Both
mother and child pant briefly when the stethoscope examination is concluded, Ruth for oxygen and Beth with pain.
Dr. Richmond removes the stethoscope from his neck with deliberation and folds it carefully until the ancient black rubber
settles into its accustomed cracks. Ruth immediately stiffens in the hardbacked chair she has been occupying since she and
her younger daughter were summoned from their sojourn in the doctor’s waiting room—a two-hour wait during which Ruth had silently
rehearsed all the reasons why she mistrusts the good doctor. If he’d been faster off the mark when she’d come to see him about
her stomach pains back in 1950 she might have carried the child to full term.
Of course, she doesn’t have any proof that it was a boy that she lost at thirteen weeks. But Ruth knows, as clearly as any
real mother would know, that it was a boy. Sitting again in the same room waiting to see the same doctor, she had felt the
old anger rising.
Dr. Richmond sighs and says, “You can get this bonny little girl dressed again now.”
Ruth has recognized a number of traits in Elizabeth since birth, but “bonny” is not one of them. It makes no difference how
well she feeds Elizabeth, the child remains weak and tires easily. Her shoulders are permanently hunched over her chest, she
sweats too easily and she still asks to be carried up hills. It is a back-breaking task for a woman over forty. Ruth has resisted
seeing the doctor before now. Her relationship with old Dr. Richmond is not an easy one.
In order to cover her impatience Ruth now busies herself with dressing the child, stretching the wool undershirt over her
head and struggling with the curling rubber buttons on the Ladybird liberty bodice.
When decency is restored Dr. Richmond ventures his professional opinion. “There might be a slight problem, Mrs. Singleton,”
he says. This example of kindly understatement is characteristic of Dr. Richmond. He has had cause on many occasions, when
delivering bad news to anxious mothers, to adopt a certain reassuring ignorance of fatal consequences. He has no cures for
pneumoconiosis (a familiar complaint among the miners at Bank Hall Colliery) or pulmonary embolism, or parietal gliomas, or
any one of the number of terminal conditions he is forced to witness within the space of a single day. The varnish of confident
infallibility afforded to the newly qualified has worn away over the years to reveal his humanity in all its uncertainty and
inadequacy. He spends his mornings on call. His white starched cuffs are stained brown with iodine and rasp against his wrists
as he takes pulses, measures blood pressures, pinches swollen ankles and tests stubborn joints. He rubs the folds of his softening
jowls as he considers prescriptions or waits for the arrival of the ambulance. By late evening he has listened to a litany
of complaints and drunk his way through all manner of liquid that passes for tea in the houses of the poor.
Only then does he return home to the silent remembrances of former patients. His house bulges with mortuary gifts: gold watches,
pipe stands, copies of the Bible and amateur paintings of local landmarks. Patients leave wills that afford him war medals
from battles fought in the Mediterranean or North Africa while he was busy delivering the next generation in the cold austerity
of Bank Hall Maternity Home. Financial bequests from wealthier patients are spent on repairs to the roof of his surgery, coal
fires in his waiting room, lollipops for his infant patients, outstanding rent for miners laid up with lung disease and weavers
laid off with mill closures.
Ruth is aware of Dr. Richmond’s reputation but, since she is not in need of charity or sympathy, she persists in her interrogation.
“What is wrong with her?”
“A slight chest irregularity. Probably minor, nothing to be anxious about. I have a colleague who might have a look at her.
Mr.
mother and child pant briefly when the stethoscope examination is concluded, Ruth for oxygen and Beth with pain.
Dr. Richmond removes the stethoscope from his neck with deliberation and folds it carefully until the ancient black rubber
settles into its accustomed cracks. Ruth immediately stiffens in the hardbacked chair she has been occupying since she and
her younger daughter were summoned from their sojourn in the doctor’s waiting room—a two-hour wait during which Ruth had silently
rehearsed all the reasons why she mistrusts the good doctor. If he’d been faster off the mark when she’d come to see him about
her stomach pains back in 1950 she might have carried the child to full term.
Of course, she doesn’t have any proof that it was a boy that she lost at thirteen weeks. But Ruth knows, as clearly as any
real mother would know, that it was a boy. Sitting again in the same room waiting to see the same doctor, she had felt the
old anger rising.
Dr. Richmond sighs and says, “You can get this bonny little girl dressed again now.”
Ruth has recognized a number of traits in Elizabeth since birth, but “bonny” is not one of them. It makes no difference how
well she feeds Elizabeth, the child remains weak and tires easily. Her shoulders are permanently hunched over her chest, she
sweats too easily and she still asks to be carried up hills. It is a back-breaking task for a woman over forty. Ruth has resisted
seeing the doctor before now. Her relationship with old Dr. Richmond is not an easy one.
In order to cover her impatience Ruth now busies herself with dressing the child, stretching the wool undershirt over her
head and struggling with the curling rubber buttons on the Ladybird liberty bodice.
When decency is restored Dr. Richmond ventures his professional opinion. “There might be a slight problem, Mrs. Singleton,”
he says. This example of kindly understatement is characteristic of Dr. Richmond. He has had cause on many occasions, when
delivering bad news to anxious mothers, to adopt a certain reassuring ignorance of fatal consequences. He has no cures for
pneumoconiosis (a familiar complaint among the miners at Bank Hall Colliery) or pulmonary embolism, or parietal gliomas, or
any one of the number of terminal conditions he is forced to witness within the space of a single day. The varnish of confident
infallibility afforded to the newly qualified has worn away over the years to reveal his humanity in all its uncertainty and
inadequacy. He spends his mornings on call. His white starched cuffs are stained brown with iodine and rasp against his wrists
as he takes pulses, measures blood pressures, pinches swollen ankles and tests stubborn joints. He rubs the folds of his softening
jowls as he considers prescriptions or waits for the arrival of the ambulance. By late evening he has listened to a litany
of complaints and drunk his way through all manner of liquid that passes for tea in the houses of the poor.
Only then does he return home to the silent remembrances of former patients. His house bulges with mortuary gifts: gold watches,
pipe stands, copies of the Bible and amateur paintings of local landmarks. Patients leave wills that afford him war medals
from battles fought in the Mediterranean or North Africa while he was busy delivering the next generation in the cold austerity
of Bank Hall Maternity Home. Financial bequests from wealthier patients are spent on repairs to the roof of his surgery, coal
fires in his waiting room, lollipops for his infant patients, outstanding rent for miners laid up with lung disease and weavers
laid off with mill closures.
Ruth is aware of Dr. Richmond’s reputation but, since she is not in need of charity or sympathy, she persists in her interrogation.
“What is wrong with her?”
“A slight chest irregularity. Probably minor, nothing to be anxious about. I have a colleague who might have a look at her.
Mr.
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