Full Circle (11 page)

‘I'd not thought about it. She said something about if it turned out to be a girl it ought to be named after my mother. Dad would like that. Alice. I don't really care, but it's not a name that conjures up a picture of beauty. Still, perhaps it's safe. If she turns out to be plain it's no use lumbering her with a glamorous name.' He passed her a cigarette and as he was lighting it suddenly gave her that mischievous smile she remembered from their first meeting. ‘Tell you what, she shall be Alicia. If she's pretty that's OK, but if she's no beauty we'll drop the fancy end. How's that?'

‘Of course she'll be beautiful. But both names are very nice.' She heard her reply as being prim and humourless. Why couldn't she have answered him in the same light-hearted way he'd spoken? However, he seemed not to have noticed. ‘The thunder may have passed, but hark at that rain,' she said, changing the subject. ‘You ought to forget the idea of taking them home tonight. When I've finished this drink I'll re-make the bed in the spare room for Bella. Then we'll have to conjure up something for Alicia.'

It sounded easy, but the truth was that the tiny creature had neither clothes nor a crib. For months Bella had been making preparations and everything had been brought to Ridgeway and put in the nursery bedroom, despite the baby not being due for another month. That must be for tomorrow, supposing the nurse gave permission for Bella to be moved so soon. When she'd booked to go to Britley Maternity Home for the birth she had been told it was usual to expect to be there for at least a fortnight.

With the bed re-made Louisa looked around the room as if she expected something resembling a crib to appear. Then inspir-ation came. By combining the contents of the two drawers in the dressing table she removed one of them and laid it on the bed while she worked out the next stage.

Deep in thought, she was surprised by Leo's voice. ‘I can't sit down there like a dummy. I've come to help.'

‘You've come at the right time. Go to my bedroom, Aunt Violet's old room, and fetch the little armchair. If we stand it by the side of the bed in here we can rest this drawer across the arms. It'll be quite safe and we can make a snug bed for Alicia's first night. She has no clothes, poor mite.'

‘When I've brought the chair, I'll drive home and collect up a bundle of stuff. Bella had everything in a case ready to take to the nursing home.'

‘Splendid. Make sure she has put in safety pins for the nappies; I won't have any big enough.' Then she was struck by another thought. ‘Leo, would you rather I got my own room ready? This is a special night – your first as a father. You ought to all be together.'

‘A kind offer, Louisa, but nursery living isn't my scene. I'd be less than useless. And next thing my father would arrive to join in the fun. No, I'll bring the things and go back to my parent-watching duties.'

She knew he was right but his reply left her feeling angry and disappointed. Bella deserved better.

At the sound of the front door slamming, then his car starting, Nurse Wilkins emerged from the kitchen.

‘Has he gone? Has he forgotten he'd promised to see me home?' She spoke in a whisper and looked relieved to be reassured that he would soon be back. ‘I'm thankful he hasn't insisted on taking her back home. She really ought not to be moved for a day or two. But you know what young people are like – think they know best even if they come to regret it. Sweet little soul, not a word of self-pity. Gritted her teeth and clenched her fists when I did the stitching. I'll be back in the morning to get her washed and sorted out. And the babe, she's bathed and had a cuddle with her mum, but there was nothing for it but to give that shawl a turn-about and wrap her up in it again. You say he's gone for her things – I'll see she's sorted before I go. She's had a go at the breast, but of course there's no nourishment yet-a-while. Still, she got the hang of it, bless her.' Ethel Wilkins happily talked on, albeit in hushed tones, requiring no answer. And that was probably as well, for Louisa was smarting under her reference to ‘young people' as if, like the nurse, she no longer came under that category. Did she look older than her thirty years? After all, ‘young' Leo was pushing forty – not such a spring chicken.

Twenty minutes and a cup of tea for the nurse later, the car returned. The house suddenly seemed to be alive with action: Leo carried a sleeping Bella up the stairs and into the bed, where she opened her eyes. Was she dreaming or was this happening? Where was he putting her?

‘… you've seen Alice?' she whispered – or did she imagine she had said it? Her mind wasn't quite her own yet.

‘Alicia,' he corrected. ‘I'll bring her up in a minute. See the crib Louisa has made for her? She'll be right by the side of your bed.'

Bella might not have been thinking clearly, but she smiled as her heavy lids closed and she drifted back to sleep. She felt safe; her world was perfect.

Downstairs, the nurse prepared Alicia for her first night. Tiny vest, nappy securely pinned on, flannelette nightgown pulled down before she was cocooned in a shawl.

‘There we are, Daddy,' she said in the voice she kept for new fathers and small children. ‘Now you go and lay her in that bed Miss Harding has got ready for her.' Duty done, she looked around her at the once again restored kitchen (thanks to Louisa's labour) and in a tone that conveyed satisfaction with her contribution to the last few hours, said, ‘Then I think it's all fair and square down here so I'll be ready to get on my way. Miss Harding has been doing all the cleaning up. What with that and the rush the little one came into the world in, my job's been an easy one – that I must admit. Now just lay her in her cot on her back and drape that thin blanket over the top. Off you go now.'

As Louisa carried the bucket and floor mop out to the washroom and the nurse took off her apron and rolled it away in her workbag, they heard the tread of Leo carrying the baby up the stairs. Secretly Nurse Wilkins considered him a rum sort of father – a rum sort of husband, too, for he had made no attempt to see his poor wife lying there on that hard floor. Well, if he was no use with the struggles of childbirth he was better out of the way, but he could at least have made pretence of wanting to share those first moments with the poor girl.

And Louisa? She imagined him carrying his bundle into the spare room and laying it on the blanket she had folded in the wooden drawer. She felt confused, excited and frightened; and yet there was no logic in the nameless emotion. It must be because the day had been like no other. She made herself think of Bella, brave, strong-minded and yet, surely, this night should have held something that Louisa was sure was missing for her.

Bella didn't stir when Leo came into the room; exhaustion and relief were taking their toll. He felt a moment's shame that he was thankful she didn't stir before he dumped his bundle in the makeshift crib, his mind elsewhere, meaning to creep away quietly.

What happened next was outside his control and took him by surprise.

It wasn't to the sleeping figure in the bed that Leo turned, but to the baby. If he had laid her down gently she probably wouldn't have stirred. Nurse Wilkins had pushed the bundle into his arms and, having delivered her to the makeshift bed, he started to move away, his mission accomplished. But something pulled him back and made him bend over the tiny form. From her shoulders downward she was tightly wrapped, only her face visible. Rarely, if ever, had he felt such a rush of tenderness as he did for the tiny creature. His daughter, his flesh and blood, so small and vulnerable, dependent on him to love and care for her. Very tenderly he moved his finger down her cheek, silently mouthing the word, ‘Alicia'. She opened her eyes, seeming to gaze up at him even though, in reality, at no more than a few hours old she hadn't even learnt to focus. As he watched her his vision misted, not with tears that would escape for the world to see, but something he shared just with her. Only a minute before, he had dumped her unceremoniously in the drawer; now he picked her up tenderly and held her so that he could reach to lay his face against hers. Instinct told her to nuzzle against him, to open her mouth.

‘What, not got her in that bed yet?' In a stage whisper the nurse's voice cut across his emotions, leaving him feeling exposed. ‘Goodness me, this won't do. Now, don't you wake your poor wife. After what she's been through today she needs a good sleep. Nature will make her ready for you by morning. Now, give me this bundle. Come along, my pretty, into bed you go.'

Like an obedient child, Leo handed the bundle over. ‘I'll wait for you downstairs and run you home as soon as you're ready.'

And so the day of Alicia's birth came to a close. The day had been orchestrated by a storm that would find the locals talking about it the next day and remembering it long after; but by late evening the air was clear and the clouds had rolled away leaving a cloudless, starry sky. The only evidence of what had gone before was a few old and brittle branches in the lanes and one tree uprooted and fallen across the road on the far side of the village. With the coming of evening all was calm. Nature had sent a reminder of its power and a reassurance that after the storm calm would always follow.

Despite Bella's ethereal beauty there was a quality of true grit about her. The morning after Alicia's birth, when Leo drove to fetch her home to the farm, she refused his offer to carry her to the car, holding up the nightdress and dressing gown she had borrowed so that the hem wouldn't get dirty from the muddy pathway as she led the procession to the parked vehicle.

‘The nurse is coming to Ridgeway to see Alice and me – no, it's not going to be Alice. Leo likes Alicia. Pretty, isn't it? She said I must stay in bed until either she or the doctor tells me I can get dressed. But think how silly that is. I want to be getting on with living, especially now that the baby is here to be introduced to the world.'

She looked from Leo to Louisa, trying to influence them into agreeing with her.

‘I don't know anything about babies,' Louisa said, unable to crush a feeling of relief that for a few days her life would be her own again. Her views on Bella may have changed through the weeks and no longer did she find her chatter empty, but even so, she had always been a loner and the promise of time on her own appealed to her. Then she imagined the fear Bella had been determined to fight the previous day as she had struggled to give birth to the baby Leo carried with tenderness, and felt mean and unfair.

Leo remained silent. Still cradling the baby, he opened the door on the passenger side and, once Bella was seated, passed the bundle into her arms. Bella had eyes for nothing and no one except the day-old miracle.

‘I can't thank you enough for what you did yesterday,' Leo said as he made sure the door was safely closed, ‘and for keeping them overnight.'

‘I've never experienced anything so humbling. Bella is a remarkable girl.' Then, before he had a chance to enlarge on what she'd said: ‘Don't hang around. She ought to be home and in bed – that was the nurse's instruction.'

‘Ah,' he answered, raising his eyebrows and with that mischievous twinkle in his eyes. ‘The good nurse – she who shall be obeyed.'

Despite all her good intentions not to let his mood influence her, Louisa laughed.

‘Certainly she deserves nothing less. What she must have thought when she arrived to find her patient bedded down on the kitchen floor I can't imagine. But she took it in her stride. Don't hang around here talking, Bella ought to be home and resting. Off you go.' She dismissed him before opening the passenger door a couple of inches and saying to Bella, who was gazing at the baby as though she couldn't believe there could be a miracle so beautiful, ‘In a day or two I'll walk up and see you, if I may, Bella.'

A minute later the car was making its way up the track to the farmhouse and Louisa collected her weeding tools. After yesterday's storm even the deeply rooted dandelions ought to give themselves up. Satisfied that the action was over, Gladys Holmes, from the end of the three terraced cottages opposite, moved away from the window. ‘Like looking back in time,' she muttered to herself. ‘Just like his father, that one. And as for the Harding woman, spitting image of her aunt, she is. Well, we shall see. It wouldn't surprise me if—' But even to herself she didn't finish the sentence. Good, plodding Alice was a far cry from that pretty child Leo's burnt his hands on … and serves him right. He'd always been a rascal and that was
his
affair, but little Bella was nought but a child and deserved better than she'd ever find with a ne'er-do-well like Leo Carter.

If she could have looked into the confusion of Louisa's thoughts as she stabbed and yanked at the weeds it would have done nothing to set her mind at rest. For Louisa was angry with herself. There was an arrogant self-assurance in Leo's manner that annoyed her. That was what she tried to make herself believe, but the truth was not so straightforward. Yes, she disliked that, but even more she felt uncomfortably suspicious that he was laughing at her, seeing her as a humourless spinster who tried to keep up with his natural and good-natured flow of lightweight chatter. He was just the sort of man she most disliked, but he was Bella's adored husband and for that reason she must make herself polite to him – coolly polite.

It was mid-morning the next day when there was a knock at her front door.

‘Damn,' she muttered, getting up from her worktable and marking how far she had added the sales figures from the ledger of an old-fashioned bespoke tailor's establishment where she was preparing his forms for income tax. Closing the workroom door behind her she hurried across the hall to see who could possibly be calling on her.

‘The top of the morning to you,' Leo greeted her. ‘I set off for a walk and then I saw your gate ajar and was tempted in.'