15

Eve let out a long groan and leaned her head back against the passenger seat of her mum’s car.

‘Sweetheart,’ Stella reached over and took her hand, squeezing it tight, ‘you mustn’t worry. The doctor said things were fine.’

Eve pulled sharply away. She couldn’t deal with her mother’s platitudes. ‘No, she didn’t, Mum. She said it was still marginal. That means the placenta hasn’t budged, a bit of it’s still across my cervix.’

‘Yes, but she said there was still time.’

Eve knew her mother meant well, but it wasn’t her baby who was threatened with a premature birth.

‘I’ll be in my third trimester next week. If it hasn’t moved by then, then it’s probably not going to. They always tell you not to worry, but I’ve been Googling it and—’

‘Yes,’ her mum interrupted, ‘but we’re not there yet. And you haven’t had any bleeding.’

‘No, but—’

Stella’s look was firm. ‘Exactly.’

But Eve couldn’t stop worrying to order. She felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of this baby. Without Eric, it was totally on her shoulders.

‘It’s all right, Mumma.’ Arthur’s voice echoed her mother’s from the back seat and Eve took a deep breath. She swallowed hard and put on her brightest smile, twisting as best she could to stroke his knee, picking up his bare foot – he’d kicked off his yellow Crocs as soon as they got into the car – and giving it a squeeze.

‘Mummy’s fine, darling. I just don’t like hospitals much.’

‘I don’t like ’opitals too,’ he said, then put his thumb in his mouth.

‘Yeah,’ Eve said, ‘I’m OK, I suppose.’ She tried to be strong, later, when she talked to Eric. She’d made a vow when he left for the Antarctic that she wouldn’t whinge on, burden him with her problems, knowing how much he would worry. There was nothing he could do to help, anyway, stuck on the other side of the world. Nothing he could do even if he were here by her side, in fact. But the scan that morning had unsettled her and there was a catch in her voice which he must have heard.

‘Hey, sweetheart,’ Eric said. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ She tried to laugh, picturing her husband, his dark, serious eyes, the muscular fineness of his limbs, the way he would reach out to her in the night, his long fingers tentative in their caress.

She’d never met anyone like Eric before that shameful night on the bridge. All her friends from the children’s charity and the pub where she’d worked after leaving school had been louder, edgier, more self-centred – rebellious in thought and deed. Which suited Eve. She had joined in the drunken evenings, lain about on endless tatty sofas playing video games, smoked a lot of dope, had impromptu – mostly unmemorable – sex. And then one evening, crossing Southwark Bridge on the way home to South London, after a drunken evening at some random’s flat in Fenchurch Street, Eve, who had eschewed public transport home because she felt sick, threw up. She’d had the foresight to lean over the green-and-gold-painted parapet, but the wind had blown the vomit back through the gaps and spattered her jeans.

Miserable, she had stood there, back against the parapet, vowing never to drink alcohol again, when this tall, thin man with rimless glasses and a black daypack slung over his shoulders had approached her. Used to brushing off advances from a lifetime in the city, Eve had turned away, waiting for him to pass. But he did not.

‘Are you all right?’ he said, voice low and standing at a respectful distance.

Eve had nodded, not replying.

‘Sure? You don’t look very well.’

His gross understatement had made Eve – still quite drunk – laugh out loud. She was covered in vomit, panda-eyed with tears and smudged mascara, white as a sheet, red hair a tangled mess. There was probably snot too, if he looked closely enough. Basically she was a sight, and no, not looking well at all.

‘You could say that,’ she replied, glancing up at the man’s face and finding the kindest, most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

He – Eric, as it turned out – had walked her home, made sure she was safe, hadn’t taken advantage beyond a cup of coffee, which he’d made. Later, he told Eve he’d fallen in love with her the second he clapped eyes on her dishevelled figure standing alone on the bridge.

Eve had never dated a scientist before. Never even met one, as far as she was aware. Nor someone so serious, so passionate and directed about their work … And so kind. Eric paid attention to her, really listened, as if she were some sort of exotic creature. Not like those half-cut bozos with whom she normally hung out. Because he had never met someone like Eve before, either, he said.

‘You sound miserable.’ She heard the worry in Eric’s voice, now. ‘Is Arthur all right … And the baby?’

‘All fine. Just pregnancy blues, I expect.’ She paused. ‘And having Mum here is a mixed blessing.’

‘How so?’

Guilt wracked her that her husband didn’t know about the placenta praevia. Until today, Eve had kept telling herself that it would resolve itself – the doctor had insisted that 90 per cent of the time it did – so there would be no need to worry Eric unnecessarily. But if the next scan were the same, she would have to. He had to be home in time for the birth. She pushed her urgent desire to blurt the whole thing out to the back of her throat and tried to concentrate on the conversation.

Independence was a habit with Eve, one of which she was barely aware. Ever since she could remember, she had existed in a mostly man-free environment. Her mother, taught by her grandmother, knew perfectly well how to change a fuse, a tyre, run a house, earn a living. Her father was like an optional extra in her childhood. And part of her persisted in tarring Eric with the same brush. She loved him with all her heart, but she told herself she didn’t need him in order to survive.

‘I think she’s sort of enjoying it,’ she said to Eric now. ‘She’s been fantastic with Arthur, taught him loads of games and songs. That’s what comes of having a grandma who does kids’ TV.’

Eric laughed. ‘Yeah, it’s great she wants to be so involved. We weren’t sure she would.’

She laughed too. He was trying to be tactful about her mum, who scared him to death with her piercing looks and rigorous questioning. He always worried he wasn’t coming up to scratch, despite Eve insisting he was the very best-case husband scenario as far as Stella was concerned – although given the shabby bunch of men Eve had trailed home with in the past that wasn’t much of a compliment.

‘So is there a “but”?’ Eric knew her too well.

‘Well, yeah … Mum and Dad. In the same room. Dad being try-hard friendly. Mum doing the silent thing. Or being snippy.’

‘Right. Sounds grim.’ Eric seemed as if he knew just how she felt, although he couldn’t have. His parents lived in a croft in the Hebrides and hadn’t spent a night apart, or had a cross word apparently, in the forty years they’d been together. Although Eve could scarcely believe this to be true.

‘What’s she snippy about?’

‘Everything, because she won’t talk about Jonny.’

‘Your brother?’

Eve sighed. ‘Yes, and I know it’s hard. But keeping it all locked up hasn’t worked for anyone.’

There was a moment’s silence at the other end of the phone. ‘Wish I was home with you, Evie.’

‘Only seven weeks,’ she said.

‘It’ll go in a flash,’ he said.

Maybe for you. She had a pang of envy at his comparative freedom. Even shut up in almost permanent darkness in sub-zero temperatures, he was still in control of his own time. Once you had children, that freedom was gone for good. Every day seems like a lifetime to me, she thought.

She’d been jealous in those first weeks of his sojourn in the icy wastes. There were three women, Eric said, amongst the nineteen scientists wintering on the base, and he’d become friends with Sharon, the base doctor. When he told Eve about the communal candlelit dinners with great food every Saturday, music nights – clever old Sharon played the flute, apparently – skiing trips, the bonding cold, the stunning landscapes she couldn’t even imagine, Eve couldn’t handle it.

‘Send me a photo of this Sharon woman,’ she’d said when Eric had been there about a month.

‘Why?’

‘I want to know what she looks like.’

He’d chuckled. ‘You’re not jealous, are you?’

‘It’s not funny. You talk about her all the time. I want to see what she looks like.’

‘OK, I’ll email you a photo if you like. But I’m not sure how that’ll help.’ He’d let out a sigh. ‘I can’t explain this place, Evie. It’s just the most amazing location on earth. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s the Antarctic you should be jealous of, not Sharon. The air is so clear, the light extraordinary, the sunrise and sunsets so mind-blowing … I wish you could see it. But I assure you there’s nothing going on between me and Sharon. I would never, ever do that to you.’

‘So what about sex?’ she’d asked, not at all reassured by his words. ‘Five months is a hell of a long time for you all to go without … don’t I know it.’

Eric had given an embarrassed laugh; he wasn’t good at talking about sex, or about feelings of any kind – his puritan Scottish parents had made sure of that.

‘You’ll have to trust me on this one, Evie.’ Pause. ‘You do trust me, don’t you?’

And she had to admit that she probably did.

When he sent the photo, she had laughed out loud. All she could see was a group of nondescript men and women, wrapped in brightly coloured snow gear, hats pulled so low it almost obscured their faces, grinning at the camera as they stood outside a large green hut, snow as far as the eye could see. ‘Fourth from the left, back row,’ was Eric’s caption.

‘Dad says to come about one thirty tomorrow,’ Eve said as she padded barefoot into the kitchen in her cotton dressing gown on Saturday morning. Her mum was at the table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper spread out in front of her. Arthur must be in the sitting room; she could hear the sound of cartoons on the television.

Stella had been getting the boy up each day, as soon as she heard him stirring and before he’d had a chance to wander in and wake his mother. She would bring him down to the kitchen for cereal and juice, then sit him in front of the television until her daughter got up. Eve was amazed at the difference that extra hour or so made to her day. But Stella, claiming to be an early riser – Eve did not remember this – had insisted.

Her mum nodded, smiled. ‘Have a good night?’

‘Yeah. Weeing, weeing and weeing, but otherwise not bad.’

‘Sit down, I’ll make you some tea,’ Stella said, folding the paper and rising from her chair.

‘Stop it, Mum. I’ll get soft if you keep spoiling me like this. I’m quite capable of dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water.’

Stella raised her eyebrows. ‘Gift horse and mouth?’

‘True, but you’ll get knackered if you go on like this. You only had shingles in February.’

Her mum sat down again and was silent as Eve put the kettle on. Then she said softly, ‘I’m fine. You know, I’m loving being here with you and Arthur.’

Eve turned and smiled. ‘It’s been really good. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mum.’

There was an awkward pause, both women suddenly self-conscious with each other, and Eve went back to the preparation of her tea.

‘Iain says he’ll be down in time for supper. So there’ll be plenty of scope for a bit of drama at lunch tomorrow.’

Eve groaned.

‘Joking,’ her mum said, a wicked grin on her face. ‘But it’ll be interesting to see how they get on, Iain and Jack. Seems odd they haven’t met.’

‘Hmm, “interesting”? Is that code for “catastrophic”?’

Laughing, Stella said, ‘God no. Your dad’s changed, don’t you think? His crazy work obsession seems to have totally disappeared. He seems more … I don’t know, relaxed? I always assumed he’d just keel over on the job.’

‘I think he had burnout.’

‘Won’t he get bored, doing nothing?’

Eve shrugged. ‘He says he’s writing a book. He wants to learn to ride a horse … I don’t know, Mum. That job of his was relentless. Maybe he just needs a break before getting into something again.’ It wasn’t Iain and Jack she was worried about at lunch. Iain was an old hippy, as Eve saw it: totally laid back, certainly not someone to pick a fight. But her parents hadn’t seen each other since that day of the pub lunch, when they’d told her about Jonny. It amused her – amazed her, even – that her mum considered her dad more ‘relaxed’. No thanks to you, Mum, she thought, smiling to herself as she remembered Stella’s grumpy silence in the pub garden. And the tension would not have gone away since then. Her brother sat like an enduringly tender wound between them, a point of pain so great that the slightest word or look could trigger an avalanche of misdirected angst.