The Christmas Bookshop(85)

‘ … you might be too tired.’

‘No way,’ said Jack. ‘I’ve stayed up all night before.’

‘You did not,’ said Phoebe. ‘It was a sleepover at Zack’s house and he said he did but he totally didn’t.’

‘Did!’

‘Shut up!’

‘Come on,’ said Carmen. ‘They won’t let you in the hospital if you’re fighting.’

She hadn’t been expecting that to work but as they reached the silent automatic doors, they fell quiet. It did, thought Carmen, have a similar feel to school when you thought about it.

The maternity unit was quiet at that time of night, as if most people had somehow managed to decide not to have their babies at such an inconvenient time of year, and there were certainly no other children there. It struck Carmen forcibly how her extremely organised sister had, for the first time in her life, managed to do something completely disorganised.

The nurse on reception nodded.

‘She’s gone straight to delivery suite six,’ she said. ‘We can’t let you all in … but she shouldn’t be by herself.’

‘I can watch the others,’ said Pippa.

‘Hmm. Maybe not,’ said the nurse. ‘But let me show you the waiting room.’

To the children’s absolute delight – it was a very new and shiny hospital – there was a waiting room with children’s toys piled up and a television tuned to a cartoon channel. There was also a vending machine selling an array of absolute crap. They looked at Carmen wide-eyed. This was clearly heaven itself.

Carmen looked at them all. Even Pippa seemed to be relaxing her stance as commander-in-chief to examine a pony you could bounce up and down on. She stood at the door. She was agonisingly close to the delivery suites; she could even hear the unpleasant noises.

It was so odd. Every time Sofia had had a baby, she hadn’t even thought about it, not really. Just a sense of ‘oh God, here we go, now Sofia is going to get all the attention again’.

Then the baby would arrive and once again her parents would go mad for it and the looks at Carmen would start and people would try and make nice remarks about her career and it had built up and built up and driven her mad over the years, made her turn against her own family, through jealousy and defensiveness of her own choices, which often hadn’t felt like choices at all.

But now her sister was in one of those rooms, all by herself, in pain, with nobody there to hold her hand.

‘Okay, guys,’ she said to the children. ‘I am nipping across to see your mum for five seconds. Can you all manage to sit here and not get kidnapped or spontaneously stabbed and not stick your fingers in the plug socket?’

The nurse from reception was walking past. She halted.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m on my break. I’ll sit here for a bit.’

‘Oh, I can’t,’ said Carmen. ‘Not your break.’

‘Yeah yeah yeah. On you go. Five minutes, okay?’

‘Okay!’ said Carmen. ‘Guys. Don’t bother the nice nurse, okay?’

‘Well, I have some questions,’ said Pippa, moving closer to the nice nurse, but Carmen had already disappeared.



The little room was full of monitors and beeping machines. There was nobody else there. Sofia lifted up her head as Carmen entered.

‘You’re by yourself?’ said Carmen.

‘They come and check you,’ said Sofia. ‘They have the machines on centralised—’

But it was no good. She couldn’t keep it up. She burst into floods of tears. Carmen was there, and Sofia grabbed her hand once more as another set of contractions racked her.

‘It’s too late for the epidural,’ she sobbed. ‘I always have an epidural. That stops you feeling anything.’

‘Can’t they give you anything else?’

Sofia shook her head.

‘I’m too far along. I’ve never done this before. Not without … all the drugs.’

She cried in fear and pain, and Carmen leaned over and hugged her fiercely.

‘It’s too early!’ said Sofia. ‘I had everything planned! Federico gets extra leave when he finishes this long trip so he could come home at the last minute and … ’

‘You are the fiercest, bravest, most amazing person I know,’ she whispered into her sister’s ear. ‘You are going to kick the arse out of this. And the nurses are going to kick the arse out of Federico so you should probably tell them it was your idea.’

Sofia smiled weakly as a nurse came in to check on her.

‘You are just about ready to go,’ the nurse said, reading the printout, then, to Carmen’s surprise although she knew it really shouldn’t have been, sticking her arm up her sister.

‘I’ve never … I’ve never done this without an epidural before. Is it too late for a section?’ said Sofia.

‘Are you kidding?’ said the nurse. ‘Squeeze it out now and you’ll be home for breakfast. Have us chop you open and you’ll be laid up for a fortnight. Also it’s Christmas. Are you a hundred per cent certain your late-night surgeon won’t have been at the sherry?’

‘I am 99.999 per cent legally certain,’ said Sofia through gritted teeth.