Alone Beneath The Heaven
Page 39
‘Can I have my husband and my mother back in please?’
‘It’s against hospital procedure, Mrs Mallard, and you are going to be too busy to worry about them.’
‘Please?’
The midwife was a stout, buxom woman with an iron face and a heart of gold, and she had been touched by the story which had unfolded during the long afternoon and evening about this little family, so now she said, after a moment’s pause, ‘Well, your husband is a doctor, isn’t he, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask your mother to wait outside by herself . . .’
‘Thank you, oh, thank you.’
‘I’m petrified, Rod.’ Outside in the corridor Nancy had sunk down on to a hard-backed chair against the wall and sat there for some moments without speaking, but now she raised her eyes to her son-in-law, and Rodney saw that they were wet. ‘She’s having a hard time of it.’
‘Hey, come on, Nancy.’ He sat down by her side, his arm round her shoulders, and Nancy made a little distraught sound in her throat and turned her face into his chest. ‘She’s going to be fine, I promise you, and this isn’t an unusually long labour for a first child.’
‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to her.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to her, Nancy. Trust me.’
‘But you don’t know for sure.’
‘Yes I do.’
He had known, within days of the two women being reunited, that although the physical similarity was striking, their personalities were very different. Nancy had none of her daughter’s drive and determination to make things happen, and it had further emphasized to Rodney how very special his wife was. Nancy’s salvation had been in meeting her Bill. The man adored her, worshipped the very ground she walked on, and that was good, Nancy needed that.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I am, I’m sorry, Rod.’ Nancy raised her head, swallowing and shutting her eyes tight for a moment as she scrubbed at them with a handkerchief, before looking straight at him as she said, ‘Don’t tell Sarah, will you, but I had a terrible time of it when she was born. An’ she’s so like me, slight, small-hipped. I know things are different these days under this national health system with all the care beforehand—’
‘They are, they are.’ He was gripping her hands now and shaking them slightly to emphasize his words. ‘And no two people are the same internally, Nancy, whatever they look like on the outside. Sarah might be completely different from you, so don’t assume she’ll have your difficulty.’
‘No, all right, lad.’ Nancy was embarrassed now, and it showed. In spite of being brought up in the worst of Sunderland’s slums, you didn’t talk about such things openly - not with a man at any rate. But he was a doctor. She echoed this thought now as she said, ‘Well you’re a doctor, you should know.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Oh, Rod.’ Her fingers moved in his grasp as she said, ‘I love her so much.’
‘I know.’ He smiled, his eyes tender. ‘So do I.’
And then the door opened, and the midwife beckoned them back in.
Benjamin Rodney Mallard came into the world an hour later, and with a loud lusty cry that made his mother raise her head to look at him. He was a big baby, with well rounded limbs and a shock of black hair that was already curling over his brow.
‘Oh, he’s beautiful.’ Sarah let herself fall back on the bed as she smiled at Rodney, who had tears of joy streaming down his face. ‘He’s absolutely beautiful.’
She caught a glimpse of her mother’s face which seemed to shimmer from the emotion radiating from it, and her smile deepened.
‘He’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.’ Rodney’s voice was reverent as the midwife handed him his son wrapped in a tiny linen sheet, and he examined each minute detail of the little face before placing him in Sarah’s arms and saying, ‘Our son, Sarah, our son. Thank you, my love, thank you.’
‘You did have a hand in producing him too,’ she said softly, her eyes loving him.
‘Only the easy part. I feel guilty about that, after all you’ve just gone through.’
‘You should.’ It was said with feeling, and then, ‘Here, Grandma.’ This was the moment she had longed for over the last weeks, the moment she had treasured in her heart, the moment she hoped would wash away all the years of heart-ache and tears Nancy had endured. ‘Your grandson.’
Nancy bent to kiss Sarah before she took the baby, and as Sarah felt her warm lips, and heard her whisper, ‘I love you so much, my darling,’ before she reached for her grandson and held him close to her heart, she knew she had been given it all.
This was love, this was the power of it - it was in Rodney’s smile, in the look on her mother’s face, in her son’s wide, unblinking eyes. She was all in all to each one of them, and they were everything to her.
The emotion which filled her was inexpressible, consuming the legacy of the past and taking her up and out of this world as it lifted her on the wings of a hundred thousand eagles. She reached out her hands to her family, her heart bursting with joy.
She was home.
Alone Beneath the Heaven
RITA BRADSHAW
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