Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

I let myself be led away. The nurse opened a cupboard and gave me a quick assessing look before yanking out a set of green scrubs. ‘What’s going on?’ I said.

‘You need to get changed. Hurry,’ she said, leading me to a cubicle. ‘They can’t get the baby out. It’s stuck. They’re going to have to do an emergency section so they can pull the baby back up the birth canal. And they have to move fast in case his oxygen supply is compromised.’

‘She’s not going to like that,’ I said, shrugging out of Scarlett’s clothes and into the scrubs, which fitted me much better. ‘She’s already been complaining about the stretch marks. She’ll be really pissed off about a scar.’ I emerged and saw the nurse’s face. ‘I’m only joking. She’s not that shallow and superficial, you know.’

My memory of what happened next is like one of those Roman mosaic pavements they excavate on Time Team . Fragments of a picture with gaps in between whose content you can only deduce or imagine.

A group of people in green or blue scrubs all focused on the operating table. A green fabric screen placed across Scarlett’s chest so I wouldn’t see the blood. A voice with an edge of desperation saying, ‘There’s a lot of blood here and I can’t see where it’s coming from.’ Terror gripping my chest like the claws of a predatory bird. I imagined breaking the news to Joshu that his wedding day had ended here on a bloody operating table.

Then a midwife scurried across the room with a bloody bundle and disappeared into an anteroom. The next thing I heard was the thin cry of a baby. One of the gowned figures put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘It’s a boy. They’re just checking him out, don’t worry.’

‘What about Scarlett?’

It was hard to read him. All I could see were his eyes and eyebrows. ‘They’re doing their best. But we’re a good team. You need to focus on the baby now.’

And then the midwife put him in my arms, swaddled in a blue cellular blanket. His thick dark hair was plastered randomly over his forehead, his nose was squashed like a boxer’s and there were still traces of bloody mucus round his ears. But he was smiling. He was smiling and his eyes were open and they looked straight into mine and I was lost.

14

Scientists tell us that babies are genetically programmed to smile when they’re born. It’s a mechanism designed to save their lives. They smile, we fall in love. Because we are also programmed to be captivated by that smile. It’s nothing to do with biology. You’ll fall equally hard for the child of a complete stranger as you will for the fruit of your own loins. Think about it. It’s estimated that a quarter of all children are not the offspring of the man who thinks they’re his. And yet those fathers who persist in ignorance love their children as completely as biological parents. And it’s not only fathers. Think of those stories where children are accidentally swapped at birth and the mothers love the substitutes every bit as much as their other kids.

Which is a roundabout way of saying I bonded with Jimmy Joshu Higgins minutes after he was born. They hustled us out of the operating theatre and back into the side ward where we’d been earlier. They sat me in a chair, provided me with a bottle of formula milk and showed me how to feed him. I thought nothing of it at the time. I assumed it was standard operating procedure.

I learned differently a couple of years later, when I was telling the tale as a lure to a prospective client who had done pioneering work in treating infertility. She looked aghast. ‘Really? They got you to give him a bottle of formula?’

Baffled, I said, ‘Yes. They said he’d had a bit of a struggle being born, he’d be hungry. And he was. He polished off the whole feed.’

She gave a wry little laugh. ‘And the mum’s OK?’

‘She’s fine. Still moans about her scar, but other than that, she’s completely OK. Why?’

‘Well, it sounds like they thought they were losing her.’

‘You mean . . . as in, dying?’

She nodded. ‘That’s why they got you out of there so quickly. They didn’t want you in the room if she died on the table. And that’s why they got you to feed him.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They’re obsessed with breastfeeding these days. The reason they got you to give him a bottle was because they were afraid she wasn’t going to make it. And the kid has to bond with someone.’ I must have looked as appalled as I felt, for she burst out laughing. ‘They were setting you up as the foster mum.’

Which is all the more ironic, given where we’ve ended up. But at the time, I just thought, yeah, of course the kid’s hungry. And within the hour, Scarlett was back in the room. On a morphine drip and looking like she’d gone fifteen rounds with a brick wall, but indisputably there, smiling radiantly at the tiny bundle in her arms. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she kept saying. Frankly, I lost interest fairly quickly. Even though I did agree with her.

‘I’m going to let you two enjoy your lovefest,’ I said. ‘My work here is done now.’

Scarlett barely looked up. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a total star.’

‘What friends are for. I’m going to take Joshu’s car back to yours. Can I borrow your car to get me home? You can’t drive for six weeks anyway.’

‘You what?’ Now I had her attention.

‘You’ve had a caesarean. You’re not allowed to drive for six weeks. You’re not supposed to lift anything heavier than a kettle. Joshu’s going to have to wait on you hand, foot and finger.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘No. Listen, I’ll try to get hold of Joshu again when I get out of here. And I’ll also call Georgie. He’ll want to sort out the media deals. And I need to get some sleep.’

‘Thanks. See you later.’ I leaned over and kissed Jimmy on the forehead. ‘He’s gorgeous.’

Scarlett gave me an odd look, as if something had just occurred to her. ‘Would you be his godmother?’

‘Me? I know nothing about kids.’

‘Time you learned, then.’

‘I’d be crap at it.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t let yourself. Go on. For his sake. He needs somebody in his life that isn’t mental.’

I don’t know why I agreed, but I did. And that’s how it started between me and Jimmy.

I tried to call Joshu from the hospital, but my phone had died. He’d probably have appreciated a little advance warning since he was fast asleep and stark naked on one of the leather sofas when I walked in. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I grabbed one of the cow hides and threw it over him. He grunted and stirred then his eyes snapped open. The sight of me in Scarlett’s clothes provoked a look of total bewilderment.

‘Wassup?’ he grunted, then gave a massive yawn that sent a blast of undigested alcohol my way. Belatedly, he noticed I was alone. ‘Where’s the wife?’ he added with a sly grin. ‘I saw you girls had taken off in my wheels.’ He dragged himself upright and yawned again. ‘Fuck, my head hurts. I need some drugs.’

‘You need tea,’ I said. ‘Because you need to go and check out your wife and son.’ I turned on my heel and marched off to the kitchen. I didn’t trust myself to speak to the shiftless, feckless, heedless little shit.

I’d barely got the kettle on when he staggered in, the cow hide wrapped round his waist like a bizarre kilt. ‘Did you say “son”?’

‘While you were spending your wedding night out on the razz with your homies, your wife was giving birth, Joshu,’ I snapped. ‘Wondering, in between contractions, where your sorry ass was hiding.’

Water off a duck’s back. ‘I’ve got a son?’ He shook his head, incredulous. ‘Am I hallucinating this? I mean, who knows what I took last night, but it was a serious head-fuck. Is this for real? I’ve got a son?’