‘Hello, beautiful.’ It was Zac’s voice, dragging me out of sleep. He kissed my bump. ‘Hello, other beautiful.’ He slipped a hand under the back of my neck.
I was in the sitting room, on one of the fat floral sofas Zac would never have chosen for himself. I was still half in a dream as I pressed my hands against his chest, trying to push him away.
‘Please, Holly. I love you so much.’
How should I respond to this? I was thirty weeks pregnant and everything was ready. Maxine had followed through at her end. Tomorrow was the day my baby and I would disappear. I would stretch out in the back seat of the car and trust Maxine’s driver to get us to Bath safely. If I didn’t return Zac’s I love you with my own there was the potential for a raging fight that could ruin everything.
‘I love you too,’ I said.
‘It makes me so happy to hear that.’ He traced a finger over my lips. ‘Have you moved from this spot since I left this morning?’
Gently, I took his hand, which covered the fact that I didn’t want him to touch me that way. ‘Barely.’
‘Good. It’s good that you’re resting.’
‘She kicks more when I lie down. I’m worrying she isn’t moving so much. I’ve been trying to keep track of her kicks, but I was so tired I couldn’t concentrate.’
Zac put both hands on my bump. ‘Well, she has definitely said hello to her daddy. Did you feel that?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I am. So trust me. I’m a doctor.’
I tried to smile.
‘Let me show you how much I love you.’ He was pulling open the wraparound maternity dress I was wearing. I tried to grab his wrist to stop him, but my arms were caught up somehow, in my partly undone dress, from the way he’d tugged at the fabric and fiddled with the ties. He was lifting my hair from my neck. His mouth was against my skin.
‘I don’t feel like it, Zac.’ I’d got a hand free. It was against his chest, trying to hold him away.
There was that flash in his eyes, that tightening of his jaw and jutting of his chin, and the familiar pulse that vibrated out of his temple to his scalp. I thought again of my car keys held out of reach, of his magazines and objects. He had promised never to lock me in again, never to take away my phone or my keys again, never to block my car in again, though the last promise would have been easy for him to make given the likelihood that he’d put a tracker on it. Could I trust him to honour all of this, tomorrow of all days?
‘There’s been no bleeding since the end of the first trimester. We haven’t made love since April.’ He tried to joke. ‘But who’s keeping track? The midwife told you that intercourse is perfectly safe.’
I saw the midwife a week ago, the day before my visit to Milly, and Zac wasn’t fully quoting what she said. Safe if you feel like it were her exact words.
‘I need to know everything is okay between us. You need to show me that. Come back to our bedroom. You can’t sleep in the guest room forever. It’s been two weeks of not having you with me at night and I hate it. The baby needs to see her parents properly together. We love each other, Holly. We need to fix things before she’s here.’ He’d got me into a sitting position. I was seeing stars. ‘Do you remember the first time we made love? In this room?’
I wanted to shove him the fuck off me. But if I did that there would be an argument, and it would never end. It would go on all night and into the morning, and he might disrupt his routine tomorrow to continue it. Milly checked and double-checked the doctors’ rota for me, choking back tears while she did it, guessing why I was asking but knowing better than to say. It was absolutely certain that he needed to be at work for handover tomorrow morning. Could I take the risk of wrecking that?
I had only today to get through. I could go to the antenatal clinic in Bath to check on her tomorrow, as soon as I got there. Just one more day, and one more time, to keep us both safe.
He was sliding the dress from my shoulders and down my arms. He was unhooking my bra. Did one last time matter? Would it kill me, once more, to do the very thing Maxine wanted me for? My real value, as far as she was concerned. The thought made me want to cry. Already he was slipping off my underwear. He was planting kisses over my neck, my breasts, growing more intense with each one, his breath coming faster.
He was pulling the cushions from the sofa onto the floor, and me along with them, manoeuvring me onto my side because of my bump, and I told myself that this really would be the last time, though my body tried to move despite my willing it not to, and then I was panicking and he was holding me and the dress was a tangle and my balance was off and I couldn’t get loose or get up or stop him.
‘Say goodbye to me properly.’ Zac was trying to kiss me and I was straining my head away because I was scared that if he put his mouth on mine I was going to be sick.
Go, I told him silently. Please, please go. Please go. You need to go. If you don’t go, then I can’t either.
I didn’t want to tell him that I wasn’t feeling well, and my bump was hurting. If I did, he might stay. If I told him that I might never get away.
His arms were around me, propping me up. My feet were bare. The flagstones were icy, and I realised that that was different. Since my pregnancy, I had been so warm I didn’t usually notice the chill below.
The grandfather clock was no longer in its place. It was sliding sideways.
‘You’re pale, Holly,’ he said. ‘Holly?’
The walls were moving and Zac and the clock were moving with them. It was hard to keep his face in focus, but I thought he was frowning. He was squinting, and saying the word pallor, and blue, and something about listening to my heart, and running bloods. He was saying shock, too, going into shock, and I wondered why he was shocked.
I was no longer in our entry hall. I was with Milly and we were at an amusement park. We were on a ride. It was called The Spin Out. We stayed in one place, standing with our backs to a post and our feet locked down and a belt around our waists, but the circular room turned round and round, twirling us faster and faster as the floor dropped.
‘Holly? Holly, Holly, Holly. Holly, look at me. Can you look at me, Holly? Look at me.’
The walls were spinning and spinning and spinning some more, and the floor was dropping further. There was only air beneath my feet.
My legs seemed to have lost their bones. Something stabbed me, low down in my belly, and ripped away inside. A rush of hot liquid streamed down my thighs. My brain seemed to be spinning, too, inside my own head.