A Last Kiss for Mummy (20 page)

And John confirmed it. ‘Oh, I know all about this, Casey – in fact it was one of the things that was on the agenda for the progress meeting we’ve scheduled with you next week. Sorry you’ve been bothered. Was he bothersome?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It was actually his father who made the phone call on his behalf. Though he was there –’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. I get the impression from Maggie that his dad’s a bit of a pawn in this whole game. The truth is that he seems genuine. Keen to get his son straightened out. But so far, though they’ve made all the right noises and filled the forms in, there’ve been two meetings arranged for Tarim to come in and discuss things, neither of which he’s bothered to show up for.’

‘So my hunch might be right. He’s just using Roman to try and get to Emma.’

‘Nail on the head, I think. And he wouldn’t be the last man to do that sort of thing, would he?’

We both chuckled. ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ I agreed.

‘And she’s standing firm as far as he’s concerned?’

‘Firm as anything,’ I reported happily.

‘So far so good, then,’ John said. ‘And it’s been far as well, hasn’t it?’

It had indeed. All things considered, we’d come a long way already. There was just the small detail that we still had a long way to go.

It had been a curiously quiet end to an eventful and traumatic year. With Roman’s first birthday having come and gone, and Emma’s passing largely unremarked, the usual fairy-light fest that was the Watson family Christmas passed in equally understated style. Which wasn’t to say that we didn’t have some fun – we were all together, we had some snow, everyone ate their body weight in nuts and chocolate. But Roman’s absence, along with the baby daughter Riley had lost, cast a slight shadow over things; how could it not? Though, for all that, as Christmases went, this was a good one for Emma. She’d told me it was one of the few proper family Christmases she had ever been a part of in her young life. Her first with us had been a blur, obviously, but this last one had been a gift. ‘It’s the first time,’ she confided to me, ‘that I’ve felt like it was proper. Like the Christmas stuff you see on the telly.’ She went on to tell me that hers more often than not began alone, in their flat, because her mum had to go to the pub before lunch on Christmas day, because it was the one day they closed after lunch. She had only the foggiest memories of any ‘Christmassy sort of Christmas’ – a blurry image of a tinsel tree and presents arranged around it, a dim recollection of a grandmother she could hardly remember, talk of a granddad who was already gone.

My heart went out to her and I was thankful that Roman was still so tiny. Was I unrealistic to hope that this would be the last Christmas he had to spend without his mummy? I truly hoped not.

Emma had been particularly taken with, and, to an extent, awed by Justin the second time she met him. He was now living in supported lodgings and working hard as a council gardener – he was now almost an adult and nearly as tall as Kieron. And when I explained about Justin’s background – how he’d been passed from pillar to post in the care system from the age of just five, after having been abandoned by his heroin-addicted mother – I think it really brought Emma up short. It certainly gave her pause for thought. Serious thought, too, about just how determined she was to do what she had to do to get her little boy back with her again.

Not that Roman wasn’t thriving – he was. Well, I presumed he was from the pictures. I’d actually been asked if I wanted to go and see him, more than once, but I’d chickened out, still feeling too delicate to trust myself. I felt daft as a brush admitting it, but I missed Roman more than I let on to anyone outside the family, and the last thing I wanted was to see him and blubber and have him get all upset by being visited by some bonkers old lady.

It was February now, one of the coldest I could remember in a long time. Not the best time, perhaps, for a new life to enter the world, but mother nature was no respecter of schedules. Or, indeed, sleep.

‘Casey, Casey … wake up. Wake
up
… I think it’s started!’

The sound came to me as part of the most bizarre dream. I was in a caravan park, somewhere seasidey but, instead of the usual sand, sea and sun combo, the whole resort seemed to be made out of fruit. Instead of palm trees there were upside-down clumps of giant bananas, and the deck chairs were slices of melon. And most weirdly, we’d gone on holiday – me and Mike, all the family – and, for some reason, we’d taken a small Shetland pony. Which, for reasons that escaped me, we had decided had better join us in the caravan, so I’d made it up a bed in the living room. I’d never had a Shetland pony – though the kids had certainly talked me into having all sorts of smaller pets as children – and as I struggled to work out where I was, not to mention why, all I could think of was how important it was, before I went off to see who was calling from outside the caravan, that the pony didn’t put its backside through any of the windows.

Something was tugging at me now, as well. Was it the flipping pony again, trying to bite me? It was only when I realised that it had spoken rather than neighed that it suddenly hit me this wasn’t real. I was actually lying in the dark, somewhere, having been jolted into consciousness, and there was a mouth talking at me, right by my face.

A human mouth. My eyes snapped fully open. ‘Jesus!’ I jabbered, rubbing my eyes as they began to adjust to the darkness. ‘Emma! God, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?’

She didn’t look okay, that was for sure.

She shook her head. ‘Nooooo,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m not. I’ve got these God-awful cramps keep coming. I can’t sleep, it hurts so much. I think it’s the baby coming, Casey.’

She was just over a week before her due date, so I knew it could well be. And there was no doubt she looked like she was ready to have one. Having not seen her carrying Roman, I didn’t actually have a yardstick, but in the last four weeks or so she had ballooned up to what felt like twice her usual size. And that’s when it hit me why the dream had come about. The fruit – yes! She’d been wolfing down kilos of the stuff lately. And only last night she’d been on hands and knees, rocking back and forth, in the living room, resting her pelvis while I sat and watched
EastEnders
. And I’d told her that with her hair hanging down like a mane she looked like she was our pet Shetland pony. ‘Uuuurghhh,’ she started moaning then, albeit trying to do it quietly, so as not to disturb Mike, bless her heart.

I pinged the light on. ‘Mike!’ I said, shaking him awake roughly. This was no time for sleeping. We had somewhere to
be
. I knew just how much of a hurry second babies could be in, too. ‘Mike!’ I said again, as he groaned and rolled over. ‘Spit spot! We have a labour on our hands!’

‘
Am
I in labour, d’you think, Casey?’ Emma just about managed to gasp, as the contraction she’d obviously had started dying down. ‘
Really?
I mean, it feels like I am … oh, but I can’t
bear
to think I’m not. What if we get there and I’m not and they send us home again and then it starts again and … uurrgghh … I have to go through this for, like,
ever
?’

Mike had darted into the bathroom to throw some clothes on, in the interests of decency, since Emma had plopped herself on our bed and now couldn’t move. ‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘
Breathe
. Yes, I’m sure you’re probably in labour.’ Which was a contradiction in terms, but no matter. There was no way I was going to adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach here. I knew how quickly these things could progress. I felt her brow, which was clammy, and checked the time on the bedside clock. ‘Let’s see how soon the next pain comes, then we’ll have an idea, okay? And in the meantime’ – I was running around her now, trying to get myself out of my pyjamas – ‘we’ll get ourselves organised to –’

I stopped mid-utterance. Emma had leapt up – well, as far as she could leap anywhere – and was emitting a different sound now, a sort of ‘ohhhhh!’

‘What’s the matter?’ I said, but soon realised I already had my answer. Her waters had broken – and had only narrowly missed our bed.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I chided, as Emma looked aghast at the pool of liquid darkening the bedside rug beneath her bare feet. ‘Just hang on there. I’ll go and get you some fresh trackie bottoms to change into. And your slippers and dressing gown, and your bag. Mike! Come on! What are you doing in there? We need to go now!’

‘And my phone. Don’t forget my phone!’ Emma shouted after me as I flew across the landing. I rolled my eyes. Ever the teenager, even now.

When Emma had asked me if I’d be her birth partner I had had two principal emotions. The first was joy. I was so touched that she wanted me there to hold her hand, I really was, because it meant such a lot to me about what we’d achieved. That she could trust me to be there during this most intimate of life events spoke volumes about the bond we’d finally forged.

But at the same time I did feel just a tiny bit squeamish. I could roll my sleeves up and get on with most icky things – I’d been doing that for years, and I’d been present at the births of both Levi and Jackson. Which had been an enormous privilege, because seeing a baby come into the world is a privilege like no other. It was just that this felt slightly different. Should it be me? Was it the right thing? I wasn’t sure.

But when I asked Emma if she was sure she had come back immediately. ‘Casey, you
have
to – I can’t do it without you. And who else would it be if not you? You’re the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had in my whole life. And don’t you
want
to be there?’ She’d looked so anxious when she’d said that. ‘Don’t you think it would just be
so
wicked, like, when she’s older and you can tell her, “I was there when you were born”?’

And there was something else. Even as I was telling her that it was okay, that I
would
be there, she was already telling me the other reason she’d asked me to be her birth partner. ‘I don’t think I can bear being on my own again, I really can’t.’

Which was the clincher. The thought that when she gave birth to Roman she didn’t have a soul to support her. So we must. That was the main thing that Mike and I did, above everything – be there for the kids we looked after. We might never see some of them ever again, obviously. Some moved on, moved away, left their troubled pasts behind them, and in these cases that was exactly how it should be. But in other cases these relationships had and would always endure. And this was clearly one such. In as much as you could predict anything that happened in the future, this little girl – and to me she was still very much a little girl – would stay in our lives, hopefully, as well as our hearts.

I ran into Emma’s bedroom and gathered up everything I thought we needed: the fresh trackie bottoms, a loose top, her slippers, her fleecy dressing gown, the phone – God help me if I forgot to bring her mobile –
and
the charger. And, finally, the baby bag we’d prepared a week earlier. We had plenty of kit, because we still had lots of the things we’d brought for Roman, as well as the paraphernalia she’d arrived with all that time ago. I’d got everything out ready, too – ever the organiser, me – and now all that remained was to see this new life into the world. As I took a last glance around Emma’s bedroom, I felt a shiver of anticipation. All being well, by this time tomorrow we’d have a brand new little girl sleeping here.

I went back into our bedroom then, where Emma was still sitting on the bed, panting. I could see she was trying to take heed of all the antenatal advice and breathe through it, but I could also see she was beginning to struggle. I’d been out of the room for only a couple of minutes and if she was already in the middle of her next contraction, then this baby wouldn’t be hanging about.

‘Come on, love,’ I said, as I heard Mike moving about downstairs, finding keys, opening the front door. ‘Let’s get you into these clean things and get you downstairs.’

‘I don’t know if I can stand up,’ she told me, her voice querulous. ‘It feels like everything might fall out!’

‘I know, love,’ I said, helping her into a standing position anyway. ‘But it won’t – not yet, I promise you. Come on now,’ I said, getting hold of the waistband of her wet trackies. ‘And excuse the invasion of your privacy, but let’s get these wet things off and get you changed.’

The contraction having subsided, it didn’t take long to get Emma ready. And once she had her slippers and dressing gown on over the top as well, I helped her down to the waiting car and bundled her quickly in.

The drive to the hospital was really traumatic. Because there was no way she could sit, I’d had to let Emma have the back seat to herself, and almost as soon as we left the contractions became relentless so she spent the entire journey on her back with her legs in the air, screaming like a banshee at every massive wave of pain. I felt for her. There isn’t a mum alive who doesn’t know what that feels like – and I winced along, empathising madly. She also had a vice-like grip on my hand which hurt like the devil, since it was the one with my rings on and they dug in. And poor Mike – our trusty driver – didn’t escape the drama either. Every time she screamed he slowed down a bit, thinking it might help a little. But of course it didn’t. ‘For God’s sake, Mike,’ I shrieked above the noise, ‘put your flipping foot down! We’ve got to get there – like NOW!’ And, ‘Do you want her to give birth in an elderly, clapped-out and frankly grubby Vauxhall Astra?
Do
you? Well I don’t. Drive faster!’

Which, of course, made Emma panic all the more, and scream correspondingly louder. ‘Oh my fucking GOD!’ she screeched. ‘I think I’m dying, Casey. I really do! Oh my God, oh my God – make it
stop
!’

Once at the hospital, which happened not a moment too soon, it was like a scene from some macabre black comedy. Mike and I had to practically drag Emma from the back seat, as if she was a particularly heavy and unwieldy rolled-up rug. She was panting now and starting to groan and bear down and for a moment or two it was if she was superglued to the car. ‘I can’t!’ she puffed as, one arm around my shoulder while Mike held the wheelchair, I tried to prise her fingers from the car door-frame. I eventually freed them, but this set up another bout of banshee wailing. ‘It’s too late!’ she kept crying as we bundled her into the wheelchair and through the double doors. ‘Oh my God, the baby’s coming! It’s co-uurrgghh! – it’s coming!’ – much to the amusement of the night porter we passed.

Eventually – and with the baby still in place, rather than on the lino – we made it through admissions and up to the delivery suite. But if I thought there might be a calm before the storm so soon to come now, I was very much mistaken. There’s a saying that has always made me bristle. It’s the ‘You can take the girl out of the estate but you can’t take the estate out of the girl’ and I’ve always thought it really derogatory. I was an estate girl myself – it’s where I grew up and I’m not ashamed of it. I also hated the implication that if you were brought up in such a place, then you were rougher than your more well-off peers.

Which is nonsense, but that night even I found myself shocked at some of the language that came out of Emma’s mouth. Even the bluest comedian, as Mike observed when we stepped out for a breather, would have been red in the face.

‘Get this fucking thing out of me NOW!’ was about the mildest imprecation that came out of Emma’s rosebud lips as she set about the business of delivering what looked like being a very big baby from her teeny, skinny fifteen-year-old frame. And needless to say, when Emma commanded ‘Don’t move me, bitch!’ the midwife she addressed wasn’t too impressed. Like the night porter, she’d obviously seen pretty much everything, and everyone knows that mums-to-be don’t often have the best track record, particularly when sucking on gas and air. But it was obvious, even though nothing was actually said, that she thought Emma the most potty-mouthed of spoilt, toxic teenagers and us a pair of pathetic over-liberal parents.