Second chapter of Bedlam Maternity this week, in preparation for it being published in a week or so. Don't be fooled by it saying chapter one - there is a full chapter of prologue, available HERE.
Chapter One
London, present day
Rose
Templar walked the frosty streets in the dark before the dawn. Later on that day, a minor royal personage
would be officially opening the maternity unit now under her tender care. Not that she was in charge of all of it, in
fact, she was just one of the tiny cogs in a massive machine named the National
Health Service. She had been given the
duty shift that would see her ensuring that no ‘bother’ interrupted the press
call and she’d found herself awake, and fretting, a couple of hours before the
alarm clock. So she’d decided she may as
well just get on with it, and get to work early.
She
usually enjoyed the long walk to and from work.
When her wreck of a Victorian hospital had been demolished and the new
spanking bright and very expensive one they’d all dreamed of for years had
finally been started, she’d been faced with a choice. She could have moved out of her old flat, its
mortgage paid off in the divorce settlement, and bought something snazzier near
the new unit. However, no matter how
much house prices had risen in her old area, the new unit was now in a quite
expensive and trendy part of the East End.
Her salary gave her a reasonable standard of living with no mortgage to
pay and moving would cut into to that.
Equally, she’d spend a lot of money on transport if she’d stayed where
she was. When trying to make the ends
meet in her mind, she’d determined that two birds could be killed with one
stone. She’d started to spread out
around her waist, hips and butt, in a most annoying and middle aged fashion;
which was appropriate in her mid-50s, but she detested it. Exercise was something she knew she should be
doing, but when to find the time? And
the average day in the wards saw her standing and walking for hours, wasn’t
that enough? Observing her clothes
tighten as her breath quickened on stairs, she decided it wasn’t. Faced with financial problems no matter what
route she took to the new unit, she’d decided to take to the streets and walk
the four miles every day, there and back.
Everyone
had scoffed at the idea, and declared she’d be shelling out bus or Tube fare
quickly. And, as she’d struggled through
the first two weeks, done thankfully when she was on leave, she’d thought they
were right. It was madness. But Rose very rarely left off on anything
that she’d set her mind to, and by the time the new unit had opened up enough
for her to start work there, she could do the four miles in forty-five minutes
if she had to, and in an hour and fifteen minutes on most days. The walk home took longer, as it would, after
a twelve hour shift. She’d slowly
dropped a dress size and found a lot of her clothes more comfortable to wear as
a result. She hadn’t faced winter yet,
‘tho, and had ordered a pair of ice grips well ahead of time. The weatherproof clothing she’d bought had
been more than a match for London so far.
She’d always enjoyed walking in the rain, anyway.
The
walk had become her down time, a soothing space to settle herself into. Time to relax into the day on the way there,
and unwind from it on the way back. It
was particularly useful in coping with shift work and she’d wished she’d found
this balm long before economics had pushed it on her. But there was no peace to be found this
morning: she was just winding herself up with all the thoughts that could go
wrong. Some of those thoughts were about
what could go wrong with the opening ceremony, the security, the minor royal
who was famed for rubbing the patients up the wrong way when chatting to them,
and the general behaviour of her team.
Most of the worries were for her women ‘tho, which is how she thought of
her patients. Labour and birth had their
own rhythms. Unlike most areas of a
hospital it couldn’t be controlled, scheduled, and made to conform to
routine. At least, not here, not
yet. She’d spent two months in New
England, working on an exchange of medical knowledge programme, and had been
horrified by how American business has taken over birth. She’d certainly learned a lot when there, and
used that knowledge to bolster her in fighting encroachment here. Echoes of that worry were pinging through her
thoughts. The new Chief Executive of the
Trust had a very presidential attitude to both the patients and the staff. Fresh from working on a team that had lost
millions of pounds of tax payers’ money on the railway system, he’d taken over
his new fiefdom with a massive grin for the cameras and an iron grip on
resources. He’d already made it clear he
wanted no cries, screams, sweaty labouring women, or bloody babies being
spotted when the press were in the building.
Particularly the bloody baby.
He’d
actually used those words whilst looking directly over to Rose. She knew she’d been scheduled in for the
delivery ward Supervisor during the visit, in order to keep everything under
control. She’d just sat, absorbing his
idiocy silently, nodding every now and then: her normal method of coping with
totally incompetent and ill-versed management.
It was one reason she kept her position of some authority, both in the
pecking order of staff, and the management structure.
She’d
even given up seething silently under her breath: life was too short.
But
it was worrying her now, as she turned the corner to see the hospital glowing
like the Starship Enterprise in front of her.
The shiny new sign signalling the real problem with seeing anything but
a cute, clean, asleep advert baby, in any mother’s arms today.
Bethlehem Maternity
Unit
She
flinched inside every time she saw it.
But he would not be told, oh no he would not. When the focus group presented several
options for the new unit, based on its Moorfields’s history and the locale,
he’d insisted that ‘Bethlehem’ be put high up as the potential new name. He was seeing Virgin births (no doubt without
sweat, shouting, or blood) being photographed for the papers with a holy glow,
with himself cast as all three Kings. In
a world of fear for jobs, the protests had been easily quashed. The staff had warned him, the local community
had shuddered, and the original Bethlehem Hospital, still operating elsewhere
in London, had let their displeasure be known.
Everything had been swept aside in his march for making a name for
himself. He seized on the ten square
feet the new unit possessed, that had been part of the acres of the old
hospital and announced it was true to the roots of the hospital in the
community. He paid for an expensive
inter-faith focus group that ‘proved’ none of the diverse communities the
hospital served would be offended by the name.
He disparaged every other attempt at a sensible naming. He was determined and he got his way. He signed the cheques, after all.
And
on the day it was announced, he was phoned up by the local newspaper and asked
how he felt to be in charge of Bedlam Maternity?
She’d
actually found it funny, at that point.
He just would not be told…
Of
course, he wasn’t dealing with it on a day to day basis, it wasn’t a tiresome
thorn in his side. She swallowed the
temper down as she changed into her blues.
It was still two hours until her shift started, but Lucy Manning, the
current supervisor, would be glad for the extra pair of hands, not annoyed.
Lucy
was delighted to see Rose, and the reason for it soon became apparent. Shafiah Begum had gone into labour a couple
of weeks early, and the entire unit was in a tizz. As Rose came up to speed on the notes, Lucy
confided that she’d almost called Rose in.
‘Today
of all days…’
Rose
nodded. Oh yes, today of all days… The
superstitious part of her twitched at the coincidence. Lucy obviously had the same itch, from the
worried look in her eyes, and the slight shortness in her tone. Most nurses and midwives were superstitious
to some degree. Years on the wards,
seeing life come, observing life go, brought an awareness of more than the eyes
could see and the ears hear. You kept it
in a box, you moved it out of the way if it ever popped out of its box… but you
always knew it was there. A sense that
some things were going to be different, somehow. Rose had known that Shafiah was going to be
different, and not just because of the way she’d begun her pregnancy journey,
but from how she’d chosen to end it.
Shafiah
was in her mid-20s and a delightful, intelligent and well mannered young woman
with no past, other than the pregnancy.
She was clearly from a Bangladeshi family, which had probably been here
for two if not three generations and had likely worked its way out of abject
poverty. She was educated and worked in
paid employment somewhere close to the hospital; of that Rose was sure. She was a devout Muslim and wore hijab as a
matter of choice, something she’d taken time to explain to the staff at the
unit. She was also unmarried. Her pregnancy was not a matter of rejoicing
for her. Rose’s heart ached for Shafiah.
Four
months earlier, Shafiah had calmly strolled into the hospital, made her way
over to the maternity unit, and requested a private chat with a midwife. Rose had been on her way home after a heavy
shift, and had happily taken Shafiah to a private room for a chat. Shafiah had unfolded her tale. She was, she thought, about five months
pregnant, and both medical care and an adoption would need to be arranged with
the maternity unit. She was not foolish
enough to think her secret could be kept via her GP’s office, or in any way
that meant her family knew she was attending any medical facility
regularly. She would come into the unit,
be checked over, meet the social workers, arrange the adoption and deliver,
then go home. Could the midwives help
her set all this up?
The
midwives, most of whom had encountered a Shafiah at other places and times,
could indeed help set all this up. Rose
herself had contacted Social Services, and been present at the first
meeting. Apart from refusing to give a
home address or a date of birth, Shafiah had done everything expected of her in
her pregnancy. She attended the unit directly
for ante-natal checks and had cared for herself. She did not drink, smoke, or use drugs, and
she ate well, resisting the impulse to restrict eating, or use vomiting as a
method of weight control. Rose had known
a few Shafiahs in her professional life, and often they resorted to bulimia to
mask their thickening waists and swelling stomachs. Food had to be consumed at the family table
or bring questions, so it was often vomited up afterwards. It was not good for either baby or
mother. Shafiah, however, had hijab to
aid her and it had been a faithful friend.
She was a tall and slender lass, and had carried the baby high up, with
very little evidence of it. She came
from a culture where no one saw another naked, or changing clothing, and hijab
covered a multitude of sins. Or in this
case, just one.
Some
of the younger midwives and the trainees who’d been involved in her care had
not believed such a thing was feasible.
The more experienced ones, like Lucy and Rose, knew not only how often
it occurred, but how often it was a completely successful operation. Usually the only factor in being uncovered
was the woman’s own psyche. Some would
buckle, and confide in their own mother, or in another family member. Some would just leave the area and disappear,
transferring far away and starting again before the pregnancy was
finished. Most carried on, and simply
walked away the day the baby was born.
An event that scarred every member of staff on duty, and that made every
birth thereafter, for a week or so, a special type of pain for everyone.
Rose
noted that Amber Purcell was on duty and had ended up being Shafiah’s midwife,
given everyone else had been busy. She
sighed. Amber was the only member of
staff to really object to treating Shafiah.
She was just qualified and extremely young in some attitudes. There had been no leavening by experience
with Amber, not yet. No wonder Lucy had
been so glad to see Rose. She finished
reading the notes and made her way down to the room that held Shafiah and
Amber.
Amber
had the grace to contain how pleased she was that Rose was there, and how
delighted she was about her suggestion she go for a short break whilst Rose
took over. Rose watched her sign off the
notes and hurry out the room, although she did bid Shafiah a professional good
bye. Midwives often changed over on
labours during shift changes, and Shafiah seemed unperturbed. She was labouring well and keeping herself
contained within herself, which was what Rose had expected. Rose did not doubt that Amber would have been
professional with Shafiah, otherwise she’d not have been allowed to attend.
Rose
settled into the rhythm of the birth with Shafiah. To be ‘with woman’ was her calling and
vocation and it was a duty she treasured.
Shafiah had been well informed, as had Rose, and she stood as silent
attendant to the dance that the young woman was undertaking with her body. Staff came and went, with Rose forwarding the
occasional soft word, or giving a gentle touch to a shaking shoulder. On full shift change, as Shafiah’s body moved
to birth, Caron Gonzalez took over as official midwife whilst Rose held her
post as watcher: it was going to be soon and they had to be quick.
Shafiah
brought forth a primal scream and a perfect little boy as the rest of the
hospital slowly woke to its day. Caron
cut the cord whilst Rose swaddled the baby in a cloth and cradled it in her
arms. She moved forward and held his
tiny head to Shafiah’s mouth. Shafiah
whispered the name of God into his ear then turned her face away. Rose immediately left the room, placing the
baby in the receiving station waiting in the hall. With luck they could… it was not to be. As soon as he was placed down, the baby
erupted into a massive cry of life, and they wheeled him away as fast as they
dared in order to take the cries from the mother’s ears as quickly as humanly
possible.
Rose
and a nursing auxiliary attended to baby Mohammed, as all Muslim boys were
known until they were named by their family.
He was perfect, if slightly small, and in fine fettle. As Rose filled in the paperwork, Bex, the
auxiliary, held the baby to try and soothe him.
With no warm skin on his, the baby knew he was without a mother and was
not to be consoled. Tears formed in
Bex’s eyes. Rose patted her on the
shoulder.
‘I
don’t know how she can…’
‘Then
hope to never walk a mile in her shoes.’
‘But…
why…?’ Tears were streaming down Bex’s face as she shushed the boy, looking at
the baby as his mother should have. Rose
felt the familiar twinge, an ache so deep her bones sat on top of it. She neatly side stepped it; anything was easy
with practice, after all.
‘There
is no why. There is only her wish, and
us following it. It’s not our choice, or
our life.’
Bex
nodded. ‘It’s just so hard.’
‘Only
as it’s now so rare. It used to happen a
great deal more often.’
Bex
looked surprised. How old was she, 22,
23? Younger than Shafiah probably was.
‘Really?’
It
was Rose’s turn to nod, and she carried on talking as they finished the
assessment, placed the baby down on a bassinet, covered it with the regulation
see through plastic cover it had to have, a baby cloche, in order to wheel him
to his bed upstairs in the neo-natal unit.
In line with modern practice Bedlam had no Nursery: babies were helped
to bed-in with mothers on the wards. Any
babies requiring any special consideration at all at, from a mother too ill to
bed-in to a baby being removed by Social Services, were now being taken to the
expanded neo-natal unit. Money was being
thrown at the unit to try and reduce mortality rates from the hospital records:
money that could have been better spent in the community during the
pregnancy. Rose and Bex looked down on
the mite as they pushed the cart along, his cries meant the conversation was
discreet and private to the two women even in the bustle of the over loaded
unit.
‘My first Shafiah was a young Catholic girl
who called herself Mary.’ Rose smiled at
the memory. ‘Not long after I qualified,
she did exactly the same, just walked into the unit one afternoon. She did tell her family ‘tho, and she went
off to a home for unwed mothers.’
‘Unwed?’ Bex’s tones made Rose feel very old, and very
tired.
‘Yes,
unwed. Even then, at the end of the 70s,
there were still vestiges of such places and attitudes. The matron I trained under made sure we were
all aware to give young women a private space to talk if they just walked into
the unit.’
The
two women fell into silence as they stood in the lift, the baby’s cries
bouncing around the walls. Rose started
up again as they wheeled him down the long corridor.
“They
were usually called Mary or Teresa, or Rachel and Hannah. Mostly they’d crumble, and end up going to a
home to birth and give up for adoption there.
Sometimes they’d manage it to the end, and just walk away. Keeping their family from shame, no matter
the cost.’
Bex
looked down at the screaming baby and then back up to Rose, searching for
answers. ‘Do you think she will… just walk away… just leave?’
‘Yes,
I think she will. She’s very strong.’
They
fell silent once more, as they delivered Mohammed over to the neo-natal unit,
for feeding and observation. As he was
slightly early and a little underweight, he would probably spend his first week
of life here before going to a foster home.
Rose felt the loss as she handed him over to the charge nurse. How arms that had felt fulfilled now felt
empty, derelict. She and Bex rode the
lift back down in crashing, awkward, painful silence; the absence of cries
cutting both to the quick. Rose spoke
both their thoughts as they walked back into the ward.
‘It’s
better than finding a baby in a plastic bag in a shop doorway.’
Bex
nodded and hurried away, eager to finish the shift and get home and hug her
mother. As she worked the day out, she
vowed to herself that when her time came, she’d never be separated from her own
newborn for a second, No Matter What.
Rose
checked on the state of play in the rest of the unit, then went to oversee
Shafiah’s discharge. This was the part
that was going to need the most care.
Doorways had to be left open without intruding. Information had to be passed on without
preaching. The girl had to have her
chance.
Shafiah
was clean and dressed and sitting drinking tea with the female social worker
that had been assigned her. She was pale
and missing the heavy kohl makeup she usually wore, making her look more washed
out. She sipped her tea silently. As Rose took her through the paperwork on
taking care of herself post-birth, large tears formed in Shafiah’s eyes and
dripped down. Rose kept her voice gentle
and even, open and listening.
‘As
I explained before, you can have medicine to dry your milk.’
Shafiah
shook her head. ‘No drugs.’
‘Then
you’ll need these.’ Rose handed over
written instructions on how to cope with the breasts drying naturally, as well
as emergency phone numbers in case of bleeding or infection.
Shafiah
shook her head.
‘I
have read everything I need to know. I
will not be taking anything with me.’
The
social worker spoke up. ‘I would ask you
to sign this paperwork.’
Shafiah
scrawled her name across several pieces of paper. Her tears had dried and she wrote
confidently, as if in a hurry. The
social worker spoke to her as she did so.
‘You
have a right to change your mind. You
can come to us at any point, for the first 21 days. If you change your mind after that, it will
be harder, but you can still do so. I
need you to sign this form, to state you’ve been told you have a right to
change your mind.’
With
no name, no date of birth, no address… the signature was useless anyway. All three women in the room knew this. But protocols had to be followed. Rose signed as witness.
The
social worker took the forms and left.
Rose sat and waited for Shafiah to speak.
‘Can
I go?’
Rose
nodded. ‘Yes, of course. It’s your choice.’
Shafiah
stood up, hesitated. Sat down.
Rose
sat.
‘I…
I… I need to know. Was everything
okay? Was he all right?’
‘He
is perfect, perfect.’
‘Good. I’m glad.’
‘Would
you like to see him?’
Shafiah
shook her head violently. ‘No!’
Rose
sat.
Shafiah
waited out the emotion that was riding through her. She looked straight to Rose, her gaze direct.
‘You
can come back at any time, Shafiah. He
is safe, and he is here for a couple of days at least. You know where we are, where he is.’
Again,
she shook her head violently.
‘No. Thank you, but no.’ Collecting her strength
to her, Shafiah stood. ‘Thank you, you
have been very kind.’
She
left the room as she’d entered the hospital: quietly and with no fuss. Rose sat for a few moments, gathering her own
strength. The nag she’d felt when she’d
noticed Shafiah’s name on the roster when she came in, repeated. There was a sense of wrongness that she could
not define. If she’d had Shafiah on the
wards she’d be having her checked more often than the others. Instinct was telling her something was
wrong. But given what had just occurred,
how could she not be feeling that?
Rose
sighed.
She
had four women in labour in the rooms around her, and all her staff needed
her. She shook off the pain and went
back to work.
No
doubt as it was a special day, the wards were buzzing. Women were arriving at an amazing rate and
for one horrible moment, Rose thought one mother might deliver in the middle of
the corridor. That was going to look so
good in the papers… but a room became free at the last moment and all the
panics were contained.
Rose
was grateful for how busy it was, as it was easier to fall into work, and to not
thinking, when you were run off your feet.
Two photogenic mothers, one black, one white, had been identified by the
hospital’s media consultant as ‘correct’ to be visited by the minor royal. Their babies were one and two days old, and
had the required level of both cleanliness and calmness, spending most of their
young lives in milk-induced sleep. Both
mothers were bedded side by side in a small bay off the main ward corridor and
were signing releases for their photographs as they primped themselves for
their public. Everything was as clean
and set up as could be, and there shouldn’t be any complications before the
press and officials came up to the ward after the plaque in reception had been
unveiled. Hunger drove her out of the
ward and over to the cafeteria just before the press were allowed in to set up.
She
thought she’d get back before the big moment but the sheer crush of people in
the Perspex poly-tunnel that connected the main hospital to the maternity unit
slowed her down. By the time she’d
fought her way into the hexagonal reception area, she was hemmed in by a sea of
bodies. The temperature rocketed as she
stood, despite the chill air outside. A
Perspex bubble designed by an architect to be about the ‘transparency’ of birth
might be put forward for awards, but it was going to be hell on earth come June. Which they’d told them.
It’s
not as if management weren’t told about these things before they happened…
Rose
settled to have to wait out the opening ceremony before making it back upstairs
to her ward. She wasn’t an official part
of anything and was confident everything was in place upstairs. She noted with interest the clashing colours
of the scarf the minor royal was wearing as the flashguns around her exploded:
where did they get this stuff?
The
feeling of someone walking over her grave drew her into herself a moment before
the shadow crossed everyone’s vision.
The noise was what exploded in her senses, in everyone’s senses. The massive impact of splatter and rupture
that preceded the heartbeat's silence before the screams
began. Like everyone, Rose looked
up. Unlike most, her gaze stayed where
it had rested: ignoring the blood runnels streaming across the transparent
roof. Whilst everyone was screaming,
moving, shrieking, and panicking, Rose kept her gaze firmly on the face above
her, as the light in the eyes failed.
She felt the moment of passing as Shafiah Begum’s body gave its last,
smashed to smithereens on the jagged outcroppings of the reception area’s roof.
"Rose Templar" is a great name. Very eerie ambiance!
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you Kathleen!
ReplyDelete