Summary

In this section, Donoghue’s first-person narrator, Julia Power cycles to tram stop, where she boards a tram to take her to a Dublin Hospital where she works as a midwife on October 31st, 1918. The city is plagued by the great flu or grippe which in combination with the war which causes scarcity of resources. Tomorrow is her 30th birthday.

At the hospital entrance, she finds a young nurse who found a dying man on the street and brought him here on a stretcher. Julia finds the male orderlies and asks them to carry the stretcher up.

At the hospital, staff wear masks to protect themselves, but Julia does not as she already had a mild form of grippe a few months ago. She was nursed by her brother who is home from war, who she lives with.

She heads to the Maternity...