Three In a Bed by Carmen Reid

Author:Carmen Reid [Carmen Reid]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2007-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-three

‘OK, BELLA, WE’VE still got some work to do here.’ Declan sounded brisk.

The cord was cut, then Declan handed Markie over to Annie for a wash while he busied himself with delivering the placenta.

When the enormous lump of raw liver slid out from between her legs, Bella saw she was sitting on a damp and bloody plastic sheet. She was naked and her legs were smeared with blood, dried blood and traces of shit. Her fingernails were dark with dried blood, her hair was soaked, blood was pooling between her legs and she was beginning to shiver.

Don was over by the baby bath taking pictures.

‘I’m really sorry, Bella, but we’re going to have to do stitches now,’ said Declan.

‘You’re kidding,’ she managed.

‘I’ll hand you over to Zena, a wonder with a needle. We’ll give you a jab first, then you better have the gas and air to hand.’

Bella sucked furiously at the gas cylinder as Zena cleaned then began to stitch at the long tear on her perineum.

Bella’s face contorted with pain. She could not believe how much she’d had to endure in one night. A deep stoic resignation began to settle over her. If someone had come in and said they were here to pull out her back teeth, she would have accepted it as her lot.

‘You know why it’s called labour now,’ said Zena in a gentle Caribbean accent as she worked away on an interminable number of stitches. ‘It’s women’s work, no man would be able to take this.’

Bella smiled at her weakly in between gulps from the gas cylinder. She wasn’t sure if the gas helped at all but at least it gave her something to do other than scream.

Finally it was over. Markie was dried and dressed and Zena helped Bella hobble into the bathroom for a warm deep bath.

Bella sank into it. She looked down at her body. Somehow, on the edge of the deepest exhaustion, she found the energy to be pleased that her stomach was so amazingly flat.

OK it looked like a strange wrinkled, deflated soufflé, but it was flattish. She could see over it, she could bend. Her breasts were absolutely enormous, especially in comparison to this flat stomach.

Between her legs everything felt oddly sensation-less and tightly strung together. How the hell was she going to pee? Let alone . . . she didn’t want to think about that. There were piles the size of houses rubbing painfully between her buttocks.

She could hear vigorous crying coming from the bedroom, so she raised herself carefully out of the bath, she dried off with a towel and slipped on the clean nightshirt hanging on the back of the door.

The bedroom had been transformed. New clean sheets and pillowcases were on the bed, Markie’s little cot had been brought through. The lighting was dim with just one sidelight and a few candles.

Zena was tying up plastic rubbish bags and Declan was scribbling in Bella’s maternity notebook, while Don sat on the bed holding the crying baby.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.