“Is everything alright?” Laura asked.
“Can I help?” Adam said at the same time. “I’m a doctor.”
Relief flooded Rovena’s worried face. “Yes, please. My daughter.” She waved them in.
Chapter Eighteen
While Laura wipedher muddy boots on the door mat, Adam kicked his off in the entrance and hurried in.
A half-dressed Tirana lay on her side on a small sofa. Towels were draped under her naked lower half and there was a large wet stain on the carpet.
In an instant, Adam was kneeling next to the girl, a hand on her fat stomach. “When did the pains start?” he asked very gently.
“This afternoon,” she gasped as her face twisted with pain. “But now much worse.”
Rovena walked to stand beside them and placed a wet towel on her daughter’s forehead. “We thought it was temporary but now the pain is constant.”
“How far apart are the pains?” Adam asked.
Understanding hit Laura like a wave.
The girl she’d imagined to be chubby was in fact pregnant. Not very, but now she knew what she was looking at, Laura could see a clear bump, as if someone had stuffed a cushion under the girl’s skin.
“How far along is she? Do you know when her due date was supposed to be?” Adam asked. He addressed his question to Rovena but his eyes never left her daughter.
“I’m not sure. I think seven months.”
“Has she had an antenatal plan?”
Rovena shook her head. “We only found out about the baby when we arrived here and the doctor is expensive here. We went once.”
“Did he refer her to a midwife?”
“Yes. In Jersey. We can’t go because of work, and the ferry costs too much.”
Adam spoke to Tirana, “Don’t worry, I’m going to phone Doctor Wright and we’ll get you all the help you need as quickly as possible.”
“We don’t have his number,” Rovena said.
Laura fished in her pocket for her own phone. “I’ll look it up. Do you have signal here?”
They did and Laura quickly found the entry for Dr John Wright. She selected it and put her phone in speaker mode so Adam could hear.
The woman who answered sounded very put out. “I’m afraid my husband is off the island for a few days.”
Adam looked astounded. “Tell her I have a young woman in labour. Who else is on-call?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” the wife repeated. “As I said, we’re off the island.”
Adam swore as he took the phone from Laura. “Can you tell him the following: we have a pre-term delivery, possibly 36 weeks’ gestation.”
A beep sounded – the alarm for battery running very low. She wanted to warn him, but he must have guessed because he took the call off speaker and held the phone to his ear. “Contractions are moderate to strong and three minutes apart,” he said as he walked out of the room.
Alone with the woman, Laura tried to think what she could do to help. “Show me your kitchen. I’ll make some tea.”
Typical, the British solution to all problems. She filled the kettle over the sink and plugged it in. No doubt when the apocalypse came, someone would stand on the lip of disaster offering to make everyone a nice cup of tea.
Well, what else was she going to do? She was a dressmaker not a nurse, and all her life, she’d been healthy and strong and almost never had to see a doctor. Even as a child, when she had 'flu, her grandmother had simply given her a cup of tomato soup and told her to “stop whining.”
