Man of the Month Club

by Jackie Clune

  “Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, please,” she ordered, setting the basket down on the seat next to her.

  “OK, love. How old?” asked the cabbie.

  “Sorry?”

  “How old is he?”

  “Oh, it’s a girl actually . . . erm, very small.”

  “Aah, congratulations love!”

  Amy did her best approximation of a proud new mum smile. Later, she’d wonder why she didn’t just tell the driver what had happened, tell him that the baby was not hers at all and that it had been left on the doorstep of her exclusive baby shop, probably by some desperate teenage mum who’d hidden her pregnancy from her family for nine months before giving birth in an alley and dumping the poor thing. If she were to examine her feelings honestly, she would have found that her reason was touchingly girlish; in a private, seedling part of herself, a part not yet exposed to the light of day, a part that would shrivel with shame if it were to be prematurely revealed, Amy felt foolishly happy to be, for eleven and a half minutes, the mother of the bundle beside her. It was like the time she was cast as the Virgin Mary in the school Nativity play, only better because this time she didn’t have to wear a blue pillowcase on her head, and this baby was real.

  . 11 .

  The hospital was too bright and far too loud after the womb-like darkness of the cab. It was fairly quiet still, caught in that liminal period between the day’s appointments and the late-night drunken fighters and junkies. A cleaner mopped a corridor halfheartedly, and the air was thick with thin bleach. It all seemed too calm a backdrop to her amazing drama. Amy stopped just inside the entrance to Accident and Emergency, not knowing where to go—antenatal reception? Emergency? Lost Property? She settled for Antenatal—she wasn’t pregnant, but they’d know what to do.

  The heavy door, however, was shut, the department having long dispatched with its duties toward its waddling clients. The wards, then. She headed for the first mother-and-baby ward, swimming against the tide of the end of visiting hours. An extremely tired-looking nurse sat alone at the nurses’ station.

  “I’m sorry, darling, visiting finished now,” she said without looking up from her book.

  “I’m not here to see anyone—is there a doctor around?” asked Amy, anxious not to have to tell her story more than once.

  “No darlin’, not ’til the night rounds, eleven o’clockish,” said the nurse. “But you can go to the emergency room if you need to see a doctor.”

  “No, I don’t, but this baby does.”

  “The doctors there will look after you, darlin’,” said the nurse, finishing the conversation.

  “Well I don’t know if it’s ill. . . .”

  The nurse looked up now, clearly wondering if she should direct the well-dressed lady in front of her to the psychiatric wing. It was no use—Amy would have to spill her story here first before talking to the authorities.

  “Sorry, I’m not making myself clear,” Amy began, knowing that her next sentence would set in motion a chain of events that would take the entire situation out of her hands.

  Back in the shop, she had wanted only that—for someone else to deal with it. But somewhere between Walton Street and Brompton Road, something inside her had altered, shifted slightly forever. Now her head suddenly flooded with the fantasy of fleeing, bundle and all. What if she were to turn now, thanking the nurse, and walk casually out of the hospital and into a cab? She could be home in forty minutes, fifty if she stopped to pick up baby formula and nappies, a sleepsuit from the all-night Tesco. Who would know? Surely it would be better for the baby to come back with her now than be left here in the impersonal world of Social Services, who’d wrap the baby in miles of red tape and petty bureaucracy? Even as these thoughts invaded, Amy knew she would never do such a thing. Like it or not, the baby must be deposited safely into the hands of the experts. It wasn’t like finding ten pounds or a nice handbag dumped in a bin. There was every chance the mother might come forward, regretting her decision. Amy took a deep breath.

  “At about half past seven this evening I found this baby on the doorstep of my shop in Walton Street.”

  The nurse blinked slowly, failing to adopt the amazed expression Amy had anticipated.

  Amy continued.

  “I don’t know who the mother is—but it looks OK. It was wrapped in a towel. I put it in this basket.”

  Amy raised the baby shoulder-high, as if trying to prove an unlikely story. The nurse eyed the beautifully woven basket suspiciously.

  “Where did you get the basket?”

  “From my shop. I make them. Well, I design them and have them made. It’s a baby shop.”

  The nurse kept one eye on Amy and came round to the front of the desk. She peered slowly into the bundle of cloth, as if expecting to find something else entirely—a brick, a pizza, a litter of puppies—and not wanting to look foolish. Her entire body changed when she spotted the little purple fist that shot out from under a fold.

  “Lord, preserve us!” she exclaimed, and let out a raucous laugh. “You say you found this baby? On the doorstep?”

  “Yes—it was just left there—sometime between six and half past seven. I left the shop at six, and when I came back it was just sitting there in a carrier bag.” Amy felt stupidly guilty, as if at any minute she’d have to confess it was her baby after all. Uniforms made her nervous—it was a Catholic thing.

  “Wait there—I’ll call a doctor.”

  What now? thought Amy as she stood waiting awkwardly. She’d have to tell the whole story again.

  Minutes passed. The baby began to stir. From somewhere behind a grubby curtain, a baby began to wail. Then another. That was the trouble with these open maternity wards—once one started, they all joined in. Amy’s bundle quickly realized it was among its compadres and struck up its own piercing scream. Amy knelt beside it, rocking the basket gently. No chance. The baby revved up a gear, opening its mouth with gusto and showing the gummy tooth buds beneath the skin as if to say, “You think that’s crying? I’ll show you crying!” She tried talking to it, hotly aware of her inadequate baby talk. “There, there, petal, don’t upset yourself . . . shh.”

  Still the baby wailed. There was nothing else for it; she’d have to pick it up.

  “Come on, you, let’s get you out of there so you stop making such a fuss,” she said, inexpertly shuffling baby and towel from hand to hand, trying to ditch the paper bag underneath.

  She raised the baby unsteadily to one shoulder as she’d seen Angela do a thousand times. The baby continued its howling. So small and yet so loud! Lowering it again, she cradled it in the nook of her arm and it stopped almost immediately, shocked by the new intimacy. Amy couldn’t help but smile as the baby instinctively rooted toward her breast, mouth open, fists punching the air.

  “You’ll get nothing from that, petal. Those are a suckle-free zone, I’m afraid.”

  The baby wriggled insistently for a few moments before seeming to give up the fight. Its eyelids drooped heavily. Amy found herself smiling down at the little face, every inch the adoring mother. The baby had completely relaxed. With a strange certainty, Amy knew this was the first proper cuddle this baby had ever had. She pulled her closer, feeling the importance of the moment.

  “Hello,” said a chocolate steel voice.

  Shaken from her special moment, Amy looked up. Standing before her was a man of about forty, wearing a white shirt and black trousers. His hair was wavy and peppered with gray, but she could tell he had once been very dark. If it weren’t for the stethoscope, she’d have sworn he was a leering Italian waiter about to offer her black pepper from an oversized grinder. He wore the instrument casually around his neck as they did in hospital dramas, which only added to the feeling that he was not quite real—an actor in a role, a doctor from central casting.

  “Hello,” said Amy, smiling gratefully. Real or not, he looked as though he’d know what to do.

  “I’m Joseph Nencini; I’m the duty doctor here this evening. T
he nurse said you found this baby?” he asked, sounding as if he expected a stupid misunderstanding, a withdrawal of an unlikely story.

  “Yes. Yes, it was just left there.”

  “Let’s have a look,” he said, taking Amy’s elbow gently and guiding her to a cubicle. He pulled the curtain while Amy set the baby down on the stripped bed. She was appalled by how acutely aware she was of the proximity of the handsome doctor—at a time like this.

  Joe quickly unwrapped the bundle. A greeny-yellow mess had spread across the otherwise clean towel. The smell quickly filled the cubicle.

  “Yep. That’s a baby all right,” he said, taking his stethoscope from his neck and beginning to examine her.

  “It’s tiny—it must be hours old.”

  “No, it’s about a week old, I’d say. See that black stump there on the belly button? It’s about to drop off.”

  “Oh,” said Amy, not really understanding at all. “Is that normal?”

  “That happens after about a week.”

  A week. Was it born last Friday? Amy’s birthday. For some reason, Amy found herself really hoping so.

  She sat in the plastic chair while Joe carried out his basic tests. She watched as his large hands worked on the small child, checking the pulse, the reflexes, the eyes and ears. Capable hands. Goalie’s hands. She noted with a small sense of deflation the simple gold band on his wedding finger. Damn. Still, how could she expect a good-looking professional like him to be on the market? Things like that only ever happened in the movies. The baby responded to his sure touch with a yielding floppiness. Given the circumstances, Amy felt sure she would have done the same.

  “Right, let’s get you a nappy and something to wear, and let’s see if we can rustle up a bottle. God knows when you last had a feed,” said the good doctor, whipping the curtain back and looking around for a nurse.

  “No note attached to the cot?”

  “Well, no, she was actually in this bag. . . .” said Amy, holding up the Precious Little Darlings carrier.

  “Precious Little Darlings? Well, let’s call you Precious, shall we?” said Joe, stroking the baby’s head and placing a gentle kiss on her limp hand. Were they meant to do things like that? Whether or not it was strictly speaking professional, Amy warmed to the sight. Up until now, he had been pure business. But who could fail to be moved by the plight of an abandoned baby in a big paper bag? Didn’t she deserve a little unconditional affection?

  “Hold her, would you, while I try to find someone, Miss . . .”

  “Amy. Amy Stokes,” she said, accepting Precious back into her arms. Joe passed her the baby so quickly and expertly that Amy had to raise her game immediately. She was getting the hang of it, and this time did not let the baby’s head droop.

  She stood waiting. No doubt the questions would start again, the police would arrive, then social workers. This was probably her last moment with the baby. She pushed away the soppiness of the thought and marveled at how people could be so detached as to dump a child on a doorstep in the dark. It seemed so fundamentally unfair that couples like Soph and Greg and women like Mrs. Cummings should have to suffer the ordeal of fertility treatments, the endless disappointment and the needlessly empty crib, when babies the world over were being discarded like fast-food wrappers on streets, in toilets, and in public phone boxes.

  The swinging doors flew open and Joe marched back down the corridor, followed by two young nurses.

  “Amy, this is Kath and this is Sylvie—they’ll take care of Precious now. If you’d like to come with me, I’ve called the police and I’m sure they’d like to have a chat with you, just to get the facts right. Coffee?”

  And in an instant, Precious was being whisked away by the cooing nurses, who were obviously honored to be entrusted with such leading roles in the drama.

  The café was long shut, so Joe fiddled around for change at the dated seventies vending machine. An apologetic approximation of cappuccino half-filled two cups, and they sat on a bench to wait. Porters and medics bustled up and down the corridor, laughing and joking.

  “This is so . . . surreal,” said Amy, flinching at the inadequacy of the word.

  “Yes. It’s not the first time, I’m afraid. A baby gets abandoned like that every day somewhere in the world. Every few hours, actually. We’ve had quite a few here in the last decade or so. Have to say it’s a first for me, but it happens all the time,” said Joe, stretching his legs out in front of him. Amy envied his ease in the environment.

  “So . . . what happens now?” asked Amy, aware that she felt nervous of the response. Having been involved this far, she couldn’t accept that the baby’s fate was totally out of her hands.

  “Well, she seems OK; she might be a bit dehydrated, but we’ll soon sort that out. They’re quite hardy little things, really. The police and social workers will be here soon. We might have to keep her here for a couple of days, just to keep an eye on her, then she’ll be placed in emergency foster care pending inquiries.”

  “Inquiries?”

  “Yes, I’m not quite sure of the exact statistics, but nearly all of the mothers come forward or are found sooner or later. Then they’ll be assessed and everyone will decide what to do for the best. Chances are, Precious will be reunited with her mother, with heavy social worker presence, of course.”

  “Oh,” said Amy, bleakly, feeling inexplicably disappointed.

  Joe raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “And what happens now?” he countered. The question hung in the air for a few seconds as Amy tried to work out its precise meaning. What happens now? Was he asking about what she would do when she left the hospital? Or was he trying to counsel her? Did she look upset? Did he doubt her story? Amy decided to square up to the question. She looked up from her cup and realized with a start that he was flirting with her. His eyes twinkled and one corner of his mouth was doing its best to hold back an amused smile. Typical Italian, married and using a time like this to try to make another conquest.

  “Well, I’ll get a taxi home and open a bottle of wine, I suppose,” she said, trying to keep her voice as light as possible. She felt the sting of loneliness in the image nonetheless.

  “Sounds nice,” said Joe, stretching again. “Anyone at home waiting?” he threw in, all casual indifference. That old chestnut.

  “Actually, no, I live on my own—I prefer it that way. I’ve got a lot of shoes,” said Amy, rather more hotly than she had intended.

  “I’m not prying, it’s just that you’ve had a shock and you might need to talk to someone about it, that’s all,” said Joe levelly.

  Damn these nice doctors with their caring manner, thought Amy, irritated at herself for assuming his personal interest. No doubt he’d be finishing his shift, going home, and falling into bed with his beautiful and effortlessly sexy wife, who would wake and snuggle up to him while he poured out the stories of the day before making textbook good love to her.

  “Oh, I’ll be all right.”

  “Tough chick, eh?” twinkled Joe. She felt as though he were ruffling her hair playfully.

  Men always said this kind of thing to her, and it always felt more like a rebuke than a compliment. It was as if they resented her lack of need of them. They liked her well enough, but they had to diffuse her in some way—mostly by treating her as a tomboy niece. It was the most infuriating sort of exchange she ever had with men, and it was always the really attractive, capable men who reacted to her in this way.

  “Oh, and they might want your picture for the local paper. Are you a local?”

  “No, but I work locally. It’s my shop. Precious Little Darlings.”

  “The baby place on Walton Street? You work there?”

  “I own it.”

  “Wow. That’s a very exclusive shop. You must be worth a few quid then,” said Joe without any of the thinly veiled envy that usually accompanied the observation.

  “I do all right,” she said.

  He again smiled his secret, amused smile and he
ld her defiant gaze for a beat too long.

  “Here they are,” he said, nodding ahead to where a female police officer, her male colleague, and a couple of social workers had appeared. The PC’s radio burst to life intermittently, sending its unintelligible static codes reverberating up the length of the corridor, announcing that this matter was now in the hands of the authorities. Wordlessly, Amy and Joe rose to greet them, and the handover began.

  . 12 .

  To a casual observer, the scene must have been nauseatingly Disney. They were licking ice creams covered in both chocolate and raspberry sauce. Crushed nuts and multicolored sprinkles dotted the tops, and the warm sun sent rivers of sticky goo down each of the crisp cones. He had one hand on the stroller handle and the other clasping her waist. They walked slowly, taking in the early good weather. The floral sun hat flopped over the baby’s eyes as it slept blissfully in the buggy. He bent down to Amy’s face and planted an ice-cream kiss on her nose. She retaliated by playfully daubing him with chocolate sauce. Laughing, he wiped his cheek and kissed her full on the lips, stopping to concentrate on the task at hand. It was a long, deep kiss. If there had been cameras, they would have swooped round a full three hundred and sixty degrees to capture the moment from all angles. If Walt were indeed responsible for the scene, cartoon bluebirds would begin serenading them in fully blossomed trees, and doe-eyed fawns would emerge from the nearby woodland to bat their eyelashes in wonder. But this was no Disney movie.

  Suddenly, the baby struck up its crying, the rolling motion of the stroller having stopped. Reluctantly, they broke off from their embrace, laughing not unkindly at the bad timing. Amy found it almost impossible to tear her gaze from his adoring face. She had never felt so utterly, stupidly happy. But something was wrong now. The wind picked up, and a loud beating of wings stirred her from her trance. Turning her head from his, her smile fading, Amy looked up just in time to see three gigantic magpies swooping in a V-formation directly toward the baby. She screamed but, just like in her worst nightmares, no noise came out. He was frozen, his face still in the rictus of an absurd grin, as the magpies each effortlessly took hold of a section of the baby’s summer dress and lifted her clean out of the pram, then up, up, and away into the cloudless sky. Amy stood horrified on the pathway, her mouth making a silent, black O.