The Two Week Wait (38 page)

‘I’m sure it appears like forever, but you’ll get there, trust me.’

‘I hope to goodness it’s early. I’ve had terrible heartburn on and off for days. Anyway, Mum, I wanted to ask your advice.’

‘Oh yes?’ This is a role Irene clearly relishes. Lou realizes this must be one reason why over the years she’s seemed so much closer to Georgia; they’ve bonded as Irene
passed on her experience of child rearing.

‘I was wondering about my waters breaking, in case it happens before my labour starts. What happened with you?’

‘Gosh, it’s hard for me to remember exactly – we are talking over thirty years ago . . . But I think with Georgia it was slower and with you a bit more of . . . well, a gush, I
suppose you’d call it.’ Irene titters self-consciously at the phrase. ‘I believe it’s quite common for everything to go faster with a second pregnancy.’

‘R-ight. And did your tummy seem less big afterwards?’

‘Again, dear, I really can’t recall that well. Why don’t you ring your sister and ask her? She’s been through it so much more recently.’

‘Mm.’ Lou hesitates. She’s more inclined to google it, or ask Karen. On the other hand, she’s yet to find a way to connect with Georgia on these issues, and has been
avoiding much contact. But perhaps her sister can give her some insight. They are siblings and their bodies might just react in a similar fashion. ‘OK . . . ’ she relents. ‘I
might just give her a call.’

*  *  *

‘Where are we going again?’ asks Alfie.

‘Just here,’ says Cath, and pushes open the door. Mike and the twins follow her inside. The brightly lit room is more a studio than a conventional retail space. Pale wood shelves
line the walls floor to ceiling, stacked high with plain white crockery. In the centre of the space are half a dozen large pine tables. Seated at them are several children and their parents
who’ve arrived for the morning workshop before they have. ‘We’ve come to do some potting, like I said.’

‘We’ve done that before,’ says Dom.

‘Not like this you haven’t,’ says Cath. ‘Your Dad says you’ve only done your own glazing.’

‘What’s glazing?’

‘Painting on pottery. Like those plates in the window. See?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘But today you’re going to have a go at making pots,’ says Cath, finding a space at the end of one of the tables alongside a mother and her little girl. ‘Come on, sit
down here and I’ll explain.’ The boys scramble up on a stool on either side. Mike is busy looking around, investigating the equipment. ‘And we’re not going to just do boring
old painting. We’re doing proper pottery, where we’ll fire what you make. Do you know what firing is?’

‘When you shoot someone.’

‘That’s
gun
fire,’ she laughs. ‘This firing is when you put a pot that you’ve made in the oven and cook it. Potters have a special oven called a kiln. And it
gets really, really hot, much hotter than your oven at home. You see, when you start off, the clay that you use to make your pot will be all soft and squashy, like mud – you remember when you
were small you used to make mud pies?’

The boys nod. They’d been wary of making the trip to Pontefract, trying something strange.

She continues. ‘Look, that lady has some uncooked clay there.’ The teacher, a grey-haired woman in a lilac smock, is unwrapping a giant slab of terracotta earthenware. ‘See,
it’s still wet? That allows you to bend and shape it as you want. Then it’s cooked and after it’s cooked once it goes all hard. That means you can paint it, and then it gets
cooked again and that sets the glaze.’

‘You know an awful lot about it,’ says the mother nearby.

‘I used to make pots,’ says Cath. She feels a flush of pride.

‘She still should,’ says her brother, pulling up a stool. ‘Are you going to make anything today?’

‘I’m not sure I’ll be allowed.’ Cath is self-conscious. This is an activity designed for children; the teacher may not appreciate an adult muscling in.

‘You can help me,’ says Dom.

‘And me,’ says Alfie.

‘I think you’re going to be busy enough as it is,’ the mum smiles at Cath. ‘This is Emily.’ She gestures to her daughter. ‘So, what are your boys
called?’

‘Oh, they’re not mine,’ says Cath. ‘Well, not exactly.’

‘Right, children,’ interrupts the teacher with a clap of her hands. ‘Are we ready?’

Alfie and Dom nod seriously.

‘First, take your clay and knead it with your hands – like this.’ She demonstrates.

Alfie and Dom immediately start thumping their wads of clay with zealous abandon.
Bang!
against the table top, and
Bang!
again.

‘Boys,’ Cath whispers, not wanting to irritate the woman in charge by interfering. ‘If you do it like that you’ll create little pockets of air.’

‘So?’ says Dom.
Bang!
goes the clay again.

‘You don’t want that or when your pots go in the oven it’ll mean they end up with cracks in them. What you’re trying to do is make it warm and soft. It’s a good
idea to keep the clay in a round shape – can I show you?’ She moves behind him and wraps her palms around his smaller ones. ‘Now, throw it back and forth, gently, like
this.’ Soon Dom has the sense of it. ‘Now you, Alfie.’ Cath moves to help him.

He drops his hands. ‘Show me,’ he says, so she takes the lump from him.

It feels so good, to have clay between her hands again. It comes back to her far quicker than drawing did, but she always was better at working in 3D. To and fro, to and fro, she works it. After
a while she senses she is being watched; she looks up. Emily, the little girl opposite, is riveted.

‘You OK to carry on now?’ she asks Alfie.

‘Mm.’

‘I told you, you should have a go,’ says Mike.

‘I’m happy helping these two.’

‘Will you show me?’ asks Emily.

Cath glances over to check; the teacher is busy with another child. ‘Of course.’

Shortly they’re all ready to continue.

‘Now we’re going to roll it into a long sausage,’ says the teacher.

‘It’s more like a snake than a sausage,’ Cath murmurs to the boys. ‘You want a big flat head for the bottom of your pot, OK?’

‘Now, the diameter of your sausage will determine the thickness of your pot’s walls,’ says the teacher.

‘What’s a diameter?’ asks Dom.

‘She means how fat your snake is.’ Dom’s snake appears somewhat overfed. ‘You want to make yours a bit thinner. A fat snake will make a very thick pot and it won’t
cook as well when we put it in the kiln. Can you put him on a bit of a diet?’ She watches as he rolls. ‘That’s it, make more of a worm . . . ’ Eventually he has it
right.

Getting their hands dirty, making snakes – both boys seem in their element. But Emily’s sausage is very lumpy.

‘Do you want me to help you again?’ Cath offers.

Emily nods shyly.

‘You really are very kind,’ says Emily’s mum. She nods at the grey-haired lady and leans in. ‘You should be doing her job, if you ask me.’

*  *  *

Lou leaves calling Georgia till late afternoon. She knows much of her sister’s Saturday is taken up with ferrying the children to various extra-curricular activities.

‘Is now a good moment?’ she says.

‘Hold on,’ says Georgia. ‘Elliot, Annabel. Shush.’ She hears the TV go on. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘It’s OK. Mum suggested I ask your advice about something.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s about the last stages of pregnancy, and obviously you’ve much more experience of it than me.’ Lou decides to flatter Georgia’s ego, a tactic that usually
works.

‘Mm?’

‘I wondered when you had the children, how did you know when you were about to give birth?’

‘What symptoms have you been getting?’

‘I’ve been having those Braxton Hicks contraction thingies in the evenings and think my pelvis must be widening a little – I’ve been getting a sharp pain up my front when
I get out of a chair, especially if I’ve been walking a bit during the day like I have today.’

‘You’ve been walking?’

‘Not far.’

‘Blimey,’ says Georgia. ‘I couldn’t go
anywhere
. Still, you always were a bit of a fitness freak.’

Lou ignores the jibe.

‘I got this mad desire to nest-build,’ Georgia continues. ‘I cleaned the house top to bottom, reorganized all our cupboards. You been doing that?’

‘There’s not much space to reorganize,’says Lou, and immediately wishes she could retract the remark. She has no wish to remind Georgia how small her studio is. ‘But I
guess I have been a bit obsessive about dusting . . . What about your waters, how did you know they’d broken?’

‘How did I know?’ Her sister hoots and at once Lou feels silly for asking. ‘People were sailing past me in boats, that’s how.’

Lou laughs. ‘God, really?’

‘Really. Though that was with Annabel. With Elliot it didn’t happen until I’d gone into labour and was nowhere near as extreme. More like when you have a heavy period, and as I
was having contractions there was such a lot going on anyway.’

‘I see. That sounds like Mum, too – apparently it was more obvious with me than you.’

‘You always did like to make an entrance,’ says Georgia. Though really, it’s untrue. Of the two of them, Georgia was always the one to elbow her way in and take centre stage,
while Lou stood back and waited.

*  *  *

‘There’s something I wanted to mention,’ says Mike. The boys are out of earshot, playing. He and Cath are standing, half watching them, in Meanwood Park.
Although they were at the pottery till late afternoon, Mike has explained they’ll need to burn off yet more energy before settling down for the evening. It’s underlined to Cath what a
huge amount of work they are.

‘Oh?’

He coughs, awkwardly. ‘You know, if you did want to have another go at the IVF, I might be able to help you out.’

Cath is staggered. ‘You mean that?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Gosh.’ She thinks for a few moments. She wants to make it clear to him what he could be offering. ‘It’s very expensive. You couldn’t possibly afford to fund all of
it.’

‘Not all of it, maybe, but I could help. How much is it, anyway?’

She exhales. ‘About ten grand. We’d have to start right over again, pretty much, with a new egg donor and everything.’

‘That’s what I thought. You mentioned the figure before, when you came to stay.’

‘So I did.’ She remembers that evening only too well. ‘Would you tell Sukey?’

He focuses on his sons’ game in silence, then says, ‘Mm, I’m not sure . . . ’

‘If you didn’t, wouldn’t she wonder where the money had gone?’

‘She doesn’t know all the ins and outs of my company finances. So, frankly, no.’

Well I never, thinks Cath. There’s no way I could sequester several thousand pounds without Rich being aware of it, or vice versa.

Mike continues, ‘But I’d probably tell her. I don’t really like having secrets. And she has mellowed a lot on the whole thing, as I said.’

‘I appreciate that . . . Still, Mike, there is a pretty big difference between mellowing to the idea of IVF and being prepared to fund someone else’s.’

‘But you’re family.’

‘Even so.’

He reflects. ‘Well, I’d have to choose my moment, obviously. But supposing, say, I gave you half? Could you find the rest?’

Cath is unable to process this in a hurry. ‘To be honest, I thought we just couldn’t do it again because there’s no way we can afford it. So I’d have to talk to Rich and
we’ll give it some serious consideration. I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that it just wasn’t going to happen for us.’

‘I don’t want to push you into it again if it’s too much, obviously . . . Not if you’re happy to stop. It’s just seeing you with the boys today . . . You’re
so good with children.’

‘Thanks . . . ’ Again her heart twists. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I can have them, she thinks. She’s learnt the hard way: no matter how great the medical advances
that have been made, or how generous people are, life often isn’t that fair or kind.

‘Look at that,’ nudges Howie, jerking his head towards a fringed brown light-shade.

Adam is with his friend, looking at art, in Hove. Or rather, they’re pretending to be looking at art; really they are nosing in strangers’ homes. At least Howie is, by his own
admission. It’s May, the month of the Brighton Festival, and they are on an Artists’ Trail of Open Houses where members of the public have their work displayed for sale. Some of the
paintings are good, many are bad, but this is of secondary importance to Howie, who is using the opportunity to pick up interior design tips.

‘Dreadful kitchen,’ he says, as they emerge from a basement flat near the cricket ground.

Just then Adam’s phone beeps. He couldn’t get reception down there; he’s missed a call. He’s on his nerves’ ends at the moment. ‘Someone’s left a
message,’ he says, but Howie carries on talking as he tries to listen. ‘Shh! It’s Lou . . . Oh my God! She’s gone into labour!’

‘No way!’

‘Yup. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.’ Adam scans the street for his car. He’s so disconcerted he can’t remember where he parked it.

‘Right this minute?’

‘Yes, of course this minute. I’m her birthing partner.’ He breaks into a run.

‘Ew,’ says Howie, panting after him. ‘All those lady-bits . . . ’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Howie!’ says Adam, annoyed. ‘I’m a doctor, you great big wuss. I’ve seen the odd woman’s body before.’ He stops at the
car, catches his breath. ‘Right. I don’t mean to be rude, mate’ – he squeezes Howie’s shoulder – ‘but I’m going to have to leave you here.’

Within thirty seconds he is accelerating down Kingsway towards Kemptown, barely slowing as he passes the speed camera on the way.

*  *  *

When Adam arrives, Lou is bent over by the steps outside her house, trying to breathe the way she’s been taught. Her bag is discarded by her side on the pavement. If
anyone wants to mug me they’ll get my entire pre-packed labour kit, she thinks. But right now she can only grip the railing as the pain starts low and rises in intensity until it radiates
over her belly.

‘I’m so sorry I missed your call,’ he says.