Final preview chapter of Bedlam Maternity which launches this coming Friday.
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There was no answer to give to that question and as
the year moved on and slowly began to turn on itself, they gave up talking
about the situation. There had been no
more occurrences and no more information had come forward about Shafiah from
anyone. Tommy had offered to talk to the
local Imam about how the Islamic communities viewed ghosts, but Google could
furnish her with that and not get her into trouble with either the hospital, or
the community that was protecting Shafiah’s identity.
The walk to work, or rather the walk from work, got
more troublesome in freezing cold and rain, but turned out to be a lifesaver
for the ice and snow. As London once
more literally slid to a stop around her, with ‘unseasonable’ winter snow, she
was one of the few staff members who always made it on shift. It might take two hours to slog in on ice
grips, and sometimes three to get home, but she was managing it. It was doing wonders for her thighs. So few of the others were managing in the
worst of the weather that she took her sleeping bag in and left it in her
locker. She wasn’t going to be charged
£25 per night for the privilege of sleeping in a hospital bed when she was
saving the hospital’s neck: which is exactly what the Trust had done to staff
the previous winter.
The ice was flooding out Accident & Emergency,
as it always did. Broken limbs from
falls were straining resources and every now and then a bed was being used in
Maternity for some poor battered soul that couldn’t find refuge elsewhere. So when her beeper had gone off to call
A&E urgently, she hadn’t been too concerned, thinking it was a bed chase
for another ice victim. Another ice
victim it was, but one far more serious than anyone had anticipated. The woman, who had slipped backwards and
smashed her head on a wall, had lain unconscious for an hour or so in the snow
before being discovered. She was
suffering from concussion, hypothermia, and blood loss. The flap of skin that had been opened on the
back of her head had bled freely the entire time she’d been down. She was also heavily pregnant, easily over eight
months gone.
Rose reached A&E as the OB registrar was sending
out the orders for theatre. Despite
their best efforts to stabilise the mother, the baby was in distress and was
coming out. The mother had drifted in
and out of consciousness in the ambulance, and the senior anaesthetist was
being called in. The neo-natal unit was
at full stretch and short on staff for Theatre.
Rose was due off shift in 30 minutes and Lucy, her relief, wasn’t in
yet. Lucy had a long way to come from
Essex and had been making shifts, more or less, but had been hours late in the
past week. Rose made sure the delivery
unit was as well prepared as it could be, warned all the staff where she’d be
on change over, and confirmed she would attend.
She changed into theatre blues and scrubbed up.
The attempts to remove the baby were being hampered
by the problems of trying to get the mother’s core temperature up at the same
time as opening her for major surgery.
Theatre was so packed with surgeons and doctors, Rose couldn’t get anywhere
near the mother, who was plugged into several high tech pieces of equipment she
didn’t recognise.
Rose hated theatre and avoided it at all costs: it
was a bad shift if she found herself in there.
There wasn’t much to assist with, given the stream
of specialists each trying to maintain their discipline over the body of the
poor mother. Dr McGhee, the head of the
neo-natal unit, was working hand in hand with Dr Gray, the OB consultant. They were prepping everything before making
the first incision, in order to reduce the stress on the mother. Rose had seen Dr Gray do a caesarean in under
three minutes, from first cut to baby free, and had little worry about the intervention. The issue was the accident. They were clearly ready to proceed, as Dr McGhee
had turned to Rose and indicated she wanted a warmed receiving blanket, which
Rose unfolded across the older woman’s arms.
Rose picked up a neo-natal breathing mask and had her hand poised on the
oxygen switch. McGhee turned and nodded
to Gray, who put the scalpel to the swollen belly beneath her. Rose averted her eyes as the steel sliced
through skin, blood vessels and muscles.
When she looked back, one of the other masked surgeons in the room was
pulling open the cavity whilst Gray sliced on down to release the baby. She pulled the head up and out, and between
them, Gray and Dr McGhee had the baby out and on the cloth within 30
seconds. Rose moved forward with the
mask. Dr Gray clamped and severed the
umbilical cord and the press of bodies closed out the mother from Rose’s
view. She kept her thoughts on the tiny
baby girl Dr McGhee was dealing with.
Behind her, the steady beep of the heart machine reassured everyone the
mother should make it.
McGhee and Rose assessed the baby. She was perfectly warm, small, and tightly
curled. She did not like being
manhandled and Rose was sure the tension levels in the room halved when the
little girl burst forth her outrage at the manner of her birth and the sudden
removal from her mother. Lung
development was Good Enough. She was
also sure she heard the mother’s heartbeat double blip in response to the
cries.
When McGhee had the baby connected to the monitors
and the temperature and oxygen levels stabilised, they moved her upstairs to
the Neo-Natal Unit. Behind them, the
others carried on working for the safety of the mother.
McGhee and Rose barely spoke to each other in the
lift, their thoughts and efforts were only for the tiny bundle of life in their
hands. She was thin, but steadily
flushing through with pink, and still squalling in fits and starts.
Baby Nakalinzi was weighed, checked, prodded,
injected, and generally fussed over for more than an hour, then settled into a
deep and much needed sleep by the caress of her attentive nurses. Rose had felt the heavy stab in her heart
ease as the little one had settled into life, and stayed over long in the unit
until the babe was softly asleep. She then
went to check on the mother and put in place all the arrangements they’d need
for her to start to care for her baby when she woke from surgery.
The mother, Mercy, was out of theatre but being kept
under sedation. Her body had stayed
strong throughout and her heartbeat was regular. Discussions were taking place on where she
should be placed and Rose spoke up for her going into the new rooms designed on
the fourth floor to accommodate mothers in need of post-operative surgical
care. Yes, she was more high-dependency
than usual for that unit, but her baby would be just upstairs and it would
facilitate skin to skin and establishing breastfeeding. Wasn’t that the whole point of the new rooms?
When the discussion got heated, Rose backed out of
it and waited respectfully for the surgeons to finish arguing their territory. The decision was tipped by Dr Gray, who argued
that care was care, no matter where the machines were plugged in and that
getting Mum and Baby together was best for both of them. The unit was designed to give specialist
post-natal care and the head injury was not that major. Mercy was moved to a side room in the
maternity special care unit on the fourth floor. Baby would come down to join her as soon as
it was safe to do so.
Rose was watching the thick snow settle outside as
she did the paperwork for Mercy. Her
temperature was stabilised and her stomach wound clean and neatly sutured. All her vitals were excellent and her
prognosis was good. She’d be kept
sedated for about 24 hours, to give her body time to recover and heal, and then
they’d proceed with waking her up. The
x-ray had shown a small fracture on her skull, but there shouldn’t be much more
complication than the concussion. The
snow and ice had robbed her of more than the backwards slam into the top of a
low brick wall.
Her nose twitched by the lack of father, or any
other human being in attendance at the unit to see how she and the baby were,
Rose went looking for relatives. A
couple of hours on the phone to Social Services provided the answer that there
were none, well, no adults. Mercy had
only arrived in London two days earlier, from an immigration detention
centre. She and her three year old son
had been in detention for the past six months, nearly 60 miles north of London,
in Bedfordshire. She’d been released to
have the baby and the boy was already in foster care, having been found by
police when the ambulance had been called for Mercy. The hostel they had been in was paid for by
Social Services and they only had info on her from her two nights
previous. Typically, she’d been released
to the local borough that she’d been in before she was lifted by the Borders
Agency, and returned to it, despite not having any home or connections there
for the months she’d been away.
Rose sent two messages out to the local charities
and the churches that supported refugee claimants. Someone would have been helping her when she
was locked in Yarl’s Wood, but it may take time to track someone down who knew
her. She spoke to Social Services again,
to confirm the boy was okay and to get the name of whoever was going to be
assigned to sort all this out. Rose had
a bad feeling in her bones. The East End
had seen generations of refugees swarm through its streets: in many ways the
times were the worst possible for them.
She’d tended the birth of babies that had then been deported in their
mother’s arms, back to whatever terror they had been fleeing from. She prayed the baby upstairs now would not be
another one.
By now she was several hours past her shift
end. The snow outside was building
up. The entire unit was
understaffed. She argued with herself
about the best course of action: go home where she wouldn’t have much time for
sleep, but could let go the stresses, or stay here and sleep where she could,
for as long as she could manage.
Indecision took her back up to the neo-natal unit, where the baby was
still fast asleep, the monitors pinging away as they should. It occurred to her that no one may have told
the mother she had a daughter: she’d been in general surgical care after all.
She slipped down the back stairs, something she had
been avoiding where possible these past few months. As she passed the fourth floor window she
expected to feel a shiver, but did not.
Telling herself again she was being ridiculous, she went on down to the
ward, and went into the room Mercy was in.
The woman was alone, the machines all keeping their vigil for the
staff. Rose pulled a chair up to the
head of the bed, and seated herself. She
held the woman’s hand in her own, stroking the back of her hand, as she told
her that she had a daughter. A healthy
and happy daughter who was being cared for by loving arms, just above her head,
on the floor above. Her daughter would
be down to see her the next day, when she woke, and that Mercy was not to worry
about her son. He, too, was safe. Both her children were safe, and Mercy should
sleep, rest and recover. So she could
wake up and hold them close.
Rose blinked the tears from the corners of her eyes
as she patted the woman’s hands, and stood up.
The shiver caught her breath. Her feet felt frozen to the ground. Her breathing stalled.
There was someone standing on the other side of the
bed.
Shafiah.
The need to react was totally overtaken by the door
behind them opening and closing with a bang.
Rose turned her head too quickly, and felt dizzy, slumping onto the
seat. Dr Gray came over.
‘Are you all right, Rose?’
Rose, who was as pale as the snow catching on the
window sill, nodded. ‘Startled, just a
little startled. Been a long shift.’
Shafiah was gone.
Obviously, since Dr Gray hadn’t screamed.
‘I do appreciate the over-time Rose, I really
do. Especially now.’ Dr Gray left Rose to pick up Mercy’s chart
and give it a quick look see. Fiona Gray
was not an emotional person, not in the least sentimental or personable. She took everything and everyone at face
value and never seemed to notice that most of the staff didn’t like her very
much. Professional respect was all she
required from everyone and Rose wasn’t offended by the absent way Fiona didn’t
quite chat to her as she conducted her analysis of Mercy’s chart. She was grateful for the opportunity to
collect her thoughts and to calm her racing pulse. Dr Gray moved down to where Shafiah had been
standing, and addressed Mercy.
‘Apologies, Miss Nakalinzi, I came to inform you
your daughter was safe and well. But I
suspect that Rose got here first.’ Dr
Gray smiled over at Rose, who was almost as thunderstruck by the comments as
she had been by Shafiah’s appearance.
‘I’ll leave you to it, Rose. Good evening, Miss Nakalinzi.’ Dr Gray left the room.
Rose stayed seated as she tried to piece her
thoughts and feelings back into some sort of shape. This task was overtaken by the arrival of
Lucy Manning, who had finally made it in.
Rose and she retired for some strong tea, and a brief hand-over.
Whilst she was nodding on the couch in the staff
lounge, snug in her sleeping bag, Rose realised that Dr Gray would not have
screamed even if she had seen Shafiah.
She’d never met her, and what was the strangeness of a woman standing in
a room by a bedside? The strangeness
would have been the supernatural appearance and disappearance. Besides, she,
Rose, hadn’t screamed on either occasion.
She wished she could talk to Tommy Doyle: she fell asleep praying.
Lucy Manning shook her awake in the wee small
hours. Rose knew from the touch and the
pale face that something was very wrong.
As her own eyelids flickered open, Rose saw that tears had been shed by
Lucy’s. What on earth was wrong?
‘I’m sorry to wake you. I just had to have someone to talk to.’
Rose pulled herself out of the shreds of sleep as
she pulled herself out of the sleeping bag.
There were two steaming hot mugs of tea by the table. Lucy sat and huddled round hers, waiting for
Rose to wake up enough to join her. Rose
ran her hands through her hair, gave her face a quick rub and sat down,
blinking. She lifted the mug up and
wrapped her hands round it, breathing in the heat.
She listened.
Tears came first, and Lucy dabbed at her eyes with a
paper hanky. It was scrunched and well
used. She blew her nose.
‘Sorry, Rose.
I couldn’t let the younger ones see me.
It’s not good.’
Rose nodded.
‘Is it a baby?’
Rose had never known a midwife who didn’t cry after a still birth, or an
early death. You just did it in private,
away from the family. Their grief came
first. You let it out afterwards.
Lucy shook her head.
Rose sipped the tea.
It was sweet. Lucy had put sugar
in it; sugar for shock.
‘No, it’s a mother.’
Rose swallowed more tea which no longer tasted
sweet.
‘A mother.
They’re taking her downstairs now.’
Every nurse referred to the morgue as ‘downstairs’,
no matter where it was located.
‘The baby?’
‘It’s Mercy, Rose.
Mercy is dead. She had a heart attack
and… and she never held her baby, not once.’
Lucy dissolved into sobs, quiet wracking sobs. Rose placed her right hand on Lucy’s
shoulder, witness to her distress.
It took ten minutes or so for them to get each other
in full control. Lucy washed her face in
cold water to calm her eyes, and Rose did the best she could to make it look as
if she hadn’t slept on a couch. Lucy’s
tears had stained her blues so she changed into new ones as Rose dressed for
her shift.
Together, they went over all the paperwork, making
sure every i was dotted and every t crossed.
The normal paperwork of the ward was an impeccable detailing of every
moment, intervention, and event of the birth and after care. There was precious little detail in Mercy’s,
given she’d been in Theatre and then unconscious, but they checked and double
checked everything was sensible, in order, and as it should have been. There would be an internal inquiry; there
always was.
Rose watched Lucy begin the long trek home in the
snow and ice, and set herself to the task of keeping the entire shift on
track. It was usually the next shift in
from a death that saw the most disruption.
The staff on duty took their shock home, but the next shift came in
under a pall. Every subsequent birth was
high tension in the minds of the workers, and every happy mother holding a baby
an invite to tears. She also spent some
time with Maggie, going over even more paper work. Maggie was controlled and deadly rage: she
was personally insulted any time a mother died under her care. She’d seen too many dead mothers in some of
the places she’d worked with relief agencies.
In war and famine, the mothers and children usually came last.
With some relief, Rose trudged back home over the
melting ice, some fourteen hours in Lucy’s wake. Another four days of rest was in front of
her, and the pain of the death behind her, disappearing in the rain.
She bought smoked salmon from the all night deli.
Tommy had once again lit up his pipe, and sat
puffing away, the smoke drifting around the living room. Rose was huddled over another steaming hot
mug of tea, this time it had a liberal application of whisky, care of Tommy.
The silence, the easy, comfortable, friendly and well-used
silence between them, was doing more to soothe her than speech. The silence allowed her tears to flow. Tommy puffed away as the salty fluid dripping
from her eyes drained out the canker in her soul.
Rummaging for a hanky and blowing her nose and
drying her eyes, was the signal for conversation to start up again.
‘You think it’s coincidence?’ Her voice was too defensive, and she knew it.
‘No, I don’t, lass.
I think there is a puzzle here.’
He tapped out his pipe before tapping more of his special baccy mix in.
‘I just don’t know what it is. What she is trying to say to us.’
‘Death is pretty simple.’ Rose sat back,
exhausted.
‘Dying may be simple, in a first this happens, then
that sort of way. But death itself… that
is never simple.’ Three deep puffs, and
a long stream of smoke sent upwards, away from the table.
‘Death is a divine mystery…?’ She tried for a rueful smile.
‘Is it death, ‘tho?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How many people have died in the hospital, since
that poor lass fell to her death?’
Rose considered.
‘Lots’.
Tommy nodded.
‘Now, this is a hard one. Have
any mothers died, since?’
Rose swallowed hard as the tears swelled up.
‘Or babies, in fact?’
Rose looked over to Tommy, pinning him with her
gaze. Tommy took the assault, and sat
quietly until Rose herself looked to one side, breaking off the connection.
‘Your brain is like a steel trap, Father Doyle.’
‘It takes one to know one, Sister Templar.’ It was
an old joke between them, since Rose had once been a ward sister, before titles
had become managerial gobbledygook.
‘And the answer…?’
‘Two mothers and one baby have died since Shafiah
did, in the wards. One was a woman who’d
been in cancer treatment when she became pregnant unexpectedly. She was dying and there was very little hope
of more than a year in any event. She
stopped all treatment, went home, and prepared for her baby. She died in the unit, with the baby in her arms,
about two days after the birth.’ Rose
envisioned the scene that Lucy had described so poignantly: Mum and Dad in bed together, the baby on
Mum’s chest, Dad’s arms holding them both.
The mother’s parents sitting in the room, grieving the loss of their
child whilst trying to hold onto the joy of a new grand-daughter. She left a few moments’ silence, to collect
her thoughts.
‘Then there was the Mum and baby we lost a few
months ago. Very unusual. Mum was on
holiday here, from Devon. Hit by a
car. Placenta previa, in addition to
serious chest injuries. She bled to
death, baby died in utero.'
‘You were on duty?’
‘For that one I was on stand-by, she was in theatre
when I came on shift.’
‘And did you… have a visit… for either…?’
‘No.’
‘Could someone else have?’
Rose had no idea, and she had a delicate look
around, chatting to people, listening hard, looking for signs over the next few
weeks. There was no hint anywhere that
anything unusual had been occurring. Given how superstitious most hospital staff
were, she didn’t know if she was relieved, or disappointed. The inquest on Mercy recorded it as a tragedy
and the hospital was praised for how well it had cared for her. Anyone can have a heart attack, at any time,
and the fact she was wired up to a series of machines when she had hers, was
evidence that all measures to keep her safe had been taken. Both children were put into the system for
adoption and thus become British citizens.
Rose had the comfort of that; that Mercy rested with both her babies
safe from deportation. She was buried
not far from Shafiah’s unmarked spot, having the same anonymous burial on the
council funds. Rose would walk past, and
say silent hellos to them both, and assure them their children were happy and
well cared for.
Or so she prayed.
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