A Stitch in Time (16 page)

‘Whoa there! What do ya think you’re doin’? Martha shrieked.

‘You asked me to wash the dishes …’

‘Not in the drinkin’ water. I boiled that this mornin’ and you gonna dump the dirty plates in it?’

‘Then where?’

Martha shook her head in disbelief and pointed at the scum bucket.

‘But … it’s dirty, Martha.’

‘It ain’t too bad. You know as well as I do that we have to be careful. We have a few barrels of water in the barn and the well is half-full but there’s no tellin’ how long Joe’ll be. Until he comes back with the wagon we can’t haul no extra water from the creek. And our once-a-week bathing will have to go to two weeks for now, I guess.’

Sarah nodded but couldn’t bring herself to answer. The details about lack of water and consequent lack of hygiene of the homesteaders were not news to her ears, but it was one thing knowing about it and quite another having to physically live like it. Could she really bring herself to eat the pancakes Martha was now flipping on the stove? On the other hand, if she was here any length of time, she wouldn’t survive if she didn’t eat. Perhaps the Sarah she was ‘kind of working in tandem’ with, to quote John, had built up immunity to most of the dirt over the years.

The bathing once every two weeks was equally alien to a woman who showered daily. Strange that she couldn’t smell much body odour. She had been able to in the last two trips. Perhaps she had been spared that, as it must be pretty fearsome.

‘Pancakes are ready; you’d better call your boy in,’ Martha said, setting three dubiously smeared plates at the table.

Sarah went to the door. ‘Artie, pancake’s ready!’

‘He won’t be able to hear that, go out and git him.’

Sarah set off to the barn. It was clear that Martha was the woman of the house, even though she was the younger sister. She and Joe had obviously taken pity on Sarah and Artie after her husband had been killed. A quick reccy of the barn revealed a missing Artie. The remaining horse and saddle had gone and hoof prints led away across the dirt path and then were lost in the yellowing grass of the plains. The direction pointed towards a black smudge on the far horizon. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Sarah thought that the smudge was possibly another homestead, though she couldn’t be sure. Another smaller smudge appeared to be moving away from her and towards it. She sighed. That must be Artie.

Damn him, he’s obviously gone to see Abe whatsit, after all.
There was no way she could go after him; it looked to be a good five miles she guessed.

Sarah walked back to the house. Martha wouldn’t be pleased, heavily pregnant in this heat, the crops eaten by hoppers, her husband gone until God knows when, and now her nephew goes AWOL and ignored pancakes wasting on the fly-ridden table.
Hm, things could be worse I guess.

‘
Aaarghhh
, Sarah!’ Martha’s fearful yell carried towards her on the hot prairie wind.

Shit, sounds like things just got worse …

Sarah raced the last few feet, hoping to God that she wouldn’t find a rattlesnake side winding away under the table, or a Native American with Martha’s hair in one hand, his scalping knife in the other.

Sarah smashed the door open, adrenaline coursing through her veins like a freight train, and expected the worst. Of all the fearful scenarios that had hurtled through her mind over the last few seconds, this wasn’t one of them. There was Martha on all fours in the dirt, sweat pouring down her face, her eyes bright with pain.

‘Do somethin’, the baby’s comin’ early!’

Sarah’s heart plummeted and her legs shook … damn it, why the hell couldn’t it have been a rattlesnake?

The send key was jabbed with such ferocity that it stuck in the keypad, and then the mobile phone flew across the room and smacked into the cushions on the sofa. Who the hell did these creatures think they were? John poured himself a whisky and paced the length of his living room. The report had just come through saying that Sarah was getting bogged down in feelings surplus to requirement. Surplus to requirement? Feelings were feelings weren’t they?

The boy Artie had apparently stirred deep emotions in Sarah about the loss of opportunity to become a mother. Time taken up with this could lead to a clouding of judgement, and for the moment, John’s request for permission to be with Sarah was therefore on hold, pending the outcome of this mission.

John marched to the phone. The only person who would understand what he was going through was his dad. ‘Dad, you’ll never guess what the arrogant bastards have said now! I told them in no uncertain terms where to shove it!’

‘Calm down, John … Right what’s happened?’ Harry soothed. John told him. ‘Well, they do have a point. I told you it wouldn’t be easy when I came over the other week, and—’

‘Oh, that’ll be right, take their side. I thought you’d understand because of you and Mum,’ John said bitterly.

‘It’s because of me and your mother that I’m saying all this. Don’t you remember that Christmas Eve when she got stuck in that Cuba job in the middle of the sodding missile crisis? You were only ten and cried yourself to sleep. Neither of us knew if she would be back at all!’

John sighed. How could he forget? When she had returned on Christmas Day morning it had been the best present they could have wished for. ‘Yes, Dad, but that was a one-off; she never got stuck after that and it wasn’t her fault either …’

‘Trying to brush it all under the carpet won’t help. If you and Sarah stay together, then the road ahead will be far from smooth and plain sailing and you know it.’

‘But they said that she is getting emotional … Isn’t that what it’s all about, getting emotional? Actually caring about putting things right, mending the holes of despair opening up in time everywhere?’

‘Of course, and that’s why your mum was one of the best. But there is a point when your heart needs to take a back seat to your head in order to complete a mission successfully.’ Harry sighed. ‘Anyway, you know all this … Just be sure that she’s the one for you and—’

‘She is, Dad. I’m sure of that,’ John interrupted. ‘I know I said I wasn’t sure the other week, but I am now.’

‘I know that, but if you’d let me finish. I was going to say that the powers that be will only agree to it if she loves you back one hundred per cent, too. If she’s not strong enough then, well …’

Harry left the rest unsaid.

John chatted to his dad about more mundane things for a while and then ended the call. He walked through the house and out on to the patio. There was a nip in the air that hadn’t been there earlier. Perhaps it was a chill in his heart and nothing to do with the temperature at all. The rolling Yorkshire hills before his eyes gave way to the flat plains of Kansas in his imagination. He so wished he could be there with Sarah to help her through, to tell her it wasn’t his idea to send her to be Artie’s mum, that it was just unfortunate and that it couldn’t be helped.

He also wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her. She’d only been gone a short while, but his body ached for hers. The breeze blew up the valley, stirring the meadow grass and scudding clouds danced over it, casting shadows on a green sea. John shuddered and hugged himself. He had thought himself in love with Josephina, and when she had left him he had been devastated. But what he had felt for her could be placed on the head of a pin compared to the all-consuming, world-rocking love he felt for Sarah.

He smiled at the memory of her kisses and the way she pulled a face, her head on one side and her nose scrunched up, when she didn’t understand something. His name on her lips sounded new and fresh, and the way she slipped her arm through his and looked into his eyes when they were walking made him feel like he was the most important man in the world.

John’s smile slowly faded and a frown furrowed his brow. Something that his dad had said niggled him. What if Sarah didn’t love him enough? What if she couldn’t handle the job and everything that would come with a relationship such as theirs? And anyway, wasn’t it selfish of him to expect her to? Right now she was in another dimension and he could do bugger all to help her. Was that fair; did he have the right to ask her to give up normality and everything she had been used to?

John gave a heavy sigh, and with one last look across the hills to the imagined landscape of nineteenth-century Kansas and Sarah struggling alone in emotional turmoil, he turned and walked back into the house.

Hot towels and water
 …
or was it hot water and towels?
Sarah’s brain had turned to guacamole. She gaped at Martha panting on the floor, and was totally incapable of rational thought or movement.

‘Sarah, help me!’

The panic in Martha’s voice helped Sarah find her own. ‘When you say early … how early?’

‘What? You know it’s due August … so about a month I think … git some sheets off the bed.’

Sheets off the bed, yes that’s right, she can’t possibly give birth on to the dirt floor.

Come on, Sarah, get your act together.
Sarah raced into the bedroom and stripped the bed of sheets and pillows. She noticed a few stained towels on a chair and grabbed those, too; boil some water next, that was it, yes, hot water and towels. She thought of the water in the other room, and shook her head. God knew if any baby would survive this standard of hygiene … let alone a premature one.

‘Sarah?’

‘Yes, I’m,
hic
, here,’ Sarah said, easing a sheet under Martha. She noticed the floor was damp. That must mean her waters had broken. She also noticed she had hiccups. That must mean that this was the life she had to save. Great, thanks for that, John.

Martha hitched her dress up. ‘I feel like I need to push … God, it hurts so much … how did you ever get through this?
Aaargh!
’

Given that Sarah hadn’t actually had a child, she had no clue, but said, ‘It’ll all be,
hic
, over soon, honey. Bite on that,
hic
, pillow and just keep,
hic
, goin’.’

She ran over to the stove and put a pan of water on to boil. Now what else? In her mind she saw the baby slip out, her washing it with warm water and … ah yes, cutting the cord. Sarah’s hands hovered over a knife and a pair of scissors. She picked up the scissors and dropped them into the pan on the stove. Then she ladled ‘clean’ water into a cup and dropped a rag into that.

Rushing back to Martha, she kicked dust into her eye. ‘Damn it, doncha think I’m in enough pain?’

‘Yes,
hic
, sorry,
hic
!’ She dipped the rag into the cool water, bathed Martha’s forehead and wished she could do more. There would be no pain relief available here. Chloroform and ether had become fairly common for some sections of society at this time, but there was still opposition to it and there could be side effects.

Martha screwed her face up and turned a deep red as she pushed. ‘
Gahh!
Can you see anything back there?’

Sarah took a deep breath. She much preferred being at the ‘mopping end’ with a rag. Still, she had to look sometime. She shuffled along and took a peak. God, she could see the head! Her squeamish feelings disappeared as she saw a new life ready to enter the world. All of a sudden the hiccups went, new confidence arrived, and Sarah was ready.

Perhaps it was an autopilot instinct that comes to all women at these times, or perhaps it was the episodes of
One Born Every Minute
that she’d watched; whatever it was, she felt more in control and relatively calm.

‘Won’t be long now, Martha. Just a few more pushes and then the head should be ready to be born. When that happens, I want you to pant, like this,
huh
,
huh
,
huh
, not too quickly, OK?’

‘What? Why?’

Sarah didn’t really remember one hundred per cent, but said, ‘Because that will stop you having a tear … hopefully.’ That’s all she needed, being a Stitch in time
and
having to stitch up a woman after childbirth, too.

A few minutes later the head was on its way out. ‘OK, do the panting thing, like I told you. The head should come out by itself now,’ Sarah said, mopping Martha’s head again.

‘It’s stinging,
huh
,
huh
,
huh
.’

‘That’s it, it’s comin’, you’re doing grand, Martha,’ Sarah said, watching the baby turn and then slip free of its mother into her hands. ‘It’s a girl!’ she yelled, grabbing the cleanest towel she could find to wrap gently around it. Another instinct/memory told her the next move. ‘Right, Martha, can you git round and lie with your head on these pillows, the baby needs to be on your chest, next to your skin.’

Martha took a second to get her breath, undid the buttons on her dress, and crawled round and on to her back. Sarah placed Martha’s tiny daughter on her chest and blinked back tears of joy when she saw the tender look of love in Martha’s eyes as she lifted the baby’s tiny hand. Martha stopped smiling. ‘She ain’t breathin’.’ She looked up at Sarah with terror in her eyes. ‘She ain’t breathin’!’

Sarah fell to her knees and lifted the little body. No, she wasn’t. OK what now? Smack its bottom, didn’t they do that in the movies? Rub it with a towel was something else that whispered in the recesses of her TV-watching experience. Placing the child back on her mother, Sarah rubbed her back vigorously with a towel
and
gave her bottom a few taps.

The baby snuffled and then
Awaaaaaa!
bawled from her lungs. ‘Thank God!’ Martha cried. Tears poured down her cheeks and she kissed the infant’s head.

Sarah wiped her own head with the damp rag and exhaled in relief. ‘
Phew
, I was worried there for a while.’

After a few minutes, Martha looked puzzled and then screwed up her face again. ‘I got pain.’

Sarah ran to get a bowl. ‘Yep, it’s the afterbirth, Martha; give a few pushes, it shouldn’t take long.’ Placing the bowl between Martha’s legs, Sarah gently pressed her stomach; she had seen that done on
Casualty
once when a woman had given birth in a derailed train. Luckily, ten minutes later, the afterbirth was out too, and all that remained to be done was the cutting of the cord.

Sarah closed her eyes and tried to see the train scene in her head. The paramedics were directing the whole thing on a mobile phone as the woman and her partner couldn’t be reached until the train was made safe. Had he tied a shoe lace round the cord and then cut it, or had there been two shoelaces?

‘What’s wrong, ain’t you gonna cut the cord like you said?’ Martha asked.

‘Yes, I’m just trying to think of the best way. I ain’t done this afore you know.’

‘You’ll do it fine. You have been a saviour so far and that’s the truth. What I’d have done without you, I don’t know … and when the little ’un weren’t breathin’ and all …’ Martha shook her head and sniffed.

Thank the BBC, honey …

Sarah stood and went back over to the stove. She lifted the pan of boiling water on to the table and looked around for string or any likely substitute. The only string she found looked like it had been dragged across the entire length of the plains. It was thick in grease and sticky.

She looked down at her bootlaces; they, of course, were in a similar state to the string.

‘Martha, have we got any clean bootlaces, or anything like string? It is gonna be used for tying round the baby’s cord, so I want it clean.’

Martha thought for a few minutes. ‘We got wool, that’s clean, I guess.’

Ah yes, there it was on the footstool. It wouldn’t be spotless, but it was the best they had.

Sarah wound a strand of wool around both index fingers and broke two pieces off. Then with a spoon, she hooked the scissors out of the hot water and set them on a clean area of the sheet to become cool enough to handle.

‘After you cut the cord can you bathe her and dress her in her special baby clothes I sewed for her? They’re in my chest.’

‘Of course I will.’

‘And then I’ll try and suckle her. She looks like she’s trying to suck now, don’t she?’

The baby was staring intelligently at her mother and opening and closing her mouth slightly. Her tiny hand gripped Martha’s finger, and she seemed perfectly alright, even though she had arrived unannounced and unprepared for. Sarah felt a huge sense of achievement looking down at that tiny bundle. She also felt the old yearning tugging at her heartstrings.

When will it be you lying there, Sarah? When will you have a precious child cradled in your arms?

The shoelace question was solved. As Sarah tied the first bit of wool around the cord about three inches away from the baby, she remembered that the actor had tied a second bit about a half an inch beyond that and had cut between them. The scissors felt ridiculously heavy and shook a little in her hand. Then, taking a breath, she opened the blades, positioned them between the bits of wool and closed them again before doubt set in.

Thankfully, everything seemed fine. Yells of pain and fountains of blood didn’t pour from the baby; she just continued to look at her mother unperturbed. ‘Looks like that’s done it, Martha.’ Sarah smiled, dipping a clean rag into warm water. ‘I’ll get her washed down and, if you can manage it, I suggest you try to clean yourself a little, too. We’d better get you and your daughter off this floor and settled in bed before Artie comes back.’

‘I want to name her first. Me and Joe settled on Elspeth after our poor ma and Charlotte after his. Do you like it?’ Martha asked.

‘Little Elspeth, that’s just beautiful. She would have been so proud.’ Sarah wondered what had happened to their ‘poor ma’.

Martha’s face lit up. ‘She would, wouldn’t she? I don’t know how she survived all them births; mind you, that’s what done for her in the end, weren’t it?’

‘Yes, poor ma. How many did she have, I forgit?’

‘How could you forgit? She died pushing our Billy out and he were the only boy, number twelve.’

Sarah gulped. Twelve babies in these conditions, with no pain relief; our ‘poor ma’ was a bloody hero.

An hour later, Martha and Elspeth were in bed. The little girl was feeding contentedly and Sarah had cleaned the birthing area as much as she could. The afterbirth was a problem. They didn’t want Artie seeing it and if they left it indoors it would attract flies, even if they covered it well. Martha told Sarah that she’d heard that it was practice out on the plains to take it a good way from the house and leave it for crows, vultures or coyotes. Other women had buried it deep in the earth, or burned it.

‘OK, Martha, I’m going to take this here bowl out on to the plains. Looks like it’ll be sundown in a few hours, so it’s contents will be gone quicker than you can say baby.’ Sarah smirked, thinking that she could get used to speaking like this. She may even keep it up for a while back in work, particularly when Janet was around.

‘It’s only four o’clock honey; it won’t be sundown till eight, but I guess you better do it now before that naughty boy of yours comes back. Are you gonna whup him?’

Sarah frowned; did Martha expect her to give him a good hiding? ‘Whup him?’

Martha changed the baby on to the other breast and tutted. ‘Yeah, whup him. He never gonna learn if you let him disobey you like that. There’s one of Joe’s belts in the trunk.’

Sarah tried to conceal the revulsion she felt at such a suggestion and shook her head. ‘Not this time. We’ll see what he has to say for himself when he comes home.’

Just as she was leaving with the fly-ridden placenta bowl under her arm, Martha called, ‘And can you collect some more buffalo chips while you’re out there? I don’t think we got enough cow chips for the next while since Joe cut down to one feed a day.’

Sarah groaned. This day was getting better and better. Not only had she just had to deliver a baby, and was off out of the door with a bucket of blood and membrane to the plains where dangerous animals lurked, now she was expected to collect buffalo shit for fuel. This was an idea the homesteaders had borrowed from the Indians, as coal was expensive and wood scarce.

‘OK, is the wheelbarrow in the barn?’ she yelled over her shoulder.

‘Yeah, and when you git back, will you milk Nellie? We missed eatin’ them pancakes so you’ll have to make porridge.’

Sarah presumed Nellie was the cow in the barn. Something else she’d never done … but then, how hard could it be? She thought of a lame joke and grinned, more from the need to release tension than through humour:
Pull the udder one, Sarah, quit milking the situation and take the bull by the horns.

In the barn, Sarah nodded to Nellie. ‘See ya later, Nellie; I’ll make sure my hands are warm.’ And then she placed the bowl carefully into the heavy wooden wheelbarrow. Hopefully, when her next three chores were completed she’d be allowed back to the future.

She made a face as she manoeuvred the bulky contraption through the barn door and on to the prairie; the palms of her hands were already beginning to rub on the rough wooden handles, and the wind whipped her hair from under the stupid bonnet she’d been required to wear and into her eyes, up her nose and in her mouth.
But don’t you have a scrunchie?
Undoing the buttons on the dress, she stuck her fingers down her bra and pulled out the band and grips. They
had
survived time travel then. Sarah giggled, scraped her hair up and secured it tightly. How could such small everyday objects fill her with delight? She guessed it was because they represented the future and allowed her to feel a little more in control. Also, in a small way, she had triumphed over the powers that be.

Ten minutes or so later, Sarah’s dress was soaked in sweat and blisters were beginning to form on her palms. She stopped by a rocky outcrop; huge brown meatballs on a yellowing grassland of shredded wheat. Nice, but she couldn’t eat three, as the advert had it. These were the first rocks she’d come across and perhaps the only ones for miles around by the look of it.

Under the shade, Sarah lowered her bottom on to a smaller boulder. Phew, it felt good to escape the baking yellow ball up there. If it was as hot as this at after four in the afternoon, what must it be like at noon? Looking back the way she’d trudged, she could make out the homestead shimmering like a mirage in the heat. This was about as good a place as any to leave the placenta. It was far enough away to ensure animals didn’t come snooping round the house looking for more juicy morsels, and besides, Sarah couldn’t go any further; she was well and truly pooped.

Come on, Sarah, the sooner you get this done, the sooner you can collect the buffalo chips, push the barrow back in the baking heat, milk the cow, make the porridge, and then go home to John. Not such a bad to-do list
 …
if you say it quick.