The crowd cheered, clearly into the biblical turn proceedings had taken.
‘Oh yeah, for God’s sake get the tarpaulin, protect this divine carpet,’ Ali managed to scoff right before another wall of pain hit her. ‘I have to puuuuuush.’ She gave Sean Óg a pleading look.
‘Yeah, we’ll get you set, on all fours, good girl.’ He patted her flank, then Ali saw him grab two ropes he had slung over his shoulder.
‘What are they?’ Blake had returned, camera out and capturing everything. Ali, meanwhile, was shoving her knickers off, relieved they were black. Small mercies.
‘What? My calving ropes?’ He held them up for inspection. A red rope and a blue rope with adjustable loops on the end. ‘They’re for pulling the calf out, by its legs, like.’
Ali couldn’t even summon words by this point, so she reached up and grabbed one of Blake’s arms and one of Sean Óg’s and bore down as hard as she could. The contractions now seemed to be working with her. Building and receding like waves, each one crashed with the force she needed to push.
Suddenly she felt an unmistakable release and peered down past the bump and between her legs.
‘Its head,’ she screamed. ‘Whaaaaa! It’s turning. What the—? It’s looking at me!’
Sean Óg started to rush to the back of her but Ali instinctively reached down, just as another contraction helped ease the rest of the baby out into her arms.
‘Oh my God, wild. Ali, that was WILD.’ Blake turned the camera to himself. ‘What I’ve just experienced’ – he was breathless – ‘that was the most EXTRA thing I’ve ever seen.’
Ali had no idea what she was doing but she put the baby, who was turning from purple to livid red just like in One Born Every Minute, against her chest and wrapped them together in her hoody. Euphoric, she could barely grasp what had just happened. She felt as if she was off her face as she instructed Sean Óg to tie off the cord and cut it once it went white, with Blake filming and providing commentary all the way along.
‘It looks like a unicorn’s mickey.’ Blake peered over Sean Óg’s shoulder as he hacked at the umbilical cord with a Stanley knife.
Ali laughed dreamily. ‘Just keep my nips out of shot, please.’
‘Seriously.’ Blake was blinking away tears of emotion. ‘We could make a mint on this as a reality show, Ali!!! Three huns and a baby. This is a pilot no one could pass on. Sean Óg has real charisma and you’ve been doing very well of late,’ he told Ali generously.
Sean Óg took off his cap and leaned down to scoop up the placenta. ‘Is it a boy or is it a girl, then?’ he asked, cradling the afterbirth tenderly.
Ali peered down at the impossibly tiny baby flopped on her breast.
She had a cap of dark hair like Sam’s and she’d be called Millie for Miles, but Ali had brought her into the world with her own bare hands and she knew all they would ever need was each other.
Afterbirth
4 weeks later
The Big Short: How Bots and a group of digital anarchists calling themselves The EYES have caused chaos in the Influencer Economy
Shelly finally opened the article on the fifth or sixth time she was sent it. Amy had sent it, Hazel had sent it, Ali, Amanda. Even her dad had sent it from the other side of the bench they were both sitting on waiting for Shelly’s name to be called.
‘What do you think of that hacker crowd, then?’ Jim shook his head while Shelly scrolled and Dash, her rosy new baby, sucked on the bottle she was managing to administer one-handed. It was Dan’s first Friday taking Georgie to the apartment he was renting in Grand Canal, just south of the city centre, and they had both agreed it would be best for Georgie to go on her own for her first stay at Daddy’s new home. Dash would go soon too but it was most important for Georgie to settle into the new arrangement before adding a baby to the mix.
The story had broken the previous week and Shelly had done her level best to avoid it. Instagram was reeling in the wake of an elaborate hack that had been years in the making. In a complex cyber heist, a small group of digital anarchists who go by the name of The EYES had infiltrated the company’s systems and populated the app with bots. The fallout would be catastrophic to SHELLY. Amy predicted brands would be scrapping their influencer budgets and not renewing contracts as the picture came further into focus.
‘A depressing end to a strange chapter in human evolution,’ the article continued. ‘Like Narcissus himself, we became enthralled by our own reflections, the influencers playing to an audience that potentially wasn’t really there.’
Shelly glanced up to check that Dash was still sucking contentedly. Jim would take him when Shelly was called. Her dad was a real baby guy and it was lovely seeing him spend so much time with Dash.
‘Users and brands alike have professed to feeling betrayed by the revelations. “I was broadcasting intimate moments 24/7 – was anyone even watching?” one influencer, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Guardian.
‘Influencers and indeed the ordinary users are likely to struggle to find meaning, at least during this adjustment period,’ advised psychologist Dr Meghan Bryce. ‘Many have been essentially performing their lives for years and now, there is a danger of them becoming depressed or disillusioned.’
Shelly X’d out of the article to a voicenote from Hazel. She pressed Play and put the phone to her ear, careful not to disturb Dash.
‘Shelly. How are you? It was lovely catching up last week. How’s little Dash getting on? I’m just messaging to wish you luck with Polly’s hearing. You know I’d be there with you, but the hacks would absolutely savage me. Also, some of the legal aspects of the W Y N D fiasco are unfortunately still far from resolved – motherfucking Consumer Rights people will dine out on this for ever, never mind all the civil suits. Anyway, good luck today. I know it’s all been a bit mad with the Insta revelations but I’m proposing a little Insta-mum morning next weekend. For mums recovering from this Insta trauma. I think we need to all pull together. Eleven a.m. on Saturday, kiddies welcome. Maybe we can get them to show us how to monetise TikTok.’ She laughed as the voicenote ended.
Shelly contemplated this oddly muted new Hazel. She sounded cowed by the events of the previous month. She’d been pilloried for the W Y N D debacle. Ezra had embezzled a frankly terrifying sum of money from her. He had funnelled every single ticket sale and brand endorsement fee into his own account and fled. Tens of thousands Hazel thought she’d been paying to contractors to create the festival were now bankrolling his exile. He had come so highly recommended, had shown her pictures updating her on how the build was coming and she’d never thought to question it or go and see for herself. Now her only source of income appeared to be completely collapsing. The only upside in all the mayhem for Hazel was that she’d managed to dodge being exposed by Jenny’s Under the Influence podcast. Jenny had been heavily criticised for her coverage of Polly’s breakdown and Under the Influence had disappeared from iTunes and Spotify. It was a small mercy but one Hazel was nonetheless grateful for. ‘I couldn’t take another scandal at this point,’ she’d confided over coffee the week before. ‘Not with my whole business imploding.’