‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, warily.
All at once, and without even an apology, she began pouring out the whole saga since she had left his flat, from Amy’s missed phone calls and pre-term labour, to Hugo’s recent revelations.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘And there I was, hoping you were enjoying a good night’s sleep. Look, why don’t I call a cab and meet you at the hospital, right now? I know there’s nothing much I can do to help, but at least you wouldn’t feel so alone.’
His kindness and his steady voice instantly made her feel less stricken. ‘Felix, I wouldn’t dream of putting you to all that trouble and, anyway, there’d be no point, because I have to get back to Amy pretty soon. But it’s sweet of you to offer. In fact, I’m feeling better already, just offloading some of the stress.’
‘Well, from what you’ve said, it’s obvious you’re doing a fantastic job. You stick in there, Maria, and try to focus on Amy’s labour rather than worry over Hugo. I know that’s easier said than done, but the birth of the baby is the most important thing – and more than enough to occupy your mind. If you start fretting about the court case, too, you’ll dissipate your energies. In any case, Hugo must have professional indemnity insurance, so—’
‘Yes, but if the insurers smell a whiff of fraud, they’ll drop him at a stroke. In fact, they may have done so already, for all I know. Amy will be devastated if he loses his job and the house. And, as for his reputation, it’ll be totally destroyed, if it should ever come to light he took a bribe.’
‘Maria, the culture’s entirely different over there. I once knew a chap who’d worked in Dubai and he said money changes hands as a matter of course and it’s not really seen as bribery; more a way of oiling the wheels. Besides, if everyone else is doing it, I guess you have to join in, to get anywhere in business.’
Although she couldn’t agree, she kept her scruples to herself. ‘Well,’ she said, wearily, ‘whatever else, it puts the final kibosh on any thought of my moving to Cornwall. Apart from all the other issues, like Alice and Felicia, I couldn’t possibly leave poor Amy in this mess.’
‘Maria, it’s not your responsibility. Other people manage without four-storey houses and mega-salaries. I’ve told you, over and over, your life shouldn’t be one long sacrifice. You’re there for Amy now, and you’ll be with her for the next six months but, after that, it’s time you made a fundamental change of direction.’
‘To be honest, I can barely think at all, with all this going on.’
‘That’s hardly surprising but, as I said, you’re doing bloody well, and my advice is concentrate on Amy and leave everything else till later, when you’ll feel less tired and stressed. And, anyway, things may turn out OK in the end. You told me how super-crafty Hugo’s lawyers are and, of course, a big prestigious firm like his would obviously use the best ones in the field. So they may well swing things in his favour.’
‘Yes, but once they realize what he’s done, they’ll refuse to defend him and make him use his own lawyer, which could cost him literally thousands.’
‘Look, don’t assume the worst. He’s bound to appoint someone equally astute, and a really ingenious legal man can convince a judge that black’s white, or vice versa.’
Again, she found such deviousness distasteful, yet Felix’s own certainty did offer a grain of hope. ‘Oh, Felix, I’m just so glad you’re there! Who else could I ring at this ungodly hour without them complaining about the fact I woke them up?’
‘Maria, I love you – don’t forget that – so I want to help in any way I can. And I shan’t go back to bed, then you’ll know I’m here if you need me.’
‘I can’t tell you what that means, darling. To be perfectly frank, I was feeling close to the edge.’
‘Well, phone me any time – you promise?’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t – not with Amy so close to giving birth. In fact, I really ought to get back to her.’
‘OK, fine. But ring me once the baby’s born and you feel you’re free to leave. I presume Amy will need to rest then, and you will, too, by the sounds of it. So come over here and I’ll put you to bed – and I mean bed to sleep – nothing else! And, for heaven’s sake, don’t struggle here on the tube. Take a taxi and I’ll pay the cabbie when you turn up at my door.’
Generous, thoughtful, loving, caring – even Felicia couldn’t deny his sterling qualities. And, although he had bad ones, too, wasn’t that true of most of humanity? Suddenly, in the gloom of the basement, it no longer seemed to matter what he had or hadn’t done to Alice and Felicia. Even if all his daughter’s accusations turned out to be true, they belonged to the past, whereas now, in the present, he had transformed her mood; offered total support and proved himself a tower of strength, to use Dr Herbert’s phrase.
Even her stomach had calmed down and she knew Felix would advise her to make sure she ate and drank, rather than go back parched and starving to the ward. So she settled for one ice-cream – not three – and a bottle of orange juice. Returning to her seat, she deliberately relished the tastes: the tang of the juice citrusy and sharp against the smooth, bland creaminess of Madagascar Vanilla. As Felix continually said, why shouldn’t she have pleasures; indeed, even a new life? In Cornwall, they’d bought Mr Whippys; nibbling each other’s chocolate flakes off the top of the cones, and kissing between each mouthful, like besotted young lovers. How blithely normal those days seemed now – eating, talking, lazing, sketching – compared with this present Limbo of uncertainty and pain.
Once she’d finished her mini-feast, she made her way to the ground floor, deciding to grab a few lungfuls of fresh air to dissipate the stuffy, frazzled feeling in her head. It was now fully light outside, although the Fulham Road was uncharacteristically quiet; just a couple of nurses coming into the hospital and a lone bus rumbling past. It struck her, all at once, that whatever horrors Amy and Hugo were facing, the everyday world was still functioning as usual: buses running to time; policemen on the beat; milk and newspapers soon to be delivered; babies being delivered. She had to hold on to that blessed sense of order; to believe and hope that Amy and even Hugo – and, yes, Alice and Felicia, too – and she herself, of course, would somehow come through all the problems.
Maybe she was being too censorious about her son-in-law. If everyone took bribes in Dubai, was it really so heinous for him to have pocketed the odd sweetener or two? Her own strict sense of right and wrong was still revolted by that notion, but perhaps, as Felix always claimed, it was only Hanna’s standards she obstinately upheld, rather than working out her individual views on questions of morality.
Before returning to her daughter, she glanced up at the sky, which was now suffused with glowing pink and blazing gold. The fervour of the sunrise, reflected off windows and buildings, constituted a striking contrast to the murky darkness last time she’d looked out. And it brought to mind the brilliant sunset they had all watched at George’s place, and her deep contentment at being in her element. Perhaps the glittering prize of Cornwall might actually be feasible once more, if she made an effort to think in Felix’s terms, rather than those of her mother, or of a restrictive Church stressing only self-denial. And she also had to emulate his optimism about the outcome of the court case, rather than instantly assuming it could result only in disgrace and ruin. She must stop being so pessimistic and try to see the very radiance of the sky as a hopeful portent that, despite Felicia’s revelations, despite the appalling crisis in Dubai, the future could be similarly bright.
Chapter 34
‘Mum, I’m going to die!’
Amy’s voice did sound so weak and wavering, Maria feared she had reached the limits of her energy and strength. ‘Not long to go now, darling,’ she said, unsure if that were true. The ordeal had lasted fourteen hours already, and she couldn’t help recalling gruesome tales of forty-eight-hour labours. Yet the only kind of time that really seemed to register was the frequency and length of the contractions.
‘Please take me
home. I want to go home.’
Maria held the glass of water to her lips. (Even Lucozade and juices now made her daughter nauseous.) ‘You’ll be going home with your baby, in just a day or two.’ Despite her words, she was beginning to doubt that there would be a positive outcome. Just last week, a headline in one of the tabloids had trumpeted the fact that one in every hundred-or-so babies died at, or soon after, birth. And, more horrific still, one woman died in pregnancy or childbirth every single week, in the UK.
She got up to refill the glass, as a pretext for exchanging a word with Linda, who was washing her hands at the basin. ‘Is she going to be all right?’ she whispered.
Linda nodded. ‘She’s in what we call the transitional stage, which can be very challenging. The hormones are changing, you see, and that can make a woman begin to doubt herself, or even feel like giving up entirely.’
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Just continue what you’re doing – making sure she’s not dehydrated and sponging her down with a nice cold flannel.’
Amy began to gasp and struggle through yet another contraction; her lips twisted into a silent howl; her body bucking and writhing. Linda returned to the bed, to help her with the breathing drill, while Maria laid the flannel against her daughter’s forehead, first pushing back the sweaty strands of hair plastering her face.
‘My back’s agony,’ Amy moaned, once the contraction had dwindled.
Linda moved her onto her left side, readjusted the straps, and showed Maria how to massage her back.
‘Does that help at all?’ Maria asked, worried she might be making things worse still. Suddenly, she recalled their earlier laugh about the rolling pin, but any world where it was still possible to laugh had long since disappeared.
‘Yes, Mum, thanks. Your hands feel wonderfully cool.’
The relief was short-lived, however, since another contraction followed within a couple of minutes and, again, Amy tensed and shuddered, breathing like an asthmatic, despite the midwife’s instructions. Even after all this time, she hadn’t mastered the techniques, and the whole room seemed filled with her pain: an unstoppable, jangling, merciless pain – stabbing, searing, insistent.
‘I’ve told you,’ Amy panted, in the ever briefer lull between contractions, ‘I can’t take any more.’
Maria, too, had almost reached the limit of what she could endure, although with far less cause than her daughter.
‘Just hang in there, my love. You’re doing really well and, anyway—’ Linda’s next words were lost in Amy’s cries, which seemed to rend the room apart.
Maria experienced each one as a shrill reproach, a jarring accusation. What use was any mother if she couldn’t kiss a daughter better; assuage her agony? She got up again, to run her hands under the cold tap, so they would remain suitably cool for the back massage.
‘Don’t go, Mum!’ Amy cried. ‘I can’t do this without you.’
Maria darted back to the bed and clasped her daughter’s hand. ‘It’s all right. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘But you seem so far away. I feel cut off from everyone, like I’m in a different world.’
Maria looked directly into her daughter’s eyes; hoping a concerned and loving gaze might make her feel less alone. There was so little she could do – mere crumbs and grains of comfort, when bushelsful were needed. Amy’s eyes were the same black-molasses shade as Hanna’s and her own: Radványi eyes, with a touch of Hungarian gypsy about them. Would the baby inherit them, too, or be more like Hugo, with fairer, English colouring? This child was a complete unknown, as yet. Girl or boy? Talbot or Radványi? Highly strung or placid? Clever or just average? Healthy or deformed?
Would there even be a baby?
‘Amy, you’re not alone,’ Linda insisted, wheeling over the sphygmanometer, so she could check her blood pressure again. ‘We’re here and helping you. And soon you’ll deliver your beautiful baby.’
‘I don’t want a baby. I don’t give a fuck about it!’
Maria hid her sense of shock. Already, she was troublingly aware of the infant’s struggle to be born; the walls of the uterus compressing it and squeezing it; closing tighter, tighter; soon to expel it into an unfathomable and glaring world. Would it be too small to cope; its lungs too undeveloped to take that first, all-important breath?
Amy’s voice cut through her anxious thoughts. ‘I’d rather top myself than go through any more of this.’
Linda stayed completely calm. ‘Try and remember what I told you and just take one contraction at a time.’
‘I can’t! They’re coming so fast.’
‘Yes, but you still have the chance to relax between each one. Use the slower, rhythmic breathing I showed you earlier. That’s better! Good. Much better.’
All at once, Amy began to shake; her legs trembling and twitching, as if she had lost control of them. Maria did her best to massage them, worried by her daughter’s feverish heat. How could someone be both burning hot and shivering?
‘Don’t worry,’ Linda told them. ‘It’s perfectly normal to tremble a bit, at this stage. It’s just a temporary thing, due to those hormonal changes I mentioned.’
‘Christ!’ Amy gasped, suddenly clutching Linda’s arm. ‘I feel I want to push.’
‘Resist the urge, please, just for a moment. I need to check you’re fully dilated.’
Maria went to stand by the window, as she had done for each internal examination, knowing Amy would hate to be seen with her legs spread wide apart – a position she regarded as blatant and undignified. Her daughter’s howls of pain sounded even louder as she was rolled onto her back again, like a wounded creature trying to struggle free of a trap.
‘My back’s breaking in this position.’
‘Breathe, Amy, as I told you,’ Linda urged.
‘I can’t. Your hands feel like broken glass inside me.’
‘I’m almost done, my love, and, yes, you’re ready to push, which means now you can play a more active part in the birth. But I’d like you to wait till you feel the next urge to push. So hold on just a sec, OK?’
As Maria resumed her role as birth partner, she felt her chest tighten with a strange mix of fear and excitement. Would she see her grandchild soon, or would there be some tragedy, even at this late stage?
‘You may find pushing easier than just lying passive and putting up with the pain,’ Linda said, moving Amy back onto her side. ‘But it’s very important that you follow my instructions. When you feel you want to push, bear down hard, as if you’re opening your bowels.’
Amy instantly tensed. ‘But suppose I … soil the bed?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Nobody will know.’
‘I’ll know – and so will you.’
‘I’m not bothered, I assure you.’ Linda smiled. ‘I’ve seen it all before – poo, wee, blood, vomit. They’re simply part of our job.’
‘For me, they’re quite repellent.’
‘Amy …’ Linda’s voice was firmer now. ‘You must do what I say. It’s crucial that you work with me, not against me. And I want you to do what your body tells you, instead of fighting it, so, if you feel the urge to push, then give it all you’ve got.’
Amy recoiled, however; clenching her fists and screwing up her eyes in an effort not to push.
‘Amy, listen to me, please. When the next contraction starts, take a few deep breaths and, as it peaks, take another breath and push as hard as you can. Really go for it, OK?’
‘I can’t. I don’t want to push.’
‘You just have to help yourself, darling,’ Maria chimed in, feeling increasingly anxious at Amy’s refusal to co-operate. ‘And help the baby, too, of course. Remember, every push brings you nearer to the birth. Then all this pain and effort will have been worth it.’
‘Go away,’ Amy shouted. ‘Fuck off, both of you!’
Amy continued to swear and struggle, now losing the last vestige of control and screeching so loudly Maria feared that ever
yone in the ward must be flinching at the uproar. Linda went over to the door, put her head out and called to someone in the corridor to fetch Ruth, the senior midwife now on duty. While waiting for her colleague to come, she valiantly continued giving Amy advice, obviously still hoping to overrule her objections. ‘Don’t push with your upper body, but focus on a point just below the navel. And try to relax your face.’
Considering Amy’s taut, resistant state, the word ‘relax’ seemed wildly inappropriate – although it was unlikely that she’d heard it, since she was still yelling and screaming and trying to throw herself about. Just as Maria was wondering if the baby might be affected by such extremes of behaviour, there was a knock on the door, heralding Ruth’s arrival: an older, grey-haired midwife with a definite air of authority. Within seconds, she had taken charge, and was gloved and in position.
‘Amy,’ she said, sternly, raising her voice above the yowls of pain, ‘you’re not helping yourself or your baby by carrying on like this, so will you kindly calm down? We need you to co-operate, because if you don’t make an effort and push this baby out, it may become distressed. So I expect you to do exactly what I tell you. Is that absolutely clear?’
Her imperious tone was little short of miraculous. It was as if Amy had met her match in this determined, no-nonsense woman intent on taking control, as Amy herself insisted on doing in most aspects of her own work.
Fortunately, Ruth could praise as well as reprimand. ‘Well done, Amy! That’s excellent. You see, calmness and control work better than blind panic, don’t they? And, now the contraction’s over, take the chance of a brief rest. Breathe very slowly, and let go all the tension from your groin and legs. Perfect! OK, now push again, and fix your whole attention on your breathing.’
Amy’s only reply was a series of effortful grunts. Presumably no longer able to speak – or scream – she was, at last, co-operating.
An Enormous Yes Page 37