The woman groaned again, and started rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. “Too soon—it’s too soon,” she panted.
I’m not actually sure what I said at that moment, to tell you the truth. All I can remember is seeing a wash of blood on the floor and then pretty much a black wall of panic closed in. The next thing I knew a young man in chef’s whites was on his knees beside us.
“Cara,” he said imploringly to the woman. “Are ye all’ righ’? Is the baby comin’?”
“Uh—yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening here,” I said. “But it seems so fast—aren’t these things supposed to take forever?”
I revised my estimate of the man—he was more like a boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, max.
He looked at me as though he’d not noticed me before. I could see panic in his eyes that I was sure was reflected in my own. “Ah’ve no fookin’ idea,” he gasped. “She’s the only one on until seven. What do I do?”
My arm had already gone to sleep—there was no way this woman was going to let go of me any time soon. “Get help,” I said. “Call 911!”
He looked at me like I was crazy, and then a light dawned in his eyes. “It’s 999. I can do that!” He jumped to his feet. “And I’ll run to Jacquie’s,” he said. “She’s just across the street. She’ll know what to tell them.”
“Wait! Have you got a towel or a blanket or anything I can put down—just in case?”
He nodded and dashed into the back, returning seconds later with a giant stack of dishtowels. “We havenae anythin’ bigger,” he said. “Righ’. Back in a tick.”
He put his hand on the doorknob and the woman—Cara—groaned. “Get me some help, Ash,” she said, through gritted teeth. “Ah cain’t bloody do this alone.”
Ash was yelling into his cell phone on his way out the door, so, “I’m here,” I said, as soothingly as I could, all the while wishing to hell I wasn’t.
But Cara’s one spell of lucidity had passed. She began panting in a way that I didn’t like at all. It reminded me of the birth scenes I’d seen on television. Without the tidiness. And the doctors.
My hand had gone a grayish shade, all feeling lost.
“Cara,” I said. “Just hold on. Someone is going to be here any minute. It’s going to be all …”
Her face snapped up to look at me, and I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. Her mouth opened so wide I could see she had three silver fillings on one side—but not a sound came out.
We stared at each other for a single long moment. Her eyes slowly closed, and she let out a perfectly gentle, relieved sigh.
And behind her on the stack of dishtowels, was a baby, with a tangle of fabric around one leg.
“God in heaven, that were fookin’ brutal,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “And she’s ruined ma’ knickers, ta boot.”
The door behind me blew open, hit me in the ass and a mob scene took over.
After that, in spite of the mob, things unfolded in a much more comfortable fashion. Someone got me a chair, and pushed a cup of tea into my hand. A pair of ambulance attendants neatly scooped Cara and her lustily crying baby onto a gurney and rolled her out the door. Even the pile of dishtowels vanished, somehow.
The kid in the kitchen whites arrived, grinning, at my elbow, and poured a generous tot of whisky into my tea. We toasted each other silently, and he took a long slug from the bottle.
“An interesting day,” he said.
I nodded and sipped.
“You a tourist?”
I nodded again, and sipped some more. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” I clarified.
He pointed at the ground. “Here? Or Scotland?”
I shrugged. “Here. I need to head south to find a job, to earn money for my ticket home.”
He was silent a moment, as the ambulance, siren on, drove away. A collection of chattering people stood around outside the cafe, laughing and smoking and waving their arms in the air.
“Well, if ye’re not set on headin’ south, it looks like we need a new waitress. And yeh seem pretty good at thinkin’ on yer feet. Want the job?”
I looked at him and blinked. It seemed my time in the Highlands might not yet be at an end, after all.
Flabbergasting Fate…
Noon, May 15
Nairn, Scotland
In a flabbergasting twist of fate, I’m actually working now, and at a job I like. I still haven’t got a computer of my own, which makes regular posting pretty tough.
On every other front, though, life is good. The people of this little town have taken me in and made me feel like I belong. I’ve found a job in a cafe, and I even helped a baby come into the world——which I would blog about in more detail if the experience hadn’t been so disgusting. Let me just say, when I met the baby again after she was all cleaned off and dressed, she was a beautiful, perfect little human being. I’m meeting all kinds of other amazing humans here, too. No sign of my Fraser, yet, but I still hold out hope!