Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell

by Debbie Carbin

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ Katy is saying. ‘Her name is Annabel.’

  I move on to the other letters, the other photos. I stop at each one in turn, some on petal pink, some on sky blue, and read the joyful words, gazing at the pictures, at the tiny fingernails, the long eyelashes and the deep, dark wondering eyes. At intervals around the room there are letters that are clearly just from mums. They’re slightly different because they talk of the anxiety, the worry, the stress, and then the exhaustion of coping alone, the dread of a change of lifestyle, reluctance to let that happen. But each one finishes off by expressing the joy of the new arrival, how it far outweighs any problems that he or she brought along, how their lives have changed, but not for the worse. ‘It’s certainly different now, but in a lot of ways it’s better.’ They end by thanking Katy for her help and encouragement, and saying how, in spite of the obvious problems and difficulties to come, they wouldn’t be without their little Chloe or Sam or Liam.

  Which is what Sarah said.

  Those photos! They’re incredible. The tiny little perfection of a mini person, with its own little features. I wonder if this one will have Nick’s eyes, then start as I realize I am thinking forward, to the point where it is a real baby, with eyes, and a nose, and hair. And for the first time, I understand perfectly that there is a real person growing inside me, entirely dependent on me for everything, including life. It’s just there. It has no expectations, no hopes. Not yet. But I could give it that. I could bring it to life. I’m wondering now if it has hands and feet yet, and if it has decided whether to be a boy or a girl.

  ‘What do you think?’ says Katy from the desk.

  I look round at her and smile faintly. ‘They’re amazing. I never thought—’

  She puts up a hand. ‘I don’t want you to feel you have to make up your mind now, Rachel. It’s a big decision and shouldn’t be made in the space of a few minutes, on the strength of someone else’s happiness. Having a baby is the biggest, most serious thing you can ever do, and you have to be ready for it. Better the baby should not be born at all than born to a mother that doesn’t really want it. It’s little more than a plant at the moment, trying to get purchase in a bit of fertile soil. It has no consciousness, no awareness, so in lots of ways it isn’t a baby yet. But it does have huge potential.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Rachel.’ She walks over to me and takes my hands. ‘Whatever you decide, I will help you, but I cannot help you decide. I don’t want you to feel under any pressure, for any reason. No one is judging you, no one will think badly of you, whatever happens. OK?’

  I nod dumbly.

  ‘Good. Got your wee wee?’

  Fortunately, there is a loo in the corner of the room, so I go and produce what she needs. She dips a strip of paper into it, examines it and then writes NAD on to my file.

  ‘What’s nad?’ Is it the female equivalent of gonad, I’m wondering?

  ‘Nad? Oh, you mean N.A.D. It means ‘No abnormality detected. I just tested your wee wee to see if there are raised levels of protein or sugar in it, because that can mean there is something going on inside that we need to know about. But you’re OK.’

  I don’t like the sound of that, frankly. It doesn’t actually mean that there isn’t something wrong, it just means that no one has spotted it.

  ‘Right then, well, seeing as you’re here, we’d better check you out, Poppet, just to make sure there are no problems so far. All right?’

  I lie on the couch and she presses into my low abdomen, just above the pubic bone. Suddenly she says, ‘Ah yes,’ but does not elaborate and I don’t ask her. She gets a piece of equipment that looks a bit like what I imagine a round drawer handle would look like if it was connected by wires to a large box on wheels with a red digital display on the front, and presses it into my belly, moving it around. Eventually I see some numbers flash up on the display.

  ‘What’s that for?’ I ask her.

  ‘Oh, I’m just checking the heart beat, Rachel. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘You mean, the baby’s . . .?’

  ‘Yes, the baby’s.’

  ‘It has a heart . . .’

  She smiles at me and helps me up. ‘Right, you would usually need to have an ultrasound scan during your first twelve weeks or so to work out your due date, but I don’t think that’s really necessary as you’ve been able to be so precise with your dates. The next scan is in about four or five weeks to check up on the size and to make sure it’s growing right. All right, my lovely?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Good. Now I’ll just check your weight and blood pressure to make sure you’re in good physical shape, in case you choose to take this step.’ Don’t you just love the way she sums up the whole astonishing process, from implosive and highly improbable egg and sperm fusion, followed by forty weeks of astounding and never fully comprehended growth and development, to the twenty-four-hour-long series of agonizing muscle contractions that result in the harsh and bloody expulsion from one’s depths of a live human being, as a ‘step’? God, if only it were that easy.

  Outside on the pavement, I’ve gone into a bit of a trance. I’ve got a baby inside me. That’s the overriding thought going round my head. If I’m honest, that’s the only thought going round my head at the moment. All right, yes, you’re right, I’ve known for quite a while that it was a baby. But until this moment, standing motionless on the pavement in the autumn sunshine, it’s seemed more like a problem and less like a potential human.

  Katy may have said that my options are still open, and that no one will judge me, whatever I decide to do, but clearly she’s lying. Little more than a plant, she says, with no consciousness or awareness. It reminds me of that old nightmare we were all told at school, that if you accidentally swallow apple seeds, they will start to grow inside you until eventually the tree bursts out of the top of your head, apples and all.

  Well, there were no apple seeds, and it’s not coming out of the top of my head. Apart from those details, it’s pretty much fact.

  The letters from the single mums were uplifting, though. What’s struck me most about them is that they all said their lives were different, but not worse. It’s like jumping from one track to another. The transition is bumpy and difficult and once you’ve made the jump, you can’t get back on to the first track again. But the new track has its own benefits so you probably won’t want to. The hard part is deciding to make the jump.

  I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this.

  The phone in my bag has started to ring suddenly, and I know who that will be. I delve in there quickly to retrieve it. I can’t wait to tell Hector what’s happened.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Rachel, it’s Hector. Whoops, sorry, you knew that, didn’t you? I got your message. Everything all right?’

  ‘Oh God, Hector, I don’t know. She says it’s just a plant, but really it’s nearly a human, so even though she says I’ve got time and my options are still open, and that no one will judge, I really doubt it.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘And she says she wasn’t trying to pressure me, and that I don’t have to decide now, and that she will help me whatever I decide, but she can’t help me decide. And then she shows me all these amazing photos of tiny little babies, with shiny black eyes, and tiny fingers and toes, so perfect, and really thinks that they aren’t going to sway someone in a certain direction. If that’s not pressure, then I don’t know what is. Mum says that kind of thing is emotional blackmail, when you try to get someone to do what you want them to do by making them feel bad if they don’t.’

  ‘She’s right.’

  ‘I know. It’s totally not fair.’

  ‘And probably unprofessional.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Unprofessional too.’

  ‘Rach, can I just get something straight in my head?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, the midwife,
Katy. Who did you think I was talking about?’

  ‘Oh, the midwife. I see. Your mum came in there for a moment and confused me.’

  ‘She does that a lot.’

  He laughs. It’s such a great sound. ‘Oh she does, does she? I’ll have to be on my guard then.’

  ‘I think that’s best.’

  We fall silent for a moment while I struggle to think of how to bring up the subject of his mum and the funeral and everything.

  ‘Your mum sounds lovely, actually,’ he says suddenly. His voice has gone a bit quiet.

  ‘She’s a pain in the bum. You’d like her.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘No, nothing, only that, um, if you ever did meet her, you know, by chance one day, or something . . .’ Crap. That sounded terrible.

  There’s a pause, then he says softly, ‘I think I’d like that. I mean, to bump into her by accident. Not prearranged or anything.’

  God, could he be any clearer? ‘Well, we’ll have to see if we can not arrange it some day.’

  ‘Terrific. Just name the day, and I’ll keep it busy.’

  ‘OK.’ I hate the direction this is taking. I really can’t tell whether he’s joking or not, which is totally unlike me. I can’t even tell whether or not he fancies me and that’s unheard of. Usually when I meet a new bloke I can pretty much guarantee that he’s going to fancy me – unless he’s gay, of course – but it’s all different with Hector. He’s the only bloke I have ever met pregnant, and that does literally distort things.

  ‘Thanks for helping me out with . . . mum’s funeral, Rachel. It made it less . . . unbearable.’ His voice has gone all hoarse and throaty.

  ‘Any time, Hector. You know that. I’m glad I could help.’

  ‘You did. More than you know.’

  He sounds raw again and for the first time in probably my life, I can’t tell whether he’s horny, or whether he just misses his mum. And for the first time in probably my life, it doesn’t matter, whichever it turns out to be.

  ‘What . . .? What happened to your mum?’

  He takes a long breath in and releases it slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hec, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business. Can we forget I said it?’

  ‘No, no, Rachel, it’s fine. I want to talk about it. I want to talk to you about it. Of everyone I know, all my friends and colleagues, you’re the one I want to talk to about it. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s still hard for me to say the words.’

  I wait, clutching the phone as if I was clutching his hand.

  ‘On the Saturday, when you rang and let slip about what my dear brother has been up to, I was having lunch with an associate and friend. I didn’t have to have the meeting that day. I could have waited until the following weekend, or done it during the week. Sometimes I have to work weekends, but I try not to because of Mum. Tried not to. Anyway, after I spoke to you, I went haring off to visit some wrath on Glenn, but I got distracted on the way and decided that it wasn’t a good idea to go and confront him while Sarah and Jake were around. The thing was, I was out longer, because of that. I had told Mum I’d be home to cook her pancakes, but by the time I got home—’ He breaks off. I’m feeling a coldness beginning in the middle of me, like a fire of ice. ‘When I got home, she was on the floor in the kitchen. She was trying to make the pancakes herself, and she had a stroke while she was doing it. I called an ambulance but it was no use. She had another stroke in the hospital, and died without regaining consciousness. She didn’t suffer, apparently.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Anyway, I have tortured myself every day since then, wondering if I hadn’t gone to lunch, if I hadn’t driven halfway to Glenn’s after lunch, if I had just stayed at home that day, would she have died? Was it the stress of being alone that led to the first stroke? Or would calling the ambulance as soon as it happened have prevented the second one?’ He stops suddenly and sucks in his breath. ‘Oh, look, Rachel, I’m sorry. I don’t want to burden you with all this. You’ve got enough to worry about without me going on . . .’

  I have no idea what to say. Is it best in these situations to be interested in what happened, ask a few pertinent and tactful questions to show that you aren’t going to avoid the subject all together? Or is it best to avoid the subject all together and try and take his mind off it?

  When my granddad died six years ago, no one spoke to Granny at the funeral. Well, to be fair, she wasn’t actually there, but I think that’s because no one told her when it was. It’s one of the family mysteries, where Granny was when Granddad went to his final resting place. In fact, she was enjoying a game of shuffle board on the deck of the Mediterranean Jewel, which sailed out of Southampton a week earlier, with the captain and his wife. I know this because I sold her the holiday. I have never told anyone, least of all my mum, where Granny went that fortnight.

  ‘Do you want to meet up?’ is what I say finally, and it’s not entirely what I thought I was going to say.

  Hector, you can see, is amazed, and pleased. It turns out that I have managed to sense, without words, exactly the thing he wanted to hear, and he had been struggling to find a way to ask me the same thing. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really? Great. Where and when?’

  ‘How about The Blooding. Can you make it in half an hour?’

  I look over towards the dribbling statues. ‘I can manage ten minutes. How about you?’

  ‘I can do it in five.’

  ‘Make it two and you’ve got a deal.’

  ‘You’re on. See you in two.’

  Would you say I had time to pop into Cream Tease and use the Ladies to do my hair and put a bit of lippy on, in two minutes? No, I don’t either. But that’s where I am. Apart from anything else, I really don’t want to be sitting there waiting for him when he arrives.

  Here he comes now. I can see him perfectly from my vantage point of the café doorway. He’s very tall – taller than I remember. And now I come to think of it, he’s quite nice looking, too. I mean, we’re not talking the devastating, dangerous, dark beauty of Nick Maxwell – Hector’s older for a start – but there’s something very appealing about his messy brown hair and stubbly chin. He looks generally a bit rumpled, too, not immaculately groomed like Nick. His jacket’s slung over his shoulder again, he’s not wearing a tie and his shirt is coming untucked at the front. But the sight of him, hurrying towards the fountain, checking his watch, looking all around, makes me smile. Why is that?

  For now, I’m staying here, in the doorway out of sight. I’m just going to make him wait for a minute or two. He’s sat down on the rim of the fountain, the place where we first met. He must have driven like a mad thing to get here this quickly. Mind you, I don’t know where he’s had to come from – maybe it’s really near by. I prefer to think of him driving madly to meet me.

  Right, time to go. I emerge from the doorway and walk over to him, smiling broadly. He spots me and looks up, then stands up; and that expression of pure delight on his face almost stops my heart.

  ‘My God, Rachel. You look fantastic.’ He takes hold of my arms and pulls me in towards him as he leans forward and kisses my cheek. For two seconds I enter his personal space, and he’s inside mine. Everything slows down, almost stops, for those two seconds. I catch a scent of cologne or aftershave, and shampoo, warm and spicy, and his face scratches mine. Then he’s away again. He’s done this even before either of us has had a chance to think about it, and afterwards we look at each other, a bit surprised it happened. I know that it’s made me feel a bit hot and weak in my belly, but what does the expression on his face tell you? To me he looks a bit disconcerted, flustered. Maybe even a bit concerned? I’ve never had that reaction to physical contact before.

  His car is very near by in a car park – of course – so he suggests we go for a drive. He’s got a lovely car, actually. A big silver Mercedes of some kind, with leather seats and air conditioning. I lean back against the he
adrest and close my eyes as the cool air glides over me.

  ‘So where shall we go then?’ he asks me, glancing repeatedly over to the passenger side. Then as he’s pulling away from the car park, he stalls the car.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, restarting the engine. Then, as he tries to pull away again, he stalls it for a second time. ‘God, what’s the matter with me?’ he says, turning the ignition key again. ‘I’m all fingers and thumbs.’ He doesn’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Well, there’s the problem. You should be using your feet.’

  ‘Oh, ha ha,’ he says, then almost goes the wrong way round the roundabout and puts the windscreen wipers on instead of the indicator.

  ‘Let’s just drive, and see where we end up,’ I say, smiling.

  ‘So you’re quite happy to stay here?’

  We head out into the countryside and as he drives Hector tells me more about his mum, who was living with him, and the cancer that killed his dad eighteen years ago. I feel so sorry for the fifteen-year-old boy standing next to his mum at the funeral, holding her hand so tightly like a much younger child. He doesn’t look at me while he tells me this, but I’m watching him and his eyes fill up. He blinks it away quickly and I point out the sheep through the window, pretending I haven’t noticed.

  We wind up at a little pub called The Frog in the Nightgown where the picture on the sign above the door sends us both into gut-wrenching laughter and we stumble through the door.

  Hector watches me as I wipe away tears of laughter. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘you are a different person to that sickly, pale little thing I bumped into two months ago.’