The Fruit of the Tree (22 page)

This pregnancy, almost completely joyless, was purely a necessary evil. I waited now, as for the missing piece of a jigsaw to complete the picture.

Amanda had been a small visitor who had totally disorganised the pleasant pattern of our lives, yet her death had caused a great gaping chasm, and, without her, our family had become suddenly incomplete.

I tried to stem the longing for a daughter to replace her and prayed first for a fit and healthy child, and only after that—if possible—a little girl. My awareness of all the potential dangers was heightened, and I was afraid to hope for too much.

I still felt a kind of fear at the new ties that threatened the spontaneity of our lives, but this time, Robert’s impending exodus to school would impose much greater restrictions than the arrival of the new baby.

Visits to the doctor for pre-school jabs were fitted in with all the usual prenatal check-ups.

‘Is this going to be another small baby?’ I asked the doctor, worriedly on one of the later visits.

‘It could be,’ he admitted. ‘I should hold on to it as long as possible.’

Robert had made a formal visit to school, and he was so overwhelmed by the large amount of children, that he had hidden behind me, clinging to my skirt.

I told the headmaster that Robert’s baby sister, already recorded in his notes had died.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I read your letter in the Newsletter.’

He gave me the details of the school terms, showing that Robert would be required to start school on 6th September; the new baby was due on 25th August, but could so easily be a week or more late. I asked whether, if I was still in hospital, Robert could miss the first few days of school. The headmaster was dubious at the time, but later he rang me to tell me that Robert’s class was being put in a newly built classroom, which would not be ready until September 11th. To avoid confusing the little ones, he had decided it would be better for them to start on the 11th and not the 6th September. This was a bonus, and I didn’t know whether to thank the Fates who had organised it, or the headmaster, for finding a way out of my own difficulty.

The very weekend before the baby was due, we were invited to a party by Jill, who was moving house. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had been to a party, and our neighbours, Doug and Beryl, offered to babysit, as their teenage daughter was already booked. My tiredness evaporated and I stood happily talking, sipping drinks without my customary heartburn. A figure from my past walked in—a young man from my happy days at a Mayfair office, more than six years ago. I asked after his wife.

‘We broke up,’ he told me. ‘We’re divorced.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, remembering what an attractive couple they had made. ‘Were there any children?’

‘No,’ he replied, saying then, ‘I suppose there are lots of little Lubens at home.’

I told him then about Robert and the miscarriages and poor little Amanda.

‘You’ve been very unlucky,’ he commented sympathetically.

I thought about the empty, broken shell of his marriage, which had looked as if it had all the ingredients for success. I compared it with our own marriage, woven with strands of disappointment and triumph, and enriched by the sharing of pain and happiness, blessed by our son Robert and the new child waiting to be born so soon now, and quite spontaneously I said, ‘No, we’ve been very lucky.’

* * *

I lay in bed; I was damp and sweaty, my back aching.

‘I think the waters have broken,’ I said, getting out of bed, but they hadn’t.

* * *

It was five o’clock in the morning; I woke up.

‘The waters have broken,’ I told Michael.

‘Are you sure this isn’t a false alarm?’ he said crossly, unable to get back to sleep, once he was disturbed.

‘No, I’m quite sure,’ I said, but I didn’t know what to do. It was two days early and the doctor had said, ‘Hold on to it for as long as possible’. If I went into hospital now, they would give me an enema, and things would start moving.

Foolishly I dithered, wondering whether to phone them or not.

Michael, always impatient with indecisiveness, got up, showered and dressed himself.

‘What are you going to do?’ I enquired.

‘I’m going to repair the car,’ he replied. ‘I can’t stand around doing nothing!’

I didn’t try too hard to dissuade him and he disappeared outside the door to adjust the brakes on the old Vauxhall—they had been becoming a little slack in the past few days.

He was no asset to have around on such occasions; he was too impatient ever to be a calming influence; it was really much easier to let him go off and busy himself with some useful job than to put up with being hurried and chivvied along.

Left now to my own devices, I decided to telephone the maternity home; the night staff was shortly coming off duty and, since there was no urgency, I was told to come in at my leisure.

As I lay back on my bed, I heard a dull thud outside, and I assumed it was Michael tinkering with his car. I couldn’t be bothered to get up and look out of the window to see what he was doing, but some minutes later he appeared and practically flung himself onto the bed, his face contorted with pain.

‘Whatever is it?’ I asked in alarm.

‘The car fell on my foot—the jack slipped,’ he explained.

‘I didn’t know how to help him; he was obviously in so much greater pain than I was going to be in the course of the day. All I could do was hold him to me and try to comfort him. I could have wept for him. At the same time, I couldn’t help being slightly irritated; this, after all, was my day for the attention and fussing; I wanted a useful and reliable husband around, not someone getting into scrapes and needing help himself.

Nevertheless, he did recover some of his equilibrium soon, and began to make himself some breakfast (I had no stomach for it), congratulating me on the way the food and utensils were positioned, for he was able to carry out the entire egg-boiling and eating operation from almost one spot in the kitchen.

In the meantime, I had received a telephone call.

‘What’s this I hear, Mrs Luben?’ came the familiar tones of Sister. ‘You’ve had one contraction and you want to come in?’

‘I didn’t say that at all,’ I replied indignantly. ‘I haven’t had any contractions, but the waters have broken.’ I knew as well as she did that the baby had now lost its sterile protection, and that that was the reason for going into hospital, not necessarily because the birth (or even labour) was imminent.

With the misunderstanding cleared up, she said I could come in, but I explained about Michael’s injured foot, and, managing to sound rather efficient, asked if I could first get the household organised before my departure.

I didn’t actually do very much except make one or two telephone calls. I couldn’t resist telephoning the doctor, to make sure it was really all right for me to go into the maternity home and start the chain of events leading up to labour. He must have thought I was being rather foolish to ask; for who can stop Nature in her tracks at that stage? Luckily, he was able to make an appointment to see Michael’s foot at the time when I should myself have been visiting him for a normal check-up.

Robert got up from bed, and received stern warning to stay away from both of us. At nearly five years old, he was one of those boys who almost always walk into or over things rather than around them; neither of us felt like being bumped into, and he would certainly have trodden on Michael’s injured foot if allowed within three yards of it.

Now we had to decide which of the relations to dispatch him to—Michael was hardly in a fit state to drive very far, but luckily the Cortina only needed one foot to operate it.

Our first approach was made to our good friends, the Goldsmiths, and our disappointment was great on hearing they were going to London. However, inspiration dawned, and we asked them to deposit Robert at Philippa’s house in London, thereafter to be transferred to any other available bit of family.

Before long, I arrived at the maternity home, complete with suitcase and injured husband, with a feeling of relief that now matters would be taken out of my hands and things would soon be underway. I had seen cases where women had spent two days in hospital after the waters had broken, waiting unhappily for labour to commence, but I had already felt the first faint contractions and hoped that I would not fall into that category.

Twice I had borne the pangs of labour in the lonely darkness of the night, and only after the first light of the morning had my children been born. Now outside the window, almost remote from me, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky; it was a fine August day, one of the few, it seemed to me, in that fairly dull summer; it boded well for my child.

Labour carried out to the accompaniment of lunch, tea and the busy atmosphere of the day was a much more prosaic affair than those two solitary nights I had experienced.

Michael hobbled back, not long after his visit to the doctor. Mercifully, his foot, now vastly swollen and clad only in a sock (his shoe was still under the car) was merely bruised and no bones appeared to be broken.

Where’s Mrs. Luben?’ I heard Sister’s voice ring out. ‘She can take her husband for a walk around the garden—oh no! He can’t walk!’

I was glad to be let off the hook as I had no wish to spend the day walking round the garden with or without Michael, particularly if it involved meeting up with women who had already given birth some days ago.

The contractions were not too bad at that stage; I observed them with an almost clinical interest. It was as if a giant hand had caught hold of a part of me, located somewhere in the centre of my anatomy, and was gently squeezing it.

It was sensible to begin breathing correctly now, before the contractions became more acute.

Michael didn’t stay long after that; at the first signs of me breathing through a contraction, he said, ‘What are you making all those funny faces for?’

He’d been through all the breathing exercises with me, during the first pregnancy, but he still behaved as if I was putting on an act! Spending the day with me in labour was definitely not his favourite occupation, and before long he had deserted me.

I was in an intimate two-bed ward, the same room and bed, in fact, where I had spent ten days after Robert’s birth. My roommate was marginally ahead of me; we sat champing through our lunches watching each other’s faces for signs of contractions.

Her husband, who wanted to be present at the birth, was located mid-afternoon, by which time her pains were getting stronger. Screened from my view, I nevertheless heard her discomfort increase, until Sister popped in with official visitors; she glanced just once at my neighbour, and immediately called: ‘Nurse! Get Mrs. Taylor to the delivery room.’

I was impressed by the speed of her diagnosis, and heard later that she was a remarkably kind midwife too; it had not occurred to me before that she ever officiated at a delivery.

My neighbour’s husband, en passant, asked me how I was feeling.

‘I think I’m a couple of hours behind your wife,’ I answered weakly. The giant hand was squeezing ruthlessly now, sadistically.

I had spent much of the afternoon sitting in a chair, carefully timing the contractions; by this time I was lying in bed, no longer able to sit up comfortably.

To break the monotony, I walked to the loo, at half past each hour, and on the hour, a pleasant Indian nurse visited me.

‘You must have your baby by seven o’clock,’ she told me, ‘and then you will have a girl; the last baby I delivered was a boy and so the next will be a girl. But I go off duty at seven.’

‘I’ll try and have it by seven o’clock,’ I promised, hoping sincerely that labour would not be extended beyond that time, in view of my increasing discomfort. But apart from that, I had no wish to lose the support of this nurse who had been observing me all day. In addition, even though I knew the baby’s sex had been determined nine months ago, we all get a little superstitious sometimes.

At five-thirty, I dragged myself weakly to the toilet once again, but by six o’clock, I was praying for the arrival of my nurse; I should have rung for her; now I had left things so late that I could hardly walk, and had to be helped to the delivery room.

Every part of my body was throbbing, and I had no control over it except the bit that was pushing the baby out. My hand gripped the wrist of the staff nurse in charge, and to my embarrassment I couldn’t release it.

She’s having a spasm.’ said the staff nurse, prising my fingers away. ‘Do you want gas and air?’ she asked me.

I wanted to answer her politely, ‘Yes please, if you think it will help,’ but no sound came out of my mouth. I knew I was doing something wrong—over-breathing, under-breathing or something; I had failed to re-read my ‘natural childbirth’ book—I had had no heart for it, and as a result, this would not be the perfect birth, as Amanda’s had been. I was completely overpowered by the contractions and the vibrations of every nerve end of my body. I felt like a musical instrument that was being harshly played; geometric patterns concertinaing open and closed in time with the vibrations flashed through my mind.

Then suddenly, miraculously, we were there, with that unforgettable sensation of the baby sliding into the world.

The vibrations stopped; my body returned into my possession.

It was several seconds before I could appreciate the miracle that had happened. I had given birth to a daughter.