January 29 EIGHT YEARS BEFORE

January 29

E IGHT YEARS BEFORE

12.00 P . M .

Marnie and Doug had finally gone home. Madeleine had been too tired and more than a little overwhelmed to object to their pandering and fussing in the maternity ward where she was now settled. One of six occupants, all with newborns alongside them, all she wanted to do was rest, gather her thoughts and mentally focus. The penny seemed to drop for her parents when her eyes had fallen shut mid-sentence and she slept for a second before jolting awake.

‘Perhaps we should go home and let you doze, love?’ Marnie asked with her perma-grin fixed, as she took constant glimpses of the sleeping baby.

Ya think?

‘Yes, okay,’ she’d whispered, her voice thin.

Shifting her bottom, she did her best to sit comfortably in the bed, wanting – needing, actually – to rest her bones, which felt pulled, and her muscles, which felt stretched, sore, and trying to regroup under her skin. Every fibre of her being was doing its best to nestle back into position and to calm after what had been an exertion. She felt at once superhuman and entirely broken. Exhilarated and defeated. Relieved and wrapped in trepidation. The prospect of being left alone was an attractive one, but being left alone with the baby, of being solely responsible for her, not so much.

It was the oddest of sensations, staring at the plastic bassinet on wheels next to her hospital bed and studying the little pink face peering out from within the soft white blankets inside which she was swaddled. A healthy little specimen if ever she’d seen one. Beautiful and delicate with ten tiny toes, ten little fingers, all her bits and pieces present and correct, and with Jimmy’s dark, dark hair sitting like a cap on her perfectly shaped head. It was unreal that this little human had, only an hour or so before, been residing inside her body and was now outside of her body. It was almost impossible to comprehend.

Marnie, throughout the labour and birth, had kept repeating, ‘Oh, she’s cold, she’s trembling with cold. Can we please get an extra blanket for my daughter?’

But Madeleine wasn’t cold. Her trembling was not due to a chill in the air, but rather because she was petrified, and no matter how many blankets they piled on top of her, it wasn’t going to help alleviate her all-consuming fear.

The moment her labour accelerated, she wished she’d stuck with the antenatal classes. She’d popped along to one session, walked into the hall, taken one look at the couples sitting closely together, all beaming with excited anticipation, and had turned right around and left. It hadn’t felt like such an unwise decision then.

During the birth, she had felt slightly detached, as if the rigmarole, still at this very late hour, might be revealed to be a hoax. Even up until the point of delivery, she half expected the midwife to howl her laughter. ‘Well, will you look at that? No more than extreme gas! No baby at all! Off you go!’

It became real, very real, however, when Marnie gripped her hand tightly and her tears flowed as a nurse called out, ‘You’re crowning! That’s it, Madeleine! Keep going! You’re doing a wonderful job! Nearly there, my love! Keep going!’

A head. A head was visible. And that meant only one thing: a baby was without doubt about to be expelled from her body. Things had happened relatively quickly after that – one or two big pushes, the sharp bite of fear that she might become damaged during the process, and then a sweet, satisfying slithering as the child was delivered. Her body sang with relief!

A girl.

Her girl.

Edith-Madeleine.

Seven pounds, two ounces.

The midwife had placed the tiny tot with grasping fingers and a scrunched-up face on to her chest and she had felt ... conflicted. Drawn to the little thing. Fascinated and in awe of her, emotional in the face of such a marvel of nature, but attached to her? Responsible for her? Wanting to hold her close and never let her go? The instant and all-consuming love that she had read about online? Nothing like that. Not even close.

Her parents left slowly. Going back to hold her close, smooth her hair, to tell her they’d return later. They hovered by the cot, burbling high-pitched lamentations of adoration and awe into the baby’s tiny ears, telling her how beautiful she was, how happy they were that she had arrived safely and that they loved her, yes, loved! It threw her a little, but maybe they were experiencing the instant and all-consuming magic that others had phrased so eloquently and which she could only begin to imagine.

The moment Marnie and Doug left, she became aware of the others in the room – all it seemed in various states of euphoria and/or exhaustion. All with partners, either dozing in the chair with their newborns on their chest or in their arms, and one couple who lay on the bed, entwined, resting, as if unified by this one incredible thing and oblivious to the rest of the world. Another was feeding her wife what looked to be pasta salad, flatbread, pickles, and cubes of charred halloumi – pre-prepared and in a bento box, forking delicious morsels of gorgeousness that made Madeleine’s stomach rumble with want.

She felt lonely and yet wanted to be alone. It wasn’t straightforward. And what might be the cure to that loneliness? To call Jimmy? Hardly. Or Trina? Their one dissatisfying get-together lingered in her thoughts; the memory of it pained her as a measure of how far apart they had sprung.

Closing her eyes, she sat back against the pillow and allowed her breathing to slow, concentrating on the throb of discomfort below her waist and the tenderness to her stomach; the rage of a womb that had worked hard and delivered. Sleep called to her and she responded, wanting the bliss of oblivion, just for a while.

She had thought that to deliver this baby would mean the beginning of the end, but as the child cried and the other parents stared at her, focusing on her inaction, their eyes pleading with her to do something, anything, she understood this was not the beginning of the end. Not at all. As the baby howled, disrupting the atmosphere, and they held their own offspring closer, unable to imagine not lunging for them the very second they stirred, Madeleine turned back the blanket and pulled the bassinet closer to her. She understood in that moment that this child, and her connection to it, whether she saw it or not, and the judgement of others who had a view on how she should or might do things differently, was actually for ever.

For ever . . .