It Shouldn't Happen to a Midwife! (8 page)

At this rate we were going to miss all buses heading into town. Sneakily, I checked my watch but Miss MacCready didn't notice – she was on a roll. ‘She didn't know where she'd been nor,' she paused for a moment, looked shiftily at Jo as if a man reading a newspaper constituted danger, then, bending low, she whispered, ‘who she'd been with!'

A kirby grip fell to the floor, the bouffant threatened to topple, then straightening and cranking up the volume she continued, crying in genuine horror, ‘Or how many!'

Jo shook his paper like someone reading something much more interesting whilst Miss MacCready righted herself, looked at her watch and sighed. ‘Anyway, I should be off duty. Jo here will let you in when and if you come back. Now hurry or you'll miss that bus.'

‘We'll be very careful,' we reassured her and tramped out into a night where the most threatening of company was an evil little wind. It pounced on us as if lonely. Clamouring for attention it whooped and whined, tugging and plucking on clothes so lacking in tartan, hypothermia seemed inevitable. It wailed in a desolate way as we caught the bus and stepped into a fag-filled fug no wind could dissipate .

Clad in a frill mostly, Seonaid seemed impervious to the cold and sat glued to the window of our bus as it racketed down the Falls Road past its tenement houses, a news vender provocatively bawling ‘
Protestant Cooorrier
, sixpence only!', small shops fluttering orange and green flags, pawn brokers and big churches. Finally, we arrived at the warmer flirty girl that was Belfast's city centre.

There were glamorous clothes in brightly-lit shop windows. They promised sophistication likely to feature in the nearby hotels and restaurants and where a student midwife's monthly pay could have gone on the first course. The more tangible prospect of fish 'n' chips was on offer along busy streets where music spilt out from crowded bars.

‘Do you not have singing pubs then?' asked Seonaid, fingers sliding over a pokeful of grease. We were standing in a queue of depressingly pretty girls all apparently heading for Seonaid's promised evening of local culture.

‘No. Drinking in Scotland is considered a serious affair demanding single-minded attention, and if folk want to hear music they go home and listen to their trannies or records.'

‘They don't sound like party people. Even if I haven't a player at least I have a record. Herb Alpert. He's great for parties.' Seonaid emptied the bag into her mouth, tidying its corner with a delicate finger. ‘Anytime I get invited anywhere, I take my record with me so I get to hear it.'

‘Maybe you could get another, or be radical – go for a complete change and buy one from them, start a collection.' I nodded at a Bedford bus parked nearby with the Showband's name palsy-hand painted on its side and from which the band was now descending.

‘Sure, the one I've got's plenty and it's boring carrying too much stuff.' She folded the bag tidily then popped it in my pocket. ‘Look, we're moving.'

The queue streamed into a barn of a place where a Daisy lookalike exchanged our coats for a ticket before adding them to the pile on her desk.

‘And there'll be no smoking,' she adjured, which was surprising considering that once into the hall proper it was so smoke-filled we could just make out the band on a platform at the far end.

‘They'll be the warm-ups, come on!'

I followed Seonaid as she pushed her way to the front to see a group in such bright gear they looked like a row of Wurlitzers. Despite the lead singer, cough mixture bottle in hand, pouring his heart into a song of betrayal in Belfast, the audience was unimpressed and felt particularly free to say so.

‘Can ye not think of another tune, we're sick of hearing that oulde yoke,' someone shouted whilst a penny landed on the stage.

Without missing a beat the guitarist picked it up and flung it back. ‘It's a bad penny!' he shouted, which was just enough to trigger a steady metal downpour and give a whole new meaning to the term ‘warming up'.

‘So come all you jolly young fellows,' continued the singer, now unaccompanied on account of his team fully occupied returning fire, ‘a warning take by me.'

‘You've missed out a verse,' shouted someone who must have thought it safe to shout from the back.

An argument broke out, followed by a scuffle, and soon the place was heaving with people firing pennies and shoving to get to the front. Valiantly the singer continued, determined to finish his set before his Friar's Balsam ran out.

The band started to pocket the money and make way for the Showband, whilst running out of steam and ammunition, the audience started to settle down and chat as if this was an evening of genteel social interaction. Close by I glimpsed, deep in conversation with a leggy brunette, one of our medical students. In the conservative gear of a bank manager he looked like he was promoting the joy of saving to a spendthrift customer.

‘I see your man's here.' Seonaid had spotted his friend, sartorially clad in a flowery pink shirt and purple hipsters. His white patent leather belt looked like a bandage restraining a Guinness gut.

‘He's not my man,' I said. ‘And by the look of things the other one's not hers either.' The brunette had stomped off, presumably taking her overdraft with her whilst the bank manager wandered off, loosening his tie, as if suddenly unemployed.

The Showband took the stage with the confidence of men who knew a thing or two about music and, in their spiv padded-shouldered suits, self defence. A quick nod amongst themselves, a trumpeted intro, then in perfect unison they blasted forth. Like a response to an activating switch, the hall became a hot, sweaty, throbbing vortex of flying heels and jiving moves.

‘Are ye dancin?' The floor bounced, the music swung and Seonaid, with her asking partner, began to move at such gyroscopic speed their clothes blurred into a white to match his belt.

On account of my limited stride I had to settle for a stately saloon drive round the floor with a red-faced farmer up for a night in the city who found the noise and smoke so overwhelming he suggested a turn outside. Having learnt that Irish talk could mean different things, I declined.

‘Suit yourself,' he shrugged, meaning ‘your loss', and minutes later I saw him dancing with someone less restricted. Hours later and using a red lightly grease-garnished hanky to mop his brow, he was still apparently coping without farm-fresh air and staying for the last chord.

‘We're getting a lift home from Raymond and Oliver,' said Seonaid, throwing on her coat. ‘They're going our way.'

‘You mean the likely lads?'

‘Uh-huh. They've got a van. It's red. Raymond says it's his, we can't miss it and we should meet outside.'

Still miffed by the farmer I hoped he noticed us climbing aboard a tomato on wheels. It was fun if you relished a contortionist challenge of sitting in the back on the floor and didn't mind your dress and knees hiked up to your neck. I was sitting on something hard. It was another ancient pelvis. The Belfast Midwifery School must be buying them in bulk.

‘I see you've brought the family heirloom,' I said to Oliver, who was already installed in the front passenger seat.

‘Mind how you go with that – we need it for Prof. McQuaid's lecture. If we don't get the dreaded Mechanism lecture, we're out.'

As he sat grim-faced, I could have suggested there were alternative careers, even if graduation from a charm school might prove difficult, but I didn't fancy walking home, and Raymond with a carefree laugh was already throwing himself into the driver's seat.

‘Welcome aboard, girls! I see you've met Oliver. You'll have to forgive me friend. He's got a broken heart. His girlfriend's just gone and ditched him, so she has.'

‘I'll get over it but not being thrown out of medicine so mind what you do with that pelvis.' Oliver was sour.

‘Here! You look after it then. We've got our own.' Seonaid thrust it at him. ‘Listen.' She snapped elastic of a personal nature. ‘That's me own pelvic girdle and at least ours are always with us.'

We collapsed in girlish mirth whilst Oliver emanated disapproval and Raymond shouting, ‘Gas!' shot through red traffic lights managing to include a kerb or two.

I asked if Oliver's relationship had been long-term. Bent on gloom, he nodded. ‘Four years.'

‘Crivvens! You must've been courting in short trousers.'

Raymond slapped the steering wheel in amusement. ‘It's the way you say it! Courrtin' in shorrrt trrousers!' He managed to beat another set of lights before the exhaust pipe rattled and fell off.

Unconcerned, he said, ‘Ach, sure, at least they'll hear us coming,' and putting his foot down hard, hit the Falls Road fast.

In the watches of the night it looked even less inviting, with the churches in darkness and the smaller buildings cowering under them as if they'd been bullied into submission. We raced past small, shuttered shops, barred businesses and a closed cinema. It might have been a perfect setting for a horror movie but at least there was nobody around to complain about noise until we reached Bostock House and Jo came out to investigate.

‘Would ye be stopping that racket now,' he said, peering into the car. ‘If the MacCready was here she'd have had you arrested.'

Bar a day in the week under Miss Harvey's governessy care, we were now getting experience in the hospital proper. I was in the Labour Suite and constantly worried about who was coming through those swing doors. Every patient admitted would need reassurance, an assessment, then constant vigilant care. Since everybody's needs were different, the work was challenging.

It was a relief to get off duty and join Seonaid. We went to see Marie, whose agonies over work with the tinies in the Special Care Nursery started to make the labour ward feel like a course in relaxation .

‘It's a terrible responsibility, so it is,' sighed Marie, ‘and desperate hard to imagine any of them surviving. All those little lives hanging by a thread.' She looked at her hands, spread them and held them up. ‘Some of them are no bigger than these and I can't stop wondering what's going to happen to them if and when they get home. They're just so helpless.'

Seonaid stopped bouncing on the bed for a moment. ‘Well, here's something to cheer ye up. I've good news about Mrs Murphy. She's in my post-natal ward and recovering faster from her Caesarean than finding her old fella's kindly allowed her to have a sterilisation. Now would that not warm your little oulde heart?' She slid off the bed and did a graceful pirouette.

It didn't impress Marie. ‘I suppose so, but what about the babby?' She sighed and rubbed her brow. ‘Everybody's talked about that mammy and daddy but d'you notice nobody's ever mentioned the wee dote? It's as if he's just an item.' If it had been anybody else but Marie she'd have sounded angry. ‘Sure an' he must have had an awful shock arriving in the world so quickly.'

‘Better than squashed through a tunnel sideways.' Seonaid was dismissive. ‘And he's grand. Lovely wee fella. Doin' well. Thriving.'

‘Thanks be to—' Marie's look dared me to interrupt ‘—God!'

I said nothing so she rushed on. ‘Some of my poor wee lambs are so frail they might die without even being christened.' She twisted her hands in anguish and bit her lip.

‘I'm sure God won't mind.' I meant it kindly. ‘I expect he's got a nice selection of names for them to choose from.'

Marie allowed herself a crafty smile. ‘Ah, but he won't have to bother. I give them a wee christening when nobody's looking.'

‘Well I hope you whisper it,' said Seonaid, suddenly looked serious. ‘Different faiths mightn't like you putting yours in over theirs. Anyway, what names do you give them?'

‘That's easy! Marie or Mario. Anyway, God'll change them if need be – and,' Marie was triumphant, ‘I just say it inside my head when I'm taking a drop of water from the incubator's cooling system to make a wee cross on their foreheads. They don't seem to mind and at least if anything does happen to them God'll know they've already been blessed.' The thought seemed to cheer her up.

The next day on my way past the nursery I wondered what names were swirling about those incubator occupants Marie was so zealously christening. At least Mary-Jo was already named and actually giving Marie a rare moment of optimism.

‘She's thriving, out of her incubator, and making such progress she'll soon be running the Nursery.' Marie gave a fond chuckle. ‘Then her mammy's getting confident handling her, and even her daddy's been in. Handling her like a professional and dying to get her home. It shouldn't be long now.'

However, I couldn't linger. Sister Flynn's demanding punctuality ruled, so I hurried to the Labour Suite from which this morning not even the unborn would be exempt.

‘Come on now, Nurse Macpherson, we've a whole morning of overdue babies to induce and you're late.' She had the slight figure of an athlete with a running step that made you feel breathless just watching. Now she was hurtling a loaded trolley towards me at such breakneck speed I thought she mightn't brake in time.

‘Here. This soap needs diluting.' She took a jar from the trolley and thrust it at me. ‘The whole hospital's crying for it. Hurry on now!' Sounding like a late milk float, the trolley with its driver flashed past.

Given that I was not yet allowed near a patient other than for chasing autographs to prove I'd witnessed deliveries, making an elixir of enema soap must be a sign of promotion. I went to the cubbyhole of a kitchen where the sink was stacked full of dirty dishes and the cooker looked like a discarded chip supper.

I knew that when administered via a rectal tube, enema soap caused a dramatic rush to the toilet, but I didn't know much about its other properties. On a voyage of discovery, I threw a handful of the thick green soapy glue into a big pan of boiling water and stirred.