Carole nodded and smiled, looking genuinely delighted. “And everything’s looking very healthy. Baby’s the right size for where you’re up to. I’m very happy with this.”
I got my phone out to video the screen again, although later we’d be emailed a file with it in, which we’d learned last time. I couldn’t see anything very well, my eyes damp. I scratched at them, determined not to cry, but Iris caught me and started laughing.
“You don’t need to be a big hard man about this.” She pulled me closer to her. “It is amazing. That’s your baby you’re looking at and in another twenty weeks you’ll meet them.”
I nodded, not sure I could trust myself to speak.
Iris laughed again and looked at Carole. “I think I want to know. I think I need to prepare Gully to be a girl dad or boy dad.”
I looked at the woman who was my world. “Really?”
She nodded. “I think I know anyway.”
“How?”
“Just a feeling. I think it’s a girl. Carole, can you tell us?”
Carole nodded, smiling at Iris. “You’re right. You’re having a little girl and I’m pretty certain about that.”
I swallowed. Hard.
A daughter.
I bent down to kiss her mother. “I love you.”
She caught hold of me, holding me as close as she could. “The feeling’s mutual. I love you too. I don’t know how you’re going to cope with a daughter, Gulliver.”
“Me neither.” I shook my head. “I’ve no idea either.”
She already had me wrapped around her little finger and she wasn’t even born yet.
Iris
We’d gone through every name under the sun when thinking of what to call the little girl who would be our daughter while she was growing inside me: Bean, Jellybean, Tinkerbell, Baby (really original and Roe’s idea), Ducky (Elias’ suggestion). There were more, but I forgot to make a list, mainly because I had other things to do like take photos and work on them afterwards. We finally settled on Moon for some reason and it stuck, but at least our daughter started to have an identity in our minds – although what her name would actually be was a source of late night conversations during which one or both or us inevitably fell asleep before we could even put a name on the shortlist.
I joined a collective of artists on the island to put together an exhibition, partly as a project but also because I wanted to establish myself here. I wanted my name to be attached to the place so future clients knew I wasn’t based in London, and to become part of the island community.
We also invested in a studio, a strange building a couple of miles from Puffin Bay, that looked like an alien spacecraft hadlanded. The natural light that came through the floor to ceiling windows at the back was phenomenal, but the fact it had no walls inside meant I could set it up to be exactly what I needed for each shoot. I could still travel for work and that would happen, but given I was most known for portraiture, clients could come to me and that worked nicely. The island didn’t pay much heed to famous people – why would you when you’d had the future Prince and Princess of Wales living here? – so anonymity was pretty much guaranteed and the serenity of the place would be perfect for my clients. There was also a room with a view where Gully could write, if he wanted a change of scenery from his other writing haunts, or somewhere Moon could play when she was older.
I took another work trip up to Edinburgh for a member of the Royal Family just after the seven month mark of my pregnancy. We’d agreed that this was the last trip I’d take on my own, not because Gully was panicking – he actually wasn’t – but because I was having a lot of moments where I was worrying about stupid things. What if the car broke down when I went into labour? What if there was a blackout because there was a storm? What if I couldn’t get in touch with Gully? I’d never been a worrier, but the last couple of weeks I’d gone through every possibility of what could go wrong, multiplied the impact by ten and worked out a plan for what to do if that ever happened.
The journey back from Edinburgh was treacherous. A summer storm had set in from Chester onwards and seemed to be following me along the North Wales Expressway through the top of North Wales with dark ferocious waves and crackles of lightning that lit up the sky like it was the end of days. I was worried that the bridges onto the island would be closed, which hadn’t happened since I’d lived there, but had been known to occur.
One had. The Menai Bridge was closed to all traffic, meaning that the Britannia was the only option. I could deal with that, at least I was telling myself that.
Lightning cracked open the sky when I was at the middle of the bridge and I wanted to cry. I should’ve stopped in Llandudno or Conwy and grabbed a hotel room for the night, but I’d been away from Gully for almost a week and I wanted to be with him, in my own bed, with his arms around me and listening to him telling Moon all about his current work in progress – the kid was definitely going to be born with a weird idea of bedtime stories.
I carried on, pulling over twice because the rain got so hard I couldn’t see where I was going. There was no radio available – something was down – and my mobile phone had no signal.
This was the sort of storm that had been happening when Ivy died.
I thought of my sister when I set off for the second time, trying to manifest some of her grit and determination, without any of her risky behaviours. If she was here now, and I could speak to her, she’d be talking me through how to drive.Slowly, carefully, take your time, stop when you need to.
You know the roads.
The car is good. It’s one of the best.
Breathe, Iris. You’ll be home soon.
