A Silver Lining Read Free Page B

smile with clenched teeth.
    ‘I’ll reach him.’ Lettie marched out of the room, closing the door behind her.
    ‘Are you really coping?’ Andrew grasped Bethan’s hand as he sat on the bed beside her.
    ‘You’re the doctor. You tell me.’ Her smile deteriorated into a grimace as yet another pain sliced through her abdomen. Sharper and more intense, it made her feel as though she were being torn in two. ‘I never minded this happening to anyone else,’ she joked feebly.
    ‘Neither did I.’ He enclosed her hand within both of his. ‘If you want me I’ll be just outside the door.’
    ‘Coward!’
    ‘Absolutely.’ He squeezed her hand mutely. The door opened and the nurse returned.
    ‘Doctor Floyd’s coming, and you,’ she glared at Andrew, ‘can get off that bed when you like. I shouldn’t need to remind you, of all people, of the rules.’
    Andrew rose quickly.
    Lettie studied Bethan for a moment. ‘Doctor John, if you’re not here in a medical capacity, I think it’s time you left.’
    ‘Midwives are the same the world over,’ he complained. ‘Bossy.’
    Bethan wasn’t fooled by his mild protest. She read the relief in his eyes as he walked to the door. ‘See you later, Mrs John,’ he whispered as he disappeared into the corridor.
    ‘Husbands! When the going gets rough they cut and run, even doctors,’ Lettie Harvey said in a voice loud enough to carry outside. ‘Now look at what I’ve brought you. A nice smart hospital-issue gown, the absolute latest in maternity wear.’
    Bethan struggled to sit up but another pain prevented her. The nurse pressed her gently back on to the bed. Laying her hand firmly against Bethan’s abdomen she pulled out her watch and timed the contraction. ‘Nice and regular now, Mrs John, it won’t be much longer.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Bethan murmured, drifting helplessly as the pain ebbed. The bare light bulb wavered overhead.
    The atmosphere was tainted by a strong smell of disinfectant and rubber from the sheeting she was lying on. She stared blankly at the ceiling. It was meshed with a myriad hairline cracks. She traced their origins, following them backwards and forwards, her mind meandering through black and crimson tunnels of pain as a dense cloud floated towards her. It drifted slowly, gradually sinking over her. Soft, warm, it obliterated everything from view.
    ‘Mrs John! Bethan! Bethan ...’
    ‘What’s the problem?’ Andrew’s voice, rough with concern, penetrated her consciousness.
    A face loomed overhead, bushy eyebrows and curling grey hair above a white mask.
    ‘You’ll soon be all right, Mrs John. We’re just taking you to somewhere more comfortable.’
    She tried to say she was quite comfortable where she was, but her mouth was dry and her lips refused to open when she tried to speak. A damp-stained ceiling flowed rapidly overhead.
    She saw Andrew, wide-eyed, white faced, his back pressed against the tiled wall of the corridor. A different room flooded around her, bright with lights and the silver glint of chrome. Again the pungent nauseating odour of rubber assailed her nostrils and she plunged downwards, swinging backwards and forwards ... backwards and forwards ... backwards and forwards ... clinging for dear life to a thin, stretched, bouncing strand of rubber.
    Fear clawed at her throat as she realised that her tenuous grip on the elastic frond was all that kept her from falling into the black abyss that lapped at her feet.
    The rubber band lengthened ... snapped ... and she hurtled helplessly downwards.
    ‘Bethan, can you hear me?’
    She struggled to open her eyes. A mask pressed over her face, white gauze tented over a metal frame. She could smell iron as well as chloroform. Chloroform! Sweet, overpoweringly soporific chloroform –Andrew had been using chloroform the first time she’d seen him, when she’d been asked to assist him in that dingy, delivery room off the maternity ward in the Graig Hospital.
    A pain pierced the