Читать книгу Forget Me Not - Isabel Wolff - Страница 11

THREE

The private clinic I’d booked myself into a week later was called the Audrey Forbes Women’s Health Centre and was in a rain-stained sixties office block in Putney High Street, next to a bookshop. I glanced in the window at the colourful pyramid of children’s books: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt; The Gruffalo; The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I wasn’t in the least hungry myself, I realised, even though I’d been told to have nothing to eat or drink.

I gave my name to the receptionist on the ground floor, then pressed the button to summon the lift. To my disappointment it arrived straight away. The interior smelt of stale cigarette smoke and cheap scent, which added to my nausea, which had been increasing daily. I arrived at the fifth floor with a stomach-lurching jolt.

There was a faint smell of antiseptic mingled with the odour of plastic chairs as I entered the huge waiting room. There must have been about eighty seats or so – a good half of them occupied by women, some as young as children, others as old as grannies. Perhaps they were grannies, I thought. It was perfectly possible to be a granny and pregnant – even a great-granny, come to that, if you’d got started young enough.

To my left two women, one early twenties, the other late thirties, were chatting in a subdued way. As I queued at the desk I caught fragments of their conversation.

Oh, you’ll be fine … about two hours … don’t cry … left you in the lurch, has he …? Don’t upset yourself … I haven’t even told my husband … well, he’d kill me if he knew … no, not really painful … don’t cry.

‘Name, please?’ said the nurse.

‘Anna Temple,’ I whispered. I felt a wave of shame.

‘And how will you be paying today? We take Mastercard, Visa, Maestro, American Express, cheque with a valid guarantee card – or cash,’ she added pleasantly.

I handed her my credit card.

‘That’ll be five hundred and twenty-five pounds,’ she said as she slotted it into the machine. ‘Which includes a 1.5 per cent handling charge.’ This somehow made it seem like excellent value. I wondered if she was going to offer me a 3 for 2, like the pharmacist, or maybe a discount voucher, for future use. She handed me a clipboard. ‘Please fill out this form.’

I stepped to one side, filled it in and returned it to her. She handed me a plastic cup to fill, and told me I’d be called within the hour.

As I walked to the Ladies I ran through my mental list, for perhaps the thousandth time in the past seven days, of the Eight Good Reasons for not proceeding with my pregnancy. I listed them again now, in descending order of importance.

I am heartbroken about Xan. If I have his baby I will never be able to get over him.

Having Xan’s baby when he doesn’t want me to feels wrong.

I do not wish to bring a baby into the world with no father in its life.

It will make it so much harder for me to find someone else.

Having a baby now will wreck my new career.

I will have no income for a very long time.

I will be too engrossed in my own problems to help my dad, who needs me.

Being a single mother will be lonely and hard.

As I washed my hands, a girl came out of a cubicle. She looked about fourteen. Her mother – who looked no older than me – was leaning against the basin, arms akimbo, an expression of pained resignation on her face. As I followed them back to the counter with my cup I wished that I had someone with me – but who would it have been? Not Xan, obviously, even if he weren’t on a plane, crossing five time zones to reach the other side of the world. Not Cassie. She’d be no comfort at all. Would I have wanted my mother? No. Not least because she’d been there herself but had worked it all out. I had a sudden hankering for Granny Temple, who was always practical and kind – but she’d died in 2001.

As I took my seat again, near to a wall-mounted TV – This Morning was on: they were cooking something revolting-looking with red lentils – I remembered my consultation with my GP. It was already too late for the method where you take a pill; so it had to be the early surgical technique.

‘It takes five minutes,’ my doctor had said reassuringly. ‘And the recovery time is quite short – just a couple of hours. Now, are you sure about it?’ she asked, as she signed the letter which would state that my mental health would be impaired by my proceeding with the pregnancy.

‘Yes. I’m quite sure,’ I lied …

I am heartbroken about Xan, I repeated to myself now, like a mantra. If I have his baby I will never be able to get over him. Having his baby when he doesn’t want me to feels wrong. I do not wish to bring a baby into the world with no father …

What was my fourth reason? I couldn’t remember. What was it?

‘Anna Temple!’ I heard. I stood up. ‘You’ll be going down to the ward next,’ said the nurse, ‘but first go to the locker room, take everything off, put your belongings in a locker, put on a paper gown and wait.’ I did as I was told. Then, clutching the back of the gown, which felt uncomfortably breezy and exposed, I sat down with two other women in the waiting area. I felt suddenly self-conscious about my bare feet. The polish on my toes was chipped and there was a ridge of hard skin on my heels. But the thought of prettifying my feet in preparation for an abortion made me feel even more sick than I already did.

I picked up a leaflet about contraception so that I wouldn’t have to catch the eye of either of the other two women who were waiting with me.

‘Anna Temple?’ said another female voice now, after what seemed like a week but was probably twenty minutes.

I followed the doctor down the draughty corridor into a cubicle.

‘OK,’ she said as her eyes scanned my form. ‘We’ll just run through a few things before I perform the procedure.’

‘Could you tell me how it works,’ I said.

‘Well, it’s quite simple,’ she replied pleasantly. I noticed a speculum lying on a metal tray on the trolley next to her and some syringes in their wrappers. ‘You’ll be given a local anaesthetic, into the cervix, and once that has worked, the cervix is gently stretched open, and a thin plastic tube is then inserted into the uterus, and the conceptus …’

‘Conceptus?’

‘That’s right. Will be eliminated from the uterus.’

‘The conceptus will be eliminated from the uterus,’ I echoed.

My head was spinning. I closed my eyes. I was ten weeks pregnant. The ‘conceptus’ was over an inch long. It had a heart that had been beating for five weeks now – a heart that had suddenly sparked into life. It had limb buds, which were sprouting tiny fingers and toes, which themselves had even tinier nails. It had a recognisably human little face, with nostrils and eyelids; it even had the beginnings of teeth …

The doctor began to tear the wrapper off a syringe. ‘If you could just hop up on to the bed here …’

I stood up. ‘I need to go.’

She looked at me. ‘You need to go?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, there’s a bathroom at the back, by the fire exit.’

‘No,’ I said weakly. ‘That’s not what I mean. I need to go as in “leave”. I can’t do this. I don’t know how I thought I could. It’s … not the right thing – at least, not for me. My boyfriend – ex-boyfriend now – doesn’t want me to go ahead. And when I told him I was pregnant he was very upset, and he said that a child has the right to be born into a stable family unit with two parents to love it, and that may very well be true. But now I’m here I realise that more important than that, a child has a right to be born.’

She looked at me. ‘So you’ve changed your mind?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ I added, as though I thought she might be disappointed.

‘That’s quite all right.’ She sighed. ‘You’re not the first.’ She crossed my name off the list and gave me something to sign. ‘Good luck,’ she said as I left.

I retrieved my clothes from the locker and got dressed, and walked past reception, not even telling the nurse on duty that I was going, not asking – or even caring – whether I’d get my money back.

I didn’t wait for the lift but ran down the five flights of stairs and stood outside the building for a moment, inhaling deeply, feeling my heart rate gradually slow. Then I went next door into the bookshop, found the parenthood section, pulled out a copy of What to Expect when You’re Expecting and took it to the counter.

‘I’m going to have a baby,’ I said.

* * *

I sent Xan a long e-mail that night, explaining my decision.

He wrote back one sentence: I will never forgive you for doing this.

I hit Reply: I will never forgive myself if I don’t.

The next morning I drove down to see my father.

‘Well …’ he said after a moment, as we sat at the kitchen table. ‘This is a … surprise, Anna. I can’t deny it.’ He was shaking his head in bewildered disappointment, as though I’d just had an unexpectedly poor school report.

‘I hope you don’t disapprove,’ I said in the awkward silence that followed. ‘I don’t really see why you should,’ I went on, ‘because first of all loads of women go it alone these days, and secondly the same thing happened to you and Mum.’

I saw a look almost of alarm cross Dad’s face, but he and Mum had always glossed over their shotgun wedding; absurdly, I’d thought, given that it had been screamingly obvious that she was two months pregnant with Mark when she got married.

‘Sorry, Dad,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’ There was another silence in which I found myself wondering whether he and Mum had had terrible rows about her unplanned pregnancy, or whether Dad had just accepted that he should do the ‘right’ thing.

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘But I’m just so … upset.’

‘It’s OK,’ I heard him murmur.

‘And I’m acutely aware that I’m in the same position as Mum was thirty-five years ago. But she was lucky – because she had you. And you didn’t abandon her, or berate her – like Xan has done with me. You just dealt with it, then made a happy life with her’ – my throat was aching – ‘for nearly forty years ’til death did you part. And although it may sound strange to be envious of one’s own parents, I am envious of you and Mum.’ I felt my eyes fill. ‘Because I know your sort of happiness is not to be my lot.’

What you need is a hardy perennial.

‘I’m going to bring up this child on my own. It’s not what I would have hoped for.’ I felt a tear slide down my cheek. ‘It’s going to be lonely, and hard.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Dad said, handing me his hanky. ‘But it’s going to be a joy too – because children are; and when they come along, I believe that you just have to accept it.’ He looked out of the window.

‘What are you thinking?’ I asked quietly.

‘I’m thinking that maybe this new life has started because your mother’s ended.’

I felt the hairs on my neck stand up.

I’ve got the peculiar feeling that I was meant to meet you.

‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘Maybe it is …’

Dad put his hand on mine. ‘You won’t be on your own, Anna. I’ll help you, darling. So will Cassie.’

I doubted that Cassie would help in the slightest – but she was at least thrilled by my news. ‘I’m delighted,’ she said when I phoned her that night and told her that she was going to be an aunt. ‘Good on you, Anna! Congratulations!’

‘Well, thanks,’ I said, genuinely touched by her enthusiasm. ‘But can I just repeat that I’m not with the father – Xan. He’s gone to Indonesia. He doesn’t want to know about the baby. He didn’t want me to have it. He’s effectively abandoned me and I’m extremely upset.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Cassie said matter-of-factly. ‘I heard you say all that.’

‘Then why are you quite so happy about it?’

‘Because I think it’s great that you’re to be a single mum. Good for your image. You’ve always been far too … I don’t know … organised about everything – always planning ahead – and now you’ve been bowled a googly.’

‘Well, I’m glad you approve,’ I replied crisply. ‘Do let me know if you’d like me to develop a drug habit or get a criminal record, won’t you?’

‘I’m going to start knitting for the baby at my Stitch ’n’ Bitch group,’ she went on, ignoring me. ‘Bootees first, then a couple of matinée jackets. I wonder whether it’s going to be a girl or a boy …? Maybe you could find out for me when you go for your scan. Or no – I know – I’ll make everything in yellow. Do you like moss stitch?’

My director of studies was very understanding. Most of our course was project work – in addition to the daily lectures we had to produce designs, to professional standards, for four different gardens. Then in June there’d be two Horticulture exams to test our plantsmanship, and the baby was due a week after these. I’d carry on with the course, as normal, but would just have to pray that I didn’t give birth early. I was cheered by stories of first babies arriving late. So, to my surprise, my life didn’t descend into turmoil, as I’d thought it would, but went on more or less as before: except that now Xan wasn’t in it, but his baby was – as though they’d swapped places. From time to time I’d pick up Sue’s book and reread her unwittingly prophetical inscription. I was blooming and growing all right.

I was aware, each day, of the baby unfurling inside me like a fern. When I went for my ultrasounds I’d watch in silent awe as it did underwater twirls and turns, or waved at me with its petal-like hands. I could see its profile, as it rocked in its uterine cradle; I could see the filigree of its bones, no bigger than a bird’s; I could see the arc of its vertebrae, like a string of seed pearls.

‘I love you,’ I’d whisper to it each night, as I lay, hands clasped to my swelling abdomen, feeling it jump and dance. ‘I’m sorry you’re not going to have a dad, but I’ll love you five times as much to make up for it.’

I e-mailed Xan an update but got no reply. His attitude wounded me, but it also helped me, because it enabled a carapace of scar tissue to form over my heart.

Seeing him on TV was hard though. The first time it happened I cried. Suddenly there he was, on the screen, looking dismayingly attractive, talking about some economic summit or other in Java. A couple of days later he was on again, talking about Jemaah Islamiah and the threat they posed to Indonesian democracy. He began to appear more and more – hijacking my emotions: so much so that I took to watching the news on ITV. I couldn’t risk an unexpected sighting of him wrecking my day.

In mid April I went to the first of my antenatal classes in the local church hall in Brook Green.

I felt nervous as I arrived, my despondency increasing as one cosy-looking couple followed another into the large draughty room. I’d prepared myself for this by putting a large aquamarine ring of Mum’s on my fourth finger; this also made me feel closer to her in some small way. If she hadn’t died, I reflected, she would have come with me to these classes and I’d have felt so much less alone.

I discreetly glanced round the seated group: the other women all had their menfolk in tow, and sported gleaming gold bands and showy engagement rings that flashed and sparkled in the strip lights.

There was a twenty-something blonde with her husband. They clutched hands the whole time, like infatuated teenagers. There was a brisk-looking brunette, with her bespectacled spouse. There was a woman in her late thirties who looked as though she was about to pop there and then. And then there was a large woman with long red hair, bulgy blue eyes and an almost perfectly round face, like a plate. She looked familiar, though I didn’t know why. Perhaps I’d seen her in the local shops. But she was clearly the oldest of us – mid forties – and was twice the size of her husband who, with his red cheeks and fixed grin, reminded me of a ventriloquist’s puppet.

The woman suddenly stifled a burp and patted her chest. ‘Wind,’ she explained with a little smile, as though she thought we might be interested.

By now we all seemed to be here, chatting in low voices, or swigging Gaviscon to ease our indigestion. I was the only single mother, I realised; my heart sank to the soles of my shoes. Then the teacher, Felicity, began handing out an assortment of paperwork on breastfeeding, pelvic floor exercises, what to pack for the hospital etc. But just as she was about to start the class another woman, a year or two older than me, walked in alone. I breathed a small sigh of relief.

‘Is this seat free?’ she asked me pleasantly.

‘Yes it is.’ I beamed at her. ‘Hi.’

The newcomer was dressed all in black, she was wearing Doc Martens and her dark hair was cut in a boyish crop. Her neat, regular features were unadorned by make-up. She wore an engraved silver ring on her right thumb, but her left hand was bare.

‘Right,’ said Felicity. ‘Now that we’re all here, let’s introduce ourselves.’

‘We’re Nicole and Tim,’ said the lovey-dovey couple in unison, then they laughed.

‘I’m Tanya,’ said the brisk-looking brunette, ‘and this is my husband Howard.’ Howard smiled abstractedly, as though he wished he weren’t there.

‘I’m Katie, this is my fiancé Jake and we’re expecting twins.’ A shiver of sympathy went round the room.

Then it was the turn of the large red-haired woman. She waited until silence had descended, a patient little smile on her lips. ‘I’m the journalist, Citronella Pratt.’ Now I realised why she looked familiar. She wrote a weekly column in the Sunday News. ‘And this is my husband, Ian Barker-Jones,’ she added unctuously.

‘I’m an investment banker,’ he said.

I was so taken aback by the Pratt-Barker-Joneses’ self-satisfied introduction that I forgot it was now my turn. Felicity prompted me with a little cough and I felt all eyes swivel towards me.

‘Oh. I’m Anna Temple,’ I began. ‘My baby’s due on the eighteenth of June and … erm …’ There was an air of expectation – so I did this cowardly and, as it was to turn out, stupid thing. ‘My other half’ – I swallowed nervously – ‘Xan … works overseas, as a TV reporter. In Indonesia,’ I added, aware that my voice sounded an octave higher than normal. ‘In fact, he’ll be out there for a few months, and so …’ I twisted my ring back and forth. ‘I’ll be coming to these classes on my own.’

I looked up and saw Citronella cock her head to one side and smile at me, but it was a shrewd, knowing sort of smile that made my insides coil.

Then the woman who’d just arrived spoke up.

‘My name’s Jenny Reid,’ she said confidently, in a soft, Northern Irish accent. ‘My baby’s due on June the fifth. And I’m here on my own because I don’t have a partner – but I’m fine about it.’

I saw Citronella’s eyes widen with something like excitement; then she collapsed her features into an expression of conspicuous solicitude.

In the coffee break she waddled over to Jenny and me. ‘How brave of you,’ she said to Jenny, clasping her fat, spatulate fingers over her massive bump. ‘I just want to say how much I admire you.’

‘For what?’ Jenny asked with a brittle smile.

‘Well.’ Citronella shrugged. ‘For going through such a momentous thing as childbirth alone.’

‘Thank you for your concern,’ Jenny replied evenly, ‘but as I said at the beginning, I’m perfectly fine.’

‘No really,’ Citronella persisted. ‘I think you’re marvellous – honestly – both of you,’ she added, nodding at me. I struggled to think of some retort, but a suitably sharp put-down eluded me.

‘Well, I think you’re brave,’ I heard Jenny say.

Citronella’s nostrils clamped shut. ‘Why?’ she demanded.

‘Well – having a baby so late. I think that’s very brave,’ Jenny went on pleasantly. ‘But, you know, hey – good for you!’

As Jenny turned back to me, her flushed cheeks only now betraying her emotion, I made a mental note never to offend her.

For her part, Citronella looked as though she’d been slapped. Then, determined to recover, she smiled, revealing large square teeth the colour of Edam and walked away. And though nothing was said about it by either Jenny or me, we both knew that a bond had been formed between us that day.

Over the next six weeks of the classes Jenny and I became natural allies. We’d do the exercises together and chat in the breaks: but though she was always friendly, Jenny seemed very self-protective, never revealing anything personal. When, after a month, I confided that I wasn’t really with Xan and that I found it very hard, she touched my hand and made sympathetic noises, but offered no confidence in return. All I knew about her was what she’d told me at the first class – that she’d grown up in Belfast, had moved to London in her teens and until last year had taught History at a ‘very tough’ comprehensive in north London, but had given it up to train as a counsellor.

Jenny seemed so resolutely single that I wondered if, like me, she’d become pregnant after a short relationship and the man had gone off. But she didn’t radiate the air of disappointment and vulnerability that I knew I did – instead she projected a determined calm that bordered on defiance. This made me wonder if she’d got pregnant deliberately, by a friend, or on a one-night stand, or even by donor sperm, though at thirty-four she seemed young to have made such a choice.

Citronella, on the other hand, I soon knew all about, both from her boastful pronouncements at the birthing classes and from her columns, which a kind of horrified curiosity prompted me to look at on-line.

I was struck, most of all, by their vulgarity. No detail of Citronella’s life seemed too personal – too disgusting even – for her to share with her readers: that her breasts were already ‘leaky’, that ‘sex was uncomfortable’ and that her bowels ‘could do with some help’. The overall theme of Citronella’s weekly bulletins, however, seemed to be how ‘fortunate’ she was. That she was ‘fortunate enough’ to have a ten-year-old daughter, Sienna, for example, who, ‘fortunately’ was ‘extremely intelligent, popular, and beautiful’ and who ‘fortunately’ was ‘thrilled’ at the prospect of a new brother or sister. I learned that Citronella’s first marriage to a nappy manufacturer had sadly ended eight years before, but that she had then been ‘fortunate enough’ to meet her ‘banker husband, Ian’ shortly afterwards, with whom she was ‘much happier’, she’d added smugly.

Fertility treatment was another favourite theme. ‘Ian and I would never have had IVF,’ Citronella wrote in early May. ‘We both think it quite wrong that something as sacred as life should begin in a jam-jar of all places! And then of course there’s the cancer risk …’ I hoped that Katie and Jake hadn’t read it – they’d happily admitted to having had help in conceiving their twins. ‘And yes, I know there’s no actual proof of a link,’ Citronella had gone on. ‘But one instinctively feels that such hormonal interference must be doing irreparable harm. Fortunately I conceived naturally,’ she’d continued, ‘though I admit I never expected the enormous blessing of another child. But being pregnant now, at forty-four, does make me feel for my single women friends. They are all roughly my age and must increasingly be aware that they are unlikely now ever to marry, or have children and are therefore bravely facing up to the prospect of a lonely old age.’

With opinions like these it seemed incredible that Citronella had any friends, single or otherwise. In the following week’s column, headed is it really right to go it alone? her theme was single mums.

So far so clichéd, I thought as I scanned it; then I read the next sentence and felt as though I’d stepped into a sauna. There are no less than two single mothers in my antenatal group, she’d written. Let me say that no one admires them more than I do – Citronella liked to dress up her horrible pity as generosity of spirit. But one does wonder – quite apart from the social slur – how their children will fare in life without the firm, loving hand of a father to guide them …

‘Did you see what she wrote?’ I whispered to Jenny as we waited for our next birthing class. We were the first to arrive and the room was empty but for us.

Jenny rolled her eyes. ‘Yup! Doesn’t she know it’s “no fewer than”, rather than “no less than”? The woman’s an ignoramus.’

‘But her comments about single mothers …’ I swigged some Pepsodent. ‘As though you and I were the lowest of the low.’

‘Well …’ Jenny gave a philosophical shrug. ‘At least she didn’t name us.’

‘No – but what she said – about our children. What “social slur”? How dare she! She’s evil,’ I added darkly.

‘Evil?’ Jenny looked surprised, affronted almost. ‘Oh no, Citronella’s not evil,’ she said, with a strange kind of authority which puzzled me, until I remembered that she’d grown up in Belfast, where she’d said it was nothing out of the ordinary to hear gunfire and explosions. ‘But you could certainly rearrange the letters and say that she’s vile. Don’t let her get to you, Anna,’ Jenny went on calmly. ‘You’re going to have a baby. That’s all that matters. Your life is about to be filled with unimaginable love …’ Jenny said this with an almost Messianic fervour that intrigued me. ‘And at least we won’t have to see Citronella after tonight.’

At that I felt a frisson of liberation, but at the same time a sadness that the classes were now at an end.

‘You will keep in touch, won’t you?’ I said to Jenny, as everyone left. ‘I’d like to be … friends.’

Puzzlement clouded her features. ‘But we already are,’ she said and I felt suddenly, unaccountably happy. She picked up her bag. ‘I’m due first – so I’ll let you know.’

‘I’ll come and see you,’ I offered.

‘Yes – do come and see me – or rather us.’ She smiled and then to my delighted surprise, she hugged me. ‘Good luck with your exams.’

I grimaced. ‘Thanks.’

In the event my exams were fine – I even managed to enjoy them in part, though every time I felt a twinge I’d panic that my waters were about to break – the baby was due in less than ten days.

In the absence of an Other Half, I’d decided not to have a birthing partner. There was no one I’d want to see me in such a state. It was bad enough for your husband to see you down on your hands and knees, bellowing like a bull, without inflicting that on a friend. I was happy just to have a couple of midwives – I knew many of them from my pre-natal visits – and some Mozart. As I packed my hospital bag I resolved to stay relaxed and to put my faith in Nature. But in the event Nature got completely squeezed out.

On the Sunday morning after my last exam I woke with a terrible headache and a peculiar buzzing sensation in my upper body, as though there was a swarm of bees in my chest. I waited for the sensation to subside, but it didn’t. I staggered to the bathroom and was sick. Knowing that something was wrong, I called a minicab and went to the hospital. The midwives said that my blood pressure was high.

‘How high?’ I asked the nurse as I sat in a treatment room. ‘Are we talking Primrose Hill here, or Mount Everest?’ I felt dizzy and breathless and my head was aching.

‘It’s 140 over 100,’ she replied. ‘And your notes say that it’s been fairly steady at 110 over 70 throughout your pregnancy.’

‘So what does it mean?’

‘It suggests pre-eclampsia. Are your feet and hands normally this swollen?’

‘No.’ It was as though someone had blown them up with a bicycle pump. I winced as the nurse inserted a canula into the back of my right hand.

‘We should be able to get your blood pressure down with this hypertensive medication,’ she went on as she rigged up the drip. ‘So don’t worry.’

‘What if it doesn’t come down?’ I asked after a moment.

‘Then we’ll have to deliver the baby today.’

My stomach did a flick-flack. ‘By Caesarean?’ I hated the idea of being cut.

‘Yes,’ the nurse replied, ‘because they have to be quick. Now what about your partner?’ she went on as she passed the electronic belt round my vast middle to check the baby’s heartbeat.

‘I don’t have a partner.’ I felt my eyes fill. ‘He didn’t want me to have the baby. He lives in Indonesia now.’

‘Oh …’ A look of regret crossed her face. ‘Well, don’t fret,’ she said, stroking my arm. ‘Don’t fret now.’ Her name badge said ‘Amity’ – it seemed to suit her. ‘You’re going to be fine and so is baby. Listen …’ She turned up the monitor so that I could hear the watery iambics of the baby’s heart. ‘But you should call someone – in case things happen today. What about your family?’ she added.

‘Hopeless,’ I replied shaking my head. Cassie was away for the weekend at some fashionable spa in Austria and I wouldn’t want to worry Dad before it was all over.

‘And is your head still hurting?’

‘It’s hell.’

Then the obstetrician on duty came in, introduced herself, checked my reflexes and blood pressure and went away. Fifteen minutes later she returned, checked both again, this time her expression darkening slightly.

‘What is it now?’ I asked her as the armband deflated with a wheezy sigh.

‘Not so good,’ she replied. ‘It’s 150 over 120.’ She held up her hand. ‘Do you have any double vision, Anna?’

‘I’m not sure.’ I’d been crying and everything was blurred. ‘But my head,’ I whimpered. ‘It’s such … agony.’

‘Well, that’s going to get better very soon.’

‘How? Are you going to guillotine me?’

‘No.’ She gave me a lovely smile and pulled up a chair next to me. ‘We’re going to deliver the baby.’

I felt a wave of fear. ‘When?’

‘I’d say now’s as good a time as any.’

‘Oh,’ I said faintly. ‘I see.’

‘You have pre-eclampsia,’ she explained. I felt a flutter of panic. ‘And the cure for that is to give birth. But we need to get you gowned up in this fetching little green number ready for theatre, OK?’

I nodded bleakly. I had never felt more alone. Amity began to help me undress and as I was taking off my shirt I heard my phone ring. She passed me my bag and I fished out the mobile with my left hand.

‘Anna? Hi! I’m just ringing to ask how your exams went.’

‘Oh. Fine, thanks, Sue … I think. I can’t really remember to be honest … It’s all a blur you see, I …’ my voice trailed away.

‘Anna – are you feeling all right?’

‘Not really. In fact I’m at … birth’s door.’ I explained what was happening.

‘Have you got anyone with you?’

‘No.’ I felt my throat constrict. ‘I’m alone.’

‘Would you like me to come? I’ve had two kids after all – plus I feel partly responsible for your being pregnant in the first place – it’s the least I can do.’

I looked at the clock. It was a quarter past four. ‘Well … I’d love that,’ I replied. ‘Just to have a friend with me – but you’d never get here in time.’

I heard Sue’s footsteps tapping across a stone floor. ‘I’m not at home. I’m at Tate Britain …’ I heard her breathing speed up. ‘With my sister. But I’m going to leave … for the hospital right … now. Chelsea and Westminster, isn’t it? I’ll jump in … a cab. I’ll call you later, Lisa,’ I heard her add. ‘Anna’s having the baby.’ Then I heard her running down the steps. ‘Which ward … are you on?’ she asked, raising her voice above the roar of the traffic on the Embankment. ‘TAXI!!! Give me twenty minutes … tops. I’ll be there.’

The lights were so dazzling as I was wheeled into the theatre a short while later that I had to shield my eyes from the glare. As I sat on the operating table, the anaesthetist explained that he would give me an epidural, for which I had to sit stone still. As I watched him fill the syringe with the anaesthetic I suddenly heard Sue’s voice.

‘I’m here, Anna!’ I heard her call. ‘I’m just being gowned up but I’ll be with you in two seconds, OK?’ Then the door opened and there she was, in a green gown and hat and white overshoes. She stroked my shoulder. ‘You’re going to be fine. This is the happiest day of your life …’

I nodded, then a large tear plopped on to my lap, staining the pale green almost to black. In the background the doctor, in her surgical gown and mask, was conferring with the theatre nurses as they laid out the instruments.

Sue stroked my arm as the needle for the epidural was pushed into my lower spine.

‘Hold absolutely still,’ said the anaesthetist quietly. I focused on the large clock on the wall, watching the second hand click forward fifteen times. ‘Well done,’ I heard him say. ‘Now,’ he said after five minutes or so. ‘Let’s see if it’s working. Can you feel this cold spray?’ I saw him squirt something from a small aerosol on to my shins.

‘No,’ I replied ‘I can’t.’

‘What about this?’ He did the same to my thigh.

‘No.’

‘And this?’ He sprayed the top of my bump.

‘I might as well be a slab of sirloin.’

‘Then you’re ready to go. Let’s get you lying down.’

A nurse lifted my legs on to the bed, then a blue sheet was erected at mid level, shielding my lower half from view. Sue sat on a chair by my head while the scalpel went in. As she held my hand she told me all about the exhibition she’d just been to, as though she were having a nice cappuccino with me, rather than watching me being eviscerated.

‘Beautiful watercolours …’ I heard her say. ‘Still lifes and landscapes … and some gorgeous flower paintings …’ From time to time she’d glance nervously at the other side of the screen. ‘You’d have loved it, Anna.’

‘It’s going very well,’ the doctor said. ‘Now you’ll feel a little pressure …’

I felt an odd sensation as she rummaged around in my insides as though she were doing the washing up. ‘And a little more pressure …’ I was dimly aware of a pulling feeling. Then there was an odd, sucking sound, like a retreating wave. I looked up to see the screen being lowered, and now I saw the doctor’s gloved hands raise up this … alien creature, its body the colour of raw liver, its head coated in a bluish white, its arms outflung, its tiny fingers splayed, its filmy eyes squinting into the glaring lights.

‘There’s your baby,’ Sue said, her voice catching.

‘Yes,’ I heard the doctor say. ‘She’s here.’

‘A girl …?’ I felt a twinge of relief.

‘A gorgeous girl,’ Sue said. ‘She’s lovely, Anna.’ She squeezed my hand.

I felt tears trickle down the sides of my face. The baby opened her mouth and emitted a piercing cry; then she was whisked to one side, where I saw her being wiped, then weighed, then gently laid in a resuscitator.

I glanced at the clock. The time was five past six. But what was the date? Of course. It was the eighth of June.

I’ve got the peculiar feeling that I was meant to meet you.

It was the first anniversary of my mother’s death.