But this baby has already made it so much further. This baby – she can feel it – is a survivor. Five years since she last miscarried, Lily feels certain this pregnancy is different.
A piece of music begins to play on the radio: ‘Soave sia il vento’ from Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Lily automatically turns towards Daniel just as he turns to her. They smile, remembering their wedding, where a trio of operatic friends had performed the piece during the signing of the register.
Daniel’s focus returns to the road but Lily gazes at his profile. Two days of stubble shadow his strong square jaw, long eyelashes frame his deep brown eyes. He is handsome, and she is grateful for his patience, his kindness, his understanding.
The weekend away had been his idea. He hadn’t told her about it until Friday morning. Pack a weekend bag, Lil. I’m collecting you from the office at four. It’s all arranged with your PA. Your mum’s looking after Phoebe until Monday. Two nights away, just the two of them: a weekend to celebrate the baby who has given them cause for hope.
Lily turns to look out of the window at the miles of yellow rapeseed carpeting the fields. She rests her head against the glass, closes her eyes, feels the warmth of the sun on her face. She is not aware of drifting off to sleep, will not remember until later the dreams she had of a baby swimming under water, its eyes open, gliding like a fish towards her, yet always out of reach.
It is not the dream that wakes her. It is the thump of two heavy objects colliding. The sound of tyres screeching, metal crunching, Daniel swearing.
She feels her body thrust forward, feels the belt tighten across her stomach, feels her muscles tense in response. Before her eyes have sprung open, her hands move downwards, tugging at the seat belt, pulling it loose.
On the other side of the windscreen stands a tree: the wide, ancient trunk of an oak, so close as to be surreal. The bonnet of their Mercedes seems to have compressed to half its former length, the front end now a mangled snarl of metal.
‘Lil? Are you OK?’
She turns to Daniel. His cheeks have drained of colour as though he has been put through the washing machine at too high a heat.
‘Lil?’
She nods, even though she does not know whether it is true. Her neck aches and her mouth feels dry and her hand rubs gently across her stomach, trying to soothe the thirteen-centimetre baby within.
‘I don’t know what happened. It was just a really sharp corner. I only lost control for a second. I was barely even speeding.’ He is gabbling and she stretches out an arm, strokes the back of his neck.
‘We should probably call the police, shouldn’t we? Aren’t you supposed to report damage to trees? I’m sure I read that somewhere.’
Daniel shakes his head. ‘We can’t. You know we can’t. I had a few glasses of wine with lunch. I’m fine, I’m perfectly OK to drive. But you never know with breathalysers. You don’t know how sensitive they might be.’
There is fear in his voice. It is not something Lily is accustomed to hearing in him. ‘That’s why I wanted to drive, Daniel. That’s why I said I’d drive.’
There is enough accusation in her voice – more than she’d intended – for Daniel to pull her hand from the back of his neck, for him to turn to her with an expression caught somewhere between hurt and anger. ‘For God’s sake, I was trying to be nice. I didn’t want you to have to drive all that way. I just wanted you to relax. And you know full well I’m absolutely fine driving after a couple of glasses. You know that.’ His voice is imploring: he needs to know she believes him.
Lily’s head aches and she knows this is neither the time nor the place for an argument. All she wants now is to get home. ‘I know.’
Relief washes across Daniel’s face, prompting him into action.
She listens as he begins to make telephone calls, as he locates a local garage and persuades a mechanic – as only Daniel can – to bring a tow truck out on a Sunday afternoon and transport them back to London for an absurdly exorbitant fee. He does not call the AA, Lily knows, because there is a risk they will ask questions he would rather not answer.
All the time she listens to Daniel – on the phone, as they wait for the mechanic to arrive, throughout the journey home perched high up in a tow truck – Lily’s palm does not leave her stomach.
The bleeding begins just after 3.00 a.m.
Lily wakes, opens her eyes, disoriented as to whether it is morning or still night. She blinks towards the clock and as she registers the time – 3.06 a.m. – she becomes aware of what has woken her.
Pain grinds across her abdomen, grabbing at her, squeezing her. She is being dragged down into an abyss she does not wish to enter.
She knows this pain. It is hatefully familiar.
She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and lifts herself from the mattress, careful not to wake Daniel asleep next to her. If she is about to enter this circle of hell again, she would rather go there alone.
Her body doubles over as another wave of pain clenches her stomach. She stumbles out of the bedroom, past their en suite, along the landing and into the guest bathroom at the end of the hall. She switches on the light, closes the door, lies on the floor, legs hugged to her chest, willing the pain to go away.
When the first trickle of blood comes, she feels it before she sees it. A violent tensing of the muscles above her pubic bone and then, abruptly, a release.
The insides of her thighs are warm and wet and she knows before she opens her eyes that she will be greeted by a dark red message spreading across the cream cotton of her pyjamas.
Her eyes sting but before the first tear can surface there is another surge of pain. Her uterus contracts and she holds her breath until it passes. She knows there will be more blood, can feel it oozing out of her. But she cannot look. She will not allow herself to look.
She scrunches her eyes shut, awaits the next cycle of pain, tries to breathe through it, just as she knows she should, but it is too early to be breathing like this, four and a half months too early. She is only halfway through the pregnancy and her head does not want to comply with what her body is urging her to do.
More rounds of pain-and-release. Lily has no idea how much time has passed, how long she has been on the bathroom floor, bleeding. She knows that her head feels light and is swamped by a powerful desire to sleep. But she also knows that sleep is the one thing to which she must not, under any circumstances, succumb.
She forces open her eyes and when she raises her head to look down at her legs, her only instinct is to scream. She calls Daniel’s name, over and over, until there he is, standing in the doorway. She sees immediately, from his expression, that it is worse even than she has registered.
‘Shit, Lil. Shit. Just stay there, OK? I’ll call an ambulance. You’re going to be fine. Just stay there.’
She knows he is not telling her the truth. But she also knows, as her mind floats away to some distant place, as her eyelids grow so heavy she can no longer keep them open, that she does not have the strength to think about it right now.
When Lily wakes she enjoys a few, delirious seconds during which she believes she is emerging from a terrible dream. But before she is fully roused the sharp smell of antiseptic penetrates her nostrils and she knows she cannot pretend that the events of last night did not happen.
Her eyes scour the room, searching for something familiar amidst the foreign bed sheets, melamine wardrobe, white china washbasin.
Light is inching around the edge of the curtains but she has no idea of the time or how long she has been there. It is only when she shivers that she realises how cold she is. Her body is shaking and she cannot imagine ever being warm again. She lifts her arm to pull the sheets higher over her chest and notices the small plastic cannula piercing the skin in the crook of her right arm, the attached tube rising up into a bag of ruby red fluid hanging from a tall metal stand.