‘And the baby … I don’t understand why—’
‘Don’t worry about it any more tonight – we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Everything will be all right.’
My eyes began inexorably closing.
‘My night things are in a case in my bedroom.’
‘I’ll go and fetch them.’
‘Bess and Toby …’
‘Can go up to the Hall with Maria.’
‘My mother! She was there! She’ll—’
‘It was your mother who rang me and told me you were missing. I was just going out to look for you when the gardener found you at the gate. I phoned Maria up after we got here and she’ll have let her know you’re safe.’
‘Fergal?’ There was something else I needed to remember, something to ask.
‘Leave it all to me,’ he said, kissing me lightly. ‘Go to sleep and don’t worry about anything. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Tomorrow …
I was woken at some unearthly hour of the morning. There was no sign of the baby, but a nurse assured me she was fine and would be brought up later.
‘You won’t give her to anyone else, will you?’ I asked urgently, and she gave me a strange look on the way out and said, ‘All our babies are properly tagged and there’s no possibility of error.’
She was gone before I could explain.
My hospital bag was by the bed, mute evidence that Fergal had been back in the night. I only hope he’d found time to have some sleep.
Attired in my own nightie and with my hair brushed, I almost passed as a member of the human race again, except that my breasts felt, and looked, like a big hard pair of water wings worn back-to-front.
Then a nurse brought the baby back and showed me how to feed and wind her, and change the nappy on her fragile little body.
‘She’s so tiny! I’m afraid to hurt her.’
‘She’s not so tiny!’ she assured me, laughing. ‘She’s seven pounds – quite a good weight.’
I stared at her, realising just what it was that had been niggling at the back of my mind. ‘Isn’t that rather a lot for a baby who’s a month early?’
‘A month early! Wherever did you get that idea? She’s a full-term baby.’ She laughed heartily. ‘You’ve got your dates wrong. Now, I’ll just leave her with you, but ring if you want anything.’
I didn’t reply, too busy calculating a month back from the barbecue and coming up with a conclusion that made my brain reel.
Did I want anything? Yes! I wanted to get my hands on Fergal Rocco.
Preferably when I got my full strength back.
I stared down thoughtfully at my dark-haired daughter, and her big blue eyes seemed to stare right back. She was a strangely long, elegant baby, rather than a pudgy, squished up little bundle, and Mother would say she looked foreign … but at least she hadn’t got red hair!
No wonder Fergal was so certain James couldn’t take her away from me.
When, later, I made my painful way to the loo (where my crushed organs had forgotten the most basic functions), I discovered a whole ward of new mothers who seemed to be wearing large, hard water wings, worn the wrong way round.
This isn’t mentioned in any of the books I’ve read.
‘There’s a man outside who says he’s your husband,’ said a small dark nurse, sticking her head in. She looked puzzled. ‘But his name is Drew.’
‘So is mine at the moment, and I suppose he’s technically still my husband.’
‘But Mr Rocco? Isn’t the baby—’
‘I don’t want to see him!’
‘Mr Rocco?’ she said doubtfully.
‘No! Mr Drew!’
‘Oh – I see.’
It was pretty obvious she didn’t. She asked hesitantly: ‘Will you see your mother – Mrs Norwood?’
‘I suppose so,’ I said wearily. I might as well get it over with. ‘There isn’t an older Mr Drew out there too, is there?’
She thought I was mad, and perhaps I was a bit yesterday, but today I was feeling more and more sane. Perhaps that’s a sign of madness?
‘No – just the one. Your husband – er – Mr Rocco phoned …’ She sighed dreamily and went into a trance.
‘Did he?’
‘His voice on the phone was so sex—’ She bit off the word and blushed scarlet. ‘He said you weren’t to worry about anything, and he’d be here later.’
‘I won’t see him!’
‘Mr Rocco?’
‘Mr Rocco,’ I agreed.
She went out, looking back at me as if I were insane. Perhaps I am at that, but at least there won’t be room for postnatal depression.
Mother tottered in, looking pale and fragile. ‘Darling!’
She laid her powdered cheek against mine. ‘How could you frighten me so! I was so worried when you just ran out like that. I even rang Fergal because I thought you might have gone there. It
would
have to be him who found you!’
She sounded as if she’d rather I hadn’t been found at all.
‘That foreign woman phoned and said you were safe, and then
he
came and told me you’d had the baby and took Bess, Toby and your case away in his car! I was so upset that poor Duncan stayed all night – in separate rooms, of course,’ she added primly.
‘Of course,’ I agreed.
‘And I phoned James at the Wrekins’ this morning to tell him – he should know, after all! And he wants to see you. But now I must see my granddaughter at last! Does she look like you? You were such a pretty baby, darling.’
She got up, peered into the crib, and added doubtfully, ‘– a pretty baby just like this one. But she’s very
dark
, dear, isn’t she?’
‘I don’t think their hair stays the same colour.’
She took another furtive peek at the baby. ‘What are you going to call her, Leticia?’
That’s the one thing I haven’t thought of! ‘Incubus’ wouldn’t look well on the birth certificate, but ‘Cuckoo’ is a distinct possibility.
‘I don’t know, Mother, I’ll have to think about it. What made Glenda choose Leticia?’
She looked at me and her lip trembled. ‘I – I had a baby doll called that when I was a little girl, and Glenda said she thought you looked like it. But it means “gladness”, darling.’
She subsided into a chair and said slightly defensively, ‘And Daddy and I
were
glad, when we got over the shock!’
‘So you didn’t plan on adopting me when you went down there?’
‘No – oh, no!’ she quavered, blotting blue mascara with the edge of her silk scarf. ‘I felt I had to go and help her when she sent the telegram saying she was about to have you, but then one morning she’d gone and left a note and your birth certificate, and I could see she’d planned it.’
Now it was all coming out I decided to keep prodding her. ‘So I was forced on you?’
‘Well, of course it
was
a shock, darling, at first, but Daddy came straight down even though he was still far from well, and we decided to take you home as our own. Daddy was worried that we wouldn’t have any children after the mumps, and as it happened we didn’t!’ She straightened up and added more brightly, ‘So it all turned out for the best, didn’t it?’
‘But didn’t Glenda get in touch? Don’t you know where she is?’
She shook her head and a last, blue-tinged droplet fell off her eyelashes. ‘Oh, no. We were afraid at first that she’d want you back, but after about a year she wrote asking for money to go abroad, and after Daddy sent it we never heard from her again.’
It was a bit hurtful to be so unwanted by my real mother. But then, hadn’t Mother been my real mother in every way, to the best of her ability? Poor Mother, afraid I might be snatched away, and with little hope of any children of her own.
‘I’m glad you’ve told me, Mo— Mummy.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Of course I
mind
, but I’m grateful to you and Daddy. You’re my real parents.’
Mother, catharsis achieved, was preparing to sweep it all under the carpet. ‘I don’t think we need to mention it again, do we? You’re my little girlie and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
I winced, but she was adjusting her make-up in her compact mirror and didn’t notice. Then she sneaked another glance at the sleeping infant, who was wearing a singularly Etruscan smile for a newborn, and suggested timidly: ‘What about James?’
What about James? ‘Oh, I suppose I’ll have to see him eventually,’ I said wearily, ‘but not yet. I’ll deal with him later.’ And at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about his threats.
‘That Italian woman’s looking after Toby and the dog up at the Hall, so Duncan thinks he might as well take me home now.’
‘Yes, the hospital are keeping me in for a week, mostly because they say I’m anaemic, so you might as well.’
‘I’ll come back after that, if you need me.’
I thanked her and said I would bear it in mind, and she tottered off with one last dazed backwards look at the baby.
Three minutes later James burst through the door in Manic Mode, though the reek of whisky just made it before him.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded aggressively. ‘I’m entitled to see her, aren’t I? You needn’t think I’ve changed my mind about custody, either! What does Valerie mean by saying it would be better if I didn’t see her?’
Thank you, Mother!
I pressed my bedside buzzer as he veered across to the plastic tank and stared down into it.
His face began to go red and the vein started its ominous twitch. I wanted to leap out of bed and snatch the Incubus up, except that I can’t leap anywhere at the moment. But I started to ease myself down as quickly as I could.
Then his eyes fell on the wrist tag, which still read ‘Baby Rocco’, and he went berserk.
‘It’s bloody his!’ he bellowed, advancing menacingly on me this time. ‘I was right all along, wasn’t I?’
I began to shuffle back over to the far side of the bed, wondering if I could fell him with the carafe before he strangled me.
‘Calm down, James! I didn’t know – I still don’t know for sure.’
Fergal walked in, and everything suddenly went still and held its breath, as though someone had pressed the freeze button.
‘Leave her alone,’ he told James coolly. ‘You’ve done enough harm, sending her into labour with your threats. She
didn’t
know the baby was mine.
I
didn’t know the baby was mine until I saw her. I took advantage of her at the hotel when she’d drunk herself senseless after seeing you with your lover.’
‘Fergal!’
‘A likely story!’ sneered James. ‘You’ve been having an affair right under my nose and she would have palmed the baby off on me if she could.’
‘No I wouldn’t!’ I protested indignantly. ‘That’s the last thing I would have done if I’d known.’
But I might as well have saved my breath for all the notice they took of me.
‘There was no affair, though I’d every intention of taking Tish off you once I found out you didn’t deserve her. When I thought she was expecting your baby I held back to give you another chance, but you blew it – and just as well, because the baby’s mine!’
‘Just a minute!’ I exclaimed. ‘She’s
mine
, no one else’s!’
‘I’d have brought her up as mine anyway,’ Fergal continued calmly.
‘What do you mean?’ blustered James. ‘What right have you—’
‘I intend marrying Tish.’
The Incubus moved restlessly in her sleep and whimpered a little.
A security guard appeared in the doorway, big and solid, with the little dark nurse next to him.
‘That’s the man!’ She pointed to James. ‘He’s drunk, and he just burst in here and started shouting. The whole ward could hear him!’
‘But I’m her husband!’ began James.
‘Ex,’ Fergal told him, eyes like glacier splinters. ‘Your divorce is through: time to leave.’
Baffled, the guard looked from Fergal’s calm implacability to James’s red, angry face and made his decision.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave the hospital, sir,’ he said, taking a firm grip on James’s arm.
James opened and shut his mouth a couple of times like a dying guppy, then let himself be led away.
‘You can go too,’ I told Fergal without looking in his direction. ‘You may have taken advantage of me, and then lied to me about it, but that doesn’t mean you’ve any claim on my baby!’
‘Our baby!’ he said softly, sitting on the side of the bed and putting his arms around me. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? And I really didn’t lie to you – I didn’t realise she was mine until I saw her. I never thought I’d be grateful for faulty goods! Or maybe, in the heat of the moment …?’
My God! Escaped Fergal Rocco sperm are probably even now establishing a breeding colony in the hotel’s air conditioning system! Angrily I tried to push him away, tears flooding my eyes. ‘How could you, Fergal? You must have seen what a state I was in that night.’
‘Angel, you knew exactly what you were doing, drunk or sober! I lied to James when I said I took advantage of you.’
I stared indignantly at him.
‘I resisted as long as humanly possible,’ he assured me gravely, ‘but, as you know, I’m no saint. You took advantage of me.’
‘I took advantage – how dare you, Fergal Rocco? The whole situation was your fault, pouncing on me outside my room like that.’ If my arms hadn’t felt like limp string I’d have hit him.
‘I only intended talking to you. Admittedly I was a bit angry at the way you tried to avoid me earlier, but as soon as I got you in there you wouldn’t let me go. You practically had the clothes off my back before I closed the door!’
‘I – I did not!’ I protested weakly.
‘You can’t have forgotten?’
‘Shut up!’
‘And although you didn’t say very
much
you said it clearly enough. “Yes – oh yes, Fergal!” that kind of thing. I didn’t realise how much you’d drunk.’ He grinned.
I went scarlet. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing! You must have known that! You should have resisted.’
‘You seemed to know exactly what you were doing – and I’m not made of stone, darling! And I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time either, because as soon as I touched you I knew that I loved and wanted you just as much as ever.’
I looked down and discovered I’d twisted the bedspread into a screw. ‘You are only saying that because the baby’s yours.’
‘What do I have to do to make you believe me?’ he exploded, giving me a small shake. ‘I’ve already asked you to marry me once. And what’s more,’ he added fiercely, ‘when I kissed you on your birthday I knew you loved me too! You didn’t need to get tanked up
that
time to respond to me.’