Death Actually

by Rosy Fenwicke

  How canhe be so sensible? But he was right, and she was grateful for the jacket as soon as she got out of the car. The night was freezing, and within seconds the cold rain had plastered her hair to her head, almost blinding her with its ferocity. Huddled over in the shelter of the car, her back to the wind, she zipped up the jacket, thankful to be wearing boots and trousers. Looking up she saw Ben beside her, tall and strong in the storm, forming a human windbreak, holding her steady in the mud.

  He took her hand, called, “One, two, three!” and they ran over to the stranded car. He opened the passenger front door and almost pushed Maggie in, tumbling in after her and pulling the door shut.

  “Mum, Ben. Thank God.”

  Nick was crouched low on the floor, wedged between the front and back seats, looking more stressed than Maggie had ever seen him – and that included after the helicopter accident. Kate was lying flat across the back seat, her legs bent up, knees just a little apart, her head propped on Nick’s rolled-up down jacket, grimacing and holding her stomach.

  After a few moments she relaxed, opened her eyes and smiled at them. “I think Storm might be a good name, don’t you, Mum?” she said. “I think it would suit either a boy or a girl.”

  Her smile vanished quickly, replaced by another grimace of pain. Screwing her eyes up tightly, she took deep puffy breaths, all the while squeezing Nick’s hand hard, and, judging by the look on Nick’s face, painfully. They waited in silence until the contraction passed, Maggie and Ben exchanging worried looks.

  Finally Nick was able to extricate his pulped hand from Kate’s grip. Massaging it to restore the blood flow, he explained about the sheep, and the skid that had sent them careering off the road through the fence and into the paddock. He’d tried over and over again to get the car off the log, but the rain-soaked ground had made it impossible. It didn’t help, he added, that Kate was being a typical girl and wouldn’t get out and help between contractions. Kate was too tired to do more than give her brother an upright digital sign, prominent enough to be visible in the gloom.

  Maggie was so relieved to see them both alive and unhurt, it took her a few minutes to register the predicament they were in. Kate, virtually helpless in labour, was wedged into the back seat of a car embedded in the middle of a paddock miles from anywhere, and judging by the frequency of her contractions, was going to have her baby at any minute.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked Ben, only to see him disappearing out the door.

  Another contraction gripped Kate’s belly, this time stronger, and she reached out to her mother and grabbed her hand. Maggie could have wept with the pain, but had no choice other than to hold on and try and get Kate to focus on her breathing.

  Nick smirked. “See, I told you.”

  “You’ll keep,” said Maggie and Kate.

  Ben climbed back into the car with an emergency bag retrieved from the boot. “Nick, can you get over here so I can check Kate?”

  Kate laughed at them as they eased past each other awkwardly. “Car Twister,” she said, before another contraction took her body and she started huffing and puffing.

  Ben put on a glove and waited for the pain to finish before asking Nick to look away. “Six centimetres,” he said. “You’re right in the middle of labour.”

  “No shit,” said Kate.

  “Where are we, do you think?” Ben asked.

  Maggie looked at her watch. “We left the café about an hour and half ago, and then we doubled back for thirty minutes, but slowly, so I guess we’re about an hour from Alexandra. And we have no cell coverage – I just tried again.”

  “I don’t want to worry you,” said Ben, “but we’re going to have to move, and by we, I mean all of us, including you, Kate. When I was getting my bag just now I could hear the river. I’m worried it’s burst its banks and the paddock’s going to flood. I’ve never been a fan of water births.”

  The fear in Kate’s voice was palpable. “Mum.”

  Maggie reached over and gave her an awkward hug. “You concentrate on the contractions, Kate. Leave everything else to us. Ben, can I see you outside for a minute? Nick, Kate needs your hand again.”

  Nick appealed to his mother not to make him do it again, but seeing the look on her face, submitted with a small whimper.

  The rain was still pelting down, and once out of the car, Maggie too could hear the sound of the river close by. Ben flicked his torch towards the willows, but it was too dark to see anything definite. They’d have to trust their suspicions and move to higher ground before it was too late.

  “Maggie, listen to me,” said Ben. “As soon as this contraction is over, I want you to wrap Kate in the warmest clothes we have, and when she’s ready, you and Nick walk her up to the hearse. We can’t risk bringing it closer and getting bogged down too. I’ll go and turn on the heating and get it set up. Nick can drive carefully back to the road and you and I will look after her in the back. Got it?”

  Maggie, suddenly overwhelmed by the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t find her voice.

  “Got it?” repeated Ben more loudly, holding her by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. “Trust me, Maggie. It will be all right. I promise.”

  Maggie heard the certainty in his voice and said, “Got it.”

  Ben disappeared towards the hearse and Maggie went back to the Audi, retrieving one of the overnight bags from the boot.

  Back in the car she took out jackets and jerseys, and she and Nick bundled poor Kate into them, between contractions. They helped her out of the car, and taking an arm each over their shoulders, half carried, half frogmarched her towards the hearse.

  “Did you just pee?” asked Nick, as she pleaded with them to stop.

  “Who knows and who cares?” yelled Kate, her voice whipped away by the wind.

  Kate screamed with the next contraction, shrieking her pain into the wild night. “It’s coming!”

  “What?”

  “Mum, it’s coming. I have to push!”

  Maggie and Nick all but carried Kate the last few metres, guided by the light in the back of the hearse, then lifted her into the warmth. Ben had the engine going and the heater on full blast; the contents of his medical kit were lined up along one side of the back of the car. He’d flattened the cardboard casket that had carried Elka to Dunedin, covering it with an old sleeping bag Maggie always kept in the vehicle in case of emergencies.

  Taking one look at Kate, Ben said, “There’s no time to get to Alexandra. Nick, give Maggie your shirt. Maggie, hold it in front of the heater and when I tell you, take the baby and wrap it up tightly. Cuddle it inside your jacket to keep it warm, but remember the cord so don’t go too far. Kate, I need you to listen to me and do exactly what I say, when I say it. We’re all going to have a baby.”

  And they did.

  Alexander Benjamin Potter was born normally, at nine twenty-one on a dark and stormy night in early spring, in the back of his grandmother’s hearse, in a paddock in central Otago. He weighed 7 lbs 13 ozs, and was full of fight and noise, much to everyone’s relief and joy.

  Mother and baby well.

  Grandmother, uncle and doctor – stressed.

  Elka – in a box on the front seat.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Beside the lake, a baby boy lay in his cot under a willow tree. Warmed by the sun, his toes clutched in his pudgy hands, he watched with fascination the myriad shadows and colours at play above him. Delight dimpled his fat little cheeks and excitement welled up inside him, spilling over into a throaty chuckle for his very first laugh.

  Everyone heard it.

  “He laughed.”

  “Yes, he did,” said his proud uncle, swooping over to the cot and picking up Zandy, carrying him triumphantly to join the others beside the lake.

  Plates, glasses, and the debris of a delicious lunch littered the table. Kate, content to let Nick cuddle his nephew, lounged back in her chair at peace.

  Ben reached over to take Maggie’s hand
into his lap and lazily stroked the back of it, eyes closed behind dark glasses. A fly buzzed around his head before moving off to richer pickings on the table.

  Maggie opened her eyes under the broad brim of her sunhat and looked over to her captured hand, and then at Ben. Lifting his glasses and opening one eye, he looked back at her, smiled, and shut it again, leaving her hand where he’d put it. They stayed this way for a while, enjoying the day.

  “Are you ready to do it now?” Maggie asked, a little later.

  “I suppose so,” answered Kate. “It’s the perfect day. She would think so too.”

  Maggie untangled her fingers from Ben’s lap and fetched the box from where it sat in the middle of the table. “Does anyone want to say anything?” she asked, as they joined her at the side of the lake

  Zandy cooed loudly and then burped in the silence.

  “Does it for me,” said Nick, cuddling the little boy tighter and playing with his fingers.

  Maggie unscrewed the box to reveal lumpen grey ash with the odd solid piece mixed in. Over the last eight weeks they had each made their peace with Elka, and come to their personal understandings about her decision to leave them. Kate’s anger had been left in a paddock near Alexandra. Nick was looking to his future but had delayed any major decisions for the time being. Maggie’s anger had given way to acceptance. She had stopped thinking she was responsible for everything that happened, and that she needed to be in control of anything that would affect the people she cared about. It was an impossible task. She let it go.

  A whisper of wind stirred the top coating of powder, lifting it up and out, into the air, curling above them. Maggie waded into the water and upended the box into the currents of summer air. They watched Elka fly off, away into the trees, the lake and the sky. What didn’t fly off sank in lumps amongst the stones, disappearing from view. A little bit of her stuck in the bottom of the box, and Maggie had to bang it against a nearby branch to free it.

  “Be gone, Elka. Back to the beginning with our love.”

  They dropped Nick at the restaurant on their way home. It was late afternoon, and to her mother’s surprise, Kate had asked them to take her to Elka’s house, saying she and Zandy had plans to spend the evening in their new home. Kate hadn’t been able to bring herself to sleep there yet. Or move in properly, because although she was no longer angry with Elka, she wasn’t ready to take over her home and thereby occupy her precious memories.

  Walking up the gravel path, the roses smelling sweetly in the garden, she unlocked the front door. “We’re home, baby boy,” she said, stepping into the quiet house. But Zandy was fast asleep on her shoulder and didn’t hear a word.

  Ben walked Maggie to the front door of The Stables.

  “Thank you for bringing me home,” said Maggie. “Elka would have loved today.”

  Ben didn’t say anything but looked at Maggie expectantly.

  Maggie knew what his eyes were suggesting, and felt the familiar fear beat in her chest. It lasted only as long as it took for Ben to bend down and claim her lips with the gentlest, most exciting kiss she had ever had.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  “I’d thought you’d never ask, Maggie Potter.”

  About the Author

  Rosy Fenwicke is a doctor, writer and mother of three adult children. She edited In Practice: The Lives of New Zealand Women Doctors in the 21st Century (Random House, 2004). In 2017 she released Hot Flush, the first novel in the Euphemia Sage series, to excellent reviews. She lives in Martinborough, New Zealand.

  Also by Rosy Fenwicke

  Hot Flush

  In Practice: The Lives of New Zealand Women Doctors in the 21st Century

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to all those patient friends and family who have read through various versions of this book and made comments and helpful suggestions. In particular, Josie my daughter and Judy Sachdeva my old school friend who both gave valuable feedback. I am grateful to Keith Newell of Lychgate Funerals for taking the time to explain aspects of his industry to me. Any errors in fact are entirely my own. Thanks to Sue Copsey for her editing and Martin Taylor for his invaluable guidance to publication.