Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (48 page)

He took my finger and--I know this sounds a little weird--he held it in his mouth. His mom
used to do it for him and Kevin when they were little and now he did it for me whenever I
injured a body part. (I seemed to have a very accident-prone crotch.) I shut my eyes and waited
for the heat of his mouth to effect the merciful ebbing away of pain.
"Better?"
"Actually, no." Surprising--it usually worked.
"That's bad, it'll have to come off." Before our eyes, my finger swelled and fattened, like a
speeded-up video of bread rising. At the same time the color changed from red to gray to almost
black.
"Christ," Aidan said, "that is bad, maybe it will have to come off. Better get you to the ER." We
jumped in a taxi, my hand laid across our laps, like a sick little rabbit. At the hospital they took
me off for an X-ray and I was thrilled--yes, I admit it, thrilled--when the doc clipped an X-ray
to a light box and said, "Yep, there we are, hairline fracture across the second knuckle."
Even though I didn't get put in proper plaster, just a splinty-type thing, it felt nice not to be
dismissed as a malingerer. I had "a Fracture." Not just a bruise, not even a strain (or sprain, I'm
never sure if they're the same thing, and if they're not, which is more impressive) but a Fracture.
In the following days, when everyone looked at my splint and asked, "What happened?" Aidan
always answered on my behalf. "Downhill skiing slalom, she clipped one of the poles." Or
"Mountaineering, small rockfall, hit her hand."
"Well," as he said to me, "it's got to be better than saying `looking for my blue shoes.'"
The hospital had given me my two X-rays to bring home, and hypochondriac that I am, I used to
study them; I held them up against the light and marveled at how long and slender my fingers
really were beneath all that pesky muscle and skin and stuff, while Aidan watched indulgently.
"See that tiny line on my knuckle," I said, holding an X-ray right up close to my face. "It just
looks like a hair, but it causes so much pain."
Suddenly anxious, I said, "Don't tell anyone I do this."
A few days later, he was home from work before me--an unusual occurrence--and there was an
air of suppressed excitement about him. "Notice anything?" he asked.
"You combed your hair?"
Then I saw it. Them. My X-rays. Hanging on the wall. In frames. Beautiful distressed-gold
frames, like they were holding old masters instead of ghostly black-and-whites of my spindly
fingers.

My arms wrapped themselves across my stomach and I sank onto the couch. I hadn't even the
strength to stand. It was so funny that for ages I couldn't even laugh. Finally the noise fought its
way up through my convulsed stomach and heaving chest and emerged as a ceiling-ward shriek.
I looked at Aidan, who was clutching the wall; tears of laughter were leaking from the sides of
his eyes.
"You mad bastard," I finally managed.
"But there's more," he gasped. "Anna, Anna, there's more. Watch; no, wait, watch."
He doubled over again with hilarity, then straightened up, wiped his face, and said, "Look!"
He pressed a switch and suddenly my two X-rays lit up, blazing into glory, just like they were on
a hospital light box.
"I got lights," Aidan sobbed. "The guy in the frame place said I could get lights, so...so...so...I
got lights."
He turned them off, then on again. "See? Lights."
"Stop," I begged, wondering if it was possible to actually die from laughing. "Oh, please, stop."
When I was able, I said, "Do the lights again."
He flicked them on and off several times, while further waves of mirth seized me, and when we
were eventually exhausted from laughing, and curled up on the couch, Aidan asked, "You like?"
"I love. It's the best present I ever got."
101
J   acqui? Jacqui?"
"I'm down here," she called.
"Where?"
"In the kitchen."
I followed her voice and found her on her hands and knees with a basin of soapy water. "What on
earth...?"
"I'm scrubbing the kitchen floor." With the bathroom cleaner, I noticed.

"But you're forty weeks' pregnant, you're due to have a baby any minute. And you have a
cleaning lady."
"I just got the urge," she said brightly.
I watched her doubtfully. They hadn't said anything about scrubbing the kitchen floor in the
Perfect Birth classes.
"Other than the fact that you seem to have lost your mind, how are you?" I asked.
"Funny you should ask, I've been having twinges all day."
"Twinges?"
"Pains, I suppose you could call them," she said, almost sheepishly. "In my back and up my
jacksie."
"Braxton Hicks," I said firmly.
"Not Braxton Hicks," she said. "Braxton Hicks go away when you do something physical."
"I bet they're Braxton Hicks," I insisted.
"And I bet they're not. And I'm the one who's getting them, I've a better chance of knowing."
It was her hand that I noticed first: it began to close in on itself, until it was clenched so tightly
that the skin over the bones went white. Then I saw that her face was contorted and her body was
arching and twisting.
In horror, I ran to her. "Twinges like that?"
"No." She shook her head, her face bright red. "Nothing like as bad as this."
She looked like she was dying. I was about to call 911 when the spasm started to ease.
"Oh my God," she gasped, lying on the floor. "I think I've just had a contraction."
"How do you know? Describe it."
"It hurt!"
I grabbed one of the helpful leaflets we'd been given and read. "Did it `begin in the back and
move forward in a wavelike motion'?"
"Yes!"

"Oh shit, that sounds like a contraction all right." Suddenly I was terrified. "You're going to have
a baby!"
Something caught my eye: a pool of water was spreading across the clean kitchen floor. Had she
knocked over the basin of soapy water?
"Anna," Jacqui whispered. "Did my waters just break?"
I thought I was going to faint. The water was coming from under Jacqui's skirt. In a burst of
agitation, I accused, "What were you thinking of, washing that bloody floor? Now look at what's
happened."
"But this is meant to happen," she said. "My waters have to break."
She was right. Oh my God, her waters had broken, she really was going to have a baby. All the
preparation we'd done suddenly counted for nothing.
I focused enough to ring the hospital. "I'm Jacqui Staniforth's birthing partner, although we're
not Jolly Girls; her waters have just broken and she's in labor."
"How far apart are the contractions?"
"I don't know. She's only had one. But it was terrible."
From the other end of the phone I heard something that sounded suspiciously like a snigger.
"Time the contractions, and when they're five minutes apart, come in."
I hung up. "We've to time them. The stopwatch! Where's the stopwatch?"
"With all the other labor stuff."
I wished we didn't have to keep saying the word labor. I found the stopwatch, rejoined her on
the kitchen floor, and said, "Right. Anytime you like. Go on, give us a contraction."
We collapsed into nervous giggles.
"At least I didn't have a comedy waters-breaking moment," she said.
"How d'you mean?"
"You know in films how the waters always break on someone's really expensive rug or new
suede shoes. Hugh Grant is usually in them. Oh gosh! Oh, I say! Gosh! You know the sort of
thing. Just out of curiosity, is there any particular reason we're sitting on the wet floor?"
"No, I suppose not."

We got up and Jacqui changed her clothes and had two more contractions. Ten minutes apart, we
established. I rang the hospital back. "They're ten minutes apart."
"Keep timing them and come in when they're five minutes apart."
"But what should we do until then? She's in terrible pain!"
"Rub her back, use your TENS machine, have her take a hot bath, walk around." I'd known all
that already, it was just in the panic of the labor actually starting that I'd forgotten.
So I rubbed Jacqui's back and we watched Moonstruck and said all the words and paused it
during every contraction so that Jacqui wouldn't miss anything.
"Visualize," I urged each time her body spasmed and she ground the bones of my hands to
smithereens. "The pain is your friend. It's a great big golden ball of energy. Come on, Jacqui.
Great big golden ball of energy. Say it with me."
"`Say it with me'? What are we, in Dora the Explorer?"
"Come on," I urged, and we yelled it together. "Great big golden ball of energy. Great big golden
ball of energy."
After Moonstruck finished we watched Gone With the Wind, and when Melanie went into labor
--that word again--Jacqui asked, "Why do people always boil water and tear up sheets when
they're birthing babies?"
"I don't know. Maybe to take their mind off things, before they had DVDs. We could try it
ourselves if you liked? No? Okay. Oh God, here we go again. Great big golden ball of energy!
Great big golden ball of energy!"
By 1 A.M., the contractions were seven minutes apart.
"I'm getting in the bath," Jacqui said. "It might help with the pain."
I sat in the bathroom with her and put on some relaxing music.
"Turn off that whale racket," Jacqui said. "Sing us a song instead."
"What kind of song?"
"About what a dickhead Joey is."
I thought about it. "So long as you don't mind that it doesn't rhyme."
"Not at all."

"Joey, Joey is a knob," I sang. "His face is narky and his boots are stupid. Like that, do you
mean?"
"Lovely, yes. More."
"When everyone else is ha-a-appy, Jo-oe-ey is na-a-arky. He wouldn't kno-ow happiness, if it
jumped up and bit him on the lad. Chorus, all together now. Joey, Joey is a knob."
Jacqui joined in and we sang together. "His face is narky and his boots are stupid!"
"Joey doesn't know how to smile, at the chance of happiness he will run a mile--that one even
rhymed," I said happily. "Okay, chorus. JOEY, JOEY IS A KNOB. HIS FACE IS NARKY AND
HIS BOOTS ARE STUPID."
We got a good forty-five minutes out of that: I'd sing a verse and Jacqui would join in with the
chorus. Then Jacqui made up some verses of her own. It was tremendous fun, marred only by
Jacqui's contractions, which were still seven minutes apart. Would we ever reach the magic
figure of five minutes?
"I think you need to do some walking," I said. "Spinner of Shite said we should use gravity. It
might speed things up."
"You mean go outside? Okay, let me just do my face. Neaggg!" She raised a palm and cut off my
objections.
"But..."
"Hurpp! Nee-eddge! I refuse to compromise on standards just because I'm having a baby. Start
as you mean to go on."
T    he dark streets were quiet. With our arms linked, we walked. "Tell me things," Jacqui said.
"Tell me lovely things."
"Like what?"
"Tell me about when you fell in love with Aidan."
Instantly I was pierced by feelings, so mixed up I couldn't put names on them. Sadness was there
and maybe some bitterness, although not as much as there used to be. And there was something
else, something nicer.
"Please," Jacqui said. "I'm in labor and I've no boyfriend."

Reluctantly, I said, "Okay. In the beginning I used to say it out loud. I used to say, `I love Aidan
Maddox and Aidan Maddox loves me.' I had to hear myself say it because it was so fabulous that
I couldn't believe it."
"How many times a day did he tell you he loved you?"
"Sixty."
"No, seriously."
"Yes, seriously. Sixty."
"How did you know? Did you keep count?"
"No, but he did. He said he couldn't sleep easy until I'd been told sixty times."
"Why sixty?"
"Any more and he said I'd get bigheaded."
"Wow. Hold on." She grabbed tight on to some railings and moaned and gasped her way through
another contraction. Then she straightened up and said, "Tell me five lovely things about him.
"Go on," she urged, when it looked like I was about to refuse. "Remember, I'm in labor and I've
no fella."
Grudgingly, I said, "He always gave a dollar to bums."
"Tell me a more interesting one."
"I can't remember."
"Yes, you can."
Well, yes, I could, but this was harder to talk about. My throat felt tight and achy. "You know
how I get cold sores? Well, there was one night and we were in bed and the light was off and we
were just going to sleep when the tingling started. If I didn't put my special ointment on it
immediately I'd look like a leper by the morning, and I had a lunch with the Marie Claire girls
the following day. But I hadn't filled my prescription. So he got up and got dressed and went out
to find a twenty-four-hour drugstore. And it was December and snowing and so cold and he was
so kind and he wouldn't let me come with him because he didn't want me getting cold, too..."
All of a sudden I was in convulsions, crying. So bad I had to lean over some railings, just like
Jacqui had in the throes of a contraction. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed as I remembered him
going out in the cold. I sobbed so much I started to choke.

Jacqui rubbed my back, and when the storm of crying passed, she patted my hand and
murmured, "Good girl, three more."
Feck. I'd thought because I'd got so upset, she'd let me off the hook. "He used to come shopping
for clothes with me, even though he was mortified in girls' shops."
"Yes. True."
"He did excellent Humphrey Bogart impersonations."
"That's right, he did! It wasn't just the voice; he was able to do something brilliant with his upper
lip so he actually looked like him."
"Yes, he sort of made it stick to his upper teeth! It was great."
"Okay, I've got one," Jacqui said. "Do you remember when you moved in with him, and as
consolation, he helped me to move to my new place? He hired a van and drove it and lifted all
my boxes and stuff. He even helped me clean the new place and you got me by the throat and
said, `If you say he's a Feathery Stroker for this, I'll hate you." And I was so confused because
even though it looked like Feathery Strokery behavior, it just made him seem more macho and
sexy, and I said to you, `That guy hasn't a Feathery Strokery bone in his body. He must really
love you.'"
"I remember."
She sighed and we walked in silence, then she said, "You were so lucky."
"Yes," I said, "I was." It didn't kill me to say it. I didn't feel any rush of bitterness; I just thought,
Yes, I was so lucky.
"Incoming contraction!" Jacqui crouched down on the front steps of a brownstone as the spasm
gripped her. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."
"Breathe," I instructed. "Visualize. Oh Christ, come back!" Jacqui had toppled off the step and
rolled onto the sidewalk. She mewled with pain and I crouched over her, letting her squeeze the
bejayzus out of my ankle. From the corner of my eye I noticed that we'd attracted the attention
of a cruising black-and-white. It pulled in--shite--and two cops, walkie-talkies crackling, got
out and walked over. One looked like he lived on Krispy Kreme doughnuts but the other one was
tall and handsome.
"What's going on?" Doughnut Boy demanded.
"She's in labor."
Both men watched Jacqui as she writhed about on the sidewalk.