immediate
thoughts.”
They drank their tea: Peter
slurping his back like a man merely replenishing vital fluids in order to be
ready for his next endeavour. He was thinking of lamb shanks and fillet of
beef. And a jus. Which jus ?
Chris swallowed his tea; and felt his baby move and sigh in her sleep.
“I can’t apologise enough about
tonight, guys,” he said. “I know Sundays are evil for getting cover. But I am
in a bit of a fix. I will organise help and get things back to normal, but I’ll
need a few days. A week at most.”
Peter and Linda exchanged
glances that betrayed a discussion they had had about Chris’s ‘fix’ already.
“Look, you mustn’t worry about this
place,” said Linda. “Tonight is fine.” She waved her arm in front of her face
as though she were dismissing any sense of alarm there had been. She was what
Chris’s parents described as a ‘trooper’: she probably even thrived on the
unpredictability of life. “We have contacted Alison, Gaston and Marcus. They
will rally. But I don’t think it’s as simple as taking a week off.”
She eyed her husband: his
visual cue to speak up.
“Before you and Amé split, you
were talking about a break,” said Peter. “I know it won’t be quite the same as
a trip to Europe, God knows, but maybe you should consider taking some
paternity leave. It will give you time to straighten things out. And we will
know where we stand here. Cover wise.”
His cup drained and cool, Chris
rested it on the top of his daughter’s tranquil head: it balanced perfectly.
“Bistros and babies don’t run
themselves,” said Linda: she passed a sad, sympathetic look between the
brothers.
Chris hugged her, then Peter;
and took Amélie home for her supper.
There was a power cut in the
flat that night: not for long, as the electricity company was always pretty
efficient. Long enough for Chris to light some candles around the place; but
not so long that he had any concerns about heating Amélie’s bathwater or bedtime
bottle.
He kept a few of the candles
lit as darkness drew in. He spread a mat out on the floor of his lounge and
watched his daughter wriggle on her back, raising tiny knees in what seemed
like an effort to do one of those clever two-legged leaps that he and Peter had
tried to master in order to get up from a lying down position while playing
football. She was never going to achieve it, he figured: but, then again,
neither had he.
He eased her onto her tummy,
where she snuffled and battled to lift her head up; succeeding in resting first
one cheek, then the other, onto the mat below.
“What will I do when you stop
staying in one place?” he asked her.
She fixed him with an uncertain
stare when he lowered her into the bath; powering her limbs around like a
wind-up toy. She was unimpressed by the squeaky duck that Sara had provided
with the plastic bath; and therefore the procedure was cut short by a fit of
angry tears. He threw the duck over his shoulder – slightly ashamed that
Rick was his imaginary target – and muffled her up in a towel that she
promptly peed on.
“When will you start splashing
and having fun like a proper baby?” he asked, rubbing his nose on hers. She
grabbed a tiny fistful of his hair, and he waited, with a watering eye, till
she let it go.
She was poppered into a vest
and babygro: clean and dry, if a little stiff from the uncompromising heat of
the radiator. (He made a mental note to buy a clothes airer of some kind: the
sort of thing people possessed who also owned an iron; and a tablecloth). He
had worked out that a bib was an essential prop for feeding time, or the front
of her suit got damp and the creases of her neck filled with rivulets of
formula that got really smelly.
He cradled her on a cushion in the crook of his left arm, and,
as she suckled, he stroked her nose with his forefinger. He learned that
conversation was too distracting until she got to her last few mouthfuls, when
he wanted her awake
thoughts.”
They drank their tea: Peter
slurping his back like a man merely replenishing vital fluids in order to be
ready for his next endeavour. He was thinking of lamb shanks and fillet of
beef. And a jus. Which jus ?
Chris swallowed his tea; and felt his baby move and sigh in her sleep.
“I can’t apologise enough about
tonight, guys,” he said. “I know Sundays are evil for getting cover. But I am
in a bit of a fix. I will organise help and get things back to normal, but I’ll
need a few days. A week at most.”
Peter and Linda exchanged
glances that betrayed a discussion they had had about Chris’s ‘fix’ already.
“Look, you mustn’t worry about this
place,” said Linda. “Tonight is fine.” She waved her arm in front of her face
as though she were dismissing any sense of alarm there had been. She was what
Chris’s parents described as a ‘trooper’: she probably even thrived on the
unpredictability of life. “We have contacted Alison, Gaston and Marcus. They
will rally. But I don’t think it’s as simple as taking a week off.”
She eyed her husband: his
visual cue to speak up.
“Before you and Amé split, you
were talking about a break,” said Peter. “I know it won’t be quite the same as
a trip to Europe, God knows, but maybe you should consider taking some
paternity leave. It will give you time to straighten things out. And we will
know where we stand here. Cover wise.”
His cup drained and cool, Chris
rested it on the top of his daughter’s tranquil head: it balanced perfectly.
“Bistros and babies don’t run
themselves,” said Linda: she passed a sad, sympathetic look between the
brothers.
Chris hugged her, then Peter;
and took Amélie home for her supper.
There was a power cut in the
flat that night: not for long, as the electricity company was always pretty
efficient. Long enough for Chris to light some candles around the place; but
not so long that he had any concerns about heating Amélie’s bathwater or bedtime
bottle.
He kept a few of the candles
lit as darkness drew in. He spread a mat out on the floor of his lounge and
watched his daughter wriggle on her back, raising tiny knees in what seemed
like an effort to do one of those clever two-legged leaps that he and Peter had
tried to master in order to get up from a lying down position while playing
football. She was never going to achieve it, he figured: but, then again,
neither had he.
He eased her onto her tummy,
where she snuffled and battled to lift her head up; succeeding in resting first
one cheek, then the other, onto the mat below.
“What will I do when you stop
staying in one place?” he asked her.
She fixed him with an uncertain
stare when he lowered her into the bath; powering her limbs around like a
wind-up toy. She was unimpressed by the squeaky duck that Sara had provided
with the plastic bath; and therefore the procedure was cut short by a fit of
angry tears. He threw the duck over his shoulder – slightly ashamed that
Rick was his imaginary target – and muffled her up in a towel that she
promptly peed on.
“When will you start splashing
and having fun like a proper baby?” he asked, rubbing his nose on hers. She
grabbed a tiny fistful of his hair, and he waited, with a watering eye, till
she let it go.
She was poppered into a vest
and babygro: clean and dry, if a little stiff from the uncompromising heat of
the radiator. (He made a mental note to buy a clothes airer of some kind: the
sort of thing people possessed who also owned an iron; and a tablecloth). He
had worked out that a bib was an essential prop for feeding time, or the front
of her suit got damp and the creases of her neck filled with rivulets of
formula that got really smelly.
He cradled her on a cushion in the crook of his left arm, and,
as she suckled, he stroked her nose with his forefinger. He learned that
conversation was too distracting until she got to her last few mouthfuls, when
he wanted her awake
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