Claret: 1) red wine. 2) blood.
On the day that James brought Lily a bottle of red wine, that was the day when it happened. In their bright little life, objects replace dates and times of events, in the same way that the breakfast things are spread over James's work papers on the table, and when something out of the ordinary occurs, it solidifies with some small detail, by which James will always remember it.
Like the day they fed the ducks in a little canal, and it was raining, and James had to flick the soggy bread from his fingers, laughing, and Lily's lips had the taste of the sky on them. And James got down on one knee on the wet concrete walkway, and Lily's single tear fell past her shining smile, and she whispered her 'yes' into his mouth with his hand in her soaking dark orange hair, and the small, silver ring already at home on her finger.
On the day that James brought Lily a bottle of red wine, that was the day when it happened. Lily's swelling stomach is a moon, a beach, a landscape where James's fingers take a walk, where he presses his ear and hand to feel the underwater vibrations, the strange, deep echo of Lily's heartbeat, and the restless limbs of their child, never comfortable these days, never enough room, its head against its mother's pelvis and its feet pressed into her diaphragm.
Lily is reading on the sofa when James comes in, bump straining against her pyjamas, and she laughs when he presents her with the bottle of wine, says all the obvious things, about alcohol and the baby. But he pours her a tiny amount, dilutes it with water, and she swirls the pinkish liquid in her glass and smiles softly, cheers, the sweet small clink, here's to us.
They have an takeaway Indian that evening, because the doctor says it's one of the things that will speed up Lily's labour, she's a week overdue already. The other thing prescribed was sex. Last night they made love for the first time in nine months, oh-so carefully, her swollenness pressing against James, and not for the first time he told her, swirling patterns over the child's head, you're beautiful like this.
Tonight they curl up on the sofa-bed in the living-room, because Lily tires herself climbing the stairs, and read poetry in the soft light, she walks in beauty, like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies, and as James reads she inhales sharply, suddenly, hand on her belly, says, it's coming.
And come it does, Lily screaming tearlessly, determined, on her back, red hair glowing with her passionate tireless heaving, and come it does, the most natural thing in the world, and James holds him before Lily does, kisses both their scrunched up faces, smoothes Lily's hair off her shining forehead, I love you.
Even now, as James looks down at the back of his hand, four small crescent scars lie white against his skin, where Lily dug her nails in deep, drawing rubies of James's blood, verification of his reverence.