On the morning of my hospital scan, we woke to a world made white by a dusting of snow. Like the sprinkling of icing sugar on the butterfly buns India had begged me to make with her the previous evening, the snow was fine and powdery, already melting in exposed places.
I hadn’t told my class that Tony Drummond had agreed to cover my games lesson that afternoon while I was at the hospital. He’d really grown on the kids in the three months he’d been head teacher but I knew he was planning to take them out for a cross-country run and, particularly for the girls – whose idea of exercise was imitating Beyonce’s dance routines – the idea of stripping off to their pink Lycra, before careering round several boggy fields, was anathema.
Seeing Tony disappear into the staff room just before the bell sounded for the start of morning school, I put my head round the door shouting, ‘Where’s that six inches you promised me last night, Tony?’
Three prospective candidates for the position of Parent Governor (available due to the present incumbent’s child defecting to a school that was higher in the league tables), looked at me aghast.
‘Snow, I meant the snow, ha, ha, ha,’ I trilled, backing out of the staff room, while my new best friend was left to explain that he liked to think he knew a bit about weather forecasting.
Six hours later, full to saturation point with the water I’d obediently forced down, I was waiting nervously for my name to be called. Desperate for a pee, I tried to take my mind off my bladder by delving into the dated, tatty magazines that littered the surrounding seats. Not an upmarket read among them. I was back to twiddling my thumbs, crossing my legs and musing about which of my fellow outpatients were actually happy to be pregnant. Surely not the little girl opposite who couldn’t have been much older than Liberty? She was alone, not even her mother for company, intent on snapping off the split ends from her mass of unkempt hair. My gaze went to the couple opposite: they were sat holding hands, occasionally stroking the stout, solid bump that protruded from beneath their entwined fingers.
Desperately held-in tears began to sting my nose as I remembered how excited Nick and I had been, sitting in this same room, waiting our turn to be called for my twenty-week scan when I was pregnant with Liberty. Nick had been very unsure about becoming a father at the age of twenty-four – Sylvia had said we were quite mad – but we were married, desperately in love, and, as far as I could see, that was all that mattered.
A sudden and total need for Nick threatened to overpower me. I had to speak to him, tell him where I was and what was going on. I scrabbled in my bag, hunting for my mobile phone amongst the Sainsbury’s till receipts and redundant car park tickets before remembering it was still out of credit. Cursing myself for my pig-headedness in staying deliberately out of touch with Nick, I sat back, miserably conscious that my panic-stricken fumbling had been watched with interest by the rest of the waiting room.
Like a mantra I began to repeat to myself, ‘please let there not be a heartbeat, please let there not be a heartbeat.’ If, as Dr Chadwick had warned, there was a high chance that this pregnancy could also be the result of a blighted ovum, then there wasn’t an actual baby developing. I would be given a quick D and C to remove the material that was, even now, developing into the absent baby’s life-support system, and the decision about what to do about a baby I couldn’t afford would not have to be made.
How ironic that I’d sat here, almost seven years ago, a few weeks pregnant with India, my nails digging into Nick’s hand, waiting as I was waiting now, but chanting in my head, ‘please let there be a heartbeat, please let there be a heartbeat.’
‘Harriet Westmoreland?’ A motherly looking, white-coated doctor with a very ample bosom ushered me in to a side room, introduced herself as my consultant’s registrar and pulled my hospital file towards her.
‘Your GP wants you to have an early scan because of previous pregnancies that have been a result of blighted ova. Is that right?’
When I just nodded miserably, she patted my hand saying, ‘Come along then, dear, let’s get you up to X-ray and put your mind at rest.’
The walk along the sludge-green painted corridors up to the hospital’s X-ray department where the IntraUterine scans were carried out seemed interminable. Clutching my forms in sweaty hands, I moved along, my legs battling their way, it seemed, through a vat of treacle.
Ten minutes later I was up on a paper-covered bed having cold gel smeared onto my stomach.
‘Is there a heartbeat?’ I asked nervously. The radiographer had been swishing around with the wand for a good minute, moving it around my naval, glancing at the screen as she zoomed in and out, but not saying a word apart from, ‘Just relax, please.’
‘Is there one?’ I asked again. My own heartbeat seemed to be pounding in my ears as well as my chest.
The girl paused, pushed an escaped lock of blonde hair behind her ear, but still remained totally non-committal. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, its beat seemingly in rhythm with the painstaking movement of the radiographer’s wand. I counted another thirty seconds until, in desperation, I almost cried ‘is there a heartbeat? Please can you tell me? It’s really important that I know.’
Without looking at me, the girl said quietly, ‘No, there isn’t one.’
Relief coursed through my whole body and I felt my shoulders relax.
‘No,’ she went on. ‘There isn’t one. There are two!’
‘Two? It’s a baby with two hearts?’ I screeched.
She laughed. ‘No! It’s two babies with one heart each! Look!’
The girl clicked her wand first on one and then on a second area of the screen, pointing out the tiny, but very quick, pulse of two tiny heartbeats.
These were my babies. Two of them.
Numbly I used the proffered tissue to wipe away the colourless jelly, slid off the bed, dressed and made my way back to the registrar.
Chapter 24
It was dusk by the time I left the hospital. A penetrating damp fog had wrapped itself almost seductively around the shabby hospital buildings, softening their facade and dimming the orange lights that shone out from the multitude of windows. A few snowflakes, tiny but tenacious, were starting to fall from a mustard-coloured sky and attempting to settle on my hair and coat as I made my way across the car park.
Removing the slight build-up of snowflakes from my windscreen, I put the car into gear and headed for home. By the time I reached the exit the snow was no longer playful, flirting with my windscreen wipers, but coming down in huge, gobstopper-sized flakes.
The quickest way home was down the motorway: if I attempted to go into Midhope town centre and out again there was a big chance I’d get stuck in the early rush-hour traffic that was already beginning to build up around me. With Sylvia partying in sunny Barbados, I’d had to pull in some favours and arrange for all three children to have tea with friends, but they would all need picking up at some stage later that evening.
The dual carriageway that led onto the motorway had obviously been well gritted, allowing the traffic to move easily, and within twenty minutes I was approaching the slip road onto the M62. The snowflakes, dancing on my windscreen, were hypnotic and I had to concentrate hard on getting into the appropriate lane. There was a huge amount of traffic in all three lanes but it was flowing freely, unhampered by the atrocious weather that was becoming steadily worse as the motorway followed its course, climbing into the heart of the Pennines.
With only a few miles to go before my exit from the motorway, brake lights began to gleam through the white of the still falling snow; the flow of traffic in all three lanes began to slow and within a few minutes came to a total standstill.
Shit! A blanket of snow began almost immediately to settle on the car bonnet and I had to turn the wipers up to deal with the snow on the windscreen. Without the constant movement of vehicles which had been destroying the snowflakes as they fell, turning them to wet mush, the snow, like an advancing army, began to invade the motorway itself an
d, finding no resistance from the now immobile traffic, swiftly and thoroughly began to take control.
I’d no real experience of motorway driving in conditions such as these. Not the most confident of drivers at the best of times, I had to force myself to take deep breaths, make myself relax in order to stave off the panic that was threatening to overwhelm me. I tried to open the window to see exactly what was happening ahead, but the build-up of snow on the glass immediately fell on to my lap and I hastily closed it again.
I switched from the Mozart CD that I’d been listening to in an effort to calm myself after the bombshell from the hospital, and tuned into the local radio in the hope of finding out what was going on. After ten minutes of inane chat from the teatime DJ, jingles advertising local conservatory dealers, and solicitors more than willing to sue on anyone’s behalf, an update on ‘the weather and travel near you’ was broadcast.
‘A four-car pile up has brought westbound traffic on the M62 to a standstill. The build-up of rush hour traffic and atrocious weather conditions are hampering the emergency services. Drivers are advised to stay in their vehicles and listen for further news bulletins.’
And that was it. No advice on what to do if you were shit-scared and in need of a pee. Without my mobile phone I had no one to call. I wanted Nick. I wanted him to tell me what to do – about everything. A big fat tear rolled down my cheek and then another one. Sniffing, I opened the car door braving the snow that fell in on me. Drivers around me were beginning to turn off their engines and headlights; some, like me, were getting out of their vehicles, even walking a few yards up the hard shoulder, in an attempt to see what was going on, mobiles clamped to snow-covered hair and ears.
I got back in, rummaging about in the glove compartment for the half-eaten Mars bar I was sure I’d abandoned in there the week before. Only in pregnancy would I ever leave half a bar of chocolate – I’d started eating it feeling ravenous and ended, halfway through it, feeling thoroughly sick.
Comfort eating, I made another attempt to assess my life and the mess it was in. Twins! Where the hell had they come from? As far as I knew, there were no twins on either my side or on Nick’s side of the family. I’d always wanted twins. One of each of course; or maybe identical boys who would adore their mother, as well as each other. God, I had to stop this. One new addition to the family would be a disaster; two would be an impossibility.
A wild thought went through my brain: maybe I could have these babies and let Grace bring one of them up? Grace would have the baby she so desperately wanted while perhaps I could, somehow, manage the other?
Nope, I’d seen Blood Brothers and look how that ended up. I didn’t want my twin growing up only to be shot by Grace’s twin. Or was it the other way round? Which twin shot which twin? Knowing Grace, it would have to be her twin that did mine in.
I thought back to last New Year when the five of us, even India, had gone to see the production at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Sylvia had treated us for our family Christmas present and we’d had a totally brilliant time. It had been a real family outing, seeing the play before having a meal and walking down towards Trafalgar Square to wait with the crowds for the fireworks at midnight. It had been India’s first trip to London and she was ecstatic, insistent that her little legs could keep up with us until she eventually tired and Nick had lifted her on to his shoulders. We’d found a good vantage point with a jolly – probably boozed-up – crowd around us and waited for the display to begin. More and more revellers had come, squeezing into every available space, smelling of perfume and garlic and drink. I’d begun to feel uncomfortable, and then claustrophobic, and as the masses swelled and swayed, downright panicky.
‘Nick, I’ve got to get out,’ I’d said.
‘Out? Out where?’ Nick and the kids turned from the conversation they’d been having with another family, India gazing down at me from her vantage point on Nick’s shoulders.
‘I’ve just got to get out of this crowd,’ I’d hissed, beginning to push my way back against the mass of bodies.
‘Hat, you can’t. You can’t get out.’
‘Nick, I have to. I can’t breathe.’
And my wonderful husband came to the rescue, pushing back the crowd, easing me through the pressing, heaving mass of humanity with a ‘Can we pass please? We have a child who needs to get through.’ The relief, the utter relief I felt when I eventually reached the metal railing and hoisted myself over was immeasurable.
‘You’re a big Jessie, Mum,’ my kids had jeered, but Nick had stroked my hair, calmed me and then winked at me as he set off back through the crowd once more, kids in tow.
If I hadn’t been recollecting my claustrophobia, it would probably never have occurred to me to start feeling that I was trapped in my car, but the mind plays funny tricks, and pretty soon the mounting snow, now that the windscreen wipers were turned off, was beginning to make me feel hemmed in. I got out of the car again, took some deep breaths, had a bit of a walk round, even had a conversation with the guy in front and began to feel better. The snow flurries actually began to ease, and several flashing blue lights hurtling the wrong way up the other side of the motorway meant something was being done to get the traffic moving again.
I really was desperate for a pee: my whole abdomen seemed swollen and pulsating with the need to find a loo. Obviously I wasn’t going to find one here. Could I just crouch down on the hard shoulder? God no. Not only was there half of West Yorkshire as audience, I’d probably freeze my tush off into the bargain.
The snowstorm seemed to be abating as I got back into the car and found what I was looking for under the passenger seat. I took the lid from the antifreeze container that had rolled there a couple of frosty mornings ago, pushed back my seat as far as it would go, hoisted up my skirt and, with my woolly tights and knickers at half-mast thanked God I was a whiz at pelvic-floor exercises. With the utmost control, I filled the lid, opened the window and threw its steaming contents out into the snow. Oh the relief as the pain began to recede with each filled lid.
I was just about to start on my six or seventh lidful, and was congratulating myself on my inventiveness, when there was a tap on the snow-covered window. I froze momentarily and then, galvanised into action, pulled up my knickers and tights and wound down the window.
‘Harriet, it is you. I wasn’t sure, but when you stepped out of the car a few minutes ago, I knew I recognised you.’ David Henderson, buttoned up against the cold in a navy Crombie coat, snowflakes in his dark hair, was peering into the car.
The relief of seeing someone I knew was almost as tangible as the relief at having emptied my overstretched, indignant bladder.
‘Oh, David, I’m so glad there’s someone here that I know. I’m really terrified of this weather. And I’m frozen.’ I hadn’t realised just how cold I was, but the effort of grasping the antifreeze container lid, and then continually opening the window, had left my fingers numb.
‘Come and get into my car,’ David ordered. ‘It’s about four back from yours and much warmer.’
I locked my own car and followed David to the Porsche Cayenne that stood big, solid, and utterly dependable a few yards back up the motorway. Inside it was warm and smelled of Hugo Boss aftershave.
‘You poor little thing,’ David said noticing my white hands. ‘Haven’t you got any gloves?’
‘I’ve lost them somewhere in the car.’ I didn’t like to tell him I’d abandoned them in order to pee better into an antifreeze tin lid. I rubbed my hands together, wincing as the blood began to return.
‘Come here, my hands are warm.’ David took my hands in his much warmer and larger ones and rubbed them gently. ‘I’ve a hip flask somewhere,’ he said. ‘I use it occasionally when I’m playing golf.’ Releasing my hands, he reached over to the glove compartment and brought out a small silver flask. ‘It’s got some brandy in it – here have some, it will warm you up a little.’
Handing it back after a swig of brandy that seemed to reach even
my frozen toes, I couldn’t help but read the inscription engraved in copperplate on the back of the silver flask:
To darling David. Love always, Mandy.
‘Were you on your way home from work?’ David asked. ‘I thought you taught over in Farsley?’
‘I had a hospital appointment at St Mark’s and thought this would be the quickest route home. Obviously not,’ I grimaced, looking at my watch. It was going up to six o’clock.
‘Well, at least it’s stopped snowing. Your exit is the next one isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I’m absolutely terrified of driving once we do get going. I’m no good in snow. I know that you’re supposed to steer into a skid, but I just close my eyes, jam on the brakes and pray the minute I feel the wheels going.’
David laughed. ‘Typical woman. Look, once we get going, I’ll get in front of you and you can follow me. If there’s a problem we’ll abandon your car somewhere safe and I’ll drive you home.’
‘Oh would you? That is so kind.’ The relief at knowing I didn’t have to battle my way home alone, together with the calming effects of the brandy made me almost light-headed. ‘You’re not a bit like I thought you were,’ I said, almost shyly.
David laughed again. ‘And what did you think I was like?’
‘The Godfather. You know, like in the Mafia?’
‘The Mafia?’ David looked at me incredulously.
‘Well, The Great White Shark at your dinner party more or less told me that if Nick didn’t come up to scratch with your little dealings, you know, double-crossed you somehow, we’d probably find a horse’s head in our bed.’
‘Sharks? Horses’ heads? Harriet, what in God’s name are you talking about?’ David gave the silver flask a slight shake, obviously trying to work out if I’d had more than my fair share of the brandy.
I took a deep breath. I decided I might as well lay all my cards on the table. What had I to lose?
Goodness, Grace and Me Page 29