‘Really.’
‘You won’t regret it,’ she’d said gruffly. ‘The dogs and I will love it.’ Then she’d hesitated and looked across at the men filling in the open grave. ‘He was a hard man, your father,’ she’d said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’
And he’d thought, uncomfortably, that she understood.
Did this whole district understand? That he and his father had had no relationship at all?
They weren’t a family.
Family …
His mother had gone on to three or four more relationships, all disastrous. He’d never worked out the concept of family. Now …
He listened on to Miriam and he watched the sleeping baby. Would he and Miriam ever have babies? Family?
Now wasn’t the time to ask, he thought, and he grimaced as he realised he hadn’t heard a word she’d said for the last few minutes.
Focus, he told himself. Do what the lady says. Concentrate on medicine and not baby. Tomorrow give the baby back to Maggie or get rid of it some other way. Do whatever it takes. This was an aberration from the past.
One baby, with twisted feet and no one to care for her. An aberration?
He carried on listening to Miriam and he thought, Maggie’s just through the wall. She might even be listening to half this conversation.
The thought was unnerving.
Forget it, he thought. Forget Maggie. And the baby?
Do whatever it takes.
If only she wasn’t sucking her knuckles. If only she wasn’t twisting his heart in a way that made him realise a pain he’d felt when he’d been six years old had never been resolved.
She was his father’s grandchild. She was the child of his half-sister.
Family?
It was his health that was making him think like this, he told himself. He’d had his appendix out barely a week before, and it had been messy. He was tired and weaker than he cared to admit, and he was staying in a house that held nothing but bad memories.
He had a sudden, overwhelming urge to thump a hole in the wall in the sitting room. Let his father’s dogs through.
See Maggie.
Heaven knew what Miriam was saying. He’d given up trying to listen. It had been an important paper she’d presented. Normally he’d listen and be impressed. Tonight, though, he looked at one tiny baby, sleeping cocooned in Maggie’s cashmere blanket, and suddenly he felt tired and weak—and faintly jealous of the deep sleep, the total oblivion.
And he also felt … alone.
If the bridge was safe, maybe he’d suggest Miriam come down.
Don’t be nuts, he told himself. She’d never come, and even if she did there’d be nothing for her to do.
She wouldn’t care for a baby.
He had to.
Baby. Floods. Maggie. The images were drifting around his head in a swirl of exhausted confusion.
Baby. Floods. Maggie.
‘I need to go,’ he told Miriam, cutting her off in mid-sentence. ‘Sorry, love, but I’ll ring you back tomorrow. The baby needs me.’
‘The midwife—’
‘She’s gone to sleep,’ he said. ‘That’s where I’m heading, too. Hours and hours of sleep. I just have to get one baby called Ruby to agree.’
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