The Optician's Wife by Betsy Reavley Page B

I set to work preparing a fish pie. Although the smell made me gag I was determined to push on. I pulled the skin off the smoked haddock fillets and felt the flesh for any bones. On the hob next to me a pan of potatoes boiled furiously.
    I cut the cod and haddock into chunks, put them in the pie dish and sprinkled a few frozen prawns over them before adding a white sauce I’d made. By the time I’d made mash and spread it on top it was seven o’clock. The sun was descending in the sky and I looked out of our kitchen window at the peach, pink and lilac streaks in the sky. A birds flew by in silhouette, making their way home to roost.
    As the smell of fish pie filled our small kitchen, I checked the clock on the wall. It was nearly half past. Larry should have been home by then. Wanting to escape the nauseating smell I stepped out into our garden to soak up the last minutes of warmth before the large sun sank below the horizon.
    Sitting down on a rusty iron bench Larry and I had found in a junk shop, I wondered what had inspired me to speak to him like that. I deserved to be sat there alone. He was probably in the pub or wandering through the park, avoiding coming home to me. I was being punished.
     

November 23 rd 1984
     
     
    I had stopped working at Woolworths three weeks before. My tummy was huge and I felt like a whale. I was suffering from swollen ankles and fatigue and was grateful to have the time to rest. The baby was due in a few short weeks and I was enjoying the calm before the storm.
    It gave me the opportunity to put the finishing touches to the nursery. I did a lot of reading to pass the time. The anticipation was tinged with fear. Larry suggested we didn’t go to the ante-natal classes. Full of know-it-alls, he said. No doubt he was right but it would have been comforting to know what to expect from the labour. If my mum had been alive I would have asked her.
    Women have been doing it for thousands of years, how hard could it be? At least that is what I told myself.
    It was just after nine in the morning and I was mopping the kitchen floor when I felt the first twinge. I put the mop back into the bucket of dirty soapy water and rubbed the bottom of my back. Maybe mopping wasn’t such a good idea.
    I emptied the bucket down the drain outside the back door and returned to the living room to pick up my book, Barbara Cartland’s novel, Love on the Wind , a historical romance set in Victorian India. A girl tormented by her cruel uncle meets a mysterious man on a voyage to Calcutta. It was very romantic and encouraged me to daydream about far off lands. Places like India. Places I would never get to visit.
    I read fifty more pages before realising the throb in my stomach wasn’t going away. It was getting stronger. Putting my book back down on the coffee table I paced backwards and forwards to ease my discomfort. Waddling a bit like a penguin, I made my way up the stairs to the nursery to look at my hospital bag and double-check I had everything I needed.
    The baby wasn’t due for a few weeks but I knew I was in the early stages of labour. Standing in the yellow box room I stared down at the refurbished cot. Larry had done a wonderful job. He was so talented and clever. It looked new. That was the first time that it really dawned on me how much my life was going to change. The next time I stood in that room there would be a new life in the world. A life I was responsible for.
    Larry was twenty-four years old. I had only turned eighteen in October. Suddenly I felt very sick. I put it down to the labour and tried to ignore the claustrophobic fear that had its hands around my throat.
    Unable to face being in the same room as the cot I took myself downstairs and drank a large glass of cold water from the kitchen tap. Outside in the garden a blackbird hopped around on the cold ground looking for food. The frost had thawed leaving a thin wet layer over everything.
    Listening to the silence in the house unnerved