The Two of Us (31 page)

‘How about Agnes?’ I ask.

‘How about her?’

‘As a name, I mean.’

‘You’re drunker than I thought,’ Ivy says. ‘Ouch! Easy . . .’

I have three fingers inserted deep into her vagina. ‘Sorry. Want me to take a finger out?’

‘No, just . . . slow it down a little.’

‘How’s that? Better?’

Ivy winces. ‘A little.’

Depending on which website you get your information from, approximately one in three women will suffer a vaginal tear during childbirth. Which isn’t surprising when you consider the
dimensions of the various elements – try pulling a sock over your head, for example; just make sure it’s a sock you don’t mind destroying. These rips and tears tend to happen in
the no-man’s land between anus and vagina – the perineum. One way to protect against this kind of trauma is to pre-stretch the perineum beforehand. Long live romance.

‘Poppy?’

‘My neighbours had a dog called— Jesus!’

‘Maybe I should stop?’

Ivy shakes her head. ‘Did you cut your nails?’

I nod. ‘So, your neighbours . . . they had a dog called Jesus?’

‘Little yappy thing,’ says Ivy, grimacing. ‘And a cat called Satan.’

‘You sure you’re okay?’

‘Just keep going.’

With my fingers hooked into Ivy’s vagina, I stretch the flesh outward, rotating my hand at the wrist the way a potter might open the neck of a vase. Ivy screws her eyes tight and takes a
sharp intake of breath.

‘Rose?’ I try.

‘Whatever,’ says Ivy.

‘You don’t like Rose?’

‘Seriously, you can call it Cinderfuckingrella if they can get it out without ripping me in half.’

‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I quite like Cinderfuckingrella; it’s . . . I dunno, classic.’

‘Romantic?’

‘Romantic!’ I say clicking the fingers on my free hand. ‘Cinderfuckingrella. And if it’s a boy, we can call it Rumplebastardstiltskin.’

‘Perfect,’ says Ivy. ‘We cracked it!’

I rotate my hand anticlockwise and back again. There is nothing remotely pleasant, pretty or sexy about it. Nevertheless, it does cross my mind that whilst I’m here, whilst we have this
intimate contact, we might as well . . .

‘Don’t even think about it,’ says Ivy.

‘What! Think about what?’

‘It’s written all over your bloody face,’ she says. ‘And just to be clear, you’ve got more chance of seeing Cinderfuckingrella on a birth certificate than having a
wriggle tonight.’

‘So tomorrow?’

‘I’ll think ab— Bastard!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Sod this,’ says Ivy, scooching her bum backwards so that my fingers snap out of her with a wet pop. ‘Whatever happens, happens. It’s going to be bad enough on the night
without going through this now. Sod it.’

‘Sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Cup of tea?’

Ivy nods. ‘And don’t forget to wash your hands.’

Coconut.

Pineapple.

Butternut squash . . .

If there’s a day I dislike more than Christmas, it’s Mother’s Day. And the entire four weeks leading up to it, with every other shop window and TV advert
reminding me that my own mother is no longer with me. Maybe that’s why I went so overboard on Ivy.

When we woke on Saturday morning, I informed Ivy that it was exactly nineteen days to our due date. To celebrate, we ate our toast and drank our coffee in the fairy-tale forest. The nursery is
now complete: two cots, two mobiles, two Moses baskets, two baby bouncers plus a small sofa bed for bottle-feeds and bedtime stories. There is barely space on the ground for a teddy bear, and my
feet rested against one of the cots while we sat on the sofa and ate our breakfast in the quiet of the small anticipant room. In the afternoon we bought flowers and a card for Ivy’s mother.
And while Ivy took an afternoon nap, I bought flowers, a card, chocolates, wine and two balloons for Ivy from baby DannyorDanni and baby Julietorsomethingelseifitsaboy. I stowed the goods in the
Volvo’s vast boot and went for a long run through the Common. I went to sleep imagining the look of joy, gratitude and unvarnished love on Ivy’s face when I surprised her with my
Mother’s Day bonanza.

Ten hours later, I wake in an empty bed to the gentle sound of a teaspoon stirring milk into a mug of coffee. Ivy is sitting at the living room window, reading a novel, sunlight blowing out
through her bed-tousled hair.

I fetch a mug and sit opposite her. ‘Hey, you.’

Ivy reads on for a few seconds while I pour myself a coffee. She glances up from her book. ‘Hey.’

‘Do you know what today is?’ I ask.

Ivy nods, smiles. ‘Sunday.’

‘Not just any Sunday, it’s Mother—’

‘Don’t say it.’

‘What? I’m just saying i—’

‘Please! Sorry . . . I’m nervous enough, babes, I don’t want to tempt . . . let’s just let it happen, yeah?’

I feel stupid sitting there in my underpants, squinting against the sunlight. My instinct is to say something smart and petulant, but the smart part eludes me so I say nothing and sip my
coffee.

‘Sorry,’ Ivy says.

‘No, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’ My mind flashes to the car boot full of premature, fate-tempting Mother’s Day paraphernalia. ‘What time we
leaving?’

‘As soon as you get out of the shower.’

Driving the width of the country to give Ivy’s mum her flowers, and heading straight back after lunch, takes around ten hours and puts four hundred miles on the
Volvo’s clock. We could have stayed the night but Ivy is thirty-four weeks pregnant, and determined to have the baby in ‘her own’ hospital. Ivy’s sense of practicality is
marginally stronger than her fear of fate, so her ‘birth bag’ is now packed and standing by the hallway door and we have installed the twin car seats into the rear of the Volvo. I keep
catching the seats’ reflection in the rear-view mirror, and their presence gives me a pleasant sensation of butterflies in my stomach. It feels real now, and frighteningly imminent.

As we pull into our street my eyes sting, my brain is fuzzy and my legs ache from a day behind the wheel. I turn off the engine, kill the lights, crick my neck and go to open the door.

‘Babes?’ says Ivy.

‘What is it?’

‘Can we go to the hospital?’

Panic!

‘You’re not . . .’

‘No no no’ – a hand on my shoulder – ‘I just want to check the route, see how long it takes.’

‘Like a test run?’

‘Do you mind?’

‘Well, I am kind of completely, utterly and thoroughly exhausted.’

She does the look. ‘
Please?
Just a couple more miles?’

It takes twenty-three minutes to drive from our front door to the hospital.

It’s past ten on Sunday evening, the sky is clear and dark and the car park is largely empty. We’re too tired to talk, so we relax in the warmth of the large car, listen to the radio
at a low volume and soak up the surprising calm of St George’s Hospital.

‘Soon,’ I say.

‘Soon,’ says Ivy.

As well as her scheduled appointment with the midwife, Ivy had a check-up with a paediatrician last week and everything is ‘perfect’, the twins are healthy and in a good position and
Ivy, despite her swollen ankles, is in great shape. In less than three weeks we will be a family of four and this car will be full of noise and the smell of dirty nappies.

I’m debating how to dispose of the Mother’s Day contraband in the boot, when a battered Ford Focus pulls into the car park. Approximately three-quarters of a second after the car
comes to a stop, a man practically falls out of the driver’s-side door and sprints around the vehicle to the passenger’s side.

Ivy reaches across and takes hold of my hand.

The man pulls open the passenger’s door and leans inside. After maybe a full minute, but it feels like five times that, a heavily pregnant woman emerges. She is no sooner out of the car
than she drops to her hands and kneels on the tarmac. The guy turns around in a full clockwise circle then rotates back the other way before crouching down beside the woman. He places his hand on
the small of her back, and although they are fifty or sixty metres away, we hear her bellow at him to ‘Get off me!’ The guy stands, rotates another one and a half circles and crouches
again. Despite myself, I laugh, and Ivy squeezes my hand hard enough to make my fingers throb.

The man helps the woman to her feet and they begin shuffling towards the hospital entrance.

‘Should I go and help?’

‘And do what?’ Ivy says.

After only four or five steps the couple stop again and the woman bends double at what was once her waist. Even from this distance, you can see the man struggling to support her. She shouts out
in pain and the man lowers her to a kneeling position. He looks around as if for assistance, and suddenly sprints into the distance leaving the woman alone, kneeling on the pavement.

‘Maybe you should go,’ Ivy says.

‘Yeah, but you’re going to have to let go of my hand first.’

‘What?’ Ivy looks at my hand; her expression suggests she is surprised to discover her own wrapped around it. ‘Oh, right, yes.’

But as she releases her grip the man comes sprinting back into view, pushing a wheelchair he has acquired from God knows where. He eases the woman to her feet, manoeuvres her carefully into the
wheelchair, and hurries off in the direction of the hospital building.

And all of a sudden, the car park is quiet again.

‘Did that just happen?’ Ivy says after a minute.

‘I think so.’

‘Fuck!’

‘My thoughts exactly.’

‘Take me home,’ says Ivy.

The engine starts with a reassuring, confident rumble; I put it into gear, and begin reversing out of the parking space.

‘Blimey,’ says Ivy.

And as she hits the second syllable there is a loud, heart-jolting
Bang!

Ivy screams.

‘What was that? Did we hit something? Did so—
ooh . . .
’ She puts both hands to her bump.

At thirty-four weeks, our babies are the size of a pair of butternut squashes, around eighteen inches in length and weigh approximately five pounds each. Their brains and nervous systems are
fully developed; our babies will dream when sleeping, and they may even have developed a preference for certain flavours (although I struggle to believe that amniotic fluid comes in more than a
single variety). Their lungs are almost completely developed, and if the twins were born now, in the front seat of an XC90, there is a good chance they could breathe for themselves.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, my nerves vibrating like power cables in a high wind.

‘I think so, just had a bit of a Braxton Hicks thingy. What was that bang?’

‘I have no id—’

Unless . . .

‘What?’ says Ivy.

I look at Ivy, bite my bottom lip and widen my eyes in what I hope is an expression of lovable incorrigibility.

‘What! I’m freaking out here.’

‘It might . . . have been a balloon.’

‘A what?’

‘Promise not to get mad?’

‘No!’

I shrug, get out of the car and walk around to Ivy’s side and open her door.

‘Fisher, will you just tell me what’s going on?’

‘Easier to show you,’ I say, helping her from the car. ‘Come on.’

Reluctantly, Ivy follows me to the boot, which I click open revealing a card, chocolates, wine, a bunch of thorny roses, one inflated balloon and various fragments of one burst balloon. Ivy
retrieves the remaining balloon; printed across its surface are the words ‘Happy Mother’s Day’.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Ivy says. ‘Really.’

‘I know . . . I bought them yesterday, while you were sleeping. Didn’t have a chance to dispose of them. Sorry.’

‘I’ll keep the flowers,’ she says. ‘And the chocolates.’

‘Can I have the wine?’

‘Only if you give me a sip.’

‘Only if you give me a chocolate.’

‘Only if you get rid of the card.’

‘It’s a deal,’ I say, leaning in to kiss Ivy.

She lets go of the balloon and we stand watching as it floats away into the night sky.

We’re shooting on a rooftop overlooking an industrial estate in south-east London. We’re miles away from any residential properties, but when I shout,
‘That’s a wrap,’ I shout it quietly; and the applause that follows is restrained. Standing here with Suzi, Joe, two actors and eleven crew, I should feel exhilarated. But the sun
is still several hours away from rising and my predominant feeling is one of deep, cellular fatigue.

We have tweaked, re-tweaked, finessed and polished the script, but still I’m not convinced it’s as good as it can be. There is an inbuilt distance with commercial shoots: you are
given the script and you do the best you can, knowing you can blame the agency if the finished product stinks. Not so with this, it’s all on us, which is scary and exciting all at the same
time. The schedule is erratic and protracted to accommodate everyone’s schedules and day jobs, and it will take us another four weeks to get through the remaining two shoot days.

Two runners do as their job title dictates and run towards our naked actors, draping them with thick blankets. I’m sure my phone could give me an accurate assessment of the temperature,
but going by the chill in my neck and knees, I’d guess it’s in single digits. As with so much else in my life, the narrative is out of sequence, and we are – for logistical
reasons – shooting the rooftop love-making scene before the couple, Mike and Jenny, have been introduced in story-time. In real time, of course, the actors have met and we have rehearsed this
scene a few times. They work well together in front of the camera, projecting a sexual chemistry between the characters that doesn’t appear to exist between the actors themselves. On the
other hand, there does appear to be something between Chris, our male lead, and Suzi, and I can’t help but wonder whether they will now go to one or the other’s home and make love for
real, in a bed and without a dozen crew watching from the wings.

‘Good job, buddy.’ Joe puts a hand on my shoulder.

‘Woohoo!’ says Suzi, going up on tiptoes to kiss me. ‘Amazing.’