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CHAPTER FIVE
‘DATES!’
Beatrice blinked, caught between confusion and panic. She dragged her wandering blue gaze back to the young GP’s face and allowed the professional encouraging smile to drag her back from the brink of panic. Though kick-starting her brain remained a non-starter—she felt utterly incapable of forming coherent thoughts.
‘Dates…?’ she echoed, as though she were thinking about it, which she wasn’t. Thinking was simply not an option.
The reality was she could barely remember her name, let alone the information the locum GP, a young woman her own age, was asking for. Her regular doctor was, ironically, given the circumstances, on paternity leave.
‘I know… I think…’ She clenched her hands as she struggled to push past the loud static buzz in her head, which she explained by telling herself she needed a sugar hit. She hadn’t managed to keep her breakfast down or, for that matter, last night’s supper…again!
‘Take your time,’ the woman said, even though Beatrice was sure she had overrun her allowed time slot by a long way. An image of the foot-tapping disapproval as fellow patients glanced at the clock on the waiting-room wall flashed into her head—she’d been there, done that herself.
This doctor, with the relaxed attitude to time, seemed nice and sympathetic, which might not be a good thing. She had reached the point where it would only take a kind word to release the tears she could feel pressing against her eyelids.
So Beatrice avoided the sympathy and focused on the hole in the woman’s tights as she wrapped her arms around herself in a self-protective hug to combat the cold inside her that was making her teeth chatter and sending intermittent tremors through her body.
‘So, I’m assuming that this wasn’t planned?’ the medic, who had scooted her chair around to Beatrice’s side of the desk, suggested.
Beatrice shook her head and wished the medic’s calm were contagious, but then the professional had seen this a hundred times before and this wasn’t professional for Beatrice.
‘Statistically pregnancies rarely are planned.’
Tell me about it, she thought, swallowing the ironic laugh locked in her aching throat. ‘Really?’ If that was meant to make her feel better, it didn’t.
‘Did someone come with you?’
Beatrice reeled in her wandering thoughts, back from the unknown and scary future they had drifted towards, and tried very hard to focus on the here and now and not fainting—she never fainted.
‘Someone…?’She moved her head, a tiny jerky, shaking motion, before clearing her throat, relieved when she responded with a close approximation of someone who had not totally lost it. ‘Yes…yes, my sister.’
Who had refused to take no for an answer and had tagged along to the appointment that Beatrice had made after the stomach bug had not cleared up. Had Maya sussed the truth…had she?
Of course she had, but she’d buried the knowledge so deep…constructed so many perfectly reasonable, safe alternatives that it had not lessened the mind-deadening shock when confronted with the inevitable reality.
Despite the shock, her body continued to perform all its automated responses: she was breathing and moving, putting one foot… Actually she wasn’t—she was sitting down and her knees were shaking. She was thinking, Well, maybe not. Her thoughts continued to refuse to move beyond the big mental brick wall. I am pregnant.
In her head she tacked several large exclamation marks on the acknowledgement, which did not make it feel any more real.
‘I’m six weeks,’ she said suddenly, her tone making it clear there were no ifs and buts or maybes about this. A warmth heated her pale cheeks as her thoughts drifted back to the night she’d spent under the duvet in the ski lodge with Dante. Sometimes on top of the duvet and sometimes… She felt a shameful flash of heat and closed down the thought of the night they had made a baby. ‘It’s our eighteen-month anniversary today…’
‘Congratulations. Your husband isn’t here today?’
Beatrice watched the doctor tap some keys on the computer and grimace as she noticed the hole in her tights.
‘He’s out of the country,’ she said carefully.
‘Would you like me to…? Shall I ask your sister to come in?’
Beatrice gave a pale smile of gratitude. ‘Yes, please.’
A short while later she and Maya were out of the surgery and back in the fresh air. Beatrice expelled a long shuddering sigh and squeezed her eyes closed, opening them as she felt Maya’s arm link with her own.
‘Fancy walking back through the park?’
‘Didn’t we drive here?’ If she had imagined that she was in even worse shape than she thought, Beatrice decided.
‘Yes, but the fresh air might do us good… I’ll pick up the car later.’ She glanced at the little vintage car they had jointly bought when they first set up home together. It had seen better days.
