‘Ahhh . . .’ The sound was long and drawn out, almost one of surprise, and when the Matron slumped down by the side of Maggie’s unconscious form, her back against the wall and her arms and legs stretched out in the floppy manner of a rag doll, she made the sound again until it gurgled away to strained, laboured breathing. And then she continued to sit, staring across the room without moving her head or her body, as the ticking of the mantelpiece clock and the odd hiss and splutter from the damp tealeaves on the fire sounded loud in the silence that had fallen.
When Florrie walked into the house an hour later - having been sent home from the laundry due to her cold which was becoming worse by the minute, and was portentous of influenza - she continued straight through the hall to the kitchen first, to see about heating her bedwarmer. She was feeling hot and sweaty, and chilled and cold, by turns, and the thought of her bed had never been more enticing.
She frowned at the sight of Maggie’s bedwarmer next to her own on the side of the table. It was unusual, on a raw night like this, for Maggie not to warm her bed through before getting under the covers, but then she shrugged wearily, the thudding in her head becoming a tattoo that was knocking her brain to jelly.
She sat down at the kitchen table while the kettle boiled, her aching head in her hands and her throat feeling as though it were on fire, and once the warmer was ready went straight through to the bedroom, thinking only of bed.
She noticed the fire first; Maggie had been going to bank it down before she turned in, but the coal had blazed away to almost nothing and it was in danger of going out altogether. Florrie made a sound of deep annoyance low in her throat, glancing towards Maggie’s bed - furthest from the fire and in deep shadows - as she did so, and finding it empty.
‘Oh, Maggie . . .’ For a moment, just a moment, the temptation to forget everything but the call of her bed was overwhelming, but she pushed it aside guiltily. She knew what Maggie had done, the reason for the bedwarmer in the kitchen and the unbanked fire becoming clear. She’d fallen asleep in the chair again. Twice, in the last two night shifts she had done at the laundry, she had found Maggie cramped and stiff in the chair when she had got home in the morning, and then the old woman’s rheumatism would give her jip and it’d mean a day or two in bed. And she had to take her turn on the shifts, she couldn’t keep to days only, much as she would like to.
She had told Maggie and
told
her not to settle herself down in front of the fire in the sitting room once she’d gone to work, but would she listen? Would she heck. Oh, it was worse than looking after a bairn at times, at least you could smack their backsides when they played up.
Still grumbling to herself, Florrie walked through to the other room, her head lowered and her nose streaming, and pushed open the door with an irritable, ‘Maggie McLevy’, before coming to a stunned stop, her mouth falling open into a gape and her brain refusing to accept what her eyes were seeing.
And then she was screaming, leaping across the room towards Maggie, who was lying very still with the chair attached to her like a grotesque outer shell, in an effort to protect her from the woman sitting so quietly at the side of her, but who, Florrie was sure, would spring to her feet and renew the attack on Maggie any moment.
It seemed as if Mr Connor from upstairs was there in a second to assist her in lifting the chair, with Maggie still tied to it, into an upright position, and when his wife rushed into the room a moment later, it was Mr Connor who said, his voice low and shaking, ‘Send our Tommy to get a doctor, an’ quick mind. An’ - an’ then he’d better scoot along to the police station.’
‘Is . . . is she . . . ?’ Mrs Connor’s terrified gaze was riveted on Maggie’s slumped body and white face, and her husband shook his head, saying, ‘She’s still breathin’ but only just, an’ this one seems to be in a trance or somethin’.’ He gestured with his head towards the strangely still figure on the floor, and as he did so, the eyes - but only the eyes - flickered at his words.
‘Maggie, oh, Maggie . . . I told you. I told you to be careful.’ Florrie was crying and moaning as she cradled Maggie’s head against her chest, while Joe Connor struggled to untie the corroding thin rope that had bitten deep into Maggie’s flesh, and when he said, ‘I can’t get her free, lass, I need a knife or somethin’,’ she was quite unable to move away from Maggie’s side, and it was Joe who left them, returning a few moments later with a small sharp knife from the kitchen.
The two stalwart constables arrived a minute or two before the doctor, who had been out attending the departure of one of his elderly patients into the next world when Tommy had called, and they, like him, were brought up short at their first sight of the extraordinary scene in the otherwise ordinary-looking room.
The bonds which had held Maggie were gone, but she remained slumped in the chair, unconscious and barely breathing, because Florrie and Joe Connor hadn’t dared to move her, but it was the inert figure of Matron Cox who dominated the room. She was quite motionless, but strangely there was nothing quiet or benign in the lack of movement as one would have expected, and the sight of her was unnerving.
‘What - what’s happened here?’ It took the doctor two attempts to get the words out, and as he said afterwards to his wife, ‘It was just as if something unspeakable was in that room with us, my dear, and you know I’m not one for exaggerating. I haven’t been to church for some time, but I shall be going this Sunday.’
‘We don’t rightly know, sir.’ It was the younger of the two constables who answered, and he, like the doctor, could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he gestured towards the silent figure at his feet. ‘It seems as though this one here broke into the house and attacked the other lady. Her friend says there was an incident some ten years ago which is at the bottom of it all.’
‘How long has she been like this?’ The doctor was less interested in the whys and wherefores than he was in Maggie herself.
‘An hour and a half maybe, two at the most. Miss Shawe’- he indicated Florrie with a wave of his hand - ‘left two hours ago.’
The doctor’s prognosis on Maggie was brief and to the point. ‘She shouldn’t really be moved, but it’s imperative we get her to hospital immediately.’
And of the Matron, after a cursory examination which nevertheless called on all his professional detachment, ‘Massive stroke. I’m afraid it’s hospital, not the cells, gentlemen.’
Maggie lay, slipping in and out of unconsciousness, for just over twenty-four hours, and during that time the doctors were unable to ascertain to what degree the shock of her encounter with Matron Cox would affect her recovery.
Sarah responded immediately Florrie called her with news of the attack, but on reaching her destination, her loyalties were split by Rebecca going into premature labour some three weeks early, on hearing the circumstances of Maggie’s sudden admittance into the hospital.
Florrie was waiting for her when she reached the Sunderland infirmary, and after a few brief moments at Maggie’s bedside, she left Florrie there and went along to Rebecca’s ward, where she found her friend lying curled up on her side with her back to the room and her head under the pillow, which she had pulled tight across her face.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Sarah?’ The pillow was tossed aside, and Sarah was amazed when Rebecca pulled herself into a kneeling position on the bed, and, flinging her arms round Sarah’s neck, burst into a torrent of weeping.
‘Rebecca, don’t, don’t. Come on now, you mustn’t cry like this, it isn’t good for you or the baby.’
‘She’s dead, isn’t she? Maggie’s dead.’
‘Of course Maggie isn’t dead, whoever told you such a thing?’
‘We have been telling her that Mrs McLevy is as well as can be expected, Miss Brown, but she won’t believe us.’ The nurse who had been sitting by the side of Rebecca’s bed had clearly had more than enough of this latest development. ‘She feels we are merely jollying her along, don’t you, Mrs Dalton? You tell her, Miss Brown. Perhaps she’ll listen to you.’
‘You swear Maggie’s all right, Sarah?’ Rebecca leaned back and shook Sarah slightly as she said again, ‘You swear it?’
‘I do, I swear it. I’ve just left there and she’s very poorly but not as bad as you were when you were brought in, Rebecca.’
‘I thought . . . I thought she . . . Oh!’ The last was a soft grunt as another contraction took hold, cutting off Rebecca’s voice as the pain intensified, and now both Sarah and the nurse, one on each side, pushed her back down into the bed, bringing the coverlet up over her straining body once she was propped against the pillows.
‘I couldn’t bear it if Maggie died.’ Rebecca was gasping now, relaxing back as the contraction diminished. ‘She only said to me yesterday that she was looking forward to the baby being born like it was her own grandchild.’
‘She’s not going to die, Rebecca, get that into your head.’ She hoped she wasn’t, pray God she wouldn’t.
‘You’ll stay with me, Sarah?’ Rebecca’s grip on her hand was making Sarah’s fingers white. ‘You won’t go?’
‘Of course I’ll stay, and listen to me. Matron Cox tried to finish Maggie and she failed, right? Maggie’s going to get better and you are going to present her with that grandchild. We’re going to get through this, Rebecca, and you concentrate for now on all the people who love you. Me, Maggie, Florrie . . .’
‘All right.’ It was a tiny whisper. ‘And you won’t let them send you out? They’ll try, I know they will, but I want you here. Oh, Sarah.’ Rebecca’s grip tightened, her voice shaking as she said, ‘I’m scared, petrified. Not so much about the birth itself but about what . . . what the baby might be like. I know they think it might have been damaged. No one’s said, but I know all right. They do, don’t they?’
Sarah didn’t answer this directly, but said instead, her voice soft, ‘Rebecca, you’re strong inside, where it counts, you had to be to get over that awful night when you nearly died. I’ll always remember the sister saying, when you began to come out of the coma, that you were fighting back. And this baby will be like you. I’ve never thought of Willie as having any part of this child; strange that, isn’t it, but it’s true. It’s yours, all yours, and we’re all going to love it - boy or girl, pretty or ugly, we’ll love it, and that’s all that counts. I promised you I would take care of things and I will.’
‘But your job and everything . . .’
‘I’ve an idea about that, so just trust me. It’ll all work out. All you’ve got to do is think about this baby being born and do the necessary work.’ She grinned encouragingly. ‘And I’m afraid that’s one area where, apart from holding your hand, it’s all down to you.’
‘Oh, Sarah.’ Rebecca smiled weakly back, but already her voice was calmer, and when the next contraction took hold she concentrated on her breathing, holding on to Sarah’s hand as Sarah willed her on.
The baby was born at seven o’clock the next morning after a tiring but not unduly difficult labour, and it was a perfectly formed little girl, with strong limbs and a loud lusty voice that told her exhausted mother all was well.
Against all hospital etiquette, and mainly due to the fact that Rebecca and Sarah were both adamant Sarah wasn’t going to leave, Sarah was present at the birth. When the midwife cut the cord and, after wrapping the child in a thin blanket, handed her to Sarah while they continued to attend to Rebecca, Sarah stared down at the tiny screwed-up face with wonder. So small, so
perfect
. Oh thank you, God, thank you.
She continued to look at Rebecca’s daughter as she wondered how her own mother had reacted to the miracle of new life. Had she searched her baby’s features like this, or, knowing what she intended to do, had she barely glanced at her so she didn’t have to remember what she looked like? How could her mother have gone through what Rebecca had just gone through, and not felt
something
for her?
There were tears on Sarah’s eyelashes as she looked at her friend and said, ‘She’s beautiful, she’s so so beautiful, Rebecca,’ and then, as the midwife finished her ministrations, she placed the tiny bundle in Rebecca’s limp arms, keeping hold of the baby in fear that Rebecca, in her exhausted state, might let her roll off the bed. And so it was that the three of them were joined in a moment that would be unforgettable: the child blinking milky blue eyes in the bright lights as it mewed softly and grasped the air with tiny delicate fingers, the two women smiling down at new precious life through their tears.
‘Look at her hair, and her eyelashes.’ They continued to gaze entranced as Sarah noted each tiny feature. ‘It’s amazing, just amazing, that only an hour ago she was still inside you. What are you going to call her?’