The Girl Before

Why would I want to? It’s you who’ll get tired of me.

I’ll never get tired of you, Emma, he says seriously. In you I think I’ve finally found the perfect woman.

But why? I ask.

I don’t really get it. I thought we were just having an unencumbered affair or whatever he called it.

Because you never ask questions, he says reasonably. He turns back to the fish. Pass me those knives, will you?

Edward!

He pretends to sigh. Oh, all right. Because there’s something about you, something vibrant and alive, that makes me feel alive as well. Because you’re impulsive and extroverted and all the things I’m not. Because you’re different from all the other women I’ve ever known. Because you’ve rekindled my desire to live. Because you’re all I need. Is that enough explanation for you?

It’ll do for now, I say, unable to keep the smile off my face.

7. Your friend shows you a piece of work she’s done. She’s clearly proud of it, but it isn’t very good. Do you:

? Give her an honest, dispassionate critique ? Suggest one small improvement to see if she welcomes it ? Change the subject ? Make vague, encouraging noises ? Tell her she’s done really well

NOW: JANE

“I have a feeling that what you really want is an apology,” the hospital’s mediator says. She’s a middle-aged woman with a gray woolen cardigan and a careful, sympathetic manner. “Is that correct, Jane? Would an acknowledgment by management of everything you’ve been through help you achieve some closure for your loss?”

On the other side of the table sits a haggard-looking Dr. Gifford, flanked by a hospital administrator and a solicitor. The mediator, Linda, sits at the end, as if to emphasize her neutrality. Tessa is next to me.

Dimly I manage to grasp that within the space of a single sentence Linda has already downgraded the offered apology into an acknowledgment of my suffering. A bit like one of those sly politician’s apologies, when they say they’re sorry if other people are upset.

Tessa puts a warning hand on my arm to indicate that she’ll take this one. “An admission,” she says, emphasizing the word fractionally, “by the hospital that avoidable errors were indeed made, and that these contributed to Isabel’s death, would of course be welcome. As a first step.”

Linda sighs, though whether out of professional empathy or because she’s realized she has a tricky one on her hands here isn’t clear. “The hospital’s position—correct me if I’m wrong, Derek—is that they would much prefer precious public funds to be spent on treating patients, rather than on litigation and lawyers’ fees.” She turns to the administrator, who nods obligingly.

“Well, quite,” Tessa says reasonably. “But if you’d ordered Doppler scans for every expectant mother in the first place, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. Instead, someone looked at the figures and calculated that it would be cheaper to pay lawyers’ fees and compensation in the small but statistically significant number of cases where it would have made a difference. And until organizations like Still Hope succeed in making that callous, inhumane approach so expensive, and so time-consuming, that the numbers no longer add up, the situation will continue.”

Round one to Tessa, I think.

Derek the administrator speaks. “If we have to suspend Mr. Gifford, which we’ll be forced to do if this becomes a formal SUI, his job will be covered by a temporary substitute and more patients will be denied the care of an experienced and respected specialist.”

SUI. That’s a Serious Untoward Incident. Slowly and painfully, I’m becoming familiar with the jargon. Intermittent auscultation. CTG monitoring. Partograms. The difference between staffing ratios at the birthing center, where I was, and the labor ward proper, where I should have been.

This meeting was called by the hospital, almost as soon as Tessa made a formal request for my medical records. Clearly they’d been waiting to see if their bland, reassuring letter worked. That in itself—the realization they’d attempted to brush me off, and that if it hadn’t been for Tessa they’d have succeeded—makes me almost as furious as the waste of Isabel’s life.

“The thing is,” Tessa had explained to me on our way to the meeting, “if it did come to compensation, this could be an expensive case for them.”

“Why?” I know how much payouts for babies who shouldn’t have died are—almost laughably tiny.

“The actual compensation might not be much, but then there’s loss of earnings. You had a well-paid job. If Isabel hadn’t died, you’d have taken your maternity leave and gone back to it, yes?”

“I suppose so. But…”

“And now you’re working for a stillbirth charity for minimum wage. If we add in the salary you’ve given up, that’s a hefty sum.”

“But that was my choice.”