Bay of the Dead - By Mark Morris Page 0,16

time.

They had been up watching a Tom Cruise movie, and now Sarah had hauled her bulk upstairs and was getting ready for bed. Trys still found it hard to get his head round the fact that in a matter of days they'd have a new addition to their household, a tiny human being who would be linked to them for the rest of their lives.

How many more nights would they spend in this house as a 'couple', Trys wondered. How much longer until they officially became a 'family'? And until he officially became a 'dad'?

Sometimes the thought frightened him. Sometimes he'd lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, with Sarah moving restlessly beside him, and he'd feel utterly overwhelmed. He'd feel too young to be a dad, not much more than a kid himself. How would he cope? What would he do? At those times he would get an overwhelming sense both of life rushing onwards, and of a door – the door leading back to his own youth and freedom – slamming firmly shut behind him.

But then in the morning, in the daylight, he would look at his beautiful pregnant wife, at the woman he loved, who had their baby growing inside her, and he would feel that surge of joy all over again, that sense of wonder and excitement.

The kettle and the milk boiled at the same time. Trys tipped the steaming milk into Sarah's favourite mug and added two big spoonfuls of instant hot chocolate. He was stirring it in when he heard his wife call his name. No, not call – shout. It was only one syllable, but Trys heard the urgency in it, the trace of panic.

He threw the spoon into the sink, and was out of the kitchen before it had even stopped clattering. Their house was small, two up, two down, with a narrow hallway. He bounded up the stairs two, three at a time, and burst into the bedroom, panting.

'What's up?'

Sarah was sitting on the edge of the bed with her nightie on and a look of alarm on her face. She was not conventionally attractive – her nose was a little too big, her eyes slightly too deep-set – but to Trys she was fascinating and unusual, and therefore twice as gorgeous as all those boringly pretty girls with their dyed hair and regular features.

'My waters have broken,' she said. 'It's starting, Trys.'

He noticed that the bed was wet, that there was a puddle on the carpet between her bare feet. 'Oh hell.'

'Phone Rianne,' instructed Sarah. 'Tell her we'll meet her at the hospital. My bag's in the hall. I just need you to help me get changed and get downstairs.'

'Course,' Trys said. He raised his hands, as if indicating she should stay put. 'Back in a minute.'

He ran downstairs, snatched up the telephone and punched in the mobile number of their midwife, Rianne Kilkenny, reading it from the post-it note that had been stuck to the wall for the past two weeks.

His mind was racing, thoughts tumbling over one another. Now that it had actually started, he couldn't quite believe it was happening. He thought of the abandoned mugs in the kitchen, one containing hot chocolate, the other a smooth paste of Horlicks powder and milk, and he thought to himself, Next time I see those mugs, I'll be a dad. It was amazing, incredible. He started to grin. He was still grinning when Rianne's gentle Irish voice said, 'Hello?'

***

Rianne switched her phone off and sighed – not that she really minded having to wait for the Thomases. It was simply that it had already been a very long day. One of her other 'ladies' (she preferred calling them that to 'patients' – it wasn't as if they were ill, after all) had just successfully given birth to a baby girl after a twenty-two-hour labour, and Rianne had been looking forward to going home and getting her head down for a while.

But that was part of her job. An occupational hazard. She could never predict exactly when her ladies' little darlings would choose to make their way into the world. Rianne might have two ladies whose dates were a month apart, but if one went into labour two weeks late and the other two weeks early, she might suddenly find she had twice the workload she was expecting – but also twice the joy and satisfaction as well.

She had been in Reception, heading towards the automatic glass doors that formed