Savannah was in crisis mode. She was the best person ever in a crisis and she knew it. Her life was one big crisis, after all. She kept rubbing the face flannel over Clary’s face and arms and the back of her neck and her legs. She could feel it getting warmer and warmer. But did she need to wet it again? Sometimes it took two or three rushes to the bathroom to get cool water into the cloth before Clary came out of the darkness. It must be dark in there, Savannah thought.
‘Mum?’ Clary was back, no longer locked in the horrible terror of a dream.
‘It’s all right, love, you just had a bit of a nightmare.’
Savannah knew her daughter wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.
She reached into a drawer and pulled out a fresh nightie, ripped off the old damp one and pulled on a clean, fresh-smelling one over her daughter’s head.
‘Now, sweetheart,’ she said.
Clary always just wanted to sleep after the night terrors. She was never really awake after them. Savannah settled her and then curled up in the bed beside her. It was a single bed, but not the narrowest, even though Clary’s teddies took up a fair percentage of the space. She’d sleep now. But Savannah didn’t want to leave her: she wanted to be there holding her for Savannah’s sake. For her own sake.
She lay there in the dark listening to her daughter’s deep, contented breath as Clary slipped back into beautiful dreams.
It was getting worse; the night terrors were increasing. Savannah knew what they meant, knew absolutely what they meant. She lay in the bed, the comfort of her daughter’s body close to hers. And she thought of the puppy, the puppy that Clary wanted, something really small. Calum didn’t like dogs, he said he was allergic, although Savannah didn’t really believe that.
Savannah allowed herself to imagine a world when she was in a tiny little apartment, not this massive, beautiful show house, just her and Clary with a puppy. And it would sleep on her bed. Her and Clary’s bed. Of course, that was ridiculous – because Clary couldn’t sleep with her. But she wanted her to, because she wanted to hold her tight and keep her safe forever.
Savannah wondered if she’d go back to sleep. This evening was the rehearsal dinner and right now, she could think of nothing worse. She’d organised it with Marie-Denise to have a special evening in with Clary. They were going to watch some sweet kids’ film and have popcorn. But Savannah felt the bone-deep tiredness of having to stay awake for the rehearsal. Of smiling and being lovely. She leaned her face close to her daughter’s, inhaled the beautiful scent of Clary’s hair and thought, even if she couldn’t sleep, she could rest close to her beautiful daughter. That was enough, wasn’t it?
‘Did we have a wedding rehearsal dinner?’ said Steve, turning over in the bed and readjusting his arm, so that he was holding Indy even closer to him. She loved lying like this just after they’d made love, when their bodies were warm and there was a faint flush of sweat on them. She was proud of that, proud that they still wanted each other. Proud that she felt her heart leap every time she saw Steve and she knew his heart leapt when he saw her. So many people in work moaned and bitched about their partners and she never did. Didn’t need to.
‘No,’ she said, ‘we didn’t. We were going to, but it was expensive and I was training.’
‘I wasn’t sure,’ said Steve. ‘I just couldn’t remember it.’
Indy looked at him fondly. Steve was in great shape, she thought. It was the carpentry work. You didn’t see many overweight carpenters, Steve liked to say. Occasionally, Indy wondered if you saw many overweight photographers. Because she knew that’s what he’d love to have done with his life. But it hadn’t worked out that way. Life took its own path. Steve’s father had been ill, Steve had taken over the family carpentry business and suddenly being a photographer was relegated to a hobby, something he did at weekends. Photography had brought them together. But would they have stayed together if she’d ended up as a model and he’d been the man taking the pictures? No, she didn’t think so. Besides, she’d never wanted to be a model.
She’d been fascinated by women’s bodies, fascinated by nursing. And it hadn’t taken her long when she was in college to realise that midwifery was where her future lay, like it had for Steve’s mother. No, who knows what directions they’d have gone in, if they’d stayed stuck in those strange roles in the beginning.
It was dawn on the Friday morning of the rehearsal dinner. And one of the girls had woken up in her sleep, which, of course, meant that both her parents were now awake.
You never sleep properly once you have kids, do you? Steve always said.
Not all men agreed with him. Through her work Indy knew plenty of men who did not wake in the middle of the night when their small children woke up. She saw this on second and third deliveries.
Many labouring mothers reached the point of no return and screeched at their husbands and partners.I don’t know why you want this baby so much when you never got up for the last one.It was incredible what people said in the pain of labour.
Steve had never been the sort of person who’d abandon the hard part of baby rearing to her. Indy could remember exactly the first time she had fallen in love with him, when she’d known he was different. When she’d asked him what his favourite colour was and then, instead of saying blue or red like a Ferrari, he’d looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I love that faded red of old second-hand books – you know, the ones that are covered with fabric and sea-glass, the blue of sea-glass. I love that. And green leaves, when you can’t work out if they’re lime or an acid-green.’
Thatwas the moment. Indy was glad she had been able to pinpoint it. Steve was a thoughtful man and that translated through to the love he felt for her and their daughters.
‘We’re very lucky,’ she said, letting one long, naked leg wrap itself around his legs.
‘I know,’ said Steve.
Indy thought that perhaps they might sneak another hour of sleep before the girls woke up. Just one hour would be perfect, because they were going to be late tonight. The rehearsal dinner. It did make her laugh. Her parents really pushed the boat out whenever they did anything. It had been the same when they’d been running the hotel: everything was an enormous spectacle—
Steve interrupted her thoughts. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I mean, it might be nothing.’
‘What?’ she said, suddenly quite abruptly awake.
‘It’s about your dad.’
Indy’s awakening sensors which had been at about 75 per cent, were suddenly at 100 per cent. She untangled her legs from her husband’s and sat upright in the bed.
‘What about him?’
