“Okay Angel. I’ll come and get changed in a bit.”
She stopped to look back at him. “I’ll be ready to go whenever you are.”
Knowing that this would be the last time they would be here on their own she didn’t want to prematurely spoil his last few moments of relaxation.
She went inside to the cool of their bedroom. Laying on the bed under the ceiling fan. The whooshing noise sending her to sleep.
When she awoke she could hear him in the shower, singing to himself. She smiled, before wincing, when the sharp pain above her left temple resurfaced.
She searched the bedside table drawer for some paracetamol tablets. Wondering if she was coming down with a virus or something. The heat and humidity wasn’t that bad today, surely.
Jonny came out of the bathroom, dripping wet. His tanned body glistening, drips of water hanging off the ridges carved into his abdomen. Tantalisingly running down the v-shape and onto the hairs that were peeking out of the towel wrapped around his lower half. Just high enough to cover him, but low enough to draw the eye.
Oh, how she wished she wasn’t feeling so crap. What she wouldn’t give to feel well enough to reach across and rip that towel off. Letting it fall to the floor. To take him in her hands and pull him towards her. Maybe that’s what she needed to do? It might take her mind off how she was feeling.
He sat down on the bed next to her. Pushing her hair off her forehead. But somehow she wasn’t convinced enough to act.
“How are you feeling now, Angel?”
“A bit better, but the headache’s still there.”
“Do you want some iced water and some headache pills?”
She nodded and he went off to oblige.
“You’re okay with paracetamol, aren’t you?” Handing a couple over to her.
“Yep.” She put them on the back of her tongue and swallowed. “I’ll be fine soon enough.”
He put their bags in the boot of the taxi.
Eliza waddling to the driveway and carefully lowering herself in.
“What’s the weather forecast to be like on the way home?”
“Okay, I think. I’ll check when we get to the air field.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t get a scheduled flight Jonny?”
“No. The plane will be in the wrong place if we do. I don’t expect we will be coming back here for the next six months or so. Plus, we’re not likely to get on a flight at this short notice. It’s peak season.”
She knew it was logical, but flying brought out the illogical in her. The irrational fear she felt about flying had been tackled on their journey to Ibiza a few weeks ago but it didn’t mean she was completely in love with the idea of flying with just Jonny beside her.
She sat next to him in the cockpit, watching as he flicked the myriad of switches and exchanged instructions into the mouthpiece with the air traffic controller. The last time she was here, he didn’t really give her a choice. There were no spare seats in the passenger cabin. This time there were and her old feelings of doom and gloom started to resurface. With the way she was feeling she was finding it hard to drum up the confidence she felt when she thought she had this flying shit under control.
He put the thumbs up to her. She returned the gesture, albeit with less gusto.
Eyes closed, she could feel the intensity of the engine increase as the vibrating of the plane ramped up. She fumbled for the arm rests, her grip tightening as the wheels rolled underneath them. The motion becoming faster, the noise of the air rushing past them louder. The stuttering vibration became a drone and then her stomach went up into her throat and then back again. All familiar but unwanted feelings.
Her head was heavy on the head rest as they ascended up into the clouds. The engine quietening when they reached altitude. At this point she had decided that she would open her eyes for a testing peak, just to make sure they weren’t falling as the feeling so often made her believe. And to see if the view was as calm as it appeared last time. But a sharp pain from low down, underneath her pregnant belly made her forget about all the things she planned or was accustomed to do. She sucked in a sharp breath, pushing her hand to the pain. Her eyes squeezed shut.
She felt Jonny’s arm on hers. “You okay angel?” He shouted across to her.
She just nodded. Eyes still firmly closed.
Then nothing.
She opened her eyes and looked across at him.
“You sure you’re okay?” he repeated.
“Yes, fine. Just the baby moving I think. She doesn’t like flying. Just like her mother.”
He laughed. “Won’t be long now. How’s your headache anyway?”
“Still there, but bearable.”
“Why don’t you go in the back and lay down on one of the recliners?”
“Yeah think I will.”
She leant across to kiss him and squeezed her way through the cockpit door into the passenger cabin. Her dress getting stuck on the arm of the chair on the way through. She tugged at it and pulled it free.
Sat down, she picked at the loose thread, half a metre unravelling in her hand.
“Shit.” She wasn’t comfortable in the dress anyway and decided to look for something else more cosy. She took one of the bags from the cupboard. There was a cardigan in hers and two odd fluffy socks. She couldn’t be bothered to look for the corresponding pair, so threw those onto the chair. She couldn’t find any leggings just more maternity dresses, so she took a pair of Jonny’s joggers from his bag.
After getting changed she snuggled up under one of the blankets and dozed off.
Forty-five minutes in, she awoke with a jolt. Her body had just been bounced out of the seat, hovering for a second above it before being dropped back down on to it.
“Jonny,” she shouted through to him.
“It’s okay angel, just a bit of turbulence. Have you got your belt on?”
“No.” she answered, with obvious panic in her voice. It didn’t really fit over her pregnant belly or hips when she was laid down on her side. Frantically she felt for the lever to incline the seat. It sprang up with uncalled for ferocity. A pain shot through her belly. She held her breath until it subsided. Then through the residual pain she grabbed onto the seat belt and loosened it to its maximum length, fastening it under her swollen and currently painful mid-drift.
“I think we may be in for a bumpy ride,” he hollered back, “air traffic control has had reports back from another plane in the area that there is a storm up ahead. Have you got that belt on yet?”
“Yes,” she hissed through clenched jaws. “I’m…”
Jonny didn’t hear what else Eliza said, all his senses where focused on finding a safe path through the storm that had suddenly surrounded the plane. The cloud shelf above was thick and grey, inky black in parts. It descended on them quickly.
He tightened the straps on his shoulder restraints, still feeling his backside lift off the chair every few seconds.
As the cloud thickened around them the ferocity of the battering the plane took worsened, bouncing the little plane this way and that. It was all Jonny could do to hang on. Repeatedly telling himself not to panic and let the plane take the brunt, adjust his altitude and they would be fine. He headed for the light. Weaving his way through the storm.
Ten minutes of the most exhilarating ride of his life and they were through the other side.
“Woohoo,” he gasped in celebration. “We’re through it now Angel.”
Silence.
“You okay back there?”
No words, just a groan. A painful groan.
“Eliza?” He pivoted his head back to look through the open door. “Eliza? Angel? What’s going on?” His brief look snapped an image of her gripping her belly, knees up.
“Shit.”
There was nothing he could do. Except get them to their destination as soon as he could.
“Hang on Angel. We’ll be there very soon.”
By very soon he actually meant forty-five mi
nutes. Should he try and land somewhere other than their expected destination? Paris perhaps? He was sure he would be in reach of an air traffic controller there soon.
As he got nearer he suddenly remembered they were on strike. When he lodged his flight plan in Ibiza, they had told him that. All French air traffic controllers were uncontactable for the day. Shit. No option but to head for their final destination. London.
He couldn’t go any faster. He couldn’t go and comfort his wife in the back of the plane. There was a lot he couldn’t do and not much he could, except get them there safely.
As soon as he was in radio contact he put his predicament over the airwaves. It was an unusual command, but not one they’d never heard before.
At the small airfield a solitary ambulance was waiting. Blue lights flashing, back doors wide open.
Jonny just mustering enough composure to land the plane safely before falling apart completely when he rushed into the back to be with Eliza.
“Eliza…?”
She was a strange colour. In obvious pain and in dire need of professional medical help.
“We’re here now. It’s all gonna be fine. Promise.”
He flung open the airplane passenger door. The steps unfolded and the paramedics rushed in. They took over, practically manhandling Jonny out of the way.
He followed them out of the plane and up into the ambulance. He answered their questions as best he could. Although they were asking things that he had no knowledge about. How should he know what her usual blood pressure measurement was? Or her blood type?
The nearest emergency room was only three miles away, but the heavy traffic did them no favours.
Someone at the airport must have tipped off the paps, because there were hordes of them waiting outside of A&E. Crowding the ambulance doors and shouting furiously at Jonny.
For once, Jonny didn’t care. All he was bothered about was his Angel.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The paramedics were running alongside the stretcher. Jonny only just keeping up with them. Double doors swinging back in his face every ten metres. Pale yellow walls flashing by.
Cursing himself repeatedly for not intervening when she said she didn’t feel quite right earlier in the day. She looked fine when she first mentioned it. Then it all went downhill so quickly.
The handover was seamless. They lifted her body across from the ambulance stretcher to the hospital bed, which they quickly pumped up to a height that seemed too excessive for the young doctor who appeared out of nowhere.
No-one seemed to be rushing or panicking. All just relaying numbers and medical terms to each other. Vital signs recorded calmly onto a clipboard.
Feeling anxious, his heart beating so hard and loud, he was sure everyone could hear it. Convinced he was asking questions, but no-one was answering or even acknowledging him.
He had never been in any hospital before. And why would he have? Jonny had the perfect childhood. Never any drama. Growing up had been easy for Jonny, he excelled at anything he cared to turn his hand to. One of his favourite challenges as a seven year old was to climb through the nine trees that lined their street without touching the ground. He never once fell out.
Having never been to one of these sterile places he had not contemplated whether he liked them or not. There had been no need. He knew now though. He hated them.
It was mainly the smell. It invaded his nostrils and put his teeth on edge. What did it remind him of? Chemicals? Launderette? Yeah clean, but with the anticipation of pain. That was it, a dentist’s surgery.
Her cheeks looked as if they had been slapped over and over. Perspiration trickling down the side her face, unchecked onto the white sheet.
Moans. Soft moans, muffled by the mouthpiece they had strung around her head.
Eyelids flickering. A rapid, barely there, motion as if she was dipping in and out of consciousness.
Toes curling, in socks that might fall off on to the immaculate floor at any moment.
A thought flashed into his mind. What if he was to lose her? He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever.
The machines that had been wheeled in were frightening to look at. Plastic lines now hooked up to a drip and protruding from a cannula inserted into the back of her hand. A dark blue fabric band wrapped tightly, buzzing as it constricted around her upper arm. A crocodile clip on the end of a finger. The beeping and flashing lights making it all seem so very serious.
If he wasn’t an apparition, then he was looking on to what was undoubtedly the worst moment of his life.
A feeling of intense panic took over him. Breathing speeding up and a deafening heartbeat. Jonny was sure he was going to vomit, or faint, or both.
His vision blurring. Everyone in the room disappearing down a tunnel; the edges fading. Their voices becoming distant.
A nurse removed the mask from her mouth and nose. Free of the mouthpiece she screamed. An inhuman noise Jonny had never heard her make before. Followed by a stream of obscenities directed specifically at him.
“Sorry,” was all he managed to whisper before everything went black.
At first the medics ignored him, they had a more important patient to attend to, but when they were almost tripping over him they called for the porters.
He came too, laid on a trolley in the corridor, completely disorientated. He sat up, the trolley wobbling. Grabbing out at the guard rail he unclipped it and swung his legs down onto the floor. He was still a little unsteady and took a moment before moving off.
The door opposite him seemed as good a place as any to start his search for Eliza. They can’t have moved him far, surely?
Tentatively he pushed on the door, the gap revealing his Angel. A nurse rushed over to him.
“Mr Harrison. We’re going to take Mrs Harrison into the operating theatre for a C-section. She has pre-eclampsia and we are concerned that it may affect the baby if left.”
“What’s a C-section?”
The nurse looked at him sternly.
Was he supposed to know what that meant? Okay, probably. He’d been to a couple of the gynaecologist appointments, but he couldn’t remember any of them discussing a C-section, or whatever that other term was the nurse had used.
He asked again. More firmly this time. “What is a C-section?”
“Caesarian section. The consultant obstetrician will deliver your baby surgically. If you want to come into the theatre, you can, but you will need to scrub up and wear protective clothing. I will warn you though it is a medical operation, and… oh never mind. Are you coming in?”
He looked past the nurse to his Angel writhing around on the bed.
“Is she okay?”
“She will be once the baby has been delivered.”
“Right. What do I need to do then?”
He followed the nurse into the preparation room. Donning a gown, hairnet and mask, and using the anti-bacterial wash on his hands. His nerves were completely shot.
They exited another door and went into a bright white room. An even bigger team was assembled around Eliza now who was positioned in the middle with a screen across her belly. He was so out of his comfort zone.
The nurse turned to him. “It might be best if you stay at this end. Based on your episode a moment ago you probably aren’t cut out for the sight beyond the screen. Talk to Eliza, hold her hand, help her keep calm.” She smiled at him. A mixture of warmth and pity.
He took two hesitant steps towards Eliza. She looked up to him. Her eyes wild. Scared.
“It’ll be alright. Our baby will be here soon,” he whispered to her, pushing her hair from her face. Willing himself to man up. She needed him right now, and as alien as all this was to him, he was determined to stay strong.
She blinked. With each flick of her eyelids he could sense her calming. The shallow breaths she had been taking on the oxygen mask deepened.
He stroked her hand; eyes locked on hers.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
That was Jonny�
�s first experience of childbirth and he was now psyching himself up for his second. This time he had been to all the ante-natal appointments and had read all the books and listened to all the stories. He was as ready as he could be.
“There’s no way I’m going in with your sweat pants, my granny cardigan and odd socks this time. Those photos in the newspapers were horrendous!”
“Yeah well you did decide to go into labour early and in the middle of a storm.”
“For your information I didn’t decide. It just happened that way. Anyway, Junior here is going to behave.” She rubbed her stomach in comforting circles. “Aren’t you?” She whispered in the direction of her huge belly. An elbow or leg protruding as if to answer. She took a sharp breath in. “Did you see that?”
“Yes.” Jonny smiled and leant across to share the feeling of his son moving.
The curly auburn mop of his daughter popped up from behind the toy box. She navigated herself around to the sofa and tried in vain to climb up on to it. Her podgy knees not quite reaching the seat.
“Da-da.” She outstretched her hands to him. Flexing her knees as if she could jump up to him, if only she knew how.
Jonny leant forward and picked her up on to his lap. “You don’t want to miss out on anything, do you, my little gypsy girl.” Putting his index finger onto her nose, then pulling it away before showing her his thumb between two fingers, as if he had just plucked her nose off. She put both squat little hands to her face to feel that it was still there.
He laughed and she giggled back at him.
He loved that his daughter was the spitting image of Eliza. Eyes that had now turned grey with the tell-tale sparks of green. When she was born, her eyes were dark blue. Very unusual everyone had commented. A mixture of you both. Then when they had yielded to their final colouring, the comments turned to “oh how beautiful, just like your mother.” He liked that more.
“So what’s the plan?” Turning his attention back to his wife.
“What do you mean Jonny?” A worried look descending on her face. “Do you mean when and how are we going to the delivery room. What your role is going to be this time around? Patient on the next bed or a proper father? What do you mean?”
Loving his ANGEL_A Rock Star Romance Page 24