okay.’
His was the voice of reason and she wondered if he even recognised her, he was so completely calm when everything, everything, was going wrong.
As an events co-ordinator, Beth was here in London for the opening of Mr Costas’s London branch of his renowned restaurant.
He was her top client.
The night had gone beautifully and to plan. The restaurant had been filled mainly with friends and relations of Mr and Mrs Costas. Most had travelled to London for the occasion and, because she had liaised with a lot of the guests for a previous event, the opening night had been easy to organise. The hotel opposite the restaurant was hosting the guests and all had gone well.
It had only been at the very end of the night, as the last of the guests had left, that Beth had suddenly felt terribly warm.
She had been wearing a black light wool dress, sheer black tights and high heels and, despite it being a cold night in early January, she hadn’t put on her coat.
The cold air had been welcome on her burning cheeks and she had taken a moment to gulp it in. She had just started to walk when she’d felt a sharp pain in her back.
It was the high heels, Beth had decided, but the pain had been acute enough to stop her and, even though the pavement was wet, she had bent to take her shoes off.
The pain, though, as she’d bent over, had stretched from her back and wrapped around her stomach like a vice, and Beth had placed a hand over her bump and felt that it was hard and tight.
As the pain had passed she’d straightened up and leant against a wall, trying to get back her breath.
She’d been standing in stockinged feet, holding her shoes, when she had broken out into a cold sweat and suddenly felt as if she might vomit.
The hotel, even though it was just across the street, had seemed a very, very long way off.
It had happened as rapidly as that.
Beth had taken out her phone and stared at it, wondering who she should call, trying to fathom what to do. Should she call the hospital she was booked into?
But that was in Edinburgh.
Did she need an ambulance?
No, she decided.
The pain had gone now.
Was it perhaps the beginnings of an upset stomach?
She tried to console herself that it was that.
Even if it meant that all Mr Costas’s family and friends were bent over a toilet right now, somehow she convinced herself that she must have eaten something that had disagreed with her.
But then another pain came.
It wasn’t as severe as the first but it was way more than the practice contractions that the midwife at her last antenatal visit had told her to expect. Then she felt a pulling sensation low in her pelvis that had her gasp and it felt as if the baby had shifted lower and was pressing down.
She knew she had to get to hospital and she saw a taxi and stepped forward and hailed it. Thankfully he slowed down.
‘Can 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
