May thought that she would like that very much. It would have been lovely to have Helen by her side, gentle and encouraging. Another pain bit into her and May wondered what on earth she was thinking. Alain had longed for this moment, prepared for it, read about it, and had a phone installed in the flat with the last of the money her mother had left her. The phone. That was what she needed to do.
‘Please can you go to the phone box and ring the hospital and Alain?’ May said. ‘Tell him to meet me there? You could say we just met. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if you could be there. Women’s lib and all that. But blimey, Helen, he’s even read the book. He’s desperate to be there. Ow,’ she broke off as the pain crunched through her. ‘It hurts, I’ve always been a coward. Take no notice, don’t let me scare you.’
May gave Helen a slip of paper with the phone number on it. Helen squeezed May’s hand and took off for the phone box, leaving May sitting at the table. The contraction tapered off and May put her hand on her bump, surprised at how hard and solid it felt, and how fast things seemed to be going. All the books had talked about gentle contractions at the beginning, time to get in tune with your body, easing your way into labour and things like that. This was more like a sudden onset thunderstorm. May didn’t feel ready.
She was crying when Helen returned.
‘I’m not sure I’m ready for this right now,’ May said. ‘Sorry, sorry, did you get through to Alain?’
Helen gave May a tissue and patted her hand.
‘I did, and there’s nothing to apologise for, nothing to worry about, my friend. We can talk about everything later,’ Helen said. ‘You make notes and tell me how it goes. You’ve got a job to do now, and you’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll be thinking of you.’
I’m not like you, May was thinking, even as her body screeched into gear, flexing muscles she hadn’t known she had, I’m not on my own, I’m so lucky. Alain isn’t like Frank, he’s just having a difficult time. My situation isn’t as bad, I’m not like you. I’m not a battered wife or anything, I’ve read articles about them and my Alain is an angel.
‘It’s all fine,’ she said, hoping that Helen would understand. ‘Alain will be here any minute, I know he will. He’s an amazing man, so funny, so clever. He’s a sensitive man. He knits. Oh,’ May put her head on the table, trying to remember the breathing she had learned from her book, ‘oh, this bloody hurts.’
‘Maybe it would help if you stop worrying about Alain. Just concentrate, woman, you can do it.’
When May tried to put the events that followed in order later, she wasn’t sure what went where. There was an ambulance, and a stretcher, and a solicitous manager offering free teas for a month, and Helen giggling at that.
‘You’re quite safe,’ May remembered Helen saying, ‘she’s not going to be battering down the doors begging for a cuppa for a while, I think she’s going to be busy, don’t you?’
The manager blushed. ‘A year,’ he said, ‘a year, I meant a year, have free teas for a year, and have a lovely day.’
Even May managed to laugh at that as the ambulance men wheeled her out of the restaurant and into the lift. She was sure that she could walk but they wouldn’t let her. Nowhere in the books had it said that things would go this quickly. May wished that she could meet the authors of the books and punch them.
May didn’t see Helen go. One minute she was there, the next she had gone, taking her comfortable, calming presence with her. May felt very alone.
It seemed ages before Alain came. May lay in the hard hospital bed and watched the clock on the wall move from afternoon to evening. The pain became a part of her, an extra limb, and she became so used to it that she forgot from time to time why it was happening.
When Alain arrived, May was surprised to find that she felt fairly indifferent, too busy with her body to be thrilled. He bent to kiss her and she registered a smell of the outside, of life beyond the walls of this small room. A combination of fried food, unwashed skin and traffic fumes, and she wondered if he always smelled like that.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘darling, I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. There was traffic, and this old woman had dropped her shopping and I had to help her pick it up, there was no one else around, I’m sorry.’
May felt as though the pain had washed her clean, cleared her mind. She wondered which part, if any, of what Alain had just said was true.
‘Does it hurt much?’ Alain said, holding her hand and rubbing it.
Stupid question of the century, May thought.
‘Not now you’re here,’ she said. She wondered if he would be able to tell that she didn’t mean it.
‘My brave darling,’ he said. May thought that he sounded just as insincere as she did, as though they were both reciting lines from different scripts. She pulled her hand back and decided to be more honest. Maybe then they’d feel more like a team.
‘You should try it,’ she said. ‘Lie down on the floor and get someone to drive across your stomach with a steam roller, like they use to lay roads. Make sure they keep doing it, every few minutes. Should be a doddle.’
Alain smiled and rubbed her hand some more. May forced herself to smile. Stop the bloody hand rubbing, she thought, and resolved to tell Helen later how annoying she had found it. It would make her laugh. She could see from the way that Alain looked at her that he was expecting her to spare him by being quiet and stoic, and she knew that she had to try. It was important to get this right, she could remember that even though she was no longer sure why. She hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. At the antenatal class they had told her to practise breathing while she twisted the flesh on her thigh and May was good at that, she could twist until her thigh was bruised, but this was way, way worse than a bruised thigh.
May had chosen to give birth in a small cottage hospital. She had wanted an experience that was as natural as possible, minimum intervention like in the books, and she tried to remember that, concentrate on it, make it happen even though she was frightened.
‘Keep going, honey,’ Alain said, ‘you’re doing so well.’
Am I? May thought. Am I really? Do I have any choice?
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ May said, ‘I really am. Just us and our baby.’
She winced as another pain tore through her. Maybe it would hurt less if she could stop thinking so much, go with the flow.
‘You’re so brave, my darling,’ said Alain.
He loves me, May thought, he loves me and I’m having a baby. It’s OK, everything is OK. I can do this, come on, baby.
He held her hand again and bent towards her.
He sang the song they had listened to as they first made love, and May felt stronger for hearing it. So what if they had some little problems, she thought, he was here with her when it mattered. Another pain began, harsher this time, and May clung to Alain.
‘No one said it would be like this,’ she said. ‘Why is it hurting so much? Do you think there’s something wrong?’
‘Here,’ said Alain, ‘let me put this cold cloth on your head. I’ll tell you a story, if you like, about the animals in the Hundred Acre Wood. They all have babies too, you know, how do you think Piglet got born?’
May tried to relax, to go with the pains and listen to Alain’s voice, so calm and familiar. She couldn’t concentrate on the content of what he was saying, and he obviously knew that, because once or twice she realised that he was repeating himself. It didn’t matter, what was important was his tone, so soothing. He stopped whenever the pain got too bad, and pressed the cold flannel to her head. If she had been truthful, she didn’t much like that, the feeling of wetness seemed a little too much to cope with, but May didn’t say. She was grateful that he was there, by her side at this special time.
‘Anything you’re worried about, just tell me,’ he said, ‘we can be completely open with each other now. This is the time of our lives, May.’
The time of your life, maybe, May thought. You’d feel differently if you w
ere being squeezed to death from the inside out by an alien creature. Another rogue thought to tell Helen. She waited until the next big pain was gone before speaking again.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Do you mean that? Only I never understood, about the Welsh Film Board, and why they didn’t pay the money they promised, for the hotel.’ May shouted the last word as another pain threatened to swallow her whole. There. She’d said it. Maybe it was the injection the midwife had given her, some kind of truth drug along with the pethidine.
‘Hotels, money, what on earth are you talking about?’ Alain said. ‘Have you gone crazy? Do you want me to call someone?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s the drugs, ignore me.’ Not the time, she said to herself, not the time, not the time. It’s all OK.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
May started to cry.
‘Come on now, no need for waterworks,’ the midwife said when she came in to check her progress. ‘We’re getting there, we’re rolling along nicely. Bun’s in the oven, almost cooked.’ She laughed at her own joke. May held her hand out for a tissue and Alain handed it to her.
‘I think it’s just hard for her,’ Alain said. ‘We’re new to all this.’
‘Bless you,’ the midwife said, ‘what an understanding man you’ve got there, Mum. Don’t you worry now, it’ll all be over soon and you won’t remember anything, you’ll probably be back here next year having another one, you’ll like this one so much.’
She went off, chuckling again at her own joke. May stared at Alain.
‘Did she really say that?’ she said. ‘Tell me we’re not doing this again next year.’
Alain laughed, and the sound was comforting. ‘It’s not that I don’t want a football team of babies,’ he said, ‘not at all. But it isn’t me who has to go through all this pain, darling, so I’m am hereby and forthwith handing any decisions about future members of our family to you.’
May would have liked to laugh but everything hurt too much. She couldn’t believe that she had been fussing over money, hotel bills, all that stuff. What on earth did it matter when she had this helpful, kind, loving man by her side? The pain was terrible and getting worse, and she couldn’t deal with it on her own.
‘I’ve been rubbish recently,’ Alain said. ‘I want to be better to you, and to the baby, honestly I do. I don’t blame you for asking about the job, I’m just so ashamed that it didn’t work out, that I couldn’t provide for you. I’ve been feeling so odd, I can’t explain it. I’m going to try harder, I promise I am.’
‘It’s OK,’ said May. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away.
She raised her arms above her head and hung on to the bars of her bed head. It helped for a few seconds.
‘May,’ said Alain. For the first time, he sounded worried. ‘May, are you alright? Shall I get the midwife back in?’
Alain started to cry. May watched, but found it difficult to connect now that she had arrived at a place where terrible, excruciating physical pain had suddenly become completely normal. She steeled herself and, with an enormous effort, reached out and took his hand. For a while it was just the two of them, concentrating and working together. May pushed all of her other concerns to the back of her mind.
‘I couldn’t do this without you,’ she said.
We’re a team, she thought, together. Only once she thought she saw boredom in his face, but the next time she looked it was gone. May thought she might have imagined it.
‘Come on now, darling,’ he said as the pains got closer and closer together, ‘you can do this.’
May realised that the midwife had come back in to the room.
‘Is everyone alright?’ she asked. ‘Let’s have a look at you now. Goodness me you’ve moved on a fair bit, and hardly any noise at all. You’re a quiet one I must say.’
May felt grateful for the praise. See, she wanted to say, see, I’m doing this OK after all.
‘I think she’s amazing,’ Alain said, ‘I’d be terrified.’
Alain stroked May’s hair.
‘Now you’re the kind of dad I like,’ said the midwife. ‘My name’s Julie, and I’ve been doing this job for more than twenty years, and I know a nice dad when I see one. You’ve a good one there, dear, no need to worry. I bet he’ll even change a nappy if you ask him nicely.’
The midwife smiled at Alain as if she had made the most enormous joke. He smiled back at her as if the two of them were playing cards together, a team on a winning streak. Before the next wave of pain May just had time to wonder why he hadn’t spoken up, told the midwife that they were going to share things.
‘You mark my words, lovey,’ the midwife said to May while she was checking her pulse, ‘this one is one of the good guys, think yourself lucky. There’s lots of ladies in your position would give anything to have a nice gentleman like this dancing attendance on them. I’ll look in again in a few minutes.’
‘She fancies you,’ May said as soon as she had gone.
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Alain said, bowing to the corners of the room before sitting back down next to May’s bed. ‘Seriously, don’t be daft. Are you OK? Not bothered by her old-fashioned nonsense?’
Everything upsets me, May thought. This is what it’s like to be crazy. She concentrated on dealing with the pain and stopped speaking.
‘I forgot to say,’ the midwife said, putting her head back round the door, ‘press the buzzer if you need me. And be nice to your poor husband. It’s hard for men too, you know.’
Alain laughed. It’s not funny any more, May thought. I can’t laugh, don’t expect me to. She turned her head to the wall.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alain said, ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t dismissing what you’re going through, I just wanted to lighten up a little, I’m sorry.’
May hadn’t got enough energy to tell him that it was OK, so she squeezed his hand instead.
‘Promise me we’ll be happy,’ Alain said, ‘just us and this little one.’ He put his hand on May’s stomach. ‘We can be happy, can’t we? You won’t ever leave me.’
It’s me that needs comforting right now, May thought. Leave? Where on earth would I go? For a moment, just a flash, she had a picture of her and Helen, side by side with their buggies, bringing up the children together as siblings.
‘Of course I’m not leaving, said May. ‘I’m busy trying to have this baby.’
Of such requests are dreams shattered, she thought, the words dropping into her head like raisins into flour. Was that a quotation? She couldn’t remember where from, and she didn’t know why she had thought it. She should be grateful. Grateful for this kind, handsome, man, father of her beloved surprise baby, her connection with the world of couples and homes and pushchairs and breastfeeding. Not all saviours come with a clean slate, she thought, and the thought calmed her.
They sat together in the quiet little hospital all day and into the night. May stopped looking at the clock and tried instead to listen to her body and the baby, as she had been practising. It proved to be incredibly difficult, and more painful than anything she had ever known, and when the pains were at their height and the room was full of people rushing and fussing and unwrapping instruments and asking her to sign things that she couldn’t read, then she was more than glad of Alain. Then she hung on to him and he shushed her and cried with her and promised all sorts of things. There were more injections for the pain and May tried to tell Alain that the pain was just the same, only her ability to shout about it was affected. He seemed to understand, and he was a comfort. Poor Helen, May thought, having to go through this on her own. Thank goodness she had Alain.
The baby was pulled from her in a crescendo of shouting and yelling and gasping and bleeding.
‘Give me my glasses,’ May tried to say. ‘I can’t see who it is.’ But they didn’t understand what she was saying and this and the absence of pain struck her suddenly as extremely funny.
Alain was sobbing openly and May wasn’t sure why.
‘Anyone
would think someone had died,’ she said.
The stares of the medical professionals showed her that this, at least, had been clearly understood.
‘Would you like to hold your little girl?’ the midwife said, bearing down on her with an impossibly small bundle in a pink blanket.
‘Girl?’ said May. ‘Girl? Oh no, oh no, a girl, I’m not sure I’m up to this.’
The midwife stood poised holding the baby, not sure what to do.
‘Darling,’ said Alain, ‘darling, a little girl, that’s exactly what we wanted. It’s just the drugs talking. Could I?’
He held his hands out and the midwife placed the baby in them.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he crooned to the baby. ‘You’ve got a beautiful mummy, and you are the most beautiful baby in the world. You’re going to be a doctor, or a prime minister or just the happiest person ever.’
‘See?’ said the midwife. ‘I told you he was a good ’un, your fella.’
May watched it all, feeling as if she’d been cut loose from normal feeling somewhere along the line.
‘What a good ’un,’ she repeated. ‘Could someone please give me my glasses so that I can join in with this?’
Or shall I just get the bus home, she thought, and leave you lot to marvel over each other?
The midwife frowned. ‘No need to get upset,’ she said. ‘Keep your energy for the next eighteen years. You’re going to need it. Your mummy thinks the hard part is over,’ she said to the baby ‘but you’ve got news for her, haven’t you?’
Alain stood up and placed the baby in May’s arms, and as May took her and held her she felt a rush of love just like the one the books had predicted. What the books hadn’t prepared her for was the rush of terror that followed.
‘I’ll look after you’, she whispered into the baby’s perfect ear.
CHAPTER SEVEN
December 2017
Lewisham
I have never liked Christmas.
It’s a nasty spiteful time of year and I try to keep away from it. I always have. It was different when Jenny was little, I think I might have had some fun then. I remember waking up to find her shaking me, holding out a sock I had stuffed with nonsense and pretty things for her to ooh and aah over. I remember pulling her into my bed and us being together and happy, just the two of us. It’s a cloudy memory, not a clear one. I don’t get it out much because there are always other memories that come to crowd it out, pushing and shoving each other to the front as if there’s a prize for being first.
Hello, My Name is May Page 7