Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic and Baby

And Luke is standing at the bottom of the staircase, smiling encouragingly up at me. He’s been here all along. He canceled all the rest of his morning meetings, and took part in the interview and everything. He said having a baby put other things into perspective and he thought fatherhood would change him as a person. He said he thought I was more beautiful right now than he’d ever seen me (which is a total lie, but still). He said…

Anyway. He said loads of nice things. And he knew who painted the picture above the fireplace in the sitting room when they asked. He’s brilliant!

“Shall we move outside now?” The photographer looks questioningly at Martha.

“That’s a nice idea.” She nods, and I walk down the stairs, carefully holding up my dress.

“Maybe I could wear the Oscar de la Renta dress?”

The stylist brought the most amazing purple evening dress and cloak, which was apparently made for some pregnant movie star to wear to a premiere but she never did. I just have to try it on.

“Yes, that’ll look spectacular against the grass.” Martha heads to the back of the hall and squints through the glass doors. “What an amazing garden! Did you landscape it yourselves?”

“Absolutely!” I glance at Luke.

“We hired a gardening company, obviously,” he says, “but the concept was all ours.”

“That’s right.” I nod. “Our inspiration was a kind of Zen…meets…urban structure….”

“The positioning of the trees was crucial to the project,” Luke adds. “We had them moved at least three times.”

“Wow.” Martha nods intelligently and scribbles in her notebook. “You’re real perfectionists!”

“We just care about design,” Luke says seriously. He shoots me a quick wink and I try not to giggle.

“So, you must be looking forward to seeing your little child out there on the lawn.” She looks up with a smile. “Learning to crawl…and walk…”

“Yes.” Luke takes my hand. “We certainly are.”

I’m about to add something, but my stomach suddenly tightens, like someone squeezed it with both hands. It’s been doing it for a while, now that I think about it — but that time was kind of stronger. “Ooh,” I say, before I can stop myself.

“What?” Luke looks alert.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “So, shall I put on the cloak?”

“Let’s get your makeup touched up,” says Martha. “And shall we do a sandwich run?”

I head across the hall, reach the front door, and stop. My stomach just tightened up again. It’s unmistakable.

“What is it?” Luke is watching me. “Becky, what’s going on?”

OK. Don’t panic.

“Luke,” I say as calmly as I can, “I think I’m in labor. It’s been going on for a while now.”

My stomach tightens again, and I start shallow panting, just like Noura said in that lesson. God, it’s amazing how I’m coping instinctively.

“A while?” Luke strides over to me, looking alarmed. “How long, exactly?”

I think back to when I first became aware of the sensations. “About five hours? Which means I’m probably…five centimeters dilated, maybe?”

“Five centimeters dilated?” Luke stares at me. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m halfway there.” My voice suddenly trembles with excitement. “It means we’re going to have a baby!”

“Jesus Christ.” Luke whips out his mobile phone and jabs at it. “Hello? Ambulance service, please. Quick!”

As he gives the address I feel suddenly shaky around the knees. This wasn’t supposed to happen until the nineteenth. I thought I had three more weeks to go.

And maybe I should have gone to more than one prenatal class.

“What’s going on?” Martha says, looking up from her notes. “Shall we do the garden shots now?”

“Becky’s in labor,” Luke says, putting his phone away. “I’m afraid we’ll have to go.”

“In labor?” Martha drops her notebook and pen and scrabbles to pick them up. “Oh my God! But it’s not due yet, is it?”

“Not for three weeks,” says Luke. “It must be early.”

“Are you all right, Becky?” Martha peers at me. “Do you need drugs?”

“I’m using natural methods,” I gasp, gripping my necklace. “This is an ancient Maori birthing stone.”

“Wow!” says Martha, scribbling. “Can you spell Maori?”

My stomach tightens again and I clutch the stone harder. Even with the pain, I can’t help feeling exhilarated. They’re right, birth is an amazing experience. I feel as if my whole body is working in harmony, as if this is what it was designed to do all along.

“Have you got a bag packed?” says Martha, watching me in alarm. “Aren’t you supposed to have a bag?”

“I’ve got a suitcase,” I say breathlessly.

“Right,” says Luke, snapping his phone shut. “Let’s get it. Quick. Where is it? And your hospital notes.”

“It’s…” I break off. It’s all at home. Our real home.

“Um…it’s in the bedroom. By the dressing table.” I look at him in slight desperation. Luke’s eyes snap with sudden understanding.

“Of course,” he says. “Well…I’m sure we can make a stop-off if we need to.”

“I’ll nip up and get it for you,” says Martha helpfully. “Which side of the dressing table is it?”

“No! I mean…um…actually, there it is!” I point at a Mulberry holdall that I’ve suddenly spotted in the hall cupboard. “I forgot, I put it there so as to be ready.”

“Right.” Luke drags it out of the cupboard, with some effort, and a tennis ball falls out of it.

“Why are you taking tennis balls to hospital?” asks Martha, looking puzzled.

“For…er…massage. Oh God…” I grip the Maori stone tightly and breathe deeply.

“Are you OK, Becky?” says Luke, looking anxious. “It seems to be getting worse.” He looks at his watch. “Where’s this bloody ambulance?”

“They’re getting stronger.” I manage to nod through the pain. “I should think I’m probably about six or seven centimeters dilated by now.”

“Hey, the ambulance is here.” The photographer pokes his head through the front door. “It’s just pulling up.”

“We should get going.” Luke holds out his arm to me. “Are you able to walk?”

“I think so. Just about.”

We head out the front door and pause on the top step. The ambulance is blocking the whole road, its blue light flashing round and round. I can see a few people watching, on the other side of the street.

This is it. When I come out of hospital…I’ll have a baby!

“Good luck!” calls Martha. “Hope it all goes well!”

“Becky…I love you.” Luke squeezes my arm tight. “I’m so proud of you. You’re doing amazingly! You’re so calm, so composed….”

“It just feels totally natural,” I say with a kind of humble awe, like Patrick Swayze telling Demi Moore what heaven is like at the end of Ghost. “It’s painful…but it’s beautiful too.”

Two paramedics have got out of the back of the ambulance and are coming toward me.

“Ready?” Luke glances down at me.

“Uh-huh.” I take a deep breath and start walking down the steps. “Let’s do it.”

HUH. I DON’T BELIEVE IT, I wasn’t in labor after all. I don’t have a baby or anything.

It doesn’t make any sense, in fact I still think they might have been wrong. I had all the symptoms! The regular contractions, and the back pain (well, a slight achy feeling), just like in the book. But they sent me home and said I wasn’t in labor or prelabor or even approaching labor. They said they weren’t real labor pains.

It was all a bit embarrassing. Especially when I asked for the epidural and they laughed. They didn’t have to laugh. Or phone up their friends and tell them. I heard that midwife, even though she was whispering.

It’s also made me rethink this whole giving-birth thing. I mean, if that wasn’t the real thing…what on earth is the real thing like? So after we got back from the hospital I had a long, frank talk with Luke. I said I’d given it some careful thought and come to the conclusion that I couldn’t do labor, and we were going to have to find some other solution.

He was really sweet about it, and didn’t just say “Love, you’ll be fine” (like that stupid midwife phone advisory service). He said I should line up every form of pain relief I could, never mind about the cost. So I’ve hired a reflexologist, a hot-stone-massage person, an aromatherapist, an acupuncturist, a homeopath, and a doula. Plus I’ve taken to phoning the hospital every day, just to make sure their anesthetists haven’t all gone ill or been trapped in a cupboard or anything.

And I chucked out that stupid birthing stone. I always thought it was rubbish.

It’s now a week later, and nothing’s happened since, except I’m bigger and more lumbery than ever. We went to see Dr. Braine yesterday, and he said everything seemed just fine and the baby had turned into the right position, which was good news. Hmph. Good news for the baby, maybe. Not for me. I can hardly walk anymore, let alone sleep. Last night I woke up at three A.M. and felt so uncomfortable I couldn’t even lie in bed, so I went and watched this program on cable called True-Life Births — When Trauma Goes Bad.

Which was maybe a mistake, in hindsight. But luckily Luke was awake too, and he made me a cup of hot chocolate to calm me down and said it was really unlikely we’d ever be stuck in a snowdrift with twins about to be born and no doctors for two hundred miles. And at least now we knew what to do if we were.

Luke isn’t sleeping well either at the moment, and it’s all because of the Arcodas situation. He’s been talking to his lawyers every day, and having consultations with his staff, and has endlessly tried to set up a meeting with the Arcodas senior team to have it all out. But Iain has canceled twice with no notice — and then he disappeared off on some trip. So nothing’s resolved yet, and the longer it all goes on, the tenser Luke gets. It’s like we’re both on some ticking fuse, just…waiting.

I’ve never been good at waiting. For babies, or phone calls, or sample sales…or anything.

The only positive thing right now is that Luke and I are about a million times closer than we have been for months. We’ve talked about everything over the past week. His company, plans for the future…one night we even got out all the honeymoon photos and looked through them again.

We’ve talked about everything…except Venetia.

I tried. I tried to tell him what she was really like, over supper, after we got back from the hospital that day. But Luke was just incredulous. He said he still couldn’t believe that Venetia said she and he were having an affair. He said they were genuinely just old friends — and maybe I’d made a mistake or misinterpreted what she meant.

Which made me want to hurl my plate at the wall and shout, “How stupid do you think I am?” But I didn’t. It would have turned into a big row, and I really didn’t want to ruin the evening.

And I haven’t pushed the subject since then. Luke’s so hassled, I can’t bring myself to. As he says, we never have to see Venetia again if we don’t want to. He’s given her notice as a PR client, Dr. Braine will deliver the baby, and Luke’s promised he won’t make any plans to meet up with her. As far as he’s concerned, it’s a brief chapter of our life which has closed.

Only…I can’t close it. Deep down, I’m still obsessed. I didn’t make a mistake. She did say that she and Luke were having an affair. She nearly ruined our marriage — and now she’s just getting away with it.

If I could just see her…if I could tell her what I think of her….

“Bex, you’re grinding your teeth again,” says Suze patiently. “Stop it.” She arrived half an hour ago, laden with homemade Christmas presents from Ernie’s school fair. Now she brings over a cup of raspberry leaf tea and an iced Santa Claus cookie and puts them down on the counter. “You have to stop stressing about Venetia. It’s not good for the baby.”

“It’s all right for you! You don’t know what it’s like. No one made you wear hideous stockings and said you don’t have a marriage anymore and your husband was leaving you….”

“Look, Bex.” Suze sighs. “Whatever Venetia said…Whether she did say that or not…”

“She did!” I look up, indignant. “That’s what she said, word for word! Don’t you believe me either?”

“Of course I do!” says Suze, backtracking. “Of course. But you know, when you’re pregnant, things can seem worse than they really are…. You can overreact….”

“I am not overreacting! She tried to steal my husband! What, you think I’m deluded? You think I made it all up?”

“No!” says Suze hastily. “Look, I’m sorry. Maybe she did go after him. But…she didn’t get him, did she?”