Chapter 15
15
‘Don’t you dare dump your bloody coat on the stairs!’ Sarah shouted through from the kitchen while attempting to stop the stir fry from burning. ‘And can you make sure George is not firing his archery set at the TV again? I swear, we are putting a ban on toys this Christmas. And sugar. And electronics. And things. They have too many things.’
Drew came into the kitchen, his coat over his arm, and planted a kiss on her neck.
‘What exactly are people going to get them?’ He hesitated and repeated the question with a substantially more concerned tone. ‘Actually, what are we going to get them?’
Sarah paused, thinking it through.
‘They can have books,’ she said eventually. ‘They’re allowed books.’
‘Didn’t George almost give Eva a concussion with a book last week?’
‘Paperbacks only.’
Disappearing from the kitchen, Drew reappeared a second later without his coat. ‘It’s still a risk,’ he goaded her. ‘Paper cuts. Accidental arson. I think books might be pushing it.’
‘Fine then.’ Sarah scraped at the sticking vegetables. ‘They can have oranges. Peeled ones, so they don’t break the windows when they throw them in a tantrum at their rubbish Christmas. That’s all any of us are getting for Christmas this year. Oranges.’
Drew’s laugh lingered as he rested his chin on her shoulder.
‘This all looks very healthy,’ he said, sticking his nose above the pan only to withdraw it seconds later. ‘Is there some reason?’
Sarah narrowed her eyes.
‘I started with the Loony Lamaze classes today, remember?’
‘That was today?’
‘Yup. Twelve well-meaning hippies all telling me how my current diet is poisoning my unborn child.’
‘It wasn’t that bad, surely?’ Drew asked, stepping back to rub her shoulders.
‘Yes, it was. They’re nutters, the lot of them.’
On the account of the fact that she had done it once before with George, and everything had gone just fine, Sarah had forgone birthing classes with Eva and just winged it. If that’s what you could call it. The worst forty-six hours of her life. And Eva’s too, of course. Still, even now, the thought of it made Sarah woozy.
‘Just do another course,’ Nelly had encouraged her over the last few weeks. ‘Get your confidence back.’
‘But the cost of it…’ Sarah’s mind jumped straight to the place it always did when someone mentioned taking anything else on. ‘And besides, when am I going to find the time?’
‘If it’s important, then you need to find the time. And I don’t mind having the kids for a couple of hours in the evening if you need?’ Nelly continued. ‘Besides, you could always take a look at the Mind Birthing they’re running at the village hall.’
‘Mind Birthing?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Nelly drank her tea with her eyebrows raised. ‘You know, it’s one of those hippy things. Birth isn’t painful. It’s just a manifestation of all the love we are squeezing out of our vagina type mumbo-jumbo.’
‘That does sound like nonsense.’
‘But it’s free.’
Sarah’s head cocked with interest.
‘And it’s only four afternoons. I’ll have Eva if that will help. One of my old work colleagues did it. She enjoyed it. It’ll be nice for you to have a bit of company too. And it’s not like it can make you feel any more worried about it.’
Sucking her cheeks in, Sarah turned the thought over in her mind. There was no point asking Drew to join her, but classes that were free and short? That sounded like her type of deal. And if they helped relieve the constant knotting in her stomach by just a little bit, it would be worth it. Of course, it depended on exactly how much hippy nonsense she would have to endure. After her first session, she knew.
‘First of all…’ Sarah pulled two china plates down from the cupboard followed by two plastic ones. ‘We were made to tell each other about all the toxins we are putting in our body.’
‘As in… food?’
‘You’d think.’ Sarah chortled bitterly at the na?ve simplicity of Drew’s answer. ‘But, no. Not just food. Makeup, pollution. Words.’
‘Words?’
‘Negative words. And technology. Social media. Even some colours are toxic, apparently.’
‘Really?’ Drew frowned, giving the impression that Sarah might not be recollecting the event fully.
‘Seriously. Orange, that’s a toxic colour apparently. And purple. Who knew?’ She switched the hob off and reached for a spoon. ‘I had no idea what was going on. After that, we spent twenty minutes watching videos of women giving birth in lakes surrounded by fish and mosquitos. Then we crouched on the floor for half an hour trying to feel our nostrils move.’
‘No.’
Sarah closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to replicate the instructions offered in class. See the flow of air. Let the energy fill you from within . A couple of breaths in, and she remembered she was supposed to be dishing up dinner. ‘That was the best bit. Hopefully, there’ll be more of the deep breathing next week. I’m pretty sure the woman next to me was asleep for the whole of it, so I might just use it as an afternoon nap time.’
‘Then why bother going?’ Drew helped himself to a piece of chicken straight from the pan. ‘I know you’re worried about the labour and everything, but honestly, it was all okay with Eva in the end, wasn’t it? If you don’t feel like you’ve got enough time for the classes, you might as well just skip them.’
Locking her jaw and avoiding his gaze, Sarah handed Drew the two filled plates. Okay was most definitely a subjective word. At this moment, more than ever. If there was one memory in her life she could keep eternally repressed, it would be that of Eva’s birth. Even now, just thinking back, she could feel her pulse start to race, the sweat build on her skin. Hours of excruciating pain and people offering endless words of encouragement. And then something changed. There’d been hushed whispers, furtive glances they thought she couldn’t see. Doors swinging open and closed while everyone told her, ‘ Don’t worry. Things like this happen. Just keep breathing .’ Like not breathing was even a possibility. That was when she discovered they’d lost Eva’s heartbeat. Two doctors and the worst forty minutes of her life later, they found it again. Not that they made the birth itself any better. The epidural had been ineffective, her muscles had given up the will to live, and in the end, she had had two midwives and two doctors and a vacuum all racing to get Eva out, in case the lost heartbeat was something more than just an anomaly. She lost a lot of blood in the process too. Far more than with George. Thinking back to that time, the smell of blood would still strike her as if it was wafting right under her nose. All that time, Drew had been standing beside her, trying to make it look like he wasn’t about to pass out, and acting like what she was going through was entirely normal. And now, he was acting like pushing another one out was going to be as easy as pulling the lid off a Tesco’s Finest ready meal.
‘I will be there,’ Drew said, apparently noting the change in atmosphere. ‘I will be there, and the doctors will all be there, and nothing is going to go wrong.’
‘Just make sure your bosses know all the dates.’ Sarah spooned out more of the stir-fry mixture onto the plastic plates. ‘The other two were late, so you might have to change the weeks around if that happens again.’
‘I know.’
‘And you’re taking paternity leave and holiday time. Don’t forget that.’
‘I’m not going to forget that, Sarah.’ The two syllables’ use of her name was quickly followed by a more amenable tone. ‘Are the kids going to eat that too?’ Drew asked.
‘They’d better.’ Sarah shook the memories of past labours and fears of the future one from her mind. ‘Otherwise, I shall be projecting some seriously toxic vocabulary in their direction.’
Surprisingly, the children managed to eat enough broccoli and chicken stir fry that Sarah felt justified in serving them two oversized portions of ice cream for dessert. In fairness, Eva had mainly mashed hers around her chair and into her hair, but the overall effect imitated eating closely enough that Sarah was satisfied.
While Drew bathed them and got down to bedtime stories, Sarah got to work on the editing.
‘All done,’ Drew said, downstairs before Sarah had even managed the first page.
‘What do you mean done?’ She momentarily lifted her eyes from the computer before lowering them back down and heading to the thesaurus in search of a non-mathematical synonym for girth . ‘Have they brushed their teeth?’
‘Top ones and bottom ones.’
‘Stories?’
‘Julia Donaldson times four.’
‘And Eva?—’
‘Has knickers on over her nappy.’
Sarah straightened her back, mildly impressed, before frowning in confusion. ‘How did you get her knickers to go over her nappy? Surely, they don’t fit?’
‘Well, we used yours, but she’s fine with that.’
Sarah opened her mouth to respond, only to discover there wasn’t a response to such a situation.
‘Okay,’ she said.
Her head was about to return to the task at hand when Drew squeezed down on the edge of the sofa and began to rub her feet.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, digging his thumbs in below her big toe and distracting her entirely from the metaphor she had previously had on the tip of her tongue.
‘What for?’
‘For the birthing-class stuff. I’ll get the train back earlier next week. I’ll come with you. Maybe I could just wear a blindfold for the… you know…’
‘The vaginas?’
He nodded in a minuscule motion. Sighing, Sarah placed the laptop on the floor beside her.
‘It’s fine,’ she assured him. ‘It’s a nice group. I mean, it’s weird, but they’re nice. There are all sorts there. Several single people. Besides, I like the enigma that comes with being on my own.’
‘Enigma?’
‘You know…’ She shuffled up closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Have I walked out on my husband to do this by myself, or am I part of a polyamorous relationship and don’t want people to know? Is there no father at all?’
‘Isn’t the class run by one of the teachers at George’s school?’
Sarah dropped her arms. ‘Okay, so I’m not that much of an enigma, but it’s fine, honestly. It wasn’t as bad as I thought.’ Drew’s jaw remained tight. She lifted a hand to touch it. ‘Honestly,’ she said again.
With a heavy sigh, his eyes moved down to her laptop, only to jump straight back to meet her gaze.
‘I keep forgetting to tell you. The Christmas party is on the fourteenth this year.’
‘The party where Barry gets drunk every year and spends half the time telling me you’re the best boss he’s ever had and the other half in tears telling me he’s convinced he’s going to get fired?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s a Friday night.’
‘All right.’
Sarah’s eyes went back to the laptop. Another pair of perfect abs to try and deal with. Seriously? Highlighting the area, she clicked delete. She was just about to deal with the woman’s heaving bosom when she realised Drew was still looking at her.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked, noting the twitch to his lower lip.
‘What? Oh, yes, everything’s fine. But, well… I wondered…’
Recognising the signs as an indication that this was not going to be a short conversation, Sarah hit save on the top of the screen and placed her laptop down on the sofa beside her. ‘You were just wondering what?’
‘Well, did you want me to see if I could get Mum and Dad to babysit?’
‘Babysit? What for?’
‘For the Christmas party?’
‘I assumed we would.’ Sarah’s hand went back to the computer.
‘I meant babysit , babysit.’
Sarah frowned.
‘What’s babysit , babysit?’
‘You know. Overnight. It’s at a hotel this year. One in town. I thought I could book us a room. We get a discount with work. And it would probably be the last chance we would get to have a bit of time to ourselves before the baby arrives. And before you mention money, don’t forget, it’ll be December. I’ll get my Christmas bonus. I can reserve the room now and pay for it then. I’ve already checked.’
Pursing her lips, Sarah ran her tongue along the edge of her teeth. As nice as it sounded, a bit of time to themselves would come with hours of preparation. Eva had never spent a night at her grandparents’ before, meaning it would probably be a disaster. George was always so grumpy and tired at the end of term that he probably wouldn’t want to stay either. All the usual excuses tumbled their way to the front of her mind. Not to mention the fact that they would be pushing it dangerously close to her due date. It was highly unlikely that she’d be up for anything other than an early night and a breakfast buffet. There were tens of reasons as to why it was definitely not a great idea.
‘That sounds nice,’ she said.
Every third line, her mind drifted from editing. One minute, she was thinking about Christmas – what they were going to cook and whether it was really worth pulling the dining table out into the centre of the room for just the four of them – and the next moment, she was pondering the chances of Drew’s parents surprising them with a massive wad of cash for the holiday season, and then her thoughts were off again, this time wondering what the hell she was going to wear to the Home Crew Christmas party. For over forty minutes, she stared at the same paragraph, getting exactly nowhere. Worse still was that it had been the same paragraph she had been staring at that morning while Drew got the kids ready for school. Last week, it hadn’t been like that at all.
Tiredness would have been her normal excuse, only she wasn’t any more tired than she had been for the last five years, and she had just got her bloodwork back from the doctors, showing she was actually in pretty good shape. It had to be the writing, she decided. Something was stopping the words from moving properly. If only she could place her finger on the problem. There was nothing wrong with the syntax, and the dialogue appeared natural enough, but something about it just wasn’t sitting right.
As such, by the end of her afternoon editing session, Sarah was nearly two chapters behind where she had hoped to get up to that day. Add to that the fact that she hadn’t even managed to wash up the breakfast bowls from that morning or run the vacuum through the house. Oh well. If Drew wanted a full, cooked meal when he got in from work, he was going to have to be the one to make it. She was an editor now. She had deadlines to meet.