Connie watched as the other woman dabbed her forehead with a lacy cream handkerchief. Connie’s hair and hospital gown were soaked with sweat; using a handkerchief would be like trying to dry off the decks of the Titanic with a kitchen roll. The other woman’s shiny blonde hair was tied back with a delicate yellow ribbon – a ribbon! Who even owned ribbon? Connie’s own dark wiry nest was pulled back with one of the elastic bands Bill used to keep his tools together. There was one feature that Connie did have in common with the woman in the bed next to her – they both had enormous round bellies protruding beneath their hospital gowns.
‘It’s like the overflow car park or something in here; the whole of north London must be giving birth tonight,’ said Connie. The other woman didn’t respond. She looked pained and exhausted. ‘Are you crossing your legs till midnight then?’
‘No,’ said the woman wearily. ‘I want this baby out, I’ve been in labour for two days but the contractions keep stopping and starting.’
‘I thought you might be holding out for the prize money,’ said Connie. ‘I’m Connie, by the way.’
‘Tara,’ said the blonde woman, but it came out ‘Ta … raaa … ’ as another contraction took hold. She started puffing out short little bleats of breath.
Connie was about to say something else but then had to pause to focus on a contraction of her own. She stood up and walked across the ward in her hospital gown, bending over one of the empty beds opposite until the pain had receded. Then she turned back to Tara and said, ‘You’re doing it all wrong. Your breathing’s too shallow, you sound like a little sheep.’
‘A sheep?’ said Tara. She looked mortified.
‘Yeah, you want to breathe from your gut, sound like a cow, or better yet a hippo. Try and make a hippo noise.’
‘I’m not going to make a hippo noise.’ Tara gave a sharp headshake. ‘Ridiculous.’
Connie shrugged. She started lunging back and forth on her front leg, while holding onto the end of the hospital bed.
‘You really never heard about the prize money for this nineties baby then? You must be the only one.’
‘Oh right, that,’ Tara nodded. ‘I think someone mentioned it at one of my prenatal appointments. I didn’t know there was a prize involved.’
‘It could be one of us,’ Connie grunted. Then she gave a low, guttural moan. ‘You’ll have to get on your feet, though; babies don’t come if you lie on your back.’
‘I’m just so tired. I can’t walk any more,’ Tara said quietly.
‘There’s no getting round it,’ said Connie. ‘You gotta get up, get walking, let gravity do her job.’
Tara reluctantly sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed. Every movement looked to be a monumental effort.
‘Oh, not again, I don’t … I can’t,’ Tara sank to the floor, her body consumed by an invisible, agonising force.
‘Try and stand,’ Connie said, taking her hand. ‘Trust me, it’s better.’ Connie held Tara up, encouraging her to push down on her forearms for support. Tara rocked back and forth, huffing and whimpering through it with her eyes closed. ‘OK, we can work on your breathing but you’re standing at least.’
The double doors of the ward swung open and a midwife wearing light blue coveralls marched in.
‘How are we doing, ladies? I’m sorry we had to put you in together but I’ve never seen so many babies want to come in one night before. Lucky I didn’t have New Year’s Eve plans, hey?’ the midwife chuckled.
‘They’re all after the prize money,’ said Connie. ‘This one claims she didn’t even know about it.’
Tara’s pain had passed, her eyes were glazed over and she was staring off towards the window. Connie watched her; she knew that feeling – she’d been in labour for four days last time.
‘Oh, you didn’t hear?’ said the midwife. ‘The London News went and offered a cheque to the first nineties baby born in the city. We’re all desperate for someone from Hampstead Hospital to be the first. Though the paper must have more money than they know what to do with, if you ask me.’
‘Fifty thousand pounds,’ said Connie.
What Connie couldn’t do with fifty thousand pounds. She could pay back Bill’s parents the money they’d loaned them. They could rent a bigger place. She could even buy the baby some clothes of its own – clothes that hadn’t already been worn by three older cousins and a brother. She couldn’t get her hopes up. There were thousands of other women all over London probably thinking the same thing.
‘It’s sponsored by some nappy brand. I think you get free nappies for life too,’ said the midwife.
‘She’s definitely going to cross her legs till midnight now,’ Connie laughed, but the laugh turned into panting as another wave of pain rolled down into her belly.
‘Right, hop up onto the bed, Mrs Hamilton,’ the midwife said to Tara. ‘I need to see how far along you are.’ She drew a cubicle curtain around the bed and pulled on some rubber gloves. A few minutes later she stepped away from the bed and shook her head. ‘You’re not having the baby tonight at this rate, you’re still only six centimetres. You need to get moving, get walking up and down.’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Connie shouted through the partition.
‘But how much longer?’ Tara whimpered. ‘I’m so tired, I just need to sleep.’
An alarm rang out in the corridor. The midwife quickly pulled off her gloves and washed her hands at the sink.
‘I’ll be back to check your measurements shortly, Mrs Cooper.’
The midwife swept out of the room as briskly as she had arrived, the double doors swinging noisily back and forth in her wake. From behind the plastic partition Connie heard slow, childlike sobbing. She pulled herself off the bed and drew the curtain back so she could see Tara again.
‘No, no. No time for tears. We got work to do,’ said Connie.
‘I can’t do it any more, I haven’t slept for two days.’
‘Where’s your man?’
‘I sent him home. He hasn’t slept either, I thought one of us should.’ And then the pain came and she curled instinctively into a ball. Connie felt her own starting. She took hold of Tara’s wrist and gently drew Tara’s face up towards hers. Tara started mewing, pained little mews like a cat being strangled.
‘That’s a cat, what did I say? Did I say cat, did I say sheep, or did I say hippo? You got to go lower, come on, copy me.’
Connie started mooing big, heaving moos from the depth of her diaphragm. Tara’s whole face blushed red, her eyes darting to the door. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. No one here but us, come on.’ Tara gave a tentative ‘mur’ sound. She scowled with concentration. ‘Lower, bigger, much bigger, MAAHOOOOOOOOOO … ’ Connie thundered. Tara stared at her in bemusement. She tried again, copying Connie. Connie nodded silent encouragement. At first Tara’s breathing was self-conscious, still clinging to some urge to be ladylike, but gradually she let herself go and started imitating Connie’s heaving moans.
‘It helps, don’t it? Now get down here like this.’