LITMIR.BIZ

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you take me to the nearest hospital?’ she asked.

      ‘The Royal?’

      ‘Please.’

      Beth sat there with her heart hammering, telling herself she was overreacting and wondering who she could call.

      Her parents?

      Immediately she pushed that thought aside.

      They were furious and deeply embarrassed that she was pregnant and wanted nothing to do with her for now.

      Oh, her mother visited occasionally and came armed with knitted cardigans and booties, and her father had sent her a card with a long letter as well as a cheque to buy some essentials for the baby.

      It wasn’t the child’s fault, he had said in his letter.

      She thought of calling Rory, her ex.

      Only it wasn’t fair to call him after midnight when there was nothing he could do.

      It wasn’t as if it was his baby.

      Beth willed herself to stay calm.

      The pain had stopped and even if she was in labour she knew that there were drugs that could be given to halt it. That had happened to a friend of hers. Yes, she’d be stuck in London perhaps for a little while but she could handle that.

      Just as long as the baby was okay.

      Then another pain hit.

      And this was even worse than the first had been.

      So much so that Beth let out a long moan as she fought the urge to crouch down on the taxi floor.

      ‘It’s okay, love,’ the taxi driver called out. ‘We’re just about here.’

      He stopped the taxi outside the Accident and Emergency department and started sounding his horn and making urgent hand gestures for someone to come and assist. Beth watched as a security guard raced inside.

      The pain had passed but it felt as if her legs had turned to jelly and she couldn’t move. She was starting to shake yet she was still desperately trying to cling to the denial that her baby was on the way. First babies took for ever, Beth knew that, and she had only had a few contractions. She was fine, so much so that she went in her purse to pay the fare.

      ‘How much is it?’ Beth asked in a voice that sounded vaguely normal.

      ‘It’s okay, love,’ the driver said. ‘This one’s on me.’

      ‘Here,’ Beth said, and held out some money, but he didn’t take it. ‘Here!’ she shouted when she never, ever shouted.

      She wanted this to be a normal taxi ride, not an emergency one.

      ‘You’ll take my money!’ she told him.

      It was imperative to stay in control—Beth had been taught to.

      There might be a wild, feisty streak that ran through her but she had long ago learnt to suppress it.

      Bar once.

      That lapse was the reason she was here tonight.

      Beth didn’t want the sight of two nurses coming towards her and pushing a wheelchair. She handed over the money and watched as the door was opened by one of them.

      ‘I can make my own way,’ she said, yet her hand was now gripping the handle above the window and she was again fighting not to bear down.

      ‘Let’s help you out,’ a nurse said.

      With no choice, Beth accepted the waiting hands that helped her out.

      She was still carrying her coat and shoes yet she was shaking all over.

      ‘I’m Mandy,’ a nurse told her, ‘and this is Valerie. What’s your name?’

      ‘Beth.’

      ‘How far along are you, Beth?’ Mandy asked as they helped her into a wheelchair.

      ‘Twenty-nine weeks.’

      They pushed the chair into the department and Beth could see that it was busy.

      The doors to an area opened and she glimpsed a lot of staff around what looked like a very sick child and a man receiving cardiac massage.

      Shouldn’t these nurses be in there, helping?

      Yet they were both still with her and had wheeled her into a cubicle and were helping her to stand and asking questions about the pregnancy and how long she’d had pain for when she felt a warm gush between her legs.

      ‘I’ve wet myself...’ Beth whimpered, and she started to cry with the indignity of it all as they helped her up onto the trolley.

      Mandy was peeling off her underwear and tights and Valerie was trying to get her out of her dress as a receptionist came in.

      Why was a receptionist here when she was nearly naked? Beth wanted to ask. She was a very private person and it felt appalling to be exposed but then Mandy covered her with a blanket.

      Beth saw Mandy’s worried look as she took a phone out of the pocket of her uniform and suddenly she had gone.

      ‘We need your full name and address,’ the receptionist said.

      They didn’t seem very relevant to Beth right now.

      ‘Elizabeth Foster.’

      ‘And I need your address, Elizabeth.’

      ‘Beth,’ she loudly corrected, and realised she was shouting again but she hated being called Elizabeth—that was the name her parents used when they were cross.

      Oh, and they’d been cross of late.

      ‘We need your address...’

      Beth gave it.

      ‘You’re a long way from home,’ Valerie commented.

      ‘I’m in London tonight for work.’

      ‘We need a next of kin.’ The receptionist was still asking questions but Beth was finding it hard to focus let alone answer and she shook her head. She did not want them contacting her parents about the baby when they had been so angry and had said they wanted nothing to do with it but then Valerie spoke gently.

      ‘If something happens to you, Beth, we need to know who to call.’

      And though she was currently upset with her parents she thought of them in the middle of the night being called with bad news and she didn’t want that for them.

      ‘Rory...’ Beth gasped.

      He would know how to handle them.

      ‘Is that your partner?’ the receptionist checked.

      ‘No, he’s my ex but he’s a very good family friend, he knows all that’s happened, he’d know how best to tell my parents if something happened to me.’

      ‘What’s his phone number?’

      ‘It’s on my phone.’

      She found the number and then watched in terror as a resuscitation cot was brought into the cubicle and plugged in.

      ‘It’s too soon,’ Beth pleaded. ‘Can’t you give me something to stop it?’

      Surely they were going to stop the labour—she was only twenty-nine weeks.

      ‘It’s okay.’ Valerie put an arm around her.

      ‘I need to push.’

      ‘Don’t push,’ the nurse said. ‘Wait till the doctor’s here.’

      Beth screwed her eyes closed and fought not to push. It was like trying to hold back the tide yet she did all she could to hold her baby in.

      Everything was going wrong.

      Every last thing.

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