SYLVIA
Sylvia had thought her French was good enough to cope in most situations, but not, as it turned out, in this one. Never had she had the need for medical vocabulary before, and giving birth in a French-speaking city wasn’t exactly something she’d anticipated.
‘What the hell are they talking about?’
‘Something’s broken, I think. But I don’t really understand medical stuff,’ Evelyne said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve asked them to go and find someone who speaks English. I know they have some people here who do.’
Sylvia nodded. She was trying to keep calm, despite the shock of the warm blood that had soaked her dress and the pain in her abdomen. She thought of Jim, back home in London, without a clue of what was happening to her here. She saw his face when she told him she was going to Switzerland again, would sneak it in before she turned thirty-six weeks and couldn’t fly; how he bit his lip and tried so hard not to say anything. Guilt travelled through her body to the pit of her stomach. She’d call him when she knew more.
‘Madame Tallis.’ The doctor – she presumed he was a doctor – approached the bed. He looked at her from over the top of his glasses and she was reminded of the haughty glance of her own doctor, Greenham, back in London when she’d asked for an abortion. So long ago. ‘Your placenta has likely suffered an abruption. I don’t think it’s severe, but it may worsen so we should deliver right away, by caesarean section.’
Sylvia shook her head. ‘But it’s too early.’
‘You’re thirty-five weeks? Yes, it’s a bit early, but the baby is viable and I don’t want to risk him going into distress.’
She nodded. ‘My husband, he’s in England. Can we wait until he gets here?’
‘I’m afraid not. We want to prepare you straight away. Nurse Marty will get your husband’s number and make a call, but we mustn’t delay.’
He asked her to sign something and then left her bedside.
She blew out a long breath. ‘This is my fault,’ she said to Evelyne.
‘What are you talking about? Of course it’s not.’
‘I haven’t taken care of myself, or the baby. I’ve been too bloody selfish.’ She thought of the missed midwife appointments. The travelling. The insatiable desire to pack in everything while she could. ‘Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I’d done what I was meant to. If I’d listened to Jim and calmed down a bit.’
‘Don’t you think like that. These things happen, however careful you are. You don’t have to treat yourself with kid gloves just because you’re pregnant. My friend Fabienne was working right up until the day her child was born and the baby was just fine.’
Sylvia smiled, squeezed Evelyne’s hand. ‘Thank you.’
She looked down at her belly. Soon, the baby would be here. A living, breathing little person. She wasn’t ready. She still had her regulars to write and the golden oldies column to do for next week’s paper and this big feature to get in the bag before Diane stepped so competently into her shoes. This wasn’t meant to be happening yet, it wasn’t meant to be happening at all, and she didn’t know how in hell she was going to cope when it did. But she knew she couldn’t pretend any longer.
The time had come. She was going to be a mother.
Sylvia was being wheeled down the corridor in a bed, Evelyne at her side, when they saw her.
‘Anna?’ Evelyne said.
She was lying on a bed in a large ward, one hand on her stomach, her face wet with tears.
‘Please stop,’ Sylvia asked the nurse pushing her. ‘What’s she doing here?’ she said to Evelyne.
‘I don’t know.’ She left Sylvia’s side and went to Anna.
‘She said her name was Brigitte,’ the nurse said, and Sylvia felt her stomach lurch. Brigitte. Anna’s pseudonym, to avoid the authorities knowing who she was. Sylvia realised then, that whatever had happened to bring Anna to the hospital, it wasn’t her intention. Evelyne had told her she planned to have the baby at home in that tiny flat, on her own, despite she and Daniel imploring her not to. But it was true they had no health insurance, no money to pay hospital bills, and Anna was so scared of being found that she’d refused to countenance hospital. So to be here now, Sylvia realised, something serious must have happened – and Anna must be petrified.
‘Yes, her name is Brigitte,’ Sylvia said to the nurse. ‘But her friends call her by her middle name.’
Evelyne walked back over to Sylvia, tension in her face. ‘After we left her flat, she went out to get some groceries and was knocked down by a car – on a pedestrian crossing, for God’s sake.’
Sylvia felt the colour drain from her face. ‘What? Is she okay?’
‘The car wasn’t going fast but she fell – and some passer-by called an ambulance. Apparently she’s okay, but the accident has triggered labour.’
Sylvia looked over at Anna and the younger girl met her eyes, fear evident in her expression. Sylvia smiled, trying to convey her sympathy. She hoped that seeing her here too would bring her some comfort. It suddenly seemed right that they’d be going through this together, on the same day. Ever since they’d met, she’d felt some connection to the girl, despite their vastly different experiences, so perhaps Sylvia was meant to be here today, giving birth in Switzerland. She was almost glad, if it could bring some reassurance to Anna.
‘Does Daniel know?’
Evelyne shook her head. ‘I’ll call him, but he’s working – and they need the money, I doubt he can leave his shift.’
‘Stay with her,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll be okay. Just stay with her – she needs someone.’
Evelyne nodded, squeezed her hand. ‘Okay. Good luck.’
‘Do you want some music?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Music. You can choose from what we have.’ The obstetrician pointed to a record player in the corner of the operating theatre. ‘It’s nice to have some music playing while we operate, and we like to ask the mothers to choose. What do we have today, Amélie?’
The nurse flicked through the stack of records and read out names. ‘Jacques Brel, Johnny Hallyday. Or how about Abba – Mamma Mia!’ She laughed and Sylvia couldn’t help but respond in kind. This was surreal. How did she come to be giving birth to her child in a Swiss hospital? Her baby wouldn’t be Swiss – she knew the country’s citizenship laws didn’t provide for that – but it would be born on Swiss soil. Because she persuaded Roger to send her here. Because she met Anna. Because – she’d finally worked out – the pill must have failed when she’d had food poisoning after a meal at a Chinese restaurant in January.
‘Do you have any Elton John?’ she said, thinking of that hot summer’s day in Hyde Park, Jim’s smile, his eagerness to have her back.
Whatever it takes to make this work, he’d said. We can make this okay, Syl. We can make this a wonderful thing.
She hoped he was right.
‘Lie on your left side please,’ said the anaesthetist, and she winced in pain as the sharp jab of a needle in her spine took her breath away. A rush of fear flooded her veins along with the anaesthetic, worst-case scenarios running through her head.
What if it wasn’t okay? As she lay back on the bed and a screen was placed in front of her face, her thoughts drifted back to Anna. She wished she was here beside her, that she could reach out and take the girl’s hand, tell her that she was scared too.
She heard the angry cry just before the baby was held aloft by the surgeon.
‘Congratulations, you have a baby daughter.’
The nurse wrapped the child in a white towel and placed her in an incubator and wheeled it to Sylvia. She gasped when she saw this creature, this miniature person she had grown inside her, and reached over and touched the child’s tiny red fingers.
‘Hello you,’ she said, and then, more to make herself realise it than for the baby’s sake: ‘I’m your mother.’