Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [51]
I flip open Ed’s mobile and punch Dad’s number in yet again. Why have a mobile if you never switch it on? It’s infuriating. What if I can’t get through at all, and Dad and Holly arrive back at the cottage to find the place deserted, not even a scribbled note on the kitchen table?
I hold the mobile to my ear and as if by magic, this time the call rings through.
‘Hello, Chris Flynn’s mobile, how may I help you?’ a chirpy voice says.
‘Holly, let me speak to Dad,’ I bark.
‘Oh, hi, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘I’m in the dentist’s waiting room, playing Snake on the mobile –’
‘It’s an emergency, Holly,’ I tell her. ‘Let me speak to Dad, OK?’
‘Scarlett?’ Dad’s voice comes on to the line. ‘What is it?’
‘Dad, I’ve been trying to get you for ages,’ I blurt. ‘You have to come, quickly. Clare fell off a ladder and hurt her head, and there was a terrible storm and two Americans gave us a lift to Castlebar Hospital. The doctors think everything is fine but you’d better come quickly, Dad, because she’s having the baby, OK?’
There’s a silence at the other end. ‘She’s having the baby?’ Dad says carefully.
‘Yes, I said so, didn’t I?’
There’s a muffled crash at the other end of the line, and then Holly’s voice is back. ‘He dropped it into a potted plant,’ she says, exasperated. ‘Lucky I’m here to take charge of things. It’s almost time for my appointment, but I guess those fillings will have to wait. Shame. We’re on our way, Scarlett, OK? Tell Mum to hold on. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’
The doctor comes out to talk to us. He says Clare is in good shape, and that the monitors show the baby’s heartbeat is strong.
‘We’ve got a message through to the father,’ Ed chips in. ‘He’ll be here just as soon as it’s humanly possible. An hour maybe?’
‘A lot can happen in an hour,’ the doctor says. ‘Clare’s asking for you, Scarlett, and you, Sylvie. If the father doesn’t get here in time, how d’you feel about being Clare’s birth partners?’
Sylvie beams. ‘Try and stop us.’
I say nothing. I can think of about a million reasons why I shouldn’t walk through that door. I’m clueless about childbirth and babies. When we had that sex education film at school, I pretended I was sick at the childbirth bit and hid out in the girls’ loos writing rude things about Mrs Mulhern on the cubicle door.
I don’t like pain and I can’t stand the sight of blood, I hate hospitals and it’s not even like Clare is any relation to me, not really. I’d be better staying out of it, seriously.
‘Scarlett?’ the doctor says. ‘She really wants you with her.’
I take a deep breath and all in a rush I remember that it’s Clare in there, and that she needs me. I can’t let her down. In the delivery room, Clare is kneeling on the bed, hanging on to the metal rails at its foot. She is wearing a weird hospital nightie and the look of someone who is battling hard.
Sylvie strokes her forehead with the wet wipes, and I hold her hand, telling her to hang on, Dad’s coming, and Holly. The midwife bustles around us, checking the monitor, resting her hand on Clare’s stomach with each contraction. Outside the sun is shining, like there never was a storm or an accident at all.
The contractions are so long and strong now that each one seems to merge into the next. Clare has been given a tube to gulp down gas and air as each new wave of pain hits, but still she grabs on to me, her hands clawing into mine as she struggles back from each onslaught.
‘I’m sorry, Scarlett,’ she grins, her face red with effort and damp with sweat. ‘I didn’t plan on this.’
‘It’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘You’re doing great, Clare. Keep going! Count to ten and remember to breathe!’
Clare laughs, even through the pain. ‘Now where have I heard that before?’
‘C’mon, honey,’ Sylvie says. ‘You’re almost there!’
But ‘almost there’ seems to last forever. Clare looks drained, exhausted. She slumps, defeated, against the foot of the bed.
‘Too tired,’ she whimpers. I want to