by Dani Atkins
Ally – Seven Years Earlier
I was bent double, gasping in pain, when I heard Joe’s key in the front door.
I raised my head as he walked into the sitting room. From the mirror hanging over the fireplace I knew my face was drained of colour, and there was a thin slick of perspiration on my brow. One look at me, hanging on to the back of the sofa and struggling to stand up straight, and Joe’s complexion quickly matched mine for colour.
I put his first ridiculous comment down to sheer panic.
‘Oh my God Ally, what’s wrong?’
I waited until the pain had swept out like a tide, glorying for a moment in its absence. Then I rubbed my hand against the low nagging pain in the small of my back, which told him what he needed to know. Although as my belly was easily the size of a small weather balloon, I was surprised he needed even that hint.
‘It’s time? It’s time?’ So much for all of his assurances that he was crisis-proof, I thought. ‘But it can’t be time. It’s too soon. Are you sure it isn’t something you ate?’
‘Not unless I’ve eaten a baby,’ I said. For once, my brave attempt at humour, which I thought was quite witty given the circumstances, failed to amuse him.
‘But it’s too early. You’re only thirty-six weeks,’ Joe said. He frowned, talking more to himself than to me. ‘Although that’s nothing to worry about. Everything is viable by now. The lungs should be good. But still, the baby might be a little on the small side.’
I could feel the beginnings of a new contraction, but I still had time to sound amazed. ‘How on earth do you know all that stuff? Do you moonlight as a midwife?’
Joe looked a little embarrassed as he replied. ‘Well, you’ve been leaving baby books lying around the house for months. I thought you wanted me to read them.’
‘No. I’m just untidy,’ I gasped, feeling the pain digging fingernails as sharp as talons into my abdomen. Instinctively I threw out a hand, and Joe’s large, work-roughened one caught it. He held on to me as though I was in danger, hanging from a cliff face as he slowly pulled me away from the pain and back to safety. I was surprised at the comfort I found in just the strength of his hold.
‘Have you called the hospital?’ Joe asked, when he was certain I was capable of talking again.
‘No, because I’m not having this baby yet. Not tonight and not without my mum. I’m not deviating from my birth plan.’
To his credit, Joe seemed to be recovering from his initial moment of panic and spoke soothingly, as though I was a toddler about to throw a major tantrum in a public place. ‘Ally I know you’ve planned on your mum being your birth partner, but as she’s six hundred miles away in Scotland, I think you might have to be a little flexible on that one.’
‘But I don’t want anyone else with me. You know that,’ I added accusingly.
‘Yes I do,’ Joe replied equably. ‘And to be fair, if everything had gone to plan your parents would be back from their trip and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But you were the one who insisted they didn’t cancel their holiday, weren’t you?’
It was the closest Joe was prepared to go to a reproach. But I couldn’t, in all conscience, have allowed my parents to put off a trip they’d really been looking forward to, a trip they’d booked long before they knew I was pregnant. Once the baby was born, Mum was going to stay with us for as long as I needed her, so it didn’t seem fair to ask them to cancel their coach trip around the Scottish lochs.
‘I’m seriously not having this baby without Mum,’ I said mulishly, my voice wobbling with fear and my lower lip joining in for good measure.
‘Okay, that’s fine,’ Joe said reasonably. ‘But just on the very small off-chance that your parents aren’t able to get back here on a supersonic jet, or in Doctor Who’s TARDIS, don’t you think it might be a good idea if we get you to the hospital? Just in case?’
I gripped his hand, as another contraction began to sneak up. I saw Joe glance at his wrist-watch and knew he was timing them. He really had been reading those books, I thought, straightening up with a slightly twisted smile. ‘Don’t fancy delivering a baby in your front room?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
I nodded. There was no point in taking it out on Joe. It wasn’t his fault the baby had decided to put in an early appearance. ‘Sorry,’ I apologised.
‘What for?’
‘For being snappy and unreasonable.’
He gave me a small smile. ‘You weren’t.’
I smiled back. ‘Not yet. But I can guarantee I’m going to be. Didn’t you know? It’s in all the books.’
Joe looked somewhere between resigned and terrified. ‘Just tell me where your case is and let’s go,’ he urged.
It was only a twenty-minute drive to the hospital, but by the time we’d swung onto the sprawling site, my sassy attitude had already dissolved beneath the waves of pain that were flooding in far quicker than I’d been expecting. I’d read the same books Joe had, plus my mother’s experience as a nurse had prepared me – or so I thought – for a lengthy drawn-out first labour. But this wasn’t a slow tide easing into shore, it was more like a tsunami that threatened to engulf me.
‘Just breathe, Ally,’ instructed Joe, his eyes on me instead of the road ahead.
I had to wait for the pain to abate a little before gasping in reply, ‘I am breathing.’ Although I had to admit, I was doing it as smoothly as an asthmatic marathon runner. Why had no one warned me about this? I felt overwhelmed, scared and hugely ill-prepared. And it didn’t matter that I was a capable young woman who was about to become a mother herself, because all I wanted right then was my own mum beside me.
‘It’s going to be alright,’ Joe promised, taking his hand from the wheel and gripping mine.
‘No, it’s not,’ I said tearfully. ‘Nothing is alright. Nothing. It’s all happening too quickly, and Mum isn’t going to be with me.’
He took his eyes from the road again, making me grateful that there was so little traffic around, because I really don’t think he was concentrating on his driving at all. ‘No, she won’t be,’ Joe agreed sadly. The hand still holding mine squeezed it gently. ‘But I will.’
That wasn’t in my plan. Nor his. But with those three words Joe threw me a lifeline, and I grabbed on to it. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
Joe pulled into a parking space, wrenched on the van’s handbrake and jumped out of the vehicle with the speed of a stuntman. ‘I’m going to find a midwife to help us,’ he said through the open door of the vehicle.
‘I think I’m okay to walk,’ I started to say, but the final word turned into of a banshee’s wail. I looked up at Joe with horrified eyes. ‘Oh God. I want to push,’ I gasped, finally realising there was every chance I was about to become one of those women who simply don’t make it inside the hospital on time.
‘Don’t push,’ Joe implored before disappearing at an impressive sprint towards the glowing lights of the maternity unit. He was back in less than a minute, virtually dragging two midwives with him, one of whom was propelling a wheelchair so fast it was practically flying over the potholes in the tarmac.
All three of them raced around to the passenger side of the van. The midwives took over, managing the situation with an artful blend of calmness and urgency. ‘I think she’s in transition,’ came Joe’s voice from somewhere behind them, sounding more than a little panicked. ‘And she wants to push.’
‘I’m in a transit, not transition,’ I panted back in denial. ‘And I’m not giving birth in the car park, I’m really not,’ I said, as though I had any choice in the matter.
The two women exchanged a knowing look. ‘Don’t worry. No one is giving birth out here tonight, my love,’ the elder midwife assured me. ‘Although you certainly wouldn’t be the first person who had. But we’ve still got time to get you up to the delivery unit.’ I don’t know whose sigh of relief was greater, Joe’s or mine, but they were both cut short as the midwife added, ‘As long as
we hurry.’
I don’t remember much about the speed flight in the wheelchair through the car park, or whether we even stopped at Reception to book in. I remember a short ride in a lift, and seeing Joe’s worried face reflected in the burnished steel of its walls, before the doors slid open and we were in the brightly lit corridor of the delivery unit.
I realised time was of the essence as we hurtled down the passageway, with the midwife calling out as she ran, ‘I need a free room. Now.’
Luckily there was one, and as we swung into it I suddenly realised our party of four had diminished to just three. Joe stood at the doorway, still holding my small case which he’d remembered to bring from the van.
‘Don’t just stand there. Come on in,’ urged the midwife, already moving to the sink to scrub her hands, while her colleague wheeled in a trolley laden with all sorts of things I really didn’t want to know about, but was rather afraid that very soon I would.
‘Actually, I’m not . . . it’s just that she hadn’t planned . . . I don’t think this is . . .’
The midwife turned to me, with a look of exasperation. ‘Do you want him in or out?’
I looked at Joe, my eyes pleading and frightened. ‘In,’ I whispered.
Everything seemed to stop for a moment. Even the onslaught of contractions faded into the background, as Joe’s face softened with an expression I don’t think I’d ever seen on it before. He took a decisive step across the threshold and towards the bed.
‘In it is,’ he declared, reaching for my hand.
It wasn’t the measured and controlled birth that I had planned. My mum wasn’t there to witness the arrival of her first grandchild. In fact, we never even got word to her at all until after Jake was born. But it wasn’t quite as rushed as the midwives had first feared. There was time for Joe to set up the CD player I’d packed in my case, and ensure the soothing strains of my favourite Debussy concerto were playing quietly in the background. There was also time for Joe to rub tiny slivers of ice over my dry lips, mop my forehead with a cooling cloth, and lose several layers of skin on his palm, as my nails dug deep into his flesh as everyone chorused at me to ‘push’. I remember them asking Joe if he wanted to see the baby crowning, and the weird look on his face when he politely declined. Then everything merges into a flurry of blurred memories, which culminate in a pretty impressive first cry as Jake entered the world, and moments later was handed to a euphoric-looking Joe.
I will never forget the expression on his face as he looked down at the small, undeniably prune-like, scrap of a human being cradled in a blue blanket in the crook of his arm, before moving with such caution you would think he was defusing a bomb, to place the baby into my waiting arms.
There were tears in his eyes as he looked down on us both. I know I didn’t imagine that. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. The second time came much later, on our wedding day.
‘You are incredible,’ Joe said, his voice awed as he watched me fall in love with this tiny human being who would change my whole future. ‘Amazing, astounding and incredible. I will never, ever, forget this moment. Not for the rest of my life.’ His voice was hushed as though he was speaking in church, or in the company of angels as he gently reached out to caress my head, his fingers weaving through the long strands of my hair.
Ally
My eyes were closed and I realised I must have fallen asleep. I could still feel the scratchy hospital blanket beneath my cheek. And I could still feel the memory of Joe’s fingers sliding through my hair. My scalp tingled at the phantom touch, as his fingertips gently grazed the sensitive skin of my ear. It felt so heart-breakingly real.
‘Ally,’ his voice was a hoarse croak, but it pulled me out of the depths of slumber and shot me to my feet as though my chair was electrified.
‘Joe!’ his name was almost unintelligible on my lips, swallowed by a noisy gulp and a loud sob. ‘You’re awake. You’re back. Oh thank God.’
I gripped hold of the hand that had been caressing my hair, latching on to it with all my strength to anchor him to me. I felt him return my grip, but I couldn’t see him properly any more because I was crying so much. I rubbed the back of my hand brutally across my eyes to clear my vision.
Joe was still horribly pale, his eyes were blinking rapidly in the over-bright room and on their lids were tiny traces of the tape he had torn from them. But he was awake, he was alive, and the joy of the moment couldn’t be eclipsed by anything. He was back and it was the miracle I’d been silently praying for.
I whipped my head around for the nurse, but wouldn’t you know it, she must have stepped out for a moment, for we were alone in the room.
‘Oh Joe, I can’t believe it. I’ve been so terrified. You looked so sick.’
‘Oh baby, don’t cry,’ he urged in a croak that was almost his normal voice.
‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ I said, running my free hand over every inch of his face as though I needed tactile verification of the miracle.
Joe shook his head slowly, his lips finding the sensitive hollow of my palm and kissing it. ‘You’ll never lose me. I’m not going anywhere. I promised you that a long time ago.’
I nodded at the memory. It was what he’d told me on the night he’d proposed, dropping to his knee and taking my hand and placing it over his pounding heart as he told me how much he loved me, and that if I said ‘yes’ I would make him the happiest man in the world.
And of course I’d said yes, and Jake cooing in his crib behind us had added his own agreement.
‘I should get the doctors,’ I said, looking over my shoulder to see if there was anyone in the corridor who could summon them.
‘In a moment,’ Joe said, his eyes fastening on my face as though drinking in the sight of me.
‘I want them to check you’re alright.’
His hand came up to cradle my face, dragging with it the tubes attached to his arm. ‘I just want this moment. I just want you.’
That made me cry again. ‘Joe, you have me. You’ll always have me. Although I swear if you ever frighten me like this again, I might just kill you myself.’
He laughed, but there was no strength in the sound. ‘There was a boy. How is he? Is he alright?’
My tears were raining fast, even as I was smiling down at him. A human rainbow of emotions colouring me in; it was everything I loved about him. ‘He’s fine. You saved him, you were a real hero. I saw them downstairs earlier on. You saved their whole family,’ I told him quietly, keeping to myself the thought that his bravery had almost destroyed our own. ‘You could so easily have died in that water, Joe.’
‘Water? Oh, yes the sea, I remember.’
‘No. The lake in the park. It was frozen and you went through.’
Joe looked at me strangely as though I was surely mistaken, before the memory floated back into his consciousness. ‘Oh yes. I remember now.’
A single finger of fear tapped me lightly on the shoulder as though it was trying to get my attention, but I ignored it. ‘I should go and phone Jake. I should let him know you’re alright.’
Joe looked confused. ‘He’s too little to disturb in the middle of the night.’ Joe’s face softened, as it always did whenever we discussed Jake. ‘How is our baby boy?’
I frowned, and somewhere deep inside me a tiny alarm bell began to ring. ‘Big enough to give up Simba to keep you safe,’ I said, nodding at the plush toy still positioned by the footboard of the bed. Joe studied the soft toy, a new frown creasing his forehead, as though he’d been given a puzzle he wasn’t equipped to solve.
‘Look, let me get someone in here to examine you. They should be shining a tiny flashlight in your eyes and checking you know what day of the week it is.’
‘In a minute,’ Joe repeated. ‘I just want to hold you in my arms for a moment, then you can summon as many doctors as you like.’ He held out his arms and I flew into them, ducking beneath an IV tube to nestle against his body. I could feel his heart beating beneat
h my head, it was thundering fast, as though he’d run a race to come back to me. I wondered if the sound of my voice, reminding him of our past, had shown him the way home.
‘Before I fell asleep I was reminding you about the night Jake was born. Did you hear that?’
Joe’s hand came up and rested on the back of my head, stroking gently. ‘I don’t think there’s any chance of me ever forgetting a single thing about that night. How could I?’ I smiled into the solid wall of his chest. ‘I remember telling you how much I loved you, right there in front of the doctor who delivered the baby,’ Joe said.
Like an animal sensing the presence of danger, I tried to raise my head, but Joe’s gently caressing hand wouldn’t let me. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Joe was mistaken, he’d never said that – at least not on that night. And Jake’s birth had been attended by the two women midwives who had rushed to the van with him, not a doctor. He was remembering everything wrong, and a new chill ran down my back.
Very gently I disentangled myself from Joe’s hold and reached for the emergency call button and pressed it. I half expected to hear a distant buzz or ringing sound, but there was nothing, just an eerie silence. My finger remained on the button and I pressed continually as though sending a Morse code message: There’s something wrong with my husband.
‘What else do you remember about that night?’ I questioned carefully, hoping he couldn’t read the concern in my eyes. Where were the doctors? Where was the nurse that was supposed to be continually by his side?
‘Everything,’ said Joe, although behind his smile I could see he had caught the anxiety I was failing to conceal. ‘I remember going out into the waiting-room, with Jake in my arms.’
I was shaking my head slowly from side to side. That had never happened.
‘I remember how everyone leapt to their feet when I walked in. Your parents were crying, they were so happy.’
