Xavier felt himself being shook awake.
“Go away,” he mumbled sleepily.
“Xavier? Xavier, please wake up.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Xavier! Please!”
Electra would have taken the moment to shake him harder, but she had another contraction.
“Can you turn the TV down please?”
“That is not the TV. It was your wife, who is currently going into freaking labour!” Electra hissed.
Xavier blinked. He hand failed over to the lamp at the side of the bed and switched it on. He rolled around so that he was facing Electra.
“Now let me get this straight,” he said, definitely still half asleep. “You wake me up in the dead of night to tell me that you’re going into labour?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, there’s not like anything I can do about it.”
“You can get me to the hospital.”
“Oh yeah.”
Fortunately Xavier didn’t end up driving himself. One of the kitchen staff of the hotel (it was about the time they began to prepare breakfast) offered to take them, and Electra gratefully accepted.
**********
“Hello?”
“Hi Mum, it’s me,” Xavier said, using an audio-only phone.
“Hi Me. How you doing?”
“Awesomely. Electra had the babies last night. Well, early this morning anyway.”
“Oh really? Congratulations!”
“Thanks. There are four boys and a girl and their names are Chaz Ivan, Carlos Juan, Xarles Ian, Kendrew Sean and Karli Jean.”
“All matching I see.”
“Of course. Ivan, Juan, Ian, Sean and Jean are all forms of ‘John’. Chaz, Carlos, Xarles and Kendrew all mean ‘manly’ and Karli means ‘womanly’.”
“So basically you name your kids all ‘Manly John’?”
“Umm, yep. Well, in Karli’s case it’s ‘Womanly John’.”
Babsie laughed.
“Well, y’know, why the heck not?” asked Xavier.
“Sure, sure. And what names are you going to call them by?”
“Ivan, Juan, Ian, Drew and Karli. We’re getting them tested to see if any of the boys are identical. I’ll let you know the result.”
“Great.”
“And I’d really like to talk some more, but I have some interviews and stuff to go to. So I have to get moving. I already missed one this morning because I was at the hospital – not that that was more important or anything of course, but y’know.”
“Yeah sure. I’ll tell everyone you said ‘hi’.”
“No, tell everyone I said ‘eating red elephants is bad for your health’.”
“I’ll be sure to pass on that piece of useless advice.”
“Good.”