The Sisterhood (29 page)

'Yes, I am. I owe you. He won't tell me how you did it.'

I paused. 'It was nothing.' I remembered Roberto backing me up against the wall, using his bulk and his strength to win the fight. It seemed that I had won, after all.

'And I had a letter from Terry. He wants to give the marriage another go. Can you believe it?'

'What do you say to that?'

I heard the smile in her voice. 'I say
no
, of course! I've written him a letter. I should have done it months ago, but I suppose I was never completely sure of Roberto. And now I am, thanks to you. Now I'm setting everything straight. I've told Terry about the baby, and he's just going to have to deal with it. He's a big boy.'

When we arrived in Soho, I was sweating. I could feel the damp patches under my arms, and I hoped that my size, my 'condition', might stop it being quite as disgusting as it should have been. My feet were aching. I knew my face was red.

'Can we sit indoors?' I said. 'Somewhere with air conditioning?'

Sandrine nodded. 'Sure. Let's go to the cinema café. They do gorgeous cakes.' Sandrine loved the word 'gorgeous'. She said it was her favourite word in the English language.

The café at the Curzon Soho was busy, but I stood close to the most comfortable-looking seats, a little sofa, and stroked my belly and complained loudly about my exhaustion until the people stood up, awkwardly, and let us have their place. As I tried to smile my thanks, several lightning flashes shot across my bump simultaneously. I clutched my stomach and tried not to let it show on my face.

Sandrine smiled. 'Nicely done.'

I settled back and stretched my legs out. After some deep breaths, I felt normal again.

'You have to milk the benefits. Because they are few and bloody far between.'

'You won't say that when you've got your baby.'

'Try me.' But I knew she was right. I had no concept of what it was going to be like to hold my baby in my arms, but I knew I would not reject it. I just knew.

'What time are you meeting the crazy girl?' I asked.

She looked at her watch. 'Half past six. That gives us an hour and a half. What are you having?'

I leaned my head back, on to the edge of the sofa. It was slightly too low, so I pulled myself upright again. 'Would it be weird to have a glass of wine and a piece of cake? A small glass of wine? If I don't drink it all?' I looked around. 'Will I be lynched?'

Sandrine was on her feet. 'You have to have water with it. Then it's fine. I may not have children, but I'm French, and we know about these things.'

I was going to stay and meet Sandrine's French assistant friend. I was probably going to go to the film with them. It was a French film, and it seemed to be about a man who was being spied on by someone with a video camera. Right up until she was ten minutes late, I was going to stay. Then, suddenly, I fell asleep. This was happening a lot.

I dragged myself to my feet and held tightly to my aching belly. 'Sorry,' I said. 'If she turns up, I hope you have a good time.'

Sandrine grimaced. 'I might have a better one if she doesn't. I don't know what it is about her. She's hard work, in a way that other people just aren't.'

'Anyway, I have to get home. I just have to go to bed. I hope Helen's out tonight, because I can't speak to anyone. Bye.'

I got home to find that Helen was, indeed, out. I was thankful as I stumbled into the bathroom. I was going to be in bed at eight o'clock, because that was the only thing I could possibly do.

It took my brain a while to register what my eyes were seeing. The words echoed around my mind before I took in what they meant. Red. Red was all right. I liked red. Blood. Blood was not so good. In my knickers. That had to be bad. That was something I had not seen for a long time.

I was bleeding. It was fresh, red blood. There was not a lot of it, but it was there, and that either meant that I was miscarrying, which would mean a stillbirth, or it meant something else was wrong and the baby would be born prematurely. I was thirty-two weeks pregnant. This, I was certain, was not good.

I stared for a while, and wondered what to do. I had no idea where Helen was, and wondered whether I should phone Matt and see if she was there. But I didn't trust Matt enough to launch myself into his hands. I felt disconnected, vague. I walked into my bedroom and picked up the photograph of my mother. My poor mother. I looked at her, and at the baby in her arms — at myself — and, for the first time in many years, I began to cry. I longed for my baby, longed for it to be all right, and stared into the pit that I knew would await me if it was not. Nothing else that had happened to me this year — nothing that had ever happened — would mean a thing if I lost my baby.

I needed to do something. I could feel that the blood was still coming. I wondered whether the pains I'd had earlier had been contractions.

I looked out of the window, and saw that a light was on over the road.

I picked up the phone and punched in a number.

'Anna?' I said.

It was frightening to arrive at Accident and Emergency. It was terrifying that I didn't have to wait. I had never met Jeremy, but he took charge. He spoke to the woman on the desk, and suddenly I was in a wheelchair. I hated that. They pushed me along corridors and took me up in a lift. The walls were painted a sickly green.

'Who thought that would be a good colour for hospitals?' I asked.

'Shhh,' said Anna, and she patted my hand.

'You shouldn't be here,' I said, looking at her enormous bump. 'You should be resting at home.' I craned my neck to look at Jeremy, who was a pale, freckled Englishman in complete contrast to his wife. And you shouldn't be here either,' I told him. I felt inwardly hysterical, and I couldn't stop my voice from catching. 'You should be at home, relaxing with your wife. It's Thursday. No one should be at a hospital with a woman they've never met before. Not on a
Thursday.'

Jeremy shook his head. 'Hey,' he said. 'Anna's talked about you a lot. She worries that you've only got some loopy girl in short skirts for company. Anything we can do. Really.' He smiled. 'Thursday or not.'

'Oh, God, I'm losing my mind.'

Anna patted my hand. 'Shhh.'

I lay back and felt detached as things happened to me. I felt like an observer, watching dispassionately as I was hooked up to a monitor, as my blood pressure was taken, as I was told to put on a hospital gown.

The nurse had to push Anna and Jeremy aside to check the monitor.

'Well, baby's heartbeat's lovely and strong,' she said cheerfully. 'So that's one thing not to worry about. Now, do you think you could have felt a contraction?'

'I don't know,' I told her. 'I had some pains earlier. But they weren't like I'd expected contractions to be. They were sharp. Sudden. And they only lasted half a second.'

'Sounds more like you've been overdoing it,' she said. She felt my bump with strong, experienced hands 'Baby's head down, but not fully engaged. It's fine for him to be head down at this stage. It doesn't mean anything.'

I stared at her. 'Him?'

She laughed. She was a competent woman in a blue uniform, and I was glad to be under her care, even if she was telling me my own secrets.

'Oh! Sorry. I just tend to say "him" because I think it sounds nicer than "it". I don't have any inside knowledge, don't worry. Didn't you find out, then?'

'No.'

'Good idea. There aren't many surprises left in life, after all, are there?'

I thought about my life. 'There are a few.'

'Well, I'll check your cervix, and then if everything's in order and
if
we can get a sonographer, then we'll take you downstairs for a scan.'

It turned out that my cervix was 'impeccable', which seemed to me to be a nice thing to be told when you're tearful and hysterical on a warm Thursday night.

'That's not opening any time soon,' the nice nurse assured me.

'So — the bleeding?' I didn't dare to be relieved.

'Oh, there are a few things it could have been. A small blood clot is the most likely. It happens more often than you'd think.'

I sat up. 'Can I go home?'

The nurse looked at Anna and Jeremy, who were still sitting in the room, sharing a big bottle of water. Anna's head was resting on Jeremy's shoulder.

'Your friends can go home. You'll need to stay in tonight, just to be on the safe side. For once, there's a couple of spare beds in ante-natal. The nurse on duty tomorrow can monitor you again in the morning and then, assuming all's well, we'll let you out.' She smiled. 'For the moment. At least you'll know the ropes when you come back, but I don't expect that to be for another eight weeks. I really don't.'

I slept surprisingly well. The hospital was rundown, the ward was busy, and there was a woman in the room who was having increasingly noisy contractions. In spite of all this, I had relinquished control, and this gave me a strange sort of peace. I woke up at half past six, when the light was flooding in, the nurses were clattering around, and everyone seemed to think it was a reasonable time to start the day.

'Oh, fuck,' I said, speaking vaguely in the direction of the woman in the next bed. 'I've got to go to work today.'

She looked at me, wide-eyed, and shook her head. 'You're in hospital. You don't have to go to work. That's the
whole point.'

I got home at eight, feeling weirdly rested. I was ready to shower and change and get to the Tube as quickly as I could.

Helen was standing at the top of the stairs. She looked like a child, in tiny shorts and a vest top. Her arms and legs were so skinny that her knees and elbows bulged out.

'Where have you
been?'
she demanded. She sounded petulant.

'Oh,' I said. 'Sorry, maybe I should have let you know. I was at the hospital.'

She turned away. 'Well, actually, I know that now,' she said. 'But you could have left a note or something. Honestly, I've been worried sick.'

I didn't have time for this. 'Sorry,' I said again. 'But how did you know?'

'Anna told me. But are you all right? Seriously? I was so scared you'd had the baby. Or something.'

'No, I'm fine. And now I need to go to work.'

Helen stared at me. Although her face was pretty, there was something hard about her. I thought that I had preferred her when she used to smile inanely all the time.

'I can't let you go to work,' she said, in a monotone. 'There's no way. You have to stay at home. I'll stay with you. I won't go to work either. Matt will understand. I'll look after you, all day. You don't have to lift a finger. Stay in bed. I'll wait outside on the landing, so that I don't annoy you. You can have a little bell to ring if you need anything.'

I laughed, though she was unnerving me. 'No, honestly. I'm not delicate. I'm fine! It was just a clot of blood. It's gone now. It was actually nothing. They only kept me in because they happened to have a bed.'

'Lizzy! A blood clot is
very
serious. Everyone knows that. People
die
from blood clots.'

I started up the stairs. 'Not this sort,' I said. 'This was a small lump of blood, completely harmless, that came from the placenta. It was nothing to do with the baby, and it was nothing to do with deep vein thrombosis. The baby was never in any danger, and nor was I. I feel quite energetic. And I'm going to work.'

I was nearly at the top of the stairs. Helen stepped back. I could almost see her mind ticking over.

'Oh,' she said, after a few seconds. 'Sorry. OK. That's fine. I didn't meant to hassle you. I was trying to help. I was trying to think what would be best for you.'

I felt bad. I could not fall out with her again, not now we were living together. All the same, I was tempted. There was something about Helen that brought out the worst in me.

'No,' I said. '
I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. It was a worrying evening and I have to go to work. I really do. We'll have a proper chat at the weekend.'

She smiled her old, manic smile, nodded, and went into her room.

I got home after a hard day at work. I was hot, sunburned after a lunchtime sandwich in the park, and starving. Helen was in the kitchen.

'Hello!' she trilled, beaming. 'I've got a surprise!'

I looked around the room. 'I can see that. Helen, if you're cooking dinner, I love you.'

'I know it's only early, but I wanted to leave it for you, because I'm working this evening.' She took a bottle out of the fridge. 'Non-alcoholic champagne,' she announced, flourishing it. 'Sparkling grape juice, to be precise. In fact my dad would go mad if he could see this. Look, it has the word "champagne" on the label, which I think is technically illegal. Have some now. Sit down.'

I sat down, grateful. Helen opened the bottle.

'You look like quite the expert,' I observed. 'Do you do that at work? I hate popping corks.'

She grinned. I liked it when she smiled properly. I didn't often get a sense of the real Helen.

'I'm crap at it,' she said. 'This one's a lot easier.'

'Probably because it's made for children.'

'The other day I had to open one at work. I was trying to hold on to the cork with the tea towel, like Matt said, but I let go and the cork hit the ceiling, then flew back down and landed in a woman's drink. Which fell over, and the glass smashed, and spilt red wine everywhere.'

'Matt was pleased?'

'He said he's docking my wages for the two drinks, the broken glass, the dent in the ceiling, and the woman's dry-cleaning bill. I have no idea whether he's joking.'

'He is joking. If he's not, refer him to me.'

'Thanks, Miss Greene.'

I looked at her. 'Are you and Matt an item?'

Helen smiled, and suddenly she looked like a girl in love. 'Mmm,' she said, with a giggle. 'Sort of. I'm not really sure. We've never talked about it.'

'He should be nicer to you.' I took a sip, and waited for her to say something. Instead, she looked worried. She was pacing.

'There's something else,' she said, quickly. She put an envelope on the table. 'Open it in a minute. I'm off now. Working at five. Your dinner's in the oven. You need to switch it off at six but it'll keep warm for as long as you want. It's fish pie, I hope that's all right. I read on the forum that fish is good for the baby's brain and for its eyesight. Salad's in the fridge and the dressing's in the door. There are strawberries and cream for pudding if you want them.' She practically ran out of the house.