Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [50]
The car slows, coming to a halt right beside the gate. I stagger over to the driver’s door, wait for the window to buzz down.
‘Hi there,’ says an American tourist in a palm-tree print shirt, grinning widely. ‘Some weather you get around these parts, huh?’
Beside him, a middle-aged blonde in a pink T-shirt leans over, pointing to the sign on the gate. Holly’s cardboard notice, drawn out in a dozen different felt-pen colours, is all smeared and running in the rain.
‘Honey,’ the blonde woman says. ‘We’ve come to buy eggs. We bought some last week from the little girl with the bunches. Best eggs we’ve ever eaten. We’ll take another dozen, please.’
Her husband frowns, looking me up and down. ‘Say’ he says slowly. ‘Are you OK?’
The American tourists are called Ed and Sylvie, and they are driving Clare and me to Castlebar Hospital. Sylvie sits in the back with Clare, mopping her face with wet wipes and telling her to breathe, while I struggle with the road map in the passenger seat, directing Ed through the lanes, past Kilimoor and on towards Castlebar.
‘Stay calm, kid,’ he tells me, snapping his gum. ‘Sylvie has had four littl’uns of her own. She knows all about this childbirth business.’
‘Most natural thing in the world,’ Sylvie says. ‘My third, now he came early too, and kinda unexpected. Three pounds eleven ounces, he was – he’s six foot two now, and running his own company! Just keep breathing, Clare. Don’t worry ‘bout a thing.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Clare says shakily from the back. ‘Really Scarlett. I’m sorry to frighten you.’
‘You didn’t!’ I protest. ‘I was worried, that’s all. You kept going all woozy and sleepy on me, and then when the baby started I just didn’t know what to do…’
‘You did fine,’ Clare reassures me, and then takes a deep breath in as a fresh wave of pain hits her.
‘Breathe, honey,’ Sylvie tells her. ‘Breathe through the pain. There… Now relax. The contractions are still around five minutes apart, so there’s no need to panic just yet. We’ll get you to the hospital, honey – everything’s gonna be just fine.’
Clare’s hand reaches forward to stroke my hair. ‘Stop worrying, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘I felt really woozy back there, but my head’s much clearer now. I’ve got a splitting headache, though. Maybe it’ll take my mind off the contractions!’
‘They won’t know which bit of you to check out first,’ Sylvie laughs, ‘but you seem OK to me. Didn’t anyone tell you not to go climbing ladders when you’re thirty-four weeks pregnant?’
‘My fault,’ I say gloomily ‘I should have stopped you.’
‘Nobody’s fault,’ Clare corrects me. ‘I’d have been fine if it hadn’t been for the power cut.’
‘And the flip-flops,’ I remind her.
‘And the flip-flops. OK, so maybe that bit was my fault,’ Clare admits. ‘Never, never blame yourself, though, Scarlett. Promise me that…’ Her voice trails off as another wave of pain hits.
‘Try that phone again,’ Ed tells me.
I go back to punching numbers into Ed’s mobile. Dad’s number is still dead – his mobile must be switched off – but after a few attempts I get through to the hospital and begin a garbled explanation of what’s happening.
‘Tell them the contractions are five minutes apart,’ Sylvie instructs, and I pass on the information. The duty nurse wants to know how far we are from Castlebar.
‘Ten, fifteen miles?’ I hazard, frowning at the map. She tells us to drive safely, and that they’ll be ready for us as soon as we arrive, a midwife and doctor standing by. I end the call.
There’s some murmuring in the back of the car. When Clare looks up, surfacing from yet another contraction, she looks lost and anxious, her face pale, lips grey.
‘Ed, honey,’ Sylvie says, ‘I don’t really want to deliver this baby in a hire car by the side of the road. Be an angel and step on the gas, would you?’
The maternity wing smells of disinfectant and hope. I sit on a blue vinyl chair in the waiting area, Ed at my side, his big palm-patterned presence calming, comforting. Sylvie has gone off to fetch coffee, which she says will make everyone feel better.