Panic was rising in her voice.
‘It’s all right, Joss. Don’t move. Stay where you are and I’ll get a torch. There’s one by our bed. Don’t worry, I’ve got Tom Tom. He’s all right.’
The child’s screams receded slightly as Luke groped his way out of the room and along the corridor leaving Joss alone.
‘Luke!’ Her own cry echoed in the silence. ‘Luke, don’t leave me! Is the ambulance coming? Luke, please.’ Darkness pressed against her eyeballs like a physical blindfold. She could feel the heavy velvet blackness of it all around her. Holding her hands out in front of her she groped towards the cot, sobbing. She could hear nothing but the blanketing silence round her, see nothing. Then she heard Tom crying. His little footsteps in the hall. ‘Mummy. Find Mummy.’ He was sobbing so hard his breath was coming in little hiccoughs.
‘Tom Tom,’ she called out to him, facing the door in the darkness. A brilliant flash of lightning showed the door opening and the small face peering round it. ‘Mummy!’ He ran to her and threw his arms around her legs.
‘Where’s Daddy? Tom Tom.’ The dull ache in her back was growing stronger again.
‘Daddy find matches.’ The small face was buried in her night shirt.
‘Oh God.’ The pain was swelling round her. She took a staggered step round Tom towards the cot, and gripped the rail, gritting her teeth.
From the doorway a pale flickering light appeared, throwing immense shadows as Luke appeared down the passage, a candle in his hand.
‘Luke, thank God. Is the ambulance coming?’ Her knuckles whitened on the cot rail as the contraction began to build. Feeling her pain with her Tom began to scream again. In an instant Luke was beside her, an arm around her shoulders, holding her as her beleaguered muscles tensed again.
‘How long?’ She spoke through clenched teeth. ‘How long till it gets here?’
‘I can’t get through, Joss.’ He caught both her hands in his. ‘The phone is dead. It must be the storm. I’m going to drive over to Simon’s – ’
‘No!’ Her cry of alarm ended as a sob. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Then I’d better drive you to hospital myself. Let’s grab your dressing gown and we’ll go straight there. We can do it in forty minutes. It’s all right, love. We’ll make it.’ He squeezed her hand harder. ‘Come on. There’ll be someone there who can take care of Tom Tom as well.’
Even as he said it he knew that it was too long.
‘No!’ This time it was a cry of real anguish. ‘Luke, I don’t think there’s time. They’re coming too quickly.’ Perspiration beaded her upper lip and ran down her neck. It streamed between her breasts as the pain spread across her back like a tightening vice. ‘Luke, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Of course you do. You’ve done it before.’
She shook her head. ‘Luke, you’re going to have to deliver him. Oh, God!’ With a groan she fell to her knees, her arms clutched across her stomach in an attempt to ward off the new pain.
‘Tom? Tom Tom, come to Daddy.’ Desperately Luke tried to disengage the little boy from his mother as he clung more and more tightly to her. ‘Come on, old chap. Let’s get Mummy back to her bed. She’s not feeling well. She’s got a tummy ache and we’re going to have to look after her for a bit. Are you going to help me?’ He was resorting to force now, unclasping the child’s fingers from Joss’s night shirt, pulling him away. ‘Can you walk, Joss? Can you get back to our room?’ He was shouting to make himself heard above the screams of the child. ‘Tom. Please. Let go.’
‘Let him be, Luke.’ Joss was panting. ‘You’re frightening him more. Tom Tom.’ She put her arm round the little boy as the contraction passed and hugged him against her. ‘You’ve got to be very brave and very grown up. Mummy’s all right. She’s going to be fine.’ Was he too little to tell him what was happening? They had hardly mentioned to him yet the possibility of a new brother or sister. The baby wasn’t due for two or three weeks. Dear God, and there was no one to help. She bit back tears of panic and frustration, gritting her teeth as a new contraction built while she felt the little boy’s grip relaxing a little. ‘Stay with him here, Luke, while I get back to bed. See if you can calm him down and get him to sleep.’ She pulled herself upright on the bars of the cot and turned towards the door.
‘Mummy!’ Tom’s little hands reached out after her.
‘Take him, Luke.’ She couldn’t hide the pain much longer.
Luke grabbed the child and lifted him into his cot. Tom’s screams doubled in intensity.
‘Oh sweetheart, don’t!’ Joss held out her hand towards him, then as the pain seized her she stepped back and doubled over with a groan. Relax. Go with the pain. She gasped as she felt her bones beginning to wrench themselves apart.
‘Go, Joss. Go to bed!’ Luke was trying to force Tom to lie down. ‘Go on. He’ll calm down once you’ve gone.’
The pain was receding, her body resting momentarily, gathering itself for the next battle. She turned and closing her ears to the screams she headed back towards the bedroom.
The bed. She must put something on the bed to protect that deep old mattress – a mattress which must have seen dozens of births in its time. Desperately she tried to keep her mind on the practicalities. What was it they say in films about home births? Hot water and towels. Lots of hot water and towels. Hot water, she was sure someone had said was just to keep the husband occupied. Towels were in the linen cupboard, a huge old oak press on the landing outside the bathroom. A million miles away.