– but couldn't manage it.
Daniel laid Humpy down in his cot. ‘Who's a very sleepy boy then?’ he asked.
Humpy looked up at him; his blue eyes were still bright, untainted with fatigue. ’Wende!’ said Humpy cheerily. ’Wende-Wende-Wende!’ He drew his knees up to his chest and kicked them out.
‘Ye-es, that's right.’ Daniel pulled the clutch of covers up over the bunched little boy. ‘Wendy will be here to look after you in the morning, because it's Mummy's day to go to work, isn't it?’ He leant down to kiss his son, marvelling – as ever – at the tight, intense feeling the flesh of his flesh provoked in him. ‘Goodnight, little love.’ He turned on the nightlight with its slow-moving carousel of leaping bunnies and clicked off the main light. As Daniel went back downstairs he could still hear Humpy gurgling to himself, ’Wende-Wende,’ contentedly.
But there was little content to be had at the Greens’ oval scrubbed-pine kitchen table that evening. Miriam Green had stopped crying, but an atmosphere of fraught weepiness prevailed. ‘Perhaps I'm too bloody old for this,’ she said to Daniel, thumping a steaming casserole down so that flecks of onion, flageolets and juice spilled on to the table.’ I nearly hit him today, Daniel, hit him!’
‘You musn't be so hard on yourself, Miriam. He is a handful – and you know that it's always the mother who gets the worst of it. Listen, as soon as this job is over I'll take some more time off –’
‘Daniel, it isn't that that's the problem.’
And it wasn't, for Miriam Green couldn't complain about Daniel. He did far more childcare than most fathers, and certainly more than any father who was trying to get a landscape-gardening business going in the teeth of a recession. Nor was Miriam cut off from the world of work by her motherhood, the way so many women were, isolated then demeaned by their loss of status. She had insisted on continuing with her career as a journalist after Humphrey was born, although she had accepted a jobshare in order to spend two and a half days a week at home. Wendy, the part-time nanny who covered for Miriam during the rest of the week, was, quite simply, a treasure. Intelligent, efficient and as devoted to Humpy as he was to her.
No, when Miriam Green let fly the remark about being ‘too old’, her husband knew what it was that was really ctroubling her. It was the same thing that had troubled her throughout her pregnancy. The first trimester may have been freighted with nausea, the second characterised by a kind of skittish sexiness, and the third swelling to something resembling bulgy beatitude, but throughout it all Miriam Green had felt deeply uneasy. She had emphatically declined the amniocentesis offered by her doctor, although at forty-one the hexagonal chips were not quite stacked in her favour.
‘I don't believe in tinkering with destiny,’ she had told Daniel, who, although he had not said so, thought the more likely reason was that Miriam felt she had tinkered with destiny too much already, and that this would, in a mysterious way, be weighed in the balance against her. Daniel was sensitive to her feelings, and although they talked around the subject, neither of them ever came right out with it and voiced the awful fear that the baby Miriam was carrying might turn out to be not quite right.
In the event the birth was a pure joy – and a revelation. Miriam and Daniel had lingered at home for the first five hours of the labour, mindful of all the premature hospital-dashes their friends had made. When they eventually got to the hospital Miriam's cervix was eight centimetres dilated. It was too late for an epidural, or even pethidine. Humphrey was born exactly fifty-one minutes later, as Miriam squatted, bellowing, on what looked to Daniel suspiciously like a school gym mat.
One moment he was watching the sweating, distending bulk of his wife, her face pushed about by pain; the next he was holding a blue-red
Daniel laid Humpy down in his cot. ‘Who's a very sleepy boy then?’ he asked.
Humpy looked up at him; his blue eyes were still bright, untainted with fatigue. ’Wende!’ said Humpy cheerily. ’Wende-Wende-Wende!’ He drew his knees up to his chest and kicked them out.
‘Ye-es, that's right.’ Daniel pulled the clutch of covers up over the bunched little boy. ‘Wendy will be here to look after you in the morning, because it's Mummy's day to go to work, isn't it?’ He leant down to kiss his son, marvelling – as ever – at the tight, intense feeling the flesh of his flesh provoked in him. ‘Goodnight, little love.’ He turned on the nightlight with its slow-moving carousel of leaping bunnies and clicked off the main light. As Daniel went back downstairs he could still hear Humpy gurgling to himself, ’Wende-Wende,’ contentedly.
But there was little content to be had at the Greens’ oval scrubbed-pine kitchen table that evening. Miriam Green had stopped crying, but an atmosphere of fraught weepiness prevailed. ‘Perhaps I'm too bloody old for this,’ she said to Daniel, thumping a steaming casserole down so that flecks of onion, flageolets and juice spilled on to the table.’ I nearly hit him today, Daniel, hit him!’
‘You musn't be so hard on yourself, Miriam. He is a handful – and you know that it's always the mother who gets the worst of it. Listen, as soon as this job is over I'll take some more time off –’
‘Daniel, it isn't that that's the problem.’
And it wasn't, for Miriam Green couldn't complain about Daniel. He did far more childcare than most fathers, and certainly more than any father who was trying to get a landscape-gardening business going in the teeth of a recession. Nor was Miriam cut off from the world of work by her motherhood, the way so many women were, isolated then demeaned by their loss of status. She had insisted on continuing with her career as a journalist after Humphrey was born, although she had accepted a jobshare in order to spend two and a half days a week at home. Wendy, the part-time nanny who covered for Miriam during the rest of the week, was, quite simply, a treasure. Intelligent, efficient and as devoted to Humpy as he was to her.
No, when Miriam Green let fly the remark about being ‘too old’, her husband knew what it was that was really ctroubling her. It was the same thing that had troubled her throughout her pregnancy. The first trimester may have been freighted with nausea, the second characterised by a kind of skittish sexiness, and the third swelling to something resembling bulgy beatitude, but throughout it all Miriam Green had felt deeply uneasy. She had emphatically declined the amniocentesis offered by her doctor, although at forty-one the hexagonal chips were not quite stacked in her favour.
‘I don't believe in tinkering with destiny,’ she had told Daniel, who, although he had not said so, thought the more likely reason was that Miriam felt she had tinkered with destiny too much already, and that this would, in a mysterious way, be weighed in the balance against her. Daniel was sensitive to her feelings, and although they talked around the subject, neither of them ever came right out with it and voiced the awful fear that the baby Miriam was carrying might turn out to be not quite right.
In the event the birth was a pure joy – and a revelation. Miriam and Daniel had lingered at home for the first five hours of the labour, mindful of all the premature hospital-dashes their friends had made. When they eventually got to the hospital Miriam's cervix was eight centimetres dilated. It was too late for an epidural, or even pethidine. Humphrey was born exactly fifty-one minutes later, as Miriam squatted, bellowing, on what looked to Daniel suspiciously like a school gym mat.
One moment he was watching the sweating, distending bulk of his wife, her face pushed about by pain; the next he was holding a blue-red
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