by Fiona Gibson
‘I don’t want gas and air. I wanted the water pool but you made me get out of it.’
‘Yes, because your contractions were slowing right down.’
‘And I wrote in my birth plan that I wanted Jade’s hypnotherapy CD on – where did you put it, Rob?’
‘I think we must have forgotten it …’
‘But the breathing techniques,’ she exclaims. ‘The positive affirmations—’
She is stopped short by what seems to Rob like unimaginable pain that no human should have to go through, and he hears the freckle-faced midwife murmur to the other woman, ‘It’s a bit late for that.’ They’re both telling her to push, and Rob feels as if he’s watching a terrible scene in a movie that he should walk away from, but feels compelled to see through to the end. The pushing isn’t working; she can’t get the baby out. Clary sage forgotten, Nadine sucks hard on gas and air, then it’s pethidine and more pushing, pushing, and still the baby won’t come. Rob feels helpless, as if he might cry. When he tries to mop her forehead with a cold compress, she bats him away. If he murmurs encouraging words, like the midwives are doing, she cries, ‘You don’t know what this is like! I can’t do it, I can’t get this baby out …’ And a terrifying thought fills Rob’s brain: it’s a freaky, massive super-baby and it’ll never come out of Nadine …
‘We’re taking you to theatre, sweetheart,’ the younger girl is saying as the room fills with people and urgent voices. And Nadine is no longer on all fours, barking and yelping in her sweat-soaked T-shirt, but on a stretcher, being taken away.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The head of the Sussex Tourist Board couldn’t have organised it better. Kerry and James have visited a nineteenth-century poet’s cottage, a perfectly-preserved art deco house which is open only six days a year (naturally, today was one of those days) and watched a chamber orchestra performing in the manicured grounds of a castle. He’d packed a lavish picnic to nibble at during the concert (naturally, it has been a perfect, sunny May day with just a few wispy clouds streaking a pale blue sky) and researched the nearby town so they could skip the boring bits and head straight for the more interesting shops. Kerry isn’t sure that a stop-off at the bottle museum was strictly necessary. But she’s maintained a perky exterior, praising James for choosing all the right things, and never once suggesting that they might go off-piste and have a cup of tea in, say, some nondescript but perfectly nice cafe.
And now they’re at The Lighthouse Hotel, which is also perfect, surpassing Kerry’s expectations as she’d glimpsed it from the main road. Having dropped off their bags late morning, they are now in their room – an airy circular space with a curved wall separating off the shower room, and light flooding in through two original windows. The rough stone walls are white, the enormous bath – which sits, alarmingly, in the centre of the room – has elaborate claw feet, and the enormous bed has been made up with the most luxurious cotton sheets Kerry has ever felt against her skin. Only her bare feet are making contact with the sheets at the moment, as she lies on her side, flicking through the pile of information leaflets which James collected from the various places of interest today. Later, though, after drinks and dinner, it will be her naked body. With James’s naked body next to hers, and followed at some point, she’d imagine, by sex. Sex in a lighthouse with James. Kerry would feel no more weird if someone had told her she must do it with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
She fans out the leaflets on the bed. ‘James, you’ve put so much thought into today. I’m so touched you organised all this for me.’
James is carefully unpacking his clothes and placing them in the chest of drawers. ‘I think we could probably have done without the bottle museum,’ he says with a small laugh.
‘Yes, well, the children will be impressed that I’ve seen every design of milk bottle ever made in Britain.’
He closes the drawer and comes over to the bed, lying down on his side to face her. ‘I wanted you to have a really nice birthday.’
‘Well, it has been already and we haven’t even eaten yet. And you know how I love my food.’
He leans closer, kissing her softly on the lips. ‘They do great gin and tonics here, I read in the reviews. Thirty-five gin varieties, the best one scented with wild flowers from the Orkneys …’
‘That sounds delicious.’ There’s a pause, and she wonders if he’s ever brought anyone here before. ‘What did Luke think about us coming away this weekend?’ she asks.
‘Oh, he approved. Glad to get me out of his hair for a couple of days, I suspect. He’s jacking in the shop, you know. Says he finds it repetitive, as if making sandwiches was ever going to be anything else …’
‘So he’s going to sell it?’
‘Nope, it’s staying open for the time being – run by me.’
‘Oh, so you’re buying him out?’
‘No,’ he says ruefully, ‘because he never put anything in in the first place. I mean, he didn’t finance it – that was me and his friends’ parents. He was the ideas person which, I have to admit, he is pretty good at. No, what I’m doing is allowing him to step away gracefully.’
‘Ah, I knew you liked the shop,’ she says, grinning. ‘And it might be better, running it your way …’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’
‘Would Amy get involved?’ she asks. ‘You mentioned she was looking for something local …’ His ex-wife has moved into a tiny flat in the centre of town and, as far as Kerry can gather, she and James maintain a cordial, if slightly chilly relationship.
James is laughing now, swivelling off the bed and stashing his empty case in the wardrobe. ‘We wouldn’t last a morning, working together. Listen, we should get ready for dinner …’
‘Yes, I could do with a quick freshen-up first, though, okay?’
‘Bath or shower?’ he asks with an entirely straight face.
Kerry blinks at the central bath which utterly dominates the room. ‘Oh, a shower I think. I need something to liven me up.’
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Nadine is shouting for Rob; he can hear her through the doors.
‘I need to go in,’ he barks at the brick of a man with a pink, shiny head who’s preventing him from being with her.
‘There’s too much going on in there, mate,’ the man grunts. ‘You can go in when they’re ready.’
Ready for what? He’s not about to miss the birth of his child. When Nadine yells, ‘I want Rob!’, he shoves his way past, surprised at the burst of determination that seems to come from nowhere and blunders into the room where his girlfriend is lying on a bed, her short dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. She manages a weak smile.
‘Oh, you’re here.’ Like he’d been dawdling and only just made it in time.
‘Yes, I’m here. Don’t worry.’ He grabs her hand and grasps it tightly.
‘She’s refusing to have a caesarean,’ says a woman with an unyielding helmet of black hair.
‘It’s not in the plan,’ Nadine wails.
‘Who cares about the plan?’ Rob touches her hot, damp cheek. ‘It doesn’t matter now. You’ve tried and done your best but it’s not important. They have to get the baby out safely.’ He pauses, expecting Nadine to say something cutting, but she murmurs a weak, ‘Okay.’
Then something in helmet-hair’s mood changes. ‘You can try one last time,’ she says firmly. She urges her to push, and a man Rob hadn’t even registered before takes what looks like a pair of tongs off a trolley – he’s reminded of his parents’ special-occasion salad tongs – then there’s so much shouting that Rob has to turn away. He can’t watch the tongs bit, it seems too wild and chaotic, not the way he likes things at all. It wasn’t like this when Mia and Freddie were born …
With his back teeth jammed together, he tries to spirit himself away to a place where babies are delivered in a orderly fashion. Then he hears the man saying, ‘Well done, well done, Nadine, it’s a boy …’
Rob turns to see his tiny baby
being held up and being placed, all wet, silky skin and dark hair, on Nadine’s chest.
She looks at Rob and smiles. ‘Look, it’s our son.’
He nods, unable to find words while he studies the face, which is definitely his face – or rather, his father’s brow and nose. For a moment, he wonders if there’s something of Eddy too, around the mouth – although, actually, this perfect child really only looks like one person: Nadine.
The baby is whisked away, then returned all clean and alert, his dark eyes taking in his surroundings. The nurse hands him to Rob. ‘Here you are,’ she says kindly.
‘Er … okay.’ It’s silly to feel nervous, but Rob hasn’t held a newborn baby for so long that he’s fearful of somehow breaking him. He is sweating a little, but after a few moments something in him adjusts and he remembers what to do, and it feels utterly natural to be cradling this tiny human being. Sod paternity tests and quizzing Nadine and night after night spent worrying. As Rob looks down at the baby in his arms, there is no doubt in his mind that this child is his, in the only way that matters.
Chapter Sixty
It’s like that feature in Mr Jones – ‘Your A–Z of foreplay’ – which Kerry’s eyes had lit upon in the dentist’s waiting room. She’d almost convulsed with laughter when she’d spotted that it was written by ‘Miss Jones’ – Rob’s alter ego – and had been unable to resist sneakily tearing it out of the magazine and slipping it into her bag. How she and Brigid had laughed at the way he’d written it. It was the way he’d suggested working through the proceedings in alphabetical order: ‘a for areola’, ‘b for bottom’, ‘c for clitoris’ … oh dear, oh dear …
Only now, it appears that this is happening to Kerry in real life. She’s not averse to some things being alphabetised – her CDs have been a jumble since Rob left and his ultra-strict filing system broke down – but not this. Plenty of women would appreciate James’s efforts and award an A-star for effort. But the more James gamely continues, and the more she tries in vain to participate – to feel something, in this perfect lighthouse room – the more she is conscious of a terrible rising hysteria in her, until everything he does is unbearably tickly and it takes every ounce of concentration not to cry with laughter. Was she always this tickly, or is it because she hasn’t been touched in so long, and her nerve endings are over-responding?
‘Sorry,’ he murmurs as she flinches again.
‘No, it’s not you. It’s fine – I’ve just gone horribly tickly. I don’t know why. I’ll be all right in a minute …’ James pulls back, observing her with a quizzical smile. He’s so handsome, she reminds herself. Don’t mess up this opportunity when you haven’t had sex in … well, she can’t actually remember.
‘James, I just need the bathroom.’
‘Okay.’ Mercifully, he removes his hand from her breast.
She slips out of bed, feeling conscious of her nakedness now, and perches on the loo. In fact, she doesn’t really need to go. She’s just buying some time while cursing herself for wasting this lovely man, this incredible room, this opportunity. Two bathrobes are hanging on the back of the door. They look like possibly the fluffiest bathrobes ever; James probably checked up on robe quality when he made the booking. She gets up and slips one on. When she emerges from the bathroom he is sitting up in bed, a particularly fine specimen of a man, his lightly-tanned body shown off to best effect by all the whiteness around him.
‘Hi,’ he says with a smile.
‘Hi.’ She pauses for a moment. Then, with the belt on her robe done up tightly – a little too tightly after that amazing dinner – she climbs into bed beside him.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks gently.
‘Yes, I’m fine …’ She’s about to concoct an excuse, like she’s eaten too much or doesn’t feel well, but she can’t bring herself to lie to him. ‘I’m really sorry. I’ve had such a lovely time but, James … I’m not sure this is going to work.’
His mouth forms a firm line, and for a moment she wonders what the hell is wrong with her. ‘You’re right,’ he murmurs, taking her hand in his. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
James sighs. ‘Yes, me too. But it’s not your fault, you have nothing to apologise for.’
She looks at him. ‘I do love our days together, though …’
He nods, and they fall silent for a few moments. ‘It’s just – Amy moved on,’ he murmurs. ‘She was with someone else. She got on with her life and I wonder if I ever will.’ He turns to meet her gaze and she kisses him lightly on the lips.
‘You’re probably the most eligible man in Shorling, James.’
He chuckles. ‘Good God. I very much doubt that.’
Kerry stretches out, grateful for the coolness of sheets against her skin, and hoping he comes back sometime to this very room, with a woman who appreciates it.
‘It’s been a perfect day,’ she murmurs, feeling drowsy now, ‘but … let’s just sleep.’
Chapter Sixty-One
Rob is at his desk in the office, trying to write a Miss Jones column on the theme of women’s sexual fantasies. It’s Friday evening, way past home time, and he’s finding it virtually impossible to squeeze a single intelligible sentence out of his addled brain. Every time he types something like, ‘Sometimes I want a big dirty trucker man’, a hectoring voice in his head bellows, ‘For Christ’s sake, Rob. You have an innocent baby at home. This has got to stop.’
He squints at his screen, his head aching and RSI tingles shooting up his right arm, willing the voice to shut the hell up. It’s only work, after all, so why is he getting himself into such a stew? People do all kinds of crappy jobs just to bring in some money – what about that clown guy Kerry seems to have befriended? Anyway, Rob can’t afford to show anything less than one hundred percent commitment right now, even though he’s barely managing to restrain himself from slapping Eddy most days. Even when his boss quipped, ‘God, Rob, you look knackered – rather you than me with this baby lark, mate!’, he had to just smile benignly and get on with his work. Rob is now living full-time with Nadine and their beautiful baby son, and is acutely aware that he has two families to support.
He performs a quick calculation. By the time Rafferty is, what, twenty-two and has finished university, Rob will be … sixty-two. That’s perilously close to pensionable age, and at this rate he’ll still be dashing off Miss Jones columns suggesting that it might be a good idea to dress up as a fireman once in a while.
‘Just get on with it,’ he mutters to himself, flinching as his mobile rings. ‘Er, hi, Nadine, everything okay?’
‘Yes, it’s just … how much longer are you going to be? It’s nearly seven and Rafferty’s a bit fractious and I thought you might be home by now …’
‘Okay, won’t be long.’
‘What’s keeping you, Rob? I’ve been here all day, haven’t talked to another living soul – at least, not one who can talk back …’
He exhales fiercely and glares at his screen. ‘I’ve just got to finish this thing about women’s fantasies. Then I’ll be out of here, I promise.’ He pauses and bites his lip. ‘What kind of fantasies do women have?’
‘Huh?’ Her response hangs in the air like a bad smell.
‘I mean … what kind of thoughts go through a woman’s brain when she’s, y’know … imagining her ideal scenario in a bed type thing?’
There’s a burst of bitter laughter. ‘You are fucking joking, Rob?’
He frowns. ‘No. I just wondered—’
‘Right,’ she snaps, ‘you thought it’d be a good idea to ask a woman who’s barely recovered from having a baby yanked out of her vagina with forceps about what kind of sexual fantasies she has?’
He opens his mouth and shuts it again, relieved that everyone else has gone home. ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he mutters.
‘Would you be up for exotic scenarios if you had five stitches in your perineum?’
‘Er …’ He racks his brain, trying to
recall what a perineum is exactly, and whether or not he has one. ‘No, I probably wouldn’t,’ he concedes.
He can hear Nadine’s urgent breathing down the phone. ‘The health visitor said, “Don’t worry, Nadine, you’ll be able to resume intercourse after your six week check-up.” Ha!’ she barks mirthlessly. ‘Like I’ll be ready then. God, the way I feel now, it’ll be more like six years …’
‘That’s fine, it’s not as if I feel like—’ Rob starts, before realising that she has abruptly ended the call.
For God’s sake. There was no need to take it like that. He despises his stupid column more than ever now; this would never have happened if he was still allowed to write the entertainment pages – the film reviews and celebrity interviews. He suggested swapping his Miss Jones page for a monthly recipe at the last features meeting – for busy dads with hungry mouths to feed – but was met with a gale of derisive laughter. Eddy has even taken the Style Tip of the Month page off him and given it to Ava instead.
In a fit of annoyance, he turns off his computer, grabs his jacket from the back of his chair and storms out of the office. At least it’s Friday, and he’ll be able to get stuck into baby-related duties over the weekend and relieve some of the pressure at home. Rafferty is adorable, but he has yet to learn to distinguish day from night. Nadine is convinced that his nocturnal howlings are due to the fact that she can’t produce enough milk, yet when Rob suggested giving him the odd bottle of formula, anyone would have thought he’d suggested force-feeding him gin.
Hmmm. He should head straight home, he decides as he dries his hands in the gents. But would anyone blame him for having a quick drink, just to bolster himself before the onslaught of feeding and bathing and being spurted with baby sick? Maybe it would give Nadine time to calm down, so they’d have a nicer evening. He calls Simon’s number on his mobile. ‘Still in the office?’
‘Yeah, unfortunately,’ Simon replies.
