Page 48 of The Trouble With Love

‘Don’t leave me,’ Cerys had hold of my hand. ‘Holly, please don’t leave me. I can’t do this, I can’t . . .’ She suddenly broke off and her eyes bulged. ‘Oh God, oh God . . .’

‘Right. Looks like all those hours spent watching Call the Midwife might have been useful after all. You two, get shifting.’

The two men went through that bedroom door so fast that there were scorch marks on the frame. I heard them rush down the stairs, Kai saying, ‘and I remember there being a phenomenal amount of newspaper involved,’ and then Cerys was gripping my hand so tightly that I heard the little bones begin to grind.

‘Holly, they’re coming,’ she whispered and suddenly she was panting and heaving like a bogged horse, and all I could do was hold her hand and, when it came to it, run round to the other end, catch the first baby as it slid out onto the bed. Fortunately she was so astonished by this that I could take thirty seconds to dash down the stairs, collect the newly-boiled scissors and string, sustaining third-degree burns in the process, and rush back to tie and cut the cord.

And then I stood, with a blood-and-mucus-covered baby in my arms, splattered with seven kinds of gore, and laughed. ‘It’s a boy.’

‘I know that,’ Cerys gave me a preoccupied smile. ‘He’s . . . oh, no, not again . . .’ and there was more pulling and pushing and sweating and his sister joined us.

I cleared the babies’ mouths and noses. They were both breathing, becoming a more healthy colour and had started to unscrew their faces enough to cry. ‘They’re fine,’ I said, passing them to their mother, who was staring at them as though she couldn’t believe it. ‘Fine. Healthy.’

‘Big.’

‘Well, they look a good six pounds each, maybe a bit more.’

‘From this end they both weighed at least as much as a sack of potatoes.’ Cerys relaxed back onto the pillow. ‘And were covered in barbed wire.’

‘I’ll call the boys up,’ I headed for the door but she stopped me.

‘Can I . . . you know, could you help me sort of clean up a bit first? Kai not so much, but Nicholas — I don’t want the first time he sees me non-preggers to be this kind of outtake from Saving Private Ryan.’

So I helped her get sorted, changed the bed, and used the mysterious newspaper to wrap and dispose of the placentas, rushing up and down to the kitchen past the two men, who glued themselves to the wall whenever I ran past, like teenagers caught in a slasher flick. Eventually Cerys was what she considered presentable, and the babies were wrapped in two clean towels. Their faces poked out of the bundles looking slightly surprised and a bit aggrieved at having arrived in such a precipitate fashion.

Then I left her to show the babies off to her father, while Nick and I made lots of tea, so as not to waste the rest of the boiling water.

‘You’re shaking,’ he observed.

‘It was scary.’ Then Kai came downstairs. I took one look at his face and pushed a mug into Nicholas’s hand. ‘You take her up some tea. Find out if she’s got any names yet.’

As soon as Nicholas left the room, Kai started to cry. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, closed his eyes and let the tears roll down his face, unchecked.

‘Hey.’ I put my arms around him and gave him a hug. ‘Kai.’

A trembling breath. ‘Oh God, Holly.’

‘It’s okay. Everything’s fine, mother and babies doing well.’ I fought the urge to join in. The full shock had worn off now and left me weak.

‘I have to meet her now. I have to know . . . Cerys is up there . . .’ his voice faded and he scrubbed the back of a hand across his eyes. ‘I have to know if my mother felt any of that for me. Because, if she did, and she still gave me up . . .Why? If she felt one-tenth of what Cerys is going through, then how could she have done it, what was going on that was so terrible that she couldn’t keep her baby? And four hours old. The blood wasn’t even dry.’

He collapsed onto a stool at the table and cupped his face in his hands.

‘She must have had her reasons.’

Yellow eyes fixed mine. ‘Maybe that’s what I need. Reasons. Or, I guess, it may be excuses — everyone thinks they’re doing things for the right reasons, don’t they?’ A look that maybe meant more than the words said. ‘It’s this uncertainty I can’t deal with. Either she wanted me but couldn’t keep me, or she never wanted me in the first place — and seeing my daughter, up there, her face . . . even though those babies are, what, five minutes old? Cerys would kill for them already. How could . . .’ a small, choked cough, ‘how could she leave me?’

‘Then get in touch. Ask her.’

He shook his head and dark hair curtained his face briefly. ‘I’m so fucking scared.’

‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I touched his shoulder. ‘Honestly. Hasn’t the worst already been done to you?’

‘She could tell me she was glad to give me up. That I was some bastard’s bastard, that she never wanted to be reminded of him and certainly not by having to bring up his child.’

‘You read the letter. Did that sound to you like a woman who was glad to have given you up? Because it sounded to me like she’s tortured herself every day since you were born for the choice she made. And, yes, I saw Cerys when the twins were born, I was there, looking in her face when she saw them for the first time and I’ll tell you this, the woman who gave you up? She hurt, Kai. And if you can stop her hurting, just by seeing her one time . . .’

‘You’re right.’ He rubbed his face. ‘No, you’re right, of course you are. I’m being a coward.’ He laughed a thin laugh. ‘Stupid. When I think of some of the things I’ve done . . . and this is such a small thing.’ He was very pale, or maybe that was the light bleaching the colour from his skin and eyes. I still felt flushed and pink from the trek through the snow and the subsequent events. ‘Such a small thing,’ he repeated.

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