“Is he a bad sort, then?” says the midwife. “You should listen to your friend,” she adds to me. “She sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”
“Friends can always tell the wrong ’uns,” agrees the woman in the pink dressing gown.
“He’s not a wrong ’un!” I retort indignantly. “Suze, please! Calm down! Go with the nurse! Get some drugs!”
“Make the call,” she replies, her face contorted. “Then I’ll go.” She looks up. “Go on! Make the call!”
“If you want this baby born safely,” says the midwife to me, “I’d make the call.”
“Make the call, love!” chimes in the woman in the pink dressing gown.
“OK! OK!” I scrabble for the mobile phone and punch in the number. “I’m calling. Now go, Suze!”
“Not until I’ve heard you say the words!”
“Breathe through the pain…”
“Hello!” chirps Robyn in my ear. “Is that wedding bells I hear?”
“There’s no one there,” I say, looking up.
“Then leave a message,” says Suze through gritted teeth.
“Another deep breath now…”
“Your call is so important to me…”
“Go on, Bex!”
“All right! Here goes.” I take a deep breath as the bleep sounds. “Robyn, this is Becky Bloomwood here… and I’m canceling the wedding. Repeat, I’m canceling the wedding. I’m very sorry for all the inconvenience this is going to cause. I know what a lot you’ve put into it and I can only guess at how angry Elinor will be…” I swallow. “But I’ve made my final decision — and it’s that I want to get married at home in England. If you want to talk to me about this, leave a message at my home and I’ll call you back. Otherwise, I guess this is good-bye. And… thanks. It was fun while it lasted.”
I click off the phone and stare at it, silent in my hand.
I’ve done it.
“Well done,” says the midwife to Suze. “That was a tough one!”
“Well done, Bex,” says Suze, pink in the face. She squeezes my hand and gives me a tiny smile. “You’ve done the right thing.” She looks at the midwife. “OK. Let’s go.”
“I’ll just go and… get the rest of the stuff,” I say, and walk slowly toward the double doors leading out of the hospital.
As I step out into the fresh air I can’t help giving a little shiver. So that’s it. No more Plaza wedding. No more enchanted forest. No more magical cake. No more fantasy.
I can’t quite believe it’s all gone.
But then… if I’m really honest, it only ever was a fantasy, wasn’t it? It never quite felt like real life.
This is real life, right here.
For a few moments I’m silent, letting my thoughts drift, until the sound of an ambulance siren brings me back to the present. Hastily I unload the taxi, pay the driver, then stare at the mound of stuff, wondering how on earth I’m going to get it all inside. And whether I really did need to buy a collapsible playpen.
“Are you Becky Bloomwood?” A voice interrupts my thoughts and I look up, to see a young midwife standing at the door.
“Yes!” I feel a tremor of alarm. “Is Suze all right?”
“She’s fine, but her contractions are intensifying now, and we’re still waiting for the anesthetist to arrive… and she’s saying she’d like to try using”—she looks at me puzzledly—“is it… a canoe?”
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
I can’t even begin to… to…
It’s seven o’clock in the evening, and I’m completely shattered. I have never seen anything like that in my life. I had no idea it would be so—
That Suze would be so—
It took six hours altogether, which is apparently really quick. Well, all I can say is, I wouldn’t like to be one of the slow ones.
I can’t believe it. Suze has got a baby boy. A tiny, pink, snuffly baby boy. One hour old.
He’s been weighed and measured, and apparently he’s a really healthy size, considering he came early. A nurse has dressed him in the most gorgeous white and blue baby suit and a little white blanket, and now he’s lying in Suze’s arms, all curled up and scrumpled, with tufts of dark hair sticking out over his ears. The baby that Suze and Tarquin made. I almost want to cry… except I’m so elated. It’s the weirdest feeling.
I meet Suze’s eyes, and she beams euphorically. She’s been beaming ever since he was born, and I’m secretly wondering if they gave her a bit too much laughing gas.
“Isn’t he just perfect?”
“He’s perfect.” I touch his tiny fingernail. To think that’s been growing inside Suze, all this time.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” says a nurse, coming into the warm, bright room. “You must be exhausted.”
“Thanks very much,” I say gratefully, stretching out a hand.
“I meant Mum,” says the nurse, giving me an odd look.
“Oh,” I say flusteredly. “Yes, of course. Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” says Suze. “Give it to Bex. She deserves it.” She gives me an abashed smile. “Sorry I got angry with you.”
“That’s all right.” I bite my lip. “Sorry I kept saying, ‘Does it really hurt?’ ”
“No, you were great. Seriously, Bex. I couldn’t have done it without you.”