‘We know that, Mum. We know,’ Eddie says firmly. Then my boy who flung Quality Street around the living room takes his girlfriend’s hand and says, ‘C’mon, Lyles. Come downstairs, darling. Don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be okay – but we need to get you to hospital right now.’
Chapter Forty-five
Eddie
Despite all the meat cuts and offal at the restaurant, Eddie is still terrified of blood. At least,humanblood. That time with the blind, when his arm crashed through the window, he passed out. He remembers Raj’s face looming over him, not quite in focus, like something out of a bad TV show.
Now Eddie is clutching Lyla’s hand in the back of his mum’s car. Although he’s trying to appear calm, he’s terrified that he won’t be able to cope with the whole birth thing, the sight of the baby coming out and – oh God, he can barely even think about it.
Lyla didn’t want to sit up front. She wanted to be next to him because she’s freaking out a little. Lyla had just wanted a bit of time with him at the seaside, a sort of holiday away from her fussing mum before the baby came. Just a little breathing space – a babymoon, she called it – before her life changed forever. But this wasn’t supposed to happen here.
In the few minutes since they left home, Eddie’s beengoogling like his life depends on it. ‘I think you might be inducted,’ he says.
‘Induced, love,’ his mum corrects him from the driver’s seat. He hates it when she’s right. ‘But yes, I think they’ll want to get things going,’ she adds. ‘Contractions should start, and then you’ll be on your way, Lyla. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.’
‘Okay,’ she says quietly.
Eddie stares at the back of his mum’s head. His own mother, acting like she knows stuff? And can remain calm in a crisis? If his brain wasn’t buzzing with what lies ahead, Eddie might be impressed.
They’ve left the town now. Oliver has stayed at the house – something to do with being there to let Granddad in, because he mightn’t have his keys? Eddie wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on.
Already, they’re out into green and undulating open countryside, a little way inland. There isn’t time to deliver Lyla safely to the Edinburgh hospital where she’s supposed to have the baby. Instead, they’re going to the hospital closest to Sandybanks. No one has managed to get hold of Lyla’s mum. She’s away for the weekend, apparently – seemingly with no phone signal.
Now Eddie is hanging on to the hope that this baby will emerge into the world in an entirely new, never-seen-before way – a medical first. That is, perfectly clean with not a speck of blood or that white mucusy stuff to be seen. What he’dreallylove is for the baby to come out dressed in a little outfit, as if handed to them in a shop. Eddie knows it’s mad, to expect this. But it’s the only way he can cope with what’s ahead.
His mum parks up and the three of them climb out of the car. Oliver had wanted to bring them in his Land Rover, but Lyla had insisted on Eddie’s mum driving them instead. ‘I’ll just feel better,’ she announced, ‘if there’s a woman there. Sorry, Uncle Olly.’
As they make their way towards the hospital entrance, Eddie realises why this is. Lyla expects him to duck out and be unable to stay with her, and then his mum can step in instead. Lyla knows all about Eddie’s blood phobia. She doesn’t think he’s up to this.
Outside the hospital, next to a huge no smoking sign, a man in a wheelchair is connected to some kind of machine by tubes and is smoking a cigarette. Eddie’s stomach turns. They step through automatic doors into reception and Eddie looks at his mum.
He could do it now. He could tell her he’s sorry but he can’t go in. That there’s no way he can watch a tiny person being hauled out of Lyla’s vagina. He’s not a medical person; he’s a chef. At least, hewas. And he’s not built for this kind of stuff.
His mum is talking to the receptionist but Eddie can barely decipher her words. ‘We’ve called … yes, her waters have broken,’ she explains calmly. That’s all he can hear because something is pounding dully in his ears.
She’s going to be induced.Eddie doesn’t know how this will happen, and there wasn’t time to google it. He thinks about the box of scented oils Suki bought Lyla to use during labour. It’s sitting in Lyla’s flat in Edinburgh – no use at all. And she’d wanted a home birth but obviously that’s not going to happen. What’s the point of making a ‘birth plan’ where human bodies are concerned? Bodiesthat vomit and crash into windows and have to be sewn back up?Nothingcan be planned, Eddie reckons. Everything is completely out of control.
‘Eddie!’ His mum’s voice snaps him back to the antiseptic-smelling reception area. ‘Lyla needs to go through now. Are you are okay to go with her?’ He looks at his mum, who somehow managed to go through this three times – first with him and then his sisters. Why would anyone do this to themselves more than once?
He hears himself saying, ‘Yes.’
‘D’you want me to come too? I can, you know, if you’d like …’
For a moment Lyla looks at him as if to say,That’s a good idea, isn’t it?‘No, no. It’s fine, Mum. Thanks.’ Then his mum hugs him, and Lyla too, and she looks as if she’ll cry as she turns away. Eddie is suddenly reminded of his mum dropping him off at Kyle McShannon’s birthday party and being horrified when he realised she wouldn’t be staying too. All those people and noise and balloons everywhere that might burst in his face! How was he going to cope?
He stares after his mother, heart banging. He has to muster his every smidgeon of willpower not to shout,Mum, wait! I can’t go in with her. I’m coming with you!
Eddie and Lyla are taken along a corridor by a nurse who looks around the same age as they are. There’s a whiff of school dinners and somewhere, people are laughing loudly. Lyla’s waters have broken a month early and now the baby’s going to have to come out. How can anyone laugh at a time like this?
The nurse ushers them into a tiny room. ‘We’ll takeyour blood pressure, Lyla,’ she explains. ‘And then the doctor’s coming to talk to you. We’re going to induce labour today. It’s important we do that, as your waters have broken and we don’t want to risk infection.’
We know her waters have broken!Eddie wants to yell.Why are you stating the obvious?But he’s relieved to hear that this induction/inducing thing isn’t done by putting Lyla into some kind of space capsule, as he’s feared – but with pessaries. ‘It can take a few hours,’ the nurse explains, ‘for things to get started.’ They’re taken to another room then, and for a brief moment Eddie thinks:it’s not too late. I could tell Lyla I can’t do this. There are plenty of proper medical people here, and what can I do anyway? Sit here, freaking out?
Instead, Eddie holds Lyla’s hand, and they wait, until finally things start happening.
Lyla has talked about how she’d like the birth to be, with perfumed oils and gentle music playing. She’s even made up playlists, but neither of them are thinking about playlists now. Because the contractions seem to rack her body, and she’s groaning in pain each time one comes. Yet she doesn’t want drugs. Where’s the logic in that? Eddie thinks wildly. What sane person would turn down mind-altering substances, offered for free – and legally! – on the NHS? Then she wants – no,needs– whatever drugs they can give her because the pain is unbearable.
There’s a plastic mask on her face now as she inhales some concoction called gas and air. That doesn’t sound like much. Is it strong enough? The contractions keep coming, and Eddie feels helpless parked there on a blue plastic chair, as if at a school assembly with the head teacherdroning on and on. He wants to help somehow – todosomething. Should he have brought some of those seedy cakes she made, or the acoustic guitar his dad bought him years ago? No, he only knows two chords. That would probably just annoy her. Now he badly wants some of that gas and air. But the nurse with her silvery hair pulled into a ponytail is – rightly – focused on Lyla, telling her to push. He can’t imagine it’d go down well if he asked if he could possibly get bombed out of his skull?
