A Summer at Sea

by Katie Fforde

  ‘Apart from the shoulders taking a little longer to deliver, it was a lovely labour. Nell came out blue but pinked up nicely very soon. Rebecca was brilliant. She had all the right instincts and didn’t panic.’

  ‘Husband helpful?’

  ‘Oh yes. Once he’d got over the thought that the baby would have to be delivered here he was great.’ Emily hesitated for an instant. ‘We had Alasdair Cumming here too.’

  ‘Och! Alasdair! He’s great, isn’t he? How come he was here?’

  ‘He’s the father’s brother! We were all on the puffer …’ She shot a questioning glance. ‘You know about the puffer?’

  ‘Aye. I’d forgotten that Alasdair was the captain’s brother. We’ve never met.’

  ‘Anyway, we were all on it together; I was the cook for the season. I wanted a wee – little break from midwifery. We were bringing the boat home. James got a call from Rebecca and we hurried.’

  ‘With all the trees down they were very lucky you were here,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Well, yes. I’m sure Alasdair and James would have managed just fine but they were a bit spooked by the fact the electricity went off.’

  ‘Oh my. I hadn’t realised that.’

  ‘Fortunately, where I come from, where we’re a bit nearer to hospitals, people have quite unusual ideas of what childbirth should be like. I’ve delivered babies by firelight where there is no electricity, so I was on familiar territory.’

  Emily wanted to keep Lizzie talking so Rebecca and Nell could get as much sleep as possible. She was fairly sure James was there too, waiting to take Nell for a little walk if she woke before her mother did.

  Lizzie picked up cake crumbs on the end of her finger. ‘So why did you need a break? You hadn’t got fed up with mothers and babies?’

  ‘Not at all. I’d got fed up with bureaucracy and the final straw was a run-in with a local GP.’ Emily made her own attack on cake crumbs as she thought back. ‘But when I popped back to sort something out I found out that everything had changed for the better.’

  ‘So you’ll be looking forward to going home and getting back to it all, then?’

  ‘In some ways, yes.’ A sigh escaped her before she could stop it.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  Emily gave a rueful smile. ‘I have fallen in love with the landscape up here, rather. I’ve had such an amazing time. I even saw the Northern Lights!’

  ‘Ah, the Merry Dancers. You were lucky. We see them in the winter relatively often – though not that often – but you’re lucky to see them in summer.’

  Just then, James came in with a sleeping Nell on his shoulder. ‘Oh, hi! This one was making noises and so I thought I’d take her away so Becca could catch a few more zeds.’

  ‘This is Lizzie Miller-Hall,’ said Emily, not quite sure of her correct title – she seemed to have at least three jobs. ‘She might like to take a look at Nell, to make sure all is well.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Lizzie, ecstatically. ‘Let me get a look at the wee dab!’

  Emily laughed. She sounded so much more like a grandmother with a long-awaited grandchild than a health professional – it was very endearing.

  ‘You’ll want to get her undressed,’ she said. ‘In here is warmest. Shall I warm up some towels to put on the table?’ She found a towel and did this without waiting for a reply.

  James gave Lizzie one of his most charming smiles, the one reserved for passengers who were unknown and potentially hostile. ‘You want to look at my daughter?’

  ‘I do indeed! It’s not often we get the excitement of a baby being born in the worst storm in living memory – or thereabouts. They sent me to do some checks. Totally unnecessary, I’m sure, but the powers that be like to be reassured.’ Lizzie’s smile in return was also professional – reassure the new parents that their baby isn’t instantly going to be taken into care.

  Emily had been sure she had been the only one who’d sensed James’s slight hostility but realised this was not the case. Lizzie was very good at her job. James’s doubts melted away.

  ‘Has she had a poo yet?’ Lizzie addressed James.

  He nodded. ‘That black stuff, like Marmite. Sticks like crazy.’

  ‘Wet nappies?’

  ‘Think so. I find it hard to tell with disposables.’

  ‘I’ll ask Mum, she’s sure to know.’ Lizzie undressed Nell carefully, talking to her soothingly all the time. Nell kicked her legs and waved her arms in reply.

  Emily had done a lot of these checks herself and so said, ‘I’ll go and tell Becca she has an important visitor.’

  ‘Och, I’m not important, am I, little lass?’ Lizzie cooed to the wriggling baby she was checking over. ‘You’re the important one.’

  James and Emily exchanged glances. No wonder Lizzie had everyone on her side in the first five minutes.

  ‘Can you bear to wake up? There’s a lovely woman called Lizzie Miller-Hall here to see you. She came from Kilvallich on her bike.’

  ‘She must be fit!’ said Rebecca, sounding tired. ‘That’s miles.’

  ‘She’s also a dear, so don’t worry. She’s checking Nell now.’

  ‘But you checked her too and she’s fine?’

  ‘I did and she is. How are you?’ Emily thought Rebecca looked more exhausted than she was expecting. Rebecca was always so full of energy.

  ‘Shattered. But what do you expect? I’ve just had a baby!’

  ‘Will your mum come and look after you for a bit, do you think?’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘I really hope not. She fusses the boys and nags James. James’s parents are good but they can’t cope with the boys for too long. They are rather exhausting.’

  ‘They are exuberant, but brilliant fun.’

  ‘They are but my mother finds them noisy and rude.’

  ‘Do you want some tea?’

  ‘Yes please. Oh, before you go and this Lizzie comes in to see me – tell me about Alasdair.’

  ‘What about him?’ Emily felt herself blushing but hoped her old friend wouldn’t notice.

  ‘I thought you had a thing going.’

  ‘What? Are you telling me, while you were huffing and puffing, you were observing body language and jumping to conclusions? You are a piece of work!’

  Rebecca giggled. ‘Idiot! I thought it before and I wondered how it was going.’

  Emily considered and then decided her friend deserved a treat. Besides, it had been hard pretending she was completely normal with her when she was in a fog of post-coital bliss. ‘OK, it can’t go anywhere, we both know that, but last night …’

  ‘Last night? You had sex last night? After all that had gone on?’ Rebecca frowned for a second. ‘Hang on. Where – where were you?’ Rebecca had lost her look of exhaustion and become animated. ‘OMG! I know! On the floor in the firelight! How romantic!’

  Emily smiled, torn between the sweetness of the memory and the need to stop Rebecca getting over-excited. ‘Very romantic, just on the spot where you’d just given birth.’

  ‘But James said there was damp bed linen draped all over the boys’ bedroom. You didn’t do the washing as well, did you?’

  ‘Alasdair did it, not me. You can’t help loving a man who knows his way round a washing machine.’ Washing machines weren’t the only thing he knew his way around but Rebecca did not need to know that.

  Rebecca settled back into her pillows looking very satisfied. ‘Do you know, I never thought about where you’d stay.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t – you were busy. And we had the sofa bed but as all the bedding in the house was dirty, we had to share.’

  ‘I could hardly have planned it better! Only I didn’t plan it.’

  ‘Well, you can take the credit anyway.’

  There was a knock on the door. ‘Can I come in?’ Lizzie didn’t wait to be given permission. ‘Hello! Rebecca, is it? You have a really lovely baby. The image of her father! Now, do you mind if I have a look at you? I’m sure Emily has asked you all the
right questions but you know the medical profession, they’ll want their form filled in.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Emily. She went to the door. ‘Oh, do we know how much Nell weighs?’

  ‘No, we don’t. I haven’t got any scales with me,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Don’t tell James,’ said Rebecca. ‘He’ll want to start a book on it.’

  ‘He already has. He reckons eight pounds,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’d say eight and a half. The boys have had guesses as well and want to know what the prize is. If it’s a bottle of whisky, let me know if I’ve won.’

  ‘I’d say eight pounds ten ounces,’ said Emily, taking Nell from James, back in the kitchen.

  James wrote it down.

  ‘So, what is the prize?’ asked Emily, patting Nell’s back as she lay over her shoulder.

  ‘I think it depends on who wins it.’

  ‘Lizzie wants a bottle of whisky and I think I’d like that too.’

  ‘The boys will want some outing or other, I expect. Though they’d have to wait.’ He looked at Emily. ‘Did either of us ever say thank you for everything you did last night?’

  Emily smiled. ‘I was only doing my job.’

  ‘No you didn’t! As far as I’m concerned your job is as the puffer cook. We’d have been completely stuck without you.’

  Emily pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘That’s my holiday job. Being a midwife is what I do. It’s my profession.’

  James sat down too. ‘Do you miss it? Being a midwife?’

  ‘Well, I’ve just had an amazing time with you all on the puffer, but I would miss being a midwife if I couldn’t do it. Dreadfully.’

  ‘I can see why. You’re obviously great at it.’

  Emily laughed. ‘Well, Rebecca knew what she was doing and Nell was a healthy baby after the little hiccup with her shoulders. It was magical, though.’

  ‘Something to embarrass her with later,’ said James. ‘You were born by firelight, in a storm, with …’ He paused, searching for the right words.

  ‘Only a trained midwife and a doctor present?’ suggested Emily.

  ‘That does take the drama out of it a bit,’ James complained. ‘Couldn’t we build it up into something more exciting?’

  ‘Well, the fact there was no electricity and no phone and we couldn’t have got to the hospital if anything had gone wrong made it fairly exciting for Alasdair and me,’ said Emily. ‘But of course we didn’t make too much of that at the time. No need to terrify the parents if you can avoid it.’

  ‘You know, that hadn’t occurred to me,’ said James. ‘You and Al were so calm, even when Nell got a bit stuck.’

  Emily smiled. ‘We might not have been so calm if there’d been an emergency, but I hope we would. Panicking isn’t helpful, on the whole.’

  ‘Too right! Oh, here’s Lizzie. And Becca! Sit down, love. Should you be out of bed?’

  ‘I thought I may as well totter in here and see what you’re all up to. Where are the boys?’

  ‘In the sitting room. I’ll get them out later,’ said James. ‘Take them to look at the storm damage. Lizzie? Tea? Coffee?’

  ‘I must be getting along. It’ll take me a while to get back,’ she said. ‘But it’s been lovely meeting you all, especially this wee one.’

  ‘Listen,’ said James, getting to his feet. ‘Let me give you a lift. We’ll put the bike in the car and then I’ll take you as near as I can to home – fallen trees and floods allowing – and then you can cycle the rest of the way if you have to.’

  ‘That would be very kind,’ said Lizzie, ‘but I can’t let you leave your family at a time like this.’

  Emily could see that Lizzie had been very tempted by the offer. ‘Why don’t I take Lizzie? She can direct me on the way there, and on the way back, I’ll just get lost.’

  James put Lizzie’s bike in the back of the car, which, with its back seat down, took it quite nicely. ‘I know you wanted an adventure, but there’s the satnav. When you get Lizzie as far as you can, just put in Home.’

  ‘But it’ll still be an adventure,’ said Lizzie, ‘because Ms Satnav won’t be able to get home the way she wants too, and will have to keep “recalculating”.’ She said this with some satisfaction, obviously regarding the satnav as a bossy official who must be outwitted if possible.

  ‘We’ll see what we can do,’ said Emily and they set off.

  ‘One of the things I love about this part of the world is that, even when the weather isn’t doing anything in particular, it’s still stunningly beautiful,’ Emily said after a few moments.

  ‘Yes. And if it is doing something – like the sun shining, or an early-morning mist appearing, or snow – it’s even more beautiful. I’ve lived here over thirty years now and I still feel lucky.’

  Emily sighed suddenly.

  ‘Something on your mind?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Not really. I’m just tired, I expect.’

  ‘There’s a definite hint of “wist” about you, even though you are tired!’

  Emily had to laugh. ‘Well, there may be. I’ll be going home soon and I’m not ready to leave. It’s so lovely here.’

  ‘But your work is at home?’

  ‘It is. And it’s good work.’ She went on to to tell Lizzie about the injection of funds the maternity unit had received and how all the reluctant GPs – well, the only reluctant one – had changed his mind and the unit was going to become bigger and she’d been offered the job of running it.

  ‘That sounds a great opportunity. You’ll not be wanting to leave that then, and stay up here,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘I couldn’t anyway. The puffer only has quite a short season really. I couldn’t live on the money. No, it’s just been a lovely break.’ She gave a small, wistful chuckle. ‘I had a summer at sea but now it’s over. I’ll take my grand new job and do great things.’ She paused briefly. So,’ she went on briskly. ‘Which way?’

  They came up to the fallen tree that had stopped the ambulance getting through and Emily pulled in to the side of the road. It was cleared now but seeing the enormous trunk on its side was frightening.

  ‘Suppose someone had been driving underneath when that went over?’ Emily said.

  ‘Dead as a doornail,’ said Lizzie. ‘Beeches. They have shallow roots. And that wasn’t the only one, either.’ She was silent for a few seconds out of respect for what might have happened and then went on, ‘Still, there’ll be plenty of firewood.’

  When they reached Lizzie’s house, removed her bike from the back of the car and Emily had refused offers of tea and coffee, Lizzie said, ‘I’ll let them know what a grand job you did.’

  Emily laughed. ‘As I’ve said before, it was Rebecca who did the grand job.’

  ‘You wrote excellent notes,’ said Lizzie firmly.

  ‘Well, I knew you’d need them. Now, do you need a hand with your bike?’

  Lizzie correctly interpreted this as Emily saying she wanted to get home and not have praise heaped on her for what she just considered normal.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ Lizzie propped the bike against the fence. ‘I’ll just give you a wee hug anyway.’

  Emily was smiling as she set off. She decided not to use the satnav and give herself a little magical mystery tour. If she got lost, she would switch on the machine.

  She arrived home to a row of glum faces. Everyone was in the kitchen sitting round the table. The boys were picking at baked beans on toast, James, with Nell on his shoulder, was drinking coffee.

  ‘Hi!’ said Rebecca, looking a little strained in spite of her cheery greeting. ‘How was that?’

  ‘Lovely. She’s so nice. Talking to her helped me make my decision. I will take my job.’

  ‘Lovely!’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Oh God, what’s wrong?’ said Emily. ‘You’re all looking so miserable.’ What on earth could have happened to the happy family she had left a couple of hours ago? There seemed to be nothing wrong with Nell, who was sleeping calmly.

 
‘My mum’s coming to stay,’ said Rebecca. ‘To “help”.’

  ‘Well, that’s lovely!’ said Emily. ‘It’ll be nice to see her and have a hand with the cooking and things. You’re not going to be feeling your normal self with all the broken nights and things.’ She looked around. No one seemed to take in her cheery words.

  ‘Gran’s a bit strict,’ said Archie. ‘She doesn’t let us watch telly.’

  ‘Well, that’s good thing! I expect she takes you on picnics and bike rides.’ Emily’s mind flashed to the picnic she’d had with Alasdair and Kate when they had seen the otters.

  ‘She doesn’t,’ said Henry. ‘She wants us to make models with cardboard but not make a mess. I don’t like making models.’

  ‘She’s good at jigsaws,’ said James, forcing some enthusiasm into his voice somehow and handing his daughter back to his wife.

  ‘She says we have outside voices and inside voices and we’re not to use the outside voice inside but I don’t know the difference,’ said Archie.

  ‘I met your mum when I was your bridesmaid,’ said Emily to Becca, thinking back. ‘I seem to remember her as sweet. She gave us tea and biscuits.’

  ‘On a plate with a doily,’ said Rebecca. ‘I was so embarrassed.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be embarrassed about your parents, Bec! They’re part of you.’ Emily thought of her own parents, eccentric but harmless, creating a garden in France, where they now lived.

  ‘Don’t make it worse than it already is,’ said Rebecca, patting her daughter as she began to murmur.

  ‘Cheer up, Sausage,’ said James. ‘Al’s bringing Kate over to see the baby.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re being so damned cheerful,’ said Rebecca. ‘My mother runs you ragged. Nothing you do is good enough for her. She runs me ragged too, saying I don’t look after you properly because I don’t iron your pyjamas.’

  ‘I don’t wear pyjamas,’ said James, confused.

  ‘So, where’s she going to sleep?’ asked Emily. ‘You can’t put your mother on the sofa bed for more than a night.’ She felt proprietorial about the sofa bed after what had happened in it.