by Tony Parsons
Twenty-eight
His daughters were waiting for him, wreathed in smiles, wearing their special dresses, the confetti in their fists.
They pelted Jack Jewell when he emerged from the little Marylebone church with his gorgeous red-headed bride by his side, and Paulo noticed that the sisters all threw confetti in their own particular style.
Cat was methodical, taking careful aim, using her height and reach, and landing a fistful of confetti on their heads or chest almost every time.
Jessica had this cute underarm throw, giggling as she brought the confetti up under their guard, always getting in too close.
And Megan was just wild, pelting the bride and groom and anyone who was standing anywhere near them, then encouraging the children, Poppy and Little Wei, to pick up the fallen confetti and throw it again, until the confetti was getting mixed up with leaves and all sorts of stuff, and they had to stop.
When the laughter was subsiding and the car was waiting and the kisses had all been kissed, Jack Jewell’s three daughters put their arms around their father, and prepared to let him go.
He looked at them with tears in his eyes and Cat waited for him to give them one final thought, say a few last words, a summing up of all they had gone through together and what it might have meant. She thought about what he said for a long time.
‘You’ve all got families of your own now,’ he told them.
And as they waved and watched the car’s taillights fading, Cat knew that she had been wrong about what she wanted when she was that child in an apron and yellow gloves, clearing up after her two younger sisters.
Cat had always thought that she wanted her freedom, but she saw now that what she had really wanted was for them to be a real family.
And now, as she stood there with her sisters watching their father go off to his new life, she saw that they had been a real family all along. Maybe not a perfect family, with all members happy and present, or the kind of family you would put in commercials to sell breakfast cereal.
But a real family all the same, who loved and supported each other, who even liked each other, capable of helping each other through anything, even the changes that came with the passing of the years.
They were walking north towards Regent’s Park when Megan took the call about their mother. The little wedding caravan ground to a halt while they watched Megan’s face, knowing something bad had happened.
Jessica was carrying Little Wei, Cat was leading Poppy by the hand and Megan was holding her shoes, her feet sore from new, unaccustomed high heels. Paulo and Rory trailed behind them like two native bearers, lugging the pushchairs. The late afternoon sun glinted on their silver-wrapped slices of wedding cake.
‘Mother’s been busted,’ Megan said, clicking off her mobile.
It seemed that while their father was marrying Hannah in that small church in Marylebone, their mother was being arrested a mile away in her St John’s Wood flat, during her weekly visit from Dirty Dave.
‘She’s in a cell down in Bow Street Police Station,’ Megan said. ‘Somebody’s going to have to go down there.’
Jessica turned on Cat. ‘You knew this would happen. You knew this Dirty Dave would get her into trouble.’
Cat shrugged. Nothing could spoil her mood. At forty weeks, she felt the melancholic joy that you get at the end of a beautiful holiday.
She was looking forward to meeting her son, but she could not remember a time in her life when she had felt happier. She touched her belly – one, two, three, don’t worry, baby – and reflected how much she loved having her child inside her. It was a shame the experience ever had to end.
‘Apparently the police followed this Dirty Dave to Mum’s place,’ Megan said. ‘She was helping him flush his stash down the toilet when they kicked down the door.’
‘Is she going to prison?’ Jessica said.
Cat felt her abdomen tighten. Yet another false alarm, or maybe it was more accurate to call it a dummy run. She had grown used to the Braxton-Hicks contractions over the last few weeks. Soon enough it would be time for the real thing. Next week she had an appointment at the hospital to have her cervix decorated with prostaglandin gel, the hormone produced naturally during childbirth, designed to send a clear message to her son, and her body – we have lift-off.
The midwife had cheerfully told her that semen was rich in prostaglandin, if she would like to think about the lovemaking option of encouraging labour. Cat had to tell the midwife that there wasn’t a lot of semen coming her way these days.
‘She says Dirty Dave has told her, if I go down, you go down,’ Megan said.
Cat gasped as she felt another contraction, this one stronger, and longer.
‘Are you all right?’ Megan said.
‘He’s not cooked yet.’ Cat smiled.
‘I shouldn’t be upsetting you,’ Jessica said. ‘But really. How can you turn your own mother over to someone called Dirty Dave?’
‘It was surprisingly easy,’ Cat said, as Poppy hugged her legs.
Megan smiled at the pair of them. They had become so close recently, with Cat looking after her niece while Megan had started working as a maternity locum in a beautiful office on Wimpole Street, standing in for a doctor in her early thirties who was having her third child. The money was terrific, but best of all was getting to spend thirty minutes with every patient. She felt as idealistic as ever, but the focus of her idealism had changed. She couldn’t take care of the world, but she could take care of her family.
Cat was giving Megan and Poppy a home, Megan was making enough to support them all, and Cat looked after Poppy in a way that no stranger ever could.
Perhaps it would change one day, and it certainly made it easier that neither of them had a man in their life. But Megan knew they were lucky to have each other, and she wondered how she had ever casually wandered away from her family.
It was true they all had their own lives. Jessica’s full-time care of Poppy had inevitably come to an end when she adopted Little Wei. No doubt Cat would be more occupied after she had given birth to her own child. Megan knew that it couldn’t last exactly like this for ever. Other arrangements would have to be made. But she understood now that she would never be alone while her sisters were alive. And neither would her daughter.
‘It’s just – she’s our mother,’ Jessica said. ‘Despite everything, Cat – she’s still our mother.’
Cat said nothing. She didn’t want to argue with Jessica. But in her heart, she thought, it doesn’t take forty weeks to make you a mother. It takes a lifetime.
They walked up Portland Place until they reached Paulo’s gleaming black London taxi, shining like the night. It was decided that Paulo would take Jessica and Little Wei to the police station in Bow Street. They watched them go, and Poppy waved until the cab was out of sight.
‘Have a heart, Cat,’ Megan said. ‘Olivia’s a sick woman.’
Cat realised she didn’t want to be heartless. Because that would mean she was just like her. Exactly like their mother.
Stung, Cat picked up Poppy, kissed her cheek and looked at her sister.
‘Have a heart? Listen, if there’s anything wrong with my heart, then it’s the fault of that old –’
Then Megan saw Warren Marley come round the corner, and she didn’t understand how he had found her, but somehow it didn’t surprise her, perhaps because she was so close to where she worked – how hard would it be to find her? – and then she didn’t think about it any more because she saw the flash of some sort of blade in his hand, and she was suddenly aware how deserted were these wide, white streets, this neighbourhood of embassies and offices, all locked up and empty, everyone gone for the weekend.
They were quite alone.
Warren Marley came towards them, two women and a child and a man holding a pushchair. Marley’s face was twisted with loathing, and he was saying something, mouthing his obscenities, then feeling braver, working himself into a fury, now shouting the same words in the empt
y city, the knife – it was a carpet cutter, Megan saw – in his fist.
He roughly pushed Cat and Poppy to one side and slashed at Megan’s face. She backed off, her heart pounding, felt the pavement come to an end beneath her feet, and stumbled into the road, half falling, as he came at her again.
Then Rory was there, out of nowhere, the pushchair gone, launching a textbook roundhouse kick at Warren Marley’s head.
The ball of Rory’s shoe connected crisply with the side of the other man’s head, and Marley went sprawling, but he didn’t drop the blade.
Rory aimed another kick but staggered from the pavement into the road, and missed his target altogether, the momentum spinning him round, crouching him over. Marley, on his knees now, lashed out with the carpet cutter, a punch with a blade on the end of it, and Rory howled with agony as the blade buried itself in one of his buttocks.
Then Marley was on his feet again, turning away from Rory, coming towards Megan, more slowly now, dragging one leg, as Rory stayed down clutching his rear, the blood already seeping through his fingers and the seat of his trousers.
Cat threw herself on Marley’s back but he leaned forward, throwing her over one shoulder, and as she fell he swatted her away with the back of his hand, sending her flying, and he kept coming at Megan, Rory down, Cat down, the blade of the carpet cutter held out before him.
Then Megan saw her daughter’s terrified face as the child huddled by some railings, and she felt her blood begin to boil.
Marley slashed at her with a wild, windmilling blow. Megan saw it coming and brought her left arm up, blocking it hard on her forearm, and at the same time she drove the palm of her right hand up, as hard and fast as she could, into the fleshy tip of his nose.
It broke with a satisfying crunch.
That’s a palm strike, Megan thought. Palm strikes are really good.
She watched him drop the carpet cutter and stagger backwards, his hands over his face, the blood already streaming, shrieking with pain and surprise. He collapsed against the railings where Poppy was standing, and the child rushed to her mother’s arms as Marley buried his face in his hands, whimpering with pain and shame.
Megan picked up her daughter and stood above him.
‘Now stay away from us,’ she said. ‘Stay away from us for good.’
She kicked the carpet cutter down a drain and carried Poppy over to where Cat was kneeling next to Rory, both of them in the prayer position, trying to stop the blood that was pouring from the wound in his behind.
‘Please don’t die,’ Cat said.
That’s when she felt it. The contraction that went on and on, like a really bad period pain, and then the surprisingly painless sensation of a small dam bursting inside her. Cat realised that she had probably been in labour since the afternoon’s first hymn.
‘Megan,’ said Rory, wincing with agony, but grinning with pride. ‘You finally remembered – aw! – a bit of your karate. Why was that, do you think?’
Cat stared at Megan in disbelief, clutching herself now, gasping for breath. And, holding her daughter in her arms, her sister stared back.
‘Now it’s my turn to take care of you,’ Megan told Cat.
On the back seat of his father’s car, Megan delivered an eight-pound baby boy.
Somehow the hospital bed seemed big enough for the three of them.
Cat with baby Otis in her arms, and Rory lying beside them, gently resting his son’s head in the palm of his hand, the baby’s hair as delicate as the feathers on a bird’s wings.
It was a time of miracles. When Cat touched the skin on her baby’s cheek, Otis turned his newly made face towards the sensation, seeking milk, and comfort, and life.
His blind eyes, gummy little mouth, miniature fingers and toes, blissful sleeps, rhythmic breathing – everything was a source of wonder to his besotted parents.
And for Cat the pride was bigger than the exhaustion, the joy was bigger than the pain, and the love, this incredible love that had somehow been released inside her, swamped all the fears and doubts that she had ever had about the future.
People came. Jack Jewell and Hannah, his new wife. Rory’s son Jake. They brought flowers and muffins and clothes that seemed so big that surely Otis would never grow into them. And when Megan looked in on them, the two sisters held each other and laughed a lot, and cried a bit, and said, ‘I love you,’ to each other for the first time in their lives, and agreed that baby Otis would one day be the breaker of many hearts.
Then Jessica and Paulo and Little Wei came back from Bow Street Police Station, and Jessica held Otis in her arms and raved about his beauty and rocked him to sleep, as if she was some kind of expert now, which she was.
Jessica told them that the police had been very understanding, their mother had been released with a warning, and even Dirty Dave seemed likely to escape charges, under the circumstances, as the drugs were clearly being used for medicinal purposes.
Every now and then Cat stared at the door to her room but there was one person who didn’t come to see the new baby.
Their mother didn’t come to the hospital to see her only grandson, and for a moment Cat felt as if her heart was still eleven years old and that it would never stop hurting. But it was only a moment. She would take the baby to her mother. She knew that now.
She would say, look, your child has given birth to a child of her own, and if her mother could not see the wonder and the joy in that, then Cat would not feel hatred for her any more, but only pity.
Cat looked from the baby in her arms, as scrunched up and perfect as a baby kitten, to the man by her side, this man desperately trying to avoid sitting on the rather ridiculous injury in his buttocks, this wound he had suffered trying to save them, and Cat understood why she was alive.
Paulo sat on the edge of the bed with Little Wei and Poppy and the two small girls solemnly contemplated this strange creature who was far smaller than them. Then he felt the gentle tap on his shoulder.
‘Jessica’s waiting for you,’ Megan said, lifting up Poppy. ‘In the corridor.’
Paulo stared at her for a moment and nodded. He took Little Wei by the hand and led her out of the room. Jessica was standing right outside.
‘Guess what?’ she said.
Paulo looked at his wife, still in her wedding clothes, confetti dusting her wide-brimmed hat, fresh from Bow Street Police Station, and he had no idea what she was talking about. And hadn’t there been enough excitement for one day?
‘Come here, stupid,’ she said, and took his hand, placing it on her stomach. Then she looked at him with eyes that he knew better than his own.
He felt his jaw drop open. It could really happen. Your jaw could truly drop open.
‘No?’ he said.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Jessica. ‘Oh, yes. Definitely yes. Megan will tell you. She will. My sister will tell you. There’s one thing these doctors can never explain. And that’s your luck.’
Paulo kept staring at his wife, her beautiful face suddenly blurring with his unexpected tears. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t express how he felt.
So he picked up their daughter, and with her brown eyes shining, the child turned her face towards the source of that feeling, that feeling as old as the world, that feeling of being held.
Inside:
Knocked Up With Julia Roberts: Q & A with Tony Parsons
Exclusive extract from My Favourite Wife
Don’t miss Tony’s other books
Knocked Up With Julia Roberts: Q & A with Tony Parsons
The three protagonists in The Family Way are sisters – how much of a challenge was that?
TP: It was all a challenge. The Family Way is a book where the three main characters are women, and that was tough enough. But the subject was pregnancy – or rather maternity; the book is about getting pregnant and also not getting pregnant. It is about the creation of new life, or the longing to create new life, and the hard fact of being unable to do so. Every day I woke up thinking�
��I can’t do this. It’s just too hard. I knew what a Caesarean birth looked like. But I didn’t know what it felt like, and I could never know what it felt like. And I felt that gap every time I sat down to write.
Why not write it from the male viewpoint? The sisters have a husband, a boyfriend and an on-off partner. Couldn’t you have told the same story from the male point of view?
TP: I could have done, but that would have been cheating. And it wouldn’t have been as good. If you decide you are going to write about pregnancy, infertility, birth, miscarriage, abortion and all the rest of it, you have to write it from a female perspective. You just have to. Take a Caesarean birth scene, for example. It would be completely different if it was just from the male viewpoint—this guy amazed at all the blood and gore, and desperately trying not to faint. That’s okay, and worth touching on, but it is so much more interesting to write it from the perspective of the woman who is actually having a C-section.
So how do you approach a book where you can never experience what the characters experience?
TP: You talk to people. You talk to women who know. And women you don’t know. And they are happy to talk. It’s just that men don’t usually ask. But when the tenth woman tells you, ‘Having a Caesarean feels like someone is doing the washing up in your stomach,’ then you have to believe them. And that’s how I wrote The Family Way. Women talked and I listened. I listened to them talk about their experiences of becoming mothers and they were the most gripping stories you could ever hear. The wild extremes of joy and sadness. And the random nature of it all. Getting pregnant when you really don’t want a baby. Failing to get pregnant when that’s what you want most in the world. I remembered what women had said to me in the past. What they said about getting pregnant when they were teenagers. What they said about abortion. What they said about going through a miscarriage, and feeling like they had endured a bereavement that they would never be allowed to mourn. Conversations from five, ten, twenty years ago. Sometimes you are researching a book but you don’t know it yet.