Go to Sleep (7 page)

She met my gaze, no room for negotiation. I sighed hard, pushed myself up.

‘Of course I’m not
refusing
.’ Another big sigh. ‘It’s just . . .’

Matron looked concerned, now.

‘Is there no one who can
help
you with this?’ she asked – and the fury, the nagging, needling, sleep-starved fury bit deep into my reeling head.

‘Who? The
daddy
, you mean?’ I said.

‘I didn’t say that.’

You did though. You did.

I staggered back out and took a taxi home, seething
all the way at the injustices and obstacles I’d encountered, right from my first scan. A woman who won’t do as she’s told, a woman with opinions, it seems, is a woman they’ll make no concessions for. It’s straight to the back of the queue for you, Miss Uppity. And
Mummy
, by the way! This is the
Women’s
Hospital and they’re conspiring to dumb us all down into one woozy hub of fecundity. But there’s the rub: I’m not a Mummy, am I? Not yet. I’m not Rachel, not Ms Massey, not even Dearie or Love. To the hospital I exist only in relation to my unborn baby, and until it is born I don’t exist at all.

So I’m back here in the flat, marooned, breathing it out, fighting through a conflict where the pain rolls through me and I’m elated because this might finally be The One, then pleading and pleading for it to stop, so violent is the kill. The folly of a ‘natural’ birth dies with each agonising spasm. First thing I’ll do is inform the midwife about the change of birth plan; gas and air, epidural – I’ll be taking whatever’s on offer, thank you very much. I crouch in the corner of my living room, breathing, breathing, exhaling that almost silent, self-conscious whistle of controlled pain. The very nearness of the walls is making me swoon and sweat. The bucking and tearing in my womb is shocking, but between contractions – and the space between them shows no sign of diminishing – the pain of being kept awake is much, much worse. My head is jittery and reeling, I feel vacant and
blunt and I am so, so weary now. The space between my skull and my eyes wells up with the feeling you get after drinking too much coffee, or being trapped in a crowded lift, of drugs gone wrong. I have to get out of the flat.

*

Outside the night is fading out into dawn, but the moon still looms, full and fat behind a scrim of cloud. The air is cold and slimy, though there’s a wind coming up from the river. It feels good in my lungs and for a moment it pares back that strung-out feeling in my head and I’m excited all over again by what lies ahead. Next time I pass through here, I’ll have a baby with me. My heart soars at the thought.

I drag my massive, cumbersome frame down Belvidere Road, past the school, past rows of Georgian mansions that are still handsome in their ruin. There are lights on here and there, students cramming or crackheads cooking – either is just as likely down here. After Mum died, Dad used to come here often, just to walk and wander wherever the roads took him. He’d drink in rough pubs, and somehow they’d suss it out; they’d leave him alone. His friends saw it as self-destructive, some kind of penance. I saw it differently. He came here to heal, to fall in love with living again. This was his stomping ground when he first met Mum, and it was where he first came alive. In coming back, he was trying
to recapture those feelings; to retrace his steps back to when he was on fire with the lust for life and all its possibilities.

And it worked, for Dad. It worked. Jan used to see him wandering around. She’d see him as she drove home when she’d been working late at night; she’d see him early in the morning, walking, always walking. But instead of dismissing him as a crank or pitying him like their colleagues did, Jan fell for him. Her curiosity turned to fascination, and from there they became conspirators, friends, lovers. There’s witchcraft in these streets.

A wind breezes through me and I feel it again, that awesome star blaze in my loins I used to feel as I hurried up this road the other way, off to meet Ruben. To yield to him. I’ve liked almost every man I have ever slept with better than I liked Ruben. But no one since has ever made me feel that way again.

My contractions stop – just like that. I park myself on a bench midway along the Boulevard, a stone’s throw from my door, and I wait. Forty minutes go by; not even a cramp or a tingle or a tremor. Nothing. But this time, rather than succumb to the waves of fatigue and frustration rolling through me, I elect to see it as fate. Out of nowhere, I have this burning need to take my Bean to the lake, feel its magic, dip our toes in its icy fathoms. I can press on through the park and lap back home that way. A warning buzz sounds in my head but not quite
loud enough to break my stride. I take in the slowly stirring city, pausing to watch a couple of skinny foxes slink across the school playground. It’s a rare thrill to see them paired up like that, partners in crime. I once saw a vixen and her cubs foraging for mice in South Lodge’s garden, but never two foxes out on the skank together. They sense my presence, break into a trot and, with their snouts dropped low, disappear round the back of the school. I smile, suddenly aware of my solitude in this scene. Gazing out across the empty schoolyard, a lovely image takes hold: a little girl loping towards me across the playground, baring her tiny teeth in a radiant smile: ‘Mummy!’ Maybe the Bean is a girl, after all.

I don’t get a hundred yards down Ullet Road before the contractions start up again. A milk float is whirring up behind me as one strikes and I clench my fists, try to stave off the seizure till it passes. I focus on the moon, barely there now, a burnt out disc behind the black grasp of trees, and I breathe deep and hard. The float wheezes past, the milkman unaware of me. And then without warning I’m down on my knees seeing stars; I’ve fallen so hard, so suddenly the tarmac has stripped the skin off my hands, studded the balls of my thumbs with grit. I’m rocking and writhing, bucking against the shock of the pain, groping out for something to grip on to, to steel against the agony. The blur of the milk float fades away; it is the last thing I see as black, blind pain rips through me and sends me reeling.

I don’t know how long I lie in the road before I’m able to sit up again. No cars, no traffic passes. It is deadly still. I scoop water from a puddle, splash it into my face and drag myself up for the next round. The pain is shifting now, up through my back and my buttocks, each blow more fatal than the last. I turn and slowly, slowly scuffle back. My Bean doesn’t see the lake.

Back in the flat the contractions subside and my heart starts to sink. How much longer can I withstand this? How will I survive without sleep? I try to relax but then all my frustration is blasted to nothing by another contraction, the wildest yet. It punches me to the floor, lams me hard in the womb and nausea whips down from my head through my guts, sending me weak and spinning.

A noise snaps me back to the room, the dismal whine of a creature, trapped. It’s like a balloon deflating, but baleful, sickly. I fear for the foxes. Perhaps they’re trapped out there, or starving, or both. And it’s only when the wailing fades out, followed by the onrush of a gust of air bursting into my lungs that I realise the noise has emanated not from outside but from within me.

Music starts up in the flat next door; around me life bores on, oblivious. The contraction intensifies, but still I hold on. Flashing white pain rips down my spine, arching me, forcing my belly to the floor; my shoulder blades clench together. The briefest of moments where I’m able to draw breath – and then the cold-kill resumes.
I crawl across the floor, growling and tearing at my hair. Dizziness edged with pin-dot lights punch from behind my forehead, sharp and tingling and I’m failing here, passing out from an onslaught of pain that goes on and on and on, dragging my heart down through my womb; then just as I’m surrendering to the hopeless horror of it, it rolls me over, spits on me, walks off. I throw my face up and scream, unable to comprehend this awful, awesome thing.

I lie there in the aftermath, giddy with gratitude. And this time, while I still have the chance, I do it. There
is
someone who can help me with all this – and yes, Nursey, it is a man. I call Dad, praying and praying that he answers.

And he does. Dad answers, as he always does, with the same question delivered in the same way that’s been irking me since I was fifteen. A joyful, ‘
Rache
?’ Followed by a drop in tone, and a reflexive, concerned, ‘Are you okay?’

And this time I can indulge him. I’m
not
okay. He can take over, please, be a dad to me. I tell him, without melodrama, that I am about to give birth any moment.

‘Darling? Listen carefully. I’m on my way. Okay?’

He said I, not We. He definitely said I.

‘I’m coming right now. But listen to me, angel, right. Get yourself comfortable. Yeah? And keep the phone right there. I’m going to call you an ambulance and then I’m going to get in my car and I’ll call right back and we’ll stay on the line right the way through. Okay? Now, stay calm, honey. We can
do
this.’

We
? Who does he mean by ‘we’? Me and him, or him and her? Oh please, please,
please
don’t let Dad bring Jan! He phones back as the next contraction is striking. Before I can even say ‘hello’ I have to fling the receiver across the room, frenzied from the needle-hot stabbing in my anus. The contraction ends almost as swiftly as it burst through, and in the silence that follows I hear my Dad’s voice through the perforations of the phone. I crawl towards it, grab it.

‘Daaaaaaaaad!’

‘The ambulance is on its way. I’m going to get in my car now. Okay? That’s what I’m going to do . . . Rachel?’

But he’s no longer calm, he’s no longer sure. There’s panic in his voice.

‘No! Don’t leave me!’

‘Rachel. Oh, darling – listen to me. What position are you in?’ I can hear her in the background feeding him his lines. ‘Are you sat down or lying down?’

‘Noooooooo! Please, noooooooo! It’s coming.
Help
!’

And now here she is.

‘Rachel, listen.’

No
! Not now. Please put Dad back on.

‘Are you able to remove your pants? Take them off, take everything off.’

Her voice is so assured, so cemented with authority that it’s all I can do to cling to its commands as it booms through the pain. ‘Rachel. Lie down and remove your pants.’

I don’t speak, just obey. I lie down in front of the full-length mirror, tug off my tracksuit bottoms and my knickers come with them. My contractions are murdering me now, one scorching into another, no space between them. I can no longer fight the urge to push. I prop myself up on my elbows, and the mirror is already steaming up from the heat of me. Another blast of pressure.

‘Fuuuuuuuuuck!’

‘Pant, Rachel! Breathe! Pant. Don’t push – not just yet!’

‘Arrgggggggggh! No, no,
no
! It’s too much . . . I can’t fight it any more. I. Can. Not.
Bear
it.’

‘Rachel. Hold on. Your dad will be there any second.’

‘Help! Help me!’

The pain balloons up inside me, bloats me right out to splitting point, slices me in two. Sweat slides down my face, cools the scorching heat of my cheeks. My chest aches horribly, collapsing in on itself – all of me is melting, going under, giving in. My organs are turning to liquid, as though they’re being trampled on. I’m shutting down here, slowly snuffing myself out. I struggle to catch my breath. I try to scream as the next shaft of pain strikes, but nothing comes out.

My limbs fall heavily, my elbows quickly giving way, my neck and shoulders slapping the ground, my body too tired now, too heavy. I’m hot and cold and weary
and I want to just slip under, and I’m frightened for my baby but I’m grateful for the reprieve. I pass out.

A fresh jet of pain snaps me back, propelling me to push before I know where I am. When it subsides I prop myself up again, exhausted, and breathe, breathe, breathe. I’m here. Still just me. I can hear a voice, barking anxiously from somewhere behind my head. I fumble out for the phone but my fingers can only dance wildly across the floor, unable to respond to my commands.

Another heave, another blitzkrieg of pain and then I think I see it, a flash of black hair slicing the hot red oval between my thighs. It seems to suck back inside me, then there it is again, more of it this time. I push harder, so hard that the veins on my forehead throb and my heart gets driven back down through my ribcage.

There’s a soft slurping sound as this tiny, shrink-wrapped thing slithers out on a sea of jelly. There are two screams – mine, demented, and then baby’s. My elbows are buckling beneath the strain of holding me up and I have to lie back down and claw back some strength before I’m able to lift the wrinkled body – a boy, I now see; a beautiful boy, and darker, even darker than I’d imagined – from between my legs and on to my chest. The slits of his eyes jab out at the world from between swollen folds of skin, as though he’s been in a fight. His little mouth
opens, seeking, already demanding; his lungs quickly swelling with the injustice of being dragged from the warmth of his lair. I lift up my jumper, tug down my bra and offer him my breast, some vague crumb of recall making me lift the umbilical cord above the mite’s heart. Here he is then. Here’s my Bean. We made it.

Ambulance lights suddenly strafe the window. I can hear them pounding the stairs. Did they break down the door? It sounds like a whole army, but there’s just two of them, stood in my living room, shocked, relieved, emotional.

A small crowd of people has gathered outside and as I’m wheeled out, my son cleaned up now and wrapped in a brilliant white cotton blanket, blue strobes eerily lighting up his battered face, they spontaneously cheer and clap; some of them are crying, all of us haphazardly thrown together for one binding moment by the miracle of new life. Dad arrives, smiling, distressed. Embarrassed.

As I’m wheeled from the ambulance into the recovery suite, my perfect little man lying prostrate and naked upon my chest, his tiny blind mouth fumbling around my nipple as he tries and fails and tries again to latch on, this is what I am thinking: