“I’m going to text everyone,” said Mark, fumbling in the freezer. “Someone has to be in the area.”
“Let’s get down in the street and see if we can hail a cab,” I said.
“Do we really need all this stuff?”
“Yes! Yes. I have to have tennis balls and the Popsicles.”
Mark half dragged, half carried me to the main road and then went back for the four bags. The traffic really was solid: unmoving, buses, lorries, honking and belching fumes. By some virgin-birth-style miracle, a taxi rounded a side street with its light on. Mark practically threw himself on the bonnet.
“Going somewhere nice?” said the driver, as Mark loaded the bags into the cab. “Owwww!” I yelled, at which the driver looked terrified. “?’Ere you’re not goner give birth in me cab, are you?”
“Suck on this,” said Mark, handing me a Popsicle. “The Queen, by the way, has just arrived at Grafton Underwood village hall.”
“This isn’t a Popsicle,” I said. “It’s a frozen sausage!”
—
After twenty minutes of the driver going on and on about just having had his cab cleaned, we’d gone only a quarter of a mile and the contractions were coming every thirty seconds.
“Right. This is
hopeless. We’re going to have to walk,” said Mark.
“Great, excellent idea, sir, if I may say so, out you get,” said the cabbie, manhandling me out of his cab.
“What about my packing?” I wailed.
“Sod the packing,” said Mark, hauling the four bags into a newsagent’s and handing the baffled newsagent twenty quid.
“I’m going to have to carry you!”
He picked me up, like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, and then stumbled under the weight. “Oh Christ Alive, you’re enormous.”
The phone rang. “Hang on, let me put you down a sec. Cleaver!—Cleaver’s running from his flat—yes! I’m carrying her! We’re just at the junction of the Newcomen Street and the A3.”
—
We staggered along the street, both groaning, Mark frequently putting me down and clutching his back.
Then Daniel appeared, red-faced, jogging and panting.
“Cleaver,” said Mark, “this is probably the only time in my life I’ve actually been pleased to see you.”
“Right. Everyone relax. I’ll take charge. I’ll take the head, you take the feet,” said Daniel, wheezing as if he was about to have a heart attack.
“No, I’ll take the head,” said Mark.
“Nope. I started this off and…”
“Will you please. Stop. Squabbliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing,” I said, and bit hard into Mark’s hand, at which they both let go of my arms and only just caught me.
It ended up with the three of us staggering like some weird push-me-pull-you to the A&E and getting stuck in the revolving door.
Finally we managed to get out of the door and into the hospital. Daniel and Mark staggered to the reception desk, holding me between them like a sack of cheesy potatoes, and dumped me on the reception desk.
“Who’s the father?” said the receptionist.
“I’m the father,” said Daniel.