The Two Week Wait (35 page)

Yes, thinks Rich. It is. Thank God she doesn’t wish them a merry Christmas.

It takes a few days for the magnitude of losing the baby to hit Cath. At first she feels OK; she’s surprised by her own resilience, proud of herself for holding
everything together. The remainder of Christmas passes unremarkably; luckily she and Rich didn’t have much else planned. She feels unsteady on her feet and a bit dizzy, and she can’t
face calling her mum to tell her what has happened. Her family seem to have assumed she’s got Sukey’s lurgy, so when Judy rings on Boxing Day to check up on her, Rich is able to say she
is in bed with flu to give them breathing space.

But come 28th December Cath is due to go in to work at the gallery, and she wakes up in the morning ahead of the alarm and realizes it was a false reprieve. Before she’s even out of bed,
she knows there’s something dreadfully wrong. It’s as though she’s been hit repeatedly in the head and her brain has been knocked out of her skull, leaving her mind floating in
space, such is the sense of disconnection from her own body. She can barely see straight: the numerals on the bedside radio alarm are way too bright, like car headlights on full beam coming
straight at her. At once she’s scared: she has been here before. She pushes back the duvet, goes to the window, and when she opens the curtains the winter morning is so dazzling she has to
shut her eyes, even though the sky is overcast. It’s another sign: the world is too much for her, too demanding, intense.

I can’t go to work like this. I’m not up to it. I won’t cope. The endless visitors to the gallery, asking questions; having to spend the day in public; everyone wishing one
another a merry Christmas and happy new year.

She feels a tidal wave of panic, hurriedly closes the curtains. She prefers darkness.

Rich, only just coming to, is confused. ‘You OK, love?’

‘No,’ says Cath, in a small voice. She sits down by his side.

Rich hoists himself up. ‘Oh, sweetheart . . . ’ He takes her hand.

‘I can’t go.’

‘To work?’

‘Mm.’ She starts to cry.

‘That’s OK,’ he says gently. ‘Though are you sure it wouldn’t make you feel better?’

‘No. It won’t.’ Just the idea of getting on the bus fills her with dread.

‘It’s just sometimes it helps to be amongst other people. And I won’t be here today . . . I really do have to go in to the office. I’m the one doing holiday
cover.’

‘Of course. I don’t expect you not to go. But I’m not ready. I can’t do it.’ The admission breaks the dam. ‘Oh, Rich!’ she wails. ‘We lost our
baby, our precious wee baby . . . I can’t believe it’s not there any more.’ She lifts up her nightdress and looks down. Tears plop onto her skin and run in tiny rivulets over her
belly. It appears just the same as it did at the end of last week, surely: soft and smooth, a bit round and lacking in tone. Abs of steel I’m not, she thinks ruefully. Her self-admonishment
only makes her more miserable; she cries even harder, and as she does so, Rich places his palm on her tummy, rubbing this place close to where the baby was, this chamber of her loss. For a long
while she continues weeping, her whole body lurching in accompaniment to her sobs, and he continues rubbing, calming her, saying nothing, for there is nothing he can say.

*  *  *

Lou yawns and rolls over, enjoying the sensation of her own bed after a few days away. She arrived back in Brighton last night and even though she’s had a while to process
her family’s reaction, she’s still not completely unravelled it yet. Maybe her brain is slowing down as she enters the second half of her pregnancy; whatever, that her mother ended up
not only pleased about it but putting Georgia in her place was completely unexpected. Lou can’t imagine not having to deal with her mother’s censure. Her disapproval was integral to how
Lou saw the future, yet the next day, when it was just the two of them, Irene even asked if she could lay a hand on her tummy and feel the baby kick. Quite extraordinary.

Inevitably the baby refused to move to order, and at this stage in her pregnancy the flutters are really only discernible to Lou herself anyway, but that wasn’t the point. Of course Lou is
less delighted with Georgia’s response – if she’d been asked to guess beforehand, she’d have assumed Georgia would be positive and her mother negative – but given
Georgia’s history of wanting to please Irene, she’s hopeful her mum will talk her sister round.

Not that I seem able to prophesy anything for certain, thinks Lou. No matter how much counselling experience I have, people will always surprise me.

And
now
you’re kicking! she scolds the baby, as she senses movement in her belly.

She lifts up her T-shirt and examines herself: even in the four days since Georgia spotted the bump, her body seems to have changed. Her waistline has expanded some more – it can’t
just be overindulgence over Christmas, surely; her belly button is beginning to pop out, her tummy feels itchy as the skin stretches.

Apparently the sonographer could glean a clear idea of the baby’s sex at the second scan last week, though neither Lou nor Adam could tell from the screen. ‘I can’t understand
why so many people choose to find out,’ Lou had said to her – it was the same older woman performing the procedure as the previous time. ‘I guess it makes it easier with baby
clothes and decorating the nursery,’ she’d replied. ‘Well, our baby’s not going to have the luxury of a nursery, and if he’s a boy, he’ll just have to cope with
the odd bit of pink.’ She can imagine some of their friends – Howie, for instance – might help a baby on that score.

Surely wondering about an infant’s sex is half the fun. ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ she asks her bump. As if in response, she feels another tiny flutter.

*  *  *

Cath is on a strange planet. There is no sun; only the ice-blue light of a spaceship illuminates her way. It looks cold, though she can’t gauge the temperature through the
giant eiderdown of her spacesuit. It’s a struggle to move and her breath keeps steaming up the visor of her helmet. But she’s determined to scrutinize the eerie honeycomb formations
that seem to stretch in every direction around her; she can just make them out in the semi-darkness. She crouches down: there are hundreds, no, thousands, of ova; bigger than ostrich eggs, the
shells are slightly transparent. She examines one up close; inside she can see a larva, pulsing gently with life. She reaches out, scoops up the egg with clumsy giant-gloved hands. But as she
stands upright, it falls from her hands, smashes.

‘Whoa!’ She jumps.

But it’s only Rich; she must have fallen back asleep. Disturbed, she tries to shake herself back to reality.

‘Cath, I brought you this.’ He is standing over the bed with a mug of tea. His hair is damp from the shower, his face pink from having just shaved, he smells of lemon soap. He is
dressed and ready to leave. Cath can’t identify with his professional persona at all. She half wants him to go so she can be alone, half wants him to stay, reground her, comfort her.

‘Promise me you’ll get up, love.’

‘OK,’ she says. But she knows she won’t. She can’t face engaging with the day. Getting dressed means she intends to.

She hears Rich go down the stairs, shut the front door, start the car, drive away. She doesn’t envy him, having to go to Leicester. She can’t imagine being able to go anywhere. Even
going as far as the bathroom down the hall is an effort, as if she has to swim against a tide of treacle to get there. By the time she sits on the loo she is shaking all over.

She is still bleeding, a reminder that the process isn’t over yet. Her abdomen contracts, like period pains, but worse.

She makes herself look into the bowl of the toilet. It’s not as gory as it was a few days ago, but it’s gruesome nonetheless: there’s blood, lots of it, speckled with clots.
She has a sudden urge to ladle it up, cup it in her palms, force it back inside her, make the baby live again. But that would be mad, she tells herself, like Jackie Kennedy trying to scoop up
JFK’s brain from the trunk of the limousine. So instead she watches the blood slowly dissolve in the water, turning it pink. Then she flushes it, down the drain to the pipes beneath the
street.

Some graveyard, she thinks.

She waits, trying to pee. Minutes pass; she just sits there. It takes an age for her to persuade her body to let go; she seems unable to give any more of herself away. After what seems forever,
she manages a pathetic trickle.

She is vaguely aware her mouth feels horrible, stale. She imagines her tongue is green, but she can’t face brushing her teeth; she’s had enough. She hurries back to the bedroom as
fast as she can, gets under the duvet, pulls it right up to her neck and lies there, engulfed.

After a while she realizes she is shaking with upset, like a frightened animal. Her legs and knees are going judder, judder, judder, as though she were freezing cold, but the central heating is
on, she can’t be. For some reason she can’t cry; it’s as if she needs a witness to her suffering for the tears to come. Without Rich present to console her, her grief must remain
noiseless, silent, just a gut-wrenching sense of loss that echoes the twisting sensation in her lower abdomen.

She feels so guilty, so disappointed, such a failure. She’s let everyone down: not just herself, but Rich, her parents, her egg donor, the people at the clinic. Most of all, she’s
let down the baby. Why wasn’t she able to protect it? What is wrong with her, with her womb, with her ability to mother, that makes her incapable of nurturing life?

She rubs her belly. Forgive me, she says.

But she can’t forgive herself.

*  *  *

‘Judy, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s Cath.’

Judy gasps. ‘Is she OK?’

She is always on her nerves’ ends about her daughter’s health so he’d best cut straight to it, although he’d prefer to soften his words. ‘Er, no, it’s the,
um, baby. I’m afraid she lost it.’

‘No-o-o . . . ’ A quiet howl of grief, then a long pause. Eventually she says, ‘When?’

‘Christmas Day, after we left you.’

‘What, when she had that tummy bug?’

‘Yes, only it wasn’t. I’m sorry we didn’t ring before but we needed some time to take stock.’

She is silent a moment, then says, ‘Oh, Rich pet, I’m so sorry.’

Rich exhales. ‘Me too.’ He gulps back his own upset. He has just a few minutes before he has to go into the office and meet a supplier: he can’t let down his guard.

‘I suppose at this stage of pregnancy, it is still pretty common.’

‘Mm.’

‘What was she . . . seven weeks?’

‘Eight.’

‘Gosh, that’s hard. Not that it’s easy any time, but Cath, she’s so fragile . . . Is she all right?’

‘To be honest, no, I don’t think so. I mean physically, yes, they say she should be OK, she just has to take it easy, allow nature to take its course. She’s still losing blood,
but it’s not that . . . I don’t know, when I left this morning, just from the way she was acting, I’m worried about her.’

‘Oh dear, poor love. I was concerned this might happen – especially after the first time.’

‘Were you?’ Rich isn’t sure if she’s referring to the unsuccessful IVF or Cath’s previous depression. Not that it matters.

‘I did try and say, but you know what Cath’s like. She won’t listen. But from everything I hear IVF is by no means always plain sailing, and with the health problems
she’s had, I didn’t expect it to work easily.’

Why didn’t Judy say all that to me? thinks Rich a few minutes later as he heads back to his desk. Instead I left Cath and Judy to talk it through in private, as Cath wanted to. But of
course Judy wouldn’t want to interfere, and at the time I would have probably resented it if she had. Cath certainly would.

In truth Rich had wanted to believe the medical world could work its miracles as much as Cath did, although when they failed to conceive at the first attempt he’d been knocked back. But
since the pregnancy test he’s allowed his hope to grow, a little more every day. His emotional responses trail behind Cath’s; he follows along in her wake, always destined to be behind,
taking his lead from her. But after this latest fall, he’s not at all certain she’ll get up again. It’s not a race he can run alone, so where does that leave the two of them
now?

*  *  *

Cath is not really asleep, but she is closed down, in limbo. She’s not moved for hours. The curtains remain drawn, despite the best attempts of daylight to break through
the gap between them, and she’s in the same position, curled up on her bed. From where she lies, she can see the bedside clock.

Ten minutes pass.

Fifteen . . .

Seventeen . . .

Time moves unbearably slowly. Bessie is cupped up in the ‘c’ of her belly, one crescent moon within another. The cat usually sleeps on the duvet at the bottom of the bed, but
it’s as if she’s sensed Cath needs her especially close, so she pushed up the cover with her nose and nuzzled right in. Her warmth and the softness of her fur are a small comfort.

At one point Cath hears the landline ring, but she can’t face answering it. The answering machine clicks on. There’s her own voice, requesting the caller leave a message. She sounds
so together, grown-up, upbeat, like someone else entirely.

A beep, then her mother. ‘Darling, how are you?’ A pause. ‘Cath, pet, I’m pretty sure you’re there. It’s Mum. Rich just called me and told me the news.
I’m so sorry. Really I am. I know how much you were hoping for this to work – we all were – but, oh love, I don’t know what to say. We’re thinking of you, me and your
dad. I hope you’re getting some rest. You look after yourself. I want to come and see you so please call me when you pick up this message. Big hug.’

There’s a click, and she’s gone. Cath reaches for her earplugs so she won’t be disturbed again.

06:33
.
Again Cath wakes before Rich. Once more she is floating, weightless, like an astronaut. This is the third? fourth? day she’s been here. She has lost track
completely. Her head burns, as if someone has opened her skull and filled it with fire. Yet outside birds are beginning to sing. She can’t stand it. Once more she reaches for her earplugs,
wedges them in tight-tight-tight, until she can no longer hear. Her brain feels as if it’s going to explode. She’s sure she can feel chemicals reacting against one another, eating into
her grey matter. She’d do anything to be able to block out everything: noise and thoughts and the world, to have some sense of calm.