CHAPTER 86
February came, with its greyness and endless grim drizzle, and Bev was waddling. Alice, on the other hand, was almost dancing.

She had her bag packed a week or more before the day she was due to go in, and I saw an odd parallel in Bev’s ever-ready maternity bag. Both were going to hospital for a new life.

Bev’s waters broke the night before Alice was due to take up her own bed, and I spent a few hours as part of a roster of friends staying with Andy and trying to keep him calm. He was up and down, constantly.

“Bloody hell, I’m a chemist, you’d think I could give myself something to keep the lid on things!”

Her contractions got closer together, and finally at 8 in the morning Andy was led away to get wrapped up in gown, cap and mask as they took his wife to the delivery room. Me, jealous? Of course I fucking was. Everything I had ever wanted was happening behind that closed door, and I would never get there, never.

Think family, girl, I told myself, think Tony, think Jim. Blessings too many to count, but count them now. You’re a middle-aged mother and housewife with saggy tits; what more do you want?

I also gave myself a good, hard mental slap. It was Bev and Andy’s day, Alice’s as well. The world was bigger than me, and they had their own place in it, and today that outranked mine. The old trout stopped by that morning, as I dozed n a chair and Bev, no doubt, tried to master the panting she had been taught in the antenatal class. Alice shook me gently awake.

“A new life for all of us today, love. I just wanted to say thanks before I went in”

I hugged her. “No thanks needed, just as I told your man there. You’re family, and we look after our own”

“Yes, he looked after me all right this morning. One of us had black tea, the other had a full English breakfast, eaten in front of the faster”

Arwel chuckled. ”Got to keep my strength up!”

“Sod. Look, Sar, we have to go. I’ll see you later. That’s a promise.”

She hugged me, and towed Arwel off to the hospital reception to book in. I must have fallen asleep again, for the next thing I knew Suzy was shaking me, a huge smile on her face.

“She’s done it, Sar! Andy’s over the moon! Both doing very well”

“Come on, you teasing cow, tell me!”

She grinned. “Baby girl. Seven pounds six ounces”

I squealed, and we hugged, then made our way to the ward. Looking in through the glass, we could see the three of them, Andy obviously just past tears and Bev looking ecstatic as she waved to us, little Rebecca on her breast. She also looked like shit, with great dark circles under her eyes and her dark curls plastered to her head with sweat. Her normally pale skin looked chalky, apart from two livid blotches on her cheeks. Perhaps I wasn’t as jealous as I thought. I knew my sisters would be, though, and I had to come to a decision about THAT at some point. Not today, though, not today.

Andy joined us, looking tearful still, as well as a little green. “Seven pounds six ounces. Rebecca Alice Sarah. Oh, sorry, meant to warn you, but we agreed that there were two people we owed so much to, and, well, it avoids her being called RAW.”

I slapped him, gently. “You can never be serious, can you? How was it?”

“Magical, really moving, but, er, just a bit messy and bloody, and I nearly lost my breakfast. Well, I haven’t had any yet, so…”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Well, go home for a bit. I need to shower, and change, and breakfast would be good. Bev’s really, really tired, so she’ll be asleep for a while once they’ve finished cleaning everything up, and I’ll be more up to things after a nap. You staying for a bit, Suze?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Congratulations, daddy. Yes, I’ll keep an eye on the young trout there; I think Sarah needs to be elsewhere. Alice should be in theatre by now”

Shit, I’d missed seeing her off. I gave Andy another hug and then made my way round to the waiting area, where my uncle was sitting staring at a paper.

“Hiya, girl. You know, I keep looking at this paper here, and I just can’t read it. Can’t keep my mind on the words, see. How long does this take, Sar?”

“Funnily enough, Arwel, I wasn’t looking at the clock when they did it. Why don’t we head on home for a bit, have a cuppa?”

“Go down the pub be better”

“It’s not even noon. Tell you what, go into town and have a bite, how’s that sound? Then we’re close enough that we can get back if we need to.”

We found our way to the centre and took a table in a café near the library. I texted Andy to let him know where we were, just in case he wanted to join us, and rang Pat. Half an hour later the priest and his fiancée were there. Arwel tried to make a joke of it.

“Last rites, then, is it, Pat?”

“I fucking well pray not, Arwel. She’s got more balls than most men, she’ll be absolutely fine.”

Janet laughed, quietly. “Given present company, and the subject of our conversation, we will really have to find a different metaphor.”

That broke the mood slightly, and Arwel retorted “Spunk is right out, then!”

Janet looked pensive. “I dunno….if she’s really lucky….”

Bad jokes, lousy taste, the only way to cope with the dark fears that we all seemed to have just beneath the surface. We were all playing a part that lunchtime, all putting on a brave face to help the others keep theirs.

Arwel’s mobile beeped as a text came in.

“That was the surgeon, he promised to let me know when it was done. He says ‘all done, woman and fanny fine’, the cheeky fucker”

That was when he broke down, finally, in a quiet corner of a Canterbury café, all the stress released in a flood of tears. Somehow we managed to get all three of us wrapped round him, and Janet dug out a pack of tissues from her handbag when the shakes gradually eased. When his breathing calmed down, Pat spoke.

“Before you say anything at all, listen. You will not fucking apologise, you will not worry about face, or what you look like to these strangers around you. You will accept that you are human, and you will give thanks to your God for what he has done for you this day, and on all the days that have led to it.

“Humans care, Arwel, humans love. Men love, and it is no shame to show that love, no weakness. Now, she is waiting for you n a hospital bed. The loving thing would be to be there when she wakes up?”

He grinned. “Otherwise, you’ll never hear the fucking end of it!”

Back at the hospital, I quickly let Suzy know how things were, as she watched over a gently-snoring Bev, and then made my way to the recovery room where Alice was lying asleep with a silly number of tubes and wires coming out of her. Was that what I had looked like? It must have scared Tony half to death, and it seemed to be having a similar effect on my uncle.

“That’s all normal, love. They need to drain lots of stuff, then there’s packing, and a catheter for the bladder, and the rest is just a drip to keep her fluids up and monitors so they know she’s fine.”

“What about, you know, that tube thing?”

“Just keeps her airway open while she’s unconscious. It’ll come out as she wakes.”

I didn’t tell him what I really thought, of course. Enough was enough.

I suddenly realised that the old fool was juggling a little square box in his hands. Sneaky, sneaky, and so romantic an old monster. He caught my gaze, and grinned, a little sheepishly.

“Well, we’ve talked about it, and it makes sense…”

Pat saw as well, and put a finger to Janet’s lips as he raised an eyebrow.

“Go on, Arwel” he purred, “tell us the real reason”

He ducked his head for an instant, then looked hard at me, with a beaming smile.

“OK, guilty as charged, I actually love the old slapper, aye?”

He took her hand and slid the ring onto the correct finger for her to find when she woke.

“Well, saves all that silly one-knee stuff, don’t it? And she can always say no!

She didn’t.