‘Well, the radiologist, a –’ Sharma pauses to look at the notes before him ‘– Henry Chadwick, ever heard of him?’ He glances at me but I shake my head. He keeps talking. ‘Well, Henry Chadwick saw something quite unexpected. He saw a foetus. It seems, against all the odds, Mrs Jensen is pregnant.’
‘What?’ It sounds like a joke; pregnancy, that word and all its meaning, belongs to a different ward, a different world to the one on 9B. Aneurysm, haemorrhage, tumour; they’re our kind of words … but pregnant?
‘She’s pregnant, praegnas, pregnant.’
‘But that’s, that’s …’ I want to say ‘impossible’ but at the same moment I realise that’s wrong; it’s entirely possible. It’s highly unlikely, of course – absurd almost that a foetus would survive the trauma of the accident and then almost an hour in a freezing stream – but it’s still possible. I feel light with the realisation. Sharma and I stare at each other. I’m pretty sure my expression matches his: eyes wide, faces made youthful, lit up by something so improbable, so fantastic, a laugh bubbles up inside me.
Sharma blinks, clears his throat and looks at his notes again. ‘She’s approximately twelve weeks.’
I want to tell Sharma to slow down. ‘Twelve?’ I ask, holding onto the back of the chair, but Sharma ignores me, relying on his notes to sober him.
‘An obstetrics consultant, a –’ Sharma looks at his notes again ‘– Elizabeth Longe, will be performing more tests on Mrs Jensen first thing tomorrow morning, to establish the health of the foetus and so on. I know you’ve been caring for her since she arrived, so I thought it best to let you know, but we are keeping this confidential for now. Did the family mention anything?’
I think of the puffy-eyed Jensens … the shadows under Jack’s eyes. Although in shock, they would have said something if they’d known, surely?
‘No, no they didn’t say anything.’
Sharma frowns briefly, as if he’s smelt something unpleasant.
‘OK. I think in that case it’s vital we keep this between ourselves until we know more and we’ve had a chance to talk to the husband. It’s curious her GP, Dr Hillard, didn’t mention it either. Anyway, Ms Longe is going to perform the tests here tomorrow so we don’t have to move her. Who’s with her tonight?’
I think of the thick-set, vacant-eyed Paula.
‘Paula Simms.’
Sharma’s lip curls slightly; he thinks Paula is sloppy.
‘As I said, let’s keep this between us for now. I’ve gone over Mrs Jensen’s medications and checked nothing will impact negatively upon the foetus, so all should be well on that front. We’re seeing the family tomorrow?’
I nod, tell him we’re meeting them at 10 a.m.
He smiles at me briefly before dismissing me, a fleeting acknowledgement of the miraculous survival of this new, tiny life.
I feel a little high as I walk out of Sharma’s office. Did Sharma really say twelve? Or did I not hear him properly? I want to go to the toilet, splash my face with water before taking some deep breaths and passing my day, my patient, this miracle over to Paula’s care, but before I make it to the toilet, Carol, who already has her black coat on over her dark blue matron’s uniform, calls out to me.
‘Alice, love, glad I caught you. Paula just called. She’s running late again, something about one of her kids being unwell. She won’t be in for about another half an hour. You couldn’t hang around, could you?’
I’m often asked to cover into the evening for other nurses; they know I don’t have any bedtime stories to read. David thinks I shouldn’t, but I find it hard to say no. Tonight, though, this extra half an hour feels like a gift: some time with Cassie on my own.
‘OK, no problem,’ I answer Carol, who doesn’t notice the unusual enthusiasm to stay in my voice, and tell her to have a good evening.
With all the curtains drawn around the beds, the ward looks ready for a secret. The portable ultrasound scanner is in its usual place, tucked in a corner. I pointed it out to Lizzie today, as I reminded her where everything is. I wouldn’t have believed I’d be using it like this just a few hours later. I roll the little machine down the corridor, the wheels squeak. It’s already nighttime-dark outside, the strip lights on the ward ceiling highlight an anaemic path before me. Carol said Paula would be half an hour, which means she’ll be forty-five minutes. The other nurses won’t look in on Cassie; they’ll be busy with their own patients and we discourage visitors so late. It’s risky, but I can’t resist having a quick look … a few seconds just to see for myself.
I enter the room and Cassie lies just as before, the light from the bedside lamp covers her in egg-yolk yellow, her hair arranged as I left it a couple of hours earlier, stroked back over the bandage on her head. She looks like she’s drowning in her own sleep. Her eyes are open just enough to see a sliver of iris. She looks like she’s looking down at her belly, as though she was giving us a clue all along: ‘Follow my eyes! The secret is down there!’
Leaving the scanner just inside Cassie’s curtain, I stand by her head and bend down towards her.
‘Cassie,’ I say, ‘I just spoke to the consultant.’ I pause, wondering how best to phrase what I need to say; if the Jensens didn’t know, then is it possible Cassie didn’t even know she was pregnant? I’m fairly sure Sharma did say twelve weeks but I’ve only heard of naive teenagers claiming they didn’t know so far into a pregnancy. I decide to risk it and say softly, ‘You’re pregnant, Cassie. You’re still pregnant. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m just going to take a quick look.’
I open her hospital gown. As I apply the gel onto her abdomen, I notice it is a little swollen. I’d thought it was just water retention, normal after a trauma. I don’t need to apologise for the gel being cold, but I still look up to see if she reacts. She doesn’t even flicker.
The strange film appears in grainy detail; the fallopian tubes, the uterus all measured by a heartbeat, like a little jumping rabbit, the foetus is curved like a strange shell: the brave, tiny proof. Life in this hidden halfway world!
I stare at the image. I’m relieved I was right; Sharma must have said twelve weeks. The baby feels a little safer. The older it is, the greater the chance it’ll survive. I stroke Cassie’s arm and smile at her briefly a couple of times before voices on the ward spook me and I turn the machine off, wipe the gel off her stomach and, before anyone can see, wheel the scanner back to its place in the supply cabinet before going back to Cassie.
I’d seen a baby. Through it all, Cassie had managed to protect her child, and I want to kiss her cheek, but instead I hold her hand again.
‘The baby looks fine, Cassie,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll know more tomorrow, but you should know, your baby looks fine.’ I place my right hand over her abdomen and feel the gentle curve, the hill of her belly that now seems obvious. I promise her silently that I’ll look after her, her and her baby. I stroke her dark-blonde hair, pushing strands behind her ears.