by Barker, Dawn
CHAPTER EIGHT
Six weeks before
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Anna watched the grey light from outside begin to creep into the hospital room, softly edging its way through the gaps in the blinds. It draped itself over the bed; she rolled away from it so it couldn’t reach her. She was sure she had only fallen asleep a few minutes earlier. She blinked, yawned, then reached for the glass of water on the bedside table.
Tony sprang up. ‘Is everything OK?’
She looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m fine, babe.’
He yawned, then rubbed at the dark stubble on his face. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Tired. I don’t think I slept at all.’
‘Me neither,’ he said.
‘Yes, you did! You were snoring all night.’ She got up, and went to sit next to Tony. She leaned into him and ran her fingers through his hair. He lifted his head onto her stomach, kissed it, then whispered to the baby that it was time to come out now.
Closing her eyes, she savoured the peacefulness of that moment, knowing it would be the last time they would be a couple. Soon, they would be a family.
* * *
She screwed her eyes closed and pursed her lips, panting, as the force of a contraction powered through her body.
‘Just do your breathing, babe,’ Tony said, holding her hand. ‘Remember, they said in the classes not to hyperventilate, you need to slow down.’
‘Yes, I remember!’ She shook off his hand and moaned, looking up at the high window that let some daylight in to counter the harsh white fluorescent light of the delivery room. The contraction started to ease.
‘Is it going away?’
She nodded. Her mouth was so dry; she licked her lips. ‘Can you get me a drink from the bag?’
Tony stood up from the chair beside her and went to the black daypack at the end of the bed. The bag had sat inside the front door of their house for weeks, decorated with bright pink sticky notes to remind her of last-minute items to add before they left for the hospital. Tony rummaged in the bag and found the drink. He unscrewed it for her, and she took a sip.
‘Thanks.’ She turned to the midwife, who was sitting at a small workstation with her back to them, looking as though she was so absorbed in her work that she couldn’t hear everything that was going on. ‘Debbie?’ she said. ‘Can we turn down the air conditioning in here? I’m a bit cold.’
Debbie turned and smiled. She was in her fifties, with bleached-blonde hair tied back with a fluffy black hairband. She spun the squeaking chair around with her toes, jumped down and walked over to the bed. She picked up the remote control for the air conditioner and changed the temperature. ‘Do you want another blanket?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘OK. I’ll leave this remote here for you.’ She padded back to her desk.
Anna looked at her watch; was it really only 10 a.m.? So much had happened since they came down from the ward. None of it was in her written birth plan, which she’d given to Debbie when they arrived. There was nothing in there about having needles in the back of her hand and medications to start contractions. There was nothing about having her membranes ruptured by something resembling a large crochet hook, or about the gush of hot liquid that pulsed and poured from her straight afterwards. She hated that Tony had seen her like that.
Another contraction was building. She put the drink down and closed her eyes, bracing herself. As it strengthened, she swung her legs over the end of the bed and bent forward, moaning. Tony rubbed her back; she swept his hand away. ‘Don’t!’
Tony stepped away. ‘Sorry.’
She wanted to apologise, but didn’t have the energy.
Debbie turned around again from her station at the desk. ‘The anaesthetist is in the ward – have you considered an epidural?’
Anna shook her head. It was in her birth plan that she didn’t want to be offered pain relief; if she wanted it, she’d ask for it. Why had she bothered?
‘Why don’t you try it, babe?’ Tony said.
She glared at him. He knew how much she wanted to do this naturally. ‘I’m OK.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to see you in such pain. You don’t need —’
‘I said I’m fine!’
Debbie came over and looked at the screen of the machine attached to the leads on Anna’s belly. ‘Well, it’s entirely your decision. But it’s early days yet. I’m going to turn up the drip soon to get these contractions going a bit, and things might get pretty intense quite quickly. Once the anaesthetist is in theatre, I can’t guarantee that he can come straight away when you need him; it could take an hour or so …’
‘An hour?’ Anna looked over at Tony again. What if she couldn’t cope for an hour?
‘Just get it now, babe,’ he urged her. ‘You’re going to be tired enough, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.’
‘It’s your choice, Anna,’ Debbie said, turning back to her desk.
She looked from Debbie back to Tony. It was obvious that they both wanted her to accept defeat. It didn’t feel like she had any choice at all.
She’d embraced every part of her pregnancy, good and bad. Even in the early weeks when she was tortured by nausea and pounding headaches, when she retched and vomited every day, she never complained. It was all part of the experience that she had wanted for so long; it was her body’s way of bonding her with the life growing in her womb. She knew then that she would do anything for her baby, and she had wanted to experience every moment of labour, too, to know that she had done the best for her child.
Another contraction was hovering, about to grip her. She held her breath and braced herself, then closed her eyes as it rose to a crescendo. Every muscle in her body clenched until she was sure her bones would break. She felt light-headed and wanted to scream. Maybe they were right; maybe she couldn’t do it on her own after all.
‘OK, call the anaesthetist. Let’s do it now,’ she said, gasping, then turned onto her side and drew her knees towards her chest. Her eyes filled with tears.
Debbie picked up the phone and spoke calmly. ‘I have another epidural here for you.’
Anna heard herself being reduced to just another nameless patient, just a procedure. As she felt her self slipping away, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had failed.
* * *
Once the epidural was in, she rested on her back on the bed. She was amazed at how quickly it had worked and how much stronger she felt without the pain, though she wouldn’t admit it out loud. Her abdomen and legs were numb; she could hardly move. She rested her hands on her belly to feel it tightening, reassuring herself that her body was still doing what it should. She watched the machine beside her churn out a long strip of paper graphing the peaks and troughs of her contractions. It didn’t seem as though it was connected to her belly, to her baby.
Tony was sitting in the corner, playing with something on his phone. He looked up.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Why don’t you close your eyes, try to have a nap?’
‘I’m OK, I’m just resting.’
As Tony turned his attention back to his phone, she watched the clock on the wall, willing it to go faster, imagining that it was going slow on purpose.
Debbie came over and uncurled the strip of paper, frowning as she scanned it. She wrote something down, then turned up the drip again.
‘Debbie?’ she asked. ‘Can you turn it up, the volume, just so I can hear … the baby?’
‘Of course.’ The midwife fiddled with a button, then rearranged one of the monitors strapped to her, and there it was. Ba boom, ba boom. Her baby was still there.
‘I just need to do an internal examination, Anna.’ Debbie pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.
She nodded. Debbie lifted up her numb legs. She looked away while she was poked and pushed.
‘All done. Hope that wasn’t too uncomfortable.’ Debbie snapped her p
lastic gloves off.
‘No, it was OK. What’s happening?’
Debbie raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that cervix isn’t behaving – it’s just not where I’d expect it to be.’
She wondered why medical staff were trained to talk to patients as though they were children. She felt her jaw tighten. She wasn’t just irritated with Debbie, she was irritated with herself, her body. She knew that didn’t make sense, but if Debbie reckoned that her cervix could misbehave, she had every right to be angry with it. She had a sudden surge of energy and pushed down on the mattress with her hands to hoist herself up in the bed.
‘So what are we going to do then?’
Debbie turned back to the drip stand and pressed the black button again. ‘We’ll just keep going. I’ll check you again in two hours.’
Two hours? She could have cried. She wanted to get out of bed and walk around, to use the bathroom instead of having a catheter in her bladder. She wanted to have a shower or sit on the fit ball as she had planned. She tried to breathe deeply as a horrible sense of suffocating claustrophobia settled on her. She felt as though she was stuck on a long flight, with no way to stretch out without touching someone, no way of protecting her own space. But she could no more get up from this bed than open the door of an aeroplane and step out.
She felt Tony watching her. She turned away from his gaze and closed her eyes. Tony pulled his chair across the floor towards her; the grating noise drilled through her. He took her clammy hand and stroked it with his thumb. She was too warm now; he was making her hotter. She knew he was only trying to help, but she just wanted to be left alone. She forced a smile, then pulled her hand away.
But he stayed by her side.
CHAPTER NINE
The day after
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
As the sun started to rise, a cleaner arrived and began mopping the floor around Tony. Soon afterwards the full lights came on to indicate that a new day had started. The next shift of nurses breezed in, bright and chatty, sipping coffee from cardboard cups with plastic lids. He watched them huddle around the desk and make notes as a senior nurse worked her way through a pile of patient files, talking and gesticulating. She spoke too softly for him to hear clearly, but he knew when she was describing Anna’s case by the way the nurses all glanced over at him. The door to Anna’s room was propped open again, but a new policeman was on the chair. Tony stroked Anna’s hand; her eyes were still closed.
Laying his head back down on the bed he tried to sleep. Some time later, he saw a group moving from bed to bed in the main area. He recognised the tall, thin frame of Dr Hall, the registrar he’d spoken to yesterday. Maybe they had some test results now, some explanation for Anna’s condition. He stood up and waited just outside the door where they couldn’t miss him as they walked towards Anna’s room. Dr Hall nodded in his direction but said nothing as the group crowded into her room and stood with their backs to Tony. He hovered, trying to see what they were doing, but there was no room for him, so he watched through the small window as they examined her. Their voices were low, and he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He didn’t have the energy to push his way in, to ask them to speak up. The doctors finished and filed out, darting off to the next bed like a frightened school of fish. Dr Hall, however, paused beside Tony with an older, balding man, who held out his hand.
‘Mr Patton, I’m Dr Cooper, the consultant here in Emergency. Come with us, please, so we can have a quick talk.’
Tony nodded, suddenly feeling intimidated. He followed them down a passageway to a small, windowless room with two sofas crammed into it. Dusty yellow silk flowers drooped from a vase on a small white formica coffee table against the wall. Dr Cooper and Dr Hall sat on one sofa; he sat on the other. He rearranged the cushions to make more room, but his knees still practically touched Dr Hall’s.
Dr Cooper asked the same questions Dr Hall had yesterday and he wearily repeated the same answers. There was nothing more he could tell them.
‘Mr Patton —’
‘Tony.’
‘Tony, as you know, we’ve monitored Anna overnight, and we’ve been waiting for the test results. The good news is that we can’t find anything medically wrong with her. Her head CT is normal, her temperature is good now, her blood tests are all normal.’
‘Oh.’ While he was relieved, part of him was disappointed. It would be easier if the doctors had found something wrong with Anna, something tangible, something with a name.
‘The next thing we have to rule out is any psychiatric condition,’ Dr Cooper went on.
His head snapped up. ‘But what about shock or something? You know, if someone’s attacked her or taken Jack from her. That would explain the way she reacted.’
The consultant nodded. ‘If that was the case – and I don’t think it is – then the psychiatrist is still the best person to help us. There’s no physical reason for her to be so unresponsive, and we haven’t found any evidence that she’s been assaulted —’
‘But she’s covered in bruises and cuts!’
‘Yes, but they don’t look like they were done by a person or a weapon. I think they’re just from the rocks.’
He rubbed his forehead. He felt as though he was losing, running out of ways to make this man understand. ‘Then maybe they just snatched the baby and she fell or something …’
Dr Cooper took a deep breath. ‘Tony, you’re right, that could have happened; the police will be looking into all possibilities. But you’ve told us that she hadn’t been sleeping, that she’d seen her GP who gave her tablets – we must rule out significant mental illness.’ He looked at Dr Hall, then back to Tony. ‘The police have probably asked you this already, but did you ever worry that Anna could be a danger to herself … or to Jack?’
He looked at each of the doctors in turn. Did they really believe that she was capable of hurting her son? ‘No! Never! She’d never hurt him – or herself – in a million years. Jesus, I can’t —’
‘OK.’ Dr Cooper held up his hands as if they could deflect Tony’s incredulity. ‘I’m sorry, it’s a standard question when people have been very depressed.’
Weren’t they listening? ‘But she hasn’t been very depressed, I’ve told you.’
Dr Cooper’s pager beeped rudely. Tony wondered if he’d set it off deliberately so that he had an excuse to leave. He couldn’t imagine doctors enjoyed this sort of conversation; it must be much easier to hand someone a prescription or give them an injection. Regardless, he was glad of the few seconds it gave him to breathe, to think.
Dr Cooper looked up from his pager. ‘I’m sorry, Tony, but I have to go. Do you have any final questions?’
He was silent for a moment. His head was full of questions but Dr Cooper wasn’t going to answer them. He shook his head.
‘Just wait here. Dr Hall will page the psychiatry team – they’ll come straight away.’
He blinked, then held out his hand. ‘Thank you, doctor.’
* * *
Tony waited in that small, windowless room. He rubbed at the grainy silk petals of the fake plant to clean some of the dust from them. He turned his phone back on and listened to his voicemail. The police, his parents, Wendy, a few teary messages from friends and family who’d heard what had happened. He deleted them all, then called his parents’ number. His mum answered on the first ring.
‘Anthony! Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m still at the hospital. I’m sorry about last night, I just couldn’t face seeing anyone.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t worry about that. We waited a few hours, but they told us you’d fallen asleep so we went home to freshen up – we wanted to let you rest. How’s Anna this morning? Any change?’
‘Oh Mum, I don’t know what’s going on. They say she’s physically OK. I’m waiting to see a psychiatrist. The doctors seem to think that she could have done this deliberately.’ He spoke in a monotone; the idea of Anna harming Jack was so ridiculous that he could
n’t find any anger. Let them do their assessment, and soon enough they’d find out they were wrong.
‘Has she said something? Is that why they think that?’
‘She hasn’t said anything. They knocked her out with some drugs last night, they said she was screaming. And then they wonder why she can’t talk or wake up from this. They don’t get it! I can’t keep up with it all.’ He swallowed hard and rubbed his face as his voice cracked. ‘Sorry … it’s just …’
‘What can we do? I’ll come straight away —’
‘No. I need to stay here, I just need to sort this out. She hasn’t woken yet. It’ll kill her, Mum, when she realises …’ He heard Ursula take a sharp breath in, but she let him carry on. ‘Some detective left a message – they want to go to the house and have a look around. Can you go and let them in? The spare key —’
‘Of course. I know where it is now.’
‘And Wendy’s getting in at about midday – can someone pick her up? I don’t know when I’ll be done here.’
‘Yes, yes, of course, don’t worry, we’ll sort it out …’
He heard footsteps approaching. ‘Thanks, Mum. I think the psychiatrist is here now, I’d better go. I’ll call you soon.’
‘OK. And Anthony … we’re just so very, very sorry.’
Tony closed his eyes and bit his bottom lip to stop tears from starting. Crying wasn’t going to help; there was too much to sort out. He managed to say goodbye, then put his phone back in his pocket as two men entered the room.
The taller of the two wore dark grey chinos and a checked blue business shirt, open at the neck. ‘Mr Patton, I’m Dr Paul Murray. I’m one of the psychiatry doctors, and this is one of our senior psychiatric nurses, Eamon Byrne.’