the sound a man or woman might make before bending over to pick up a heavy load.
‘It will be a Christmas baby,’ I said. ’10 December is the date I’l1 give you, but it could
be two weeks on either side of that’
‘All right.’ She hesitated briefly, and then plunged ahead. ‘Will you attend me? Even
though I’m not married?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘On one condition.’
She frowned, and in that moment her face was more like the face of Harriet White, my
father’s first wife, than ever. One would not think that the frown of a woman perhaps only
twenty-three could be particularly formidable, but this one was. She was ready to leave,
and the fact that she would have to go through this entire embarrassing process again with
another doctor was not going to deter her.
‘And what might that be?’ she asked with perfect, colourless courtesy.
Now it was I who felt an urge to drop my eyes from her steady hazel ones, but I held
her gaze. ‘I insist upon knowing your real name. We can continue to do business on a cash
basis if that is how you prefer it, and I can continue to have Mrs Davidson issue you
receipts in the name of Jane Smith. But if we are going to travel through the next seven
months or so together, I would like to be able to address you by the name to which you
answer in all the rest of your life.’
I finished this absurdly stiff little speech and watched her think it through. I was
somehow quite sure she was going to stand up, thank me for my time, and leave forever. I
was going to feel disappointed if that happened. I liked her. Even more, I liked the
straightforward way she was handling a problem which would have reduced ninety
women out of a hundred to inept and undignified liars, terrified by the living clock within
and so deeply ashamed of their situation that to make any reasonable plan for coping with
it became impossible.
I suppose many young people today would find such a state of mind ludicrous, ugly,
even hard to believe. People have become so eager to demonstrate their broad-
mindedness that a pregnant woman who has no wedding ring is apt to be treated with
twice the solicitude of one who does. You gentlemen will well remember when rectitude
and hypocrisy were combined to make a situation that was viciously difficult for a woman
who had gotten herself ‘in a scrape’. In those days, a married pregnant woman was a
radiant woman, sure of her position and proud of fulfilling what she considered to be the
function God put her on earth for. An unmarried pregnant woman was a trollop in the
eyes of the world and apt to be a trollop in her own eyes as well. They were, to use Ella
Davidson’s word, ‘easy’, and in that world and that time, easiness was not quickly
forgiven. Such women crept away to have their babies in other towns or cities. Some took
pills or jumped from buildings. Others went to butcher abortionists with dirty hands or
tried to do the job themselves; in my time as a physician I have seen four women die of
blood-loss before my eyes as the result of punctured wombs – in one case the puncturing
was done by the jagged neck of a Dr Pepper bottle that had been tied to the handle of a
whisk-broom. It is hard to believe now that such things happened, but they did,
gentlemen. They did. It was, quite simply, the worst situation a healthy young woman
could find herself in.
‘All right’ she said at last. ‘That’s fair enough. My name is Sandra Stansfield.’ And she
held her hand out. Rather amazed, I took it and shook it. I’m rather glad Ella Davidson
didn’t see me do that. She would have made no comment, but the coffee would have been
bitter for the next week.
She smiled – at my own expression of bemusement, I imagine – and looked at me
frankly. ‘I hope we can be friends, Dr McCarron. I need a friend just now. I’m quite
frightened.’
‘I can understand that, and I’ll try to be your friend if I can, Miss Stansfield. Is there
anything I can do for you now?’
She opened her handbag and took out a dime-store pad and a pen. She opened the pad,
poised the pen, and looked up at me. For one horrified instant I believed she was going to
ask me for the name and address of an abortionist Then she said: ‘I’d like to know the best
things to eat. For the baby, I mean.’
I laughed out loud. She looked at me with some amazement.
‘Forgive me – it’s just that you seem so businesslike.’
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘This baby is part of my business now, isn’t it, Dr McCarron?’
‘Yes. Of course it is. And I have a folder which I give to all my pregnant patients. It
deals with diet and weight and drinking and smoking and lots of other things. Please don’t
laugh when you look at it You’ll hurt my feelings if you do, because I wrote it myself.’
And so I had – although it was really more of a pamphlet than a folder, and in time
became my book, A Practical Guide to Pregnancy and Delivery. I was quite interested in
obstetrics and gynaecology in those days – still am -although it was not a thing to
specialize in back then unless you had plenty of uptown connections. Even if you did, it
might take ten or fifteen years to establish a strong practice. Having hung out my shingle
at a rather too-ripe age as a result of the war, I didn’t feel I had the time to spare. I
contented myself with the knowledge that I would see a great many happy expectant
mothers and deliver a great many babies in the course of my general practice. And so I
did; at last count I had delivered well over two thousand babies -enough to fill two
hundred classrooms.
I kept up with the literature on having babies more smartly than I did on that applying
to any other area of general practice. And because my opinions were strong, enthusiastic
ones, I wrote my own pamphlet rather than just passing along the stale chestnuts so often
foisted on young mothers then. I won’t run through the whole catalogue of these chestnuts
– we’d be here all night – but I’l1 mention a couple.
Expectant mothers were urged to stay off their feet as much as possible, and on no
account were they to walk any sustained distance lest a miscarriage or ‘birth damage’
result. Now giving birth is an extremely strenuous piece of work, and such advice is like
telling a football player to prepare for the big game by sitting around as much as possible
so he won’t tire himself out! Another sterling piece of advice, given by a good many
doctors, was that moderately overweight mothers-to-be take up smoking … smoking! The
rationale was perfectly expressed by an advertising slogan of the day: ‘Have a Lucky
instead of a sweet.’ People who have the idea that when we entered the twentieth century
we also entered an age of medical light and reason have no idea of how utterly crazy
medicine could sometimes be. Perhaps it’s just as well; their hair would turn white.
I gave Miss Stansfield my folder and she looked through it with complete attention for
perhaps five minutes. I asked her permission to smoke my pipe and she gave it absently,
without looking up. When she did look up at last, there was a small smile on her lips. ‘Are
you a radical, Dr McCarron?’ she asked.
‘Why do you say that? Because I advise that the expectant mother should walk her
round of errands instead of riding in a smoky, jolting subway car?’
‘ “Pre-natal vitamins,” whatever they are … swimming recommended … and breathing
exercises! What breathing exercises?’
‘That comes later on, and no – I’m not a radical. Far from it What I am is five minutes
overdue on my next patient.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry.’ She got to her feet quickly, tucking the thick folder into her purse.
‘No need.’
She shrugged into her light coat, looking at me with those direct hazel eyes as she did
so. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not a radical at all. I suspect you’re actually quite … comfortable? Is
that the word I want?’
‘I hope it will serve,’ I said. ‘It’s a word I like. If you speak to Mrs Davidson, shell give
you an appointment schedule. I’ll want to see you again early next month.’
‘Your Mrs Davidson doesn’t approve of me.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true at all.’ But I’ve never been a particularly good liar, and the