by Penny Parkes
Elsie appeared to have recovered from her initial shock at the impromptu wedding and was now swinging into gear as the hostess with the mostest. ‘Oh Grace,’ she exclaimed as she bustled by with yet more posies of sweet peas for the photographs. ‘I’m really most pleased with you.’ She stopped and gave Grace’s hand a delighted squeeze. ‘You can fill me in on all the scrumptious details later. And don’t spare my blushes, darling girl. I’ll need to know everything.’
‘Please don’t,’ begged Dan quietly, trying not to laugh at the lascivious look Elsie had shot his way.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ replied Grace, becoming accustomed oh-so-easily to their intimate banter; that feeling of solidarity that people had talked about in their relationships, but she herself had never before experienced.
She wanted to tell him how she felt, but every time the words came to her lips, that little catastrophising voice in her head, the one that had been haunting her all week, would point out that maybe Dan’s highly developed White Knight complex was all that was throwing them together.
‘Do you have any idea how long I’ve loved you?’ Dan asked, his hand still warming the curve of her waist, but moving with imperceptible tenderness.
Grace blinked in surprise. It was as though he’d heard her doubts and countered them before they could take hold. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered with a smile.
‘Er, guys?’ said Rupert, seeking them out with some urgency. ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we have a bit of a situation.’ He was flushed and uncomfortable, unable to stand still, and he wasted no time pulling on Dan’s arm and setting off towards the kitchen. ‘She didn’t want to interrupt the wedding, you see. We both thought we’d have ages. I mean, that’s what they say in all the books, isn’t it?’ He was running on with a stream of consciousness that bore no interruption, but was certainly giving Grace a clear idea of what they were dealing with.
Pushing open the French windows into the kitchen, it was immediately apparent that Rupert’s concern had actually been an understatement. Poor Mims was clutching at the edge of the kitchen table, doubled over in pain, sweat sticking her hair to her forehead as she groaned quietly. The effort not to bellow was clearly taking its toll, her knuckles white and her whole body shaking.
‘How far apart are the contractions?’ Dan asked, gently taking Mims’s pulse on her wrist.
‘Um, I don’t know, not long,’ Rupert flustered. As if to answer his question, Mims spasmed again as yet another contraction caught her in its vice. ‘Two, three minutes?’
‘Make it stop,’ begged Mims, panting as the wave subsided. ‘It’s too early. I’m not due until next week. I thought it was just Braxton Hicks.’
Rupert shook his head. ‘I even told her it was, during the ceremony.’ The guilt on his face was almost palpable. ‘I was going to call an ambulance just now, but she begged me not to.’ He turned to Dan, professional to professional. ‘I know I can’t make her go to hospital if she doesn’t want to, but can you persuade her? Please?’
Dan shook his head and Grace could see the conflict on his face. ‘Rupert mate, it’s too late now anyway. Unless there’s complications you haven’t told me about, she might be better staying put.’
‘We were supposed to be going to Rosemore,’ Mims wailed. ‘I had a plan!’
Grace wrung out the clean tea towel she’d been running under the cold tap and gently pressed it against Mims’s forehead. ‘Plans are great, but the babies never listen, Mims. We just have to follow their lead.’ She turned to frown at Dan and Rupert, who seemed to have been caught up in some heated debate about the best plan of action. ‘Guys,’ she said firmly. ‘We’re in a kitchen during a wedding reception. I don’t think Holly and Taffy need to know, do you? Can we at least find somewhere a little more private while you work out what to do?’
They waited until the next contraction had passed, alarmingly close to the last. Even tackling the first flight of stairs was no mean feat and Grace could only be grateful that she was bringing up the rear rather than physically supporting poor Mims. She quietly plucked her mobile from her pocket and tapped out a message to Chris Virtue. A little part of her mind already covering their bases and wondering just how slammed the Air Ambulance team were today, just in case.
She ducked around them as they came to the landing, pushing open the first bedroom door they came to and watching Rupert and Dan give in and carry Mims to the bed, as yet another contraction crashed over her. It was only as they were plumping up cushions to prop her up and make her comfortable that Grace clocked all the flowers and candles decorating the bedroom. Apparently Mims was about to give birth in Holly and Taffy’s bridal suite.
‘Bugger,’ said Dan, as he clearly noticed the same thing. He dropped his voice as he leaned in to Grace. ‘Nothing about this is ideal, Gracie. But maybe you could muster up Alice, some towels and an idea of how busy they are in Bath?’
She nodded and dialled as she ran down the stairs, cursing the twinkly muzak as her call was diverted again and again. When finally it was answered, the nurse sounded frazzled and distracted. ‘Maternity Level Three.’
As Grace outlined the situation, she began to wonder whether the nurse could actually hear her. The noise in the background was like something from a catastrophe movie. ‘I’ve got ladies on trolleys in the corridor here and some poor soul just gave birth in the lift. We are completely swamped. I can’t even send out a midwife.’ The nurse sounded on the verge of tears herself. ‘I have no idea what they were thinking closing down four midwife-led units in the county with no notice, but they had to realise that all these births had to happen somewhere. My advice? If your patient is stable, comfortable and has a doctor on hand, she’s already doing better than some of the women here.’
Grace felt sick as she ended the call. Even seeing that Holly and Taffy were now fudging their first dance to Ben’s strangled version of ‘Edelweiss’ on the recorder did nothing to lighten her mood. She grabbed Alice discreetly by the hand and led her away before anyone could question it.
‘Are you serious?’ exclaimed Alice, turning a deathly shade of pale as they raced up the stairs, Coco in hot pursuit and Grace giving an abbreviated sitrep. ‘I’m not sure how much use I’m going to be. Umbilical cords kind of freak me out.’
Grace stared at her in amazement. ‘Alice Walker, you are a highly qualified GP and your patient is in distress. Not to mention the fact that, bluntly, your hands are considerably smaller than Dan’s, if you get my drift. Now pull yourself together, because there are two very frightened new parents in there.’
Alice nodded, a sickly green colour sweeping over her face. ‘I’m on it.’
Pushing open the door, Grace looked sharply to Dan for reassurance but the expression on his face offered none. ‘Breathe for me, Mims,’ he said gently, ‘and whatever you do, don’t push.’
Mims let out a strangled scream. ‘I was supposed to be in a pool of lovely warm water. This is not how it was supposed to be!’ Rupert was holding her hand tightly and looking petrified.
‘Is it breach?’ he asked Dan, his veterinary knowledge being just enough to worry him.
Dan shook his head. ‘I think the cord’s wrapped around the baby’s neck. Every time she pushes, the baby’s heartbeat is dropping, so it could be it’s tightening a little.’
Grace knew only too well what that meant. Nuchal cords weren’t uncommon, but they did need careful evaluation. If they were at the maternity unit now, there would, in all probability, be that terrifying rush down the corridor at the first sign of foetal distress, where nurses and anaesthetists would appear as if from nowhere, hustling into the operating theatre for an emergency C-section. Her phone bleeped in her pocket. Chris. She read the screen twice and then discreetly showed it to Dan.
Bird 2 still down. Out dealing with a multi-car pile-up on the A40.
They were on their own.
Alice emerged from the en suite, drying her hands and with a sheen of perspiration on her forehead
. ‘So, Mims, we might need you to change position in a moment,’ she said gently, as Dan listened intently to the baby’s heartbeat with his stethoscope. Trust Dan to have brought his doctor’s bag to a baby shower, thought Grace gratefully.
Alice knelt on the bed beside Dan and they muttered to each other in muted tones. It wasn’t the first time that Grace lamented her lack of medical degree and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. If she couldn’t be useful where it mattered, at least she could help soothe Mims and Rupert as the strain began to take its toll. Mims was clearly flagging now and the energy needed to keep her cries quiet was beyond her. Grace looked sharply across the landing to the windows overlooking the garden, where the party was still in full swing, relaxing only slightly when she saw they were firmly closed and double-glazed.
She watched as Dan talked Alice through what needed to be done and Grace’s heart went out to her. If anything went wrong, she knew only too well that Alice would blame herself for evermore. She caught her eye and mouthed ‘you can do this’ across their patient’s belly.
What would it actually take, Grace wondered, for the petty bureaucrats in their comfortable urban world to realise the very real effect of their sweeping decisions on the rural population. How many babies might die, or mothers go through this trauma alone? Grace felt a surge of righteous indignation, not just because right now Chris and his team were having to triage patients at the side of the road, or because Mims’s birth plan was no longer even an option – it was a sense of injustice that took her breath away. And she didn’t need a medical degree to take action on that front.
As she gently soothed Mims and held her hand through each contraction, Grace felt a solid kernel of determination settle in her chest. Whatever the outcome of today’s melodrama, she was steadfast in her resolve – the waiting game was over; it was time to take action. It was time to make themselves heard.
She watched Alice carefully, the fear and trepidation on her face relaxing into wonderment as finally, finally, Mims’s baby was freed from its umbilical noose and slithered into the world. Mims gave a relieved and heartfelt sob as its first cries filled the air like a welcome melody.
‘It’s a boy,’ said Alice. ‘You’ve a healthy baby boy.’
She gently handed the baby to Mims, snuggling him neatly onto her mother’s chest before quietly and discreetly tiptoeing into the en suite and vomiting loudly.
Grace followed after her, quietly pushing the door closed as she sank down on the floor beside Alice. ‘You only bloody did it,’ she said. ‘I’m so incredibly proud of you.’ And they both burst into tears.
Chapter 44
‘I know it’s not quite a honeymoon in the Seychelles,’ said Grace, as she slid the platter of Danish pastries onto the table in the doctors’ lounge the next morning. ‘But we’re all so thrilled for you, we wanted to mark the occasion somehow.’ She batted away the bunch of helium balloons that seemed to have acquired a life of their own and kept bobbing towards her head.
‘It’s just so lovely to have you back, Gracie,’ Holly replied, pulling her into a hug. ‘We missed you.’
Grace smiled. ‘Well, after yesterday, it was an easy decision in the end. Can’t hide out for ever when there’s all this drama and upheaval going on, now can I?’ And she meant it too; some part of her brain had switched from fear to feisty during Jemima’s unscheduled delivery and there was no switching it back, it seemed.
‘We even got the posh coffee from The Deli,’ interrupted Dan with a grin. ‘I think we’re all feeling a little delicate this morning.’ He rubbed a hand across his eyes tiredly and Holly felt a flicker of guilt for not only springing a surprise wedding on their friends, but for doing it on a Sunday. Coming to work this morning felt like a labour of love for all of them.
‘How’s Mims doing?’ Holly asked Dan quietly as the helium balloons took on Taffy, attracted by some kind of static electricity to his hair and making it look as though he were under attack.
‘She’s doing well. And the baby is a sweetheart. I stayed with them for a few hours and popped into Elsie’s again this morning while you lazy buggers were still in bed. Frankly, I think relief is the overriding emotion all round.’
Holly shook her head, frowning. ‘I can’t believe all of that was going on and you never said a word.’
Dan shrugged. ‘We didn’t want to spoil your big day. Did you have a lovely time?’
‘We really did. It was everything I was hoping for, and more. And some of the photos are just gorgeous – everyone’s so chilled out and happy. Nobody stressing about the arrangements or what to wear for weeks in advance. Sort of like a family-friendly elopement.’ Holly grinned. ‘Sorry you missed out on the speeches.’
‘I should be apologising to you. I hardly fulfilled my duties as Best Man – no speech, no Stag Night – not so much as a Bambi-evening.’ He looked mildly put out at being deprived of the opportunity for revelry.
‘Have the Stag next weekend if you like,’ Holly suggested.
Dan stared at her incredulously. ‘You do know what goes on at a Stag Night?’
Holly looked over at Taffy and smiled. ‘Well, since we live in the real world, not a movie, I’m guessing you could still have a cracking evening out without breaking our marriage vows or any local laws.’
‘Maybe,’ Dan teased. ‘But then – where would be the fun in that?’
‘Are you still going on about this Stag Night?’ asked Grace, as she wandered over to join them. ‘Let it go. They’re married already.’
‘I hardly held up my end of the Best Man arrangement though, did I?’ Dan said grumpily. Grace leaned against his shoulder and he automatically slid his arm around her waist.
For a moment, Holly felt a flicker of concern that these two were more obviously loved-up than the newlyweds in the room. But then, seeing them together, so newly smitten, but so long in the making, it felt churlish to deny them that blissful stage where everything was new and wonderful and shiny. She and Taffy had spent the night in the attic room at Elsie’s, where the twins and Eric had joined them at roughly three a.m. when Mims’s baby had squawked them all wide awake. It was all very well being spontaneous, but she rather wished she’d thought past ‘I do’ and on to a wedding night to remember for all the right reasons.
Still, she thought, the night may not have been a runaway success, but her wedding had been Holly-and-Taffy-style perfection, and that was what mattered. A little dose of reality afterwards was actually no bad thing; just part of the tapestry of her life here in Larkford.
‘Knock-knock,’ said Chris Virtue, poking his head round the door. ‘Can I come in?’ He didn’t wait for an answer but strode into the room and helped himself to a Danish. He looked exhausted, haggard almost, and his usual debonair humour was noticeably missing. As the pastry flaked around his mouth, Holly watched how his gaze always settled on Grace and it was obvious that Dan hadn’t missed that either.
‘What can we help you with?’ Dan said, switching into ultra-polite mode.
Chris sat back against the edge of the table and sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry to interrupt your party, but we need to talk. We have to ramp things up a notch, guys.’ He blew out a breath that ruffled his tousled hair and looked as though he were about to burst into tears. ‘Five people died last night. All of them needlessly. Two kids and their dad from that pile-up on the motorway, an older guy with a head injury after a fall, and a cancer patient with an adverse reaction to his chemo.’ The tears were choking his voice now and Holly felt the delicious pastry cloy in her mouth. Here they were celebrating, while all of these tragedies had been unfolding in their own back yard.
‘Now, I know none of this happened in your patch per se, but your lady last night, with the nuchal cord – it could so easily have been her . . . So I was wondering whether you guys wanted to join me in kicking up a bloody great fuss. The auction is great and everything but I just don’t think it’s going to be enough – or make things change fast enough.’
&n
bsp; ‘It’s all very well pinching pennies,’ continued Grace, ‘shutting down the local maternity and oncology services, even trying to stretch how far one helicopter can reasonably cover – but people are dying. For want of some understanding about rural roads, people are dying.’
‘We need to accelerate this,’ said Chris in agreement.
Lucy reached forward and handed him a napkin, as they all uncomfortably took on board what he was saying. It was one thing to understand the theory, but confronting the reality meant that, while they had been celebrating Holly and Taffy’s marriage, other families not so far away had been needlessly losing their loved ones.
Taffy clapped a hand on Chris’s shoulder, noticeably moved by what they’d heard. ‘What’s it going to take, do you think, for people in Westminster to sit up and take notice?’
‘Remember, this is just one night. One county. How many more deaths were avoidable last night, do you think?’ Grace pointed out, choked up by the very notion of how differently things could have ended for Jemima and Rupert, had they been home alone.
‘How loudly can we shout this from the rooftops, do you think?’ Holly asked, as her brain whirred through a few scenarios. ‘Do you think any of the families will actually want to be involved?’
‘It feels a little ghoulish to even ask,’ Dan said gently. Holly could see what it cost him to say that, as the angry set to his face suggested he too was all for kicking up a bloody great shitstorm.
‘If we found out some stats across the South West,’ Grace ventured, ‘it would give us a clearer picture? Stop thinking quite so local.’
Holly nodded. ‘Maybe no names, just photos—’
‘Like a slideshow?’ queried Taffy. ‘With a voiceover? Hope it goes viral?’