Anybody Out There?

  “I’m getting in the bath,” Jacqui said. “It might help with the pain.”

  I sat in the bathroom with her and put on some relaxing music.

  “Turn off that whale racket,” Jacqui said. “Sing us a song instead.”

  “What kind of song?”

  “About what a dickhead Joey is.”

  I thought about it. “So long as you don’t mind that it doesn’t rhyme.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Joey, Joey is a knob,” I sang. “His face is narky and his boots are stupid. Like that, do you mean?”

  “Lovely, yes. More.”

  “When everyone else is ha-a-appy, Jo-oe-ey is na-a-arky. He wouldn’t kno-ow happiness, if it jumped up and bit him on the lad. Chorus, all together now. Joey, Joey is a knob.”

  Jacqui joined in and we sang together. “His face is narky and his boots are stupid!”

  “Joey doesn’t know how to smile, at the chance of happiness he will run a mile—that one even rhymed,” I said happily. “Okay, chorus. JOEY, JOEY IS A KNOB. HIS FACE IS NARKY AND HIS BOOTS ARE STUPID.”

  We got a good forty-five minutes out of that: I’d sing a verse and Jacqui would join in with the chorus. Then Jacqui made up some verses of her own. It was tremendous fun, marred only by Jacqui’s contractions, which were still seven minutes apart. Would we ever reach the magic figure of five minutes?

  “I think you need to do some walking,” I said. “Spinner of Shite said we should use gravity. It might speed things up.”

  “You mean go outside? Okay, let me just do my face. Neaggg!” She raised a palm and cut off my objections.

  “But…”

  “Hurpp! Nee-eddge! I refuse to compromise on standards just because I’m having a baby. Start as you mean to go on.”

  The dark streets were quiet. With our arms linked, we walked. “Tell me things,” Jacqui said. “Tell me lovely things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tell me about when you fell in love with Aidan.”

  Instantly I was pierced by feelings, so mixed up I couldn’t put names on them. Sadness was there and maybe some bitterness, although not as much as there used to be. And there was something else, something nicer.

  “Please,” Jacqui said. “I’m in labor and I’ve no boyfriend.”

  Reluctantly, I said, “Okay. In the beginning I used to say it out loud. I used to say, ‘I love Aidan Maddox and Aidan Maddox loves me.’ I had to hear myself say it because it was so fabulous that I couldn’t believe it.”

  “How many times a day did he tell you he loved you?”

  “Sixty.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “Yes, seriously. Sixty.”

  “How did you know? Did you keep count?”

  “No, but he did. He said he couldn’t sleep easy until I’d been told sixty times.”

  “Why sixty?”

  “Any more and he said I’d get bigheaded.”

  “Wow. Hold on.” She grabbed tight on to some railings and moaned and gasped her way through another contraction. Then she straightened up and said, “Tell me five lovely things about him.

  “Go on,” she urged, when it looked like I was about to refuse. “Remember, I’m in labor and I’ve no fella.”

  Grudgingly, I said, “He always gave a dollar to bums.”

  “Tell me a more interesting one.”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Well, yes, I could, but this was harder to talk about. My throat felt tight and achy. “You know how I get cold sores? Well, there was one night and we were in bed and the light was off and we were just going to sleep when the tingling started. If I didn’t put my special ointment on it immediately I’d look like a leper by the morning, and I had a lunch with the Marie Claire girls the following day. But I hadn’t filled my prescription. So he got up and got dressed and went out to find a twenty-four-hour drugstore. And it was December and snowing and so cold and he was so kind and he wouldn’t let me come with him because he didn’t want me getting cold, too…” All of a sudden I was in convulsions, crying. So bad I had to lean over some railings, just like Jacqui had in the throes of a contraction. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed as I remembered him going out in the cold. I sobbed so much I started to choke.

  Jacqui rubbed my back, and when the storm of crying passed, she patted my hand and murmured, “Good girl, three more.”

  Feck. I’d thought because I’d got so upset, she’d let me off the hook. “He used to come shopping for clothes with me, even though he was mortified in girls’ shops.”

  “Yes. True.”

  “He did excellent Humphrey Bogart impersonations.”

  “That’s right, he did! It wasn’t just the voice; he was able to do something brilliant with his upper lip so he actually looked like him.”

  “Yes, he sort of made it stick to his upper teeth! It was great.”

  “Okay, I’ve got one,” Jacqui said. “Do you remember when you moved in with him, and as consolation, he helped me to move to my new place? He hired a van and drove it and lifted all my boxes and stuff. He even helped me clean the new place and you got me by the throat and said, ‘If you say he’s a Feathery Stroker for this, I’ll hate you.” And I was so confused because even though it looked like Feathery Strokery behavior, it just made him seem more macho and sexy, and I said to you, ‘That guy hasn’t a Feathery Strokery bone in his body. He must really love you.’”

  “I remember.”

  She sighed and we walked in silence, then she said, “You were so lucky.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I was.” It didn’t kill me to say it. I didn’t feel any rush of bitterness; I just thought, Yes, I was so lucky.

  “Incoming contraction!” Jacqui crouched down on the front steps of a brownstone as the spasm gripped her. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  “Breathe,” I instructed. “Visualize. Oh Christ, come back!” Jacqui had toppled off the step and rolled onto the sidewalk. She mewled with pain and I crouched over her, letting her squeeze the bejayzus out of my ankle. From the corner of my eye I noticed that we’d attracted the attention of a cruising black-and-white. It pulled in—shite—and two cops, walkie-talkies crackling, got out and walked over. One looked like he lived on Krispy Kreme doughnuts but the other one was tall and handsome.

  “What’s going on?” Doughnut Boy demanded.

  “She’s in labor.”

  Both men watched Jacqui as she writhed about on the sidewalk.

  “Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?” the handsome one asked, looking deeply distressed and even more handsome.

  “Not until her contractions are five minutes apart,” I said. “Can you believe it? It’s barbaric.”

  “Does it hurt?” Doughnut Boy asked anxiously.

  “She’s in freaking labor!” Handsome said. “Sure it hurts!”

  “How would you know?” Jacqui shouted up. “You…you…man.”

  “Jacqui?” Handsome said in surprise. “Is that you?”

  “Karl?” Jacqui rolled onto her back and smiled graciously up at him. “Good to see you again. How’ve you been?”

  “Good. Good. And you?”

  “Five minutes!” I said, staring at my stopwatch. “They’re five minutes apart. Come on.”

  102

  Jacqui changed into an elegant Von Furstenberg–style wrap dress. With her LV wheelie, she looked like she was going on vacation to St. Bart’s.

  “Gimme that.” I grabbed the case. “Come on.”

  Down on the street we hailed a taxi. “Don’t panic,” I told the driver. “But she’s in labor. Drive carefully.”

  I turned to Jacqui. “How do you know your man? Officer Karl?”

  “We worked together on one of Bill Clinton’s visits.” She huffed and puffed as another contraction got under way. “He was doing security.”

  “Good-looking, isn’t he?”

  “Feathery Stroker.”

  “In what way?”

  ??
?Too nice.”

  By the time we got to the labor and delivery suite at the hospital, the contractions were four minutes apart. I helped Jacqui out of her lovely dress and into a horrible gown, then a nurse appeared.

  “Oh, thank God,” Jacqui said. “Quick, quick, the epidural!”

  The nurse inspected Jacqui’s down-theres and shook her head. “Too soon. You’re not dilated enough.”

  “But I must be! I’ve been in labor for hours. I’m in agony.”

  The nurse gave a patronizing smile that said, Millions of woman do this every day, then she left the suite.

  “If she was a man, I bet you’d give it to her,” I called after her.

  “Here we go again,” Jacqui whimpered. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. I want an epi-DUR-al. I want an epi-DUR-al. It’s my RIGHT!”

  This brought the nurse hurrying back. “You’re distressing the women in the birthing pools. It’s too soon for an epidural. It will slow down the labor.”

  “When can I have it? When?”

  “Soon. The midwife is on her way.”

  “Don’t fob me off, she can’t give me an epidural, only the man can.”

  The nurse left and the contraction faded away.

  “Is anything happening down there?” Jacqui asked.

  She got a little compact from her bag, then held the mirror between her legs, but couldn’t see over her bump.

  “Feck.” Then she looked at her face. “Look at the cut of me, I’m all red and shiny.”

  She combed her hair, refreshed her lipstick, and powdered her red cheeks. “Who knew labor was so unflattering?”

  “Get out of bed and squat,” I said. In the Perfect Birth classes we’d been taught that squatting would speed up dilation. “Gravity is your friend,” I reminded her. “Use it.”

  “Thank you, O Spinner of Shite.”

  Time passed nightmarishly slowly. When the contractions were two and a half minutes apart, she said, “I thought the pain was unbearable before, but it’s much worse now. Get the bitch nurse, will you, Anna?”

  Almost in tears, I hurried off down the corridor, relieved to be doing something useful. Racing toward me was a heavily pregnant woman; she was naked and drenched and wild-eyed. A bearded man was slapping along in her wake; he was also naked (and revolting. Orangey pubes). “Ramona, come back to the birthing pool,” he ordered.

  “Fuck the birthing pool,” Ramona shrieked. “Fuck that fucking pool. No one told me it would hurt this bad. I’m having an epidural.”

  “No drugs,” Orangey Pubes said. “We agreed no drugs! We want a beautiful natural experience.”

  “You can have the beautiful natural experience, I’m having drugs.”

  I found the same nurse as last time; she copped another feel of Jacqui’s cervix. “Still not dilated enough.”

  “That’s bollocks. I am dilated enough. It’s just because you don’t want to get the anesthetist out of bed. You fancy him, don’t you. Go on, admit it.”

  The nurse blushed and Jacqui yelled, “Ha-ha! Gotcha!”

  But it did Jacqui no good. The epidural was still not forthcoming and the nurse joined Orangey Pubes in hot pursuit of Ramona, who was still refusing to return to the birthing pool. The sounds of the three of them slipping and scuffling outside in the corridor provided entertainment for a good while. At some stage I noticed it was ten in the morning, so I rang work and left a message with Teenie, telling her what was happening.

  Then the midwife appeared and had a good long fiddle up Jacqui’s “canal.”

  “God, there’s no dignity in this at all,” Jacqui complained.

  “You should be ready to start pushing,” the midwife said.

  “I’m pushing nothing until I get my epidural. Oh, holy Jaysus,” she screeched. “It’s happening all the time now. It’s one long fucking contraction.”

  “Push,” the midwife urged.

  Jacqui huffed and puffed frantically, when the curtains swished aside dramatically and who was standing there, only Narky Joey.

  “What’s he doing here?” Jacqui yelled.

  “I love you.”

  “Close the curtains, asshole!”

  “Yeah, sorry.” He pulled the curtains closed behind him. “I love you, Jacqui. I’m sorry, sorrier than I’ve ever been about anything.”

  “I don’t care! Get out. I’m in agony and this is all your fucking fault.”

  “Jacqui, push!”

  “Jacqui, I love you.”

  “Shut up, Joey, I’m TRYING to push. And it makes no difference if you love me because I’m never having sex again.”

  Joey came nearer. “I love you.”

  “Get away from me,” Jacqui screeched. “Get away from me with your man’s thing!”

  The nurse reappeared. “What’s happening now?”

  “Please, oh please, lovely nurse, can I have my epidural now?” Jacqui begged.

  The nurse had a quick feel, then shook her head. “It’s too late.”

  “What? How can that be? Last time it was too soon, this time it’s too late! You were never going to give it to me.”

  “Give her the goddamned epidural,” Joey said.

  “You shut up.” From Jacqui.

  “Keep pushing,” the midwife said.

  “Yeah, push, Jacqui,” Joey said. “Push, push.”

  “Would someone tell him to shut up.”

  “Jacqui.” I was staring between her legs, in high alarm. “Something’s happening!”

  “What?”

  “It’s the head,” the midwife said.

  Oh yes, the head. Of course. For a minute I’d thought Jacqui’s insides were coming out.

  More and more of the head appeared. Oh my God, it was a human being, an actual new human being! It happens every day, millions of times, but when you see it happening with your own two eyes, it’s nothing short of miraculous.

  And then its face appeared.

  “It’s a baby,” I yelped. “It’s a baby!”

  “What were you expecting?” Jacqui gasped. “A Miu Miu handbag?”

  Then the shoulders had appeared, and with a gentle tug, the baby slithered out. The midwife counted ten fingers, ten toes, then said, “Congratulations, Jacqui, you’ve got a beautiful baby girl.”

  Narky Joey was in floods. It was hilarious.

  The midwife swaddled the baby in a blanket, then handed her to Jacqui, who cooed, “Welcome to the world, Treakil Pom-pom Vuitton Staniforth.”

  It was a beautiful moment.

  “Can I see her?” Joey asked.

  “Not yet. Give her to Anna,” Jacqui ordered. “Let Anna have a go of her.”

  Into my arms was placed a tiny scrunched-faced mewing bundle, a new person. A new life. Her doll-size shrimp fingers stretched up at me, and in my heart, the last shard of bitterness toward Aidan melted and I recognized the feeling I hadn’t been able to name earlier. It was love.

  I handed Treakil to Joey.

  “I’ll leave you three to get to know each other,” I said.

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “Boston.”

  103

  When we touched down at Logan Airport I was the first off the plane. Dry-mouthed with anticipation, I followed the signs for arrivals. As fast as I was going, fast enough to make me breathless, the walk still seemed to take forever. I clip-clopped along the linoleum floors, breathing hard, sweat patches under my arms.

  My grown-up ladies’ handbag bounced against my side. The only thing to mar my sophisticated image was Dogly, whose head was sticking out of my bag. His ears were swinging enthusiastically and he looked like he was checking out everything we passed. He seemed to approve. Dogly was going back to his Boston roots. I’d miss him but it was the right thing to do.

  Then I was passing through the automatic glass doors and I looked beyond the barrier, searching for a blond-haired two-year-old. And there he was, a sturdy little boy, in a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a Red Sox cap, holding hands with the dark-haired woman be
side him. I felt, rather than saw, her smile.

  Then Jack looked up and saw me, and even though he couldn’t have known who I was, he smiled, too, showing his little white milk teeth.

  I recognized him immediately. How could I not? He looked exactly like his daddy.

  Epilogue

  Mackenzie married some dissipated heir of a hundred-million-dollar canned-goods fortune. He owns seventy-five vintage cars, has a conviction for drunk driving, and is the subject of regular paternity suits. The wedding cost half a million dollars and was in all the society pages. In the photos, despite the fact that she seemed to be holding the groom up, Mackenzie looked very happy.

  Jacqui and Joey and Treakil are a modern-day family unit—Joey babysits Treakil when Jacqui goes out with Handsome Karl, the cop. She’s reconsidering her ban on Feathery Strokery men, especially as Handsome Karl—who really is very handsome—is as besotted with Treakil as he is with Jacqui. However, there’s no denying there’s still a vrizzon between herself and Narky Joey, so who knows…

  Rachel and Luke are the same as ever; a pair of happy, Feathery Strokery licks.

  At work, all is well except that Koo/Aroon and the other EarthSource alcos are on my case again. I went to a charity ball with Angelo—just as friends—in aid of some 12-step recovery center and I bumped into a couple of them at the fizzy-water reception.

  “Anna! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m Angelo’s date.”

  “Angelo! How do you know Angelo?”

  “Just…from around.”

  Oh yeah, their eyes said. Just from around? You’re one of us, why don’t you just admit it?

  Gaz is learning Reiki. I shudder to think.

  Shake and Brooke Edison broke up. There is speculation that Mr. Edison paid him off, although Shake denies it. He puts the split down to “pressures of work.” He had the air-guitar finals coming up again, and between the hours of practice and his hair being so work-intensive, they didn’t see each other enough, he says.

  Ornesto had a lovely boyfriend, an Australian called Pat. It seemed to be going very well, especially as Pat didn’t hit Ornesto or steal his saucepans, but then Ornesto got his phone bill and it was over a thousand dollars and it turned out that Pat had been making daily phone calls to his ex-boyfriend in Coober Pedy. Ornesto was devastated—again—but found solace in his singing. He now has a regular gig at the Duplex, where he sings “Killing Me Softly” and wears ladies’ clothing.