Free Mother of Pearl by Mary Morrissy

retreated.
    An hour later, dodging Mrs Blessed, Irene slipped out. She knew the hospital was close by – it was why she had chosen the Four Provinces – and she wanted to see it, just from the outside. From the step she could see its jigsaw of roofs and gables, and the dome of a copper cupola rising above them. She prowled around the perimeter of the building. It took up almost a block. There was the lullaby hum of a generator somewhere in its juggled heart, and steam gasping from the laundry into the dark night. It was pot-bellied in front, bulging into a pillared rotunda, as if the builders had vainly tried to fence in its fecundity. Irene sheltered in a pub doorway opposite the entrance and watched as visitors streamed through its portals. They were mainly fathers, some with children, ham-fistedly attired, buttoned incorrectly into their coats. Even temporary motherlessness seemed to give them an unkempt, woebegone look. Irene was loath to leave her vantage point. Like a woman bewitched by the house of love she examined the sooted curves of the portico, each lighted window.
    Her child was in there, after all, and this place would become part of her history, however briefly. Some day Irene would have to describe this – the raw night, the soft drizzle leaving a glistening film on her cheeks. Her hair lay damply on her forehead. The wet, chilly air made her seem oddly feverish. Was this a maternal bloom, an anxious glow on the eve of birth? Or was it the old disease come back? At that thought, she pulled the collar of her coat up and hurried back to the Four Provinces.
    â€˜How’s your friend, Mrs North?’ Mrs Blessed called out cheerily as Irene pushed the front door open gingerly. She was bent over her books at the desk, worrying over calculations, her mound of black hair just visible over a red tasselled lampshade. Irene had hoped to get past without having to engage in conversation.
    â€˜She’s fine, thank you, just fine.’
    â€˜And the baby’s doing well?’
    Irene hovered at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the banisters.
    â€˜Boy or a child?’
    â€˜Pardon?’
    â€˜Is it a boy or a girl?’
    â€˜Oh, it’s a little girl,’ Irene replied. ‘Pearl.’ She bit her lip; she must be careful.
    â€˜What a pretty name … oh, look, you’re soaked through. Here, take those wet things off. What you need is a nice cup of tea to warm you up.’
    â€˜No, really, it’s quite alright,’ Irene protested.
    But there was no arguing with Mrs Blessed. So Irene surrendered to her blandishments. She was ashamed of the effect such random kindnesses had on her. She did not understand how a hand on her shoulder or a man opening a door for her could bring unbidden tears to her eyes. She would bat them away feeling foolish and monstrous. It wasn’t as if she weren’t loved. Momentarily, as she sat in Mrs Blessed’s warm kitchen sipping the welcome tea, she remembered Stanley. If he knew … she shook the thought off. Mrs Blessed mistook it for a shiver.
    â€˜There, you see, you’ve got a chill.’
    She must not succumb to any muffling tenderness she might still feel for Stanley, Irene thought, as Mrs Blessed threw a warm towel around her shoulders and dried the wet ends of her hair. She was doing this for him too.
    Irene did not unpack her things. She wanted to leave no trace. She sat on one bed, and then the other, testing the springs. Both sagged in the middle, worn into an accommodating hollow by the sleep of strangers. The austerity of the room reminded her of Granitefield, where only illness had a personality so that the white bedsteads and lockers, the regulation counterpanes and curtain screens, had a dogged neutrality. They refused to be owned. The noises of the house reached her through the thin walls. The squeal and rush of a toilet somewhere below, the gurgling of a cistern. The thud of a door. The pock of a light