The Chance of a Lifetime

by kendra Smith

‘Who cares? Nice shoes!’ She giggled, looking at Katie’s feet.

  I quite like this laid-back attitude, especially at the moment, thought Katie, relaxing with her friends. Naomi took the tray from her and said she’d offer it round.

  ‘Hey I’ve got news,’ Ann whispered. ‘Good and bad,’ she said, folding her arms across her body and rubbing her upper arms even though it was over thirty degrees in the garden.

  ‘Paul and I have decided to start IVF,’ she said, turning to Katie, her aquamarine eyes hopeful. ‘We want to fast-track everything. We’ve been through all the risks – but hey—’ she looked down at the ground, and Katie noticed she was rubbing her upper arm again ‘—life’s risky, isn’t it?’

  Katie nodded, squeezed her shoulder. ‘If anyone deserves to have a gaggle of children it’s you,’ said Katie. God knows she was a great mum.

  ‘Any kid would be lucky to have you, just as I’m incredibly lucky to have you as a friend.’ She hugged her. ‘Good luck,’ she added. At that precise moment she also watched as Tom removed his arm from around Naomi in the kitchen.

  Ann followed her gaze. ‘Hey, it’s Christmas, isn’t it?’ She smiled at Katie. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Sure. I know, but…’

  ‘And if I was a bloke,’ Ann carried on, ‘I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off her either!’ She laughed.

  Katie tried to smile. ‘Must find some more tonic; back in a minute, Ann.’ Feeling her way in the pantry, Katie could barely make out what the bottles at the back were. Blast! That bulb had gone – again – she realised, irritated. Must tell Tom to fix it – the electrics were very dodgy in this house. One minute they were working, the next… Suddenly she heard a noise behind her.

  ‘Tom?’

  From behind, a hand slid around her stomach and over her belly. It didn’t feel like Tom’s hand… She couldn’t see and moved to the left, tripping over a box of wine… With that, another hand reached out and was on her shoulder. She could smell a familiar aftershave, citrusy.

  ‘Tom? That you?’

  She froze. No, it couldn’t be… The arms quickly turned her around and she could just make out the face in the dark. Could hear her heart thudding through her silk blouse, as the hands held her elbows with force.

  ‘Paul? What are you doing?’

  Just as Katie tried to pull away, he slipped his hand behind the nape of her neck and pulled her towards him.

  ‘Paul! What in God’s—’ She couldn’t finish her sentence because by then, Paul had both hands round her neck and was very gently caressing the back of it with his thumbs.

  ‘Katie… don’t pretend you’re surprised…’ The thumbs massaged her neck, up and down.

  ‘Ann’s outside,’ she hissed. ‘I—’

  ‘You what? Want me to be quick? Want a piece of real Aussie, right?’ Slowly his thumbs traced bigger semi-circles from her neck right up through her hair.

  ‘No! Paul, you’ve got it wrong… honestly!’ she whispered, trying to move backwards. With that she hit her head on the shelf and then rebounded forward leaning right in to him, her face pressed against his chest.

  ‘Attagirl,’ he murmured in her hair. She felt numb.

  ‘I saw you earlier,’ Paul said, kissing the top of her hair, ‘you were foolin’ around with me, laughed at that joke… and…’

  ‘That was a bit of fun! What’s wrong with you?’ Had he gone mad?

  Then her heart started pounding faster as she heard Tom’s voice outside, asking Ann if she’d seen her.

  ‘C’mon, Katie…’ Paul said, sliding his hand up her blouse. She was in a trance, couldn’t move. ‘What are you doing, Paul. I’m pregnant!’

  ‘I know, angel, beautifully, wonderfully pregnant, aren’t you? You’re a real woman, Katie…’

  ‘Honestly, Paul, get off!’ She tried to yank his hands away, but he was incredibly strong.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me… It’s all Ann’s fault…’ She clutched her bust. This seemed to excite him and he slowly rubbed his thumb over her nipples. ‘God, you’re so sexy, Katie…’

  I’m in some awful dream, thought Katie. It’s all Ann’s fault?

  ‘Paul – stop it! Are you drunk?’

  ‘What?’ With that, he pulled on her hair, yanked her head back. Her eyes pricked with tears. ‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ Then his hand relaxed. ‘Oh God, sorry, Katie, I didn’t mean to hurt you…’ He leant in closer and with his other hand he grabbed her wrist, pulled it behind him, yanked it so much she felt a sharp pain run up her arm. ‘If I could just…’

  ‘Just what? Paul, stop! You’re hurting me…’

  Just then, the door flew open and Ann was standing there, bathed in the light from the kitchen behind her – rather like an angel of Christmas with an aura. But Ann doesn’t look like an angel, thought Katie, she looks like she might kill me.

  15

  Katie sat down heavily on her bed. Christmas Eve. She was exhausted from wrapping all the presents. And she’d just had to deal with the Fairy Bread Monster again – one of James’s recurrent nightmares. She stared out of her window. The sky was tinged with a rust-coloured halo from the city’s lights beyond.

  What had got into Paul at the party? She looked across at a snoring Tom, stared at the long lashes. Why did Paul say those things about Ann? Things must have been pretty frosty lately with Ann, thought Katie, remembering how Ann had hastily left the party early, grabbed the bowl she had brought mince pies in and left. Hadn’t texted or seen her for days. But how could she tell her what her husband said, for goodness’ sake? Real woman? Ann’s fault? What was he on about?

  She woke at 5 a.m. to a tiny hand yanking on her duvet.

  ‘Mummy, has Santa been?’ Smiling through her tiredness she lifted Andy into the bed and nestled against his warm skin, gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Shh. Let’s wait till it’s light, OK?’

  Suddenly she woke to shouting downstairs. She glanced at her watch: 6 a.m. Andy and James were yelling their heads off. ‘He’s been! He’s been!’

  She nudged Tom awake. ‘Tom, it’s Christmas, darling,’ she said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

  He stirred, looked around, then shook her hand off; sat up in bed. ‘What bloody time is it?’ he said rubbing his eyes and peering at her.

  ‘It’s Christmas time in a house full of children,’ she said, sliding out of the bed. What time had he come in last night?

  Placing one foot in front of the other, she plodded downstairs, exhausted, leaning on the railing for support. Andy tore past her, a huge box of Lego under his arm. ‘Mummy! I got what I wanted!’

  ‘Oh, isn’t Santa clever?’ she said, kissing him on the head. And will I get what I want? thought Katie.

  As they opened their presents, Katie was especially grateful to her family for all the gifts they had sent the boys. Katie hadn’t been able to afford to buy them much this year. Her mum had sent a crate of wine and Selfridges crackers; one friend sent them a snow-making machine. No, no snow around here, just eucalyptus trees, beaches and thirty degrees in the shade. Katie sighed, feeling the damp build up already in her cleavage.

  Tom’s aunts, Gramps and Debra had all ordered presents online.

  ‘Hey this is great!’ said Tom, being über-jolly, trying to shake off his clearly awful hangover – where had he been? He was being Christmassy enough for the both of them. Katie frowned, just as she heard The Durham Christmas Choir CD on the player. Getting up quickly, she turned it off. She could already feel the lump in her throat. Shoving on ‘A Jingle Bell Christmas’ by some young Aussie singer instead, she turned the CD cover over in her hands and stared at it: all hot pants and saucy look at the camera. Reminds me of Naomi, she thought, chucking it back on the table.

  ‘It seems odd to cook a turkey in this heat,’ she said later that day, wandering in to the kitchen to find Tom inspecting the turkey, trying to decide which end the stuffing should go in. He was wearing a new apron, a Christmas present that said in big gold le
tters on a black background: ‘Don’t ask me, I’m not the head chef,’ sent by Katie’s mum.

  Watching as a translucent green praying mantis landed on the windowsill, Katie realised she had totally forgotten about trimmings. ‘Hey, have you got the Christmas pudding on?’ Tom said, turning away from the turkey and looking at her, pulling on his chin.

  ‘Sorry, darling, forgot to get one.’ She went up and put her arms around him. He stood motionless and when she glanced up at him, he looked like a very disappointed four-year-old in a silver foil hat. She backed away.

  ‘I know, let’s phone Ann and Paul,’ he said turning around, ‘see if they have one, if they want to come round?’ Tom threw her his BlackBerry, clearly pleased at his idea.

  ‘Sure,’ Katie replied nervously, reaching out to catch the phone, but missed it. Grabbing it from the floor, she took a deep breath and pressed the number.

  Paul answered. ‘Hi, Tom. Oh, er, Katie. Merry Christmas! Hey, how are you – er, guys?’

  ‘Great, you?’ Sound cheery. Sound like he never caressed your nipples in the pantry.

  ‘Fine, darl, but a bit busy right now.’ His voice was flat, calm.

  ‘Oh, right. We were wondering if you, Ann and Ed wanted to come round, you know, for Christmas? If you have a plum pudding to share?’ She laughed loudly, even though she hadn’t cracked a joke.

  ‘Hold on.’ There was a brief silence before he came back to the phone and coughed. ‘Katie, gotta go, Ann’s stressing out ’bout the meal, says we can’t. Catch you later.’ And then she heard the dial tone.

  Why didn’t Ann come to the phone? Was it the pantry thing? That was her husband’s fault. She wasn’t… What has Paul told her…? Must talk to her, she thought but suddenly she heard a voice that made her heart go thud. It was her little sis, Debra. Her voice filled the room. She turned round, startled, then remembered Tom had arranged to Skype her.

  Katie looked over at the screen, saw her sister sitting there in her a pink fluffy dressing gown, waking up to Christmas on the other side of the world, hugging her knees up to her chest on the chair and smiling, her fringe in her eyes. She told Tom and Katie about Simon, what he’d given her for Christmas – an engagement ring!

  She held it to the camera while Katie caught her breath. ‘It’s beautiful, sis!’ Debs’s eyes lit up. ‘I know!’

  Katie forced a smile, told her to send a picture. Debra asked how they were.

  ‘Yes all fine, boys great, thanks for the pressies. Opened them all, yes played with them for ages. No, forgot plum pudding, ice cream instead. Thirty-two degrees today. Makes a nice change. Having a SUPER time.’

  16

  Suddenly she felt it. Unmistakable. Contraction. She clung on to the conveyor belt.

  ‘Careful, you might get hurt,’ drawled the spotty check-out assistant.

  Jesus. She looked up at him. Eighteen years old and wouldn’t know a woman in labour if she grabbed hold of his neck and swung from it, thought Katie wincing in pain.

  She rummaged in her bag for the phone. ‘Tom? Sweetie. Can you come… now? No, now,’ she hissed into her mobile.

  ‘Why am I at the supermarket?’ She took an enormous breath and exhaled as slowly as she could so she could be very, very patient with Tom.

  ‘Well, if I’d known I would be having contractions this morning, I probably wouldn’t have gone to the supermarket to look for Chinese New Year treats.’

  ‘Grab a taxi to the house; it’s quicker and I’ll meet you there.’

  I suppose the ladder/spider thing did it, thought Katie, as she clung on to the seatbelt in the cab with one hand, Andy’s little paw in the other. Maybe because I held on at an odd angle with my belly at an awkward angle. She had phoned Ann in her panic. Had been terrified that she’d found yet another one.

  ‘This one’s enormous!’ she’d shrieked down the phone to Ann. ‘I don’t know what to do!’

  Ann had been pretty short with Katie on the phone, but calmly talked her through it. Told her it was probably a huntsman spider. To do one of two things: get the vacuum out (will a hoover do?) or capture it under a Tupperware box, gently slide a brochure underneath and release it outside. Katie had gone for the hoover option.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ explained Ann. ‘Huntsmans’ bites are not life-threatening – it’s just the redbacks and funnel-webs that are dangerous,’ she’d said, before she put the phone down. And she seemed very distracted, remembered Katie, just as another contraction tightened round her swollen abdomen and she clutched the edge of the seat.

  She watched the suburbs of Sydney flash by in the cab. I must go over those spider pictures on the fridge with the boys again, she thought squeezing Andy’s hand a little harder… Oh God. My baby is two weeks early and I’m not prepared! Trust my child to be born in the hottest month: February… Oh God…

  When they got home, she put Andy in front of a Wiggles DVD. ‘Mashed potato, Mashed potato’ was blaring from the Aussie multi-coloured quartet. She looked over at the brightly lit TV screen. There have been many things I’ve battled with in Australia so far, she mused, clinging on to the table in agony: the heat, the language, the overuse of Christian names, grown men wearing schoolboy shorts, but, right now, thank the Lord for these four grown men wearing primary-coloured polo necks and waving their arms about.

  She called Ann, tried to sound calm but another contraction was threatening. ‘Hi, ahh… in labour. Oh no! Sorry. Can. You. Come? Tom not here yet. Can. You take me to hospital? Now?’

  Next she punched Tom’s number into her phone again. Where is he?

  *

  After bundling Katie into her car, Ann screeched into the local hospital, just as Tom arrived there in a taxi.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Katie was almost hysterical.

  ‘I know, darling, sorry.’ Tom took Katie’s case and suggested that Ann take Andy back to the house.

  Every ounce of Katie wanted to squat down and have her baby right there and then on the vomit-coloured carpet in the corridor. Instead, she was strapped up to some contraption.

  ‘To see how you’re doing,’ said the midwife.

  ‘I know very clearly how I’m doing!’ she screamed.

  ‘Mrs Parkes, if you could relax.’

  Relax? Katie wrenched the seatbelt thing off while the brightly-coloured Wiggles appeared in her mind. Please can they go away?

  I sound like a whale in mating season, thought Katie, as she hauled herself up onto the bed. Then, she experienced the intense, mind-blowing agony that only labour without drugs provides. Another midwife rushed in. One contraction later and her beautiful boy was born. But just at the same time, the midwife pressed the emergency button and a doctor flew into the room, her white coat unbuttoned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ whispered Katie. But all she could see was the doctor’s face, grim and concentrating on her baby, next to her on the mat. She heard the words ‘cord round his neck’. Katie craned her neck and felt hot tears down her face.

  ‘Tom, Tom! What’s wrong?’ Maternal love had hit her in a tsunami wave. Huge sobs left her as she watched her baby being whisked away. Tom followed, squeezing her hand briefly before he went. Katie lay there feeling numb. What was wrong? Was he breathing?

  A little while later, Katie sat, in a plastic chair in the shower cubicle with the shower raining over her. She felt numb. In shock. A midwife in a dark blue uniform with crisp white piping was framed by the doorway; she stood watching Katie, smiling sympathetically, holding a towel.

  Katie stared, mesmerised at the raspberry-coloured stream underneath the chair, a mixture of her blood and water swirling around, then disappearing down the plughole. I have delivered so fast, she thought, closing her eyes and bending forward, letting the water wash down her hair, her neck, trickle along her belly. I want to get out the chair, but I can’t move. Where is my baby? Why won’t they let me see my baby? Would this have happened in a London hospital? How is my baby? Is he all right?

  17


  Katie stared at her newborn. He was inside a plastic incubator, covered in tiny tubes, and had several cannulas piercing the top of his minuscule hands. How could I possibly not have wanted any more children? Katie tried to stem the flow of tears. He is so tiny, vulnerable; my love for him is just overwhelming, yet I am terrified.

  Tom was red-eyed, peering over the incubator, clutching her hand, hurting it, holding it so tight. The doctor who had been with then at the birth walked into the neonatal unit and headed over to them. ‘The baby’s blood oxygen level is low and his breathing isn’t as strong as it should be,’ she told them, gently. Katie’s mind started racing. Brain defects? No oxygen. What does that mean?

  ‘But I think he’ll be OK.’ She looked up at both of them and smiled.

  ‘What – you know – does that mean?’ croaked Tom.

  ‘It means we need to monitor him overnight, do some tests in the morning, Mr Parkes. He must stay attached to the oxygen monitor all night.’

  A midwife placed a hand on Katie’s shoulder. ‘Everything will be fine.’ She smiled.

  I hope so, thought Katie.

  Much later, holding her tiny infant, Katie experienced such a feeling of protectiveness coursing through her veins, soaking her in maternal love and clutching at her heart. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, thought Katie, but I say hell hath no fury like a woman who is made to part from her newborn. All the triggers were in place: tiny nose, infinitesimally small fingernails on a minute hand grasping your one finger for dear life, babygro covered in yellow rabbits.

  ‘Mum?’ Katie looked up with a start. James was standing next to Andy and Tom. She hadn’t heard them come in. Andy was wearing his pyjamas back to front and James had Nutella all over his mouth.

  Tom and Katie exchanged glances and smiled – and with that she let the tears flow.

  *

  The next day Ann arrived on her own to see Katie.

  ‘Oh what a lovely surprise,’ Katie said as Ann bent down to kiss her. Then, she stared at Rory in the crib next to the bed with a look Katie couldn’t quite place.