Peacock Emporium (56 page)
‘Any problems with your waterworks? Sore throat? Stomach ache?’
The examination didn’t take long: there was plainly no physical problem. He diagnosed depression, unsurprising when you considered the circumstances in which she was living. ‘A lot of women get a bit hysterical during pregnancy,’ he said to the young man, as he closed his case. ‘Just try to keep her calm. Maybe take her for a walk in the park. Be good for her to get some fresh air. I’ll write you a prescription for some iron tablets. See if you can get some colour in her cheeks.’
The young man saw him out, then stood at the door of the little room, his hands thrust uncomfortably into his pockets, patently out of his depth. ‘But what do I do?’ he kept saying. ‘She doesn’t seem to be listening to me.’
The doctor followed the young man’s anxious gaze to the bed, where the girl had fallen asleep. He had a suspected TB at number forty-seven, a bedsore dressing, and Mrs Baker’s bunions left over from yesterday and, sympathetic as he was, he couldn’t waste any more time here. ‘Some women find motherhood a bit harder than others,’ he said, placed his hat firmly on his head and left.
‘But I was told my mother died in childbirth,’ Suzanna had said, when Vivi had told her what she knew of her mother’s last days. It had been another reason for her own reservations about being a mother.
‘She did, dear.’ Vivi had taken her hand, a gentle, maternal gesture. ‘Just not yours.’
Twenty-Nine
My daughter was born on the night of the power cuts, the day that the whole hospital, and half the city, was plunged into darkness. I like to think it was portentous now: that her arrival in this world was so important it had to be marked by something. Outside, the lights had disappeared, room by room, building by building, dissolving their way across town like bubbles in champagne, as we sped by in our car until the night sky met us at the hospital gates.
I had laughed hysterically between the contractions, so that the thick-jawed midwife, who couldn’t understand what I was saying, thought there might be something wrong with me. I couldn’t explain. I was laughing because I had wanted to have her at home and he had said I couldn’t, that he couldn’t stand the risk of something happening. It was one of the few things we have ever disagreed about. So there we were, him apologising and me laughing and gasping in the entrance, as nurses shrieked and swore, and the walking wounded collided in the dark.
I don’t know why I laughed so much. They said afterwards that they had never known someone laugh like that in labour, not without the benefit of Entonox. Perhaps I was hysterical. Perhaps the whole thing was just so unbelievable that I couldn’t accept it was happening. Perhaps I was even a little afraid, but I find that hard to believe. I am not afraid of much, these days.
I didn’t laugh so much once it got really painful. Then I chewed on the mouthpiece for the gas and air, and shouted, outraged and betrayed that no one had warned me it could feel like this. I don’t remember the last part; it became a blur, of pain and sweat and hands and encouraging voices urging me in the dim light to bear down, to go on, telling me that I could do it.
But I knew I could do it. In spite of the pain, the strange and shocking sensation that heralded the birth, I didn’t need their encouragement. I knew I could push that baby out. Even if there had been no one there but me. And as I stared down my naked torso in our final minutes as one, my hands white-knuckled as they gripped the sheets, she slid out with something of the same determination, the same confidence in her own abilities, her arms already raised as if in victory.
He was there to meet her. I don’t know how, I don’t think I had seen him move. I had made him promise beforehand that he wouldn’t stand there, that he would not spoil his romantic view of me. He had laughed, and told me I was ridiculous. So he was there when she breathed her first in this world, and even in the dim light I could see tears glistening on his cheeks, as he cut the cord and lifted her, holding her up to the candlelight so that I could see her, believe in her too.
And the midwife, who I think had planned to see to her, stood back while he held her, kissing her face tenderly, wiped the blood from her limbs, her dark hair, all the while crooning a love song I didn’t understand. He spoke her name, the name we had agreed: Veronica de Marenas. And, as if by magic, the lights began to go on again, illuminating the city, district by district, thrusting the quiet streets back into light. When they came on in our little room, harsh and bright, the midwife moved briskly to the switch and turned them off. There was a beauty in our darkness, a magic in our half-lit room, that even she could see.
As that woman cleaned me up, both brusque and tender, I watched my husband and my daughter move around the little room, their faces lit by the candles, and finally began to cry. I don’t know why: exhaustion, perhaps, or the emotion of it all. Disbelief that I could produce this perfect, beautiful little girl from my own body, that I could be the unwitting creator of such joy.
‘Don’t cry,
amor,’
Alejandro said, beside me, his own voice still choked with tears. He had moved to the side of the bed. Hesitating, he gazed at her, then leant over and handed her gently to me. Even as his eyes filled with love, his hands moved slowly, as if he was reluctant to let go. And as she looked up at us, blinking in that wise, unknowing way, he hugged me close to him, so that we were all enclosed in a single embrace. ‘There is nothing to cry for. She will be loved.’
His words cut through everything then, left no dark corners, as they do still.
She will be loved.
About the author
Jojo Moyes was born in 1969 and was brought up in London. A journalist and writer, she worked for the
Independent
newspaper until 2001. She lives in East Anglia with her husband and three children. She is the author of
Sheltering Rain, Foreign Fruit
, which won the RNA Novel of the Year award for 2003,
The Peacock Emporium
and
The Ship of Brides
, shortlisted for the 2005 RNA award.
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