Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
Bernie
It has snowed for two days straight. What started as a beautiful, fluffy white blanket is now an ugly mess like churned butter as traffic and pedestrians slowly navigate their way through the slippery streets. I have a hospital appointment today, so despite the weather, the girls and I make our way into town. There are no complaints of tired legs as Marie and Elizabeth stop every so often to throw snowballs at each other. I learned quickly that dragging the pram is a lot easier than pushing it, and Alice finds the whole experience hilarious. She gurgles and coos. By the time we reach the main doors of the intimidating Georgian building I’m sweating despite the near freezing temperature. I fight with the pram as I try to guide it up the concrete steps and, exhausted, take a seat in the large communal waiting area.
It’s my fourth or fifth visit to the hospital—I’ve lost track. I’ll never understand why I need to visit so often. I wonder what they expect to find in there, if not a baby.
“He’ll see you now, Mrs. McCarthy,” says a young nurse. Her face is fresh and childlike, as if she would better belong in a school pinafore than in a starched white nurse’s uniform.
I give Alice a bottle, which she immediately turns upside down and shakes. I ignore the mess and leave Marie in charge.
“Don’t move off them seats,” I say, kissing each of their heads in turn. Then I promise shepherd’s pie for dinner. Their favorite. A heavily pregnant lady offers to keep an eye on them for me while I’m with the doc. I’ll return the favor as soon as I’m done and watch her large brood of beautiful and immaculately kept children.
The nurse leads me behind a movable partition. She folds it around us as best she can and apologizes for its poor attempt to offer privacy.
“It’s all right,” I say, but I blush nonetheless when she asks me to take a seat and peel off layers of winter clothing so she can draw blood and measure the circumference of my stomach.
“Everything looks great,” she says. “How are you feeling?”
I redress quickly and tell her about my swollen feet, tiredness, and general aches and pains. She listens and nods.
Dr. Davenport joins us after a while. His highly polished black shoes squeak against the tiled floor. He wears a long white coat over what I think is a navy suit, and his dark hair is gelled off his face. He’s a particularly dapper man and I can only imagine how beautiful his and Maura’s baby will be.
“Yes, yes, swollen ankles are quite normal for this stage of pregnancy,” Dr. Davenport tells the nurse when she relays my ailments and asks if there’s anything that can be done to ease the discomfort.
“Try to stay off your feet, eh?” he says, paying more attention to his pen and paper as he makes notes than he does to me.
“And I’ve been having some headaches,” I say.
“Black tea before bed. Two cups. That will help.”
“I think something might be wrong. I never had swollen feet or headaches before. Not on any of my pregnancies.” I rub my stomach as if my baby needs comforting from my words.
Dr. Davenport glances at the nurse with an expression that tells me I’m pressing his patience.
“You’re tired. As I said, you need to stay off your feet more.”
I stop rubbing my stomach, fold my arms, and rest them on top of my belly, which seems to grow rounder by the day. “That’s not altogether easy with three little ones under my belt already.”
“Let the children out to play and sit down with the paper. You’ll be all the better for it,” he says.
I don’t ask him if he’s serious. I know he is. I also don’t tell him that even if I had a garden for the children to play in, or the daily paper to read, it would not help how I’m feeling.
Dr. Davenport lowers his pen, puffs out, and looks me in the eye. “Mrs. McCarthy, I assure you, if I had a shilling for every woman who worried that something was wrong with her baby, I would be a very rich man indeed.”
I think about Dr. Davenport’s beautiful home and lush green garden and I doubt he needs a single penny from concerned mothers to make him any richer than he already is.
A baby begins to cry somewhere in the waiting area. It’s not Alice, I can tell. But I’m anxious to get back to my children.
“I’ll see you in six weeks,” Dr. Davenport says, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “And remember, black tea before bed.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes and stand up. My puffy ankles sting as they object to taking my weight once more.
“Thank you for your time,” I say.
The nurse fiddles with the partition once again and it spits me out into a room full of voices and round bellies and fed-up children. I spy my children, sitting and playing hand-clapping games. My feet are on fire as I shuffle toward them.
The lady after me is a long time behind the partition. A half an hour, easy. And I begin to worry if everything is all right. When the stiff curtain finally creaks open, both the lady and Dr. Davenport appear. They’re laughing and smiling.
“Do tell your ma I was asking for her, won’t you, Christy?” she says.
“Of course, of course. And your parents too. Wish them all the best. We’ll have lunch soon. You and all the children. Maura will be only too glad to cook.”
The lady tosses her head back and laughs as if Dr. Davenport is the most charming man she’s ever met.
“Goodbye now, Philomena,” he says, and then he kisses each of her cheeks in turn before he disappears behind another partition.
“Wonderful man. Wonderful, wonderful man,” she says when she rejoins me in the waiting area and sets about gathering up her children, who have been playing contentedly with mine.
“Yes, he’s great,” I say, looking down at my feet, which bulge over the sides of my shoes like a couple of cakes rising in the oven.
“Such a pity he has no children of his own. Married six months and no sign. It’s sad, really. Christy would be a wonderful father.”
“And Maura will be a great mother,” I add.
“You know the Davenports?” She cocks her head as she surveys me from head to toe.
“My husband is their butcher,” I say, and I’ve never wanted to clamp my hand over my big mouth more.
Her expression stiffens as if she’s just been hit with a bad smell. I notice her elegant leather shoes and matching handbag for the first time. She smells of expensive perfume, the summer fruit kind that Dan says he’ll buy for my birthday someday.
“That’s nice,” she says. “I’ll be sure to call in to your husband for all my meat in future.”
It’s only when the last of her children follow her through the door that I realize she didn’t ask Dan’s name or where his butcher’s shop is.