Melodie Corrigall | Margaret the Magnificent

Margaret pulls off her nightie and quickly dresses. Must have clean underwear her mother always warned, in case you go to hospital. No escaping hospital now. If only her mother were here.

The wave of pain returns, cutting across her body. She sinks against the bureau, breathing against the pain. Things are out of her hands now – the contractions will come, and will build. Will the baby be healthy? Will she herself survive the ordeal? Her mother often spoke of her birth, prolonged, difficult. How the doctors talked of the choice between the mother and child, and her father insisted her mother’s life prevail.

From the bathroom she hears the clatter of Peter hurriedly performing a shortened morning ritual, the mirror reflecting the comic movements of fast speed film.

“Are you shaving?” Margaret shouts incredulously.

“Just take a minute.”

A small worried face peers around the door. “Why is daddy so noisy?”

“We’re in a hurry to go to the hospital. The baby is coming.”

“Now?” the child cries in horror.

“Yes, don’t worry. Clay and you can do something special.”

“I want to come. I want to see it come out.”

“They don’t let children watch. It’s boring. Let me dress,” the voice hardening. “Go and ask Clay to make you breakfast.”

“Leave your mother alone,” Peter shouts.

Margaret leans awkwardly to tie her shoes, clutching a shawl from the bureau. “Come on Peter, or I’ll call a cab.” As she moves down the stairs the sharp spasm returns, more urgent now, insistently taking over her body, her mind no longer in charge. She’d been so quick last time; she might have it on the way.

“Peter,” she shouts urgently from the bottom of the stairs. He breaks out of the bathroom, grabbing his clothes, hopping along, pulling on his trousers, stuffing in his shirt. “Keys. Get the keys.”

The frightened child pushes to go with her mother already halfway out the door, overnight bag in hand. Margaret fiercely hugs her, wishing more energy, more time to reassure. Tumbling down the stairs, the man grabs his jacket, spinning the metal hanger to the ground. The boy assures the child her mother will be back soon. “Let’s make a present to take to her in the hospital.”

The couple hurries to the car, the man, unusually solicitous, pulls open the door, helping his wife settle in. She pushes against the seat. It’s too late. She feels the landslide, the lava, it’s coming. Hot liquid gushes out of her, burning her legs. She stifles a cry. “Hurry, hurry.”

Glancing anxiously between his wife and the road, her husband speeds towards the hospital, now suddenly distant. Every car in front an encumbrance, every light a challenge. In the background the news broadcaster’s alien comments.

“Turn that off,” Margaret snarls, as if the noise increases the urgency.

Her husband switches off the sound. He can do nothing else. He should have gotten ready quicker. Weaving and accelerating through the traffic, he glances helplessly at his wife’s glistening face, her mouth slightly open, her eyes darting. He is frantic to get her there on time.

Overcome by the process, Margaret’s body sways. In a quieter moment, she had explained that in birth the body took over, control ceased, the animal returned. In the end we are all animals to be born, to die. But not to die, not at her age, not in these days, not to die.

Finally the welcome hospital. Peter swings the car into the emergency entrance and helps Margaret hobble to the door. Once inside the building he is abandoned to fret in the hall as his wife is pulled behind a curtain and stripped. A bell clangs. “Get her upstairs,” a frantic voice cries. The metal bed is wheeled out; the institute has taken over.

The forgotten man, purse and coat dangling from his arm, scurries after his wife, and squeezes into the closing elevator. She is smiling, her jaw tight, but smiling. Terrified, Peter fights to control his panic, his heaving stomach. If only they could stop now, go home.

In the delivery room, the white forms move about quickly, mechanical orders are given, scribbles on clip board, bright lights, metal equipment lurking by the wall.

“It will be fine, Mrs. Cooper. Stand here, Mr. Cooper.”

“Brown,” he blurts irrelevantly.

The sacrificial victim is stretched open on the white altar; around her the acolytes perform their rituals. Horrified, Margaret suddenly remembers the pain from the last time. How had she forgotten? The baby would come, would burst from her by whatever means. The doctor appears: “You’re quick.” Between waves of agony she hears them confer in hushed whispers. What’s wrong?

Again. It is coming again. Breathing, level A, level B, level C, the ABBA song so carelessly chosen at the parenting class when pain was an abstract. Pain is now the only reality cutting across her, obliterating the silly faces. Stop. Stop. Like foreign creatures, robots, they jerk around her, colors swirl, Peter’s sweaty hand squeezing hers, his eyes troubled, his whispered song. Peter, no singer, now all the singer she has, squeezing, singing.

“Don’t push,” the white shape insists, but she must push. “Don’t push.”

Swelling inside her, the huge creature bursting to escape, her legs splitting, her body ripping. Her mind scrambles to escape the pain, the tornado inside her, death. Smashing her against the rocks, pulping, catching her breath, and again, smashing her bleeding body, her skin flayed. Expanding, the seed becomes universe, swelling inside her, she is splitting open. She will die.

A voice insists, “Push, slowly, good, good.”

No, she can’t, she weeps. The waves of pain, the confusion, the swirling colors. Peter leaning into her face, his eyes huge and anxious, his smile a grimace.

“Hold on, hold on.” So urgent, he terrified, like her. What was wrong? The push, the bursting, she was ripping open.

“Slowly, slowly.”

Explosion, Gushing from her, the shape, the pressure. An enormous eel bursts from her vagina. Magnificent relief.

“Beautiful,” Peter cries, “Beautiful.”

“Is she all right?” she listens, worried.

“A girl. A beautiful girl.”

Spinning, collapsing into herself—euphoria sweeps over her. The doctor, still preoccupied, fusses with the tender exit, but her mind now soars from the spent body, flying. Peter calls to her across the sky, “Beautiful,” then nesting the small bundle, places it on her stomach, her body warmed by the flannelette sheets.

Singing now, she is singing. The colors, skimming across the skies. The gods have smiled. Now they are four. A small cry against the wind. Joy.