While we’re heading back outside, I try not to think of what we’d have lost if we’d gone ahead with the divorce.
Emma glances behind her as I follow her inside the mobile home.
‘Can I have a cuddle?’ she says, then bursts out laughing. ‘Not with you, Maz. With gorgeous George.’
‘You can have him, if you can tear him away from Frances,’ Alex says, looking up at me as we rejoin them in the living area.
‘He’s adorable,’ Frances coos as she passes him over to Emma. ‘What a lovely little man.’
I feel nervous seeing everyone playing pass the parcel with my baby, probably because I’ve only just learned how to hold him myself, but Emma seems quite competent. She gazes at George’s face and smiles, then holds him over her shoulder, supporting his head. He utters a belch and vomits down her back.
‘Oh, yuck,’ she says, grinning as she hands him back to me. ‘Time to go back to your mummy.’
I hold him tight, taking a breath of his scent of milk, wet nappy and sick. He fixes me with his eyes and makes sucking noises, and my breasts start to leak again.
‘Time to go home,’ I say, looking at Alex.
‘I don’t know why parents have a nursery nowadays. As far as I can see, children end up sleeping in their parents’ rooms until they’re ready to go orf to university,’ Sophia says. ‘Do you remember how Alex used to sleep in that little room in the attic? Ice on the windows in winter, roasting hot in the summer. It never did him any harm.’
Alex gives Lucie and Sebastian presents from the baby. Teddy bears. I don’t know where he got them from, but it’s a great idea because it distracts Sebastian from poking his fingers at his new brother’s face.
‘What do you think of George?’ Alex asks Lucie.
‘He’s all right,’ she says, ‘but can you and Maz have a girl next time?’
Alex looks at me, eyebrows raised. I shake my head.
‘We’ve got something to show you,’ Lucie says, and I’m touched when she slips her sticky hand into mine.
‘It’s surprise ducks,’ Seb pipes up.
‘Did you just give it away, Seb?’ Alex scolds him gently.
Seb looks at his father, shading his eyes.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I didn’t telled Maz it’s ducks. Maz, it isn’t ducks.’
Lucie drags me after her, and the others follow up to the box room next to the master bedroom. Hal is still confined to his cage, although he’s doing well, and I reckon he’ll soon be able to move back in with his master.
‘Daddy had the nursery painted while you were in hospital,’ Lucie says, jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I look around at the walls in pale duck-egg green, a frieze of ducks waddling around the room, at the cot and the nursing chair and the changing station with cupboards underneath. ‘It’s fantastic.’
‘That’s Sebby’s duck over there.’ Lucie points to the yellow duck from the Duck Race, which sits on the windowsill. ‘That’s his present for George. And my present for George is that egg. I decorated it myself.’ I take a closer look at the hen’s egg that is beside the duck – it’s got Goerge written on it in thick zig-zagging letters and a horse’s head.
‘Thank you, Lucie. That’s very kind.’
Alex pushes past and lowers a sleeping George, who’s still in his car seat, into the cot. Old Fox-Gifford moves up alongside the cot, crowding everyone else out of the way.
‘I’ve got my eye on a pony up at Delphi’s,’ Sophia says from the doorway. ‘It’s a stunning Dartmoor, oozing quality. It would make a nice project for the winter. Lucie and I could break it in so it’s ready for George next year.’
‘That’s a bit soon,’ I say quickly.
‘You can’t put me orf, Maz. It’s his grandmother’s duty to find him a half-decent mount.’
‘Isn’t it time for tea? The old dog will be waiting for his dinner,’ says Old Fox-Gifford, apparently unimpressed so far by the arrival of his new grandson, and we’re just leaving the nursery when he stops and leans right into the cot. George jerks, opens his eyes wide and screams.
‘What did you do that for?’ I say, moving to lift George out of the cot and car seat. ‘You frightened him.’ It’s frightening me too, seeing the resemblance between George and his grandfather.
‘He needs toughening up, not all this mollycoddling,’ Old Fox-Gifford says, and I notice for the first time that he has a rather nice stethoscope round his neck, half hidden by his old tweed jacket, and I think it’s mine. ‘The veterinary profession is no place for wimps.’ He looks at me. ‘Not that I’m counting your mother as a wimp. Or that partner of hers.’
‘Father,’ Alex warns, but Old Fox-Gifford continues, ‘Most people would have given up, thrown in the towel, or the swab, and closed down their practice after what’s happened to them, but no, they’ve carried on.’
I’m beginning to wonder if he’s accepted me and Emma as fellow professionals at last, when he goes on hopefully, ‘Of course, it may turn out they’re fools.’
‘Here, let me take the baby.’ Sophia snatches George out of my arms as if she’s afraid her husband’s criticisms are going to wreck her chance of being a hands-on grandmother. ‘Come to Humpy, my precious,’ she adds, with a Gollum-like hiss.
George falls silent, trying to focus on her face, and although I’m expecting him to cry again, he continues to stare, cross-eyed with effort.
A smile plays on Sophia’s thin lips and her crows’ feet deepen as she holds him close to her long, lean body and cradles his head. She might be strict with her grandchildren, but she clearly adores them. She looks younger somehow, as if she’s remembering the times when she held her own son like this. She looks across at Alex, who smiles back, and I feel a knot tightening in my chest. Am I really going to deny my own mother the chance to know her grandson?
I slip away, heading outside to the yard for some privacy, but making sure I’m within earshot if George should start crying. I perch carefully – because I’m still sore after the birth – on the rickety wooden contraption that Sophia uses as a mounting block, and call my mother’s number on my mobile, knowing that if I delay, I’ll change my mind, and feeling guilty that she isn’t on my list of recent contacts.
‘Mum?’ I say. ‘Mum, is that you?’
‘Who else would it be?’ she says in her pronounced London accent. ‘What do you want? I assume you want something. You only ring me when you want something.’
‘I don’t want anything – except to let you know you’ve become a grandmother.’
Silence. For a moment I wonder if she’s put the phone down on me.
‘How can that be?’ my mother says, and I can hear the surprise and wonder in her voice. ‘Does that mean …?’
‘Yes.’ My throat tightens with emotion. ‘I’ve had a baby, a boy, George.’
‘And you didn’t bother to pick up the phone before to tell me you were pregnant?’
‘He came a bit earlier than I expected,’ I say, hoping to avoid the histrionics.
‘Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
‘Are you with his dad?’ my mother asks, and I guess she’s thinking of how she was left to bring up two kids alone. ‘Is it that bloke, the one Emma can’t stand?’
I’d forgotten I’d mentioned Alex to her before – it must have been when I last called her, around Christmas.
‘I’ve moved in with him,’ I tell her, and I hear my mother’s breathing catch, and I picture her in the flat in Battersea, dressed in one of her outfits that reveals those parts of a woman well past her prime that should really be left to the imagination. I can see her nails, varnished and chipped, and her skin like the peel of a desiccated satsuma, and I feel desperately sorry for her because I’ve got everything she always craved: a well-paid and challenging career and the love of a good, dependable man.
She sniffs. She’s crying, and my hear
t shrinks with regret, not just because I didn’t tell her before, but because I’ve never been able to share anything with her, because we’ve never been close, not like Emma was with her mother.
Is it too late? Possibly. But it seems petty not to try.
‘Mum, come and see him,’ I say impulsively. ‘I’ll pay for the train and you can stay with us.’
‘Oh, Maz …’ Her voice cracks. ‘A little boy, you say?’
‘You will come?’
She doesn’t hesitate. ‘Just try and stop me.’
‘Thank goodness they’ve gone,’ Alex sighs, once the rest of the Fox-Giffords have left, heading back to the Manor where Lucie and Seb are staying with their grandparents as a special treat, so Alex and I can settle in with the baby.
I have George in my arms. He’s asleep now. I kiss the top of his head.
‘Why don’t you put him down for a while?’ Alex says. ‘You need some sleep.’
He’s right. I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to let him go.
‘He’ll have to get used to being on his own – and by that I mean sleeping on his own in his cot.’
‘I know, but –’
‘You can’t possibly carry him around with you at work tomorrow,’ Alex says. ‘That’s what you planned, isn’t it?’
Work? How can I go back to work when I’ve got George to look after?
‘I might be able to go in for an hour between feeds in the morning.’ I start to panic at the thought of working full-time and caring for a newborn baby. ‘What’s happening with the nanny?’
‘Maz.’ I detect a lack of seriousness in Alex’s voice. ‘The nanny isn’t coming for another fortnight. You don’t have to think about work yet.’
‘I do, though. I don’t want to leave everything to Emma. We’ve got to organise the clean-up at Otter House, take on a new assistant …’
‘She’s got Izzy, Shannon and Frances to help her. You can go back when you want to, not before. You don’t really want to miss out on George’s first tooth, his first words?’
I don’t, and it makes me think of my mother again. I fail to quell another wave of guilt. I haven’t been fair, perhaps because before now I’ve never been able to see the situation from her point of view. She missed out because she had no choice. She had to go out to work to support me and my brother, whereas Alex is giving me the option of staying at home with our baby – for a while, at least. I saw myself as a full-time career-woman, leaving much of the care of my child to a professional. Now I see myself in the future as a working mum, combining two roles – effortlessly, of course.
‘Of course I don’t. I don’t think I can bear to leave him even for a minute. Thanks, Alex.’ I hesitate, biting back sudden tears as I recall my mother’s joy at the news of George’s existence. ‘I called my mother.’
‘I didn’t think you’d do it,’ Alex says.
‘I’ve invited her down for a couple of days,’ I say, proud of myself for offering the olive branch and glad she didn’t flick it back in my face. ‘I hope that’s all right with you.’
‘I look forward to meeting her,’ Alex says. ‘Perhaps we could have a double celebration.’ He takes George gently from my arms and carries him upstairs with me following. He places him in the cot and we both lean over the top, forearms touching and looking in with bated breath. George rolls his eyes under closed lids, and twists his mouth into a smile.
‘Ah, he’s smiling in his sleep,’ I whisper. ‘Look at him.’
‘It’s wind,’ Alex murmurs, but I don’t believe him. He reaches out and snags one finger through a belt-loop on my trousers – the loosest pair I have – and we tiptoe out of the nursery, trying not to giggle.
Alex pulls me into the bedroom – our bedroom – and holds me to him, slipping his hands into my back pockets. I link my fingers at the back of his neck, feeling the knobbles of his spine and the muscles fanning away to his shoulders, and look up into his eyes.
‘What was that about a double celebration?’ I ask.
‘I thought we’d have a party to celebrate George’s birth and’ – Alex hesitates, before plunging on – ‘if you’re willing, our engagement.’ He takes my hands, and goes down on one knee in front of me. ‘I was going to wait for a more romantic moment, Maz. I was going to whisk you away to a country hotel, but what with the flood and George making an early appearance … Anyway, what I’m saying is, Maz, my darling, will you marry me?’
‘M-m-me?’ I stammer.
‘Who else?’ Alex squeezes my fingers. ‘You don’t have to be gentle with me – just put me out of my misery soon, that’s all. I can take rejection.’
‘Oh, Alex. Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.’
‘You will?’ He frowns. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ I kneel down and throw my arms around him. ‘I love you, Alex. You are the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, and a great dad too. I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t marry you.’
‘You had lots of reasons before.’
‘That was before … Before the floods. Before George.’ I tilt my head towards Alex’s and our lips touch, and Alex is laughing and I’m crying because I’ve never been so happy, and then there’s this tiny wail from the nursery next door, which crescendoes until I can’t ignore it any longer, and I have to extricate myself from Alex’s embrace and fetch George from his cot.
I sit back on the double bed next to Alex, leaning my head against his shoulder and propped up against the pillows, with George sucking contentedly from my breast.
The evening sun slants through the window, casting a warm orange light across the duvet. Tripod is out hunting somewhere, but Ginge is sitting in the doorway, washing his face, having settled in here in spite of Old Fox-Gifford’s pack of dogs, apparently realising it’s safe as long as he keeps to the Barn or the garden at the back, and doesn’t stray any further.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Alex asks.
‘How lucky I am,’ I say, smiling. I really can’t believe it. I have my best friend back and the Otter House Vets appear to have every chance of making a full recovery after the ravages of the floods. What’s more, I’ve ended up with both a fiancé and a baby. I can safely say I have everything I thought I never wanted.
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank my agent, Laura Langrigg at MBA, my editors, Gillian Holmes and Kate Elton, and the rest of the team at Arrow Books for their insight and enthusiasm.
Thanks, too, to Graham, Tamsin and Will for their unwavering support, and to Jess, my greatest fan.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Also by Cathy Woodman
Chapter One: It’s a Vet’s Life
Chapter Two: Once Bitten
Chapter Three: A Cold, Wet Nose
Chapter Four: First Cut
Chapter Five: Let Sleeping Vets Lie
Chapter Six: A Private Consultation
Chapter Seven: A Bird in the Hand
Chapter Eight: A Positive Diagnosis
Chapter Nine: Hold Your Horses
Chapter Ten: Dogs Aloud
Chapter Eleven: The Cat’s Whiskers
Chapter Twelve: Cats and Dogs
Chapter Thirteen: The Duck Race
Chapter Fourteen: 101 Labradoodles
Chapter Fifteen: Puppy Love
Chapter Sixteen: Love Is Blind
Chapter Seventeen: Confessions
Chapter Eighteen: Chicken Wrap
Chapter Nineteen: Abracadabra
Chapter Twenty: Just Married
Chapter Twenty-one: Back to Black
Chapter Twenty-two: A Shot in the Dark
Chapter Twenty-three: A Double Dose
Chapter Twenty-four: Rising Damp
Chapter Twenty-five: Come Hell or High Water
Chapter Twenty-six: Vet Rescue
Acknowledgements
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Cathy Woodman, Must Be Love
Must Be Love Page 37