Mother of Pearl by Mary Morrissy Page B

would it? Babies must cry all the time here. Their plantive whimpers must be part of the tapestry of the place. Panicked, Irene looked about her. A young man, a father she guessed, was peering in through the glass at her. She turned her back on him swiftly and found herself bathed in the green gaze of a newly-born. Pearl!
    She hesitated no longer. This was her child, the only one here without a mother. She stooped and gently gathered Pearl in her arms, swaddling the pink blanket around her. She pressed her lips to Pearl’s downy head. Her fontanelle fluttered in time to Irene’s racing pulse. They were as one. She threaded her way carefully back, through the open door, and past the young man who was still peering in at the window with a puzzled look like a man who has lost something. Down the sheeny corridor, through the swing doors – Irene anticipated each step of the journey – and then a sharp left into the haven of the closet where she, no, they (it was the first time Irene had thought in the plural) would be safe.
    She almost dived for the closet and once inside with the door safely locked she leant against it for several minutes, hugging Pearl to her. She felt weak. There was a sticky film of sweat on her brow. Calm, calm, she told herself, it is not over yet. She switched on the light and made a bed for Pearl in a nest of towels. From her bag she drew out a blanket and discarding the regulation pink wrapped this around Pearl. She peeled off the white coat and flung it in a corner. Hurriedly she put on her own coat, stuffing her beret into the pocket. She looped the bag around her wrist and then carefully gathered Pearl in her arms.
    â€˜Shush there,’ she whispered.
    But there was no need. Pearl, her knotted face nuzzling at Irene’s breast, was adrift in sleep, her tiny fingers curled at her ears.
    Irene edged the door open. Through the slit she could see a knot of people gathered at the lift. An orderly slouched over an empty stretcher, one of the gossipy nurses fingering stray wisps of hair escaping from her starched cap, an elderly couple, the wife clasping the man’s hand, for balance not for love. She tried to imagine her own parents now, wondering how they had aged, but all she could see was the high tower and the steady warnings, a pattern of light and shade. William and Ellen Rivers. She used their proper names now as if they were but distantly related.
    She inched the door almost closed and waited for the screech of the lift. It came and went. She waited. There could perhaps be visitors loitering outside, disgorged from the lift, lost travellers in a foreign country unsure of which road to choose. She heard the slap of the swing doors to the ward. She peered out again. On the threshold she found an easeful lull she recognised, a mid-morning hush. She remembered it from Granitefield. Dust swirling in the weak light, the throbbing stillness of a building holding its breath as if waiting to be stormed. These were sacred moments as in a silent church aquiver with candlelight. Sacred but short-lived. Irene stepped out on to the corridor and walked with purpose to the stairwell.
    Only one person passed as she tripped down the stone flights, a nun, head bowed. Irene would remember only a swish of serge, the clack of beads, the stiff rebuke of a wimple. She, on the other hand, would have no memory of Irene, lost as she was in some vague thought of God. Irene made for the river. A clamour of black-nosed traffic greeted her, the rickety shrill of bicycles. The bridge beckoned. Alabaster over green. Soon, soon, they would be safe.

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    STANLEY GODWIN OPENED the door of 24 Jericho Street on a stormy Saturday afternoon to find Irene standing there, a pitiful creature in the rain, laden down. Shopping, he thought resignedly. Her rare trips south were invariably marked with untypical extravagance. This time, she had told him, she was going back to Granitefield, to revisit old haunts; he had