“But this is meant to happen,” she said. “My waters have to break.”

She was right. Oh my God, her waters had broken, she really was going to have a baby. All the preparation we’d done suddenly counted for nothing.

I focused enough to ring the hospital. “I’m Jacqui Staniforth’s birthing partner, although we’re not Jolly Girls; her waters have just broken and she’s in labor.”

“How far apart are the contractions?”

“I don’t know. She’s only had one. But it was terrible.”

From the other end of the phone I heard something that sounded suspiciously like a snigger. “Time the contractions, and when they’re five minutes apart, come in.”

I hung up. “We’ve to time them. The stopwatch! Where’s the stopwatch?”

“With all the other labor stuff.”

I wished we didn’t have to keep saying the word labor. I found the stopwatch, rejoined her on the kitchen floor, and said, “Right. Anytime you like. Go on, give us a contraction.”

We collapsed into nervous giggles.

“At least I didn’t have a comedy waters-breaking moment,” she said.

“How d’you mean?”

“You know in films how the waters always break on someone’s really expensive rug or new suede shoes. Hugh Grant is usually in them. Oh gosh! Oh, I say! Gosh! You know the sort of thing. Just out of curiosity, is there any particular reason we’re sitting on the wet floor?”

“No, I suppose not.”

We got up and Jacqui changed her clothes and had two more contractions. Ten minutes apart, we established. I rang the hospital back. “They’re ten minutes apart.”

“Keep timing them and come in when they’re five minutes apart.”

“But what should we do until then? She’s in terrible pain!”

“Rub her back, use your TENS machine, have her take a hot bath, walk around.” I’d known all that already, it was just in the panic of the labor actually starting that I’d forgotten.

So I rubbed Jacqui’s back and we watched Moonstruck and said all the words and paused it during every contraction so that Jacqui wouldn’t miss anything.

“Visualize,” I urged each time her body spasmed and she ground the bones of my hands to smithereens. “The pain is your friend. It’s a great big golden ball of energy. Come on, Jacqui. Great big golden ball of energy. Say it with me.”

“‘Say it with me’? What are we, in Dora the Explorer?”

“Come on,” I urged, and we yelled it together. “Great big golden ball of energy. Great big golden ball of energy.”

After Moonstruck finished we watched Gone With the Wind, and when Melanie went into labor—that word again—Jacqui asked, “Why do people always boil water and tear up sheets when they’re birthing babies?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to take their mind off things, before they had DVDs. We could try it ourselves if you liked? No? Okay. Oh God, here we go again. Great big golden ball of energy! Great big golden ball of energy!”

By 1 A.M., the contractions were seven minutes apart.

“I’m getting in the bath,” Jacqui said. “It might help with the pain.”

I sat in the bathroom with her and put on some relaxing music.

“Turn off that whale racket,” Jacqui said. “Sing us a song instead.”

“What kind of song?”

“About what a dickhead Joey is.”

I thought about it. “So long as you don’t mind that it doesn’t rhyme.”

“Not at all.”

“Joey, Joey is a knob,” I sang. “His face is narky and his boots are stupid. Like that, do you mean?”

“Lovely, yes. More.”

“When everyone else is ha-a-appy, Jo-oe-ey is na-a-arky. He wouldn’t kno-ow happiness, if it jumped up and bit him on the lad. Chorus, all together now. Joey, Joey is a knob.”

Jacqui joined in and we sang together. “His face is narky and his boots are stupid!”

“Joey doesn’t know how to smile, at the chance of happiness he will run a mile—that one even rhymed,” I said happily. “Okay, chorus. JOEY, JOEY IS A KNOB. HIS FACE IS NARKY AND HIS BOOTS ARE STUPID.”

We got a good forty-five minutes out of that: I’d sing a verse and Jacqui would join in with the chorus. Then Jacqui made up some verses of her own. It was tremendous fun, marred only by Jacqui’s contractions, which were still seven minutes apart. Would we ever reach the magic figure of five minutes?

“I think you need to do some walking,” I said. “Spinner of Shite said we should use gravity. It might speed things up.”

“You mean go outside? Okay, let me just do my face. Neaggg!” She raised a palm and cut off my objections.

“But…”

“Hurpp! Nee-eddge! I refuse to compromise on standards just because I’m having a baby. Start as you mean to go on.”

The dark streets were quiet. With our arms linked, we walked. “Tell me things,” Jacqui said. “Tell me lovely things.”

“Like what?”

“Tell me about when you fell in love with Aidan.”

Instantly I was pierced by feelings, so mixed up I couldn’t put names on them. Sadness was there and maybe some bitterness, although not as much as there used to be. And there was something else, something nicer.

“Please,” Jacqui said. “I’m in labor and I’ve no boyfriend.”

Reluctantly, I said, “Okay. In the beginning I used to say it out loud. I used to say, ‘I love Aidan Maddox and Aidan Maddox loves me.’ I had to hear myself say it because it was so fabulous that I couldn’t believe it.”

“How many times a day did he tell you he loved you?”

“Sixty.”

“No, seriously.”

“Yes, seriously. Sixty.”

“How did you know? Did you keep count?”

“No, but he did. He said he couldn’t sleep easy until I’d been told sixty times.”

“Why sixty?”

“Any more and he said I’d get bigheaded.”

“Wow. Hold on.” She grabbed tight on to some railings and moaned and gasped her way through another contraction. Then she straightened up and said, “Tell me five lovely things about him.