‘Elizabeth-Roberta Cooper.’
‘Your date of birth, Mrs Cooper?’
She blinked at the assumption and wondered how to handle the delicate situation, as the sister jotted down her answers with a ballpoint pen.
‘Twelfth of August 1955.’
‘Weight?’
‘Nine stone two.’
‘Place of birth?’
‘Here, St Thomas’s.’
‘Ah, one of ours!’ The woman paused in her writing and smiled at her broadly.
Lilly felt the rush of tears, trying to imagine her mum in this very building, her dad no doubt smoking in the waiting room, as her life had begun by the side of the river. It made her incredibly sad to be here alone, oppositeGrand Benjamin, the landmark she only had to find so that she could follow the river along its path, knowing it would take her all the way home ...
‘Now, now. Let’s not cry. We shan’t have tears!’ The sister nodded, her voice stern, as Lilly did her best to comply. ‘They don’t help in any way at all. How far along are you, Mrs Cooper?’
There it was again.
‘Erm, ten weeks, twelve weeks.’
‘You haven’t had an antenatal check?’
She shook her head. Hadn’t seen a doctor, hadn’t told a soul, hadn’t wanted it to be true while simultaneously fighting secret feelings of ridiculous excitement at the prospect.
Oh, if only, if only we could both hang on a little longer, how long? A day ... a month ... a year ... a decade ... it’s rotten timing is what it is. How I would have loved you! And how I will always love the idea of you ...
‘Now, I’m sure the last thing you want to do is disturb your husband at his place of work, my dear, but it really is advisable that we contact him. Do you have a telephone number for him?’
Nurse Maddox lifted Lilly’s limp wrist and with her other hand held the little upside-down watch that dangled from the apron of her starched blue uniform, taking Lilly’s pulse.
She knew it was time to come clean, to admit the thing that she had been dreading.
‘I don’t have one, actually.’
‘Don’t have a telephone number?’ the sister asked softly. ‘That’s okay, we can find it, I’m sure—’
‘No.’ Lilly cut her short and took a breath. ‘I don’t ... don’t have a husband. I’m ... I’m not married.’
‘No husband?’ The woman’s lips were now quite thin.
‘No.’ Her voice was a whisper. The shame – oh, the shame! Her skin prickled with the cold sweat of discomfort.
‘I see.’ The sister breathed through pursed lips and, just like that, Lilly no longer felt like one of theirs.
Nurse Maddox let go of her wrist mid-air and her arm fell back on to the bed. It felt a lot like being discarded, something she was not unused to in recent times.
‘Well, I’m assuming you donotwant us to contact your mother?’ the sister asked with a slight sneer of disapproval, suggesting that if Lilly were her daughter, she would not want this brought to her door.
She more than understood, thanking her lucky stars that this woman was not her mother. But then again, her actual mother was not that much better. Her tears threatened once more, as they tended to do in recent times because, in spite of it all, she wanted her mum here! She wanted Jeannie to smile at her and smooth the damp hair from her forehead and to tell her that it was all going to be all right. And she hated herself that she wanted this from the woman who had left them, the woman whose destructive tendencies and need of sex she just might have inherited, the very tendencies that had landed her here in the first place.
‘No, I don’t want you to contact my mother.’
The sister wrote with purpose. Lilly could hear the nib of the pen digging the surface of the paper as the woman, seemingly angry, scrawled something wordy on the top sheet of her chart and replaced it at the foot of the bed. The two women left, whispering under their breath as they did so. Lilly lay all alone, staring at the overhead light, the rubber swing doors that led to the corridor and the frosted-glass window that was tilted open and through which came the sounds of the real world outside. The London hum. She placed her joined hands betweenher legs, trying to stem their tremble and, when she looked at them, they were covered in the warm, red blood she had been so concerned about.
