The Giver of Stars

21

The call came at a quarter to three in the morning, on a night so warm that Alice had barely slept, but instead wrestled, sweaty and fitful, with a sheet through the small hours. She heard the rapid banging on the door and sat immediately upright, her blood chilled, ears straining for clues. Her bare feet met the floorboards silently and she shrugged on her cotton robe, grabbed the gun she kept by the side of the bed and tiptoed towards the door. She waited, her breath tight in her chest, until the noise came again.

‘Who’s there? I’ll shoot!’

‘Mrs Van Cleve? That you?’

She blinked and peered out of the window. Deputy Dulles was standing there in full uniform, one hand rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck. She moved to the door and unlocked it. ‘Deputy?’

‘It’s Miss O’Hare. I think it’s her time. I can’t raise Dr Garnett and I don’t feel happy with her labouring down there alone.’

It took Alice a matter of minutes to haul her clothes on. She saddled a sleepy Spirit and followed the treads of Deputy Dulles’s tyre marks, her determination overriding any natural hesitation Spirit might have had about negotiating the deep woods in the black of night. The little horse trotted out into the darkness, ears pricked, wary but willing, and Alice wanted to kiss her for it. When she got to the mossy track by the creek bed she was able to break into a gallop, and she pushed the mare as hard as she could, grateful for the moonlight that illuminated the path.

When she reached the road she did not head straight for the jail, but turned, urging Spirit down towards William and Sophia’s house at Monarch Creek. She had changed in her time in Kentucky, yes, and, true, she wasn’t afraid of much. But even Alice knew when she was out of her depth.

By the time Sophia reached the jailhouse, Margery, slick with sweat, was pushing against Alice like someone in a rugby scrum, doubled over and moaning with pain. Alice could only have been there for twenty minutes but felt as if it had already been hours. She heard her own voice as if from a long distance – praising Margery for her bravery, insisting that she was doing so well, that the baby would be here before she knew it, even as she knew that only one of those things might possibly be true. The deputy had lent them an oil lamp and the light flickered, sending uncertain shadows up the cell walls. The scents of blood, urine and something raw and unmentionable filled the thick, stale air. Alice hadn’t realized birth would be so messy.

Sophia had run all the way, her mother’s old midwife’s bag under her arm, and Deputy Dulles, softened by two months of baked gifts, and confident that the librarians essentially meant well, pulled back the cell door with a clatter and allowed Sophia in.

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ said Alice, into the dim light, as he locked it again behind them with a crash of keys. ‘I was so afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.’

‘How far along is she?’

Alice shrugged, and Sophia ran her hand over Margery’s forehead. Margery’s eyes were clamped shut, her mind somewhere far from them, while another wave of pain crashed over her.

Sophia waited, her eyes alert and watchful, until it passed. ‘Margery? Margery, girl? How far apart are your pains?’

‘Don’t know,’ Margery murmured through dry lips. ‘Where’s Sven? Please. I need Sven.’

‘You got to pull yourself together now, stay focused. Alice, you got your wristwatch there? You start counting when I say, okay?’

Sophia’s mother had been the midwife for all the coloured folk in Baileyville. When she had been a child, Sophia had accompanied her on visits, carrying her mother’s big leather bag, handing her the instruments and herbs as they were needed, helping her sterilize and repack them ready for the next woman. She wasn’t fully trained, she said, but she was probably the best Margery was going to get.

‘You girls okay in there?’ Deputy Dulles stood respectfully behind the sheet as Margery began to wail again, her voice lowing, then building to a crescendo. He had made sure he was well away when his own wife had borne their children, and the indelicate sounds and scents of it made him a little queasy.

‘Sir? Could we possibly have some hot water?’ Sophia motioned to Alice to open the bag, gesturing at a clean fold of cotton.

‘I’ll ask Frank, see if he can boil some. He’s usually up at this hour. Be right back.’

‘I can’t do it.’ Margery’s eyes opened, fixed on something neither of them could see.

‘Sure you can,’ said Sophia, firmly. ‘That’s just nature’s way of telling us you’re nearly there.’

‘I can’t.’ Margery sounded breathless, exhausted. ‘I’m so tired …’ Alice took a handkerchief and wiped her face. Margery looked so pale, so drawn, despite her swollen belly. Without the daily rigours of her life outside, her limbs had lost their muscle, grown soft and white. It made Alice feel uncomfortable to see her, her cotton dress tight around her, the way it stuck to her damp skin.

‘A minute and a half,’ she said, as Margery began to moan again.

‘Yup. Baby’s coming all right. Okay, Margery. I’m going to lean you back here for a moment while I put a sheet down on this old mattress. Okay? You just hang on to Alice.’

‘Sven …’ Alice saw Margery’s lips shape his name as her knuckles grew yellow-white on Alice’s sleeve, her fingers a vice. She heard Sophia’s voice murmuring reassurances as she moved, sure-footed, in the near dark. The cells opposite were uncharacteristically silent.

‘Okay, sweetie. Now that baby’s coming, we need to get you into a position where she can make her way out. You hear me?’ Sophia motioned to Alice, helping her turn Margery, who barely seemed to register. ‘You keep listening to me, you hear?’

‘I’m afraid, Sophia.’

‘No, you ain’t, not really. That’s just the labouring talking.’

‘I don’t want her born here.’ Margery opened her eyes and looked imploringly at Sophia. ‘Not here. Please …’

Sophia put her hand on the back of Margery’s damp head and placed her cheek against hers. ‘I know, baby, but that’s what’s gonna happen. So we’re just gonna make it as easy as we can for the two of you. Okay? Now you turn over onto all fours. Yes, all fours – and just grab a hold of that bunk. Alice, you get yourself in front of her and hold tight on to her, okay? It’s going to get a little rough shortly and she’s going to need you to hang onto. That’s it, you give her your lap to rest on.’

Alice didn’t have time to feel fear. Almost as soon as she said it, Margery’s hands were gripping her, her face pressed into Alice’s thighs as she wailed, trying to bury the sound in Alice’s breeches. Her grip was so strong, as if she were possessed by forces beyond herself. Alice watched the tremors pass through her and winced, trying to ignore her own discomfort, hearing the unconscious words of encouragement stream from her mouth, even as she was swept along in the slipstream. Behind her Sophia had lifted Margery’s cotton dress, and positioned the oil lamp so that she could look at the most intimate parts of her, but Margery didn’t seem to care. She just kept moaning, her body rocking from side to side, as if she could shake off the pain, her hands grasping stickily for Alice’s own.

‘I got your water,’ came Deputy Dulles’s voice. And when Margery began to yell, he said. ‘I’m going to unlock the door and just push the jug inside. Okay? I’ve sent for the doctor, just in case. Oh, dear Lord, what in God’s – You know what? I’m just – I’ll leave it outside. I – Oh, dear God –’

‘Can we have some fresh water in here too, please, sir? Drinking water?’

‘I – I’ll leave it outside the door. Going to trust you girls not to go anywhere.’

‘You got nothing to concern yourself with, sir, believe me.’

Sophia was a whirlwind, laying out her mama’s steel instruments, placing them carefully on the clean folded cotton square. She kept one hand on Margery at all times, as one might a horse, reassuring, cooing, encouraging. She peered underneath her, positioned herself.

‘Okay, I think she’s coming. Alice, you hold on now.’

After that everything became a blur. As the sun rose, forcing fingers of blue light through the narrow bars, Alice remembered the events as if on a ship in high seas: the rocking of the floor beneath them, Margery’s body, thrown one way and then another by the force of her labours, the scents of blood and sweat and bodies pressed together, the noise, the noise, the noise. Margery hanging on to her, her face pleading, afraid, begging them to help me, help me, her own rising panic. And underneath it all Sophia, calm and reassuring one moment, bullying and fierce the next. Yes, you can, Margery. C’mon, girl. You got to push now! Push harder!

Alice had feared for a dreadful moment that here, in the heat and the dark and the animal sounds, with this sense that they were on their own, locked into this journey, the three of them, she might faint. She was frightened of the uncharted depths of Margery’s pain, afraid to see this woman who had always been so strong, so capable, reduced to a crying, wounded animal. Women died doing this, didn’t they? How could Margery not, in such agony? But just as the room swam, she caught Sophia’s fierce expression, saw Margery’s furrowed brow, her eyes swimming with tears of despair – I can’t! – and she gritted her teeth and leaned forward so that Margery’s forehead was pressed against her own.

‘Yes, you can, Marge. You’re so close now. You listen to Sophia. You can do this.’

And then suddenly as Margery’s wail reached an unbearable pitch – a sound that was like the end of the world and all its agonies compressed, thin, drawn out, unendurable – there was a shout and a noise like a fish landing on a slab and Sophia was suddenly gripping this wet, purple creature in her arms, her face illuminated and her apron bloodied as the baby’s hands lifted blindly, grappling with the air for something to hold on to.

‘She’s here!’

And Margery turned her head, the tendrils of hair stuck to her cheeks, the survivor of some terrible, solitary battle, and on her face was an expression Alice had never seen before, and her voice was a soft keening, like cattle in a shed, nuzzling a calf, ‘Oh, baby, oh, my baby!’ And as the tiny girl let out a thin, lusty cry, the world shifted, and they were suddenly laughing and crying and clutching at each other, and the men in the cells, whom Alice had not known were there, were exclaiming in heartfelt tones, ‘Thank the Lord! Praise Jesus!’ And in the darkness and the filth and the blood and mess, as Sophia wiped the baby, wrapped her in the clean cotton sheet and handed her to the trembling Margery, Alice sat back and wiped her eyes with her sweating, bloodied hands and thought she had never been anywhere so glorious in all her born days.

She was, Sven said that evening, as they toasted him in the library, the most beautiful child who had ever been born. Her eyes the darkest, her hair the thickest, her tiny nose and perfect limbs unparalleled in history. Nobody felt inclined to disagree. Fred had brought a Mason jar of moonshine and a crate of beers, and the librarians wetted the baby’s head and thanked the Lord’s mercy, deciding for that evening at least not to look further than the joy of that safe delivery, that Margery was even now cradling the tiny child with a mother’s fierce pride, enraptured by her perfect face, her tiny seashell fingernails, briefly oblivious to her own pain and circumstances, while even Deputy Dulles and the other jailers passed by to admire her and offer their congratulations.

No man had ever been prouder than Sven. He could not stop talking – of how brave and clever Margery was to produce such a creature, of how alert the child was, the way she had held his finger in a fierce grip. ‘She’s an O’Hare all right,’ he said, and they all cheered.

For Alice and Sophia the night’s events had started to catch up with them. Alice was exhausted, her eyelids drooping, her gaze flickering to Sophia’s, which was tired but relieved. Alice felt as if she had emerged from a tunnel, as if she had lost some layer of innocence she had barely been aware of.

‘I’ve sewn her a layette,’ Sophia told Sven. ‘If you could take it to Margery tomorrow the child will have something decent to wear. A blanket, some booties, a little hat and a sweater in light cotton.’

‘That’s mighty kind of you, Sophia,’ said Sven. He was unshaven and his eyes kept filling with tears.

‘And I have some things from my babies she can have,’ said Kathleen. ‘Spare vests and cotton squares and suchlike. It’s not like I’m going to need them again.’

‘You never know,’ said Beth.

But Kathleen shook her head firmly. ‘Oh, I know.’ She stooped to pick at something on her breeches. ‘There was only one man for me.’

At this Fred caught Alice’s eye and, after the euphoria of earlier in the day, she felt suddenly sad, and weary. She hid it under a toast. ‘To Marge,’ she said, holding up her enamel mug.

‘To Margery.’

‘And Virginia,’ said Sven, and, as they all looked at him: ‘After Margery’s sister.’ He swallowed. ‘That’s what she wants. Virginia Alice O’Hare.’

‘Well, that’s just a beautiful name,’ said Sophia, nodding her approval.

‘Virginia Alice,’ they echoed, lifting their mugs. And then Izzy abruptly got up and announced that she was sure there was a book of names somewhere and she would very much like to know where it came from. And everyone else, swallowing just as hard and more than grateful for the distraction, agreed, so that nobody had to look at Alice, who was now sobbing, silently, in the corner.