A shower clattered over the beach, backlit by the sun, and my coursemates’ hoods went up. Rain started trickling down my neck so I pulled my coat around my body and tried to do up the zip, but my stomach was too much for it and it broke.
That did it. I gave in and cried, with the rain. The meagre income I received from the woman renting Dad’s house in Plymouth was barely enough to cover my rent up here, let alone maternity clothes. I couldn’t even afford a coat to keep this bump warm and dry. And if I couldn’t afford maternity clothes, how could I possibly afford to keep a child alive? A couple of my closer friends came and huddled round: they’d been keeping an eye on me.
‘It’ll be OK,’ they kept saying. ‘You’re amazing, Emily, you’ll get through this!’
They were lovely. They also had no idea what they were talking about. I was four months pregnant and alone.
As the shower passed over us and moved inland, I stood up and told them I was fine.
They went back off to their prawns and blennies, their crabs and their whelks, reiterating the meaningless things people always say: I was ‘amazing’ and ‘brilliant’ and ‘stronger than I knew’。
I singled out Jill, who was far away with her hand plunged into a freezing pool, and scrambled over the rocks.
‘I’m seriously thinking of doing it,’ I said, when I reached her. ‘Of saying yes.’
Jill abandoned the top shell she’d been examining.
‘I really would be there for you if you decided to keep the baby,’ she said. ‘Seriously.’
‘I know. And thank you. But I think I want them to have her. I want her to have a good life, Jill. I want more than anything for her to be happy. And I don’t think she would be with me.’
‘Really?’ Jill’s voice was sad. ‘You really don’t think she could be happy with you?’
‘I don’t. No.’
After a long pause, Jill took my wet, cold hand in her own wet, cold hand, and nodded.
We stood there, surrounded by kelp, watching cloud shadows stripe the shore. And for the first time in weeks, even though tears were falling soundlessly down my cheeks, I felt something that might be hope.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
After I said yes to the Rothschilds, I began the obligatory counselling and interviews. I filled in forms, I shared medical records. I made cheerful jokes with everyone and anyone, and when they dried up I’d head back outside, walking up and down the shore at St Andrews, fractured and craving anaesthesia.
Janice kept a respectful distance in the first few weeks, but eventually asked if I’d like her to call to check in from time to time. And I did want her to. She and Jeremy were the only people who actually wanted me to be pregnant. Who had some idea of what I was going through, and what lay ahead.
She had the local greengrocer deliver me fruit and vegetables every week, and sent me a book about pregnancy, along with a maternity coat, as if she had somehow been there the day my bump had burst through my zip. She always seemed to know the right moment to send chocolate, or a pair of pyjamas.
She lifted my mood. She listened.
She offered to take me maternity shopping in Edinburgh. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it intimidated me. This semi-famous woman, this stranger, who wanted to be the mother to my baby. What would we say, without the safety of a phone? Would there be excruciating small talk? Or would she want to discuss things I couldn’t quite fathom yet, like how and when to hand the baby over? Would the agency even approve of us meeting?
The problem was, I was exhausted by then, sick of doing it alone. I didn’t want to talk about marine ecosystems or who was shagging whom on my course, I just wanted to talk about foetal movements and pelvic girdle pain and which girls’ names I liked most.