‘And don’t worry,’ she added, crossing the room to Jo. ‘I’ve delivered most of the people still alive in the village, grandparents, parents and even some of the older children. I’ll take care of you.’
The look of horror on Jo’s face told Charles what she thought of that idea, but she rallied.
‘That’s very kind, Dottie, but I’m a doctor, I should be able to manage. I mean, don’t women in some developing countries give birth in the fields where they are working, then wrap the baby in a sling on their back and keep working? If they can do that, I should be able to manage.’
She closed her eyes, pausing as another contraction tightened her belly.
‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘I absolutely cannot have the baby now. It’s not Christmas Day, and Chris and Alice can’t get through, and you know they want to be here.’
‘You’ve got no choice, my girl,’ Dottie told her. ‘And too bad if they can’t be here. I never did approve of them using you like this.’
Jo lifted her hand.
‘Please, Dottie, no more of that. And I’ll be glad of your help, but perhaps...’
She turned to Charles.
‘You’d have a mobile, wouldn’t you? If I do go properly into labour, we could start with video chat on my mobile and if it runs out of charge, could we use yours?’
‘You want your labour going out on video chat?’ Charles asked, totally bewildered by the speed at which things had moved from his meeting with his grandmother to possibly having to deliver a total stranger’s baby in the midst of the gale that thrashed the windows and shook the house. ‘With who, and why?’
‘Only to Chris and Alice,’ Jo said. ‘You see, it’s their baby.’
She spoke as if that explained everything, though from Charles’s point of view it only made things more confusing.
Their baby?
‘You’re a surrogate?’
But even as he asked the question he watched the colour drain from Jo’s face, and knew it was another contraction, a bad one. Childbirth hurt. So why would she go through it for someone else?
And how would she feel when it came time to hand over the baby she’d carried—nurtured—for nine months?
Now Dottie was issuing orders so he couldn’t pursue the matter.
‘Take the supper things down to the kitchen,’ she was saying to him. ‘Then when you get back I’ll tell you where to find clean linen. There are some sheets that are washed so thin they’re soft, and plenty of old towels. We’d better use this room, because the others all leak. The little chaise longue should be ideal because the back of it only comes halfway. And gloves, I suppose. There might be gloves in the kitchen!’
‘Washing-up gloves?’ Jo said faintly. ‘You’re going to deliver Lulu with washing-up gloves?’
‘You just relax,’ Dottie ordered. ‘We’ll do whatever is necessary.’
Charles carried the half-eaten meal down to the kitchen, wondering whether he should get out of this madness before he caught whatever brought it on!
Was the road really flooded?
And that thought horrified him!
Surely he wasn’t thinking of leaving these women on their own—one to deliver her baby, the other as dotty as her name.
Of course he couldn’t, flooded road or not.
So he carried his burden to the kitchen, noticed the bucket was full on the way and came back to empty it, checking there was no new stranger standing at the door before he threw the water.
Back upstairs for more orders! That part at least was a novelty. At home, and at the hospital, he was more likely to be giving them...
* * *
Jo closed her eyes and wondered if she willed it hard enough she could stop the contractions.
Forget about it!
But what about Chris and Alice? her mind protested.
Charge your mobile.
She stood up, ignored Dottie’s shriek that she needed to wait for the next contraction to time it, and went to her bedroom, where, by some miracle, her mobile was already on the charger and, even more wonderful, fully charged.
The linen cupboard was her next destination. He might be willing, this Charles who’d appeared from nowhere, but she doubted he’d fathom the system in Dottie’s linen cupboard.
But Dottie had been right, there were sheets washed to a softness that could be used to clean and wrap a newborn, and plenty of old towels—Dottie rarely parted with anything—on which the baby could be delivered. And she could cut up some of the old sheets to use as nappies—they’d be softer than the towels...
She pulled out an armful of each, then, because it felt good to be standing, she walked along the hall, avoiding buckets on the way, then back again.
Walking was good, until the next contraction came—far too close to the previous one—and she leant against the wall, the linen pillowed in her arms.
‘Was that a contraction?’ Dottie asked, peering out the bedroom door to see where her patient had gone.
Jo nodded, so bemused to discover she was thinking of herself as Dottie’s patient she couldn’t manage words.
The pain passed and she carried the linen through to Dottie’s room, then turned back. What she really needed was a shower—and just in case this baby really was coming, she’d have a shower, put on a clean nightdress and—
And what?
No! The baby couldn’t come. She wasn’t ready! Chris and Alice weren’t ready! And worst of all, there was this stupid low off the coast with wind gusts too strong for a helicopter to make it out here if anything went wrong—not with her so much, but with the baby...
She considered crying, so great was the frustration, but she wasn’t the crying type—tall, well-built women couldn’t get away with tears the way petite women could. Besides which, she’d never seen the point. What good did it do? And it made her eyes red! She’d have a shower. That way, if she did happen to cry—well, in the shower, who could tell...?
She stood under the streaming hot water for so long it began to turn cold. She knew the ancient hot-water system would take hours to heat it again and felt guilty about using it all, though Charles and Dottie had already showered.
The next contraction was strong enough for her to grab the washbasin to hold herself steady until it passed.
This couldn’t be happening!
It was bad enough that she’d spent the last weeks of this pregnancy wondering how she could stop herself shrieking or swearing in front of Chris and Alice, but in front of Dottie and the stranger?
Dear Heaven! What was she to do? Didn’t soldiers in bygone times bite on bullets while surgeons extracted other bullets from their wounds.
How did they not break their teeth? she wondered as she walked back to her room.
Not that Dottie would have a bullet to bite on—at least Jo hoped not, although with Dottie you couldn’t be sure of anything.
Another wave of pain washed over her. This was ridiculous, she thought as she gripped the end of the bed for support. Baby was two weeks early when the obstetrician had assured her it would be late, and she was out on the bluff with the worst weather in a hundred years raging all around her, and a total stranger and an eighty-five-year-old midwife for support!
Not that she doubted Dottie’s ability