The Little House. Philippa Gregory
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He was sitting on a chair outside the operating theatre, very much alone, looking awkward with his jumper askew over his shirt collar. He looked very young.
‘No news yet?’ she asked.
‘They’re operating,’ he said. ‘It’s taking longer than they said it would. But a nurse came out just now and said it was quite routine. She said there was nothing to worry about.’
‘I brought you some coffee,’ she said. ‘And a sandwich.’
‘I couldn’t eat a thing,’ he said fretfully. ‘I keep thinking about her…I didn’t even kiss her goodnight, she was asleep by the time I got to bed last night, and I didn’t kiss her before she went in.’
Elizabeth nodded and poured him a cup of coffee and added plenty of brown sugar. He took the cup and wrapped his hands around it.
‘I didn’t go to her classes either,’ he said. ‘Or read her book.’
‘Well, they didn’t do much good,’ Elizabeth said. ‘As things have turned out.’
He brightened at that. ‘No,’ he said. ‘All those breathing exercises and in the end it’s full anaesthetic.’
Elizabeth nodded and offered him a sandwich. He bit into it, and she watched the colour come back into his cheeks.
‘I suppose she’ll be all right?’ he said. ‘They said it was quite routine.’
‘Of course she will be,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Some women choose to have a Caesarean birth. It’s much easier for the baby, and no pain at all for the mother. She’ll be fine.’
Patrick finished his cup of coffee and handed it back to his mother just as the theatre doors opened. A nurse in a green gown, wearing a ballooning paper hat over her hair and a white paper mask over her nose and mouth, came through the door with a small bundle in a blanket.
‘Mr Cleary?’ she asked.
Patrick got to his feet. ‘Yes?’
‘This is your son,’ she said. ‘And your wife is fine.’
She held the baby out to him and Patrick rubbed his hands on his trousers and reached out. He was awkward with the baby; she had to close his hands around the little bundle. ‘Hold him close,’ she urged. ‘He won’t bite!’
Patrick found himself looking into the tiny puckered face of his sleeping son. His mouth was pursed in mild surprise, his eyelids traced with blue. He had a tiny wisp of dark hair on the top of his head and tiny hands clenched into tiny bony fists.
‘Is he all right?’ Patrick asked. ‘Quite all right?’
‘He’s perfect,’ she assured him. ‘Seven pounds three ounces. They’re just stitching your wife up now and then you can see her in Recovery.’
Elizabeth was at Patrick’s shoulder looking into the baby’s face. ‘He’s the very image of you,’ she said tenderly. ‘Oh, what a poppet.’
The baby stirred and Patrick nervously tightened his grip.
‘May I?’ Elizabeth asked. Gently she took the baby and settled him against her shoulder. The damp little head nodded against her firm touch.
‘Shall I take you in to see your wife?’ the nurse asked. ‘She’ll be coming round in a little while.’
‘You go, Patrick,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I’ll look after Cleary Junior here.’
Patrick smiled weakly at her and followed the nurse. He still could not take in the fact that his baby had been born. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right.’
Elizabeth had already turned away. She was walking slowly down the length of the corridor, swaying her hips slightly as she walked, rocking the baby with the steady, easy rhythm of her pace. ‘And what shall we call you?’ she asked the little sleeping head. She put her lips to his ear. It was perfectly formed, like a whorled shell, surprisingly cool. Elizabeth inhaled the addictive scent of newborn baby. ‘Little love,’ she whispered. ‘My little love.’
It was nearly midday before Ruth woke from her sleep and nearly two o’clock before the baby was brought to her. He was no longer the scented damp bundle that Elizabeth had walked in the corridor. He was washed and dried and powdered and dressed in his little cotton sleep suit. He was not like a newborn baby at all.
‘Here he is,’ the nurse said, wheeling him into the private room in the little Perspex cot.
Ruth looked at him doubtfully. There was no reason to believe that he was her baby at all; there was nothing to connect him and her except the paper bracelet around his left wrist, which said, ‘Cleary 14.8.95.’ ‘Is it mine?’ she asked baldly.
The nurse smiled. ‘Of course it’s yours,’ she said. ‘We don’t get them mixed up. He’s lovely, don’t you think?’
Ruth nodded. Tears suddenly coming into her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said weakly. She supposed the baby was lovely. But he looked very remote and very isolated in his little plastic box. He looked to her as if he had been assembled in the little box like a puzzle toy, as if he were the property of the hospital and not her baby at all.
‘Now what’s the matter?’ the nurse asked.
‘I bought that suit for him,’ Ruth said tearfully. ‘I bought it.’
‘I know you did, dear. We found it in your case and we put it on him as soon as he had his bath. Just as you would have wanted it done.’
Ruth nodded. It was pointless to explain the sense of strangeness and alienation. But she felt as if the little suit had been bought for another baby, not this one. The little suit had been bought for the baby that she had felt inside her, that had walked with her, and slept with her, and been with her for nine long months. It was for the imaginary baby, who had an imaginary birth, where Ruth had breathed away all the pains, where Patrick had massaged her back and held her hand and talked to her engagingly and charmingly through the hours of her labour, and where, after he had been triumphantly born, everyone had praised her for doing so well.
‘You want to breast-feed him, don’t you?’
Ruth looked at the sleeping baby without much enthusiasm. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, I’ll leave him here with you, and when he wakes up you can ring your bell and I’ll come and help you get comfy. After a Caesarean you need a bit of help.’
‘All right,’ Ruth said.
The nurse gave her a kind smile and left the room. Ruth lay back and looked at the ceiling. Unstoppably the tears filled her eyes and ran out under her eyelids, hot and salty. Beside her, in his goldfish-bowl cot the baby slept.
In half an hour the nurse came back. She had hoped that Ruth would have broken the hospital rules and put the baby in bed beside her, but they were as far apart as ever.
‘Now,’ she said brightly. ‘Let’s wake this young man up and give him a feed.’
He was not ready to wake. His delicate eyelids remained stubbornly closed. He did not turn his head to Ruth even when she undid the buttons of her nightgown and pressed her nipple to his cheek.
‘He’s sleepy,’ the nurse said. ‘He must have got some of your anaesthetic. We’ll give him a little tickle. Wake him up a bit.’
She slipped his little feet out of the sleep suit and tickled his toes. The baby hardly stirred.
‘Come along now, come along,’ the nurse said encouragingly.
She took him from Ruth and gave him a little gentle jiggle. The baby opened his eyes – they were very dark blue – and then opened his mouth in a wail of protest.
‘That’s better,’ she said. Quickly and efficiently she swooped down on Ruth, propped the little head on Ruth’s arm, patted his cheek, turned