6 #2
‘Yeah. They seem very distant with each other, but I swear . . .’ He shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain, but I’ve sometimes wondered . . .’ He paused, sending her a knowing look.
Her brow creased, then cleared. ‘They know each other!’
‘They do. He told me they both trained in Dublin last year, but they act like strangers. Seems odd. Plus there was some weird carry-on at the reception last week.’
She pondered his other words for a moment.
‘I’m not sure it’s really any of our business,’ she eventually responded.
‘Though it is odd that they haven’t said they know each other.
’ She recalled Peggy’s secretive smile when Priscilla had been blatantly flirting with Alex and Dan, and an astonishing possibility presented itself to her. ‘Might they be together?’
His eyes widened briefly. ‘Possibly. Or some sort of falling-out, maybe. I dunno.’
Maisie frowned. ‘Well, maybe she’s right to stay away from him. Maybe he wasn’t right for her.’
Now the hairs on the back of his neck were standing to attention. Why did he suddenly sense Maisie was no longer talking about Peggy?
The door opened abruptly behind him. ‘So what about Mrs Watson’s baby?’ he asked Maisie smoothly, not missing a beat. ‘How’s he doing today?’
‘Good afternoon, Doctor.’ Pointedly, Sister Hanna replaced the wedge, propping the door open. Oops!
‘Oh, hello, Sister Hanna. Just checking in on a couple of my patients.’
‘Of course. Midwife Canavan spent quite some time with Mrs Watson earlier, so she should be able to provide a detailed update.’ There was an edge to her tone when she said quite some time that hinted she was dubious about why exactly Maisie had spent so long with the woman.
‘I’m actually a bit worried about Baby Watson,’ Maisie responded, her tone even and her chin raised. Atta girl! he thought, allowing admiration to shine in his eyes.
‘He isn’t feeding very well,’ she continued, ‘and there haven’t been many wet nappies since he came down from the nursery.
The anterior fontanelle is very slightly sunken, but the mouth is moist, and the baby isn’t lethargic.
’ Sister was listening intently too. ‘Mrs Watson is very engorged and baby is struggling to stay on the breast.’
‘Tongue tie?’ he asked, and she shook her head.
‘I don’t think so. I got a good look at the frenelum and the tongue is lifting well at the front and not bifid.
I also checked for a posterior tongue tie and couldn’t feel any tissue between my fingers.
’ She brought her fingers together to demonstrate.
‘I think the most likely theory is that it’s a combination of the engorgement and the baby adapting from the bottle. ’
‘Any signs of infection in either of them?’ Sister Hanna asked the question that was on the tip of his tongue.
‘No. Temperatures both normal, skin normal to the touch, Mrs Watson not reporting shivers or flushes.’
‘Good.’
‘But,’ Maisie continued, and Alex felt a rush of pride at her knowledge, professionalism and calm demeanour, ‘she’s at risk of blocked ducts or even mastitis until the engorgement eases.’
‘Hand expression might help,’ Sister said briskly. ‘Does she know how to do it?’
Good idea! ‘I don’t know,’ Maisie said, her brow furrowed.
‘Well, once you’ve finished writing up, I suggest you go and teach her, if necessary. You do know how to teach hand expression?’
‘Yes, Sister.’
‘Now, Doctor Lowe, was there anything else?’ Sister was all efficiency, and there was an edge to her tone that Alex hadn’t experienced before.
‘I’m going to check on Baby Watson again,’ he said. ‘We can’t be too careful.’
Sister said nothing, merely giving a regal incline of the head. With one final glance towards Maisie – who had returned to her note-writing – he left the office.
* * *
Maisie hurried through writing her notes, her mind jumping all over the place.
Dan and Peggy! Who’d have thought it? Yet now the possibility had been pointed out to her, she knew there could be something in it.
Looking back, Peggy always seemed a bit different when Dan was around, and had seemed to actively avoid his eye at times.
Funny how you could never notice something, yet have memories you could call upon when needed.
Like her insight earlier about Gerald not being a good lad.
Peggy was well on the way to becoming Maisie’s best friend here, and the more lunches the two of them had spent together, the more they’d got to know each other.
Like Maisie, Peggy was from West Belfast, knew some of the same people, and worked out they had even gone to the same school – though Peggy had been a year ahead of Maisie.
They’d also both worked in the mills – and heartily agreed that being a midwife was a hundred times better.
Having a best friend again was a heartwarming experience for Maisie. She’d had various friends at school and in the mills, but while in London Gerald had come to dominate her time. Now, here, she had the chance to build a true friendship with Peggy.
Alex left the ward soon afterwards, and Maisie couldn’t help feeling a pang of something that felt suspiciously like disappointment at losing his company.
Their conversation there now, before Sister had come in, had been surprisingly intimate.
The closed door, the sharing of impressions and theories about Peggy and Dan .
. . there had been something nice about it.
And yet, on the surface it had been just a simple conversation.
He was befriending Dan as she was befriending Peggy, and if the two of them had history between them, or were secretly an item, then that was of more interest to Alex and Maisie than to anyone else in the hospital.
Perfectly reasonable, and she shouldn’t read anything more into it.
Closing the file, she prepared to teach Mrs Watson to hand express some milk. Everything else could wait.
* * *
Was he reading too much into things?
As he made his way around the various wards, checking on the patients that he had been assigned, Alex’s mind kept drifting back to Maisie.
God, he was becoming obsessed with her! But, in speaking of Dan and Peggy, she had truly engaged with him in a way that hadn’t happened before – and he was still buzzing from the exhilaration of it.
They had connected, and he wanted to experience that again.
While he would never wish to encourage anything as small-minded as gossip, he and Maisie were both genuinely intrigued by the notion that something might have happened between Dan and Peggy in Dublin.
He headed back to delivery suite, where Dan was alone in the doctors’ room, waiting to be called for surgery.
Now that he had voiced his suspicions aloud to Maisie, he was curious about Dan and Peggy, and felt he had enough of a bond with Dan to maybe ask him straight out – far better than talking about him behind his back.
After some small talk and clinic talk while they both did paperwork, he ventured,
‘I wanted to ask you something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Peggy Cassidy. You were going to tell me something, but we were interrupted.’
‘Aye.’ There was a slight flush on Dan’s face now. Interesting. He paused, before obviously deciding he wanted to share something with his new friend. ‘She’s actually my girl, though very few people at work know.’
‘Ah, so I was right!’ There was a nice satisfaction to it. ‘I wondered what was going on. You two seem a bit tense round each other. I actually thought that either you were together or you’d fell out.’
‘We had, to be fair.’ Dan gave a rueful smile. ‘We split up just before we left Dublin, but we’re back together now.’
‘Fair play to yiz. She’s a lovely girl.’
‘She’s the best.’ Joy was now clearly radiating through Dan, as he thought of his Peggy. Lucky get.
‘So why don’t yous want anybody here to know?’
‘It’s not that,’ Dan replied slowly. ‘Just the way it all happened, I suppose.’ He straightened. ‘It’s not a secret, like.’
‘Fair enough.’
Dan grinned. ‘I had to bring my ma round to the idea, though. She wanted me to go with Melissa Moore.’ He shuddered.
‘Melissa Moore?’
‘Yeah. She was at the reception. Dunno if you remember her. She’s on the fundraising committee.’
‘Ah, right.’ Alex vaguely remembered her, but also didn’t remember being too impressed. ‘My mother would be a bit like that too.’
‘Mothers!’ declared Dan, with an eye-roll.
‘Ready, Dr Sheridan.’ The theatre nurse had come, and it was time for Dan to go.
Afterwards, Alex sat for a moment, reflecting on it all.
Dan Sheridan and Peggy Cassidy! Both nice people, and a good match.
Both Catholic, their whole lives – and careers – in front of them.
Something inside him squirmed at the notion that others had their lives in place, unlike him.
While he had been enjoying himself in superficial flings with girls in Edinburgh, Dan and Peggy had been courting in earnest.
After getting through most of the paperwork and looking in on a woman in labour who was progressing very slowly, he checked his pocket watch, and his heart skipped a beat. Yes, it was finally acceptable for him to return to A Ward.
* * *
Maisie had had a satisfying, but busy afternoon supporting the postnatal women and their babies.
Sister was currently engaged with a woman in the bottom of the ward, but they had worked together earlier to wash a woman who had bled heavily through her pads, acting with warmth and respect towards her, and Maisie hoped she had done all right during her first ever afternoon on A Ward.
There were always tasks to be done, and she was cleaning and disinfecting scissors in the sluice room when a familiar figure appeared in the doorway.
‘Peggy!’ She gave a broad smile. ‘How did you get on?’ Peggy had been out shadowing one of the district midwives, in preparation for being added to their rota.
‘It was amazing.’ She sighed. ‘And such a relief that everyone knows now that I used to be a handywoman.’