Constance. Rosie Thomas
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‘Slip her inside your cardie and hold her against your skin. You know, for body warmth.’
Her husband cleared his throat and looked away, and Mike studied the royal photograph more intently.
‘Police ought to be here any minute now,’ the man muttered. He went to the window and looped back the curtain so he could see into the street. Before the woman came back with the hot-water bottle, the blue light of a police car was flashing beyond the privet hedge. They heard the shrilling of an ambulance bell and then the room filled up with men in glinting uniforms. One of them took the baby out of Kathy’s arms and there was nothing left for her to do but watch as they prepared to take the baby away.
‘Well done, love,’ the ambulance man said to her. ‘The nurses will give her a bottle and warm her up and she’ll be as right as rain.’
A few minutes later, the ambulance had driven the baby away.
Kathy sat on the sofa with her knees and her ankles pressed very close together. She was shivering a little. Mike sat beside her and held her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice him.
The woman told her, ‘She’ll be fine, dear. You heard what the ambulance men said.’
Kathy nodded and stared at the floor. The brown bag along with the yellow cardigan, the blanket, the damp towel and the single earring lay at the policeman’s feet. With a cup of tea balanced on the arm of his chair, he was waiting to take their statements. His partner sat opposite them and their two caps were placed side by side on the piano stool.
‘We were just walking home from the pictures,’ Mike said.
‘You were walking past and you heard a cry?’
‘We weren’t walking. We’d stopped.’
‘On the pavement?’
‘Well, no. We’d gone into next-door’s garden. Just for a minute. Didn’t seem as though there was anyone in.’
The policeman looked at him. ‘Let’s see. You’d slipped behind the hedge for a kiss and a cuddle?’
Kathy blushed crimson.
Mike said, ‘No. Um, yes…’
‘It’s all right, son. It’s not against the law, David, is it?’
‘Wasn’t in my day.’ The other constable winked.
‘Did you see anyone?’
Kathy and Mike shook their heads. The street had been deserted, they were both sure of that. It had been so quiet, it was as if they were the only two people in the world.
‘Then we heard this crying. I thought it was a cat.’
‘I didn’t,’ Kathy said. ‘I knew what it was straight off.’ She chewed at the corner of her thumbnail. ‘Will you find her mother?’
‘We’ll do our best to get her to come forward. She’ll be needing medical attention, for one thing. That baby’s no more than a few hours old. But she’ll be running the risk of prosecution if she does, and that could mean up to five years in prison, depending on the circumstances. So they don’t often change their minds, in my experience.’
‘They? Not often?’ Kathy repeated.
‘It’s not quite the first time I’ve seen an abandoned newborn, let’s say.’ He put his pen away and looked at his watch. ‘That’s it, then. Back to work, Dave. Thanks for the cuppa.’
When Kathy heard it was ten past eleven her hands flew up to her mouth.
‘Oh no. My dad’ll kill me,’ she gasped. ‘My mum will be all right about it, though, when I tell her what’s happened.’
‘I’ll be there. I’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble,’ Mike said. But as Kathy turned her head to him he saw that there was a different look in her eyes. Something had changed tonight; she had seen something to do with the baby that he didn’t quite understand.
In a small, clear voice she said to him, ‘I’ll be fine. You just go back to your place.’
The policemen gave them a lift home. Kathy’s house was nearer and Mike waited in the back of the patrol car as she walked up to her front door with one of the policemen at her shoulder. Even in the dim light of the porch Mike could see how angry her dad was when he opened the door, but the sight of the policeman changed that. After a few words Kathy’s dad put his arm round her and led her inside.
She didn’t look back, and the door closed behind her.
At the Royal London Hospital, a paediatrician and a nurse finished their examination of the baby. The doctor filled in a form and signed it, then looked up at the nurse.
‘We’ll be needing a name.’
The nurse glanced at the reports that had come in with the ambulance crew.
‘A young couple found her, in a bag under a hedge. In Constance Crescent. I think that’s pretty.’
‘You can’t call a baby Constance Crescent.’
‘Constance, I mean.’
The doctor scribbled it down. ‘And the surname?’
The nurse glanced at the paperwork again. ‘The name of the young girl is Kathleen Merriwether.’
‘Constance Merriwether? That’s a bit of a mouthful.’ But he had already written it in the vacant space on the form.
‘If the mother doesn’t come forward in the next twenty-four hours, it’ll be a “Baby Constance” picture and story for the local rag,’ the nurse said.
The doctor sighed and took off his glasses.
Fed and washed, and dressed in clean clothes, the baby slept in her hospital crib.
Nights on the island were rarely silent.
The guttural scraping and grunting and booming that was the frog chorus could rise into a din sufficient to drown out all the other wildlife before fading away into a single disconsolate bleat. The many dogs who ranged the village streets barked incessantly, and in the small hours the roosters started up a brassy call and answer that lasted well into daylight. But towards dawn the world suddenly fell silent.
On this day the sky lightened from pitch black to a vast grey touched at the eastern rim with green, against which the coconut palms on the crown of the ridge stood out like paper silhouettes. In the waiting hush the light strengthened and the horizon flushed with pink and orange.
In a beautiful place, another lovely day was breaking.
Wayan Tupereme yawned at the door of his house and then shoved his feet into the brown plastic sandals that he had left neatly paired on the step. He made a brief circuit of his garden, nipping off a flower here and there and cupping the blooms in his left hand. By the time he was back at his door again, it was daylight. A little later he trod quietly down the dusty path beside the swathe of leathery leaves and twined stems that separated his garden from the Englishwoman’s, and strolled up to the next-door house. Even though the sun was rising there was no visible sign of life. He stooped to place something on the lower step of the deep veranda that ran all the way round the little single-storey house. It was a tiny basket woven from palm fronds and containing some squares of coarse leaf on which were laid an orange flower like a miniature sun, a scatter of scarlet petals, and a few grains of rice. Wayan touched his hands to his forehead, then stood up straight again and made his way back to his own house. He was getting old, and he walked slowly.
Ten minutes later, Connie’s alarm clock went off. She wasn’t used to waking to its shrill beep, and her arm thrashed as she tried to find the button to silence it.