Their Miracle Baby

by Caroline Anderson

  A man in overalls and boots was crossing the yard, and he smiled. ‘Wonderful day,’ he called.

  The man nodded. ‘You looking for David Bliss?’

  ‘Yes—I’m the doctor.’

  ‘I’m his son—he’s inside. I’ll take you in.’

  He followed the man through the open doorway, past the sleeping collies that opened one eye and watched him warily, up the narrow winding cottage staircase to a bedroom.

  ‘Father, Doctor’s here,’ the man said, and left them to it.

  ‘Mr Bliss? I’m Dr Carter—I’ve taken over from Dr Korrel. I understand you’ve been having pain in your chest and you’re a bit breathless. Is that right?’

  The man heaved himself up the bed a little and nodded, puffing slightly from the effort. He looked congested, Max thought, his fingers a little swollen, his face round. His breathing seemed laboured, and a quick examination revealed all the symptoms of angina and congestive heart failure.

  ‘Where do you feel the pain, and when?’ he asked, checking his patient’s chest with a stethoscope. It sounded like a soggy sponge.

  ‘Up the middle, really. Sometimes down my arm a little, but not much. More into the armpit.’

  ‘I think your heart’s struggling a bit to keep your fluid levels right, and that’s making it hurt periodically,’ he told the elderly man. ‘I’m going to give you some pills to take some of the fluid away from your lungs, and that should make you feel better quite quickly. You will find you need to pass water more often, though.’

  He nodded. ‘My sister’s on them water tablets,’ he said. ‘Has been for years. Father was as well.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s something you all suffer from, then. Well, as you know, if it’s kept under control it’s nothing to worry about, but I want to put you on some pills for your heart as well, and I want you to try these. You pop one under your tongue if you have a pain, and if the pain goes, we’ll know it’s nothing to worry about, just a touch of angina. If the pain lingers or gets worse, I want to know straight away, all right?’

  He went back out into the sunshine, found Mr Bliss’s son and told him what he’d found, and then drove back to Wenham Market. There was no reply from Anna’s house, but Jill Fraser stuck her head out of an upstairs window. ‘She’s at her mother’s,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Did you have a good time last night?’

  ‘Yes—thank you,’ he said, a little taken aback. ‘Were you babysitting?’

  ‘That’s right. Go and find her—you might have to go round the back, they’ll probably be in the garden with a paddling pool in this lovely weather. We’re just going to the beach.’

  Max nodded, thanked her and drove down the lane,

  It bounded back round the side of the house, and he followed a little hesitantly. He didn’t like just walking in on them like that, but Jill had seemed to think it would be all right.

  ‘Hello, anybody home?’ he called, and the other dog ambled up, too hot to bark or do anything more kinetic than wave its tail.

  Anna appeared, looking a little surprised to see him, and he apologised.

  ‘Your neighbour told me to come round the back,’ he explained.

  ‘That’s fine. Come on in, I just wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were out, doing calls. Harry’s in the paddling pool.’

  There was a splash and a shriek, and Harry came tearing round the side of the shrubs, dripping wet and laughing gleefully. He skidded to a halt and looked up at Max.

  ‘Hello,’ he said curiously. ‘Have you come for tea? Grannie’s just getting some.’

  He looked at Anna, and she shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. We’d like you to join us—you know you’re welcome.’

  He hesitated. The boy was there, drawing him like a magnet, and yet this wasn’t part of his plan.

  ‘We’ve made lemon drizzle cake,’ Harry confided, and that did it.

  Max smiled wryly. ‘Thank you, that sounds wonderful. I’d be delighted to stay.’

  ‘You need shorts on,’ Harry told him, and then ran off

  Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard, after all.

  ‘Will you stay for supper?’

  Max smiled at Mrs Young and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I have to go back for evening surgery in a minute. Actually, I was going to ask Anna if she wanted to join me for dinner.’

  Anna’s eyes met his searchingly. ‘Dinner?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I just ate three slices of cake.’

  He smiled. She always had loved cake. ‘We could eat lightly—or just have a drink. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’ll have Harry,’ her mother offered. ‘He can stay the night with his grandparents. He enjoys that.’

  ‘He was with Jill last night,’ Anna said without thinking, and then coloured.

  Her mother ignored her embarrassment. ‘Well, that’s all right,’ she said. ‘He loves coming here, it’s like a second home, and we love having him. You have little enough social life, darling. You go out. You can always put him to bed before you go, if you’re worried about not seeing him. It’s not as if you’ve been at work all day today, is it?’

  In the face of such common sense, Anna couldn’t think of a single valid reason why she shouldn’t go out with Max that night, whatever he had in mind. Perhaps he’d decided what he was going to do, and would tell her.

  She felt a surge of adrenaline. If he was going to tell her he was leaving, surely he wouldn’t have spent the entire

  ‘That would be lovely,’ she said, without giving herself any more time to vacillate. ‘Eight o’clock?’

  He nodded. ‘Maybe by then the cake will have worn off and you’ll be able to eat,’ he teased.

  ‘On top of that lot?’ She laughed. ‘Hardly. I’ll be like a house if I eat that much.’

  He smiled indulgently. ‘Don’t hold back on my account. I like the new you. You were too skinny before.’

  She coloured furiously, and he suddenly seemed to realise her mother was sitting in earshot, valiantly trying to pretend that she couldn’t hear every word.

  He cleared his throat and got to his feet. ‘I’ll see you at eight, then. Thank you for a lovely afternoon.’

  She smiled up at him. ‘You’re welcome. See you later.’

  She watched him go, then thought of that evening. Was he going to tell her that he’d decided to stay? Or had he stayed that afternoon just making memories, as she’d suggested, and was going to say goodbye that night? Only time would tell.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘THIS is bliss,’ Max said, stretching out luxuriously on the grass beside the river.

  They were lying near a weeping willow, its branches hanging low over the water, and a cool breeze wafted over them, dispelling the heat of the day. Swans drifted in the current, paddling lazily to hold their positions, and there was the occasional splosh from the riverbank as a little vole or something plopped into the water.

  It was bliss, but Anna was on edge. She wanted to know what he was thinking, and he didn’t seem to be about to bring up the subject. Unable to help herself, she challenged him.

  ‘Are you going?’

  He opened his eyes and sat up slowly. ‘Going?’ he echoed. ‘I’m not going anywhere—most particularly not until my food arrives.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You know what I mean. Are you going to stay and see out this locum job, or are you running away again?’

  ‘Is that how you see it? Running away again?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Relief washed over her like a tidal wave. ‘I just wanted to know,’ she said, trying to sound unmoved. ‘And what about Harry? Will you see him—get to know him at all? You seemed to get on well today.’

  He rolled onto his front and propped himself up on his elbows, regarding her steadily. ‘I don’t know. I could easily fall for him. I think I probably have. I don’t want to hurt him when I go—and I am going,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s up to you whether I see him or not in the interim.’

  She looked away, stifling her disap
pointment. One step at a time, she cautioned herself. ‘I think you should see him, but maybe just as a friend, at least for now. I don’t want him hurt either, and he will be if you tell him you’re his father and then leave.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. So, in the meantime,’ he asked softly, ‘what are we going to do to make these memories of yours? Any particular fantasies you have in mind?’

  Anything with you in it, she could have said, but she didn’t. She didn’t think it was a good idea to be too up-front—and, anyway, if she played her cards right, she could use this time together to get so far under his skin that he couldn’t bear to leave them.

  ‘Making love under a willow,’ she said, her voice whisper-soft.

  One eyebrow shot up. ‘Not this one at this precise moment, I take it?’ he said with a chuckle.

  She looked around the crowded pub garden and shook

  His eyes darkened. ‘OK,’ he agreed slowly. ‘Anything else?’

  She settled down on the grass, getting into the game. ‘Oh—midnight skinny-dipping at the beach?’

  His mouth twitched. ‘Like prison food, do you?’

  She laughed softly, then became wistful again. ‘Waking up with you,’ she said without a trace of a smile. ‘I loved waking up with you.’

  He looked away. Too close to home, she thought. ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Any memories you want to make?’

  ‘More than I care to think about,’ he said gruffly, and rolled over and sat up, staring down into the slowly moving water. He propped his elbows on his knees, fisting one hand and wrapping the fingers of the other over it tightly. ‘A picnic,’ he said after an age. ‘Going for a picnic on a perfect day—with Harry. Maybe going to the zoo? Walking in the countryside, by a river. Lying in on a Sunday and reading the papers. Fighting over the colour supplement. Making love in the shower.’

  Five years ago they’d only had two Sundays together, and he’d been on call for one and she’d had a long-standing commitment on the Saturday night before the other, and so neither time had they been able to have a lie-in. Maybe this time, if she could persuade her mother to have Harry—?

  ‘Number forty-two?’

  ‘That’s us,’ Max said, getting to his feet and going over to the waitress to fetch the plates. ‘Do you want to sit at a table, or can we manage here?’ he asked her.

  ‘Here,’ she said without hesitation. ‘Or nearer the river.’

  It was delicious—cool and light enough to eat even after pigging out on her mother’s cake, and yet tasty and interesting.

  ‘Lovely ham,’ Max commented.

  ‘It’s wild boar ham, from a totally free-range herd. All the food here’s organic. That’s why I suggested it.’

  He raised an enquiring brow. ‘Have you gone organic, then?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not entirely. Wherever possible or reasonable, though. My father’s an organic farmer now—has been for over ten years. He’s doing much better than he was, because the demand is growing. The sheep are all grass fed without prophylactic medicines, and he raises geese and bronze turkeys for Christmas, again all organic and free range.’

  ‘What about Mr Bryant? What does he do?’

  ‘Oh, arable—all sprayed within an inch of its life. It’s a problem, actually, because one of our fields is adjacent to one of his and we can’t graze the ewes on it because of the spraying.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a pain. Is the field wasted?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It’s all right for the turkeys because he sows spring wheat, not winter wheat, so there’s no spraying when we’re growing them on. We keep trying to persuade him to grow something else there, but he’s a bit resistant. Knows what he knows, and all that. He’s very

  She picked up a cherry tomato in her fingers and ate it. ‘So, what about you?’ she asked. ‘Do you still eat the most awful rubbish, like you did?’

  He laughed. ‘No, not really. I decided if I was going to fight this thing I ought to give my body the best possible chance, so I learned to cook and count grams of fat, and I eat tons of fresh fruit and veg, and I’ve cut down on meat now. I eat a lot of fish and chicken, pulses, that sort of thing, and virtually no packaged convenience foods. I like fresh ingredients.’

  ‘Hence your fresh pasta last night.’

  ‘Hence my fresh pasta every time I cook it.’

  He put his plate down and met her eyes. ‘Want to go and make some memories?’ he asked softly.

  She put her plate on his and stood up. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I don’t know. My cottage? We could go for a walk down the lane to the river.’

  She smiled. ‘Is there a weeping willow?’

  ‘No. There’s a willow, but it’s quite cheerful. Anyway, it’s a bit muddy and there are lots of little bugs and things at night.’

  So they went back to his cottage, and wandered down the lane hand in hand and found Max’s cheerful willow, and sat on a fallen branch and talked until the light was fading.

  Then they strolled back, arms wrapped round each other’s waists, and in the kitchen they hesitated.

  ‘Coffee?’ Max offered.

  She shook her head. ‘Maybe later,’ she murmured, summoning up her courage. Perhaps he didn’t want her. Perhaps she was taking it for granted…

  Her cheeks warmed. ‘You’re just an old smoothie,’ she said, flattered despite herself. ‘You’re just buttering me up so you can have your evil way with me.’

  ‘Rumbled,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Did it work?’

  She smiled up at him. ‘Oh, yes, it worked.’

  They took Harry to the zoo on Sunday afternoon—after a morning spent building memories of squabbling over the colour supplement and making love in the shower. Harry adored his father, and it seemed it was mutual.

  Excellent, she thought. If he gets in deep enough, he won’t be able to walk away. They fed the llamas, oohed and aahed at the elephants and big cats, and giggled at the giraffe.

  Then they went back to Anna’s house and she cooked for Max, for a change, while he bathed Harry and got him ready for bed.

  They came down more or less dry and looking so like each other it made her breath catch in her throat, and she thought she was going to cry again.

  Fortunately the cat made a nuisance of itself and got on the worktop, and under cover of the diversion she got herself back under control. They ate their supper, a chicken casserole with baby new potatoes and tiny carrots, and then it was time for Harry to go to bed.

  ‘Will you stay for coffee?’ she asked him as Harry chased the cat into the sitting room.

  ‘Do you want me to?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. It’ll take me some time

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll go. I don’t want to make things awkward for you. I’ve had a wonderful weekend. Thank you.’

  And without further ado, he bent forward, kissed her cheek circumspectly and ruffled Harry’s hair on the way past.

  “Night, sport. Be good. See you soon.’

  “Night, Max,’ Harry piped. ‘See you soon, too.’

  She caught a glimpse of his face as he went through the door, and his mouth was set in a bitter-sweet smile. And no wonder, she thought. Harry was the only child he would ever have—at least, she imagined so, unless he’d taken advantage of the sperm bank before his treatment had started. He hadn’t talked about it, apart from telling her that there was no danger of pregnancy, and she didn’t feel somehow that she could ask. It was rather a personal issue, after all, even with their history.

  And what was their history? she wondered sadly. A wild and hot affair five years ago and, judging by the way their current relationship was shaping up, another hot and wild affair now, interspersed with trips to the zoo and the beach. No wonder she didn’t feel she could ask him about the sperm bank. She really didn’t know him at all.

  She sighed and ruffled Harry’s hair. ‘Shall we go and find a story?’ she asked.

  ‘Can we have
Peter Rabbit?’

  ‘Again?’ she teased.

  ‘Or Tom Kitten.’

  The old Beatrix Potter books from her childhood were

  ‘We’ll go and look, shall we?’ she said, and five minutes later he was curled up in the crook of her arm, laughing at the antics of Tom Kitten and his sisters. Ten minutes later, he was asleep.

  Max could have stayed. He could have joined in story time, but, in fact, Anna was glad he’d gone home. She needed a breathing space, time to think, time to come to terms with Thursday night’s revelation. It was only Sunday, and she’d hardly been out of his sight the entire time.

  She needed time alone, and she imagined he did, too.

  So much had happened, and yet nothing had changed.

  He was still leaving, and Harry still didn’t have a father, and she was going to be alone again.

  The thought was unbearable.

  He was getting in too deep. Spending just about every waking minute since Thursday—and many sleeping ones—with Annie, that had been a mistake. And as for Harry, he thought the child could easily break his heart.

  He was a darling, with a highly developed sense of fun and an insatiable curiosity. He’d never stopped asking questions the whole time they’d been at the zoo, and Max began to understand why people found their much-loved children so exhausting. They seemed to run on some kind of rocket fuel, but fortunately, like rockets, after a while they fizzled out and went quiet, at least for a while.

  He wondered what story Annie had read him, and found

  She didn’t, but there was a faint glow that probably came from the landing. He wanted to stay there, parked outside, protecting them like some kind of guardian angel.

  That was when he realised he was in over his head.

  For the next few days, they gave each other space. It wasn’t easy for either of them, and yet they both seemed to need it, and by some unspoken mutual agreement they chatted at work, and then went their separate ways.

  Max, particularly, wondered if it had all been a big mistake and if he should have gone when he’d had the chance. He’d told her now, though, that he would stay for a while, and stay he would, even though it was killing him.