The Last Goodbye (40 page)

“Yeah, well, it’s just a coffee.”

As I looked around the gallery walls that afternoon I couldn’t believe that it was almost time for me to finish up work. I was starting my maternity leave the following week and although I was counting down the days, it would still be weird not coming to work every day. But I wouldn’t miss standing on the Tube during rush-hour while people pretended not to notice that I was heavily pregnant so that they wouldn’t have to offer me their seat. And I wouldn’t miss traipsing up and down the gallery stairs any more either. I was going to miss Nat of course but I knew that we would see each other all the time anyway. We had found a temp to replace me, a young photography graduate who was looking to get some experience, so it had worked out well.

I had another hospital appointment at four o’clock so I kissed Nat goodbye before I left and walked on to meet Ben.

“I don’t think I have ever seen you look more beautiful,” Ben said as I came up towards him.

I reached up and gave him a kiss on the lips.

“Well, I must have looked really awful before I was pregnant then!”

“No, you really are radiant.”

“Oh here we go, the usual tell the pregnant woman she’s ‘glowing’ because you can’t think of anything else to say to her!”

“I never said ‘glowing’ – that’d be pushing it now.”

I punched him playfully on the arm and we strolled along with my arm looped through his.

We reached the hospital and climbed the steps to the antenatal unit. We sat in the waiting room waiting to be called in for our appointment. Finally I heard my name and we went into the darkened room, which was unnaturally warm from all the humming equipment. The sonographer performed a quick scan but the baby was too big to see all in one and now we could only get a view of different body parts: a leg, the top of the head or a foot.

“Okay, now look away if you don’t want to know the sex.”

I looked towards the door but Ben was still looking at the screen.

“Ben!” I said.

He dutifully turned away. “It’s killing me, Kate! Don’t worry, I couldn’t see anything anyway.”

“All looks good, guys – your baby certainly seems very happy in there. You’re having a textbook pregnancy.”

It was like getting a gold star for getting all my spellings right in the weekly spelling test but it always put a smile on my face to hear that Pip was happy. I know it sounds ridiculous but I often wondered if she was lonely in there – Ben laughed at me when I told him this. “Not everyone is like you, Kate,” he would say. “Some people don’t mind being on their own. Pip is happy growing away and doing his or her own thing until he or she is ready to come out into the big bad world.”

“It’s definitely a girl,” I said when we were outside of the room.

“Oooh, you’re very confident, Kate!”

“I’m telling you Ben – I just know she is.”

“Well, I take your girl and raise you a boy.”

“Well, we’ll see soon enough,” I said confidently.

“Well?” I said when Nat came back in the door a few days later after meeting Richard.

“It went well – we talked and talked. I could have stayed there for hours.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well, I couldn’t leave you fronting the gallery all day on your own.”

“Of course you could have. Did he talk about his sister?”

“A little bit but it’s still quite raw – we have a lot of things in common actually.”

“Like what?”

“Well,
The Catcher in the Rye
is his favourite book too, we both love live gigs – and photography of course.”

I couldn’t help but think how suited they would be together.

“Are you going to see him again?”

She smiled. “Stop it, Kate! I’m not looking for anything right now and neither is he – he has just lost his sister.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” But there was a smile on her face all the same. Slowly my friend was returning.

Chapter 55

I strolled down the street on the crisp autumn morning. The sun was low in the sky and I had to put my sunglasses on to stop the glare. I was wearing my woollen winter coat and a scarlet beret but I could no longer close the coat across my huge bump. It was only September but it was a chilly morning that served to remind us that winter was on its way. I was on my way to yet another hospital check-up. I was now five days overdue and the hospital had me in every few days to keep an eye on Pip. This time Ben wasn’t able to come with me because there was an important staff meeting in the school that morning.

I had arranged to meet Nat in the deli close to Jensen’s first. She was going to nip out of work for half an hour to meet me. I went in and ordered a coffee.

“Oh, you’re not still here, are you, love?” The woman who had been telling me from twenty-weeks that I was ‘nearly there now’ looked at me pityingly.

I gritted my teeth. I took my coffee and sat down at a table to wait for Nat to arrive. She came in soon after and I was glad to see that she had put a little weight back on. After Will had left her, she had almost stopped eating and I had been worried about her but she looked a bit healthier today. She was wearing a huge green patterned scarf over a grey woollen dress with tan leather riding boots. She ordered a coffee and sat down opposite me and we chatted away.

“So how’s my replacement?”

“She’s nice but she’s no Kate Flynn.”

I’m ashamed to say that this made me feel good. “She has big shoes to fill.”

“She does.”

“So have you seen Richard since?” I tried to sound nonchalant.

“Well, we went to the Tate Modern last Saturday.”

“Fancy!”

“Yeah, I got some great snaps there.”

“I suppose it helps that he’s easy on the eye.”

“He is, isn’t he?” she said, smiling at me.

I was relieved that she seemed to be in good form and her SLR was back around her neck wherever she went. We chatted some more before hugging goodbye and then I headed on to the hospital.

“Your baby is very happy in there,” they said to me yet again after they had done a scan to check fluid levels.

I sighed. They had said the same thing to me last week and I had hoped it would have budged by now.

“Why don’t you go for a big long walk – sometimes that helps to kick-start things?”

I knew the midwife meant well but I had tried everything. I had never walked more in my life. I was exhausted – I felt I had done my part of the deal. I had carried this baby to term but it was like the goalposts had been moved out on me. As the days went on and the more overdue I became, it felt like an eternity. I was too big to go anywhere and I couldn’t go too far anyway in case labour started. I did not want to be out in public when my water went and make a scene. Ben had his phone glued to him just in case and he would ring me every hour on the hour to ask if there was “any news yet”. “No,” I would reply testily. All the well-meaning calls and texts from friends, my family and Ben’s family were beginning to get on my nerves. Even Gran was on my case when I talked to her on Skype in the evenings. I knew they were just excited but I wanted this baby out as much as any of them and if one more person suggested some other ‘guaranteed’ way to kick-start labour, I might just punch them.

Deflated, I came out the door of the hospital and just walked. I kept on going, feeling dozens of pitying eyes watching every step that I took. That made it all the worse. I was starting to feel very sorry for myself. I passed by the steps of St Paul’s and came up to a little park gate nestled amongst all the offices. I was tired so I decided to go in and sit down in there for a while. Although tall buildings loomed overhead, once inside the gate it was like a tranquil oasis. The noise of the city instantly quietened, replaced instead with birdsong ringing clear on the air. That is another one of the things that I love about London: whenever you need a break from the madness – you are never too far from a park. You can escape the hustle and bustle in seconds, making you forget you were in the thick of one of the world’s busiest cities. I walked around by the small fountain with its giant goldfish. A grey squirrel ran out in front of my path and scooted up into a nearby tree.

I noticed some people standing under a wooden awning so I walked over to have a look. The wall underneath the canopy was covered in small ceramic plaques, all with blue-and-green fonts on cream backgrounds. One by one, I started to read them.

HENRY JAMES BRISTOW AGED EIGHT – AT WALTHAMSTOW ON DECEMBER 30 1890 – SAVED HIS LITTLE SISTER’S LIFE BY TEARING OFF HER FLAMING CLOTHES BUT CAUGHT FIRE HIMSELF AND DIED OF BURNS AND SHOCK.

FREDERICK ALFRED CROFT, INSPECTOR, AGED 31, WHO IN 1878 ATTEMPTED TO SAVE A LUNATIC WOMAN FROM SUICIDE AT WOOLWICH ARSENAL STATION BUT WAS HIMSELF RUN OVER BY THE TRAIN.

Another was more recently erected:

LEIGH PITT, REPROGRAPHIC OPERATOR, AGED 30, SAVED A DROWNING BOY FROM THE CANAL AT THAMESMEAD, BUT SADLY WAS UNABLE TO SAVE HIMSELF, JUNE 7 2007.

Entranced, I kept reading one after the other: people who had drowned saving others from canals or the Thames, people who had sacrificed their own lives to save people from burning buildings and train wreck.

I read the information post. It was a memorial to heroic self-sacrifice and all the plaques were erected in memory of someone who had died while heroically trying to save the lives of others.

Plaque after plaque told another heartbreaking story, each with an ending just as sad. Tears came into my eyes. All were courageous people who had put another person’s life before their own, just like Mam had.

I took a seat on a nearby bench and put my hands across my bump and felt Pip stretching out a leg or an arm, I wasn’t sure which. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I was told that I had cancer while I was pregnant with Pip – how would I feel having to make the same decisions as her, knowing that my baby’s fate was in my hands? And at a time when surgical methods wouldn’t have been as advanced and specific as they are today? Maybe I had been too harsh on her, too quick to judge her without really trying to see it from her point of view? Maybe it wasn’t as black and white as I was used to thinking and she wasn’t being selfish, just trying to do what she thought was her best in unfortunate circumstances.

I wondered if she had led me here.

I told Ben about it all when he came in from school.

“Yeah, I remember learning about that place in school . . . what’s it called . . . Postman’s Park, isn’t it?”

“Why is it called that?”

“The General Post Office used to be nearby and the postmen would sit out there on their lunch-breaks. God, I’m wrecked.” He sat wearily down on the sofa.

“
Eh,
in case you’ve forgotten, you’re not carrying another human around in your stomach.”

“That baby is going to need an eviction order – do you hear that, Pip?” He bent down and spoke to my bump. “We’re serving notice that you have to vacate your home – there are people out here waiting to meet you.”

“She’s not listening.”

“Or he.”

“It’s a she.”

“Well, he or she takes after their mother – already showing signs of stubbornness.”

“Oi, less of that, cheeky!” Then I sighed. “When is she going to come out, Ben?”

“When she is good and ready.”

“But I feel like I’ve been waiting for forever to meet her.”

“Look, she’ll be here in a matter of days and then you won’t remember any of this.”

“I’m not so sure. Oh God, Ben, what if I’m a rubbish mum?” And tears that I don’t know where they came from started up. My hormones had gone into overdrive over the last few days.

“You’re going to be great, I just know you are.”

“But I don’t know any nursery rhymes or fairytales.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I don’t know – but I don’t even remember the words to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ or how
The Three Little Pigs
ends!” I wailed. “I’m going to be useless. I need Mam. I miss her.”

“Kate, you’re just starting to get nervous, it’s only natural. It’s a big step becoming a parent.”

“I just don’t know if I’m going to be any good at the motherhood lark.”

“You’re going to be just fine, Kate. I know you will. The fact that you’re even worrying about it shows that you will be.” Ben put his arms around me. “And you’ve got me too – we’ll get through it all together and, besides, I know the ending to
The Three Little Pigs
.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, the pigs get the wolf in the end.”

“They do? Well, good for them. I like a happy ending.”