‘Don’t make so much noise, you’ll scare your baby,’ said one cross-faced nurse to her, at which she turned to Edward and said, ‘Make her go away,’ with vehement intent, before the next wave of pain picked her up and slammed her down again.
The nurse did not go, but was joined by a number of other medical staff, talking in hurried voices. Laura was trying to ask what was happening, when a mask was put over her face and she was allowed to go under the wave entirely and absent herself from the spectacle of the tragedy that was about to unfold.
Much later, Laura learned words for what she had gone through. She learned about a detached placenta, about haemorrhage, and a resultant lack of oxygen. But at the time there was nothing as precise and transparent as words. When Laura woke to the emptiness of the hospital room, there was only a receding tide of pain. She tried to move, and felt the pull of a wound in her abdomen. She saw Edward, asleep in a chair. ‘Edward,’ she whispered, and then louder, until he woke. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, and lying there she watched the grief take shape in his eyes, just as she had watched the happiness take shape months earlier.
The return to the little house took place some days later. They got out of the cab, Edward holding that bag of clothes and the teddy bear, and opened the door into the quiet hall. It did not feel like coming home, Laura thought; she had never liked that hall table with the curved legs, and where had that stain on the bottom step of the stairs come from? She walked into the living room and sat down with a grunt of discomfort. Edward brought her a cup of tea. ‘Shall I put something stronger in it?’ he said. She shook her head and watched him tip gin into his own cup.
The silence between them was broken by the telephone ringing. It was Mother, saying she would be there by the evening. Edward had dutifully rung her from the hospital, and had been taken aback by her announcement, which he had duly reported to Laura, that she would come to stay with them for a while. ‘I wish you hadn’t let her come,’ Laura said now in a monotone, and Edward said in a similar voice that he hadn’t known how to stop her, but that maybe in fact it was a good thing, since he had to leave for this trip with the new ambassador, Inverchapel, the next day.
Laura had forgotten about the trip. ‘My head hurts so much, will you help me upstairs?’ was all she said.
She was drifting in and out of sleep when she heard the door slam and Mother’s voice intermingling with Edward’s downstairs. Later, Laura was aware of her looking in on her, and even in her vague state she registered how odd it was that Mother’s usual demanding manner seemed to have been put to one side as she drew the curtains, but left the room without speaking. Later that evening, when she came in with a tray – on which she had put a meal that she and Kathy had clearly put together in a hurry, though it was perfectly edible – again she did so more or less in silence.
The next day Laura stayed in bed all morning after Edward left. Through a fog she was aware of those household noises that remind a sick person that they are still part of the world, that cushion them with the warp and weft of daily life; she heard footsteps, a telephone conversation, a vacuum cleaner going, and at lunchtime another knock at the door with a tray. Mother came in and, as Laura ate, she moved around the room folding clothes. Laura heard her trying to open the drawers of the tallboy. ‘They always stick,’ she heard herself saying.
‘We could get you some new furniture,’ Mother said.
‘It’s not our house,’ Laura said, and put her hand up to her head. Headaches from the anaesthetic were still troubling her.
Mother was by her bed, but to her relief didn’t talk about what had happened. ‘I thought we’d try a sponge bath after you’ve eaten.’