“Um, thanks,” Emily said to his retreating back. He was being very odd today. She hoped he would be up to it when her big moment arrived. Conor would go mad if he wasn’t, and they after paying him a thousand pounds too.
That feeling of disquiet was back again the moment she thought about Conor. She considered picking up the phone and asking him to come in so that they could talk.
But, knowing Conor, he would not even remember the intricacies of their conversation. And if he did, he would tell her she was reading too much into things as usual. He would want to know whether she had decided to move on with him or not.
But they were good at that, weren’t they? ‘Moving on’ without really resolving anything. Pretending that they had sorted things out when they hadn’t at all, and off they would walk into the sunset until the next big crisis loomed and the whole thing would fall apart at the seams again. Probably permanently. Because each time they negotiated a crisis, they emerged weaker as a couple, not stronger. And if she picked up the phone to Conor and said ‘yes’ right now, she was continuing the whole sorry vicious circle.
“Emily?”
“Yes! Oh, sorry, Maggie, what is it?
Maggie was sitting up in the bed, a mobile phone glued to her ear. “Auntie Olive is going into the Four Courts tomorrow for the judicial review and she wants to know what the dress code is.”
“It doesn’t matter – anything.”
“It doesn’t matter, Auntie Olive, anything.” Maggie looked back at Emily again. “Could you be more precise? She’s only seen a courtroom on Judge Judy and she doesn’t want to make a fool of herself.”
“Tell her trousers and a top.”
“Trousers and a top, Auntie Olive.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “Would a skirt and a top do, Emily? It would. Great.” She listened for a moment then turned to Emily again. “She said to tell you that you were fantastic on the telly last week, that it gave her goose bumps.”
It was quite amazing how many people had seen that piece of footage. Cards of support had been arriving in Martha’s all week, along with letters and phone messages and even two bouquets of flowers. Oh, and one letter from a woman in the midlands who said they were a right bunch of hussies to be parading themselves in front of cameras in their condition.
“She’s taking a whole gang up with her,” Maggie said, having dispatched Auntie Olive. “She might even make a banner, she said, if she can find markers. Isn’t she great?”
“Great,” Emily agreed.
“And there’s Laura and Dee after holding on too,” Maggie said. “You have to take your hat off to them.”
And she burst into tears.
“Maggie,” Emily said softly, used to this, “I know it’s hard going, but you have to hang in there.”
Maggie was now eleven days’ overdue. And not a sign in the world of anything stirring, despite four vindaloos.
“I can’t stand this, Emily,” she sobbed. “There’s something wrong. Maybe the baby is dead!”
“The baby is not dead. Didn’t you hear its heartbeat an hour ago?”
Vera kindly put a stethoscope on Maggie’s belly a couple of times a day to reassure her. Everyone was being very nice to Maggie at the moment.
“I’m going to ask to be induced,” Maggie resolved tearfully.
“Maggie . . .”
“I am! You can ask them, you know! You can tell them the mental stress is driving you mad!”
Physically, all was well. Excellent, in fact – Maggie hadn’t had an asthma attack in nine days. The irony of this was something she didn’t appreciate right now.
“Maggie, give it another little while.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen, you know,” Maggie said, brittle. “This wasn’t in the plan.”
“Forget the plan, Maggie. Maybe the best thing is to relax right now.”
Maggie smiled bravely. “You’re probably right. It’s just that I’m sick of this place. I want to go home.”
“I know. I know.”
“Half of me wouldn’t mind if your friend Neasa loses in court tomorrow,” Maggie confided. “At least Cork would be a change of scenery.”
Neasa had not been in to visit in a week either. She had phoned Emily twice to keep her up to date on the court action. Both calls had been tense and impersonal.
Emily hadn’t pushed it. She felt too guilty in any case. Why had she not noticed what was going on with Neasa before now? How had she not seen through the smokescreen of her failed romances? Not that Neasa had propagated her own myth deliberately. Emily felt that she was genuinely stumped by her romantic disasters. But the men were more a symptom than a cause.
Impulsively, she picked up the phone and dialled Neasa’s home number. She got the answering machine, even though she sensed that Neasa was nearby, listening. She left a short message anyway, to wish her good luck in court in the morning, and to thank her for doing this.
“Do you want a game of bridge?” Maggie wanted to know. She had not let the dwindling patient numbers in Martha’s dampen her enthusiasm for bridge. Desperation had driven her to play a game with herself yesterday.
“No thanks,” Emily said. She felt cross now – cross and frustrated and irritated with things in general. And Conor in particular. She would phone him tomorrow, she vowed. She would tell him to come in and they would have a long chat about all the things that were bothering her. And he could stuff his ‘decision’! She wasn’t ready to make one yet.
Just before eight o’clock, Vera came in. She was on the night shift and was in uniform, but with a pink and yellow party hat on her head. It looked very incongruous.
“The staff are having a bit of a party down in Jude’s Ward. Nothing too mad, no drink or anything like that. But we thought we’d like to mark the day.” She looked at Emily hurriedly. “That’s not to say that we’re not confident about tomorrow. We are. And if we win, we’ll be having another party. With drink.” She held out two more party hats. “Anyway, the staff were wondering would you join us? And Dee and Laura too, of course.”
Emily shook her head. “Ah no, Vera, it’s a staff thing.” She did not think she would be much company.
“It’s not,” Vera said firmly. “It’s a hospital thing.”
“Can we, Emily?” Maggie, as usual, waited for Emily’s permission to do anything. “There’s damn all on the telly.”
“Please,” Vera said. “Maureen’s made bean enchiladas and everything, from a proper recipe book.”
This was their way of saying thanks, Emily knew. She threw back the bed covers and put a smile on her face.
“We’d be delighted to.”
Damn Maureen and her bean enchiladas. Emily tossed and turned much of the night, fighting wind and horrible dreams. Then she would be assailed by interminable periods of wakefulness where she would fret about the court case tomorrow; the baby; Neasa’s drinking problem. She even worried a bit about Liz and Eamon, and the five boys. Lest anyone feel left out, she spared her mother a quick thought too, and Mrs Conlon who apparently had launched an appeal against the planning permission refusal.
Maggie’s deep and contented snoring filled the ward, and Emily wrapped her pillow around her ears, gritting her teeth. Maggie was fond of saying that nobody else ever complained about her snoring and that Emily was being over-sensitive. So, really it was all Emily’s fault. It was funny how people could twist things to shift the blame onto someone else.
Conor jumped into her mind again, accompanied by that growing irritation. The more she thought about his assertion that she held the power in their marriage, the more it seemed like an accusation. Somehow or other she had created an imbalance in their marriage which caused Conor to be so upset that he had gone out and had an affair. That was the bottom line. That was what had been bugging her all week.
No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about the affair! No wonder he’d hardly said sorry to her at all! He thought it was all her fault in the first place! Oh, he could deny it for all he was
worth, but Emily knew.
Were it not a quarter to four in the morning, she would phone him up and demand that he get his sorry ass in here right this moment. She still might!
In the meantime, a mattress spring was digging uncomfortably into her hip. She huffed up onto one elbow, gave the pillow a good belt, shifted over six inches and flopped down violently again.
The force of her landing dislodged more wind and she felt a little ping down below. She expected relief.
It was not wind. She lay there for a moment, quite still, as a warm wetness spread over her thighs, soaking her nightdress. It felt like gallons, but it probably wasn’t very much; she had read her books and knew what was happening. When it was over, she carefully got out of bed in the darkness, changed into a fresh nightie and went to find Vera.
“Well, it’s earlier than expected,” Vera said.
“A little,” Emily agreed calmly.
“We’d better get you down to Delivery.”
“Sorry?”
“You need to be examined.”
“But I’m not even having any pains. Not proper ones anyway.”
“If your waters have broken at this stage, I’d say you’re on the way,” Vera advised. “The pains will probably start pretty quickly now.”
Emily was shocked, and hadn’t the faintest idea why. She only had ten days to go. It was perfectly possible – indeed, highly probable – that she was in labour right now and would have her baby within the next twenty-four hours.
“I’ll just get your labour bag,” Vera said, and went off.
Emily stood on her own in the dark corridor, her hands clutching her belly, amniotic fluid dripping down her legs. She calmly told herself that everything was going to be fine. Hell, the moment had finally arrived – she should be enjoying herself!
“Here we go.” Vera was back.
“Thanks,” Emily said cheerfully, and burst into tears.
Vera was very kind. She put an arm around Emily. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Emily couldn’t explain her upset. She said the first thing that came into her head. “I thought it was just wind. I ate loads of Maureen’s kidney beans at the party.”
“So did we all,” Vera said grimly. The whole hospital had been suffering since. It would nearly make you wish for Maureen’s lukewarm shepherd’s pies made with cheap mince.
Tommy-the-porter loomed from around the corner, giving Emily a fright. He was pushing a wheelchair.
“Delivery?” he said.
Emily felt fresh shock and panic rising in her. Maybe it was all those weeks and months of anticipation. When the event was finally happening, she couldn’t quite believe it.
“Don’t worry,” Vera said. “I’ll come down with you.”
Emily found herself folded into the wheelchair, her labour bag balanced on her knees. She clutched the straps fiercely as Tommy threw his weight behind the wheelchair. They eventually set off on his third attempt.
“Okay?” Vera asked, trotting beside the wheelchair.
“Yes,” Emily lied. She felt quite nauseous now, and Vera was right – the pains were getting noticeably stronger and more regular.
Down the dim corridors of Martha’s they trundled, past the kitchen and the smokers’ room and the visitors’ room. Emily never remembered it being as quiet as this. Doors were dark and wards silent. But most of the hospital was closed. It was all a bit eerie and unsettling, and when Tommy broke into a coughing fit, Emily jumped.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said, and stopped to lean against a wall. Emily felt very much a burden, when it was obvious that he needed the wheelchair more than she. But eventually they set off again.
“Will I get one of the girls to ring Conor?” Vera asked casually.
Emily pretended to have a contraction to buy some time.
“Breathe through it,” Vera advised. “You too, Tommy.”
After much huffing and puffing, Emily felt she had to give an answer. “Ring him, but tell him there’s no rush.”
Vera wasn’t sure how to take this. “The thing with first-time labours is that nobody really knows how long they will last, Emily. You don’t want him to miss it, do you?”
“I suppose not,” Emily said reluctantly. She didn’t know what she wanted. Someone she trusted, she supposed. Someone she knew. Someone with whom she wasn’t extremely angry right now.
Ow. She had a real contraction now, a proper one, and it took her breath away. She hunched over in the wheelchair and she was shocked by the ferocity of it. Something primeval and brutal was happening to her body, something that she could not temper or stop.
When she could breathe again, she looked up at Vera grimly. “Ring him and tell him to get in now.” By God and if she had to go through this thing for their firstborn, then Conor would too. Every inch of the way.
They rounded a corner and the bright lights of Delivery burst out of the darkness. Tommy, seeing a fag-break on the horizon, picked up pace enthusiastically, and they crashed through the double-doors with great noise and fuss.
“Now, Emily, Jessica over there will look after you,” Vera said.
Jessica seemed a most unlikely name for a midwife. She sounded like she should be selling expensive lingerie. Emily had somehow expected all midwives to be called Emer or Maura or something similarly earthy and comforting.
“Hello, Emily,” Jessica said, stepping up. “Again.”
“Um, yes,” Emily said. This was the same woman who had escorted her from Delivery that very first night.
Jessica looked at her keenly. “By the way, Martina’s doing very well. She had a baby girl. Just in case she didn’t get a chance to ring you or anything.”
She was on to Emily all right. But she said it nicely. And Emily was very glad that Martina was okay. She had been thinking of her on and off since that night.
“Good luck, Emily,” Vera said.
“You’re not going?”
“You’ll be fine. You’re with the experts now.”
Emily didn’t want experts. She wanted people she knew and trusted. “Vera,” she blurted. “I’m afraid.”
“Of course you are,” Vera soothed. “Every woman is when it comes to giving birth. But don’t let the fright rob you of the joy of it all.”
Another savage contraction convulsed Emily. Vera was taking the piss, surely.
Vera waited until the contraction was over, then she patted Emily on the arm and left. Just like that! Oh, cheers!
“Now, Emily,” Jessica said brightly. “Can you walk?”
Emily, not wanting to make a fuss, hobbled from the wheelchair, still clutching her labour bag. Jessica tried to take it from her, but Emily held on tighter. People always seemed to be trying to take bags from her. She must be a pickpocket’s dream.
“In here,” Jessica said cheerfully, throwing open the door to a labour room.
It was not at all what Emily had expected. She had been given the obligatory guided tour of Cork’s labour facilities as part of her antenatal classes. The labour rooms there had been spacious and sensitively lit, with clever, abstract pictures on the walls and sophisticated new beds that went up and down and sideways and possibly inside-out at the mere touch of a button.
Martha’s labour rooms boasted harsh fluorescent lights and peeling white-ish paint. The bed was mean and narrow and the medical equipment looked like it was on loan from a museum. The only picture on the wall was a discoloured diagram of what appeared to be the female reproductive system. Surely Martha’s obstetricians and midwives already knew what this looked like? Emily felt her confidence dwindle further.
“Now, if you’d just pop up onto the bed,” Jessica said.
Emily was later to reflect that Jessica said ‘pop’ a lot. It seemed that Jessica had yet to learn that no woman in labour ever popped anywhere. They inched painfully, or they rolled agonisingly. They all wanted to pop, but very few of them ever did.
“If you cou
ld just let your knees fall apart,” Jessica instructed, pulling on white rubber gloves with much loud snapping. “This won’t hurt a bit,” she said with that rather irritating cheerfulness again.
Emily looked at the ceiling as Jessica did her thing down there. Now she was pulling off the gloves and peering up from between Emily’s knees.
“Four!” she chirped.
Four? Four what? Emily’s mind went blank. “Oh, four!” She was four centimetres dilated. Already!
“You’re doing pretty good,” Jessica sang. “Keep it up!”
Emily’s enthusiasm was dealt a brutal blow as a contraction sneakily pounced.
When it was finally over, she looked at Jessica, uncomprehending.
Expecting Emily Page 34