The Story of You (39 page)

‘You all right, darlin’?’ I could see her, through the gap in my knees, do her little geisha shuffle towards me. ‘You all right …?’ ‘Yes I’m fine,’ I said. But just as she got close, another pain shot through me, making me cry out.

‘You’re not all right, are you?’

There was no blood yet, but there would be. I knew. I just knew. ‘Grace,’ I said – she was rubbing my back, patting it like a child might do if they were concerned about their mother – ‘I think you’re going to have to call me an ambulance.’

We heard the siren before we saw the ambulance, a wail that engulfed the quiet neighbourhood, shaking those saplings at their foundations, making curtains flutter – or that’s how it felt, like it was ripping through the earth beneath my feet, on a path of destruction. Everything happening again, everything as I had feared.

Grace walked into the middle of the road as the ambulance neared, the ivory skirt of the wedding dress she always wore pearly in the lamplight. She was wearing the poncho over it, as well as the obligatory baseball cap and high-tops and, as the ambulance turned into the road and she ushered it to a parking spot – this nymph-like figure gesticulating in the drizzle – she could have been a car-park attendant at Glastonbury Festival.

The ambulance parked up and the wail subsided. Just the blue light remained, circling the cul-de-sac like a spaceship landing, like it was from some other world, a world I recognized, and it filled me with all kinds of dread. Two paramedics got out, just as another pain took me. One of them – tall, slim, greying hair, strode towards me.

‘Hello, love.’ He crouched down to my level. Closer up, he looked like Michael Palin, and this comforted me. Mum always fancied Michael Palin – she said he had kind, humorous eyes, and this man had kind, humorous eyes. I felt safe with him. I felt like Mum had sent a Michael Palin-lookalike here on purpose, to make this whole thing bearable, to let me know she was here, watching.

He asked my name and how pregnant I was, and told me his name was Glenn.

‘So you’ve got pains?’ said Glenn.

Grace, who had been fully involved until this point was now sitting at the other end of the bench, eyeballing Glenn suspiciously. Glenn looked at her, then back at me, as if for explanation, but I decided against telling him that my companion was paranoid and delusional, in the grips of psychosis.

‘Can you tell me where the pain is?’

‘In the stomach. Right across the stomach.’

‘Have you had any kind of fall?’

‘Not that I can remember, no.’

‘And is the pain constant?’ he said. ‘Or does it come intermittently?’

‘She’s just got bellyache, haven’t you, darlin? They’re not contractions, you know … She ain’t losing no baby on my watch.’

Even in the grips of agony, I was so grateful for Grace’s note of confidence. At least someone was watching out for me.

‘They may very well not be contractions,’ said Glenn. ‘It could be something as simple as constipation; it’s very common in pregnant women and can be very painful.’

‘Oh, yeah, I get terrible constipation,’ said Grace.

Glenn looked at me, a flicker of a smile passing his lips.

‘It’s all the pills they have me on, wreak absolute mayhem with my bowels.’

Another pain wracked me, another and another, but there was no blood, I told myself, there was no blood yet.

‘Right, shall we get you in the ambulance, love, get you to hospital,’ said Glenn, putting his arm around my back and leading me to the ambulance door. I stepped up the little ramp and, as I did so, looked back to see Grace, a figure in a white dress and a poncho, reaching out for me and, for a second, I had a flashback, so vivid I had to close my eyes and open them again to make sure it wasn’t real: a dark, wet February afternoon, a navy-blue skirt plum-red with blood. The smell of hospitals as I get inside an ambulance, and then, looking back and there being Joe, sprinting out of school towards me, his chest heaving, his blazer blazing behind him. There’s the yellow oblongs of the strip lights inside the school, his face sheet-white, reaching out to me like Grace was now, and this hollowness opening up inside me, because I knew; it was like a disconnect. Like a wire had been severed. I knew she was gone.

Did I have that same feeling now? I couldn’t tell.

‘Darlin’, I wanna come with you,’ Grace was crying from outside the ambulance. I wanted to tell her to keep quiet, that they couldn’t know she was mad because I did want her with me, but Glenn didn’t seem too concerned. I guessed he’d had much worse in his ambulance. Also, it was obvious. ‘Sure, come in,’ he said. ‘You can hold her hand, you can calm her down.’

I was helped onto the red plastic bed by Glenn. The pains came in waves but in between I was fine, I could talk.

Grace asked if she could have a fag inside the ambulance.

Glenn said, ‘You must be mad.

‘D’you know that’s my one regret in life – voting for Tony Blair. It’s ’cause of him you can’t have a damn ciggie anywhere.’

Myself, Glenn and the other paramedic laughed. I was glad Grace was here.

The wail sounded and we began to race through the dark streets. Grace was holding my hand. She’d found a stray bourbon biscuit in her pocket and was nibbling on it. Unbeknown to her, I was texting Kaye with my other hand, asking her to call the Recovery Centre.

‘Cec is going to be all right, you know,’ I said to Grace. ‘You and Cec are going to be fine.’ Secretly, I was thinking that whatever the outcome was of this, and I was preparing myself for the worst, at least it would have – in some inadequate way – done what I set out to do. It would have saved Grace, stopped her doing anything she might regret.

Grace pulled the blanket around me, and it was as she did that, that I felt the warm seep of something below. My heart stopped. For a few minutes, I said nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to even say the words. I closed my eyes. I wanted to disappear.

Grace was asking Glenn about what certain equipment was for in the ambulance, how long he’d done the job, ‘… and ’ow much do they pay you, darlin’?’ She added, ‘I bet it’s not as much as they should.’ Then she turned to me, ‘Oh, darlin’,’ she said, ‘why you crying?’

I pulled her close so I could whisper in her ear. I thought if I didn’t say it out loud, it might not be happening. ‘I’m bleeding, Grace,’ I said. ‘I can feel it. I’m scared I’m going to lose the baby.’

She clasped my hand to her cheek right then. ‘You ain’t,’ she said; she somehow knew she should whisper. ‘You ain’t, darlin’. Gracie won’t let that happen.’

The ambulance careered around the streets, the siren felt like it was coming from within me and, with every turn, I could feel another trickle. I was clenching my muscles, but I couldn’t stop it.

‘It’s going to be okay, darlin’.’ Grace was pushing back my hair from my face, a bit too hard but I didn’t care.

‘Gracie knows, you’re going to be okay.’ But I didn’t believe her. I didn’t.

I closed my eyes. I thought,
If it happens again, I’ll never survive
. And all I wanted was blankness, the blankness of the swimming pool the other day, just the sound of water and my breath.

‘What’s she like next to you?’ Leah whispered, gesturing to the heavily pregnant woman to my right. She was forty-two, had constant hiccups, and was in here for blood pressure.

‘She’s all right,’ I said. ‘Always has hiccups, blows bubbles in her sleep.’

Leah made a face, sticking her tongue out like she’d just been made to swallow her own wee, and it made me laugh for the first time all day because it was so typically intolerant of my sister. Can you imagine the horror of having to share your space, the air that you breathe, with another human being in an NHS hospital? (Leah and Russ were private healthcare all the way.)

It was hard to believe we were from the same parents, sometimes, we were such polar opposites, Leah and I, but when she arrived, the only person close enough to come at visiting time, I was so pleased to see her. Friends are wonderful, but there’s something comforting about your own flesh and blood. If Mum couldn’t be here in my hour of need, having Leah was the next best thing. And she was here, just like Dad and even Denise were going to be here as soon as they could. Our relationships may not have always been perfect, or anywhere near perfect, but I had family in my life who cared about me and it was more than Grace had. I was one of the lucky ones.

I’d had a bleed and, although it had felt like it was pouring out of me, it was only a small one. The baby, they told me, was safe. When I’d heard the heartbeat, it felt nothing short of a miracle, and I’d cried so hard with relief.

Grace had shed a tear too. Then started saying how she needed to see her baby, her Cec. But Kaye turned up not long after; she’d found her a space at the Recovery Centre. ‘It’s like a four-star hotel,’ she’d said to Grace. ‘You’ll love it there, you can have a massage there, acupuncture …’

I think the acupuncture’s what sold it for Grace. ‘A damn sight better than fucking jigsaws,’ she’d said. By the skin of my teeth, I’d done what I’d promised: I’d kept her out of hospital and, hopefully, fingers crossed, she’d not ruined things with Cec.

Leah pulled a chair up, looked at me for a second, then leaned forward and kissed me. Totally out of character.

‘Not been such a great road so far, this pregnancy, has it?’ she said.

‘Up and down, it’s fair to say,’ I agreed. ‘It’s kind of been like being on the best holiday of your life, knowing you’ve left the oven on.’

Leah frowned. ‘That is such a Robyn analogy,’ she said. ‘You’ve always been strange, haven’t you?’

‘I thought it was quite good,’ I said. ‘It captured the bitter-sweetness perfectly.’

We watched the toing and froing of the ward for a bit, me having to remind Leah to stop staring at the woman blowing bubbles in her sleep.

‘Dad’s coming down to get me,’ I said.

Leah rolled her eyes. ‘Dadise, you mean. Because they are one person, you know Robyn.’

‘She’s not that bad,’ I said. ‘She’s actually gone up in my estimation. She’s actually been very supportive about this pregnancy. I feel like this baby will be her grandchild as much as Dad’s, you know?’

Leah looked unconvinced. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, I think we should look at it like this: Mum’s genes will always be around, she’ll always be here, in some curve of the lip, her laugh, her hair, but I want my daughter to have a grandma, like we had a grandma, and Denise is
here
, Leah,’
I said. ‘She’s actually
here
.’

Leah chewed the inside of her cheek.

‘I just think we should accept her,’ I said. ‘She’s never going to be Mum, but she makes Dad happy.’

‘Mm, yeah,’ she sighed. ‘I guess so but, you know …’

I knew.

‘Look, I think you need to try and forget the fact you knew they were together before Mum died. I think you need to get over it, Lee.’

After Leah had told me this at her house and Niamh had come down the stairs, interrupting us, we hadn’t had time to discuss it.

‘What? So it doesn’t bother you?’ she said.

I sighed. Leah’s ability to hold a grudge had always been better than mine, but also I just didn’t see life as black and white as she did.

‘Leah, I’m so grateful that you never told me, because I think it
would
have bothered me when I was younger, but not now, no. Now I understand that things are never that simple, are they?’

She shrugged.

‘They’re not though, are they?’ I said. ‘I think Dad felt like he lost Mum a long time before she actually died; he was her carer, not her husband, at the end, really. I see now how much you were hurting at the time, though, and why you couldn’t handle it. Also, how much you protected me.’

‘Well, I still sodded off and left you and Niamh, though, didn’t I?’

‘You were only nineteen. We were all hurting in our different ways,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but then you went through even worse after Mum, and I wasn’t there.’

I realized, in that moment, that all I’d ever needed really was for her to explain it, acknowledge it. I felt this enormous release, I took her hand.

‘Well, I survived, didn’t I? And now there’s a new baby.’ I patted my bump. ‘You can be there for her.’

I didn’t say anything about Joe – or me and Joe – I would, but not now, I wanted to give this moment just to Leah. I felt like she’d probably waited long enough.

‘Oh, I will, I definitely will,’ said Leah. Then she said, ‘I think I know what happened?’ She said it as a question. ‘I think I know about Lily and what you were trying to tell me in that nightclub, that night you came to see me in Brighton.’

I was so choked I could only nod.

She pulled her chair closer to me then, pulled the curtain around the bed and then pretty much lay on the bed with me, her arms around me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

The next day, safely back home, on the brightest day in September, Dad and Denise arrived at my flat just after lunch. Dad looked like he hadn’t slept – he and Leah had been on the phone a long time, I knew that. He stood in my kitchen like a forlorn, lost sheep (and I thought I felt like the one who had just been hit by a train), while Denise wandered from room to room, having a nosy, muttering on to Dad about at least making his daughter a cup of tea. When she was out of the room, shouting to ask me what colour paint Joe had done the bathroom – was it white or duck-egg white? – Dad rocked forwards and backwards on his shoes, took three purposeful strides towards me, hesitated, then put his arms around me. ‘I love you,’ he said. It was the first time he’d told me he loved me since I was small; the first hug we’d had in years. Once I’d got over the shock, I was not about to let him go soon, so we stayed like that in my kitchen, while Denise pottered around, twittering on about how these flats are so much bigger when you get inside, finding her way around, sourcing tea and milk and biscuits, offering to carry my bags to the car, but never once demanding Dad’s attention.

‘Shall we go then?’ I said, eventually, when we’d drunk our tea. ‘Or Denise, maybe you’d little a little walk around Waterlow Park? It’s a lovely day, there’s a lake there.’