Chapter 32
32
Sarah really didn’t want to scream. She didn’t. What she wanted was to be in a nice, soft hospital bed, gulping back a lungful of gas and air with Drew rubbing her back until his hand cramped. Permanently. With Eva, he had decided three hours in that he needed a bit of a break and headed down to the hospital cafeteria to fetch himself a cup of hot chocolate. Really, Drew? she had wanted to say to him. You needed a break? But, despite it all, she desperately wished he was there with her. The contractions were now interspersed by bouts of uncontrollable sobs.
How was it possible that he could do this to her? How? And what would happen next? How were they meant to afford marriage counselling with nappies and breast pumps and cracked nipple cream all piling onto the shopping list a month before they were supposed to? She gasped, her muscles squeezing at the exact same moment a new thought struck. What if he didn’t want to go to counselling? What if this thing with Polly was more than just a fling? And even if he did want to work it out, how could Sarah stay with him after this? Cheating on your pregnant wife. That really was about as low as you could go. Did she really think that lowly of herself?
‘You need to keep breathing,’ Jenny was telling her. ‘That’s it. It’s nearly passed. Just keep breathing. Remember, your body is a vessel?—’
‘If it’s a vessel then I want it to be a vessel filled with drugs.’
‘Turning off now!’ the driver called from the front. ‘Five more minutes.’
‘You said that fifteen minutes ago!’ Sarah screamed back.
‘Yes, well, I lied then. I’m not lying now.’
Sarah clawed her fingers into the seat cushions. How the hell was she going to do this on her own? she asked herself for the hundredth time. Maybe she could get a feature in one of those crappy magazines Nelly always read on the sly. I found my husband cheating the day our baby was born. It wasn’t nearly as catchy a title as some of them, but maybe they’d pay her a bit of money. And if by some stroke of luck that book of his did sell more than half a dozen copies, she was keeping every damn penny of it.
There were only two hospitals in the vicinity that were open at that time, and according to them, Sarah hadn’t been admitted to either.
‘Can I leave my number then? Can you call if she comes in?’
‘This isn’t a hotel, sir.’
‘No, I know. Only it’s my wife. I can’t find her.’
‘Then maybe you should try missing persons, sir.’
‘No, you don’t understand. She’s pregnant. I just need to know if she comes in. Please, can you just—’ There was no point carrying on. The line was already dead. After that, they tried further afield, using the map on Nelly’s phone to find all the hospitals in the region that she could have possibly gone to. He had tried his parents too, although he had called under the ruse of checking that the children were in bed.
‘All tucked up and asleep,’ his mother had said. ‘I take it you two are having fun? It doesn’t sound like you’re at much of a party.’
‘Oh. I’m just outside,’ Drew said. ‘Well, I should get back. We’ll see you in the morning.’
‘No worries. They’ve already made enough mess. You might as well take the day.’
So that was it. Sarah wasn’t home, she wasn’t at his parents’. She wasn’t at her best friend slash the only person she could stand in a hundred-mile radius. Wherever she was, she either couldn’t or didn’t want to be found.
It was past midnight now: three hours since Sarah had stormed out of the hotel.
‘I should go to the police station.’ Drew lifted himself up from the sofa.
‘Look, you’ll sort this out. Whatever it is. I’m sure she’s fine,’ Nelly said, doing her best to reassure him. ‘Maybe she just checked herself into another hotel? Maybe she just wanted to give herself a little peace.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And if she’s not back by lunchtime, then I’ll do another ring round with you. Head to the police station too.’
‘Thanks,’ Drew muttered. He should have been able to give Nelly more thanks than that, he thought, as he dragged himself back to the car. She had just spent two hours with him, making one pointless phone call after another, but he just didn’t have the strength. What was he meant to do now, he wondered, slipping into his car. Just go home? Just go home and pretend his wife wasn’t missing? Go home and pretend she hadn’t stormed off with a look of absolute hatred in her eyes?
The sting of bile struck once again at the back of his throat. You read about it, didn’t you? he thought. Those couples who have a massive argument only for one of them to get caught up in a terrible accident before they can make up. What if that had happened? How would he ever look the children in the eyes again? But then she wasn’t in a hospital, he reminded himself.
When he finally opened the door to the house, he headed straight to the living room, where he stretched his legs out on the sofa and moved his head from one side to the next. Sarah obviously hadn’t had much of a chance to tidy before they went out. Books were stacked on one end of the table, mounds of clothes on the other. There was a pile of children’s toys that had been swept into the corner of the room and two plates that he had a vague recollection of Sarah asking him to put in the sink yesterday. His stomach sank. Maybe Nelly was right. Maybe Sarah had been screaming about the size of the house all this time. He had just chosen not to hear it.
From somewhere outside came the screeching of tyres. Drew lifted his head for a fraction of a second before moving over to the bookshelf. Their wedding photo was masked in a thin layer of dust, which he liberated from the surface with a gentle blow. He tried to remember the last time he had looked at it. The last time he had even thought about his wedding day. Probably when Facebook pinged up that he had a memory to look at. He had thought he was getting it together: the job, and then the book. How had he managed to make such a mess of everything without even trying?
In the end, he fell asleep in front of the television. A particularly bloody horror film – the type he would have revelled in normally – provided a cacophonous accompaniment to his shallow snoring. Only when the remote fell from his lap and clattered to the ground, well after the film had finished, did he jolt awake.
‘Sarah?’ he asked, before shaking himself awake into the moment. His stomach plummeted. Outside, it was still dark, although the stars had faded the way they did just before dawn. In another hour, he would start ringing the hospitals again.