by Debbie Rix
Over the following weeks, the baby grew happy and fat on her mother’s milk. It came so easily to Rachael, she felt she had been born to nurse a child. She would sit in an armchair in the attic, stroking her daughter’s head as she suckled, her mind wandering. It gave her space to dream and think as she gazed at the leaves fluttering in the breeze outside, or listened to the radio.
Mrs Roper was keen her young charge should follow the latest medical advice.
‘I’ve brought you something,’ she said to Rachael as she came down for breakfast, carrying little Angela. ‘It’s in the kitchen – baby bottles and some formula. So you won’t have to feed the baby yourself.’
‘But I like feeding her,’ said Rachael. Then, so as not to offend the older woman, she added: ‘But thank you… maybe I’ll use them later, when she’s a little older.’
One afternoon, as Rachael nursed the baby, the scent of newly mown grass wafted up through the window of her small bedroom. It was such an enticing, refreshing smell, and as soon as the baby had been fed, winded and changed, she took her downstairs to sit in the back garden. With a book under one arm and the baby in the crook of the other, she was just walking down the hallway towards the back door, when Mrs Roper appeared.
‘Oh hello, Mrs Laszlo.’ Rachael never corrected Mrs Roper’s assumption that she shared her father’s name. Her married name was, of course, Kelemen, but it seemed pointless to mention it. It would necessitate explaining that her husband was dead, and Mrs Roper would naturally want to know why and when it happened. So it was easier to maintain the fiction of being Mrs Laszlo, even though it made no sense. Perhaps, Rachael thought, Mrs Roper believed she was an unmarried mother and it was simply an attempt to conceal her shame. ‘Mrs Laszlo… I was wondering if you would like the use of an old pram?’
‘A pram…?’ It was not a word Rachael was familiar with.
‘You know – a perambulator, a sort of bed on wheels – for the baby. It’s down in the cellar. Come with me and I’ll show you.’
She opened a door under the stairs and led Rachael down a set of rickety wooden steps, to a store room beneath the parlour. There were boxes everywhere and in the far corner was an old black pram – its paintwork dulled with age, atop large wheels, with a sturdy hood to keep out the rain.
‘It’s a bit dusty,’ said Mrs Roper, wiping the raincover with a damp cloth. ‘It’s been down here for years. I used it for my own son.’ She turned away briefly and dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron.
‘Mrs Roper, I did not know you had a son…’
‘Well… he was killed in the war. He was in the Navy. I don’t talk about it much.’ She looked away, feeling in her cardigan sleeve for a clean hankie.
Rachael felt a surge of sympathy for the older woman. She too had a tragedy in her past that she kept concealed. Rachael squeezed Mrs Roper’s arm, affectionately. ‘I’m so sorry…’
‘Yes, dear… thank you. You never get over it, do you? Losing someone. I think you’ve had your fair share of sadness too… haven’t you, dear?’
‘Yes… I have.’ Rachael felt compelled to continue, to share her story, ‘I lost my husband, József. He and my father were part of a movement that wanted democracy in our country. But the authorities tried to suppress it… they shot József. That’s why my father and I had to leave Hungary.’
‘I thought it had to be something of the sort…’ Mrs Roper said, pragmatically. ‘Well, that pram should be just the thing for little Angela – don’t you think? I can give it a good clean and then you can take her into the garden and let her sleep under the sky. She’ll be quite safe out there. Or you can take her shopping with you. And you can leave the pram in the hall when you come in.’
‘Won’t the other guests mind?’
‘No… why should they? That naughty lad Max leaves his bike there all the time. And they’ll have me to answer to if they don’t like it… Now you go and sit in the garden with the baby and I’ll get this pram cleaned up for you.’
As she was leaving the basement, Rachael turned to Mrs Roper.
‘You have been so kind to us – I don’t know what we would have done without you.’
‘Pish… it’s my pleasure,’ replied Mrs Roper. ‘It’s just lovely to hear a baby in this house again… it takes me back.’
Chapter Seven
Gloucestershire
November 2016
It was Guy Fawkes night and the air was hazy with the acrid discharge of fireworks. Heavy drizzle fell from a darkening sky. Waiting for Hamish to get home from work, Sophie loitered anxiously in the hall, hoping he wouldn’t be late. As soon as she saw his lights sweeping up the drive, she ran out, her raincoat held over her head, and jumped into the passenger seat.
‘Thank goodness,’ she said, shaking the raincoat out over the back seat. ‘I thought you might have been held up. We’re due there in ten minutes.’
This appointment was their first opportunity to meet their GP and assess their suitability for fertility treatment on the NHS.
‘Why pay for something straight away when we could get it for free?’ Hamish had argued a few days earlier, when he had suggested getting NHS treatment. ‘We have to be practical, darling. We’ve got a huge mortgage, you’ve cut down your teaching hours, and you and I both know that three private cycles of IVF is upwards of seven grand. I just don’t know where we’ll get the money from. Besides, we fit the NHS eligibility criteria – you’re younger than thirty-five, I’m well under the male age limit of fifty-four… let’s at least give it a go.’
‘But there might be months to wait – years possibly,’ Sophie had protested.
‘Let’s see what they say – OK? Perhaps my being a doctor might help.’
As they sat in the impersonal waiting room of the small group practice, Sophie gazed out of the windows at the night sky. From time to time, it was illuminated with sparkling lights as rockets exploded, filling the drizzly overcast blackness with multicoloured stars. Sophie was reminded of their last Bonfire night. They had spent it, as they always did, with her parents and her brother in the house in Hampstead. After an impressive public fireworks display on Hampstead Heath, the family returned to her parents’ house to eat sausages and baked potatoes and light sparklers in the garden. It was a tradition, and one which Sophie had never missed.
Her mother had texted her earlier that day:
We’ll miss you tonight darling. Hope you have fun in Glos… Mama.
I’ll miss you too. Nothing much planned here… First time without you all.
I know, replied her mother. It will be odd for us all – the first year without Grandma too.
Yes… dear Granny. Hope it’s not too sad.
We’ll be fine… speak tomorrow.
The GP was called Catherine Boulderstone. Her wavy chin-length hair was brown, streaked with silver. She was handsome rather than beautiful, with an efficient, professional manner, and warmed instantly to Hamish.
‘So… anaesthetics,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘My husband was a surgeon at your hospital.’
‘What’s his name?’ asked Hamish. ‘I might know him.’
‘I doubt it… he died five years ago.’
‘Oh… I’m so sorry.’
This piece of personal information somehow interposed itself into the couple’s consultation and neither felt able to say anything remotely light-hearted after that.
‘So… you need a little help,’ Catherine said briskly.
‘Yes,’ Sophie replied. ‘We’ve been trying to have a baby… for over two years, nearly three. I’ve not been on the pill for that long, anyway. But I was busy working and we weren’t… you know… timing it all.’
‘I understand,’ said Catherine. ‘Still, even two years does seem a long time. And I gather you’ve been checked out at a clinic in London?’
‘Yes… you should have the notes,’ said Hamish. ‘They could find nothing wrong.’
‘They didn’t do an ultrasound on your wife,’ Cathe
rine said, studying the couple’s notes.
‘No… they asked for a medical history – regularity of periods and so on – and decided against.’
‘Nevertheless, I think we should arrange that. Do you have any objection?’ She began to tap rapidly on her keyboard.
‘No… none at all,’ said Sophie.
‘Good… well, you’ll be notified with an appointment. It will be at your hospital, Dr Mitchell – I hope that won’t present any problems?’ She glanced over at Hamish.
‘No… no it’s fine.’
‘I’m just emailing the department now to arrange the appointment,’ she explained, before standing up and extending her hand, indicating the meeting was at an end.
‘So…’ interjected Sophie, ‘are we on the waiting list for IVF…?’
‘Not yet. Let’s see what the scan reveals, and then we can discuss the results and take it from there. We try to prioritise couples who have minimal issues.’
Sophie sat silently on the way home in the car.
As Hamish unlocked the house and turned on the lights in the hall, the cat lay across the bottom of the stairs and leapt up to greet his new family. He wrapped himself around Sophie’s boot-clad calves, purring loudly.
‘What did she mean… minimal issues,’ asked Sophie as she took off her coat.
‘I guess – if you’ve got totally blocked tubes or something… it would be more of a battle.’
‘God… I’d never thought of that. Blocked tubes – so then I’d never get pregnant, would I?’
‘Darling… it’s not worth thinking about it. It’s very unlikely. You have no pain – do you? No history of dodgy periods…?’
‘No… well, they were a bit erratic when I was younger. Still are occasionally, if I’m stressed.’
‘Look, let’s wait till we know what we’re up against. Is there anything for supper?’
‘No… nothing. I’m sorry.’
‘Never mind – let’s go to the pub.’
The Black Horse was in a lively mood. A firework display was planned for that evening on the village green and the pub was jam-packed with villagers.
‘Have you booked?’ asked the waitress, as Hamish enquired about a table.
‘No, afraid not.’
‘Well – we’re very busy, as you can see. You can have a bar snack though – over there.’ She indicated an area next to bar, teeming with people frantically ordering drinks from the overworked bar staff.
‘There’s nowhere to sit,’ said Sophie.
‘That’s fine,’ said Hamish to the waitress, ‘we’ll manage.’
As Sophie stood uncomfortably wedged between a group of strangers, Hamish fought his way to the bar. A couple sitting at a small table suddenly stood up.
‘Do you want our table?’ they asked Sophie. ‘Friends of ours have just arrived – they’ve got a booking in the restaurant.’
‘Thank you, yes.’
Sophie sat down with relief, waiting for Hamish.
The door opened, and along with a cold blast of November air, a large group of people entered the pub amidst raucous laughter. They were ushered straight away to a table laid out for ten. A man wearing jeans and an expensive Barbour jacket took charge of their ordering.
‘We’ll have two bottles of Merlot, two of Sauvignon Blanc and a couple of menus – thanks,’ he said, without even looking up at the waitress.
Within minutes the wine was delivered to the table and poured into glasses.
The man in the Barbour sat next to a woman with long blonde hair. She was dressed in a Tuscan lamb coat of palest grey, her throat muffled with a cream cashmere scarf. She sipped her white wine and smiled enigmatically at Sophie, who was suddenly aware of her untidy dark brown hair held back with tortoiseshell combs, her ancient quilted jacket flecked with mud. She felt dowdy and unattractive by comparison.
Hamish returned from the bar and slammed the drinks down on the table.
‘God, what a crush… I only just managed to get served – I’ve been waiting nearly fifteen minutes.’
‘We should have booked,’ said Sophie. ‘Who knew it was so popular?’
‘Well… Friday night, and bonfire night too… I suppose we should have realised.’
‘Who are those people, do you think?’ said Sophie, sipping her red wine and nodding discreetly at the glamorous couple and their noisy friends.
‘God knows – don’t look like villagers, do they?’
‘I was wondering if they were the legendary hedge fund manager and his gorgeous wife.’
‘Is she gorgeous?’ asked Hamish, staring at the couple over his pint. ‘Mmmm – not bad… if you like that sort of thing,’
‘What sort of thing?
‘Ice-maiden. Rich bitch… take your choice…’
They ordered two bar meals: a ploughman’s for Hamish and pâté and toast for Sophie.
Sophie was halfway through a piece of toast, when the publican made an announcement.
‘Fireworks will be starting in five minutes, ladies and gents, but feel free to take a drink with you…’
People began to push and shove their way towards the door, shouting to one another.
‘See you out there…’
‘We’ll be on the other side of the green.’
The elegant couple and their friends stood up, put on their coats and moved in a crocodile – two by two – towards the door. They appeared oblivious to everyone around them, laughing at their private jokes. They emanated a sense of entitlement, which irritated Sophie. She felt excluded from their jollity, their intimacy. For the first time since moving to Gloucestershire, she realised how much she missed her family.
‘Drink up,’ Hamish said cheerfully. ‘We don’t want to miss it.’
There was the sound of a rocket ripping through the night sky.
‘Come on, darling – it’s started already.’
The pair edged their way through the throng and out of the pub. They took up a position on the drive outside and watched the firework team choreographing a succession of ever more thrilling and colourful explosions. All around them, people were laughing and pointing at the bright lights. Children danced around, waving sparklers, writing their names in the blackness. Sophie recalled all the happy bonfire parties she had been to with her family. Now, she felt she was at the wrong party, with the wrong people.
The blonde with the Tuscan lamb coat sidled up to them.
‘Hello…’ she said, in her soft, milky voice. ‘I’m Flora. Are you the couple who’ve just moved into the cottage up the lane from us? We live in the vicarage.’
‘Yes we are…’ said Sophie, surprised by this sudden show of friendliness. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Sophie – and this is Hamish. How clever of you to know who we are.’
‘Well, in a place like this,’ said Flora, ‘any newcomers are huge news. It’s all round the village – the handsome doctor and his gorgeous wife…’ She smiled conspiratorially.
Hamish smirked slightly at this compliment and ran his hands self-consciously through his fair hair.
‘You must come over sometime soon,’ purred Flora. ‘We’re always here at the weekends. It’s lovely to have a bit of fresh blood in the village. It can get a bit… repetitive – if you know what I mean.’ She gestured towards their large group of friends. ‘We normally import company… people from London love it down here. All this rustic jollity is frightfully amusing. But they don’t have to live here, do they? Take them away from their macchiatos and Pilates and they’d be lost. I’ll drop a card in with an invite…’
She sauntered away and took up her position next to her husband, who put his Barbour-clad arm around her possessively.
Sophie observed them whispering together and the man turned round discreetly to look at Sophie and Hamish. He smiled – just an unfriendly slit of a smile – before returning to his boisterous banter with his friends from London.
The following morning, as Sophie came down the stairs into the hall, she caught a
fleeting glimpse of an arm – clad in a familiar Tuscan lamb coat – as it posted an envelope through the letter box of the glazed front door.
She picked up the envelope from the mat and wandered down the hall to the kitchen. The cat – now officially renamed ‘Cat’ – lay in front of the Aga on a cheap lambskin rug Sophie had found in a charity shop. Cat had been ecstatic when she brought it home for him and had rolled around on it, rubbing it with his back, dribbling on it, kneading it with his claws as if it were his long-lost mother. He lay now on his ‘good side’, his missing eye concealed. Sophie knelt down and stroked his long grey flank. He looked up at her lovingly, revealing the damaged side of his face, and licked her hand.
‘Morning, Cat. Sleep well?’
She opened the envelope.
A discreet ‘at home’ card invited her and Hamish to a drinks party later that evening. At the bottom of the elegantly printed card were their hosts’ email and mobile details. A brief hand-written note said simply:
Hope to see you later – nothing formal… love Flora.
As they walked up the gravel drive of Flora’s house, Sophie had a momentary frisson of panic. Was she wearing the right clothes? What did ‘nothing formal’ mean exactly? Would Flora’s friends all be ‘city’ types with whom they had nothing in common? She yanked at Hamish’s arm.
‘Let’s go home… I mean… what are we doing here?’
‘Oh darling, it will be fun. New people. Come on…’
The elegant pale grey door, flanked by a pair of olive trees, was opened by small girl with long blonde hair. She wore black leggings, suede ankle boots and a fur gilet – a child version of her mother, Sophie thought.
‘Hello,’ said the girl with a disdainful air. ‘I’m Tabatha. The party’s in there…’
She took their coats, politely, and laid them on a long high-backed sofa upholstered in bright pink velvet. It was the only splash of colour in an otherwise uniformly white space. The little girl drifted down the classically proportioned Georgian hall, past the grand staircase towards what, Sophie presumed, was the kitchen.