Renaissance

Chapter 1
From Fear to Maternity

The bitter, February wind was driving the remnants of last year's litter along the towpath, stirring it round and depositing it in dusty heaps under the cast-iron benches, as a single hardy courting couple strolled by the river. A lone duck steered its way optimistically toward them. The man gave it an apologetic smile.
'No bread today.' He spread his empty hands before it. It seemed to understand.
'Softy,' said Isobel, grabbing Andy's hand and giving it a squeeze. She went back to talking of what lay ahead, babbling as much to herself as her companion, and realising at last that Andy was absorbed in his own thoughts.
'You should see the silly grin on your face!'
'Well? I'm happy.'
'Good! Because there's not much we could do about it if you weren't!'
'I suppose we'd better get married now.'
'If that's a proposal, you can try again. I want flowers, you on bended knee, the works.' Andy dragged her to the nearest bench, sat her down and knelt before her, as she squealed, 'Andy! Not here! They'll think we're mad!'
'Who will?' Isobel looked around the deserted park.
'The ducks.'
'They know we're daft anyway,' said Andy. He took her hand:
'Will you marry me?'
'Where are the flowers?'
'I'll buy some on the way home.'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because I don't want anyone saying we only got married because I was pregnant.'
'When then?'
'When our son's old enough to be our page-boy.' Andy sighed. He hadn't told his parents yet. He had hoped to placate them by announcing the wedding date at the same time.


'Have you told her yet?'
'Yes.' Andy sipped his coffee.
'Who's a brave boy then?' Isobel teased. 'Well? How did she take it?'
'Calmly,' he said, with emphasis. 'She's invited us to dinner on Easter Sunday.'
'How about your father?'
'She said he could come too.'
'Be serious.'
'He was out. He'll be alright though. It gives him an excuse to lecture me.'


They sat together on the settee, Andy, his mother and Isobel, poring over the family albums, as roast lamb settled uneasily with chocolate gateau.
'Going soft over pictures of babies,' Andy's father muttered, shaking his head. He stretched and stood up. 'Fancy a walk?'
Andy didn't in the least fancy a walk. He was perfectly happy looking at faded snapshots and remembering distant holidays. On the other hand, he could tell when "Fancy a walk?" meant "I want a word with you".
They strolled down the empty High Street, past the boarded up shell of the butcher's.
'Every time I come here another shop's closed down,' sighed Andy.
'Everyone goes to the supermarket now. Even the pensioners,' explained his father. 'There's a free bus twice a week. Everything's in one place. The prices are lower. That's progress.'
'Progress,' Andy muttered.
'Things change,' said his father. 'Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. I remember when couples waited to get married before they started breeding.'
'Alright,' Andy sighed, 'let's get it over with.'
But his father simply shrugged his shoulders, and said:
'I can't undo it by moaning, can I? As long as you tie the knot properly sometime, alright? I'm not going to lecture you. But if you ever need a bit of fatherly advice you know where I am.'
Andy laughed. They were silent for a moment.
'There is one thing,' Andy began.
'Well?'
'How did you feel when I was born?'
'Queasy.'
'God, was the birth that bad?'
'You'd better ask your mother. I was in the pub. And don't pull that face. They didn't let fathers in when you and your sister were born. As soon as the woman was wheeled off to the delivery room, they told the expectant father to take himself off for a smoke and a stiff drink. You want to know how I felt emotionally, yeah?'
Andy nodded.
'Proud. Especially when she had you.'
'Why me especially?'
'Because a son carries on the family name.'
'But what did you feel apart from pride?'
His father frowned.
'What do you mean, "apart from proud"?'
'About us. When we were first born. How did you relate to us, as babies?'
'You can't relate to babies,' snorted his father. 'There's nothing to relate to. They can't talk. They can't walk. They don't understand anything. They're ...' His father struggled for a metaphor. '... not even a blank sheet of paper. They're the pulp it's made from. By the time he's three there might be something you can start writing on. If you're lucky.'
The "if you're lucky" had venom in it.
'That's not the way Isobel sees it,' said Andy. 'She says the first few months matter the most, it's when all the emotional bonds are formed.'
'Well, it's different for women. They're with them all the time. Feeding them. Changing them. Getting them to sleep. Liking babies come naturally to them.'
'You wouldn't dare say that in room full of women.'
His father laughed.
'I'm still right though.'
They returned to find the two women in animated conversation. Andy's father switched on the television, sat down and fell asleep. His mother pulled a face.
'I'll get the tea ready,' she said, rising from the settee. Isobel followed suit.
'I'll help.' She winked at Andy.
'Creep,' he mouthed, as she left the room.
The photo album lay on the table. Andy took it up and thumbed idly through the early pages, trying to spot which pictures were of Karen, and which himself. It was easy enough once they were toddlers, but those early snapshots..... That was the trouble with babies: they all looked the same. How could you learn to love something that looked like a miniature Winston Churchill?


'How did it go with your Dad?' said Isobel, as they got into the taxi.
'Alright. You and Mum seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.'
'As soon as I told her I was going to breast-feed and use "proper" nappies, we the best of friends again. I've found out things about you today, you probably don't even know yourself.'
'If it's anything embarrassing, I probably do. She didn't start laying down the law about us getting married then?'
Isobel laughed.
'I think she left that side to your dad.'
'He just wanted to offer me some "fatherly advice".'
'Well your mum offered me plenty of advice on motherhood. Especially on not leaving one-year-olds alone with bowls of scrambled egg.'
Andy groaned. Why, whenever the subject of babies came up, did she always have to trot out every embarrassing incident from his infancy?
'And she told me what you did every time she got you dressed up to go out ... Which reminds me: she's sending your dad over with a parcel next week.'
'A present?'
'Yes,' Isobel gave Andy's cheek a playful pinch. 'It's all your old nappies.'
'Oh,' said Andy. 'I thought Karen had those for her kids, years ago.'
'She did. Your mum's grabbing them all back again for ours, plus just about everything else you and your sister ever wore. My mum's got suitcases full of baby stuff too. At this rate we won't need to buy a single thing.'
'So why do you keep dragging me into Mothercare two or three times a week?'
Isobel kissed his cheek.
'Needing to buy new is one thing, wanting to is another.'


The weeks passed, and Andy busied himself with turning the spare bedroom into a nursery. It was going to be a big change from Isobel spending the odd night with him, to being a complete family. He painted the Teddy Bears' Picnic on the wall opposite where the cot would stand, and decorated the remainder, including the ceiling, with butterflies.
'It's beautiful,' Isobel exclaimed, when he showed her the finished creation.
'Baby's are supposed to like bright colours. I thought this would give it plenty to look at.'
Isobel grinned.
'Have you been swotting up on the subject?'
'It was just something I saw on TV the other week,' said Andy. 'I don't know the first about babies otherwise.'
'You'll soon pick it up,' laughed Isobel, 'once you've changed a few nappies and rocked it to sleep at three in the morning half a dozen times.' She saw his horrified expression and added. 'Don't worry, I'll ease you into it gently.'
'But what if it doesn't like me? What if don't like it?'
Isobel hugged him.
'Don't be silly. The moment you hold it in your arms, you'll fall in love with it.' She sighed. 'We've got to stop calling the baby "it", it sounds so clinical.'
'Well we can't call it "him" or "her" yet in case it turns out the opposite to what we call it.'
'My parents called me "Fred" before I was born,' said Isobel.
Andy looked hard at Isobel's expanding frontage.
'No, it doesn't look like a Fred. He looks more like ...'
So they named the child "Bump".


'What does the scan tell them exactly?'
Isobel shifted uncomfortably.
'How long it takes for your bladder to burst, I think,' she groaned. Andy suppressed a smirk.
'Why do they make you...?'
'They get a better picture of the baby if your bladder's full. They need to see the spine and take measurements and things. Just to make sure everything's developing OK.'
Ten minutes later they were watching the grainy monochrome image. Andy, moist eyed, saw the perfectly formed bones of the baby's tiny limbs, the shadowy pulsing of its heart; the curve of its skull. Above all he saw movement. Here was their unborn child. Alive. Growing. He had thought it would be inert until much later, until birth almost. The emotional impact caught him by surprise. Isobel squeezed his hand.
'It's wonderful isn't it?'
Andy nodded, feeling his tears threaten to brim over, and swallowed back the lump in his throat. 'Typical,' he thought. 'I spend weeks worrying because I don't feel anything, and then go completely soft in public.'
The nurse winked at Isobel, and passed Andy a tissue to wipe his eyes with.


'Isn't she gorgeous?' exclaimed Isobel, as Julia lifted the baby from its pram. Andy mumbled an incoherent reply, grinning too broadly and shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot, in a way that would have made his mother ask him, even at his age, whether he needed the lavatory.
It was a set-up. 'Come and have coffee with Mum and me,' Isobel's had said. And within five minutes of his arriving, a friend from the ante-natal class had turned up with her three-week-old daughter.
'Hello Emma,' cooed Isobel as she took the baby from its mother. 'Ooh you're beautiful, aren't you.'
'I'll make the coffee,' offered Andy, desperate to escape. Being introduced to his own baby, when it arrived, was one thing, meeting someone else's was quite another. Other people's babies embarrassed him. His father was right: only women had a natural affinity with them.
As he waited for the kettle to boil, snatches of conversation drifted in from the sitting-room. Isobel asking how long the labour lasted, when the waters broke, how the baby fed and slept. And replies about sore nipples, leaking breasts and, he was sure he heard right, never feeling the same about mustard pickle again! He took his time making the drinks.
'Four coffees. Help yourselves to sugar,' announced Andy, setting down the tray.
The conversation had stopped the moment he entered the room. It was Mrs Bennett who broke the silence as Andy sat down.
'Would you like to hold the baby?'
Before he could reply, Andy found the infant cradled in his arms. She felt surprisingly solid and heavy. For some reason he had expected her to be as light as a doll. He sat rigid, hardly daring to breath, afraid of the child's fragility. The baby made little sucking movements with her mouth as she slept. Her tiny hands, only just protruding from the sleeves of a cardigan that drowned her, were tightly clenched. Andy began to relax.
'Isn't she beautiful?' said Isobel. Andy looked up from studying
the smooth untroubled face.
'Yes,' he whispered, she was beautiful, as long, he thought, as she slept and didn't scream at him or be sick over him. It was too good to last. Emma began to stir. She drew her legs up, yawned, and opened her eyes: watery, dark and opaque. Her forehead furrowed into a frown as she peered into Andy's face, and her features, so fair a moment ago, transformed themselves into a wrinkled, ugly, little beetroot. Emma bawled, and Andy looked around the room helplessly.
'She's hungry,' explained her mother, relieving Andy of the screaming bundle. She held Emma to her shoulder; patting her back and shushing her gently.
'Is it alright if I take her upstairs and feed her?' Isobel went with her to show her the way.
'Terrifying aren't they?' said Mrs Bennett, as the footsteps faded up the stairs. Andy gave a weak smile.
'I was doing OK until she woke up. Do you think I frightened her?'
'I think all she was bothered by was an empty tummy.' Andy wasn't convinced. He wanted to hold when she had been fed, to see if she would actually lay in his arms without screaming at the sight of him. But he wasn't going to ask, and nobody offered, so he washed the coffee mugs instead.


The baby was now a week overdue. Andy pretended to work, and waited for the telephone to ring. And waited ... and waited. The same blank sheet had stared up from his drawing board morning after morning, reminding him, each day, of the work he had left undone the day before. He had wanted Isobel to stay with him, but Mrs Bennett had persuaded her to remain at home; and Isobel would not hear of Andy leaving his work to be with her. So he filled his days with drinking coffee and making toast. He was just buttering his seventh slice of the morning when the phone rang.
Isobel was in labour at last and on her way to the maternity unit.
'I'll meet you there in twenty minutes,' Andy promised. He replaced the receiver, and ran to lock the back door. Halfway across the kitchen his foot came to rest on the toast, which he had dropped in his haste to answer the telephone. There is an unwritten law about toast: it always lands butter-side, the slippery side, down.

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