CONNIE STRETCHED OVER FOR the alarm clock – no point trying to roll in bed any more, not with the size of the bump these days. Five o’clock! But she wasn’t tired, not really. Outside it would already be bright sunshine, the whole forest busy, and she wanted to be a part of that. A city woke up all grimy, the sun’s rays just casting unwanted light on what was broken or gone. Out here, now they’d hit summer, the days sprang awake and everything looked so hopeful.
This was the fourth day in a row she’d been woken up by the little blighter inside her kicking fit to burst. It wasn’t the only thing that might burst, either – if she didn’t get out to the lav soon she’d be in all sorts of trouble.
The floorboards were cold on her toes even though the rest of her was an oven.
Best to leave the blackout where it was for the moment, no point risking waking Amos with its clatter. Connie padded downstairs and along the corridor. It’d be smarter to go straight out the back to the lav than round the front and, knowing her luck, bump into the milkman on his rounds as she trotted around in her scanties. This nightie was so worn that it didn’t leave much to the imagination and it wouldn’t take a baker to figure out the bun in this oven. Connie giggled despite herself and Bess, asleep beside the memory of a fire that hadn’t needed to be lit for weeks now, stirred and nosed against Connie’s legs. Even bending down to stroke Bess needed thinking about these days, with this great bulk setting her off balance.
The grass was wet beneath her bare feet, sparkling with what must be dew, and she giggled again at it all squishy between her toes. She couldn’t remember ever having seen dew in Coventry. There wasn’t anywhere for dew to land in the city, especially not once Jerry got going and everywhere was permanently clouded in dust and grit.
Here the dew spangled her way like a miniature red carpet, the grass tickling, buttercups shiny golden coins between her toes. Bess meandered out too and, next door, Joyce’s chickens got wind of the dog and started squawking like a bunch of newsboys.
Connie made it to the lav and pulled up her nightie, relaxing as the pressure came off her belly. Everyone knew babies kept you awake at all hours, but she’d never realised she’d be woken up by it even before it was due out. Maybe her time was nearer than she thought. But even if she’d got her dates wrong – and she might have, if she was honest – surely she hadn’t got them wrong by this much?
She sat for a minute. The chickens were still mithering away and the birds were still hard at it. That was something people never told you. The countryside wasn’t quiet at all. There was never a moment when something wasn’t squawking or chirping, or the trees were hushing each other or the bees were humming away. She’d had no idea that things made so much noise, just things that were part and parcel of the world, not machines, not people. They’d given her the willies those first few weeks, these night-time noises, but after a week of dawn loo runs she was getting used to them.
Connie stepped out of the privy and stood there for a minute, one hand in the small of her back, arching into the streaky dawn. The baby shifted too – was she stretching as well? Connie put her other hand on her belly so that the baby knew she was there. The sun was right up now. Not much warmth in it yet, but it had cast a shadow image of the cottage down as far as the apple trees. Seemed hard to fathom that those little white flowers were going to become apples, but that’s what Joyce insisted, and there was no arguing with her.
Connie stretched again, in no hurry to go inside. She wasn’t getting back to sleep now; the baby’s energy had got into her bones and she was itching for the day to start. She’d sit on the bench underneath the kitchen window for a bit, take a load off. It must be coming on for quarter past five by now and she’d arranged to meet Seppe for felling practice at half past six. He was coming on all right, Seppe. Not much of a talker, and he looked like he wanted to run a mile if she got behind him to show him a move. But he was copping on. Yesterday he’d told her off when she’d started to explain about the wedge; had produced one from his trouser pocket of his as if he were a magician rather than an Eyetie Prisoner of War and placed it in such the right place that it ended up being the quickest tree they got down.
Seppe’s face!
She found the memory of it warmed her insides like the sun gleaming down through the orchard now. That made two things she was good at; she could get the trees down, and she could teach how to do it. Not long and they’d be able to stop with these early mornings. Though to be honest, since this little one was waking her up anyway, it wasn’t such a hardship.
The bench was digging into her bum, which was surprising given just how big it had got recently. She shifted around a bit, looked down the garden to where the old stone wall had gone from night-grey to dawn-amber with the light. Look at her! Sitting on a bench at daybreak, a baby almost ready to pop and responsible for teaching a prisoner a secret. She was having an adventure in spite of it all. She just didn’t know what kind of adventure it would turn out to be.