Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,10
ordered all the doors to be kept locked most of the time in fear of surprise nosy visitors. Finn sprinted round the rear of the property, crunching over the ash path that was partly encroached by a botanist’s dream of wild herbage. Thrusting aside an overgrowth of woody shrubs choked by ivy he knocked over a mouldy concrete urn, bruising his knee. The urn crashed, spilling out its long dead blackened plant, and he hoped the noise wouldn’t alarm Fiona. Finn’s best shoes slammed down over the patio of cracked quarry tiles and then with his heart threatening to rip apart he burst into the kitchen.
Without stopping to get his breath back, Finn shot up the stairs. ‘Mum, Mum, are you all right? I’ve got some help. She’s ringing the midwife now.’
‘Finn, oh Finn . . .’
His mother’s voice echoed weakly back to him. ‘Oh God.’ Finn stalled a second outside the bedroom door. ‘Please, Mrs Resterick, don’t be long.’
Dorrie was as fit and fast as she had been forty years ago and she surprised Finn by reaching Merrivale shortly after him. The instant Finn heard her call downstairs he went to the top of the stairs, relief paramount in him. ‘Thank God, come up, come up. Mum says she wants to push!’ he ended with a panicked squeal.
‘All we have to do is keep calm,’ Dorrie said, smiling confidently as she climbed up to him, but she was feeling far from relaxed. She had been in childbirth rooms but had never seen a woman actually giving birth. She would have to call on what she had heard over the years and her own experience of pushing her daughter into the world, her darling little Veronica, whom she had lost at just fifteen months.
‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Resterick, I’m so glad you’re here.’ Fiona murmured breathlessly through her groans as a pain subsided. ‘I’ve done as much as I could manage to get things ready. This is no place for Finn.’ She was lying on the bed on her side, half covered by a sheet and her nightdress scrunched up above her bump. She was gripping the sheet with white-knuckled hands. Dorrie saw the baby clothes, baby bottles and teats and a tin of National Dried milk. Clearly Mrs Templeton did not intend to breastfeed. There were no other infant requirements. A pile of clean towels and a face cloth were on the washstand. ‘Finn has stoked up the kitchen range and put the kettle and some pans on for hot water.’
‘That’s good, Mrs Templeton,’ Dorrie said, putting down the bag of things she had brought and taking off her cardigan and rolling up her blouse sleeves, smiling a lot, as she was wont to do anyway, but this time hoping she was showing she was completely capable of taking charge. ‘Finn, bring up some hot water as fast as you can so I can wash my hands. Keep a look out for Nurse Rumford.’
Finn wanted nothing more than to leave the labour room but he was afraid for his mother and couldn’t tear his eyes off her. The pain had ended and she seemed to have dropped into a stupor, panting with her mouth sagging open. A school friend’s mother had been paralysed giving birth and he knew women occasionally died during the agonizing process.
‘There’s no need for you to worry,’ Dorrie said soothingly, easing him out of the room. ‘I’ll call you if you’re needed. Could you look in the rooms for something for the baby to sleep in? Use your imagination, an empty drawer would do, and could you wash it well with some disinfected hot soapy water.’
Finn nodded eagerly, glad to have something to do. He hoped when he got downstairs he would hardly hear his mother’s cries and groans of pain. He’d had no idea a woman could grunt and howl like a wounded animal, in savage, primeval wails.
As Finn headed downstairs, Fiona screamed, ‘I’m going to push!’
Dorrie whipped to the bedside. Still on her side, Fiona was trying to shove down the bed sheet. Dorrie did it for her. ‘Wouldn’t you be better partially sitting up, Mrs Templeton?’
‘Noooo, I had Finn on my side and that’s how I’ll deliver this baby. Hold my leg up please.’ Fiona grunted, then she cried out and screwed up a grotesque face, making guttural noises deep in her throat as she bore down and down.
Quickly supporting the woman’s skinny white leg, Dorrie looked at the birth area