It Shouldn't Happen to a Midwife! (19 page)

‘Sally'll just have to suffer me,' Mrs Blair sniffed. ‘How does she think I can get the water to heat up the babbies' bottles?' She nodded into the nursery where three babies lay in cots numbered rather than named. ‘And I suppose I'll be the one feeding these.'

I was curious about this trio. They lay so still I hoped they were alright and, since they were the only ones there, wondered why they weren't with their mothers. Mrs Blair continued, ‘Oh well I suppose The Illigits will be leaving soon.' Which, even if it was an unfortunate way of putting it, saved me asking.

Pussy grimaced as if somebody had trodden on her tail then gave a gentle sigh. ‘We'll need to remember: it's not their fault and they're certainly no bother. I haven't heard a squeak from any of them all day. But maybe you should make a start on feeding them now, Mrs Blair.'

Mrs Blair, looking righteous, turned her wedding ring like it was a badge of honour then sped off, declaring the babies were going to be better off than many as they were going to decent homes and to people who could provide for them.

I followed Pussy into her office. The cross-stitch texts framed on the walls suggested a simple outlook, but the picture of a thatched cottage surely wasn't her home – she'd never have fitted into it.

She folded herself behind a tidy desk and flicked rapidly through the Kardex report on the patients. It was obvious that care in a postnatal ward, even if equally good, was a far cry from the more urgent demands of a general hospital.

‘It's important the mothers get an undisturbed sleep,' said Pussy. ‘So all the babies are taken into the Nursery at night.' She waved a warning finger. ‘But no playing with them, mind. Just feed them if they cry. We want them going home conditioned to sleep at night. We don't wake the breast-feeding mums either – they'll get plenty sleepless nights when they get home.'

I reckoned Mrs Blair, with her practical air, would be fully occupied with her knitting whilst I'd never thought playing with babies was a midnight pastime. However, I did wonder about the numbered babies. Day staff would be too busy to give them any special attention . Deprived of maternal loving care, where would they get it?

Other than an awareness that unmarried mothers were considered the lowest of the low I couldn't remember anything in the textbooks dealing with them and their babies.

‘Do the unmarried mothers get to nurse their babies?' I asked.

A pause then a suggestion of claw. ‘No!'

Obviously, when it came to babies born out of wedlock the Swinging Sixties had by-passed Belfast, yet Pussy seemed uncomfortable with the question.

‘As soon as they have their six days here and are all right, they'll be discharged, probably to homes for unmarried mothers.' Her shoulders slumped. ‘It's hard for them – but what's their choice? Anyway, none of these girls have asked to see their babies, so it's probably best for everybody that they get on with their lives. At least they'll know their babies are going to caring homes.'

‘What's your opinion of the way they deal with unmarried mothers?' I asked, spirits lightened a little by Lorna's easy way and ready smile. She was sharing a space in the restaurant with a textbook whilst macaroni and cheese lay congealing beside her.

A night duty meal here was a subdued affair. The water feature had been switched off, the lights dimmed and there was no Belfast Daisy to bossily brighten up the self-service counter. What night staff there was talked in hunched groups lost in the huge room.

Had it not been for Sally's moratoria on her kitchen I'd have been tempted to make a sandwich there instead. Maybe Mrs Blair, who was knitting an Aran sweater, would have shown me how. I was as impressed by her ability to follow a complicated pattern blind as by her expert handling of the babies.

‘Ah sure, you'll get good at handling babies too,' she said with the irritatingly confident way of a professional who knows there's no danger of challenge.

In her care, all but the trio gurgled and cooed whilst her fingers, knitting-nimble, sorted and changed them. She bottle-fed hungry mouths with the careless efficiency of a petrol pump attendant. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd whipped open her uniform and provided some home brew to the breastfed babies herself.

‘Feckin' brutal!' Lorna's response to the question of unmarried mothers was immediate. She slammed the book shut and picked up a fork. ‘It's enough to put you off being a midwife. The trouble, of course, is that pregnancy outside marriage is considered a mortal sin.' She sliced the air with her fork. ‘Shameful! I believe some poor girls even come up from the country to have their babies here so that their family'll never know. Then they go home, lightened of baby and burdened by a secret instead.'

‘Maybe that's why my ones keep themselves to themselves. I've tried talking to them but they don't respond. They're a bit like their babies, locked away in their own wee world. They even seem to want screens pulled round their beds all the time.' Thinking of such shuttered withdrawals made me uneasy.

‘Sounds as if post-natal's hardly a breeze then?'

‘No! And it's not helped by the fact that I've got to give a babybathing demo in the morning. Pussy seemed to think I could do with a diversion and there's a dopey mother needing some intensive mothercare lessons. Pussy reckoned it'll be good practice but I'm not sure for who.'

Lorna gave her endearing chuckle. ‘It's the great unknown, isn't it? I've just had to learn how to release a mother from the safety pins holding her underwear together. It didn't help that she came in at the height of labour. Speak about getting out of a tight spot!'

She was obviously trying to cheer me up. In the same way the next morning I was trying to get Mrs O'Shea to spring out of bed and greet the day with a loud ‘Hurrah!'

‘Try it with s-stitches.' Her face was pale, her eyes huge and she was so big I just hoped there weren't any more babies left inside. With trembling hands she fumbled with a bed jacket straining at the buttonholes then, blowing a strand of hair to clear her vision, she struggled out onto a chair. Despite a rubber ring strategically placed, she sat on as if sitting on a gorse bush.

‘Jasus! And I'm expected to hold a baby – never mind bathe him?'

‘Everybody's nervous to begin with. Best feed him first.' I was hearty. ‘Believe you me, you'll soon get the hang of Connor.'

But word must have got out in the nursery, and Connor had already consulted his book of rights. With little waving fists and a bright red face he was registering anxiety in loud yells. Mrs O'Shea looked on in such a fearful way you'd have thought I was Herod hunting the newborn.

‘Ach, he's just a hungry wee bairnie,' I said, stoppering Connor and his yells with a bottle and putting him into his mother's arms. ‘Look at that now!'

‘Ah! You wee dote!' Even though she held the bottle like a dart, Connor was happy. There was no way he was going to let go of that bottle and this seemed to give Mrs O'Shea confidence. She jigged him a bit then, stopping to allow him a very satisfactory burp, managed to pat his bald head. ‘You sound and look just like your daddy.'

Pleased with progress so far I told her we'd graduate to a bathing demonstration. ‘We'll have that bairn bathed before he knows he's in the water.' In full tutorial mode I rolled up my sleeves and filled a basin.

Mrs O'Shea clutched Connor to her. ‘But what about his cork?'

‘Huh?'

She pointed.

It was time to get technical.

‘You mean his belly button?'

Outside, a new day was arriving, whilst inside came the sound of crockery crashes. Sally must be back and in her fiefdom.

Blast! She was early and bound to have found one of the single girls in there. Earlier on, I'd happened on Maureen in the toilet where she was trying to muffle tears so heart rending she was incapable of speech.

It was such difficult territory I didn't know what to do or say. One thing Belfast seemed to share with Aberdeen was that feelings were considered best kept secret and patients kept out of the kitchens.

I'd cursed the customs, patted her on the shoulder and offered a tissue. Aware she wanted her grief kept private, I'd suggested the kitchen as a bolthole. It might be Sally's patch but I was willing to live dangerously. Anyway, she wouldn't be on duty for ages.

‘And whilst you're there, make yourself a cup of tea. It's nice and quiet and at least you'll get some privacy. Stay as long as you like. Just don't let Sally or, worse, Matron catch you.'

In her brisk way Mrs Blair was getting the babies to their mothers for their morning feed. She was fully occupied and so, caught up with a new baby and mother, was I, until now.

I glanced at Connor. Exhaustion had caught up with him. Having struck for the far shores of the baby bath, been lassoed by a towel, dried and finally dredged in a snow flurry of talcum powder, he'd very sensibly gone to sleep. Fed, changed, clean and fast asleep in his mother's arms, he looked angelic. I wished that instead of feeling smug that both mother and child were happy, but instead I'd the worry of a looming crisis of Sally on the rampage.

I should have got Maureen out of the kitchen but I hadn't bargained on the bathing taking so long. The sound of the kitchen maid trundling her wagon down the corridor came nearer. She was obviously out of the kitchen and going full steam.

Drawing breath, hand on the doorknob and wondering if she'd left Maureen in one bit, I got my apology ready.

‘And it's a grand morning is it not, Matron!' Just outside the door, Sally's voice fog-horned cheer and welcome. ‘If you're looking for Nurse Macpherson, she's
not
in the kitchen!'

Matron! I'd only a second to register the horror of somebody even less welcome than Sally before the door handle turned in my grip and was flung open.

It was Sally. Her face was so wreathed in smiles, had it not been for the trolley, I mightn't have recognised her. She was beckoning to Matron, coming towards us, as if delighted to see her.

‘Look! She's here.' She shepherded Matron into the room, blocking her escape route with the trolley in the doorway. ‘I'm savin' you the bother of looking for her, so I am. I know you're a busy woman.'

‘And that was very thoughtful of you, Sally. I was just about to start looking for Nurse,' said Matron. ‘Thought I might find her in the kitchen.' She gave a mirthless smile. ‘But you've put me right, as usual.'

Rather than saying, ‘You're the last person I hoped or expected to see. Goodness, don't you ever go off duty?' I opted for glory.

‘Ah, Matron. Good morning. I've just been giving Mrs O'Shea here a little help with her baby. Sister MacNutt thought it'd be good practice for mothercraft demonstrations.'

Matron raised an eyebrow and looked at the floor still bearing signs of a recent blizzard. ‘Practice is the word,' she said. ‘You'd think it'd been snowing. Sally – would you?'

‘Right away,' said Sally. ‘I'll just nip back and get a cloth out of the kitchen.' I could have sworn that as she turned, she winked.

Matron turned to Mrs O'Shea who was beginning to squirm on her ring. ‘So what do you think of Nurse Macpherson's technique then?'

Mrs O'Shea looked down at Connor, who'd latched onto one of the bed jacket buttons and was sucking contentedly. ‘Alright I suppose, but could you tell me, Matron,' she moved like a barge confronting barriers, her brow furrowed in anxiety, ‘what's a bairn?'

‘So Sally saved the day?' Although it was morning and we were back in the restaurant, Lorna looked fresh enough to be starting a day shift. ‘It must've given you quite a turn though. Lordie, Jane! I don't know how you manage to get such drama going. Next thing you'll be telling me all our single girls are taking their babies home to loving, supportive families.'

‘If only that was true.' I remembered sad, tight faces and silent babies. Wraithlike, Maureen had passed on her way back to the ward but at least she'd stopped crying. Compared with Mrs Blair and her judgmental ministrations, Sally must have been kind to her.

Lorna slid off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes, a sign she was tired and mortal after all. ‘What did you say to Sally?'

‘Nothing. She never gave me the chance. As soon as I went into the kitchen she turned on the sink tap and was up to the elbow in suds.'

I remembered Sally's studied concentration, her red hands swishing bubbles into a huge lather with the steady gush of surely too hot water drowning out any other sound. Her shoulders were set as if fixed and ready for combat. ‘I definitely got the message. Conversation was out.'

Lorna yawned. ‘And I suppose the same goes for us. God! I'm exhausted. Roll on nights off. I'm dying to get home for some rest and recreation. What will you be up to then, says I to myself, says I?'

‘Seonaid's planning a visit to Salthill. Where's that? She's going with Colette, one of her sisters. Asked if I'd like to go too. Good fun apparently.'

Lorna relaxed in her chair and clapped her hands like an enthusiastic audience member. ‘Oh! To be sure! That'll be a trip and a half. It's over the border and near Galway. You'll need to tell us all about it when you get back. How're you getting there?'

‘Hitching, but don't breathe a word to Marie. She'll spend all weekend on her knees asking for a safe deliverance.'

Lorna chuckled. ‘Salthill knows more about parties than most. I hope you get there and, more to the point, get back. It might be difficult if Seonaid's sister's as mad as her.' She looked upward. ‘Maybe I'll put a prayer in for you three myself.'

Plainly she had better things to do with her time. As for us, and come late Friday afternoon, Seonaid, Colette and I were standing at a windblown corner of Belfast's road south. It was getting dark and starting to rain. In the chilling drizzle I was marginally cheered by the fact that Sally and I had parted on good terms.