by Carmen Reid
‘I have to phone a friend. I need to ask someone else about this.’
‘No, you don’t. Make up your own mind!’ Helen scolded.
It was after midnight and she was on the motorway. This was insane. Yet another of the many, many insane things her mother had made her do. Let’s see. Top of the list was still dressing up in pink PVC as Barbie for Hallowe’en, before anyone in Britain knew who Barbie was . . . before anyone in Britain knew what Hallowe’en was! Then came nudist beach holidays in Lanzarote when she was a teenager!
Followed by the enforced addition of a bride’s speech at her wedding, not to mention a mother of the bride’s speech . . .
Suggesting she paint her first sitting room bright red . . .
No, it wasn’t any use, she couldn’t be angry with her mother for any of them any more. They were funny! Helen was wild, daring, glad to be alive. Had always tried to impart this feeling to her careful, easily embarrassed, stuffy little daughter. Well, that’s how Pamela saw it now.
1.25 a.m. The farmhouse at Linden Lee was in total darkness. She rolled up the drive and parked the Saab beside Dave’s Land Rover. Fumbling her key into the back door, she couldn’t decide whether to creep in or be noisy, to wake and forewarn him. Whatever she did, it was bonkers. All bonkers. What difference did it make whether she turned up here in the middle of the night or the middle of the day? He was still not going to be pleased to see her.
She reached for the kitchen light and switched it on. The room was in a state. Dave had obviously carried on with the wallpaper stripping: maybe thinking of the sale . . . maybe just keeping busy.
She put her handbag down and, hand on the kitchen door, hesitated. Did she really want to go and wake him now? Maybe she would just creep upstairs, but instead of disturbing him, go to her little back room, see him in the morning . . .
Quietly, quietly on the stairs, but once she was at the top, she thought she would maybe just take a look in his room, check on him. She pushed the door ajar slightly, but had forgotten how horribly it creaked. So before she could decide whether she wanted to speak to him or not, Dave was sitting bolt upright in bed, gasping with fright.
‘It’s OK, it’s just me . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Pamela?’ The surprise in his voice.‘What are you doing here?’ He clicked on the sidelight.‘Are you trying to burgle me?’
‘No, no . . . I’m here . . . I’m sorry . . .’ All the words she’d thought about in the car, she’d hoped she might be able to say, seemed to be drying up, disappearing out of sight.‘I’m just here because . . . because I’m losing the plot. I shouldn’t be here . . . Why don’t I let you get back to sleep? And I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘No . . . it’s OK. I’m wide awake now,’ although he looked anything but.‘Sit down—’ he gestured to a chair beside the bed.‘You look tired.’
She settled into the seat, then took him in properly: hair on end, stubbly, in a white T-shirt: ‘So do you,’ she told him, ‘And you’ve got all thin again.’
He asked about her parents, about her stay with them. She was careful with her answers, really not sure how to play this at all.
‘What have you been reading?’ she asked, looking at the bedside table, for want of something to say that wasn’t anywhere near the momentous things she really needed to tell him. Not yet.
‘Oh, usual stuff,’ he said with a shrug.
But there on the bedside table was something she hadn’t seen for years. The leather-bound sketch book he’d given her as a wedding present, filled with drawings, paintings, poems, stories about their past, present and the future they’d hoped for back then.
‘Oh,’ she said, picking it up, ‘I haven’t looked at this for ages.’
‘Me neither . . . It’s nice. My best work.’ Another casual shrug.
Pamela held it in her hands and slowly turned the pages over. How could she have forgotten about this? Here were cartoons of them at art school, pages of sketches of her face, her naked 21-year-old body, a careful watercolour of how he pictured their wedding day. Then onwards to drawings of a house and garden, the two of them with twin babies he’d named Pamid and Davela. Next was: ‘Pamid’s first journey on the Space Shuttle’ and ‘Davela’s inaugural speech as the first Green prime minister of Britain’.
She couldn’t help the tears at this, but tried to hide them from him, holding the book awkwardly in front of her face.
The closing pages, before her now, he’d written out and illustrated so long ago: a double-page drawing and story with the title: ‘The Perfect End’. The words spiralled round a drawing of an old couple, which he’d managed to make look convincingly like them, watching the sunset from the garden of a clifftop cottage.
They were so young back then when they married. She had often thought they had been too young, wonderfully naïve, hadn’t known much about anything at all. But now she wondered if maybe they had known it all then. And over the years, had almost forgotten the really important things.
‘Sorry,’ she put the book down and wiped at her eyes frantically.‘You must think I’ve gone totally mad, turning up here like this . . . weeping . . .’
‘It’s OK,’ he answered, ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on either.’ He ran a hand through his hair.‘I really miss you,’ he risked.‘I miss you very much.’
‘Me too.’
Long, long silence.
‘How are you?’ he asked finally.‘How’s the . . . how’s it going?’
She knew what he meant: ‘Fine. It’s going well. I’m going for a scan next week. But it’s about 11 weeks now, so fingers crossed.’
‘That’s . . . great,’ he said, entirely unconvincingly.‘Does he know?’
For a moment, Pamela had no idea what Dave was talking about. He? Oh . . . him. She had completely forgotten about him.
‘No! No – he’d be horrified. He’s with his wife, their children . . . I think. It was by mistake . . . this . . . to put it mildly.’
‘It hasn’t turned out the way we planned,’ he said, with a nod to the wedding present book.
‘No.’ Pamela pressed her finger underneath her nose, determined not to cry again.‘But it hardly ever does, does it?’
‘I suppose not—’ hand ruffling through hair again. He looked at a loss for further words.
And all the things she wanted to say to him, ask him, all choked up in her throat. She was going to lose him if she didn’t say something soon. But it was so hard.
‘Sometimes you have to make the best of things as they are,’ she began.‘Look . . .’ Both hands over her face now, as if it might be easier if she couldn’t see him, ‘I came here to say something . . . to tell you . . . I just want to tell you this and if you think it’s insane, fine, but I just want to say–’ voice wobbling dangerously – ‘All I can imagine doing, all I want to do is to live here with you and share this baby with you. I’ve been thinking and thinking about it . . . it’s all I can think about . . . and that’s the best plan I can come up with. Nothing else would be as good as that.’
She didn’t dare to come out from behind her hands.
Silence . . . silence. He wasn’t making any reply.
Finally, she stood up: ‘I just needed you to know that.’ Then, hands off her face, she turned and began to walk quickly out of the room.
Just as she got to the door, she heard Dave say: ‘Thank you.’ But she didn’t dare to go back to him for that. She fled to her back bedroom.
Chapter Thirty-four
‘EVERYTHING LOOKS FINE . . . That’s baby’s head, this is the spine . . .’ The scan operator pointed to the magical black and white image spinning, twirling across the screen in front of them.
Pamela had already been weighed, blood-tested, examined, had done the questionnaire, had her bag stuffed with more leaflets: pregnancy leaflets, breastfeeding leaflets, delivery leaflets, weaning baby on to solids leaflets. And here was the moment, when she saw the baby bud for the second
time. The bud had grown, 22 weeks now, it looked like a proper baby with fingers and toes, complicated vertebrae which shone sharply, intricately white on the screen. It was a miracle.
The operator could sense the emotion in the tiny, darkened room. Both the patient and her partner were wiping away tears.
‘I’ll print off a picture for you, then leave you to get . . . um . . . dressed,’ she offered, although Pamela only had her coat and shoes off.
As soon as the operator had shut the door on them, Dave leaned in from his chair so that his head touched hers. His nose pressed against her temple and their tears ran into each other’s.
Pamela remembered this position – on the examination couch, his hands tight round hers, their heads touching together – from all the IVF attempts. Through egg collection, egg reinsertion. Hoping, hoping all the time that they would get here, to a baby bud dancing and wheeling in front of them.
‘Clever girl,’ he whispered against her ear.
She vaguely recalled some warning from an IVF handbook that a baby didn’t solve all the problems. Partnerships under strain became even more strained by pregnancy, strained sometimes to breaking point by the arrival of a baby.
But she knew, as surely as the two dear hands gripping onto hers, that it wasn’t going to happen to them. In weeks spent apart, weeks spent together, in long, long talks, uncomfortable fights and late-night reconciliations, they’d finally decided how to move forward. They were making peace and coming to terms with this.
The details didn’t matter any more: this was going to be their baby. The baby they had longed for, prayed for, dreamed of for so long.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she nodded, tears still streaming, ‘I’ll be fine.’
He helped her to her feet where she clasped her arms round him.
‘Do you really think it won’t matter, that this baby isn’t mine?’ Dave asked into her hair.
‘We’ve talked about all this,’ Pamela answered.‘This baby will be yours from the moment it’s born. OK? And I’m going to name it after you, to mark that.’
He held her tight, deeply moved, until it occurred to him: ‘What if it’s a girl?!’
‘I’ll think of something.’
The thin sheet of paper with the scan image stayed in Pamela’s hands all the way home. She tried to picture the face, guess how this child was going to look. Boy? Or girl? As if she cared!
She was tempted to start the baby bargaining in her head: ‘Please, please let this pregnancy go OK. Please let everything be OK and I’ll be the best mummy ever, I’ll never . . .’
But she let it go, saw now that you had to let some things be.
‘Harry will probably let you have his worm box,’ Dave was telling her.‘You know, to compost the nappies.’
‘Oh no!’ was her response.‘I couldn’t face that. Please don’t make me do that!’
‘Well, we’d better buy a job lot of the reusable ones, then.’
‘Are these my options? Worms or washing?!’
‘’Fraid so.’
As Dave swung the car left, they saw a big silver Merc racing down the road towards them.
‘It’s him,’ Dave said.‘It’s the Bridge Farm boss,’ and he decided that this was as good a time as any to kick things off.
He flashed his car lights, slowed down and held steady in the middle of the road. Both cars drew to a stop.
‘What are you doing?’ Pamela was feeling nervous.
‘I have to speak to him about it.’
‘Do you?’ It wouldn’t have been her choice of action. Couldn’t Dave just write him a letter or something?
Dave swung open his door and got out. Dexter Hunter did too: a stocky, grey-haired man in cords and a green anorak who didn’t look too pleased at this hold-up. He was standing by his car, squared up, hands in his pockets, waiting for Dave.
‘Mr Hunter?’ Dave asked.
The man nodded: ‘You’ll be the people who bought Linden Lee.’
‘I’m Dave Carr.’ Neither of them offered a hand at this.‘I’d just like you to know that if you bother to apply for a waste licence, we’ll be protesting against it.’
‘What happens on my farm is none of your business,’ Mr Hunter shot back.
‘If you pollute our water and our land, it certainly is our business. You know what we’re trying to do here.’
This didn’t go down well.‘Bloody townies,’ Mr Hunter began.‘You come out here, expect us to keep the countryside like a park. We have to make a living, you know.’
‘What kind of an argument is that?’ Dave demanded.
‘I’ve got 20,000 chickens up there, their shit has to go somewhere. Just keep out of my business and I’ll keep out of yours,’ Mr Hunter replied, pointing a finger.
‘But you don’t seem to be able to keep out of our business, do you?’ Dave countered.‘We don’t want your crap in our fields, or in our water, or in our air. My wife is pregnant, Mr Hunter, we’re not bringing our baby up next to some toxic tip.’
‘Better move then, Mr Carr. Better move to some part of the countryside where no-one farms . . . better move to a park, or something belonging to the National bloody Trust.’
He turned to open his car door but before he could climb aboard, Dave got in a stern: ‘We’ve reported you before and we’ll report you again. Just try to keep to the rules, Mr Hunter.’
Dexter Hunter slammed his door and revved off, bumping up over the grass verge to pass their car.
‘He’s totally out of order,’ Dave said as he got back into the driver’s seat.‘And he knows it. He thinks he can get away with murder.’ With almost a smile on his face, he added: ‘We’re going to be the most annoying neighbours he’s ever had.’
‘Are we?’ Pamela asked. He had just said, out loud, to another person, ‘our fields . . . our land . . . our business . . . our baby . . .’ All things they were only just beginning to talk about . . . very tentatively . . . carefully.
‘Yes,’ was all Dave said.
But she needed a little more than that: ‘Are we really going to do this?’ she asked him.‘Live here together? Have the baby? Give it all a go?’ She held her breath for the answer.
‘Yes,’ he said again.‘I haven’t got any better plans.’ He glanced over and smiled. But it still wasn’t enough for her.
‘You definitely don’t want to sell up and go off on your own to . . . Poland or something?’ she asked.
He took his hand from the steering wheel and put it over hers, slowing the car so that he could look at her properly, without driving into the ditch: ‘No,’ he said, squeezing her hand gently, eyes meeting hers very seriously; he added, ‘I don’t speak Polish very well.’
That was enough.
Chapter Thirty-five
THE OH SO long awaited Davina Helen Alexandra Carr, nine full days overdue, finally slithered into the world at 5.15 p.m. on 4 May, allowing Pamela at last to fall back from the kneeling position she’d delivered in and release her grip on Dave. She’d clung to his shoulders, hung from his neck and ground his T-shirt between her teeth for the last two and a half hours of a long, exhausting labour. But he hadn’t dared to utter the slightest complaint about the pain she’d caused him. Especially as she had waved away even the gas-and-air, determined to do this drug-free.
Pamela – frightened of cows, of bats, of rats, hell, of chickens, pigs, goats, horses, low-flying pigeons, spiders, wasps, bees, beetles, bits of fluff which looked like beetles . . . Deep down inside, Pamela had found the bravery that was there all along. She had just needed this baby to set it alight. To be brave for.
As she fell back against the bed and took the small, damp, blood-streaked body into her arms, looked down into the puffy face, half-opened underwater eyes, Pamela was sure there would never be another more perfect moment than this in all her life.
Dave seemed fine, seemed good. He beamed, kissed his wife, took the pictures, cut the cord, cracked jokes with the midwives . . .
until it was time to phone Pamela’s parents.
And then he found himself breathless with tears on the line, watching his money tick down on the ward payphone as he stood helpless, unable to get the words out.
‘Dave? Dave? Are they OK?’ he heard Helen’s voice.‘Are they both OK?’
Finally: ‘Yes . . . Perfect . . . It’s just . . .’ Nothing else would come.
‘Girl or boy?’ she asked.
‘Girl . . .’ he squeezed out with the edge of his voice. They had a baby girl. He was a father. It was beyond . . . beyond everything.
‘It’s OK, honey!’ He heard the joy in Helen’s voice.‘That’s wonderful. Wonderful! You call us back later, we’ll tell Ted. Love to you both . . . all . . .’ she corrected herself, overwhelmed with the news.‘Love to you all!’
Chapter Thirty-six
‘ISN’T THIS FANTASTIC? It’s just brilliant!’ Magenta, the sharp and sassy former leader of Pamela’s IVF group, looked around from her seat at the big table set out in the June sunshine of the Linden Lee garden. Two small children were pelting through the overgrown meadow of lawn, and the two babies were sleeping, one in a carrycot, one in Dave’s arms.
Alex was dishing out spoonfuls of the farm’s small, sweet strawberries and Pamela was daubing thick cream on top.
‘No, stop!’ Magenta insisted.
‘You’re in the country, you have to have cream!’ Pamela carried on.
‘Oh, who cares, I look crap anyway. I’m never going to look anything other than crap. I have three children!’ Irrepressible laugh at this.
‘You don’t look crap,’ Pamela assured her.
‘I do and so do you, by the way. But it’s brilliant!’
Pamela smiled full beam back. She knew exactly what her friend meant. There they both were, unwashed hair scraped into ponytails, no make-up, clothes from the bottom of the laundry basket, faces ringed with tiredness, but this was motherhood and they wouldn’t swap one moment of it for anything else. Thought almost every day of how long they’d waited for this, of their other friends still waiting . . . still hoping.