Must Be Love (44 page)

Alex wraps a blanket around my shoulders.

‘Now, do you think you can get across there before –’

It’s too late. I throw the blanket away and interrupt him with a low moan and sink to my knees, not caring about anything any more.

‘Okay, let’s get this baby delivered.’ Alex crouches beside me, and for a moment I wonder if he’s going to strip to the waist, but the pain is too much. ‘Pant, Maz,’ Alex says, his fingers pressing into the small of my back. ‘I said pant – like a dog. That’s better.’

‘I don’t wanna pant,’ I wail. ‘I wanna push …’

‘Go for it, then.’ Alex’s mouth is at my ear. My trousers are in a wet heap on the cinder track. There’s a searing, tearing pain between my legs and all the time I can hear Alex giving orders and I really don’t want to listen because I don’t know who he thinks he is, telling me what to do when he hasn’t got a clue how much it bloody hurts.

‘Stop pushing, Maz,’ he says. ‘Pant. Again. That’s it.’

To my relief, the pain starts to wane, only to return with a ferocious intensity. I have to push this time. I can’t resist.

‘Well done, Maz.’ Alex urges me on. ‘Keep pushing.’

‘I am pushing,’ I snap.

‘That’s it. I’ve got the baby’s head. One more push.’

I summon the last of my strength. One more … push. I turn and there it is, the pale shiny body of our baby in Alex’s hands, the umbilical cord lying stretched and torn and bleeding over Alex’s wrist. I slump to the ground, aware vaguely of the afterbirth slipping away, followed by another rush of fluid, but I don’t care about myself. It’s the baby.

I watch and listen, and wait …

The ribcage jerks. The mouth opens. There’s a faint cry, like the mew of a cat, and I burst into tears.

‘It’s a boy,’ Alex says, trembling, as he places the baby into my arms.

Recoiling from this warm, wet and slippery alien, I try to give it back, but Alex holds up his hand.

‘Hold him against your skin, Maz. He needs the warmth.’ He throws a musty old coat around me and the baby. Looking down, I can see the top of his pointy head. His skin is blotchy. He’s grunting with each rapid exhalation of breath as if he’s struggling to get air into his lungs.

‘We need to get you both to hospital right now,’ Alex goes on, and I’m vaguely aware that we’ve been joined by men in fluorescent yellow waterproofs, and that the warm weight of my baby is no longer in my arms, and of another wave of warm fluid escaping from me, taking what remains of my strength with it.

Chapter Twenty-six

Vet Rescue

When I wake up I’m lying in bed with the smell of antiseptic scraping at the lining of my nose, and bright lights shining into my eyes. There’s a blood bag suspended on a stand beside me, connected via a tube to the cannula taped to the back of my hand.

‘Hi there, Maz.’ I turn my head to find Alex watching over me. ‘You’re in hospital. There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘The baby?’ I ask quietly.

‘The baby’s well.’ He leans closer, and I can see the individual spikes of stubble on his chin. ‘I expect you can’t wait to see him.’

I nod weakly. Why do I feel so odd, so spaced out and disconnected?

‘I’m sorry I yelled at you, Alex,’ I begin. ‘I think I yelled at you. Down by the river.’

‘There’s no need to apologise. You were in transition. That’s why you lost it.’ He smiles. ‘Let me fetch you a chair.’

‘I’m not getting in that thing,’ I say, when I find out he means a wheelchair. I slide out of the bed, but I’m uncoordinated like a newborn foal. ‘I can walk,’ I go on, as Alex presses me back with a hand on my shoulder.

‘For once, don’t argue. You’ve been lucky. You lost a lot of blood the other night, and you’re going to feel washed out for a while, so I’m taking you to see the baby in that chair, whether you like it or not.’

‘Where is he, then? The baby.’ I shudder. ‘I had a dream – that he died.’

‘He’s on the SCBU – the Special Care Baby Unit – he’s going to be okay, though.’ I can’t see Alex’s face, but I feel his fingers brush a tear from my cheek. ‘He came a couple of weeks early, and he’s had problems with his lung function, and the effects of hypothermia, but he’s in good hands.’ I can hear the smile as he goes on, ‘He’s amazing, Maz.’

‘When you said “the other night”, what did you mean?’ I ask. ‘How long have I been out of it?’

‘Almost twenty-four hours. I’ve been trotting back and forth between the two of you.’

‘What time is it?’ I’m no longer in possession of a watch – I must have lost it in the flood, because there’s a band with my name on it on my wrist instead. I suppress a flicker of fear as I remember the black water and its inexorable rise.

‘It’s just after six. Bean was born at nine minutes past nine last night, weighing five pounds six ounces. If you want it in kilos, it’s written down somewhere on his notes.’ Alex pauses. ‘You know, if you’d told me you wanted a water birth, I’d have splashed out on a pool.’

He steers the wheelchair with the drip attached into the entrance of another ward, where he checks in with one of the nurses, who escorts us into the unit. She’s less than five feet tall and takes long, springing strides, her big calves bulging from below the hem of her dress. Her arms are big too. Her hair is long and thick and held back in a French plait, and I’d guess she’s at least forty, which is reassuring, considering she’s looking after the baby.

‘Baby’s nice and stable,’ she says, but I’m not really listening. I’m feeling weepy, my breasts are tender and I have a lump like a tumour in my throat because it’s my fault if he doesn’t pull through. Alex, Frances, everyone was right when they told me I was working too hard. That’s why he came early. Because I was too busy thinking about my precious career, too involved in saving the reputation of Otter House Vets, too bound up in trying to make up for Emma’s absences… I glance down, half expecting to see blood on my hands.

‘Here’s Baby Harwood,’ the nurse says, taking us through to a room at the back of the unit and showing us a tiny baby lying inside an extra-large warming incubator. I get out of the chair to have a closer look. He’s wearing a blue hat and nappy, and he’s hooked up by wires to various monitors. It’s horrible. Shocking. I turn to Alex and bury my face into his shirt.

‘He needed a little help with his breathing when he arrived, and he had to be warmed slowly because he was so cold. He’s got an NGT,’ I overhear the nurse saying. ‘That’s the tube in his nostril that goes down into his stomach so we can feed him. He hasn’t got his sucking reflex together yet.’ She pauses. ‘Perhaps Mum would like to have a go at expressing …’

Mum? My heart does somersaults, my emotions flipping from elation to fear at the reality of my situation. Mum. That’s me.

Alex takes a small step away from me.

‘Well, Maz?’ he says.

‘I’ll have a go,’ I say, glad to delay the moment when I’ll have to meet my baby properly, face to face.

‘He’s due a feed soon,’ the nurse says. ‘I’ll show you to the quiet room.’

Alex stays with the baby while the nurse takes me through in the wheelchair, and gives me a container and instructions. I’m thinking milking parlour on a dairy unit, rows of black and white cows, and the regular pulse of the milking machine, and milk by the gallon … I fail miserably. I look at the tiny volume of milk in the bottom of the container. I knew it – I knew I wouldn’t be a good mother.

Embarrassed, I hand the container to the nurse.

‘Not bad for the first time. Don’t worry about it – it does get easier. Now, I’m going to feed Baby then dress him so you can hold him.’ She seems to pick up on my reluctance. ‘Babies are tough little creatures – you won’t break him.’

‘I might drop him,’ I say, trying to make light of it.

‘In a day or so, it’ll be second nature,’ the nurse says. She has that quiet but stubborn way about her, which reminds me of Izzy when she’s convincing a client that it’s perfectly possible to bathe a St Bernard and leave the shampoo on for ten minutes without them getting soaked through too.

‘I haven’t got any clothes for him. It was all too sudden …’

‘Oh, we’ve plenty here on the unit. Most of our babies are prems.’ The nurse detaches him from the monitors and takes him out of the incubator, placing him on a changing station in the corner of the room to change his nappy and dress him in a white sleepsuit. She picks him up and comes straight to me. I can feel my pulse racing, my palms growing hot and damp, and all I’m thinking is, How can I get this chair in reverse …?

‘Y-y-you hold him, Alex,’ I say. ‘I don’t feel so good.’

‘He wants his mum,’ Alex says, raising one eyebrow.

‘I’ve met lots of new mums like you. Don’t be scared – it takes time to get to know someone,’ the nurse says, bending down and holding him out to me. ‘It’s important for Baby to know he’s loved.’

Convinced that I can’t possibly love him and putting off the moment of truth for as long as I can, I stare down at my feet, at the rather tatty slippers in the form of fluffy dogs with lewd tongues which Alex must have dug out from my possessions in the Barn.

‘Arms out, Mum,’ the nurse says brightly. ‘I’m due to check on one of my other patients, and I’d appreciate it if you’d look after Baby for a while. I won’t be long.’

I’m vaguely aware of her exchanging glances with Alex as she lowers the baby into my arms, and then I find I’m too busy concentrating on how to hold him securely to think of anything else.

He’s heavier than I expected, more substantial. I gaze at his features, finding a hint of Alex’s nose and my mouth, maybe. It’s amazing. A miracle. The sight of him takes my breath away.

The baby stares back at my face, his eyes a deep ultramarine beneath a fringe of dark curls, and I’m lost, consumed by a rush of love, and it’s just me and him, and nothing else matters. I slip off his hat, revealing his pointed, pixie skull, and lift him closer, pressing my nose to his forehead, inhaling his scent of newborn baby, milk, talc and fabric conditioner.

‘Hello, Bean.’ Smiling and wondering how I ever thought I wouldn’t bond with him, my beautiful child, I touch his cheek. He twitches and screws up his face. I touch his hand, noticing his veins through the thin translucence of his skin. His fingers wrap round my forefinger. One of his delicate, papery nails is curling away and coming off, but his grip on both life and my finger is a firm, Fox-Gifford-like one. He opens his eyes, the rapid rise and fall of his ribcage stops, and he yawns.

‘Is he all right?’ I ask anxiously.

Alex pulls up a chair and sits beside us.

‘He’s fine, Maz. I think we’re boring him,’ Alex teases, his arm around my back. ‘You know, we can’t keep calling him Baby or Bean. I’ve been trying to think of something to remind us of his arrival. I wondered about Noah, but I expect there’ll be a flood of those this year.’

‘How about River? Or Ocean?’ I test them out in my head. ‘They won’t do for the Pony Club.’

‘The Pony Club isn’t at all elitist, Maz. My mother makes all pony-mad children welcome, although she’s most insistent we choose a name that befits her new grandson’s station.’

I keep my eyes fixed on my baby’s face. My breasts start to leak.

‘How about George?’ It sounds manly, a name a boy could grow up with. ‘George Alexander.’ I hesitate. I know how much Alex wants it, and it seems mean to deprive him. Whatever the name on the birth certificate, he’s my baby. ‘George Alexander Fox-Gifford.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘He looks like a Fox-Gifford.’ I smile to myself, fearing that my maternal ambition is already driving me to push my darling son forward, to put him first. With a double-barrelled name that marks him out as a member of one of the oldest families in Talyton St George, he’ll do well.

Supporting George on one arm, I slip the other around Alex’s neck and pull him towards me, pressing my lips to his, tasting salt and coffee.

‘Thank you, Maz.’ Alex’s voice is hoarse, his eyes gleaming with tears. ‘You – and George – you’ve made me the happiest man alive. And you needn’t worry any more: you’re going to be a great mum.’

From the moment the nurse placed him in my arms, George becomes the centre of my universe. I find myself laughing to myself, sometimes crying, when I recall that I thought I could never love him. It seems so ridiculous now.

Within another twenty-four hours his nasogastric tube is removed and I take over, learning how to breastfeed him. Off the drip, I start to feel stronger myself and the shock of the birth and the blood loss begins to wear off. I’m so sore I can hardly sit down. My nipples feel as if they’ve been sucked inside out, but I reckon I could provide enough milk to fill a tanker and I’m loving it.

Alex is with us most of the time, except when he’s running errands, fetching baby clothes and breast pads and fielding phone calls. He brings newspapers – copies of the
Chronicle
– to show me the headlines on the front: ‘Vet Rescue.’ The story of local vet Maz Harwood rescued from the flood with her newborn baby. Photos of Sally being reunited with newly engaged couple Penny and Declan. A double spread of ducks on the water at a submerged Market Square. Comment on ‘The Big Clean-up’ and ‘Who Is to Blame?’

It is as if the outside world is gradually intruding.

‘My mother asked to come and see the baby.’ Alex chuckles. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Maz. I’ve told her to give it a couple of days. And while we’re talking mothers, if you don’t get in touch with yours, I’ll do it for you.’ As I open my mouth to protest, he continues, ‘If she decides she doesn’t want to have anything to do with her grandson, fair enough. It’s her loss. At least you won’t have it on your conscience.’

I don’t want to think about it. I pick up one of George’s tiny sleepsuits, which is covered with blue clouds and chicks, and fold it up neatly.

‘Emma phoned again,’ Alex says, changing the subject.

‘Emma?’ I glance up.

‘I thought you’d like to know.’ Alex pauses. ‘She was the first to call to find out how you were.’

‘I notice she didn’t put herself out to visit, though.’

‘That’s a bit much to ask, considering …’