MONDAY
ELY
It was eleven months almost to the day since the last time Katie had got off the train at Ely and crossed over to the towpath by the river. She had left the UK last February, before the beginning of spring, and now she was returning in early January of the following year. While she had been in Antarctica, the summer had passed and now it was winter again. She had left the Edward Wilson base, far out on the Antarctic plateau, seven weeks ago in mid-November, as soon as the first plane had flown in. She had travelled home in easy stages, spending time in Australia and Thailand. There at least she had basked in the warmth of the sun. And she had taken the opportunity to visit her brother, who was living and working in Shanghai. It had been wonderful to see her young nephews again. But still, however long she lived, there would always be one less summer in her life.
On arriving back in the UK she had gone straight to York to spend Christmas and the New Year with her mother. Now she was paying a visit that she had been looking forward to for months.
Even now on a grey day, when the towers of Ely Cathedral were indistinct in the mist, everything looked so vivid – the grass, the weeping willows and the brightly painted boats – almost painfully so, after the world of black and white that she had inhabited for nine months. And the smells... There are no smells on the Antarctic plateau. Was that a hint of wood-smoke in the air? And the loudness of everything, the rattle of her case trundling beside her – the sensory overload was almost too much, just as it had been in Thailand and Australia. She’d been warned that it might take a long time to wear off.
As she turned a bend in the path, a figure came into view, at once familiar and strange. It was Rachel, walking with the slow, deliberate tread of a heavily pregnant woman. Her face lit up when she saw Katie.
They embraced awkwardly. Katie had to lean forward to get her arms round her friend.
“Oh, Katie,” Rachel said. “I meant to meet you off the train, but I laid down for a little nap and before I knew it, it was three o’clock. I’m sleeping so badly at the moment.”
Katie held her friend at arm’s length and looked into her face. “You look well, though.”
“I’m fine. Just that I can’t get comfortable and I need to pee all the time.”
They turned and began to walk slowly on. Rachel said, “You’re staying on the boat. Hope that’s OK? We’re still halfway through getting the third bedroom ready for the baby.”
“That’ll be lovely. Just like old times.”
They drew level with Rachel and Daniel’s boat. The Matilda Jane, a sixty-five-foot Dutch barge, was moored not far from their house on Quayside and had been Katie’s home the winter before last when she had been working in a lab on the outskirts of Ely.
Rachel produced a set of keys from her pocket. She hesitated, just for a moment, and Katie put out a hand to support her as she stepped up onto the boat.
Down in the saloon the wood-burning stove had been lit and it was deliciously warm. It had been Rachel’s boat, which she had meticulously restored when she was single, and she had lived on it before she had married Daniel. She had not gone for the chintzy folksy look that a lot of boat-owners favoured. She liked clean lines and modern design. The seating area was furnished with a black leather sofa and matching chairs.
“Let’s have some tea,” she said. “There’s milk in the fridge.”
Katie smiled. Of course there was. Rachel was always so well organized. “You sit down. I’ll do it.”
Rachel shrugged off her coat and sank onto the sofa with a sigh. “It’s supposed to be another three weeks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bean came early.”
Over the long months of isolation in Antarctica, Katie had followed the course of Rachel’s pregnancy via email and the occasional session on Skype. “The Bean” was a nickname that had been thought up by Rachel’s daughter Chloe, and it had stuck.
Katie put the kettle on and turned to look at Rachel.
“The Bean kicks for England. Sometimes wonder if I’ve got a future world-cup footballer in here.” She was sitting with a hand on her belly and the tenderness on her face made Katie’s heart turn over.
That was when it hit her – a sense of being on the outside looking in, a yearning not just for a baby, but for everything that Rachel had: her settled place in the world, her marriage to Daniel, not without its difficulties but solid all the same, and adorable little Chloe – and her work, too. Rachel was a woodworker specializing in restoration, a fulfilling occupation. Even her faith seemed to give her an anchor in the world that Katie felt she lacked.
Whereas Katie... Would she ever have a child? She was younger than Rachel, who was in her early forties, but all the same, she would be thirty-six soon. There was time; of course there was. But just how much time for someone who wasn’t even in a settled relationship? Or possibly not even in a relationship at all. She had met someone out on the ice, but what might come of it, she didn’t know.
The next moment she was chiding herself, because she knew that Rachel was often taxed to the limit of her strength. Six-year-old Chloe had a serious genetic disorder, Diamond Blackfan Anaemia (DBA), which meant that her body could not make red blood cells. The precious baby that Rachel was carrying offered the hope of a cure for Chloe if he or she should happen to be a match. But the chances were only one in four and they didn’t know yet. Rachel and Daniel had refused pre-natal testing. It carried a risk of miscarriage, and what was the point? Rachel wouldn’t have countenanced having a termination, and Katie understood that. The chances of Rachel conceiving a second child had been vanishingly small, so even if she and Daniel hadn’t had ethical objections. This was almost a miracle pregnancy and it wouldn’t happen again. All they could do was wait and hope.
“Katie? Katie?”
Katie came to herself. “What? Yes?”
“You were miles away. The kettle’s boiled.”
“Oh, sorry!”
She made the tea and settled down beside Rachel on the sofa.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” Rachel said. “And you must absolutely feel free to say no. And I know it’s rather late in the day, but it wasn’t something I wanted to ask in an email or on Skype, so –”
“Rachel! Just spit it out!”
“OK. Will you be my birthing partner?”
Katie hadn’t been expecting that. For a few moments she couldn’t speak.
Rachel misinterpreted her silence. “Like I said, you mustn’t feel you have to –”
“No, no!” Katie interrupted. “You just took me by surprise. I hadn’t thought – yes, of course!” She took Rachel’s hand, squeezed it and felt an answering squeeze. “Oh, wow! I’m just really touched. This is so cool.” A thought occurred to her. “What about Daniel? He’s OK with that?”
“To be honest, I think he was relieved when I suggested it. After last time. He’ll be around, of course, but – honestly – I suspect you’ll be supporting him as much as me; maybe more.”
Katie nodded her understanding. When Chloe was born, Rachel had suffered a post-partum haemorrhage after a caesarean section and had nearly died. Daniel had been in the operating theatre and had been so traumatized by the experience that he hadn’t wanted Rachel to get pregnant again.
Rachel went on. “It makes sense, too, because it means he can take care of Chloe. As you know, we don’t have any in-laws handy. I’ve got friends who’d step in, but it’s nicer for Chloe to have her dad.”
“I’m so flattered.”
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have by my side. I was wondering – you don’t have to have any medical experience to be a birthing partner, but I’m guessing that when you were doing your medical degree –”
“Yes, I did a spell on obstetrics.”
After her medical degree Katie had chosen the path of research and had never finally qualified. At least her medical background meant that whatever happened she felt confident of coping. In any case Rachel would receive special attention, given the complications of her first delivery, and Katie would only be there in a supporting role. And the local maternity hospital had an excellent reputation. Thinking of that, she said, “They’ll take good care of you at the Rosie.”
“I know.”
“Are you having a C-section again?”
“I hope not. They said I could try for a normal delivery, and that it might even be less risky than another C-section.”
They sat quietly together. Katie was conscious of what a huge event lay ahead of Rachel, with so much resting on it, and guessed that Rachel was thinking the same.
Then Rachel looked at her watch. “Is that the time? I’ll need to leave in a few minutes to collect Chloe. Katie?” She seemed about to say something else, but hesitated.
“Mmm?”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“You seem different somehow.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, you keep stopping in the middle of what you’re doing and gazing off into the distance.”
“Do I? I didn’t realize.”
“After what happened in Antarctica...”
Yes, after what had happened in Antarctica. Two people had died on the base and it had been a life-or-death struggle for the rest of them to survive. That would change anyone, but she wouldn’t say that she had been traumatized by it. Something about the way they had all had to work together, their closeness and reliance on each other, had helped them to come through relatively unscathed. Or had it? Perhaps there would be repercussions after all that would make themselves felt long after the events.
“It must have had an impact,” she admitted. “But I think in any case it would be difficult adjusting to the outside world after being in Antarctica. I’m sleeping really badly. I still haven’t got back into a proper routine – and it’s not just the jet lag. It’s having lived through a night that went on for six months.”
Rachel hoisted herself off the sofa. “Well, if you need to talk, I’m here. You know that. Come over at about six and we’ll have supper.”
“Can I cook for you?”
“No, no. Daniel’s cooking tonight. But thanks.”
Rachel put her coat on and they went together up the stairs to the wheelhouse. Katie helped her off the boat and they embraced.
Rachel said, “I’m so glad you said yes. We can talk about it more later.”
Katie wrapped her arms round herself against the cold and watched Rachel make her way down the towpath under the weeping willows, a stalwart figure. At the bend in the path, Rachel turned and waved. Katie waved back, then went back down into the warmth of the saloon.
She poured herself another cup of tea and sat down to think.
Katie had first met Rachel when she was doing research into a therapy for DBA. She had made some headway, but a cure was still a long way off. As a result of her work, she knew a great deal about the disease and she was very conscious that there was something they hadn’t talked about: the risk that the new baby would also have DBA. Katie wasn’t sure if it was because Rachel didn’t want to or because she wasn’t aware of it. Yet, that seemed unlikely. When she became pregnant, she and Daniel would surely have been offered genetic counselling.
The boat rocked in the wake of a passing cruiser and Katie came to herself. She had drifted off into a kind of fugue again. And this time it must have lasted perhaps quarter of an hour – her cup of tea was stone cold.
There was a name for this: “winter-over syndrome”. It was likely that it was to some degree hormonal, due to the lack of sunlight in a six-month Antarctic winter, and possibly psychological, too, the effect of being cooped up with a small group of people in a confined space, cut off completely for months on end, with vast expanses of ice stretching out for hundreds of miles in all directions. Katie’s mum had remarked on it, too. Katie would find herself drifting away, her voice trailing off in mid-sentence. She knew there was a vagueness and absent-mindedness in her thinking that hadn’t been there before. But it would only be temporary – she hoped.
Of course, she realized now, Rachel and Daniel would not have had the test. Once they had decided that they would have the baby no matter what, why would they? What good would it do to know?
As with the question of whether the baby was a match for Chloe, Rachel would have been content to leave it in the lap of the gods, or rather of God. And Daniel would have gone along with that.
Her phone buzzed. When she saw who the text was from her heart gave a little jump. So Justin was back.
The text said, “The Rivoli Bar at the Ritz, 5 p.m. on Thursday? Justin. xx.”
Her reply was equally to the point: “You bet. xx.”