The Pull of the Stars

by Emma Donoghue

  I spread the cooked linseed onto lint, laid a gauze dressing over that, and placed a layer of sterilised linen over the gauze. I flipped the whole thing between her limp breasts and covered it with a flannelette bandage. The tails needed tying behind her back and around her slumped shoulders, but between us, Bridie Sweeney and I made short work of it. I wouldn’t have begrudged the time spent on all this fiddly faff if I’d believed that poulticing was any real use.

  Ita Noonan’s breath heaved and creaked. I gave her a spoon of ipecac syrup as an expectorant to loosen her congestion, hoping it wouldn’t make her throw up. She screwed up her face at the taste but didn’t fight me.

  A minute later she coughed up some seaweed-coloured sputum. I caught it in her handkerchief, which I gave to Bridie to throw down the incinerator.

  Bridie took a while to come back, so when she did, I asked, Got lost? Fell down a chute?

  Bridie Sweeney admitted, Sorry, I lingered in the water closet. The little bolt on the door so you can be private, and lashings of gorgeous hot water, and such nice squares of paper. I’m liking hospital.

  That made me laugh.

  Especially the smells.

  I thought, Eucalyptus, linseed, carbolic? Whiskey, at the moment? For me they couldn’t cover up the faecal, bloody tang of birth and death.

  I told her, It’s usually much more orderly here. You’ve caught us on the hop, rather. More than twice as many patients as usual and a quarter of the staff.

  Her face lit up, I supposed because I was including her in the word staff, as a helper.

  It struck me that she was a beauty in a white-faced, bony way; a precious bead winking in a dustbin. I wondered where Sister Luke had found her. Do you live near by, Miss Sweeney?

  Only around the corner.

  Tone a little evasive. Still with her parents, I assumed from how young she seemed. How old are you, do you mind my asking?

  She shrugged. About twenty-two.

  A coy way of putting it, about twenty-two. Well, I didn’t want to poke my nose in.

  She surprised me by asking, Would you call me Bridie, maybe?

  Certainly, if you prefer.

  I didn’t quite know what to say after that, so I checked my watch. It’s getting on towards noon, so you should have your lunch now.

  I didn’t bring one, but I’m all right.

  No, no, meals are laid on for us in a canteen beside the kitchen.

  She still hesitated. What about you?

  Oh, I’m not hungry yet.

  There was nothing to be done about her frock or shoes, but…You might just roll down your sleeves and tidy your hair before you go down.

  Flushing, Bridie felt for the fuzz of bright curls that had escaped and pulled them back out of her face.

  I regretted mentioning it; she was here only for the day, after all, so how much could her grooming matter?

  She wrestled with the rubber band.

  I asked, Don’t you have a comb with you?

  She shook her head.

  I went to my bag and found her a hard rubber one.

  Bridie made her head smooth, then held out the comb. Thanks for the lend.

  Keep it, I said.

  No!

  Really, I much prefer my other one. It looks like tortoiseshell but it’s made of celluloid.

  Stop wittering, Julia, I told myself.

  A baritone crooned in the passage—Groyne.

  Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?

  Do you think that we’ll be there before the night?

  Delia Garrett complained: That awful man who brought me in yesterday.

  The orderly pushed through the door backwards. He reminded me of that macabre servant out of Frankenstein.

  In lieu of a greeting, I commented, Always a song on your lips, Groyne.

  He sketched a music-hall bow in my direction, then spun the wheelchair around to present the new patient. A young woman—a girl, I’d have said, except for her bump—with coal-black hair and a face full of fear.

  Another lovely for your select sisterhood. Baby coming soon, but Maternity wouldn’t have her on account of her cough.

  I glanced at the chart Groyne handed me. Just one line scribbled at the top: Mary O’Rahilly, age seventeen, primigravida.

  Women who’d given birth before were known quantities even if one could never be quite certain what would happen on the day. A first-timer such as Mary O’Rahilly was a different story. The admitting physician hadn’t even estimated a due date; he must be hard-pressed today.

  Mrs. O’Rahilly, let’s get you out of that wheelchair.

  She stood for me with no apparent difficulty but trembled. Chills, I wondered, or nerves, or both? Short and slim, dwarfed by her great bulge. I patted the chair at the end of the middle cot and said, Sit here till we get you changed.

  The orderly pushed the empty wheelchair towards the door.

  Groyne, any word of when we can expect to see this new doctor?

  Ah, the lady rebel!

  Gossip was meat and drink to the man. I wasn’t in the habit of encouraging tittle-tattle, but this time I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from arching.

  He asked, Haven’t you heard of her?

  You’re implying she’s one of the Sinn Féiners?

  (The Gaelic phrase meant us-aloners. They went around ranting that home rule wouldn’t be enough now; nothing would content them but a breakaway republic.)

  Implying nothing, Groyne told me. Miss Lynn’s a vicar’s daughter from Mayo gone astray—a socialist, suffragette, anarchist firebrand!

  This sounded improbably lurid, and the orderly did tend to bad-mouth any woman set over him. But the details were so specific.

  A vicar’s daughter, I asked, really?

  Most of those green-wearing Erin-lovers may be Catholics like ourselves, but there’s the odd Proddy eccentric in their ranks, he said disgustedly. (He didn’t notice the cold look Delia Garrett gave him.) This one was a she-captain, no less, back in the Rising. It was her stitched up the bullet wounds of those terrorist pups on the roof of City Hall.

  He pointed up towards the office on the third floor and added, Top brass must be really scraping the barrel, all right.

  Well, I said uncomfortably, I suppose it’s hardly a time to be picky.

  The new patient’s eyes were bulging as she said, The hospital’s hired a criminal?

  The orderly nodded. Miss Lynn was deported with the rest of the pack, locked up in Britain—but then weren’t they let out last year, for all the blood on their hands, and came slinking back?

  I had to rein in this conversation before panic spread.

  Politics aside, I said, I’m sure Dr. Lynn wouldn’t have been called in today if she were not a capable physician.

  My emphasis on her title made Groyne smirk. Ah, I’ll say no more.

  That was the orderly’s inevitable phrase when he had a great deal more to say. He was settling in now, leaning on the handles of the wheelchair as if on a bar. These days, a fellow can’t let slip a word against the gentler sex—so called! A female delivering my post, munitionettes, girls putting out fires, even. Where will it all end?

  We mustn’t keep you, Groyne.

  He took my hint. Best of luck, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

  He waltzed off, warbling to the wheelchair: Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?

  Bridie remarked, He’s a gas, that fellow.

  My lips twisted.

  Don’t you care for him, Nurse Power?

  Groyne’s humour is a little dark for my taste.

  She said, Well, you have to laugh.

  The two of us got Mary O’Rahilly’s shawl, dress, and drawers off, though we left her stockings on for warmth. She shivered and shuddered. We drew a nightdress over her smooth black hair. So you’ll be more comfortable, I always said, but changing their clothes was really a matter of hygiene; some patients came in crawling with lice. In a properly equipped ward, I’d have steamed Mary O’Rahilly’s own clothes, just in
case, but as it was, all I could do was tell Bridie to wrap them up in paper and put them on the top shelf. I showed her how to draw the tapes of the nightdress closed at the patient’s sides. I got a bed jacket on the girl and a hospital shawl wrapped around her neck.

  Mary O’Rahilly’s face creased up and she stiffened.

  I waited till it was over. How strong was that pang, dear?

  (We were trained not to call them bad.)

  Not too strong, I suppose.

  Then again, I thought, a first-timer had no basis for comparison. I asked, Do you know when your baby’s due?

  Faintly: My neighbour says November, maybe.

  Your last menses?

  Her face flickered with confusion.

  Your monthly?

  She went pink. I couldn’t tell you, sorry. Last winter sometime?

  I wouldn’t bother trying to reckon from when she’d felt the first foetal movements, because a primigravida rarely registered the quickening till it was too late to be a useful marker.

  And these pangs—whereabouts have you been feeling them mostly?

  Mary O’Rahilly gestured vaguely to her belly.

  I knew that was more typical of false labour; warning shots, rather than the full onslaught, which tended to hit in the back. This girl might be weeks from delivery still.

  I pressed her: How much of a break do you get between them?

  An unhappy shrug.

  Does it vary?

  I can’t remember.

  Irregularity, stopping and starting—that all sounded like false labour. And tell me, Mrs. O’Rahilly, how long have you been having these pangs?

  I don’t know.

  Hours?

  Days.

  One day and night for the dilating of the cervix was common enough. But surely, if this was the real thing, Mary O’Rahilly would be farther along after days of it?

  A catch in her voice: Does that mean it’s coming?

  Ah, we’ll see soon enough.

  But that man said—

  I couldn’t restrain a small snort. Groyne was a military stretcher-bearer, I told her. He picked up a lot about wounds and fevers, no doubt, but not much about childbearing.

  I thought that might make Mary O’Rahilly smile, but she was too rigid with worry. Like most of my patients—even the multigravidas—she’d probably never been admitted to hospital before.

  As I carried on taking her history, I was looking out for hints of problems ahead. Rickets, above all, such a curse in the inner city—children’s teeth came in late, they didn’t walk until two, they had curvature of the ribs or legs or spine. But no, Mary O’Rahilly was only small, with a pelvis in proportion to the rest of her. No puffiness to suggest her kidneys were acting up. She’d had a perfectly healthy pregnancy until she’d caught this grippe.

  She shivered, coughed into the back of her little hand. I’ve been so careful, Nurse. Gargling with cider vinegar and drinking it too.

  I nodded neutrally. Some placed their trust in treacle to ward off this flu, others in rhubarb, as if there had to be one household substance that could save us all. I’d even met fools who credited their safety to the wearing of red.

  I rested my hand with the watch in it on Mary O’Rahilly’s chest so I could count her breaths without her noticing. The rate of respiration was up somewhat, between her spluttering coughs. I tucked a thermometer under her tongue. Pulse regular but slightly weak, I added to her chart. By the way, these blue marks on your wrist, did you have a fall? Were you dizzy, was that it?

  She shook her head. I just bruise easy, she mumbled.

  When I checked the mercury after a minute, her temperature was only a little above normal. I told her, Yours isn’t a bad case at all.

  Bridie and I helped her into the middle cot. (Eileen Devine’s deathbed.)

  Stop, don’t think that way, would you jinx this poor girl?

  Mary O’Rahilly said, in her breathy murmur, People are afraid to go near each other, it can pounce so fast! The other day, the peelers smashed down a door in the tenement behind ours and found a whole family expired on the one mattress.

  I nodded, thinking it rather awful that the neighbours hadn’t gone near them before that point…but how could one judge in times of such general dread?

  I needed her on her back so I could feel her abdomen. It might hurt if the bladder was full, so I asked if she wanted the lavatory first.

  She shook her head.

  Delia Garrett snappishly: I need to go, as it happens.

  Bridie offered to bring her.

  I dithered. All right, I suppose, if you keep a firm hold of Mrs. Garrett so she won’t fall.

  Why on earth would I fall?

  When they were gone, I checked on Ita Noonan, who was still in her vaporous daze.

  Back to Mary O’Rahilly. I lifted up her nightdress but covered her privates and thighs with a sheet. Like many an adolescent mother, she had dramatic purple claw marks on the underside of her bump; tight young skin wasn’t used to being stretched so. However, the good thing about her age was that her body should bounce back afterwards.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, facing her head. I rubbed my palms hard to take the chill off them, but she jumped when I put them on her.

  Sorry, they’ll warm up. Try to relax your belly for me.

  I slid my hands from one spot to the next without lifting them; crucial not to tap as if playing piano because that made the muscles contract. I shut my eyes and tried to picture Mary O’Rahilly’s inner landscape based on what my hands told me. There it was, the firm top of the uterus, six finger-widths above her navel; she was full term or close to it. So the flu hadn’t managed to shake this particular nut out of its shell early, thank God.

  One foetus only. (We dreaded twins.) Normal presentation, head down and facing the spine. I found the small bottom and traced the arc of the back downward. Your baby’s in just the right position.

  It is?

  The head seemed nicely lodged in the pelvis. Not that this told me whether she was in true labour or not, because in first-timers, the skull could lock into place a full month before birth.

  Bridie came back in with Delia Garrett, perched on the bed on the other side of Mary O’Rahilly, and took her hand without asking. What are you doing now, Nurse Power?

  If you’ll get me that thing on the top shelf that looks like an ear trumpet, I’m going to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. Nice deep breaths for me, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

  I placed the wide end of the wooden horn against her belly on the side where I’d felt the back but below the midpoint, and I put the narrow end to my ear.

  What—

  That was Bridie; I shushed her with a finger to my lips. I counted, staring at the second hand on my watch.

  Foetal heart rate 138 beats per minute, I recorded, quite normal.

  A cough spasmed through Mary O’Rahilly, so I got her sitting up and sent Bridie over to the kettle to make her a hot lemonade. In the meantime, I had the young mother drink a tall glass of water. When her next pang started, I checked my watch—twenty minutes since the last. I settled her on her left side and told her to breathe in for a count of three, out for three, and repeat. If these were only warning shots, the combination of water, position, and breathing should ease them.

  I checked on Ita Noonan—still asleep.

  All right, Mrs. Garrett? Any more looseness?

  She clucked her tongue. Quite the other way around, I’m all bunged up now.

  It puzzled me how she could be feeling constipated so soon after diarrhea.

  Mary O’Rahilly’s small, uneasy humming stopped.

  I asked, Would you say that that one was about the same or milder?

  She answered confusedly: About the same?

  Probably true labour, I decided. But if her pangs were still coming at only twenty-minute intervals after more than a day…oh, dear, the girl could have a long way to go still.

  Though of course, the last thing I wanted was for one of my
patients to start delivering in this cramped little room when there wasn’t a single obstetrician in the hospital.

  An internal examination to find out how far the cervix was dilated would tell me more, but I was holding off because it had been drilled into me that every time one’s hand went inside a woman, one ran some risk of infecting her.

  When in doubt, I’d been taught, watch and wait.

  You know what might help is if you felt able to walk around, Mrs. O’Rahilly.

  (That could help the cervix dilate, and it distracted the woman and gave her something to do.)

  Startled, she asked: Walk where?

  I wracked my brain. I couldn’t send infectious patients to roam the corridors, but there wasn’t room to swing a cat in here…Just up and down, around your bed. Here, we’ll get these chairs out of the way. Sip your lemonade as you go.

  Bridie had the chairs stacked and tucked in under the desk before I could ask.

  Mary O’Rahilly stepped cautiously around the bed and back again in a U.

  All right? Are you warm enough?

  Yes, thank you, miss.

  Nurse Power, I corrected her gently.

  Sorry.

  No bother.

  Mary O’Rahilly was clutching her bump through the nightdress, poking one finger into her navel.

  I asked, Is that where it hurts?

  She shook her head and caught a cough with the back of her hand. Just wondering how I’ll know when it’s about to open.

  I stared. Your belly button?

  Her voice trembled as she paced. Does it do it on its own or will the doctor have to…force it?

  I was embarrassed for her. Mrs. O’Rahilly, you know that’s not where the baby comes out?

  The girl blinked at me.

  Think of where it got started. I waited, then whispered: Below.

  The information shook her; she opened her mouth wide, then clamped it shut and coughed again, eyes shiny.

  Bridie was standing on Mary O’Rahilly’s other side holding Jellett’s Midwifery, which she hadn’t asked if she could take down. Here, look, you can see the top of the baby’s head, and in the next…

  She flipped the page.

  …it’s sticking right out of her!

  Mary O’Rahilly flinched at the graphic images but nodded, absorbing the lesson. Then walked away as if she couldn’t bear to see any more.