Chapter 42 – Saturday Morning

Saturday dawned bright and sunny – a beaut of a day – and I resolved that no matter what anybody said to me about Martin leaving I would answer them cheerfully.

I stood in front of the mirror and practiced. "Yes, I know he is moving back to London and getting back to surgery. And I say good for him. Must have been terribly hard to get over the blood-thing. But we're still friends. Yes we will see other when the baby's born. I'm fine, just fine, just cooking along." I practiced smiling, keeping an upbeat tone and pushing through it.

After a few minutes, I almost believed it. It was a way that I might be able to preserve some of my dignity, if any of it was left.

I dressed carefully that morning and spent some time on my makeup and hair. The dress was a periwinkle and white print with a square-neck panel of beige. I could move in it, it was soft, and I loved the dress as I thought at this late stage of pregnancy there really wasn't much else I could wear that made me look good. And I did want to look good as I think that mental attitude is half the battle of feeling good.

I drew my hair back into a pony tail, ever so much easier than anything else, and besides my straight brown locks wouldn't hold much of a curl in the seaside humidity. That was one positive aspect of being pregnant – my hair was glossy and thick and if there was one thing I'd like to keep, it was the hair. I knew some women who chopped their hair short as their delivery dates approached. But I hadn't had short hair since I was a kid - long hair was part of me now.

I took a long soak in the tub, washed my hair and shaved my legs in the shower, and had a leisurely breakfast of juice, fresh fruit, and whole grain toast. I thought about taking a walk later, but my back had developed a nasty kink, no help from the baby, and just in the last day it felt like I had to have a pee a couple times an hour. In spite of that I had slept fairly well, although I'd lost track of the number of times I'd got up to use the toilet in the night.

These were just part of the long list late pregnancy issues – all normal according to the nurse and the baby books – but I was getting tired of swollen ankles, shortness of breath, along with weeping nipples. And the veins of my legs were now taking on the appearance of something I saw once in an abstract painting. Soon though I'd have other issues, like nighttime feedings and piles of pooey nappies.

I'd got a huge burst of energy last night so had cleaned most of the cottage. It seemed daft to be working so hard after a long day at school, but it kept me busy. As I bustled around, taking frequent breaks to catch my breath and use the loo, it made me think of how Martin stayed busy.

Martin loved to work on clocks - the more broken the better. He had standing orders at clock shops in both London and Falmouth for broken mechanical clocks! And my word he'd strip them all down, dunk the grimy parts in some sort of mixture of solvents he'd concocted and put them to rights. Then he'd sit down with all the bits and teeny tiny-tools and put them all back together. His hands were rather large with thick fingers, but obviously his skills as a surgeon put him in good stead there.

I nodded at the memory of those hands. The first time those hands touched me was on the right cheek. The selection committee had just voted, and I was the lone dissenter. I marched from the hotel meeting room and confronted the man. As I was telling him that he better take a care with the people in my village, he was peering at me in the same rude and strange way he'd looked at me on the plane. Then he reached out pulled my cheek and eyelid down on the right side and after two questions had diagnosed glaucoma and sent me off to the eye doctor. And rude tosser that he was he was right. A tosser but brilliant too.

Yes that was the first time and not the last he had treated my medical issues or touched me.

Now from that tiny beginning and all ours ups and downs, this giant foetus was crushing the life out of me as I tried to rise from the sofa where I'd sat in my lounge. I looked around the ground floor where everything was neat and shiny, dishes in the cupboards, the new and gently used toys from the baby shower lined up in a row, with the baby carrier sitting on the slate just waiting for a passenger.

I sighed as I struggled upstairs to the toilet where I sat and went again. It didn't smell or hurt, so I didn't think I was getting a urinary tract infection. The last third of the well-worn pages of the baby book, which I'd read a million times spelled it all out. My head nodded up and down as I read the long list.

"See Louisa! Nothing to worry about – all normal!" I told myself as I ran my finger down the list. It was all there. Each and every symptom I was experiencing was perfectly normal. "Right, perfectly normal," I said again.

I snapped the book closed and the photo on the cover sprang into focus. It showed a beautiful couple, man and woman, the woman smiling with massively white teeth, long shining hair, pregnant of course, surrounded by the loving arms of a young man who was tall and handsome – an equal partner to the young woman.

"Right," escaped again. I threw the book across the room where it flew straight to the tatty stuffed monkey, his remaining eye looking startled as the book landed square in his lap.