“Just because they’ve got short hair. You can’t judge.”

“But they’ve got quiffs, matching ones!”

It was our first night at Perfect Birth class, and of the eight couples, only five were male-female. But Jacqui was worried that she was the only woman there who had been deserted by her baby’s father.

Mind you, Joey had been ringing her from time to time. Well, at Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and on his birthday, to be precise—times, as she so rightly said, when he was drunk and mawkish—and left rambling, apologetic messages on her machine. Jacqui never picked up and never rang back, but she denied that she was being strong.

“If he rang me in the cold light of day with nothing in his system other than Gatorade, I might talk to him,” she said. “But I’m not making an arse of myself by believing declarations of love made when he’s jarred out of his jocks. Could you imagine it if I took him at his drunken word and rang him back?”

Sometimes we acted it out: I’d be Joey, leaving slurred messages on Jacqui’s machine, while Jacqui pretended to be a sappier version of herself, dabbing her eyes and saying, “Oh, he does love me after all! I am so heppy, the heppiest girl alive. I shall ring him soonest.”

Back to me, pretending to be Joey, waking up with a hangover and looking nervously at his phone as Jacqui said, “Ring ring, ring ring.”

“Hello,” I’d say narkily, answering the imaginary phone.

“Joey!” Jacqui squealed. “It’s me. I got your message. I knew you’d come round. How soon shall we be merrhied?” For some reason in these scenarios she always pronounced married as “merrhied” like we were in a period drama.

I’d throw down the invisible phone and break into a run and shout, “I want to join the witness protection program,” then we’d both shriek with laughter.

But at the Perfect Birth class, Jacqui wasn’t laughing. She looked highly uncomfortable, and not just because the whole thing was acutely Feathery Strokery. The facilitator was so good at yoga, she could put the sole of her foot behind her ear. Her name was Quand-adora. “Which means Spinner of Light,” she said. But she didn’t say in which language.

“Her own makey-uppy Feathery Strokery language,” Jacqui said later. “Spinner of Shite, more like.”

Spinner of Light invited us all to sit cross-legged in a circle, sip ginger tea, and introduce ourselves.

“I’m Dolores, Celia’s birthing partner. I’m also Celia’s sister.”

“I’m Celia.”

“I’m Ashley, this is my first baby.”

“I’m Jurg, Ashley’s husband and birthing partner.”

When we got to the suspected Jolly Girls, Jacqui paid particular interest.

“I’m Ingrid,” the pregnant one said, then the woman beside her said, “And I’m Krista, Ingrid’s birthing partner, and lover.”

Jacqui nudged me with her pointy elbow.

“I’m Jacqui,” Jacqui said. “My boyfriend broke up with me when he found out I was pregnant.”

“And I’m Anna, I’m Jacqui’s birthing partner. But not her lover. Um, not that it would matter if I was.”

“I’m sorry,” Celia interrupted, looking anxious. “I didn’t realize we would be sharing so much information. Should I have said that I used a sperm donor?”

“Hey, so did we,” Krista said. “It’s no biggie.”

“Share as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing,” Quand-adora said, the way her type do. “Today we’re going to focus on pain relief. How many of you plan to give birth in a birthing pool?”

Lots of hands went up. Cripes! Seven of them were. Jacqui was the only one who wasn’t.

“Gas and air are available in the birthing pools,” Quand-adora said. “But over the next six weeks, I’m going to share with you some wonderful techniques, so you won’t need them. Jacqui, did you have any thoughts on pain relief?”

“Um, yeah, the thing, you know, the epidural.”

As Jacqui said later, it wasn’t that they looked disapproving; it was more that they looked sad for her.

“Oo-kaay,” Quand-adora said. “How about you don’t make your mind up right now? How about staying open to whatever energy comes your way?”

“Ah…sure.”

“The first thing you must remember is that the pain is your friend. The pain is bringing your baby to you, without the pain there would be no baby. So everybody close your eyes, find your center, and begin to visualize the pain as a friendly force, as ‘a great golden ball of energy.’”

I hadn’t known I had a center, but I did my best, and after we’d visualized for a good twenty minutes or so, I learned how to massage Jacqui’s lower back to provide pain relief, just in case the visualization wasn’t working, then we were shown a technique to slow the labor down. We had to get on all fours, our bottoms in the air, panting like dogs on a hot day. Everyone had to do it, even the nonpregnant people. It was quite fun, actually, especially the panting. Although having my face right up against another woman’s—Celia’s, as I remember—nether regions was rather disconcerting.

Jacqui and I were panting goodo, then we exchanged looks and stuck our tongues out and panted a little harder.

“Do you know something?” she whispered. “That bastard doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

95

As soon as January clicked over into February, the anniversary of Aidan’s death began to loom, like a big shadow. As the days passed, the shadow darkened. My stomach churned and I had moments of real panic, a genuine expectation that something terrible might happen.

On the sixteenth of February I went to work as normal, but with superreal recall, I relived every second of the same day the previous year. No one at work knew what day it was; they’d long forgotten, and I didn’t bother to tell them.

But by midafternoon I’d had enough. I invented an interview, left work, went home, and commenced a vigil, counting down the minutes and seconds to the exact time of Aidan’s death.

I’d wondered if, at the moment of impact from the other cab, I’d feel it again; a kind of psychic action replay. But the time came and went and nothing happened and that didn’t feel right. I’d expected something. It was too huge, too massive, too terrible, to just feel nothing.