The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [73]
The washing, hanging motionless on the line, dries quickly. When she unpegs the clothes they are so hot, so crisp, that she expects them to crumble to cindery dust in her hands. Getting into the van or the car is like climbing into a furnace; so stifling and unbearable that they keep the windows permanently open and park the vehicles in the shade of the trees on the drive. There are rumours of birds dying in their thousands, reports of forest fires, warnings of standpipes.
‘Thank goodness we have our own water,’ says Julia. ‘Uncle Archie says the spring has never failed yet.’
Even so, they are very sparing with it, rationing every drop, sharing the bath-water. Tiggy is so big now that she can hardly manage to get into the bath, and she keeps her overnight bag ready to hand; meanwhile they pray for rain. It comes at last on Bank Holiday Monday.
Tiggy rises unrefreshed after a restless night: pains in her lower back have prevented her from any kind of prolonged sleep, though she'd dozed heavily around sunrise. She sits on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed to the small of her back, willing down anxiety. The baby isn't due for another ten days and she has no wish to worry Julia, now nearly three months’ pregnant, unnecessarily. Even so, she feels some kind of change in the rhythm of her body: supposing today is the day?
Mentally she reviews the plan which is quite simple: when labour starts, one of them will phone Aunt Em who is standing by to baby-sit whilst Julia drives Tiggy to Treliske Hospital.
‘Aunt Em would take you,’ Julia offered rather awkwardly, ‘and I suppose that might be more sensible. But I'd rather be around if that's OK with you, though I'm not going to risk driving the van.’
Remembering, Tiggy smiles gratefully as she perches on the side of the bed.
‘I'd like you to be with me,’ she said. ‘Having come this far it would be nice to see it through together, much as I love Aunt Em.’
‘She'll be fine with the children,’ Julia said confidently, ‘and if it takes a bit of a time Uncle Archie can come out and join her here.’
‘Don't worry,’ Aunt Em promised when asked. ‘I shan't go further than the local shop during the last week. Archie can cope with anything else. We'll be on twenty-four-hour call. No, of course we don't mind. We never want to do much in August anyway. Far too many holiday-makers around.’
Now, Tiggy pulls on the loose cotton smock that is the only garment that fits comfortably, and goes carefully downstairs. She thinks she can detect a difference in the atmosphere as well as in her own body, but she is reluctant to confide her fears just yet: she'd feel a fool if it were simply backache.
‘I think the forecast for scattered showers might be right,’ Julia says just before lunch. ‘There are some rather black-looking clouds over the Camel estuary.’
‘Good,’ says Tiggy, but the word ends in a kind of involuntary groan and Julia looks at her anxiously.
Are you OK? Oh God … is it the baby?’
‘I don't know.’ Tiggy tries to straighten her aching back. ‘It's just that I've been having these pains. No, no. Not labour pains. In my back. And now I'm leaking a bit.’
‘Oh God!’ Julia says again. She hesitates for a few moments, then: ‘I'm going to phone the doctor,’ she says firmly. ‘No, don't argue! Sit down and practise your breathing lessons.’
The doctor says that it's a bit early, that backache is fairly standard at this stage and the other might simply be incontinence, but that it is probably better to be safe than sorry. Julia phones the maternity ward at Treliske to warn the staff they are on their way, and then Aunt Em, who answers straight away.
Tiggy fetches her case