What I remember mostly about the labor, which they induced a bit early, was that I couldn’t keep Mark away from the business end.
You’ve got to remember I’d had three babies without a man in attendance, and it wasn’t exactly how I wanted to be seen. I’d started having my babies in the Frank Spencer era, for goodness’
sake, where fathers paced in corridors. But he was fascinated, totally unsqueamish, and determined to cut the cord. About 174 e l i z a b e t h
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halfway through, I felt utterly tired, and I made up my mind before you were born that this would DEFINITELY be the last time—I’d had enough. They had scans by then, although not quite as sophisticated as they are today, maybe, and I was all for finding out what you were. But your dad wanted a surprise. I suppose I knew by then that I was destined to have girls. Funny thing was, he wanted one, too. And you were. Completely different from Amanda—I couldn’t get a look in. You’ve never seen a man fall so instantly and so deeply in love! You were jaundiced, thank God—that meant a night in hospital to recover, rather than being sent home the same day. You looked like you’d just flown in from the Caribbean, all suntanned. The one time I could have done with ten days in the cottage hospital, they wanted to give me two paracetamol and the number of a cab firm. Don’t think I could have walked outside to the car if I’d wanted to. The GP had a point about age after all. But I’m sounding flippant, and I didn’t feel it. You were supposed to be born.
So that is roughly it. The four very best days of my life. The four very best things about my life. My four works of art. I have tips for you—what mother wouldn’t? Actually, my mother, your grandmother, did a real number on me. She said it was hard work.
Mentioned nothing about the indignity and the pain. Well, I’m here to tell you, it is painful, and it is undignified. Forewarned is forearmed. If they offer you drugs, take them. Drugs are good. Gas and air is like gin and tonic. Check the circumference of a man’s head before you agree to have a child with him. None of this big hands, big feet nonsense. It’s all about big skulls. You’ll thank me. If possible, lie down for all of the nine months, because for the next nine months you’ll be lucky if you get the chance to lie down at all.
Don’t knit yellow and green matinee jackets (as if—you girls can’t even sew on a button! I blame the mother!) because once you have a flavor—pink or blue—that is the only thing you’ll dress them in.
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Don’t bother with a birth plan. I never met a woman who got the birth she requested. The ones who claim they did obviously had too much pethidine. And most important, make like a cabbage.
Trust me—it works.
Disposable nappies are fine. If you’ve ever had to rinse diarrhea out of a terry napkin liner, you’ll worry less about landfill, believe me. Tell yourself you’re raising scientists who’ll grow up to solve the problems you’re creating. Breast may very well be best, but mastitis is a bitch, and if you can tell me which one of you lot is a formula baby (answer: you, Hannah; I didn’t feel gravity needed any encouragement), I’ll give you a prize. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Any of it. Your kids will do that for you when they’re old enough.
Oh—and about stretch marks. I have them, so chances are you will, too. Can’t help, but I apologize for the genetic cock-up. My advice is to wear bikinis now. You, too, Jennifer.
Time’s up. Come in number nine—we’ve finished dripping poison into you through this hole in your arm, and we’re ready for the next victim. Sorry, patient. We need the chair. Time to go home and wait to start throwing up. It’s been nice, girls, reminiscing about the happier hospital times.
Mum
Amanda
Amanda was in line at Trailfinders, waiting for her turn to find a trail.
She’d decided last night, while watching a particularly dark and depressing episode of
Eastenders,
that she wasn’t going to waste any more time hanging around. She’d got a week or so left to run on her current temping job, and then she was off. It had been too long. Australia or Thailand, like she’d planned, if the flights were cheap. Somewhere else, maybe. At this point, she wasn’t sure she cared, so long as it was far away from here. And sunny. She’d had enough of this brass monkey weather. She wanted to wear a bikini and feel the sun on her ever browner skin. This 176 e l i z a b e t h
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was her lunch hour, and everyone else’s, though, and there was a long line. The freezing rain that had been falling without a break for three days must have driven everyone else to the same conclusion.
She was standing as patiently as she could manage, patience never having been her strong suit, reading Sarah Dunant—completely absorbed by
The Birth of Venus
—when her mobile rang. Tintin. His name flashed up insistently on the screen and she was almost surprised that she had kept it in the address book.
Ed. Now. Picking at the scab that was starting to heal over. Why did guys do that? Too little too late. She wasn’t interested. She pressed the red button vehemently and made Ed go away.
Three paragraphs of medieval Italy later he rang again. And she pressed again.
By the third call, people in the queue were gazing at her inquisitively.
She pressed the green button and held the phone to her ear, thinking that if the phone had video capacity he’d be bloody terrified by her scowl.
The scowl was a fake, though. It wasn’t how she felt. She felt foolish, and embarrassed, and confused by her apparent ability to get something so wrong. When it had felt so right.
She should never have slept with him. She’d been on the money when she identified that as Lisa’s modus operandi and not hers. She didn’t have the right emotional constitution. She’d segued straight into behavior you could only get away with with someone who really cared for you.
However entitled to that behavior she might have been . . . That was what messed it up. When she’d slept with him, before they even knew each other, she’d put herself in the category of girls who weren’t entitled to throw emotional wobblers and that was the same category as girls who didn’t need to be called afterward. It wasn’t really his fault.
Calling now was, though.
“Amanda.”
“Yes.” She sounded as haughty as possible, which wasn’t very haughty.
He sounded a little panicky.
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“Don’t hang up on me again. Please.”
She didn’t speak, but she didn’t hang up, either.
“Amanda?”
“I’m here.” Her queue mates were openly listening now, killing time, grateful for the one-sided minidrama sideshow.
“Thank God. I’ve been trying. I mean, I’ve been wanting to try . . . to get in touch.”
“What do you want, Ed?” She heard the hardness in her own voice.
“It’s not what you think, Amanda. At least it’s not what I think you think, if that makes sense.”
It did, to her. She thought she’d scared him off, going off on one that morning, after they’d just spent two days blissfully happy in bed together. She thought he hadn’t bothered to call her for—for what—for two weeks since then. She thought she was crazy to be talking to him now, come to think of it.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Ed.”
Which was true. She’d have been scared off, too. It was shaming even to be reminded of it.
She’d left that message, almost as soon as she’d got home, which he’d ignored. Then two weeks had passed. She’d been distracted. All this Mum stuff. She’d been jittery and anxious, then sad, then resentful, and now she was trying to forget about him. And about Mum. About everything. And, right now, in fact, trying to buy tickets to fly somewhere far away from him. She didn’t really want to be having this conversation with him now. In the queue.
“I want to. I need to. My dad . . . he had an accident. A heart attack and an accident, actually.”
“God, Ed.” As excuses went, that was a pretty good one.
“That’s why I haven’t spoken to you.”
That didn’t immediately make sense. He could have called her at any point, couldn’t he, and let her know what was going on? If he wanted her to know.
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“They called—my mum called me—practically the second you left that morning. I was still watching you out of the window. I had to take the train back down, straightaway. I was in such a rush—it sounded like they didn’t know if he was going to live—and such a panic . . . I didn’t take my mobile phone.”
Two weeks, Ed.
It was like he could hear what she was thinking.
“And I know it’s been two weeks. Christ—it’s all so ridiculous . . . I feel like such an idiot. But my flatmates were away—do you remember?—they went skiing, I told you—so no one’s been at home, and no one has keys, of course, because that would be too bloody sensible, and you never told me who you lived with, not their surnames, and I didn’t know your stepfather’s last name, either, because, for God’s sake, we only just met . . . and I had to wait, I had to wait until my stupid flatmates got back, which they did last night, and they didn’t answer the phone at the flat until lunchtime because they were so tired—there were these huge delays at Geneva—so they slept late, and, and I’ve only just got hold of them, and got them to get my phone, and find your number . . .”
He was breathless. No one could make up a story that implausible.
“God, Ed. How’s your dad?”
She heard him sigh with relief at not being more closely interro-gated.
“He’s better. Not much, but some. He’s been in intensive care.
They’ve moved him to high dependency. They think he’s going to be okay.”
“What happened?”
“He only had a mild heart attack, but he was driving and on his own.
He lost control of the car and plowed into a tree. Near home. Knocked himself out. Hurt himself pretty badly. They didn’t find him for a couple of hours. No one was home, so no one missed him. . . .”
“Poor man.”
The line was silent for a moment.
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Amanda thought about Donald. His heart attack had killed him instantly. A massive coronary. All over in minutes, before an ambulance had even been called.
Ed spoke again, and now his voice was calmer and slower. “I’m so glad I’ve got through to you. I’ve been going mad down here, thinking about you and thinking what you must be thinking . . .”
“I thought, I thought I’d scared you off. . . .”
“Not at all. I knew you’d think that. God—how ridiculous that this happened. Disastrous timing. I’m so sorry.”
“That doesn’t matter now.”
“It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Are you coming back?”
“I can’t, right now. My mum has shocked us all by going to pieces.
Completely. She needs me here, for a bit longer at least.”
“Oh.”
“Can you come?”
“I’m working.”
“You could take the train. I’d meet you.”
“I’ve got a few days to run at this company I’m temping at.”
“And you can’t wheedle out of it?”
“I need the money. I’m . . .”
Suddenly the ticket money didn’t seem quite as important.
Ed’s voice was quiet. He sounded stung. “God, I’m sorry. Stupid.
Selfish. I didn’t mean to sound desperate.”
“I quite liked you sounding desperate.”
“I’d love to see you, Amanda.”
“I’ll come.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll tell them I’ve got the flu. Lot of it going about, I hear. Time of year.” She sniffed theatrically and smiled. The woman in the line behind her raised an accusatory eyebrow. Obviously someone in human re-sources. She didn’t care. Nosy old bag.
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“You’re a star. An absolute star. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
She didn’t remember the last time someone sounded quite so pleased that he was going to see her. It felt nice. “How are things, you know . . . with you?” he asked.
“That’ll keep.”
Train stations could be terribly romantic places. Black-and-white filmmakers knew that, didn’t they? Like airports, only less high tech. When people on films didn’t catch the plane they were supposed to be on, it always bothered her. All that wasted money. And what about their suitcases? Planes can’t take off with unclaimed suitcases in the hold, can they? All too complicated. To miss a train you were supposed to be on, you simply climbed down the steps into the waiting arms of the man you loved, and the steam enveloped you as you embraced. She’d stood on platforms in Mumbai and in Paris and in South Africa, watching people part and reunite. None of those exotic settings was quite stacking up to Truro right now. The six-hour journey had taken seven and a half, thanks to a lingering heavy frost, and something about rolling stock around Exeter, but she was here now, standing shivering on the platform with her rucksack beside her, watching Ed walk toward her, smiling, she noticed, rather shyly, and looking, she also noted, rather handsome.
She’d finished the day at the temping job, after their conversation, working on her pathetic cough and pained expression, and excused herself early the next morning with a fake croak in her voice, and a sincere apology for letting people down, although the guy she’d been working for had been more of the “collect my dry cleaning and brew my tea” kind of boss than usual, and she wasn’t, in truth, all that sorry. He’d manage.
Her absence would not be a major spoke in the wheels of industry. One day she really ought to think about doing something important. She’d caught the train straight afterward, getting to Paddington, in her cus-tomary manner, with seconds to spare, and collapsing, panting, into a
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vacant seat. She liked long train journeys. She loved to watch the changing landscape. When you caught a plane, once you got to thirty-five thousand feet, everything was off-white cloud, and landing somewhere where the scenery and the weather were completely different from where you embarked was a discombobulating experience. On a train you watched it change. She loved leaving London, with its relentless urbanity, row on row of terraced cottages built too close to the line, discarded shopping trolleys clinging onto steep banks, plumes of smoke, and seeing the countryside open out, greener and wilder with each rhythmic mile. It was quiet, this mid-January midweek train. Eventually, the carriage had disgorged most of Amanda’s traveling companions, and she was alone, her nearest fellow passengers several rows away. She slept a little, balling up her Dr. Who scarf into a pillow, finished the Sarah Dunant, plus a couple of discarded newspapers. She had texted Lisa, letting her know she would be away for a few days. It felt good, to be escaping. Wasn’t that what she always did? But it felt better to be heading toward Ed. This was different.