The exclamation was so loud children turned away from the sugared doughnut stand to look.
‘And now I can feel a panic attack coming on! I need a paper bag! I need… something!’
Before Chloe could do anything, Kat downed the rest of her mulled wine in one great glug and started to breathe, open-mouthed like she was auditioning for a lead role of a ferocious dragon.
‘It’s going to be OK,’ Chloe said, hand on Kat’s back now, gently patting. Although, Kat’s mother, Rula, was a force to be reckoned with. She was the kind of woman who knew what the word ‘no’ was, because she used it a lot herself, but when it came to recognising its meaning with regard to others, it fell out of her personal dictionary.
‘It’s not going to be OK,’ Kat answered, all breathy like she’d swallowed mouthwash that had taken a layer of skin from her tongue. ‘She will criticise everything. From the garland on the front door – too much greenery, Katherine, not enough berries; the turkey – I find it can be a particularly dry meat if it’s not cooked just right; to the King’s speech – does he look a bit peaky to you or is it your television? I thought his cancer had all cleared up.’
‘Kat—’
‘And you know she never stops. Last year I spent an hour in the bathroom pretending to have constipation just so I could get some peace.’
‘Why don’t you tell her to stop criticising?’ Chloe asked. ‘Stop’ had to work better than ‘no’, right?
‘And have her criticise my inability to accept criticism?’
Chloe’s phone began to ring. A dart of panic hit when she saw the screen. ‘It’s Michelle.’
‘Ugh, trust Guac One to interrupt in my time of need!’
‘It could be the baby,’ Chloe reminded. She answered. ‘Hello.’
‘Where are you?’ Michelle said abruptly.
‘I’m just at the Christmas market and?—’
‘OK, good. So, you need to get home and pack a bag.’
Chloe’s heart started to race. It was the baby. It was too early. Weeks too early. But she needed to be calm like she always was. She was the woman who’d learned magic from YouTube in sixteen minutes when an international conjuror hadn’t shown…
‘OK, well, my bag is already packed and you said the private hospital has a high-end kind-of Just Eat option so?—’
‘What do you mean your bag is already packed? I know you’re good, Chloe, great even, but you’re not a mind-reader surely.’
‘My bag’s been packed since the start of the second trimester. I’m sure I told you that.’ She had definitely told Michelle that. She told Michelle everything she was on top of so Michelle knew she was consistent, reliable, not about to jump ship any time soon… Much better to tell your boss these things rather than the fact your long-term boyfriend left you because you were medically deficient.
‘Oh my God! Chloe!’
‘Is it a contraction?! How far apart are they? I am leaving, right now!’
She didn’t get more than a few steps away from a gesticulating Kat before Michelle spoke again.
‘I’m not in labour, Chloe!’
Chloe stopped, unexpectedly jostling someone in the queue for smoky bratwursts. ‘What?’
‘I’m not in labour! I have a few weeks to go yet and the head is less fully engaged than Milo during the NCT classes.’
Now Chloe didn’t understand at all. ‘But what bag are we talking about if it’s not my not-the-daddy-but-the-work-baddie bag for the birth?’
‘A bag that you can fit warm clothes in. Very warm clothes. Along with all the ingenuity I know you have, and all the savvy entrepreneurship I’ve passed along.’
‘I don’t think there’s a bag big enough for all that savviness, Michelle.’
‘Cute, Chloe. But seriously, you can’t fuck this up.’
Chloe didn’t even know what ‘this’ was. Only that it wasn’t being there with Michelle and Milo as their newborn slithered down the birth canal. Kat was looking at her now, probably wondering what was going down on the call.
