49

Stella held Arthur’s hand as she pushed open the door to the hospital room. It was very hot and quiet and she could feel the boy’s bemusement as he looked around for his little sister. He’d been hyper all morning, whining to go and see the baby, but she sensed his impatience was tinged with confusion.

Little Mairi – named after Eric’s grandmother on his mother’s side – looked so tiny, so fragile, almost invisible, swaddled skin-to-skin against her mum’s chest. All Stella could see was the top of her head. Unlike with a normal birth, the baby’s head hadn’t been squashed during delivery, but was round and perfect, capped with a surprising quantity of dark hair. Arthur, Stella remembered, had only a golden down when he was born.

The transparent plastic bassinet stood ready beside the bed, but Mairi had not been in it yet, according to Eric, who hovered beside mother and baby, looking relieved, proud, but also a bit shell-shocked. Eve beckoned Arthur over, and the boy clutched at his mother’s hand and tried to climb up on the bed.

‘Want a cuddle,’ he said uncertainly as Eve reached down, stroking her hand lovingly over his curls.

Eric lifted him up and sat him next to Eve. ‘Snug in, Arthur, but don’t wriggle too much,’ he said. ‘Mummy’s got a very sore tummy.’

‘So it all went well?’ Stella asked Eve when her grandson was safely out of earshot, having been taken by Eric over to the table against the wall, upon which sat an oblong box, wrapped in blue paper and tied with a red ribbon: Arthur’s present from Mairi.

‘Yeah, fine, I think. But the whole thing was surreal, Mum … Lying there with all these people around and then suddenly being handed a baby.’ She shook her head. ‘I really don’t want to think about it.’ Then she smiled as she looked down on her sleeping baby. ‘But it was all worth it. She’s so perfect, isn’t she?’

‘She is, sweetheart. Completely perfect.’ Stella stroked the baby’s forehead very gently, feeling the warm, silky softness beneath her fingers.

‘I’m so glad it’s over, Mum. And that Mairi’s all right. My fears were totally unfounded.’

‘They were quite understandable, given the circumstances. I think you’ve been amazing.’ Stella bent to give her daughter a kiss.

‘Nurse Ratched says I’ve got to get up and move around later.’ Eve pulled a face. ‘Proper hard core.’ She grimaced, obviously in pain, shifting cautiously on the slippery hospital mattress, her hand protectively against the baby’s back. ‘Can you move the pillow up a bit, please?’

It felt very peaceful in the warm, clean room. The baby slept on and Eve dozed while Eric took Arthur – who was ecstatic about the Lego he’d been given – along to the parents’ room to find some juice. Stella felt like dozing herself. The tension of the past few days was over, the baby was safely born. She closed her eyes and must have dropped off for a moment, because the next thing she was aware of was Eve’s voice.

‘Mum … Mum …’

Stella opened her eyes to see her daughter lifting the sheet, her eyes widening in puzzlement, then horror. Stella was by her side in an instant. She gasped. The bed sheet was covered in blood, the intense, startling crimson spreading in a pool where she lay, seeping down the mattress, even infiltrating the beige compression socks Eve wore up to her knees.

A split-second later, her daughter’s face drained of colour and became chalk-white, beads of sweat bursting on her forehead. She was blinking rapidly, swooning against the pillow, and the hand Stella snatched up was clammy and limp.

‘Eve! Evie!’ she shouted, slamming her hand against the red emergency button on the wall behind the bed.

The next hour was the very worst nightmare Stella could imagine. She watched in horror as the medical staff grabbed the baby from Eve’s chest, pushed the mattress flat, surrounded her daughter with oxygen masks, tubes, syringes, monitors, gloves, aprons, the air thick with shouts, orders and controlled panic as they worked at frantic speed.

Stella was turned and gently expelled from the room, only to see, some moments later, the door fly open and Eve, still lying flat and surrounded by medics, being pushed at high speed along the corridor towards the heavy double doors of the theatre. Stella caught a glimpse of her daughter’s face as she shot past – ashen and unmoving – and thought she was going to throw up.

A tall, middle-aged woman in a navy uniform was touching her arm, drawing her back past the room where her daughter had been comfortably dozing only minutes earlier, to the end of the corridor, where a couple of low, faux-leather beige armchairs sat beneath the window alcove.

Blinking hard, trying to focus on what the woman was saying, Stella could only hear her own ragged breathing.

‘Is Eric still in the hospital?’ the midwife was asking. ‘We need to tell him what’s happening.’

Eric. ‘Yes … uh, he went to get Arthur some juice.’

There was a thin cry from somewhere close by and Stella remembered the baby. ‘Oh, please, dear God, please don’t let Evie die,’ she whispered silently. ‘Please, please, don’t let her die. She can’t die.’

‘In the parents’ room?’ the midwife asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. She was already on the move, hurrying off around the corner, shoes screeching on the shiny hospital linoleum, leaving Stella alone and suddenly waking up to all the questions she needed to ask.

She sank into one of the squashy armchairs and took out her phone, clicking on Eric’s number. There was no answer and she left a message: ‘Eric, ring me as soon as you get this. It’s very urgent.’

When she looked up, Jack was right in front of her, clutching a bunch of flowers to his chest, a big grin on his face.

‘Where are they?’ he demanded, before he’d even said hello.

She swallowed, struggling out of the low chair. ‘Eve’s haemorrhaged,’ she said, too shocked to soften the blow. ‘They’ve taken her back to theatre.’

The arm holding the flowers dropped to his side, leaving the bunch dangling.

‘How bad is it? Is she OK? What about the baby?’ Jack looked around. ‘Where’s Eric?’ The questions flew at her like knives.

She answered the only question she could. ‘The baby’s fine. She’s in here …’ Pushing past him, she walked back to Eve’s room. The door was open, the space eerily empty – no bed, no cot – just an orderly tidying up the mess left from the emergency earlier. ‘They must have taken her to the nursery,’ she said, as they both stood there, bewildered.

Jack slapped the flowers down on the bed table, looking round impatiently. ‘Where the hell’s Eric?’ Then he turned to her, pulling her roughly against him. ‘Christ, Stella.’ She took a wobbly breath, but she was too stunned for tears.

‘You should have seen her, Jack. There was so much blood. I genuinely thought she was dead.’

He said nothing, squeezing her harder. ‘Stop it, Stella. Just stop it. Eve is not going to die.’

She nodded against his chest, her mouth dry with shock. They had been here before. Different circumstances, of course, but the same dragging horror that sucked the life from her body.

‘It can’t happen again … It’s not fair … Not Evie too.’ She bit her lip, trying to breathe. ‘Not Evie, Jack. Please, please not Evie,’ she whispered into his shirt. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

Jack was very quiet, but his arms still held her. She could feel the tension coming off his body in waves. Then his hands cupped her face and he turned it up to his. His blue eyes bored into hers, forcing her to hear him.

‘They are going to sort this out, Stella. Listen to me. Eve is not going to die. This isn’t Jonny …’

She took a gasping breath and stared back at him, willing him to be right.

‘This sort of thing must happen all the time,’ he was saying. His voice held a note of deadly calm that didn’t fool her. But his apparent conviction helped her get her breath. ‘She’s right where she needs to be. They know what they’re doing. Stella? Do you hear me?’ His large hands still pressed urgently into her cheeks. ‘Evie is going to be absolutely fine.’

She nodded, the knife-edge panic marginally receding, but leaving her faint and nauseous. Jack held her gaze, and her face, a moment longer, then his hands dropped and he let out a sigh.

‘Will you be OK for a minute? I’ll go and find out what’s happening … and look for Eric.’

Stella didn’t reply; she couldn’t speak. She almost fell into the blue plastic armchair that had been pushed against the wall in the emergency. ‘Evie,’ she silently spoke her daughter’s name as she buried her face in her hands.