Page 117 of Such a Good Couple
‘I’ve been getting my moment for five years now and there was a cost to that that I couldn’t see at the time. Or maybe I didn’t want to see …’
‘Ah, Fionn.’ Annie had to steer him away from this painful territory. She didn’t want him going down the blame-game road; they were all trying to work on more self-compassion. ‘Listen, we can do a party all together here to mark it. The kids would love it – we could dress up fancy and everything.’
Clara arrived back in. She came and briskly hugged Annie. ‘Right. Fionn, stay on balloons. Annie, come with me. I want you doing quality control on the gift-wrapping.’
Clara steered Annie out of the kitchen and back towards the main hall.
‘You’ve gone full Karen,’ Annie remarked. ‘I’ve never seen you so belligerent and organised.’
‘I’m not organised, I’m panicking, Annie!’ Clara hissed. ‘The girls were so quiet this morning. It’s really come home to me how much this day matters. This is one of the first chances to reassure them that things won’t be utterly shite forever. Show them that we can have a nice party and, while their mum won’t be there, it will not be terrible.’ Clara whirled around, eyes wide. ‘Oh God, you don’t think it’ll be terrible, do you?’
Annie pulled Clara into her arms even though it was awkward as hell with Beanie wedged between them. ‘Of course it won’t be terrible.’
‘The cake is fucked,’ Clara said unhappily, pulling out her phone. ‘I said Minecraft and yer one heard “mine shaft” and has done this really technical cross section of a working mine. Labelled and everything.’
Clara jabbed at the phone miserably to bring up a photographand Annie leaned in to examine what had to be one of the most visually unappealing cakes she’d ever seen. A mound of brown cake with scraps of green cut out to reveal a vertical tunnel. ‘God. Right. It’s brown, that’s quite a choice. Did she think she was making a cake for mining enthusiasts?’
‘There she was on the phone banging on about how the edible “sump pump” – whateverthatis – is operational.’
Conor popped his head out of the playroom. ‘A sump pump is a pump that can be submerged in water, crucial for dewatering mines.’
‘Conor!’ Clara looked exasperated, then paused. ‘Okay. Wow. Thatiskind of impressive.Anyway, we have to find some Minecraft crap to shove on top of the mine shaft cake so it looks more fun and less like an underprivileged mining town in Durham in the 1800s.’
An hour later, the party was in full swing and everyone was doing a committed pretence at normality. The kids seemed to be reasonably happy but Clara was buzzing around with a frantic energy and Annie was already looking forward to getting home and watching something stupid on Netflix for the rest of the day. She was tired on her feet but even more uncomfortable sitting down. She really just wanted to assume a bovine position, prone on a couch, and stare vacantly for a few hours. That was when she suddenly felt the twist of a nauseating pain far sharper than any of the Braxton Hicks from the previous few days. She clenched her teeth and staggered a little.Shit.
‘Kids! C’mon! Cake time!’ Clara was rounding everyone up and doing complicated air traffic control motions to the two waiters wheeling in the baffling cake that no amount of random Minecraft merch stuck on top could make look normal.
Annie, still rattled from the shocking pain she’d justexperienced, tried to steady her breathing. The clatter of the room around her dialled up in her ears and then receded just as fast. Her thoughts surged this way and that.Is this it? Should I be sitting? Lying down?
She looked around to find Rachel or Conor. A great pressure was building in her pelvis and she needed to subtly communicate, perhaps by telepathy, that standing on a six-grand rug might not be the ideal place for her right now. Unfortunately it was Clara’s eye she caught instead. Clara was mid ‘Happy Birthday’ when her gaze snagged on Annie’s and she went from placid to suspicious in less than a second. She swiftly made her way to Annie.
‘You better not be doing what I think you’re doing,’ she muttered, still pretending to smile around at everyone else.
‘I’m not “doing” anything, my body’s doing something. It’s out of my hands.’ Annie was trying not to laugh while also trying to ride a fresh wave of pain. ‘Oh God, Clara,’ she whispered. ‘It hurts so fucking much. Is this it?’
‘Happy birthday to Dodi and Essie,’ sang the rest of the crowd. Fionn had his arms around the girls while Ollie filmed. Rachel and Conor were swaying and laughing and all three little boys were reaching simultaneously to jab at the cake.
Annie hunched slightly and had to remind herself to breathe through the cracking, grinding pain.
‘We’ve got to move you.’ Clara started trying to hustle Annie towards the door but Annie only laughed at the futility of this plan.
‘I can’t move right now,’ Annie growled quietly, her fists balled to help her withstand the pain.
The ‘Happy Birthday’ song was nearly over and Clara tried to take Annie by the elbow. ‘These poor girls have lost their mother and their cake is a failed Geography project. They don’t need your vadge being ripped to shreds to be their lasting memory ofturning nine!’
‘Hip-hip hooray! Hip-hip hooray!’
‘Okay, okay! I’m going.’ Annie started to inch forward so she could make her way around the little knot of people gathered protectively around the twins. She wanted to catch Rachel’s eye but ultimately she had to focus on keeping quiet and not drawing attention to herself. She made it past everyone, when she had to stop to bite back a moan of pain. A new roiling contraction had her by the guts.Oh God.
‘Make a wish, girls,’ Fionn told his daughters, and there was a collective pause in the room as the girls each took a deep breath.
Splat!Everyone looked up.
A sudden warmth down her legs, coupled with the loud slap of liquid on a wooden floor, confirmed to Annie that her baby was indeed coming early.
Annie smiled around at them. ‘Sorry, gang.’
From the time she and Conor arrived at the hospital, Annie felt like she’d entered an altered state. She shouldn’t feel this serene; after all, she’d gone into labour five weeks early with a baby who was still breech. But somehow she felt protected. If she wanted to get woo-woo about it, a part of her was convinced Maggie was by her side.
