by Jenny Colgan
‘You see,’ said Dr Chang in a loud, quite posh voice, as if Rosie were peculiarly stupid, ‘there is evidence of growth here, and here, and bad blocking here and here. You were very lucky to get pregnant at all.’
This made Rosie bristle. There had been nothing lucky about it … Then she thought back over the sweet joy of those two special months, and thought she was going to tear up again. Noticing, Dr Chang slid a box of tissues over her desk in a brusque movement. Rosie wondered how many women had cried in her office. All of them, probably.
There was much more in a technical vein, but basically the message was pretty clear: it had taken the miscarriage to show what Rosie now knew. Now she thought about it, she’d never – in her twenties with her then-boyfriend Gerard, or even before – had a pregnancy crisis, or anything to worry about. She thought she’d just been lucky. Obviously not.
Dr Chang discussed options: a fairly full-on IVF procedure which apparently they should have started a couple of years before they’d actually met; surrogacy and other words that made Rosie want to be ill; and adoption.
‘I’m sorry it’s not better news,’ said Dr Chang finally. ‘You’ve just been unlucky, I’m afraid. If you desperately want a baby, there are routes you can take, but I have to warn you, they are expensive and sometimes heartbreaking.’
Rosie swallowed. She hadn’t wanted to tell Stephen about the appointment today; she didn’t want to bother him, particularly when they’d agreed not to try again for another year, agreed to relax, put it out of their heads.
But next year the odds would be even worse than this year, and so on and so on. And if she’d ever wondered whether or not she wanted a baby – although she was crazy about her nephew and nieces – knowing she was pregnant had made it very clear to her that she did.
She let the tears run down her face.
‘Is your other half here?’ said Dr Chang, her expression becoming slightly more sympathetic.
Rosie shook her head.
‘I didn’t want to worry him,’ she whispered.
‘Well,’ said Dr Chang, ‘if you want to tackle this, you’re going to need to be able to talk about it. Talk about everything. This kind of thing can challenge even the strongest relationship, you know.’
Rosie nodded. She thought they were strong … but were they strong enough for this?
Stephen wasn’t used to Rosie not being there when he got home, and he missed her. But it gave him a chance to call his PTSD therapist. He didn’t like doing it when Rosie was around; felt it was selfish to impinge on her misery, and he wasn’t even sure she wouldn’t be angry that he was discussing it with an outside party. But he was upset too, and he found himself worrying all the time. If Rosie couldn’t carry a baby properly in a wealthy country with good medical care, what chance would Célestine have in a country that wasn’t yet developed; that had proper hospitals only if you could afford to pay?
He thought back to his time there. He had loved Africa from the second he had set foot on its soil; smelled its smells: the bright colours everywhere, the blazing sun, the optimistic lives being lived in the most difficult of circumstances, contrasting so strongly with his spoiled, discontented friends from university. He was young, fit and full of the desire to do some good. And although a certain level of disillusionment was necessary – essential from the point of view of the charity who’d hired him – nonetheless he took satisfaction from small victories when large ones were hard to find. He worked hard on anything practical he could do, and put his teacher training into use in the most unusual situation possible: a school with anything between thirty and seventy students, depending on the harvest and the rains, of varying ages, who spoke a mixture of English learned from Nigerian television, French, and the local language.
It is hard to tell who will make a good teacher until they are tested. The most unlikely characters thrive in front of a room full of pupils. In his private life, Stephen was reticent and distant, a hangover from a lonely, awkward childhood of feeling different from the other Lipton children but not being able to quite understand why, as well as a strict father who wanted his son to be a mirror image of himself, and found a quiet, sensitive, poetry-loving boy rather than a hearty, hunting-shooting-fishing type bound for Sandhurst very difficult to deal with.
But with a class, he came alive. He was funny, patient, kind. His group leader, Faustine, who had thought of him as a drifting posh boy wandering through gap years for want of direction, instead found him committed, engaging and devoted to his charges, as he took on everything from teaching them how to use sterilising tablets, singing funny songs, attempting to give them a notion of world geography from an atlas published in 1957, to fearlessly killing a snake that crept into the toilet hole one day, a feat that, had Stephen told him about it, would have given his father much pleasure.
Everywhere he went in the village, he was accompanied by Jabo and his little brother Akibo, who were both absolutely devoted to him, so when Stephen planned the field trip to see the rarely flowering cactus one of the other aid workers had mentioned, they were of course right up the front, carrying the water bottles proudly, touching Stephen’s shirt from time to time to show the rest of the class that they were with him.
Civil war had supposedly ended there six years before; the region was supposed to be cleared, and safe from landmines.
People make mistakes.
Waking up in the military hospital to which he’d been evacuated was the single worst moment of Stephen’s life. The noise, then the deafening quiet; the evisceration; the sight of his own blood pumping away into the sand – so much of it: that only came back during his dreams, on the nights when Rosie held him so closely he could forget where he stopped and she began; could draw the strength he needed from her warm body to bring him back to life.
But waking up miles away, his leg a ragged mess, unable to move, knowing he had not saved the boys: that was with him always. He did not like to receive emails from his old employers. He wished Rosie was home.
Stephen picked up the phone. His therapist was a thin, whip-smart, very quiet older woman who let him get away with nothing. Moray had recommended her and he had been absolutely right to do so; Stephen would have turned frosty under too much empathy, or combative against too much intellect, but Diane had the right mix of sharpness and a calm kindness – so sharp, in fact, that he never once suspected that although she returned home every night to her immaculately tidy apartment, ate a healthy dinner with her incredibly clever and intellectual husband as they discussed the serious issues of the day, went often to the theatre and smart restaurants with their equally clever and intellectual friends, she spent all night dreaming that she was instead in the unforgiving arms of a taciturn man with a limp.
She was based in Harley Street in London, and they often had phone consultations.
Stephen told her everything that had happened, and how painful it was, particularly at school, where they were doing a project on Africa and starting a charity to add money to the fund he was putting together. Rosie also had a tin in the sweetshop. Their first object was to fund Célestine to get to the mission hospital to have her baby. After that, Faustine, Stephen’s ex-colleague from Médecins Sans Frontières, had suggested that rather than just give money to the family, which could provoke resentment, they should attempt to help improve the school, which at the moment was still the large, boiling shed Stephen had known so well. Stephen had agreed with this.
‘But it’s just … ever since … I mean, it was interesting to begin with, with the two babies growing, but now … now it’s all fallen apart and I can’t help thinking about it. And I keep replaying Africa in my head over and over, and it isn’t helping me and it sure as hell isn’t helping Rosie.’
He swallowed hard. There was a long pause. Finally Diane, in her cool tones, suggested something she believed could work extraordinarily well: facing up to your worst fears, if it could be done, seeing them and taking away their power, had had spectacular success
with PTSD, phobias, all sorts of trauma.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘You could visit.’
Stephen had about a million reasons immediately as to why he couldn’t possibly: school term, the cost of getting out there, which would take away from the fund-raising, leaving Rosie.
‘Would you need to leave her?’ said Diane. ‘You could take her with you. A trip somewhere else, away from all her memories and routines.’
‘To see a pregnant woman,’ said Stephen.
‘The world is full of pregnant women,’ said Diane gently. ‘That’s something she’ll have to get used to on her own. And you can always have another baby. Might be a good idea to take the trip before it’s too late.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Stephen. ‘But thank you. As ever, it’s good to talk to you.’
Diane smiled ruefully to herself as she replaced the phone.
Chapter Four
‘So, we’re having black napkins for the men, and white for the girls, and mixed black and white almonds …’
Tina was blathering on. Rosie wasn’t listening. Instead she was wondering. She knew, she knew, everyone said, that she should probably be over it by now. She was otherwise well, if worried about the future, but oh, she was still so sad.
Every baby she saw, every advert, every television show seemed to be there to taunt her. Stephen had mentioned Célestine from time to time, and she couldn’t bear to hear about that either. She wasn’t sleeping well, absolutely anything made her cry and she still hadn’t told Stephen about the awful news from the check-up. She had to get a grip, she had to. Lilian was worried about her, which wasn’t good for Lilian; and she knew she was no fun any more, that it was rubbish for Stephen to get home every night to a tired, washed-out, miserable fiancée.
‘How about,’ he had said the previous weekend, ‘how about we get together and go through wedding plans? Mother wants to know.’
She had been so grateful to him for making an effort; it was so kind of him, and thoughtful, even if the very idea filled her with horror at the moment. She had gone with him, though, up to the big house.
‘So,’ Lady Lipton had sniffed. Tall and broad, she was dressed, as usual, in numerous layers of clothes of obvious quality but dubious age. ‘I think we’ll use the same seating plan from my wedding. So we’ll keep all the Yorkshire families apart from the Lancashire ones, obviously, then we’ll put one bishop per table; they get terribly dull unless you space them out.’
Rosie had smiled weakly, doing her best. This wasn’t like her at all, but sometimes with Lady Lipton it was easier just to kind of lean back and let her roll all over you.
‘So how many do you think your people will have to have?’ said Lady Lipton, as if everyone in Rosie’s family was a burden that had to be accommodated. Which was, Rosie thought, exactly how Lady Lipton did see the Hopkinses, apart from Lilian, whom she adored.
‘Um, twenty?’ said Rosie tentatively, not really having thought it through. Her mum and that lot, if they could get over … Michael and Giuseppe and her London friends, even though she’d been neglecting them terribly lately. She assumed all her village friends would already be included.
‘Twenty?’
Stephen squeezed her hand under the table, as Rosie wondered if this was a lot or a little, and cursed himself. They were both so caught up in themselves these days, he should have taken her somewhere nice or fun, not to sit in his mother’s back kitchen, which was neither.
‘So you don’t want your family there? Or don’t you have many friends?’
Rosie swallowed.
‘Um, is that … I mean, you’re already inviting people from the village, aren’t you?’
Lady Lipton looked over the top of the reading glasses she despised, and discarded around the village at regular intervals.
‘The village? No, of course not.’
‘Oh, okay. More, then.’
Lady Lipton had sniffed and said that was all very well, but where were they going to get staff for the event? They couldn’t invite Mrs Laird – her loyal daily – when she’d be needed in the kitchen. Stephen said hotly that not only was he inviting Mrs Laird but she’d be sitting at the top table with him, seeing as she was just about the only person who’d ever been kind to him as a child, and Lady Lipton had rolled her eyes and said it seemed a bit rich to talk about unkindness when they were going to move into one of her houses. After that, they made their excuses and left, before they’d even agreed on a date.
‘Oh dear,’ said Rosie, as Mr Dog barked a cheerful goodbye to all his pure-bred cousins he’d had to leave behind in the courtyard at the back of the house.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Stephen. ‘I thought that went all right.’
They looked at each other and Rosie smiled, reluctantly.
‘You know there’s no rush,’ said Stephen, as they drove a little further up the hill and parked at Peak House to take a look at it. The early evening sunlight illuminated its stern windows; it was a chilly house, but a beautiful one too. As usual, it was unlocked. Rosie thought again about the fact that her period, once more, had come exactly on time. She might dream of a lovely miracle, but as Dr Chang had warned her, there wouldn’t be a miracle. Just a choice.
They had wandered through Peak House hand in hand. The ceilings were high, and the floors original oak and parquet.
‘You could make this place really nice,’ said Stephen doubtfully.
‘With a mere jillion dollars,’ smiled Rosie, and they had kissed one another and stolen upstairs to the bed where they had spent the first, extraordinary few months of their courtship, mostly without leaving it, and as the evening sun poured through the dirty windows overlooking the crags and the astonishing valley on the other side of the house, they both felt better, if only for a while.
Rosie hadn’t mentioned the wedding again.
Tina went off to pick up the children and finalise the stationery patterns, even though the wedding wasn’t going to be till Christmas, seven months away, when the farming work was quieter. She was clearly enjoying being prepared. As she left, she leaned over to give her friend a kiss on the cheek.
‘I’m sorry for babbling on,’ she said.
Rosie shook her head.
‘No,’ she said truthfully. ‘I like it.’
The shop bell tinged. Edison’s mother Hester didn’t often come into the sweetshop. She was opposed to sugar on the whole, and was what Rosie’s mother would have called a ‘knit your own yoga’ type. Sometimes it wound Rosie up – particularly when she made Edison wear hand-made clothes and denied him television, plastic toys and basically the chance to fit in with his peer group. But other times she admired the entire ethos. Hester and her university lecturer husband were living it, not just talking about it: they lived out in the middle of nowhere without an internet connection, grew their own vegetables and made their own clothes. Terrible, terrible clothes, but the spirit was there.
Edison was allowed to pop in to the shop from time to time because Rosie basically provided free babysitting, as Edison had latched on to her when she had moved there, and she liked him. But today it was Hester who came in, carrying Marie, now five months, who was as round and flaxen and rosy of cheek as Edison was pale and thin. Rosie swallowed heavily.
‘Hello!’ she said, trying to look anywhere other than at the baby. ‘So good to see you!’
Hester looked, as ever, slightly harassed, as though she’d got lots of better things to be doing elsewhere. Marie was wrapped up against her in a complicated ethnic-looking shawl thing that seemed designed to roll the baby out at any opportunity. Rosie had developed over the last two months a sort of eye slip with other people’s babies; as if they were something that she didn’t really want to look at, like a snake. She let her eyes slide away and plastered on a smile and tried to pretend they weren’t there, just in case she couldn’t handle it.
‘Yes, well,’ said Hester, harrumphing. ‘God, you don’t know what work is till you’ve got two childre
n.’
‘Right,’ said Rosie carefully.
‘Listen, I have to run in and see Moray. Can you hold on to Marie for a minute?’
‘Um, not really,’ said Rosie, flinching. She absolutely was not ready to touch a baby. Hester knew what had happened; how could she be so insensitive? ‘I’m not qualified.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, I thought you were a nurse,’ said Hester.
‘Well, yes, okay, I’m technically qualified,’ said Rosie. ‘But—’
‘Well, fine. Perfect. Moray is giving me a VAGINAL EXAMINATION.’
Two nine-year-old boys who’d been examining the chewing gum shot looks at each other and started backing out of the shop.
‘To check the stitches on my ANAL TEAR.’
She was holding the baby out now, with a look on her face that said she would simply plop her down if Rosie didn’t take her in the next couple of seconds. Rosie felt her heart pounding through her chest.
‘Okay, okay, hand her over,’ she said, finally, anxious not to make a scene. ‘Okay. Fine. Two minutes.’
Hester undid the complicated scarf carrier, and Rosie tried to follow the procedure but couldn’t.
‘Here’s some EXPRESSED BREAST MILK,’ said Hester. ‘Put it in the fridge then heat it up in a bain-marie.’
Rosie gave her a look.
‘And if she needs her nappy changed, wash it out, it’s hemp. Reusable.’
‘Don’t be long,’ said Rosie, through clenched teeth.
‘Now don’t give her any sweets. I know your tricks!’
Hester handed over the heavy, warm bundle and dinged her way out of the shop.
The boys had gone and the shop was empty for once. Rosie sat down in the back, where there was a kettle for making tea, and an armchair they brought out for Lilian, and gave her attention to the little thing in her arms. She tried to stop shaking. She was terrified. What if she wanted to keep it? What if she couldn’t hold it properly? What was bloody Hester thinking? How thoughtless could she get? Thrusting a baby in someone’s face when they’d just lost one was completely cruel and selfish.