needed. How’s Mairi doing?”

  “She’s all right. After all the urgency, she isn’t even fully dilated. The baby might not come for another couple of hours.”

  “Did Colin arrive?”

  Lisa looked away. “No. We can’t locate him.” She grimaced at me. “I could cheerfully wring his neck. He’s a selfish twerp as far as I’m concerned, but she would marry him, wouldn’t she?”

  Her feelings didn’t jibe with Colin’s expressed fondness towards his sister-in-law.

  “You’d think he’d know enough to stay in close touch with Mairi at the stage she is,” I said, girls in agreement.

  “Ha! The Hebridean men are in the dark ages when it comes to these matters,” she scoffed, her tone full of experience. “Babies are the women’s realm. The men stay out of it until it’s over.”

  “Colin was responsible for creating the baby just as much as Mairi, though.”

  I get self-righteous about this issue.

  Lisa frowned at me. “Dream on. That’s true in theory, but you can’t expect a man to have the same feelings as a woman when all he’s done is shot his load for twenty seconds and she’s the one who’s carried a living creature in her guts for nine months.”

  Anatomical inaccuracy aside, Lisa had a point, and one that had been made many times before. As an officer, I’d had my fill of trying to get young stallions to claim the results of their two-minute flings.

  She took a package of cigarettes out of her back pocket. “Do you mind?”

  “Hey, it’s your place.”

  She lit up and dragged hungrily on the cigarette. “This is my last one. I promised Mairi I’d quit.” She ran her free hand through her hair. “I wanted to apologize for that little scene earlier. It was embarrassing. Truth is I’m on the wagon, and Mairi can’t let go of being Big Sister.”

  “You’ve had trouble with alcohol, I take it?”

  “You could put it that way. Trouble — yes, I’ve definitely had trouble. Another way of putting it is that I’ve been a drunk most of my adult life.”

  More lung-filling drags. She looked so wretched, I felt a rush of sympathy for her. I liked Lisa, brat that she was.

  “Are you in a program now?”

  “No. I just decided to quit. When Mairi got pregnant, actually. I want to be a sober aunt, set a good example and all that.” She waved the cigarette in the air. “Same goes for this.”

  “Hey, I believe in the importance of role models.”

  Her eyes met mine. “Do you have nieces and nephews yourself?”

  “No. I’m an only child. But I do have a goddaughter.”

  “I bet you’ll be a good role model to her.”

  “Thanks. I hope so.”

  With vigour, she stubbed out her cigarette. “Goodbye forever, ciggies. I’d better get back to the momma.”

  “Let me know what happens, will you? I’ll be out for dinner, but then I’m here.”

  She wrinkled her eyes at me. “Another date with Sergeant Gillies?”

  “I don’t know about a date, but we’re going out for dinner together.”

  “Did he ask you?”

  “Er, yes.”

  “That’s a date then. He must be interested in you. I haven’t known Gill to go on a date for two years. Anyway, have a nice time. See you. ’Bye.”

  She left and I quivered around for a bit. A date! What the hell was I going to do with that? A date with a very attractive man
who just happened to live several time zones away. Wasn’t that just my luck?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Gill and I went for dinner to a hotel just up from the Duke. The carpet was a riot of overblown roses, the upholstery on the stiff chairs was a completely different pattern of lush vegetation, and the heavy drapes were vigorously floral. All of the wood was the colour of malt vinegar. In the background, a tape was playing bagpipe music. As a visitor, I found it charmingly authentic. The waitress was a woman of advanced years, who acted as if she’d rather be at home with her feet up. It was like being waited on by your grandmother, and I had to resist the impulse to jump up and help her with the tray. I might have, except I thought she wouldn’t like it. The food was unmemorable, except for the odd fact that they served toast (cold and crisp) instead of dinner rolls. I tried to wash that down with a half-pint of dark British ale, which as far as I was concerned could have been a meal in itself.

  There was no news in the search for Joan. All the ferry captains had been contacted, but with no result. The description was so general, it wasn’t that helpful. Gill told me that Jock was considering bringing in a tracking dog from Inverness, but he had to wait until they knew for sure if the Royal Prince was coming. If he was, they’d need the dogs for bomb detection.

  “A higher priority, I’m sure,” I said. I wasn’t resentful about that. I understood the decisions that had to be made with limited resources. “Is the lad really coming?”

  “It’s a last-minute choice between us and St. Andrews. Because of the girlfriend there’ll be a media frenzy if word gets out, so we’re trying to keep it quiet.” He shrugged. “You met Janice. Doing that successfully is rather like carrying water in a sieve. If he does come here, his intention is to play golf down in Harris — weather permitting — have dinner at Scarista House, then come back to Stornoway and fly to Edinburgh.”

  “Why would he come all the way over here?”

  Gillies shrugged. “I suppose he thinks it’ll be nice and private. You’d be surprised at how many people still think of the Hebrides as untamed wilderness. And of course, the tourist board plays it up like that.”

  I had been one of those people until I came here, so I didn’t pursue the matter.

  In turn, I related the afternoon’s birthing crisis. This led into the inevitable inquiry, “Did you ever want to have kids?” Standard answer, “I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.” I might have elaborated if I’d been talking with a woman, but not with a man I’d just met and whom I was finding far too attractive. Maybe it was sympathetic hormones released by Mairi’s pregnancy.

  I steered the conversation around to his two daughters. Both of them were going in for law: the older one was already articling, the younger one was in her second year at Edinburgh law school. He said they intended to set up a practice together. I liked the way he talked about them. He seemed proud of them for themselves not just because they reflected well on him. I also liked the way his skin and eyes had a healthy glow to them. I liked the way he smelled of soap. I especially liked the way he didn’t drink too much. And that’s quite a list for a short acquaintance.

  And that was that. Ten o’clock and time to return to the hotel. A hug at my door this time, a rather protracted hug. Very nice, but I was too old for the “handshake and bedshake” scenario, and I went into my room alone. Let’s not be stupid here. So all in all, a great evening.

  Contrary to the sense of “any minute now,” the infant hadn’t made an appearance by the time Gill had come to pick me up for dinner, but when I returned, the hotel was quiet. I considered going to Mairi’s apartment, but I didn’t want to intrude.

  After a bit of restless tossing around, I fell asleep, but just after midnight I was awakened by a soft tapping at the door.

  “Chris. It’s me, Lisa.”

  I slipped on my robe and opened the door. “It’s late, I know, but I thought you deserved to see her after what happened.” Lisa was standing there with the baby in her arms. She pulled back the blanket so I could see the tiny red squashed face, almost obscured by a pale yellow toque.

  “She’s two hours old. Here, do you want to hold her?

  I didn’t get a chance to answer and she passed over the bundle, surprisingly light and warm.

  “Does she have a name yet?”

  “Anna, after our mother.”

  “And the birth went well? Mairi is all right?”

  “She is fine. Apparently it was a totally normal delivery, but she’s asleep at the moment. I stole the baby to come and show you.”

  “She’s very cute. How does Colin feel about his new daughter? He has come back hasn’t he?”

  “About an hour ago, when it was all over. Gillian told him it was a girl, and you know what he said, the yobbo?”

  “Nothing good, I gather.”

  “His words were, ‘A girl!What a piss off !’”

  Little Anna stirred and made soft smacking noises with her puckered mouth. Lisa rocked her. “Uh, uh, she’ll be wanting her momma’s boobie. I’d better get back.”

  “Thanks for bringing her.”

  Lisa was glowing with auntly pride. She kissed the sleeping baby on the cheek.

  “Ye’re going ta break their hearts are ye no, ma wee bonny babe?”

  Colin said his sister-in-law had had a hard life, and I gathered from the intensity of her Miss Havisham remark that the opposite sex was a big factor in her difficulties.

  She glanced at me over the top of the baby’s head. “When you hear the expression, ‘the miracle of birth’ you don’t really know what that means until you’ve actually been present at one, do you?”

  “My best friend asked me to be birth coach to my now-god-child. It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

  “Was her husband there?”

  “He was. While Paula went into the final stages of labour, he and I stood on either side of the hospital bed, calling out, PUSH! PUSH! for all the world as if we were rowing coaches. She said it helped though.”

  Lisa laughed. “Well I’ve never done the deed, and even though it was all so bloody marvellous, after watching what my sister went through, I don’t think I will. Being an aunt is good enough for me, thank you very much.”

  We both stared down at little Anna, who was getting fitful, waving one of her tiny fists in random movements.

  “That’s it. Make your demands known,” said Lisa.

  I could see this girl child was going to get quite a feminist education.

  “I’ll be away then. See you tomorrow at the funeral.” For a moment she looked sad. “Tormod would have liked to see the baby. He took an interest in Mairi’s pregnancy. Not like her ass-hole husband.”

  Lisa took the infant’s hand and waved it at me. “ Feasgar math. Good night.”

  I imitated her as best I could. “Feshga ma.”

  “That was very good. We’ll get you speaking the Gaelic in next to no time.”

  She left and I walked over to the window.

  Lisa had used the expression “the miracle of birth,” and her delight in the baby was apparent. I was overwhelmed by the memory of what we’d all kept euphemistically calling “the incident.”

  Little Anna had been so light in my arms because she was a newborn. When I’d picked up Sunny DeLuca, she was also light, but in her case it was because she had been starved. Sondra’s apartment was on the second floor of a dilapidated building near Parliament and Queen streets. We’d got an anonymous call that a baby had been crying non-stop, and the caller, a woman, thought there was nobody with it. Usually, Children’s Aid is called immediately, but this afternoon, there was a heavy snowfall and the worker was stuck on the Don Valley. I went to investigate and was there before anybody else, including the beat constable. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. I had to bang hard on the door before a young woman finally answered.

  “Good afternoon, Sondra here. Sondra with an O.” She was clearly stoned and grinned at me in a befuddled way. I
told her why I was there and she looked bewildered. “Sunny crying? She never does that; she’s such a good baby.”

  “Can I see her?” She made a grand gesture to usher me in that almost made her lose her balance. I stepped into one room. Even with the windows open, the room stank as if the toilet was blocked and had overflowed. This turned out to be true, but Sondra hadn’t reported it because she was so out of it she hadn’t noticed. Besides, she was hardly home. Her child didn’t have the luxury of getting out, and she was in her crib in the corner of the room. A man, who was the neighbour by the name of Anton Longboat, and who may have been Sunny’s father, was sprawled on the sagging couch watching a tiny television set. He didn’t speak to me at all and hardly seemed to notice I was there. I asked to see the child.

  “Be my guest,” said Sondra. “She’s sleeping.” She wasn’t. She was just lying there in her own excrement in the filthy crib. I must have made some exclamation, although I don’t remember doing that, and her enormous dark eyes looked into mine. She was physically alive, but the life of her soul had been extinguished a long time ago and would probably never return. I reached for my cell phone and started to dial 911.

  “We’ve got to get this child to the hospital at once.”

  Sondra came over to the crib. “Why? She’s fine. She just needs a little tittie, don’t you, Hon?” She tugged at her T-shirt to expose her breast. She was staggering, and as she went to pick up the baby, she almost toppled into the crib on top of her. I grabbed her arm.

  “Where are the child’s clothes? She’s going to the hospital.” Sondra scowled at me. “That hurt.” Her T-shirt was still pulled up and her flaccid breast was hanging over her bra. “She’ll be all right,” she said, and made another attempt to pick up the baby. She managed to lift her and the sodden diaper slipped off. The rash covering the thin buttocks was like a burn, raw and oozing. Sunny let out a wail, but she was so weak it was like listening to a kitten mew. “Oh, fuck you then,” said Sondra, and she dropped her roughly back into the crib.

  I could feel my own anger hot up my back and I knew I had lost all objectivity. “I’m asking you once more where the baby’s clothes are?”