and my treasure. Stuck for a moment—
Then slipped free. The bloody fistful was on the sheet.
Delia Garrett wept on.
Another basin, please, Bridie?
I studied the afterbirth in the dish. This looked like the whole missing section, but to be sure, I needed to do a final sweep for any fragments or clots. I’m just going to have one more quick feel inside, Mrs. Garrett—
Her knees banged together so hard, I heard bone on bone.
I said sternly, It has to be done to make sure you won’t get infected.
I changed to fresh gloves and tore open a packaged ball of antiseptic-soaked gauze. At a nod from me, Bridie got hold of Delia Garrett’s knees. I went back in as gently as I could.
She cried harder but didn’t fight.
I rubbed the whole concavity with the gauze, feeling for any trailing membranes on which bacteria could grow. All right, then, all right, all finished.
I lurched to the sink and stripped off the gloves. I prepared carbolic solution for douching her, to kill any germs I might have introduced, and heated it up over the spirit lamp because hot was better for stopping a haemorrhage. I blinked over my shoulder in case she was going to up and die on me after all that.
Bridie was crouched on the cot, holding the woman’s hand, whispering.
I took down a sterile bulb syringe. The rubbery bulge, with its limp tubes, always reminded me of a red spider that had lost all but two legs. I tested the temperature of the solution by dripping it on the inside of my wrist, then filled a large jar. Fresh gloves.
The bleeding seemed to have slowed. Now, Mrs. Garrett, this will wash you out nicely.
I dropped the syringe’s sinker into the jar and fed the glass nozzle inside her cervix. I squeezed the bulb to pump the liquid in while I massaged her rumpled belly with my other hand. Pinkish water flooded back out of her, across the sheets, soaking my apron and Bridie’s.
At last, the unmistakeable feel of the womb contracting under my palm. The bleeding was stopping. I wouldn’t need to dose her with ergot or plug her with a tin’s worth of gauze. This was over, and I hadn’t lost the mother.
Who’s in charge here?
I jerked around guiltily.
A stranger all in black. This had to be the infamous Dr. Lynn. Collar and tie, like a man’s, but a plain skirt and no apron. In her forties? Long hair (slightly greying) coiled up in plaits behind; this was the lady in furs I’d glimpsed from the window earlier.
She took in the sight of me and Bridie daubed with blood, standing over the shambles of Delia Garrett’s cot. The empty crib. She turned her head to find the draped basin.
II
Brown
AS I WOUND UP my report over the small sound of Delia Garrett weeping, I realised it was dim; the autumn sun had started slipping down without my noticing. I stepped over to the switch and turned on the harsh overhead light.
Thank you, Nurse.
Dr. Lynn had uttered no word of blame yet.
I was embarrassed by the gory state of my cuffs, browning already; I unbuttoned them, dropped them in the laundry bucket, washed my forearms, and found another pair of cuffs.
Bridie stood in the corner, looking dazed by the havoc of the past hour.
Dr. Lynn pushed her little glasses up on the bridge of her nose, scanned Delia Garrett’s chart, and wrote something on the bottom.
I knew I should be dealing with the mess of the birth, but I didn’t want to step between doctor and patient. The empty crib—at least I could get that away from Delia Garrett’s bed where it stood like a reproach. I wheeled it, one wheel squeaking, over to the ward sister’s desk. (My desk today. My responsibility, all of it.)
Dr. Lynn said, I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Garrett.
A whimper.
(Had I failed the woman? How I longed to get out of this airless room.)
From the look of your daughter, said Dr. Lynn, I suspect her heart stopped quite a few hours ago, most likely due to your influenza.
What the doctor meant was that the stillbirth wasn’t my doing. But my spirits sank none the less; to think that this morning, while Delia Garrett had been griping, flicking through her magazines, snoozing, eating a stolen sausage, her passenger had departed already.
Delia Garrett said, But the other doctor—Prendergast—told me I wasn’t a bad case.
Dr. Lynn nodded gravely. We’re finding that even a mild dose can endanger a