It Shouldn't Happen to a Midwife! Read Free Page B

out for an evening of fun. Let’s concentrate on finding the lecture room instead.’ Margaret spoke with the command of a theatre sister about to get the team concentrating on the fascinations of a swab count.
    We’d breakfasted in the Home’s dining room. It led directly from the reception area and with its big light-filled space, pine panelling and chrome service area, was more like a large restaurant. It also catered for the general hospital so the place was full of other users, marked by their different uniforms and busy in conversation.
    We, however, had to be somewhere else. Margaret might not have had a seniority badge but we trooped behind her as, assuming natural leadership, she led the way.
    Miss MacCready had given directions to the maternity hospital. ‘Through from the dining room and straight ahead. The classroom’s as easy to find as the nose on your face.’
    Dressed in green, designed to dazzle and arguing with the night porter about a key, the receptionist was an easier find than this room, a poor relation tucked by the back door of the maternity unit and reached by a covered concrete job of a walkway. There were silo-like changing rooms off it. They were for the non-resident Belfast girls, some of whom had now joined us in the classroom and were about to take seats. Like us, they wore blue uniforms with aprons tied in crosses at the back.
    Margaret pulled on hers, hawser-like and checked her sausage curls were still in curfew zone under her cap. Her lipstick was smudged. Maybe wearing a theatre mask blunted makeup skills below eye level. Undaunted, she said, ‘I was thinking, Seonaid, it’s early enough to be gadding about and maybe we should be giving some thought to these instead.’ As she passed it she nodded at a blackboard where the words ‘Lie’ , ‘Attitude’ and ‘Position’ were written, then she moved to stake a claim on the front row.
    â€˜That’s the first lecture of the day over then.’ I joined Seonaid, who’d made a beeline to the back. ‘Mind these words do look kind of interesting but not half as much as – what did you call it?’
    â€˜Showband. Had you not any in Sin City?’
    â€˜Pipe Bands,’ I said, remembering their skirl and finding it hard to equate the memory of them playing in the Union Street Gardens with vice or fast living. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if there was a side of the city that I never saw but wish I had.’
    â€˜Well I’ve never been there. Still, I’m thinking you’ve taken a bit of granite over with you. See?’ Seonaid nodded at Margaret and Cynthia who, square-jawed, were vying for position nearest the lectern. Lorna was sitting behind them and giving them the attention of someone studying life under the microscope.
    â€˜The apron ties make them look like a pair of St Andrew’s flags too, but from the back I suppose we all do.’
    â€˜But they’ll be the biggest.’ Seonaid patted her knees as if encouraging them to grow then leant forward. ‘Sweet Jesus! Why would you want to be sitting so near the front? It’s right under the line of fire!’ She shook her head. ‘Not for me – that’s for sure.’
    â€˜Me neither,’ sighed Marie, sliding in beside us. ‘And where do they get that poise? They’re both so full of it.’ She pulled on her earlobe, her first and most definite action glimpsed since arrival. ‘And are they not just made to be matrons now?’
    â€˜Built for it for sure but they’re bound to improve. Anyway,’ Seonaid angled her head towards Marie and momentarily pulled one knee as if limbering up, ‘I’ll tell you something that’s more important, and that’s you should stop all this worrying. Have you not qualified to be a state registered nurse? You’re every bit the same as all of us here. And was that not a lot to cope