FORTY
Neutral Bay, Sydney. Monday 2nd September 1912
Neutral Bay, Sydney. Monday 2nd September 1912
Florence was standing at the sink in the
kitchen preparing a meal that evening. Suddenly a pain shot across her stomach
like a hot knife. She screamed and fell to the floor holding her swollen
stomach. Although the baby was not due for a few weeks yet, during the previous
two days Florence had started to experience pains which were both unexpected
and quite severe. It was not in her nature to complain unnecessarily when she
had occasionally felt unwell, but this time she had been concerned enough about
the pains to mention them to George when he had come home from work; the first
time they had happened had been the previous Friday. When George heard the
screams he dashed through into the kitchen and discovered Florence was lying on
her side on the floor holding her stomach, her pale face contorted in pain. He
knelt down beside her on the floor, holding her hand and tried to decide what
he could best do for her. She was occasionally beset by pains so severe they
caused her body to seize up for a few seconds, before relaxing again. 'I am
going for the doctor this time Flo,' he said. 'This is getting silly. You can't
go on like this.' Florence was becoming paler by the minute and sweat was
forming in large drops on her forehead. She gently nodded her head and murmured
something in acceptance of George's suggestion, then closed her eyes tightly in
pain once more, her legs folding up towards her stomach. George stood to his
feet and grabbed Clyda in his arms, rushing to the door of the house. He left
the girl with the next door neighbour after hurriedly offering an explanation
of the urgency of his mission. He ran out of the garden, slamming shut the
wooden gate at the end of the path and along the street to the grocery shop on
the corner of Ben Boyd Road. This shop had a telephone, one of the few in the
neighbourhood. The shop keeper showed him into the small back room of the shop
and allowed him to call Dr Blyth at his home on Miller Street, a little over a
mile away. Hurriedly he gasped out his message to the doctor who promised to
leave his home was quickly as possible. George replaced the phone and shouted
his thanks to the shop keeper as he ran out of the shop and back to the house.
When he arrived home he found that that Florence had dragged herself into the
living room and was lying propped against the easy chair. Still pale and
sweating, her breath was coming in uneasy and forced gasps between the bouts of
pain. George dropped to the floor alongside her and took her hand gently in
his. Her breathing increased in pace and her skin became white and clammy.
George glanced at her fearfully and strained his senses to listen for the sound
of the doctor’s car arriving, all the time holding her hand and trying to
comfort her.
Dr Blyth’s
car arrived at the front door of the house within half an hour and came
straight into the house after no more than a short polite tap on the door. George
looked up at him from his position on the floor.
'She’s had
pain for a bit now doctor,' he said, 'For about three days when it first
started. It's been on and off, but this is the worst it's been.' Doctor Bligh
nodded and took her wrist and felt for her pulse which was racing.
'George, I
think this time she needs to go into hospital right away,' he said, giving
George a look which would not contemplate a refusal. George nodded his head in
reply and started to get to his feet.
'I’ll go and
phone for an ambulance then' he said, heading for the door.
'Do it
quickly George' replied Dr Blyth quietly, turning back to minister to Florence
who was now lying on her side on the floor and breathing in short painful
gasps.
Dr Blyth was
a good doctor. At times his mind seemed to overflow with all the personal
details of the families he carried on his books, and his power of recall of
those details was instant. The doctor had lost count of the number of babies he
had birthed, the people he had helped usher gently out of this world, and the
friends he had made in the time as a general practitioner in Sydney, and from
his position as a senior member of the Royal North Sydney hospital board.
George stood
close to Florence lying on the floor being comforted by Dr Blyth. He found it
hard to hide his impatience and glanced frequently to the window for signs of
the ambulance arriving, pacing between the front door and Florence, looking
over the doctors shoulder to try and see what was happening, and if there was anything
he could do to assist. There appeared to be nothing for him to do, and as the
minutes passed by George became more and more afraid and concerned for the
welfare of the woman he had lived with as man and wife for over two years now.
Within the
space of only ten minutes the sound of one of the new motorised ambulances
sounded turning the corner from Ben Boyd Road into Phillip Street. George
dashed to the front door, throwing it open and rushing out to the street, where
two uniformed men were already alighting from the front doors of the strange car
like vehicle. The motorised ambulances had recently been taken on to replace,
first the hand pulled stretcher service and then the horse drawn vehicles which
had been in use in the city for over ten years. One of the men went to the back
door of the ambulance and withdrew a stretcher from inside, carrying it to the
front door of the house on Phillip Street, whilst the other held open the door
of the ambulance.
'In here'
George said to the attendants, and held the door open for them. Without a word
they gently eased past him to go into the living room. A few muted words were
all that George could hear between the doctor and the ambulance men before they
bent to gently lift Florence onto the stretcher. He watched as her face contorted
with pain, and she held out her hand for him to take hers. The doctor took her
hand and gently placed it back onto the stretcher alongside her body. With the
stretcher now loaded the two men gingerly took Florence from the house and
placed her into the rack like framework built into the inside of the ambulance,
and soon the ambulance was on its way to the Royal North Sydney Hospital,
whilst George went to give an explanation to the neighbour looking after Clyda,
before himself making his way to the hospital some three miles away. The
neighbour would take care of the child until the other inhabitants of Phillip
Street returned home from their work.
That week
had been a frenzied blur of visits to the hospital. He left Clyda at the house
next door in the morning and evening, and collected her later. His life
suddenly became a non-stop rush of going to work, preparing meals and keeping
Alexander, William and Grace abreast of Florence's condition. Each time he
arrived home during the course of the week the news became progressively worse,
as the doctors and nurses at the hospital were unable to prevent the spasms
Florence was enduring from becoming worse.
On the
following Sunday evening Doctor Blyth motioned to George as he walked down the
corridor to the entrance of the ward where Florence lay. George followed the
doctor into a small office and closed the door behind him. He sat down in a
high back chair at a desk whilst the doctor took a seat on the opposite side of
the desk. Dr Blyth clasped his hands together lightly on the desk and looked
George directly in the eye before clearing his throat gently.
'Mr Kent' he
began. 'I am sorry to have to tell you that there is nothing more we can do to
help your wife's condition.' He paused for a second to allow the news to sink
in, then continued. 'The kidney complaint she had some time ago has been made
much worse by this pregnancy. We have been giving her some more painkillers to
help with the pain, but I'm afraid that they aren't working very well. The pain
is increasing and the cramps and spasms she is having are becoming worse.' He
paused for a moment looking George squarely in the eye, then continued gently.
'I'm afraid that she is going to die, and fairly soon I fear.' George took in
the news and nodded his head, but said nothing. The doctor continued. 'I'm sorry
to have to tell you that by now the baby is dead, and within the next twenty
four hours it is likely that the body of the child will kill Florence. There is
nothing more we can do. I am so sorry. We have tried everything, but in these
circumstance, medical science is not much good.'
George
looked silently across the desk, and his eyes noted inconsequential objects
lying in neat order across the desk. A blotter, a grey file of papers, a
telephone, an ornate stand with two pens and an ink bottle between them.
I wonder if
they are issued by the hospital or if Dr Blyth has to buy them himself, he
thought, and he immediately dismissed the idea. George glanced down at the
floor between his feet for a second then looked up to meet Dr Blyth's gaze.
'I see
doctor,' he said. His eyes wandered around the office, looking at the pictures
and certificates on the walls, and the trees in bloom through the window, their
leaves blossoming an impossible variety of shades of green, as spring started
to turn to summer. Outside the office he could head soft sounds of people
talking and nurses walking quickly and silently along the corridor. For a
moment or two he sat numb and in silence, then lifted his head again to look at
the doctor, normal thought suspended in his brain.
'Can I go
and see her now Doctor?' he asked. Doctor Blyth nodded his head.
'Yes, of
course you can,' he said. 'There is one other thing I need to tell you before
you see her though.' George looked up from his blind inspection of the floor in
front of the desk and met the doctors eyes. 'We have not told her that she is
close to the end. I don't feel it would be good for her to know. Perhaps it
would be better for her not to be aware of that at this stage.' He paused
awkwardly for a moment then continued. 'It would simply upset her even more,
and there is nothing which she or the staff can do about it. Better she doesn't
know.' He nodded his head in George's direction, and George mirrored the
action, nodding gently, accepting the instruction. 'Before you go home can you
pop in here and see me, and I if you wish we can have a chat about what happens
from now.' George rose from his chair and nodded his agreement again.
'Alright
doctor. Thank you. I will.' he said, and turned to leave the room, closing the
door quietly behind him. He slowly walked the short distance along the green
painted corridor to the ward where Florence was lying, her bed curtained off
from the others on the ward. The sound of the occasional quiet moans of pain
rose through the otherwise stillness and quietness of the ward. George walked
slowly down the ward to the far end where the nurses office lay, and beside
which Florence lay in her bed.
The thirty
foot walk from the ward entrance to the bed which Florence occupied at the far
right hand corner of the ward, took George between thirty and thirty five
minutes to walk along, or so it felt to him. The floor seemed to turn into
molasses under his feet. The ward was on the ground floor of the hospital and
was about twenty feet wide. Beds were placed flush against the walls on both
side of the room, leaving a wide corridor between them from the door at one end,
to the nurse's office at the far end. Large airy windows made up the top half
of the walls, the lower parts were green and cream painted wood. Curtains were
drawn across the windows. This was done often during the day, to prevent the
ward from becoming too warm in the hot sun of summer, and during the evening
and night to ensure quiet on the ward. The sun had finally sunk below the
horizon, and electric lights were flickering on in the newly installed
electrical light fittings on the ward walls.
He became
aware of a sensation that someone was nailing each of the leather soles of his
boots to the polished hard wood floor of the ward. Each footstep he took
required an unusual effort to tear his boot slowly from the floor, to then
painfully place it just inches ahead of its fellow, in order to merely crawl
along the ward. His breath came in shallow draughts and seemed to provide him with
an increasingly diminishing level of energy, until the feeling that he was
about to faint, created a panic in his chest. He stopped to rest for a moment,
to place a hand against the metal rail along the top of a bed on his route, in order
to gain more breath. The woman in the bed where he had stopped looked anxiously
at him.
'You
alright?' she asked. George did not hear her. He closed his eyes to shake off
the feeling of nausea then carried on again after a moments respite when the
feeling had left him. To his left and his right he was aware of small surreptitious
glances towards him on his journey down the ward. The looks from small faces on
small bodies perched quietly by the side of beds which contained women like
Florence; women who were in the latter stages of their own pregnancies. Pregnancies
which would end differently to that of his dear Flo. The bad news he had been
given had spread seemingly by telepathy amongst the other occupants of the ward,
and had been whispered in the eager ears of their visitors. George's bad
news was received by other men in the ward who were visiting their wives, with
sadness and sympathy. So easily, in that day and age, could it have been them
enduring the sad long lonely walk. The illness which George had been informed
of so gently by Doctor Blyth, was going to kill his dear Florence. It's name
was Eclampsia, and having progressed for this long without the doctors and
nurses being able to prevent it worsening, would soon be noted on her death
certificate as the cause of her death.
Occasional
sad, embarrassed and sometimes concerned smiles momentarily crossed the faces
of several of the men and women in the ward. Their eyes flitted upwards in his
direction as he moved past them, and then back down in embarrassment again to
the patient in the bed where they were seated. Their already muted
conversations fell into silence as he passed, and then rose again as he moved
on past them, like a wave of gentle whispers passing down the ward.
He reached her
bed at the end of the ward, and was met by a nurse emerging from behind the
curtains which hid Florence from the view of other patients on the ward. She
was a young, tall woman who smiled ruefully at him, and held the curtain to one
side for him to enter the silent enclave where his Florence lay. The curtains
were suspended from a rail attached to the ceiling of the ward and could be
opened and closed when necessary to allow the patient lying in the bed a level
of privacy. Normally, the curtains were drawn back all of the time, other than
when the nurses were carrying out some procedure or other, but for Florence, so
close to death, they were kept permanently closed. It was a sign which the
other patients on the ward quickly recognised as meaning that, for the person
lying in the bed, the end of life was close. The bed at the end of the ward was
used for that purpose, the end of life bed. It was placed there so that instant
attention could be given to its occupant by the staff who could see through the
half glass fronted office at the end of the ward. The windows of the office had
net curtains obscuring half of the window, but the top part was left clear so
that nurses could see what was happening on the ward and yet still have a
measure of privacy for themselves, and allow the patients the feeling that they
were not under the constant gaze of the staff. The nurse held out her hand
gently to stop him as he went to walk through the curtained barrier.
'She's awake
now, but she could fall asleep very quickly. She keeps slipping in and out of sleep
Mr Kent,' she whispered. She was tall and slim with a round attractive face. Her
pale brown hair was almost hidden beneath a cap of starched fabric on her head,
and she was one of the few women he had seen in the hospital who seemed to have
been built for the uniform she carried.
'Please be
aware of that. She might not recognise you.' George nodded silently and met her
eyes. They said more than her words had uttered and he recognised the care,
hurt and regret in her own sad half smile. The frustration she felt was
reflected in her face. He moved through the folds in the curtains, and the
nurse allowed the dark green fabric to fall together silently behind him.
Florence was
lying on her back in the bed and appeared to be asleep, her eyes closed
peacefully. For a second George thought she might already be dead. What little
colour she had in her face was mottled around the top of her cheeks, and beads
of sweat glistened like tiny lazy raindrops on her top lip. George reached out
for a chair which had been placed against the wall, and brought it forward, to
be by her side. Florence's eyes opened at the sound the chair made as George
sat down. She smiled at him and opened her mouth to speak to him.
'Hello love'
she whispered, her voice barely audible. Despite this her unmistakable
Lancashire accent sounded as out of place in the hospital as it had done at
home, but it was still a welcome familiar sound to George's ear.
'Hello Flo'
he replied quietly, forcing a smile to his mouth. There was a silence between
them until finally Florence spoke.
'It's not
looking good is it?' she asked quietly. George felt his throat tighten and he
swallowed before he could manage an answer.
'It's not
all that bad Flo,' he lied easily and smiled back at her.
'Liar, liar, your hairs on fire' she whispered huskily, and forced
a smile to her lips. George started to protest, but she half raised her hand which
had been lying alongside her body, above the covers on the bed. George reached
out and took the hand in his. It was small and pale and quite cool. She managed
a slight squeeze of his hand and continued.
'I want you to take care of baby', she said. This was the word
they had always used to describe Clyda during the years they had lived
together. Although the child was now four years old, the term had stuck, and
perhaps now they would not have the chance to change that. Before he could
reply Florence continued.
'I want you to look after her Georgie, she loves you so much, but
if you feel you can't, then make sure my Ma and Pa take her back to England to
live with them.' Her eyes were locked on his as she spoke the words in a
whisper. He nodded without replying. Florence paused to take a breath and
gather strength to continue.
'I don't want that bugger Skidmore to have her.' She coughed
slightly, but the effort caused an electric shock of pain to streak through her
abdomen. She gasped at the pain and winced, her grip tightening on his hand as
her head moved away from him and then back in one rapid motion. 'You've got to
promise George' she gasped.
'I will Flo. I'll look after her like she was my own. Nothing is
going to happen to her,' he said, 'But don't worry, you'll be out of here soon'
he lied. Florence looked at him and smiled gently. Her almost black hair framed
her head on the white starched pillow and she rocked slowly from side to side
as she whispered,
'No love. You don't get out of here when you feel this bad.' George
felt his throat constricting again and he sat grasping her hand, unable to find
any words. He sat for a few minutes by her bedside, watching as her breathing
settled down again, and her eyes fluttering in an effort to stay open. Finally
it seemed, she was falling asleep. Unable to find any words of comfort he
squeezed her hand gently and rose from his chair.
'I think I'd better be going Flo' he said, 'I'll be back
tomorrow.' She opened her eyes and smiled at him and whispered 'Alright love. Give baby a kiss for me. I'll
see you tomorrow.' George bent down over the bed and kissed her cool lips,
feeling the beads of sweat of her top lip on his. 'See you tomorrow then love'
he whispered. Their hands parted, George gently placed her hand back alongside
her body on the stiff white sheet, and then replaced the chair back into its
position against the wall. Pushing back the curtain, he re-entered the living
area of the ward once more.
The following day, Monday, he arrived at the ward in time for the
evening visiting period at seven o'clock, to find the matron standing waiting
for him outside her office near the entrance to the ward. She smiled kindly at
him,
'Can I have a word Mr Kent?' she asked and indicated for him to
follow her into her office next to that of the doctors he had been in the night
before. George's heartbeat increased as he anticipated bad news he felt sure he
was going to hear. His fears were not misplaced. She sat down at the desk in the
room and indicated to George to take the seat opposite her on the other side of
the desk, smoothing the apron which covered her uniform. She clasped her hands
gently on the desk in front of her and looked up into George's face.
'It's not looking good Mr Kent,' she said quietly. Her face was
that of a much older woman than the nurse the previous evening, and it showed
years of care and concern for the people who came into her charge. 'Your wife
had a bad night last night and has been asleep most of the day, which has been
a good thing really, but I'm afraid that her condition seems to be getting
worse.' She paused to let George assimilate the information then continued. 'It
could be that the end is close for her.' George stared blankly at her, taking
in the news he didn't want to hear. Other than the muted occasional movement of
visitors passing by the office, there were no sounds from inside the small
room. George glance up at the wall behind where the Matron was seated. A plain
white faced wall clock was ticking away the minutes with a low noise, which in
the quiet of the office he could hear plainly. His eyes fell back to meet her
eyes, and finally he broke the silence between them.
'Can I stay with her until the end?' he asked quietly. The Matron
smiled kindly at him,
'Of course you can Mr Kent.' She said, 'No one is going to disturb
you.' She paused and then added, 'But if you need anyone at any time, well, the
nurses' office is just by the end of the ward where your wife is. Don't be
afraid to ask for help if you need it.' George nodded silently and rose from
his seat, backing off to the door of the office.
When he pushed aside the heavy curtain around her bed he could
tell instantly that Florence's condition had worsened from the previous night.
He made an involuntary gasp at what lay before him on the bed. Florence's
complexion was uniformly pale, the colour had gone from her skin and the filling
from her cheeks had gone too. Her eyes, which the night before had been wide
and dark but alive, were now mere dark slits in her face. Her face appeared
sunken and only half the size of what it had been previously. At the sight of
her condition George gasped. Her breathing was shallow and infrequent and the
few dew drops of sweat had gone from her lips. He now fully understood the words
the Matron had said to him. He reached for the chair from the back wall of the
ward and pulled it to the side of the bed, where he sat quietly holding
Florence's hand, until finally she died quietly after a few hours vigil, just
before midnight, without regaining consciousness. The toxins in her body, the
strain upon her physique caused by the upheaval of pain, had finally taken
their toll. Her heart had fought hard to survive, but in the end, there was
only the end.
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