The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

  Not long to go before she met the baby. Anna already knew the child intimately; the togetherness is absolute when you share a body. I can’t wait to see what you look like, she told her bump as she reached for the platter with the ivy pattern.

  Almost there. The house was warm, the table was laid, Yeti was wearing a red ruff edged with white fake fur. Presents sat, wrapped, beneath the tree Sam had put up for her. All was as it should be.

  Almost.

  There was a lull in the action. So much turkey had been eaten that Storm had burst into tears at the word ‘afters’. The visitors were dispersed around the house, all recovering from the Christmas Lunch Club.

  ‘Now you all know how I feel every day.’ Anna stepped over outstretched legs, carrying a tray of empties from the sitting room back to the kitchen.

  Sheba popped out to the hall. She wore a traditional headdress, a twisted affair of printed cotton that made her neck look slender and long. ‘Let me,’ she said, reaching for the tray.

  ‘Absolutely not. You’re a guest, Sheba, and it’s my turn to look after you.’

  A week ago, Josh and Dinkie had moved into a halfway house, a small rented maisonette. A cat had been procured. Sheba, working her notice at Sunville, had appeared most evenings, helping Dinkie settle in.

  ‘Sheba’s amazing,’ Josh had told Anna. ‘She and Dinkie have a telepathic thing going on. They, like, love each other.’

  I was wrong about Sheba. Anna was happy to make it up to the woman, pamper her. She wasn’t easy to pamper; ‘Seriously, Sheba, sit down,’ had been heard a dozen times that afternoon.

  Perhaps it was because Anna was so very tired, or because being hostess strips away the glamour of an occasion, but there seemed to be very little that was magical about Christmas this year.

  Even with Paloma to spoil and cuddle, even with Neil and Santi sharing the load, with Maeve bright-eyed again after mourning Paul, with Dinkie and Sheba and Josh, there were still personnel to miss.

  Sam had taken Isabel skiing. Rosy-cheeked in the snow, goggles pushed back, they’d woken her with a bawdy carol via Skype.

  ‘How’s your sore throat?’ Anna had indulgently expected a barrage of symptoms, but Sam had answered, ‘What sore throat?’ The love of a good woman had cured his hypochondria.

  They were all moving on. All being pulled into their futures. Distances were opening up, and in a couple of cases, doors had slammed. If Carly was ever going to get in touch, then the season of goodwill was the ideal opportunity. And Luca . . .

  ‘I asked him to come.’ Josh had been shamefaced, confessing over the gravy.

  ‘Oh. And . . .?’ Anna attempted coolness; I can blame my pink face on the steam from the carrots.

  ‘He’s spending the day with his mum.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I told him you want him back.’

  ‘You did what, Josh?’ Anna thought she’d been enigmatic. Apparently, she’d been transparent. ‘Why? What good can that do, other than to make me look like a schmuck?’

  ‘You can’t look like a schmuck to the people who love you.’

  ‘Exactly. If Luca loved me, he’d be here. And he’s not, therefore . . .’ Anna didn’t like to dwell on whether or not Luca had been serious about her before she stomped her feet and pulled down their Wendy house. ‘We could hardly rekindle an affair with me like this.’ She pointed down at the vast region south of her head. ‘If he was the father, it’d be different.’

  ‘I think he should be here.’ Josh’s eyes had misted over. ‘Love doesn’t happen every day. We should take care of it when it shows its face.’

  ‘I know about Dinkie’s fall.’ Anna had chosen that moment to mark her brother’s card. ‘Don’t keep that sort of thing from me, Josh.’

  ‘Who told—’ Josh realised. ‘Sheba.’

  ‘She did the right thing. Sheba doesn’t want to be stuck in the middle of family fibs.’

  Josh had nodded. ‘I didn’t want you to worry. It wasn’t a bad fall.’

  ‘Worry’s my middle name. Every fall is potentially dangerous at Dinkie’s time of life. Look, I know I’ve been overprotective of you in the past. I get it. You’re not a kid any more. But don’t shut me out.’

  Now, the revellers came back to life, one by one. Like a festive zombie apocalypse, they staggered to their feet, appetites magically renewed.

  Waving away offers of help, Anna found a sprig of holly for the Christmas pudding as she put the kettle on to boil, as she looked out the brandy butter, as she fetched plates, as she suddenly felt a lightning bolt zip through her core.

  Shocked, she clutched the edge of the sink.

  Storm jumped back. ‘Urgh, you’ve wet yourself, Auntie Anna!’

  He was disgusted. Anna was disoriented. ‘Is that my waters breaking?’ She harboured a hope that somebody would explain it away. Nobody did.

  ‘Jesus, right, bloody hell, shit shit shit.’ Maeve went in all directions at once. ‘Where’s your hospital bag?’

  ‘It’s not packed.’ Anna clung on to the sink. She’d been so sure. ‘Not now, this can’t be happening now.’ Her body disagreed. It knew something was coming, and wouldn’t let her move.

  As Yeti, sensitive to Anna’s feelings, began to whine, Neil and Santi put their arms around Anna. Maeve opened and shut kitchen drawers.

  ‘Car keys, car keys,’ she muttered.

  ‘You can’t drive, Maeve,’ said Josh. ‘You’ve had tons of wine.’

  ‘I’m her part birthner! I mean, her birth partner.’ Maeve scratched her head. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said, and dropped like a felled oak to the sofa.

  ‘We came by Uber so we could drink,’ said Neil.

  ‘And we did drink,’ said Santi.

  ‘I’ll take you, if you want me to, Sis.’ Josh looked so scared that Anna almost laughed.

  ‘No, darling, this isn’t a job for yoooooooooooou.’ Something ripped through her, then left. Her knees buckled and she was helped to a chair.

  Sheba offered to take her, but she could only drive manual cars and Anna’s was automatic.

  ‘I know.’ Neil plucked Paloma off the floor. ‘I’ll call an Uber minibus and we’ll all come with you.’

  ‘No, please, stay and enjoy the ooooooooh.’ Anna was hot with pain. She didn’t know if she was up to this. Panic swarmed through her. Sweat stood out on her forehead. ‘I’m scared,’ she said.

  ‘We’re all with you,’ said Santi, as behind them Neil could be heard yelling into a phone, ‘Forty minutes’ waiting time?’

  Christmas Day isn’t the best time to call a cab.

  ‘I don’t want aaaaaargh.’ Anna was crushed again. White lights behind her eyes. She didn’t want them all to go to hospital with her. She didn’t want to go to hospital at all. She wanted to rewind the past forty weeks and ignore Dylan. She wanted life to be dull again. This technicolor suffering was too much.

  Shuffling together, the entire family moved as one towards the front door. Anna, at their centre, was a bulky queen bee, her fringe plastered to her forehead, her feet wringing wet. She felt both untethered and claustrophobic; hot and cold and heading for something that promised to get much worse before it got better.

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘The cab!’ said many voices at once. The shuffling sped up. The door was flung open. Luca stood on the step.

  ‘It’s happening!’ Neil shouted in his face.

  ‘The baby!’ shouted Josh.

  Anna, crucified on her family, her enormous stomach leading the way, locked eyes with Luca. He was the only calm person present. A still point in the whirling chaos of her house.

  Rescue me, she begged mutely.

  He rescued her.

  Luca reached out and extricated her from her gaggle of helpers. ‘My car’s here,’ he said. His voice was soothing. As if he chauffeured women in labour all the time. ‘I’ve got you, Anna.’

  ‘Nobody else,’ she managed to whisper.

  ‘Folks, my back seat’
s full of stuff. I’ll take her to hospital and call you, OK?’

  Dinkie emerged from the scrum. ‘Look after her!’

  ‘I promise.’ Luca lowered Anna into the passenger seat. The belt wouldn’t reach over her tummy. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Only when the contractions come.’ Anna lived in fear of them. She was breathless with it.

  Luca drove steadily through empty streets.

  ‘Your hair’s grown,’ said Anna, in one of the lovely valleys between crests of agony.

  ‘You’ve put on weight.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ smiled Anna. She crawled backwards up the seat as a wave hit. ‘I’m so frightened,’ she whispered.

  ‘No need. Happens every day.’ Luca put his foot down. The car sped up. ‘Nearly there.’

  ‘Why are you here, Luca?’

  ‘I was invited.’

  ‘You were going to your mother’s, I heard.’

  ‘I ate lunch with her. Family turned up.’

  ‘I can’t quite believe this is happening.’

  ‘You’re not the only one, Anna. I only came round to give you a Christmas card.’

  Her laugh segued into a howl. Delirious, she wondered if she was hallucinating. Maybe I’m flirting with an elderly ambulance driver. ‘I’m glad,’ she panted, ‘you’re here.’

  She leaned over and clutched his arm. She held on until he pulled up like a bank robber outside the hospital.

  Luca dealt with the reception staff. Smiled encouragingly as she was folded into a wheelchair. Stood waving as a hospital porter turned her expertly and began to roll her away down a long dishwater-coloured corridor.

  The nurse walking beside her turned. ‘Aren’t you coming with us, Daddy?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not—’

  Anna turned. Her face was hot, red and helpless.

  ‘Yes, I’m coming.’ Luca caught up with them and took Anna’s hand.

  Life looks different flat on your back.

  Anna saw circular lights, as if this was an elaborate photo shoot. She saw masked faces. The midwife’s clever gaze. The anaesthetist’s glasses. Luca’s anxious eyes.

  ‘OK, Anna, this is your first, oh hang on, no.’ The midwife scanned her clipboard. ‘Your second baby. Bit of a gap, eh?’

  Anna nodded. Words had slipped away, along with her sense of time or place. She held Luca’s eyes. Him, she recognised. He made sense in a world gone mad with pain.

  ‘Hold on a mo’.’ The midwife disappeared.

  Anna entertained dayglo fantasies of twins, breech births, record-breaking birth weight.

  ‘It’s all OK,’ said Luca, manfully allowing her to grip his hand as another contraction rolled over her like a lorry.

  A man, also masked, bent over her most private parts. ‘Yes, absolutely,’ he said, and began to give orders.

  The room went up a gear. Professionals doing their thing. Anna found another level of panic to descend to. ‘Is something wrong? Please, is something wrong?’

  ‘We need to get Baby out,’ said the midwife, busy amassing mysterious items on a steel tray.

  ‘Why?’ Anna wrung Luca’s hand. She was the focus of the room yet nobody made eye contact. ‘Luca, why, why?’

  ‘Why a C-section?’ He repeated her question, but louder, with force.

  An explanation didn’t help. Anna had suffered a prolapse of the umbilical cord.

  ‘Is that dangerous?’ she squeaked.

  ‘It means the cord has popped out ahead of Baby.’ The midwife scribbled something on a clipboard. ‘The cord is how Baby gets oxygen, so we have to act fast.’

  ‘Oh no, oh no.’ Anna heard somebody – Me, apparently – mouth those words over and over. Memories she’d held at bay, of being in strangers’ hands, of losing control of her body, of white-hot suffering, crashed over her.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said the midwife, with the calm of an expert in her element. ‘Mr Dooley here has delivered more babies by caesarean than you or I have had hot dinners.’

  Bonnie’s birth had been slow, arduous, with troughs and highs. This was a sprint. Anna was rolled onto her side, and a cold hard sensation began in her lower back. As if somebody was pressing with all their might.

  ‘Epidural,’ said the midwife briskly.

  ‘Man, the size of that needle,’ gasped Luca.

  Anna held his hand in her fist. He seemed to be urging strength into her, even though his face kept changing colour behind the mask, as blood ran into then rushed out of it. A couple of times he swayed. His blinks became a language. She chose to believe they were saying this would all be over soon. There’d be no oxygen deprivation. She’d have a healthy baby in her arms.

  A small curtain was strung across Anna’s middle, turning her body into a puppet theatre. A particularly gory puppet theatre; she had no desire to see what was going on beyond the green cotton.

  Neither did Luca, if his posture was anything to go by. He cold-shouldered the action, leaning over Anna.

  ‘I feel cold,’ said Anna.

  ‘That’s good,’ said the midwife. ‘Can you feel this?’

  Anna could indeed feel the touch on her toes. A minute ticked by. All the medical staff in the room were powered down, on standby.

  ‘How about now?’

  ‘I can feel it.’

  That was the wrong answer. Twice more Anna was rolled like a rug. Twice more she felt the bite of the needle.

  Luca seemed to be suffering with her. She had time to feel for him. ‘One second you’re knocking on my front door with a Christmas card,’ gulped Anna, wondering how awful she must look with her hair smarmed back and her mascara sweated off. ‘The next you’re in a delivery room witnessing the miracle of birth.’

  ‘Usually at this time on Christmas Day I’m watching an old movie with a Baileys in my hand.’

  Anna realised that the pain was absent. She didn’t own her body any more, but at least it wasn’t hurting. ‘I can’t imagine you with a Baileys.’

  ‘That bit wasn’t true.’

  ‘Really, though, I’m sorry.’ Anna was woozy. She had to remind herself where she was. Luca’s presence didn’t stop being surprising. She’d trapped him into this high-drama event.

  He was not immune, it seemed, to the emotion of the moment. Luca’s eyes crinkled above the white of the mask. ‘Anna, you’re making a new life. You clever, clever girl.’

  ‘It was easy,’ smiled Anna. God, I love you, she thought. Maybe, after all, he could be an uncle for the little Piper about to make an entrance. That wasn’t quite enough, but it would keep him near.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Luca asked over the curtain. ‘The oxygen situation . . .?’

  ‘We’re waiting for Ms Piper to numb up.’ The consultant implied the delay was Anna’s fault.

  ‘Can you feel that?’ asked the midwife.

  Anna was no longer a whole person. From the chest down she was vapour. ‘No!’ She was triumphant. This was all she could do for her baby right now – be numb. But I did it!

  Everybody powered up. Purposeful. Bustling.

  ‘Keep Mummy amused.’ It was an order, the way the midwife said it.

  Luca bent down. ‘This is it,’ he said. Anna felt him tremble.

  A whirring noise suggested a blade of some sort.

  Anna hung on harder. ‘Amuse me, you bastard, amuse me!’

  ‘I love you,’ said Luca. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Am I hallucinating?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Josh invited me to Christmas Lunch, said you missed me, and I thought “no way”. I didn’t want the fuss. The trouble. The complication. But I woke up this morning and realised all I want for Christmas is fuss and trouble and complication.’

  ‘Luca, you don’t have to say this stuff.’ The bottom half of Anna, if it still existed, was being sawn open. The top half was hearing the man she loved read from a script her heart wouldn’t dare to write.

  There were clattering noises. Mr Dooley said, ‘This may feel a little odd
. As if I’m doing the washing-up in your uterus is how some ladies describe it.’

  Not this lady. Anna couldn’t feel a thing. She heard squelching, muffled slops. ‘Luca,’ she said, salty tears sliding down her face and into her mouth. ‘I love you and I’m sorry and I love you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s me who’s sorry.’ Luca the cool, Luca the self-possessed, was no more. This was Luca the gibbering mess. The delivery room had broken him wide open. ‘I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to miss you any less, Annie.’

  ‘You have a daughter.’ Mr Dooley held up a tiny person. Jazz hands waggling, scrawny legs cycling, this daughter was a pinky blue colour. ‘And she’s perfect.’

  ‘She’s perfect!’ Anna was sobbing. ‘Did you hear, Luca?’

  ‘I heard, I heard.’ Luca’s mask was wet.

  ‘Would Daddy like to cut the cord?’ asked Mr Dooley.

  ‘He’s not—’ said Anna.

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Luca.

  The small hospital room, although decorated like a mid-level B&B, was blissful after the theatre. It was the centre of the universe. Anna and her new baby were on a complicated bed with a guard rail and levers and an alarm pull-cord dangling beside it. The baby was across Anna’s still numb chest. Keeping her arms around the child was exhausting, but it would have taken the proverbial wild horses to persuade her to let go.

  It was evening. The lamplight lit them like an old master, despite the ugly functional furniture. Luca sat by the bed, slumped on a padded chair, staring at the ceiling. ‘Have you thought of a name?’

  ‘I thought of loads, but none of them seem right now she’s here.’ Anna snorted. ‘She! She’s a she.’ She leaned into the swaddled baby. ‘You’re a she.’

  Her daughter looked slightly annoyed. Her eyes barely opened, but when they did they were a muddy blue. She was disgruntled, her movements underwater-slow. She was fascinating. Whether she was ugly or pretty, Anna couldn’t tell; she was emphatically herself.

  ‘My second daughter,’ said Anna.

  ‘Your second chance,’ suggested Luca.

  ‘No. Nothing can be that.’ Bonnie, or Carly, was firmly in her own special niche in Anna’s mind. ‘This girl has no job to do other than be herself.’ Thinking of Carly turned all the fuzzy feelings on their heads. ‘Luca, you should get home. You look shattered.’