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faithful neighbour, Una Slattery. From up there the cry came again. No lamb-like bleat, but an adult human cry. Caitlin in the pain of her progressing labour. Michael glanced at the clock. Three hours already. Why did it take so long? Another cry. The pain in the cry pierced to Michael’s heart. He paced across to the window and looked out and saw himself looking in, his features distorted by the runnels of rain.
As black a night as ever I remember, he thought. Please, God, may you do better upstairs than you are doing outside.
He heard the ceiling creak as someone walked across the bedroom floor. A door opened. Footsteps on the landing, on the stairs. Michael rushed into the hall. Mother Ross was coming down.
‘Is she all right?’ Michael blurted anxiously.
‘Michael, I think Dr Starkey should be here.’ Mother Ross avoided, or perhaps did not even hear, Michael’s question.
He repeated it, more loudly, more distractedly.
‘I don’t know, Michael,’ Mother Ross replied. She seemed impatient and tired. ‘Dr Starkey should be here. Caitlin has started bleeding again, like she did before. Go get the doctor.’
As Mother Ross returned upstairs, Michael prepared for the drive to the village. He grabbed a fisherman’s oilskin coat and sou’wester from the rack in the hall and hurriedly put them on. Mother Ross’s voice had worried with an urgency in spite of her attempt to reassure him that all was well. He pulled on a pair of wellington boots at the back door, opened it and stepped outside. The rain pelted down. The wind tore at him angrily. It flung fistsful of rain in his face and almost blinded him. It rolled a tin bucket across the yard, banging it on the cobbles. The rainwater overflowed from the gutter along the eaves and fell to the ground with a loud splashing.
Michael bent almost double and rushed to the stable where he harnessed an unwilling pony to the trap.
‘Come on now, old fellow. Don’t start playing up at this hour of the night.’
Five minutes later they were out on the main road, trotting to the village. The wind and the rain attacked from behind, flailing Michael’s broad back. But he did not notice it. His mind was on Caitlin. He heard her cry above the moaning of the wind. He pictured her sweating face, convulsed with pain, her head jerking from side to side, her hands opening and closing, beating the bed in her agony and impotence. He heard the word ‘complications’ echo and re-echo through the innermost hollows of his skull. He recalled the shadow of anxiety that had flitted across Mother Ross’s face.
Libros Libertad 