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  He crossed the landing and entered the bedroom. Georgina had tried to clean up much of the blood, though its vividness on the sheets and on his wife’s swollen body still seemed to shout at him. On the floor was a bowl that had previously contained warm water but which now contained blood. How many pints were there in the human body? Eight, wasn’t it? A gallon? How much had his wife lost?

  The woman on the bed did not look like Alice. Alice had rosy cheeks and sparkling blue eyes and thick chestnut hair. This woman had damp white flesh, lank colourless hair, tendrils of which adhered to her face, and watery eyes sunk in darkened sockets. When she turned her head towards him it seemed something invisible was trying to prevent her from doing so. Her lips, barely pink, struggled open and she whispered his name.

  “Alice,” Terry half-sobbed and staggered to the bed. He fell on his knees beside it, and groped for his wife’s limp hand. When he squeezed she reciprocated feebly and tried to smile, but her expression was superseded by a grimace of pain. Her neck arched and she pushed her shoulders and heels into the mattress. Her clenched teeth parted to release a whimper, and Georgina moved forward to mop up more blood.

  “Alice,” Terry whispered again. “Shhh, it’s all right. Everything will be fine.” Though they appeared not to be doing so, Terry hoped his words were providing some comfort. They were all he had to offer his wife. He felt so desperate, so helpless. If he owned a car he could have driven down and fetched the doctor himself. He said to Georgina, “Isn’t there something more I can do?”

  “You’re doing enough,” she told him, picking up the bowl. She moved from the room to empty it. Terry hoped it was only the first she’d emptied.

  Alone with his wife he felt strangely uncomfortable, tongue-tied. He tried to smile but it was an effort. He did not think she was even looking at him. Her head was turned in his direction and her eyes were half-open, but they seemed to be focusing inward, perhaps concentrating on some small inner part of herself that was free from pain. Terry squeezed her hand again and felt the responding pressure of her fingers. He whispered, “Don’t worry, Alice, the doctor will be here soon.” Her only reply was a twitch of the lips, though he was not sure whether this was an attempted smile or another spasm of pain. His head jerked up as stones clattered against the window from outside. It took him a few moments to realise they were not stones but rain.

  Within seconds it was falling in earnest. The sky was almost black with clouds, an army which had been gathering all day and had now been given the order to disgorge its artillery. The first flurry of drops was followed by the minutest pause, then a growl of thunder and lightning harsh as a flash bulb precipitated a far stronger and more sustained assault. Terry shivered, though only at the thought of being out there in the cold and not because he was cold himself. Every time lightning flashed, the lamp by his wife’s bedside flickered as if in feeble imitation. He drew closer to Alice, struck by the melodrama of the scene despite his anxiety.

  Georgina re-entered the room, the bowl now full of clear, steaming water. She glanced at the window, the glass of which seemed to be alive and ever-changing, then put the bowl down and drew the curtains closed. The screeching wind, the lashing rain, the rattling windows seemed impenetrable; Terry felt more isolated than ever before in his life. He pictured Dr. Travis hobbling along Daisy Lane, which this rain would reduce to a river of mud. Surely the old man was no match for these conditions. Terry imagined the wind picking him up like a scrap of litter and carrying him away.

  His stomach clenched like a fist as Alice cried out again and more blood gleamed on her skin and spread across the sheets. Her legs trembled and jerked. The hand holding his tightened with painful suddenness; her nails dug into his flesh and raised tiny crescents of blood. “Alice,” he said, “Alice,” as if the sound of her name could stem the vivid flow from between her legs. Her lips were curled back, bubbles of spittle frothing up between her teeth. Her throat worked as whimpers of pain escaped her.

  “Alice,” he said again, “hang on, love, the doctor will be here soon.” To himself he sounded like a broken record, offering the same meaningless platitudes over and over. He looked at Georgina. “Where the bloody hell is he?”

  She glanced briefly at him and scowled, but said nothing. Terry shook his head. “Maybe I should go look for him. In this weather—”

  “He’ll be here,” Georgina cut in firmly.

  “But he’s taking so long. Doesn’t he realise—”

  “He’ll be here,” she almost hissed.

  Terry glared at her, but lowered his gaze before she did. He lifted his wife’s hand and kissed it gently. It was clammy as a fish. His knees were beginning to ache from kneeling; pins and needles tingled in his feet. “I’m just going to stand up a minute,” he told Alice. “I’m not leaving the room. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  Alice made no response, though Terry believed—or liked to believe—that she had heard him. He stood up and stamped his feet, wooden floorboards booming hollowly beneath the thin carpet. He crossed to the window, pulled the corner of the curtain back, stooped and peered out. This room was positioned at the front of the house, and afforded a view of the garden, Daisy Lane, and the fields beyond. At the moment, however, Terry could see little of this. The storm clouds had clotted so thickly that the sky was black as night. Rain, spattering the glass, streaming in rivulets down it, further fractured what little definition there may have been. Dry-stone walls were merely blurred black lines separating fields of dingy grey smog. Daisy Lane was like a crevasse filled with solid, unmoving darkness.

  He pictured Travis again, trudging up the lane, head bowed grimly against the rain and wind. He had known the doctor all his life and took some comfort from the knowledge that he was blunt, pigheaded, determined. However, he was also physically frail; he could only walk slowly, sometimes needing the aid of a stick. And in these conditions . . . Terry allowed the curtain to fall back. This time he would not allow Georgina to intimidate him. He was going to look for the old man.

  He braced himself to tell her this, but was saved from doing so by the sound of pounding from downstairs. “At last!” he exclaimed. He took the stairs two at a time and tugged the door open. The wind added its weight to the heavy wood once more, but this time he was ready for it and stood firm. The old man on the doorstep looked scoured, thrashed by the elements. Terry ushered him in, then wrestled the door closed.

  “Doctor! Thank God you’re here!” Terry exclaimed, though in truth the frail, slightly hunched figure did not inspire confidence. Travis’ mouth hung open, his breath wheezing from it; his eyes were thinly slitted as though the rain had pressed his eyelids closed. His skin and hair and clothes were drenched; he dripped like a snowman before a raging fire. He put down what appeared to be a fat briefcase and with a hand that trembled alarmingly pulled a large blue handkerchief from his pocket and slowly wiped his face.

  “Here, let me take that,” Terry said, and relieved the unresisting doctor of the Gladstone bag he held in his other hand. Travis had had this bag for as long as Terry could remember. It was made of black leather, now so scuffed and old it was almost the consistency of cloth. It had probably once had a definite shape, but now it was lumpy and squashy as an old turnip.

  Travis’ lips struggled without success for a moment until finally he enquired, “Do you . . . have a towel I could use?”

  “Yes, I . . . but please, doctor, my wife . . . she’s very ill.”

  “A towel, if you don’t mind, Terry. I’m no use to anyone in this state.”

  Flustered, Terry hurried to the kitchen, grabbed a towel from the rail by the sink and returned to the doctor, still carrying the sodden Gladstone bag. Travis peeled off his coat, revealing his familiar tight black suit with the shiny elbows, which made him look like an undertaker. The shoulders of the suit were wet. Travis towelled his hair and face, gasping like a cross-Channel swimmer. When he was done, he draped the towel over the banister rail and held out his hand for his bag. “
Hideous weather,” he growled, and nodded at the fat briefcase. “Could you carry that for me, please?”

  Terry nodded perfunctorily, picked up the briefcase, then reached out, though he did not quite dare grasp the doctor’s arm. “Please, Doctor,” he said, “could we hurry? There’s something wrong with Alice.”

  “Wrong?” repeated Travis as if the word offended him. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Both men looked up as Georgina’s bulk appeared at the top of the stairs, appearing to cast a shadow over them.

  “Are you two going to stand there nattering all night?” she demanded. “There’s a woman here that needs help—and quickly from the looks of her.”

  Both men began to ascend, Travis slowly, bony hand gripping the banister and hauling himself up one step at a time. Terry fluttered behind him, teeth clenched and forehead furrowed as if trying to propel the old man forward through sheer act of will.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Travis asked between gasps as he entered the bedroom.

  Georgina tersely recounted the symptoms. She was sitting on a chair beside the bed and had enclosed Alice’s left hand in both of hers and was stroking it tenderly.

  Terry hung back as Travis moved forward to examine Alice. He probed her belly, making her moan and writhe. In the dim room he resembled a black spider hovering over something fat and helpless in its web. He snapped open his Gladstone bag, withdrew a stethoscope and listened to her tightly stretched stomach. Indicating the bowl of water, now stained pink once again, he said, “Could you fill that with hot clean water please, Georgina?”

  She nodded curtly and did as he asked. Terry, hovering in the doorway, stepped into the room out of her path, studiously avoiding eye contact. Travis placed a palm on Alice’s forehead, then half-turned and waved Terry forward, indicating his desire for the fat briefcase. Terry passed it to him. He watched as the doctor cleared the bedside table, placing the lamp on the floor. He put the briefcase on the table, opened it, and withdrew two squat cylinders, to each of which was affixed a length of tubing and a transparent plastic facemask. He said to Terry, “Why is it so bloody dark in here? Turn the light on, can’t you?”

  Terry did so, and immediately Alice groaned and screwed up her eyes. He did not realise how muted the colour of her blood had been in the dimness until the unflinching light made it spring up more vivid than ever. Georgina returned with the water and placed it, at Travis’ request, on a chair that the doctor tugged from beneath the dressing table. As he scrubbed his hands with a brush and a cake of soap that had been wrapped in cloth in his Gladstone bag, he explained to Georgina about the cylinders, one of which would provide Alice with gas for her pain, the other of which would provide her with air.

  It was when Travis reached down between his wife’s legs that Terry had to look away. Mumbling that he didn’t feel well, he turned and stumbled to the door. Suddenly he thought he could smell blood in the room, something he hadn’t previously detected. He felt lightheaded, the sensation like someone unscrewing the top of his skull as if it were a jar. The storm crashing against the house seemed to recede as if his ears were blocked. Outside the room he clung to the doorknob for a moment, certain he was going to faint.

  Gradually his muffled senses cleared and returned to normal. Terry winced as he heard his wife cry out, and he tottered to the top of the stairs. He hadn’t wanted to attend the birth or any of its preliminaries. He had known the blood and the mess and the pain would upset him too much. What he had envisaged was his wife going upstairs, the doctor arriving, and then, a couple of hours later, hearing the sound of a baby’s cry. He’d imagined entering the bedroom to find his wife sitting up in bed, perhaps in a cloud-white nightgown, looking tired but beatific and serene. In her arms she would be holding a clean, pink, chubby baby, and she would look up at him and smile proudly. He would go to the bed and enclose the two of them in a protective embrace, and the child would blink its startling blue eyes and reach up for him with tiny, perfect hands. . . .

  Alice cried out again, shattering the illusion. For a moment Terry felt almost resentful toward her. Why couldn’t she just give birth like a normal woman? Why did there have to be all this palaver? He felt ashamed as he descended the stairs. He hadn’t meant that. He was upset, that was all. His legs felt weak and he gripped the banister as tightly as Dr. Travis had done. He needed a cigarette. He deserved one. Just this once lung cancer could take a running jump.

  He entered the sitting room and slumped into his armchair, which, after a decade of use, had moulded itself to his shape. The room was large, though its clutter of furniture and its lack of natural light made it seem cosy.

  Terry was thirty-four, Alice two years younger. They had married in 1958, soon after he had come out of the army. At first things had been hard. They had lived in a cramped flat above the butcher’s shop in Beckford. Terry had flitted from one casual labouring job to another, finding it more difficult than he had imagined to adapt to civilian life again. He had found himself increasingly irritated by the village mentality he encountered when he returned, scornful of the narrow-mindedness of community life. If it hadn’t been for Alice, her inexhaustible sympathy and understanding, he would have pulled up his roots and made his way to Leeds, or even to London, in search of worth, direction, meaning. But gradually, backed by her love and support, he had rediscovered himself. He was offered, and was delighted to accept, a job as a mechanic at Joe Bates’ garage in the village, thus utilising the trade he had been taught in the army. After his father’s death in ’65, he and Alice had moved from their cramped flat to the cottage and so had finally been able to discuss the prospect of starting a family. It had taken five long and uncomfortable years for Alice to conceive, but at last, in January, had come the news for which they’d been waiting. And tonight would see the culmination of all that heartache and uncertainty. Terry closed his eyes and tried to reproduce the mental image of Alice, angelic in a white nightgown, sitting up in bed holding their baby—but instead all he saw was her blood on the sheets and her white face contorted in pain.

  He shuddered, opened his eyes and reached for his cigarettes, which were on the table by his armchair. He lit one and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He stared at the fire, which was the only light in the room, a glow of orange coals behind a guard of fine wire mesh. Rain and wind battered the two small windows behind him, and Terry shuddered again, pulling in his legs like an animal preparing to hibernate. His armchair was to the left of the fire. Facing it was the settee, and to the right of that was a black and white television set. Behind the settee was a dining table and six chairs, and beyond that, against the far wall, a sideboard that had belonged to Terry’s parents.

  Alice’s watercolours, mainly Yorkshire farming scenes, covered their walls despite her protestations that she didn’t want them hung. Painting was a passion for her, though she ended up giving most of her pictures away to friends, and always felt terribly embarrassed when they insisted on paying her for them. Though he possessed his own creative tendencies, Terry had always stifled them. However, after the screening of The Quatermass Experiment on the BBC in 1953, when Terry was seventeen, those tendencies had almost emerged. Inspired by the series, he had begun to write his own science fiction story, but in the end the spectre of his father had been too much for him. One night he had fed his unfinished manuscript into the same fire that had devoured his comics a decade before. He had kept his literary exploits a secret from Alice, feeling as guilty and ashamed as if he’d been having an affair. A couple of times, mostly when he was drunk, he had almost told her of his aspirations, but in the end he had chickened out, and to this day she knew nothing of his suppressed dreams.

  If she had known—if she did know—Terry was certain she would encourage him. “When the baby comes,” he murmured, staring into the fire, “I’ll tell her. And I’ll start writing again. I’ll write stories for her and my child.” Only the storm answered his vow, and the coals, crackling gently. All at once Terry felt convin
ced someone was standing in the shadows at the back of the room. He turned, knowing he would see his father’s scowling face.

  But of course there was no one there.

  He laughed humourlessly to himself and finished his cigarette. He waited five minutes, then lit another.

  Time passed, though how quickly he was unsure. He smoked four cigarettes one after the other, stirring from his seat only to jab the embers into reluctant life when they began to fade. He looked up at the ceiling above the windows and saw the reflection of the rain there, a vague slithering of light and shadow. The storm drowned out whatever sounds may have been coming from upstairs, allowing Terry to indulge the belief that all was well in the house, that now that the doctor was here everything would be fine.

  He did not remember falling asleep. It must have been the fire, the sinuous overlapping of flames, that stole his consciousness as stealthily as a pickpocket. He felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him, opened his eyes a crack, grimaced at the taste in his mouth, like the contents of an ashtray. He was cold. The fire had gone out. Rain still drummed at the windows, this sound laid over another almost constant sound, which was the hissing of rain in the undergrowth.

  “Hmm, what?” he slurred.

  “You’d better come,” said Georgina in a sharp, tight voice.

  “What time is it?”

  But she had already turned away and did not answer his question.

  Terry sighed and blinked himself awake. He looked at his watch and saw that it was quarter to one. He stared disbelievingly at the time for a moment as though his eyes might have been deceiving him. But no; he’d been asleep—what?—five, six hours?

  He pushed himself up from the armchair and stumbled after Georgina. His legs ached as they ascended the stairs; he was halfway up when he heard a baby cry. He halted for a moment, his breath solidifying in his chest, feeling suddenly dizzy with wonder and excitement and more than a little fear. Then, grabbing the banister, he thrust himself forward, taking the stairs two and three at a time.