Page 50 of The Pieces of Us

Before it starts, the room is calm and cool. The bed is pristine, Sister Anne-Marie’s hospital corners tighter than I’ve ever seen them. The window is open, but the curtains are drawn, blocking out light and muffling the outside world.

‘You’re getting close,’ Nana says. It’s what she said an hour ago, and two hours ago, and that’s as far back as I can remember, but I don’t feel like I’m getting close to anything.

Except maybe death. Every time I try to move into a more comfortable position on the bed my body screams. I don’t think there’s a baby inside me.

They’ve all lied to me – it’s a monster made of rusty metal, all sharp angles and bad intentions.

‘Breathe through it, my love,’ Nana says. She’s on her knees at the head of the bed, letting me dig my nails into the heels of her hands. Her palms are callused from a lifetime of daily struggles and determination. My ten tiny crescent moons will leave their own lasting imprint.

I pant like a dog. ‘No, pet … gentle breaths.’ Nana presses her fingers down on to my knuckles. ‘In through your nose, out through your mouth. But try to breathe out softly. Imagine there’s a candle in front of you and you don’t want to blow out the flame.’

‘I can’t do that.’ I slump on to my elbows, letting my monstrous, rigid belly graze the mattress. I wonder what would happen if I just let myself fall, whether the baby would crawl out of me in protest.

‘You can. When you feel the next contraction, just sigh. Then breathe in and out until it ends.’

‘This will never end,’ I growl at her. ‘I’ve died and gone to hell.’

‘But not lost your sense of humour, I see,’ Mam says from somewhere behind my head.

‘None of this is funny,’ I pant.

Sister Anne-Marie enters the room – a small mercy that she’s on duty or Mam and Nana might not even be allowed to be here with me.

They’ll have to leave before the baby comes; Sister Anne-Marie will be the first person to lay eyes on my child.

But for now they’re here, and I welcome the damp towel Mam presses against the back of my neck.

In any case, I don’t want Mam and Nana to see me on all fours on this bed, panting and sweating and baring my teeth like a rabid dog.

Without warning pain surges from my pelvis and I scream, scream, scream so loudly it seems to bounce off each wall in the room.

If there’s a lull in the proceedings, a pause for reflection before the priest slips in a final Hail Mary for good measure, today’s congregation might wonder why a cow is being slaughtered, in a posh part of the city, on the day of rest.

Sister Anne-Marie tells Mam and Nana to stand to the side.

A cuff tightens round my upper arm, a metal disc is pressed down on my chest. I’m told to spread my legs and relax, and two taut gloved fingers are inserted into me down there, touching part of my insides that’s unlike any sensation I’ve ever experienced and makes me want to throw up.

‘It will be a while yet,’ she says, and I sob.

Somehow it’s evening. Mam and Nana are gone, and the nuns attend to me in silence save for the occasional muffled exchange. I want to scream at them to speak up, to let me hear what they’re saying because of course it’s about me.

‘Shouldn’t I be in the hospital?’ I turn my head to the new nun, the one I’ve never seen before. She shakes her head and smiles with a closed mouth.

I don’t know what happens next because the pain is back and I’m so tired I’m surprised I can even feel it, that I’m still aware of anything. I scream again. Nana and her sighs and her gentle breaths and her candle flames can get lost. Screaming is the only thing that helps.

I feel a push and it’s Sister Anne-Marie and her glove again, but this time it feels like she’s using more than two fingers. ‘Almost ready, Beth,’ she says calmly.

‘Almost ready for what?’ I sob. ‘I’ve been more than ready for hours. What day is it?’

‘It’s still Sunday,’ says the new nun. ‘You’re bringing a new life into the world on the Lord’s Day.’

‘You are indeed,’ Sister Anne-Marie says. ‘You’re almost fully dilated. It’s time to push, Beth.’

She doesn’t take long to arrive, shooting out of me with a fluidity that betrays the burning from only seconds before.

I’m still on all fours; I look down and see Sister Anne-Marie’s hands cupped round her tiny body.

She looks like one of the hatchlings Mr Dunlop pointed out in the nest on a branch of the birch tree in his garden one warm summer afternoon.

The branch was high; the nest barely discernible from the ground below.

But from the window at the top of his house it seemed close enough to reach out and touch.

Nobody tells me she’s a girl, but I always knew she was, and I’m right.

‘Would you like to hold her?’ Sister Anne-Marie asks.

I nod, and while she’s stitching me back together, I clutch my daughter to my chest.

Nobody told me that my body would continue to produce …

bits. I don’t know how else to describe them.

Some of them are painful, others slide out of me without me even realizing, until I feel wetness between my legs and smell metal.

It reminds me of the huge glass bowl of copper coins Nana keeps on her sideboard.

It’s been there for as long as I can remember.

When I was young, I’d stick my fingers in it, feel the weight on my skin, then pull them out and stare at my smudged fingertips.

Nobody told me that the blood would come, on and off and without warning, for weeks.

A doctor visits every few days, tells Mam, ‘Give it time. She can’t go home just yet.

’ I dream that I can’t remember what my father looks like, that he turns up at the mother and baby home and Mother Agnes, the superior, sends him away.

I can’t see him, because I’m on the bed with the blood, but I hear his low sad voice fading into the distance.

Nobody told me that I’d wake up screaming, with concerned eyes on me.

It makes me think of the film I wasn’t allowed to watch, but I know a bit about it because I heard Mam and her friends talking about it for weeks afterwards.

They went to the big picture house and none of them slept a wink that night.

Nobody suffered as badly as Isabel King, who only went and fainted in the fourth row.

I try to imagine what it would feel like if your head twisted all the way around, to take my mind off the pain inside me.

Nobody told me that I’d spend so much time alone.

I sleep fitfully and wake up to an empty room.

I’m not back in the dormitory yet. In the evenings I sometimes find Nana sitting in the chair next to my bed, her needles dancing inside the palest pink wool.

‘What are you knitting?’ I murmur, and she shooshes me back to sleep.

Nobody told me that my mother would feed me like a baby – mush that requires little effort on my part, and ice cubes to crunch. The doctor’s special drink tastes like death, even through a straw and with Mam’s fingers gently cupping my chin.

Nobody told me that the most painful part of my body would be my breasts – as if they haven’t put me through enough already.

Mam lays warm towels over them, which brings some relief, but then the milk comes.

She shows me how to express it by pressing my thumb and fingers together then letting go, which I do with gritted teeth, trying not to cry again.

When the pressure is so bad it takes my breath away, Mam switches the warm towels for cool packs.

I’m not sure any of it helps, because these breasts have a mind of their own, swelling and leaking around the clock.

I sometimes wake up shivering, with huge wet patches stretching from my nipples to my waist.

Nobody told me that I’d miss my daughter so much it feels like my heart is being ripped out.