by Jessie Jones
Something else about Kirsty: she was the one person I knew who not only had a turkey baster, but also knew how to use it.
9.5 cm
‘Come on, Dayna, push!’ Suzie urges pointlessly.
What the hell does she think I’m doing? Trying to suck this baby back in?
I’m up on my knees on the bed, gripping the frame so hard that the joints in my hands are popping and I’m pushing like a lunatic. It seems to be having the effect of squeezing sweat out of every pore – my entire body is drenched – but it doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere baby-wise.
The junior-trainee-student-apprentice midwife is bent double, her head somewhere between my legs. She’s been down there for ages. I don’t think she actually knows what she’s doing. The other midwife told her to keep watch and to holler when something happens and so far she’s obeyed her orders to the letter. She actually looks more like a teenager than my original midwife. What was her name? Who cares? That seems like an eternity ago.
And it was. It is now ten in the morning, a full twelve hours since I arrived. Over the last couple of hours it’s been like King’s Cross Station in here with all the comings and goings. Dr Singh strolled in with his medical students, but he only stayed a couple of minutes. ‘Nothing much to see here,’ he said. ‘It all looks pretty routine.’
‘Well, you bastard, why don’t you try squeezing out a concrete-filled balloon and seeing if it feels routine?’ I would have suggested if I hadn’t been mid-contraction.
Mark stayed until his feelings of nausea became too much to bear. Can’t say I blamed him. I’d leave if I could. Never mind, I’ll be seeing him later, no doubt.
Emily has been ever-present, but might as well not have been for all the use she is. And Suzie is telling me to push … which brings me full circle.
What the hell does she think I’m doing?
Still No. 6 (with a touch of No. 3)
Monday: only five days to go. Yes, the wedding was still on. When I woke up, the panic attack I’d had on Sunday suddenly seemed a bit silly. I was fairly sure it was just nerves, the sort that everyone must get. My mood was helped when I flicked through the holiday brochure while I had my breakfast. Whose mood wouldn’t be lifted by the prospect of a suite in the best hotel in St Lucia? However this marriage turned out, at least the first three weeks would be made in heaven. Things got better still when I went round to Cristian’s and he gave me his news.
‘Sit down, Dayna,’ he said, a grave look on his face. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’
Shit, I thought. He must have had a private eye following me on my hen night. I hoped to God there weren’t photos. But it wasn’t that.
‘Mila’s found herself a partner in Australia and she’s opening up Spa Spaces in Melbourne and Sydney,’ he announced.
‘That’s fantastic,’ I said, wondering why he looked so worried.
‘Yes … Yes, it is. The thing is, she’s asked me to get involved. She wants me to go over there and liaise with these Australian guys, make sure everything is done right. The idea is that the salons are as much like the London one as possible. I reckon the whole thing will take about a year to get off the ground.’
‘Right,’ I said, the colour draining from my face because I sensed his next question would be to ask how I felt about emigrating.
‘Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have to live over there or anything,’ he said quickly, seeming for once to read my mind. ‘But I’d be coming and going a lot and I guess I’d have to stay there for three or four weeks at a time. I’d want you to come with me of course. In fact, I think it would be a wonderful way to start our life together, seeing Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers –’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly go,’ I said.
His face dropped.
‘Well, I want to start back at work as soon as we get back from our honeymoon,’ I explained.
‘But Mila wouldn’t mind.’
‘You know my career’s really important to me, Cristian, and I’ve been away from work for too long now.’
‘Of course,’ he said, with a typically understanding nod.
‘And it’s not just that. I mean, if we’re going to have a baby straight away, I won’t be able to do all that long-haul flying. Not when I’m pregnant.’
‘I hadn’t thought about that,’ he said guiltily.
‘You’re a man,’ I smiled. ‘Why would you?’
‘But how will you feel with me being away so much? It’s no way to start our marriage, is it?’
‘Well, we’ll miss each other, but we’ll cope,’ I said. ‘I just know we will.’
And I meant it. Because now I could see a bit of breathing space. I was sure I’d be able to acclimatise to married life if I could do a fair amount of the acclimatising on my own.
I still felt fantastic when I got back to my flat that afternoon, and my day wasn’t spoiled when Cristian called to say he loved me badly and missed me madly – oh, and could I phone the florist to check the delivery time of the table arrangements and the caterer to make sure he’d got the message about tiger prawns, not king prawns. He could be such a wussy girl like that. Which was why I loved him, of course.
When the doorbell rang at just gone five, I was shocked to see Archie standing there. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I just picked up a skip a couple of streets away,’ he explained. ‘It’s too late to take it to the tip now, so I thought I’d knock for you on the off-chance. I’m surprised you’re still living here, actually. Thought you’d have moved in with lover boy.’
‘No way,’ I exclaimed in mock outrage. ‘I’m saving myself for our wedding night.’
‘So. Got time for a drink?’ he smiled.
How could I say no? I ushered him in and fetched two cans from the fridge. He was on the sofa when I came back into the living room, so I sat on the armchair.
‘It was great to see you on Saturday, you know,’ he said.
‘It was good to see you too, Archie. How was your card game?’
‘He cleaned me out, didn’t he? I’m sure he was dealing from the bottom. I told you, you can never trust a black man.’
My face fell.
‘Joking!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ben’s a top bloke. Still cleaned me out, though.’
We sat in slightly awkward silence for a moment. Then he said, ‘So, tell me about this bloke you’re marrying.’
So I told him. About the lovely flat in Primrose Hill and the wheeling and dealing and the beauty salon that was soon to become an international chain of beauty salons. And I dropped the word ‘Romanian’ in a couple of times, but there were still no snide gypo-type digs.
‘Sounds like you struck lucky,’ he said instead.
‘Yeah, I did,’ I agreed, because as the day had gone on ‘lucky’ was exactly what I’d been feeling.
‘Mind you, he struck gold too,’ Archie said. ‘I’ll always think of you as the one that got away. You’re all right, you are, Dayna.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling myself blush at the reminder. Although our very brief engagement felt a million miles away now.
He took a sip of his beer, then said, ‘Look, I know this probably isn’t the time and it’s far too late in the day, but I just want to say I wasn’t happy about the way it ended … You know, between you and me.’
‘No,’ I said quietly, ‘neither was I.’
‘That night you were attacked I said some stuff … Quite a lot of stuff. But I was steaming mad. I mean, I’d just seen that bastard hold a knife to you and, well, I guess I lost it. What I’m trying to say is that I might have been a bit out of order with what I said, but you’ve got to understand how mad I was.’
‘I do understand,’ I told him, ‘but when it comes down to it our basic views on stuff are a world apart, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah, maybe so, but I’m honestly not the monster you think I am.’
I raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘I’m not
,’ he protested. ‘Look at Ben.’
‘He’s one guy, Archie. And what about those blokes you came into the pub with that night? You know, the political lot.’
‘I’m not involved with them any more,’ he said. ‘They were going all New Labour on me. Joking! Seriously, I have nothing to do with them these days. Their answer to everything was to get the baseball bats out. It was all getting a bit much.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Look, I don’t hate anybody, I honestly don’t.’
I studied him carefully. Maybe Mark and Suzie were right. Maybe there was good in everyone. Maybe all you had to do was look hard enough for it.
I got us more drinks and, as he talked, I studied him some more. He was absolutely filthy. Dirt under his fingernails, his skin ingrained with dust from building sites and smeared with grease from his truck. Such a contrast to smooth, debonair, perfect-in-every-detail Cristian … Such a horny contrast.
As the evening wore on and my fridge emptied of beers it became easier and easier to think that everyone was capable of change and it became harder and harder to see why he and I had split up in the first place.
A little friendly cuddle, just for old times’ sake, wouldn’t do anyone any harm. Would it?
10 cm (and pushing)
‘I can see the top of its head,’ junior-trainee-student apprentice midwife squeals from somewhere between my legs. ‘I can see the top of its head! I’d better go get Maureen.’
As she flees from the room I turn to Suzie, who’s standing at my shoulder and isn’t fleeing anywhere on account of the fact that I’m gripping her hand very, very tightly. ‘Who’s Maureen?’ I ask her in a weak voice, because what little remains of my strength is going into gripping her hand.
‘Her boss, I think,’ she replies. ‘You know, the proper midwife.’
I’m still on my knees on the bed, facing the wall. I feel as if I’ve been set in cement, paralysed by fear and pain. This must be the most agony anyone in the whole world has ever –
‘Arrgghhh!’ I scream for the millionth time.
‘That’s it, Dayna, just one more push,’ a new voice urges from behind me. Must be Midwife Maureen, refreshed from the world’s longest tea break. ‘You’re almost there. We can see the head, you know.’
‘I can’t push … I just … can’t … It hurts … It really … really hurts,’ I say, my voice quavering just with the effort of talking.
‘Well, I can’t do it for you,’ Midwife Maureen tells me in a voice I haven’t heard since I was a schoolgirl. ‘Only you can do this and you have to push!’
Where the hell is Emily? Haven’t heard a squeak from her for hours.
Then, also from somewhere behind, ‘He’s here!’ Emily screams. Where did she come from? I can’t turn to look at her. Haven’t … got … strength.
‘Who’s here?’ Suzie asks on my behalf.
‘He is. He just phoned. His train’s just got into Euston. He’ll be here in half an hour.’
Half an hour? I’ll be dead in half an hour.
No. 6 again (with Nos. 1, 2 & 5 thrown in)
It was Wednesday morning and, no, I still hadn’t bottled it. I’d managed to get through two full days since Sunday without suffering another crisis. Amazing what I could do when I put my mind to it. Now I had just three days left as Dayna Harris. That was cool. Dayna Antonescu had a wonderfully exotic ring about it whenever I tried it out in front of the mirror, with or without the Romanian accent.
I’d stayed at Cristian’s on Tuesday night and after breakfast I decided to go jogging. Yes, jogging. It was my new thing. Well, it was my new thing starting that morning. I’d weighed myself on Cristian’s very expensive (and therefore very accurate) bathroom scales and I’d got the shock of my life – I always weighed a lot less on the cheapo Argos scales back at my flat. In just three days I was going to have to squeeze into a very expensive, very fitted, wedding dress. Somehow, four pounds would have to disappear and I knew that starvation alone wouldn’t do it. So jogging it was. No problem. Everyone in Primrose Hill jogged. I’d probably bump into Kate Moss out there. I wondered if she looked as good as I did in a polyester tracksuit.
I jogged a couple of circuits of Cristian’s spacious living room just to warm up, then headed down the stairs and out of the door. So far, so good. I was on the pavement and only mildly out of breath.
A few hundred yards later and I was clinging to the iron railings that bordered the hill. My thighs were burning, my feet were throbbing and my lungs were groaning with the impossible effort of sucking in oxygen. Honestly, how do people run and breathe at the same time? It’s a mystery, it really is. As I tried to recover I watched a pair of professional joggers glide past me on £500 trainers and sail through a gate into the park. They carried on up the hill without slowing. Jesus, I was not going to run up that. It was the first time I’d properly looked at Primrose Hill since I’d been staying at Cristian’s and, my God, it was steep – virtually sheer, more Primrose Mountain. That was it, I decided. As soon as I’d got my breath back, I was going to jog (slowly) back to the flat.
My mobile rang then. I checked the display: Simon. I hadn’t heard from him in ages. I put the phone to my ear. ‘Hi, Simon,’ I said.
‘You sound knackered,’ he said, picking up the exhaustion in my voice like the fitness pro he was. ‘You haven’t been running, have you?’
‘No … Well, just for the bus.’
I’d never live it down if Mr Fitness knew his slightly lardy ex was actually trying to jog.
‘Bet you missed it,’ he said. ‘You need to get in shape, girl. Anyway, you’ll never guess where I am.’
‘I have no idea. Where are you?’
‘Lympstone,’ he announced proudly. ‘You know, for my PRMC,’ he repeated when I didn’t reply. ‘I’ve just done it, Dayna. I passed! I’m a Royal Marine, baby! Well, I will be if I make it through thirty-two weeks’ basic. That’s the longest infantry training programme in the world, you know.’
Yes, I knew, because it was all coming back to me now. The countless hours spent listening to Simon spout Marine facts, the endless form-filling and hand-holding in the futile attempt to get him to a place called Lympstone. But now he was actually there and he was a Marine – potentially.
‘That’s amazing,’ I gushed, finally getting my breath back. ‘Well done! You never told me you were going.’
‘I never told anyone. I’ve chickened out of it so many times before that I thought I’d do it on the quiet this time. Didn’t want to make a prat of myself again.’
‘Well, you haven’t. You’ve done it! I’m really proud of you, Simon.’
‘Thanks. It’s all down to you, you know.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘Well, I couldn’t fill in the forms by myself, could I? And you’ve always been the one that’s stuck by me, you know, encouraged me and stuff.’
My God, that was just about the sweetest thing Simon had ever said to me. I was gobsmacked.
‘Anyway, I’ll be back in London this afternoon,’ he went on. ‘We should go out and celebrate. I’ll pick you up at yours and we’ll –’
‘I’m not sure I can, Simon. I’ve got tons to do.’
‘Like what?’ he asked, sounding put out.
‘Nothing much. I’m just getting married on Saturday, that’s all.’
‘Oh yeah, Mr and Mrs Gel Head.’
‘Simon!’
‘Sorry. Anyway, that’s Saturday. I’m talking about tonight.’
‘I’d love to go out, but I’ve still got a lot to get organised. I’ve got to look at the floral arrangements and sort out the seating plan with the caterer and –’
‘That sounds like a load of laughs, but if you’d rather do that than go out for a nice Chinese, fine.’
‘Why don’t you take someone else?’
‘Like who?’
‘You’ve usually got a pretty wide selection.’
‘I’m clean, remember?
That’s another thing that’s down to you. That, er, talking to you gave me totally sorted me out on that front. No women meant I could focus one hundred per cent on the training, and that’s the only reason I got through the PRMC. See, it’s all thanks to you so you’ve got to come out with me.’
That was just about the second sweetest thing Simon had ever said to me. I thought about it for a moment. I was sure Cristian wouldn’t mind sorting out the seating plan on his own, and I’d made up the bit about floral arrangements. And if I only picked at my Chinese, I was certain I could still lose four pounds by Saturday.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘pick me up at eight.’
Wow, I thought as I pocketed my phone, wasn’t I amazing? Look at my powers of transformation. I’d managed to turn a rampant shagaholic into a total celibate and I’d transformed Archie from Hitler’s best buddy into someone basically no worse than any other Daily Mail reader. I’d even turned myself from a gibbering commitment-phobic into London’s most eager bride-to-be. Wow!
I felt so good I decided to jog again. No, not up Primrose Mountain, but along the path that ran alongside the park. I set off at a brisk (for me) pace and only slowed down to look at the activity on the other side of the railings. There were lighting and catering trucks, camera equipment and people everywhere. What was going on? Maybe Kate Moss took a film crew with her when she jogged. Flash cow.
I picked up speed again, but stopped in my tracks when I heard ‘Dayna!’ yelled across a wide stretch of park. I turned and looked at the figure running towards me. He was wearing a fleece with the hood up and I didn’t recognise him until he’d got quite close.
‘Chris!’ I whooped, which caused an immediate attack of phlegmy coughing. God, I’d only jogged a few hundred yards and I was sounding like a sixty-a-day smoker.
‘You all right?’ Chris asked as he reached the railings.
‘Yes … fine … Just … you know … feeling … the … burn,’ I rasped.
‘Yeah, I’ve heard about that,’ he said. ‘Anyway, great to see you. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I spotted you. I knew it was you straight away. Something about the way you were running. You look really, really … graceful.’