Fiona
The blood didn’t disturb her. Fiona was no stranger to blood: as a midwife, it came with the territory.
The boy lay on his back, one leg buckled to the side, his arms outflung. Large hands. A boy on the cusp. Like her own son. Different features, this boy was Afro-Caribbean, but the same sort of age. Even as she had these thoughts she was kneeling, assessing him; ignoring the wild beating of her heart, channelling the roar of adrenalin to fire up memory and intellect and practical responses.
Checking his airways and finding breath there, stuttering but there all the same. Warm, moist breath, the faint tang of spearmint. And his eyes on her. Brown eyes, tawny, reflecting her silhouette and the blue sky beyond her. A rim of gold edged each iris. His eyes locked on hers as she tore off her cardigan, folded it and pressed it to his chest. There were dressings in her bag, over in the house, but there was no time to fetch it. The green T-shirt he wore was now black with blood. The same blood pooled in a slick beneath his shoulders, soaking into the grass, into the hard earth among the daisies and dandelions, the clover and the plantain. His eyes fixed on hers as she murmured words of comfort and prayed for the ambulance to hurry. His gaze was a kaleidoscope of emotion: surprise, then the skitter of fear and finally the bloom of love. Bringing tears burning in her own eyes.
‘It’s all right, love, the ambulance is on its way, you’re all right.’
His eyelids fluttered and a spasm shook his frame. She saw his eyes roll back and his mouth slacken. Felt the thready pulse at his neck race then falter and stop.
She bent over to give him mouth-to-mouth and glimpsed his young person’s travel pass. His photo and name: Danny Macateer. A kick of memory. Macateer. The first twins she’d seen born by vaginal delivery. Danny and a girl, a name with similar letters: Dana? Anya? Nadia? Nadine! Must still be living in the area.
Fiona held his nose; his skin was clammy now from shock. She placed her mouth over his and breathed out, soft, steady. She had never had to do this before. Not in twenty years of midwifery. His chest moved, she allowed it to settle then breathed again. She could smell the soap on his skin, see the fine down on his cheek, the shine in his close-cut, springy, black hair.
