Page 45 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

And Cat yelled for me.

Mouse! she shouted. It’s not a placenta! Get the knives.

What? I shouted, twisting wrong-footed between the warm relief of the breathing baby in my hands and the cold jolt of her words.

What’s coming next, she shouted. Not a placenta!

And then it’s blurry again for a bit. But in the gap I don’t remember, the one hard thing I do know is that someone should have died. We didn’t know what we were doing.

Babies come in three ways when they come in pairs. We hadn’t read that bit of the midwifery book. But I did read it later. Too late. The way these two came with separate sacs and placentas was the most dangerous because we could have killed the second one by cutting the cord on the first one before she was out too. But she made it. She nearly didn’t because she came awkwardly, but Cat’s clever hands gently corkscrewed her round and brought her into the world like she was landing a fish, only a slick and noisy fish that was protesting at the top of her tiny voice. Unlike her older brother who went quiet at her first cry.

That’s how four didn’t become five, but six, and is of course when the real work began, the long hard job of feeding and cleaning and caring and keeping alive.

And I like to remember the good of that day. And the surprise visitor following her brother into our lives. And how we watched her as she lay with him like the book said, on the mother, skin to skin. And in that one moment at least Freya was, Cat said, too tired not to love them no matter how hard she would make the effort later on.

I remember all that, how it was, how it felt. How proud I was of Cat for cutting and then mending so neatly.

I also remember the second sight, when the sister looked at me as I was doing the brisk rubbing of her with the towels. It wasn’t the recognition of the first sight I had with her brother, though it was that too. Cat says I imagined it because newborns absolutely don’t smile, but I swear she looked into my eyes as if she was expecting the answer to a question I must have missed her asking me, and then, maybe because her concentration was broken by the lightning beyond the big window her gaze slid off mine and fixed on something behind me which clearly tickled her because she smiled at it.

Except when I turned round there was nothing but the night and the rain and the rumble of the distant thunder as the storm moved slowly away towards the sea.

Later was when Cat told me I was imagining things, when the girls and the babies were clean and resting and safe because Storm seemed to love them enough for two. Which was a surprise. We scrubbed and stripped outside letting the rain shower us clean like we did when we were kids. It’s odd to think about that now, but back then in the moment, in the afterglow of that long day and all that fear and focused panic it made sense.

Maybe because we helped bring two new things into the world it felt OK letting the world do some of the washing up. I know it felt joined-up, somehow part of the same primal thing that we’d seen and done. Primal was one of Cat’s favourite words.

You did good, Mouse, she said, punching my arm gently.

Not as good as you, I said, punching her back.

Just as good, she said, face still turned up into the falling rain. Just as good because what we do, we do together. We’re a team. Always have been, always will be.

Only-ones, I said.

Yes. She smiled. Always. But these babies? They’re going to have more than each other.

That’s good, I said.

Cat closed her eyes and turned her face up to the falling rain.

I hope so, she said.

Chapter 16

Freeman

The Boy and the Girl – Year 12 AG

In the beginning, in the first facility he could visit her, and even stay since the place was more like a sanatorium hotel than a research lab. She had a suite, not just a room, and he stopped over with her as long as they liked. They were, she said, adults after all. It wasn’t as though the place was a prison.

Indeed, there was a general air of indulgent benevolence that characterised all the staff which creeped her out after a while, even though he pointed out that a bit of indulgence was only fair, since she was curtailing her normal activities and freedoms in service of a greater good. He came and went as his job changed and adapted to the slowly gathering upheavals that were beginning to gather a head of steam across the world, and then one day she went to meet him at the small railway station, as was their habit, and he suggested they go and have lunch down in the town by the water as he had some interesting news. There were no restrictions on her at that time, so they found a place by the harbour and sat outside.

“Go on then,” she said as he slid a beer across the table from her and sat down. “This interesting news?”

“I’ve been offered a new job,” he said. “It’s a good thing, I mean it’s pretty end-of-the-worldy, but it’s good.”

“From who?” she said. “How—?”

“I got a letter,” he said. “Sort of a pitch, sort of an offer. Easier if you read it, maybe.”