Page 97 of The First Time I Saw You
I pull the duvet over me as my stomach tightens, glancing at the clock before closing my eyes.
Week Thirty-Five
Contractions Forty-Five Minutes Apart
Samuel
My breath is scraping the back of my throat and I stop for a moment. The incline of the hill stretches ahead, and the uneven ground is putting my treadmill training to the test. I’m feeling confident, though. I mean, I’ve only tripped over five times so far. I take a moment to focus the end of the telescope towards the drop by the side of the road, a road carved out of a forest which has been here for years, deep foliage and trees entwined in a bed of damp and moss. My knees are the colour of shite and I stink to high heaven, not exactly the image I wanted to present to the mother of my child, but, if I remember correctly, the cottage is only a bit further up this hill. Just a bit further.
What will I say to her? I ask myself. ‘Hello, sorry it took me so long, but that hill was a fucker’?I’m not sure that will strike the right tone. Michael interrupts my conversation; he taps forwards but there is a dip in the road. He swishes back and forth; there is something else there, something in our way, and he beats against it until he finds the end. It feels like a broken tree trunk. We take our time but manage to climb over it.
How about . . . I resume my conversation . . . ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not trying hard enough to find you, I’m sorry for not telling you how much I love you?’A bit corny, don’t you think? How about asking her why she didn’t tell you she is having your baby?Why don’t I wait and see what she says?Fair enough.What are you going to say about Michael?Michael stops, and I stand still. I’ll say, ‘This is Michael, he helps me from falling on my arse.’
My feet are eager, but Michael slows me down:Watch it, look, there are broken trees all over the place, step this way, not that way, careful, don’t rush.But the cottage is around the corner; I’m almost there. Fate snips away at a piece of thread, and as I step over another tree trunk, my foot misses the tarmac and instead the ground moves, gradually at first, until the whole world shifts. The solid earth from beneath my feet slides away, and for a moment I’m suspended, my arms flailing at my sides, trying to gain some balance. I look up to where the road bends round, to where Sophie is waiting for me and then: I fall.
My feet no longer hold me up; my arms no longer hang at my sides. Instead, as I tumble and roll, my limbs flounder around me: useless, hopeless. North becomes south with a pain in my hip; a scratch across my face. East turns to west as my backpack escapes my shoulders; the thick, dense smell of decay covers my body. Dead leaves – dark and musky – cling to me as brambles pierce through the denim of my jeans, impaling themselves into me, ripping my skin: demanding blood. Up has become down, left has become right, until my foot strikes something hard: a rock? A piece of wood? And I hear my voice scream out.
My body is weightless: there is no gravity pulling me down; there is no light at the end of the tunnel; there is nothing.
I’m lost.
Week Thirty-Five
Contractions Thirty Minutes Apart
Sophie
The wood of my front door is blocking the fists that pound against it. My bedroom curtains remain open, the moon hanging amongst the clouds that hurry past; they have another place to be, another sky to decorate. I’m not sure if I have been asleep: images of Ian, Mum, of Charlie lying in his bed and of Bean suspended in its pink pool – motionless – have danced in front of me, and I can’t honestly say if my eyes have been open or closed. Ripples from either side of my stomach clench and twist as I try to stand; my steps towards the stairs are slow and disjointed.
‘Miss Williams?’ A male voice is shouting. Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound knocks inside my skull. ‘Miss Williams?’
I lean forward towards the peephole and focus on the outline of two paramedics, a man and a woman. I draw back the chain and open the door.
‘Sorry, I was sleeping,’ my mouth says, my words forming normally, just as my body is standing upright in a normal position, and I offer them coffee which they decline as they walk into my home. Normal behaviour for an abnormal day.
They sit in my lounge; they talk about the weather; they tell me how bad the roads are, but how they are beginning to clear. We would like to take you to hospital and get you checked, they say. Baby is moving; everything is normal.
They carry my case; they usher me through hospital corridors, past curious glances and well-meaning smiles. They scan Bean. My baby is too big now to be seen in one piece; instead I get glimpses of each part and I try to fit them together to make a whole picture: like fixing the parts of a jigsaw. A hand passes across the screen: a little wave –Hello, I’m here, I’m fine. The midwife clips the elasticated bands around my stomach.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asks me with a kind smile.
‘Yes, please.’ I close my eyes as she leaves, listening to the rhythm of Bean’s heart filling the room. Not the usual thump, thump that you hear in a Disney film or the ‘gu-gum’ that Patrick Swayze dances with Baby to. This beat gallops, bends and flexes, climbs and descends. She returns with a cup and then pulls the printout towards her.
‘No sign of any contractions, so that’s good. And your blood pressure is almost back to normal. It was quite low when the paramedics checked you and your bloods show that you’re anaemic. So take it easy, OK? We’ll give you a prescription for some iron tablets.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, and rest the bottom of the cup on top of Bean, who kicks it, wobbling the heartbeat. ‘Will I be able to go home, then?’
‘We’ll give it another five minutes. Make sure there are no contractions.’
The consultant strides into the room, his beige mac flying behind him. His tired eyes scour the printout, dart to my chart and smile at me.
‘Everything looks good here, Sophie. Have something to eat, take a bath and then get some rest. You’re not far off now, and you’ll need all of your strength to bring this little one into the world.’ He glances at the wavy lines on the green-checked paper, nods and leaves for the night. The midwife yawns behind her hand, squints at the screen and grins.
‘All clear.’ She releases me from the elastic and turns off the machine. As I leave the room, my stomach constricts, but I’m used to Bean’s tricks now.
I’m glad to be home, glad to be back in my bed, but I can’t get comfortable; the pain radiating inside my stomach has become more intense. I turn on the light and get out of bed, rubbing my stomach. Trying not to panic, I reach for my phone. It has been almost exactly thirty minutes since the last twinge. They are starting to feel different, as though there is an elastic band stretching around my stomach and somebody is pulling and pulling it towards my spine. I breathe deeply and then, as quickly as the pain came, it is gone, and I feel fine. I feel normal. See, nothing to worry about. But still I reach for my phone.
‘Hi, how’s the journey?’ I ask Charlie in a bright and breezy voice: nothing to see here, everything is perfectly normal.
