by Maggie Ford
“Three thirty. It’s all right, sweet. Don’t get in a stew. Just take it gently. Leave it all to me. Get dressed if you can. I’ll ring the hospital.”
With that he was out of bed making for the telephone, yelping as his little toe collided with the splayed leg of the dressing-table on which the phone sat. Ordinarily he’d have roared in fury at the sudden pain, but he gritted his teeth as he lifted the phone and dialled the number, all the while rubbing vigorously at the tender toe.
Before long, Helen having hastily dressed, not at all properly, between pauses fraught with little moans, they were in the ambulance. Once in the hospital, all signs of birth pangs dying away, she lay in a bed, as comfortable as its hard mattress would allow, smiling guiltily at the nurses and excusing herself to Edwin at jolting him out from sleep for what must have been a false alarm, he being assured that his wife was in good hands and he could go home, leaving her here, that she was dilated so she should stay.
Labour started in earnest around seven o’ clock that evening. Edwin was summoned back to the hospital but banished to the waiting room, while Helen and the attendant nurses finally brought the baby – “You have a beautiful little girl,” she was told – into the world at around seven the following morning. In need of “only a couple of stitches” after twelve hours, she was a little shocked to be told that it was a relatively quick and easy birth for a first baby. Tired but elated, she was able to make her face up and do her hair in preparation for Edwin, who looked more exhausted than she did.
“I’ve never smoked so much in all my life,” he told her, and she felt quite proud of having got through the birth without too much fuss while he still showed signs of his suffering. She felt strong and in charge and it was a good feeling.
“How do you feel,” she asked, “at having a daughter?”
Edwin grinned and pressed her hand between his. “I’m the proudest man in the world. And I’m so proud of you darling. You’ve been marvellous. And you look marvellous.”
A nurse was trundling the crib into the ward, positioning it beside the bed and folding back the shawl for the father’s inspection of the tiny scrap.
“She is quite beautiful, don’t you think?” she enquired as Edwin peered.
“She looks a bit red and screwed up,” was his doubtful response.
The nurse indulgently clicked her tongue, half laughing. “I don’t know. You men!” She swished away, leaving the happy parents to it.
“What do you really think of her?” asked Helen.
“I think she’s perfect,” Edwin said. “Is she?”
Helen sighed contentedly. “She is. The doctor and nurses are all very pleased with her.” She looked into Edwin’s eyes. “We are so lucky, my love.”
* * *
“We’ve decided to call her Angela, because she looks like a little angel,” Helen told her father when he visited. “Edwin wanted to call her Carol, being as it was so near Christmas, but I said there was three weeks to go to Christmas and he was being a bit previous. So we’ve settled on Angela, but already he’s started calling her Angel.”
William laughed. He could afford to laugh. The secret worry he’d had for months about the issue of first cousins possibly being flawed no longer had substance. He could even chide himself for his fears. Better still, there was now no point in upsetting Helen with the truth as to her real father – it was all water under the bridge.
Now all he need do was forget it. He was a grandfather in the eyes of all but himself, and the mind has an odd way of deluding itself. He didn’t care.
Leaning carefully over the hospital crib he dropped a fond kiss on the tiny warm head. That touch had an immediate and magical effect on him, all earlier doubt receding, leaving him filled with belief that this was indeed his own flesh and blood. Why spoil it?
But his brain hardly acknowledged the question, cast aside in his joy of this tiny being, in the joy of seeing how his daughter’s face glowed, and the obvious awe his son-in-law possessed in having become a father.
* * *
“She’s such a placid child,” said Helen to Edwin’s Aunt Victoria. “We’re so lucky.”
Seated on a sofa at Aunt Victoria’s home, Helen gazed down at the little five-month-old Angela lying quietly in her arms. It was Aunt Victoria’s husband’s sixtieth birthday, the fifteenth of May 1956, and she had given a little party to celebrate. The weather being beautiful it had been held outside in Victoria’s extensive garden, but as it turned chilly towards late afternoon the gathering had migrated indoors.
Victoria leaned over a little to peer down at the child and cooed, “You are quite a beauty, aren’t you?” in her normal strident tones. The wide blue eyes stared back, unresponsive.
“Can she see all right?” asked Victoria in her straightforward manner, never a believer in pulling her punches, much less seeing why they might cause offence. This was one of those moments.
“Of course she can see all right,” Helen shot back, wishing she could get up from the sofa and move away. But there were no more seats to be had. As well as the family, Aunt Victoria had invited a mass of friends from her church, including the vicar. There were in fact several people standing – Edwin for one, at the moment in deep conversation with his Uncle Harold – and Helen didn’t much care to go and stand so pointedly at her husband’s elbow.
“Perhaps it’s her hearing,” Aunt Victoria went on. She moved a finger before the child’s face. The blue eyes automatically followed it. Aunt Victoria clicked her tongue. “Could it be, then, that she didn’t hear me? When that maid dropped her tray a while ago with such a clatter, it made us all jump. But this little one took no notice whatsoever. Have you had her hearing properly checked, my dear?”
Helen drew in a silent, aggravated breath. “The doctors say she is perfect. There is nothing at all wrong with her. In fact they’re very pleased. Would you excuse me, Aunt, I need to have a word with Edwin.”
Glad to escape, she hurried over to him. He was free now, his uncle having fallen into conversation with someone else. She touched his arm and he turned to look at her.
“Are you all right, darling?” His expression was immediately one of concern and she knew then that consternation Was showing on her face. Pooh-pooh his Aunt Victoria’s observations though she might, a seed had been sown that was hard to dislodge. She tried to smile.
“I’m fine. Just a bit tired, that’s all. It’s getting late, Edwin, and I think we ought to get Angela home. We agreed she should have a regular bedtime from the start. I don’t want to break it now.”
“I’ll get our things,” he said readily. Moments later they were saying goodbye to everyone, thanking Aunt Victoria for inviting them and hoping she liked her present of an original watercolour for her drawing room. The drive home would only take three-quarters of an hour, ample time for Angela to be put to bed just half an hour later than her set bedtime.
All the way home, Helen could hear Aunt Victoria’s words. “Have you had her hearing properly checked?” She felt angry. How dare the woman presume to hint that she wasn’t a good enough mother to care about her daughter’s welfare? Yet had she checked it? She had taken one doctor’s word for it. What if he had missed something?
She said nothing to Edwin even when he remarked how quiet she was, merely telling him she felt tired, which he accepted well enough.
* * *
Helen’s cheeks were wet. It had taken her another two months to bring herself to relay Aunt Victoria’s suspicion to Edwin.
He’d taken it grimly and had then grown angry, as she had done earlier, repeating her own thoughts that his aunt presumed too much and insisting that they above anyone should know about their own child’s well-being. Finally he’d become thoughtful and agreed that it might be worth getting a second opinion. “Just to put our minds at rest.”
Emerging from the Harley Street clinic into brilliant July sunshine, Helen sniffed back her tears, letting the warm summer breeze dry her cheeks as she gazed down at the child in he
r arms.
Edwin held the car door open for her to get into the back seat with Angela. “It never feels safe, you sitting in the front with her,” he always insisted. “If I had to pull up sharp, you could be thrown forward and she could be hurt. Both of you could be hurt.”
Now Angela was hurt, or rather impaired. All their care and attention, their love and protection, and neither of them had seen it. The doctor had been most meticulous; peering into the ears with instruments, he had been hard put to do as good a job as he would wish with Angela persisting in squirming, retaliating to the insult to her small person. Attentive from all this rough handling, when he clicked his fingers behind her head her lively eyes had seen the slightest of movements and had turned. Her mother had gained hope that it was all a false alarm; had even felt anger again towards Aunt Victoria for her interfering amateur’s diagnosis.
“I can find nothing wrong,” the doctor had said, raising her confidence still further that this had been a fool’s errand. “But I’m going to bring in one of my colleagues for him to have a look.”
It was this colleague that had pronounced the dire sentence on the child. Having allowed Angela to calm down, her mother to give her a feed in a quiet room, even banishing the father from the vicinity, the colleague quietly entered while Angela lay relaxed in her mother’s arms.
“I am going to make a sharp noise,” he whispered from the doorway. “It will be quite loud, but try not to jump, Mrs Lett, as it will startle her. She’s a lively, attentive little girl and will probably pick it up from you. Now just stay still.”
With that there came a loud snap. Helen remained quite still, her eyes on Angela who was looking contentedly at the coloured pictures on the wall opposite. Again came the ear-splitting snap. Helen saw her baby’s eyes slew slightly, wondered if her own body had moved, but was sure it hadn’t.
“I’m certain she heard that,” she began, but a third unexpected snap brought her own automatic reaction to it. At the same time Angela struggled up in her arms to peer round to see what was going on.
The doctor came to stand in front of them. He smiled down at the child then, looking at Helen, said, “I think there is an impairment here. It seems to me that there is only partial hearing.”
The look on Helen’s face must have hit a soft spot and he placed his hand on her shoulder. “She is not profoundly deaf, Mrs Lett.”
“How can you say she’s even slightly deaf?” Helen challenged him. “You couldn’t see what her reaction was. You were behind us. But I saw it.”
He smiled sadly and glanced up towards the ceiling. Helen followed his gaze. There, angled just above her, was a mirror, reflecting them all in minute detail. She hadn’t noticed it before, so wrapped up in calming Angela down had she been. Through it he’d been watching the baby’s eyes for signs of any reaction to the noises made.
More tests had followed, intensive, harrowing, but all the comforting words in the world couldn’t lessen the blow of being told that Angela had impaired hearing. Going home that day Helen found herself wondering what she could have done while her baby was in the womb to cause this thing to happen to her child. She blamed herself. There was no one else she could blame.
* * *
Edwin stood before his father-in-law, his expression thunderous. Since yesterday’s news about Angela’s affliction he’d hardly said two words to the man. Now, in the man’s own flat at one in the morning, the restaurant having closed late this evening, he confronted him with the news concerning his grandchild.
Goodridge stood stunned, finally finding his voice.
“God, that’s dreadful, such a shock. That poor little kid – I don’t know what to say. She’s so bright, so quick – I never dreamed of anything like…”
He paused, seeing the father’s unrelenting glare but, taking it for grief, carried on. “I know how you must feel, Edwin.”
“Do you?” came Edwin’s harsh query. “How do you feel?”
“Same as you: deeply shocked, dismayed, sorry.”
“For what? Her having hearing problems or the real cause of it?”
“I don’t get you,” William began, but he knew full well that he did. Cousins marrying – no problem legally, but could it have weakened the child’s right to perfect health, a full life?
“It can’t be,” he went on, appalled.
“What else can you put it down to?”
“Edwin, it could happen to any child. It doesn’t have to be because you and Helen—”
“There’s no other explanation,” Edwin cut in, his features tight.
“Are you blaming me, Edwin?”
“I’m blaming myself. And of course you. We both carry this secret and poor Helen is entirely ignorant of it. Yet she’s the one who’s suffering.”
Alarm gripped William like some iron fist. “Don’t tell her,” he begged. “Not now. It’ll slay her.”
“We’re both guilty. What if she wants more children in the future? I’m going to have to tell her. I can’t keep this to myself any longer.”
“No! Please!” William grabbed his arm. “You could wreak untold damage, to her, to your marriage. Edwin, think. Think before you go off half-cocked. I know you’re shocked. I am too. She’s my granddaughter – it doesn’t matter about blood ties. I love Helen and Angela as much as if they were my own. Edwin, let it be. What good would it do spoiling what you have, what Helen has? Why destroy her?”
“Because another child could carry a similar weakness, or worse.”
“How are you going to prevent it, then? Forbid her having any more children? Tell her the truth and risk your marriage breaking up? Or maybe you want to live with a woman whose mind has been damaged by what you want to tell her? You can’t do that to her.”
He saw Edwin’s already tight lips grow even tighter. “There seems to be no answer, does there?” he said, and pulled away from William’s grip. “There seems little point continuing this discussion so I’ll say goodnight.”
“Give it some deep thought,” William called after him, “if not for mine or yours, at least for Helen’s sake.”
The door closed with a crash, leaving him to stew, not only that sleepless night, nursing his own sorrow for the child, but for days after when Edwin avoided him as much as possible, speaking to him only when necessary and then in terse sentences.
He deduced, however, as time went on and Helen, visiting with Angela, remained serene apart from her worry over the baby, that Edwin had said nothing after all.
* * *
One Sunday morning that September the phone by the bed jangled. Half asleep after a late night supervising the restaurant, a good crowd in, Edwin reached out and felt for the thing, at the same time glancing at the bedside clock. Eight fifteen – a brief prickle of irritation rippled through him.
“Hullo?”
“Edwin? It’s Hugh. Hope I didn’t wake you. We’re in Southampton on our way to Madeira. It’s just a quick call to tell you I got married yesterday and ask if you’d like to congratulate me, old man.”
It was typical of Hugh to do a thing like that with not a word to anyone. “Who’ve you got married to?” was all Edwin could think to say.
“I told you. Introduced you to her at your wedding. Glenda Dearing. You remember.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“We’ve been shacked up together for far too long. I didn’t want to lose her so I popped the question. She said yes so we got married yesterday in a registry office, last night came down to Southampton. Off on honeymoon for a week or two, then we’re in Ireland where we’ll be playing in Dublin: the Gate Theatre.”
“I see,” said Edwin. “So when will you—” It was as far as he got.
“Look, got to go. You going to congratulate me, old boy?”
“Congratulations,” murmured Edwin, adding, “You could have invited us, at least told us if no one else,” but he was already talking to no one.
Smiling at the receiver, he replaced it then rolled over towards his w
ife who, stirring, asked, “Who was that?”
“Hugh,” he whispered. “Phoned to say he got married yesterday.”
Instantly Helen was awake, staring up into Edwin’s face. “Did you say got married?”
“That’s right. Rang to ask us to congratulate him. He and his bride are off to Madeira on their honeymoon.”
Quickly he related all that Hugh had told him. She listened without smiling and when he’d done, merely said, “Well, I wish him lots of happiness,” in such a strange tone that Edwin frowned. But as she had turned over to recapture her sleep, he said nothing.
* * *
Why should she feel so strangely hurt? Hugh’s life was nothing to do with her any more. She had refused him, chosen to marry Edwin. She was a wife and a mother – she had no right to feel enmity against Hugh for having gone off and got married to someone else. Yet there was a heaviness of heart that all day refused to shift. Every time she thought of him, his face was as clear in her head as though she had seen him yesterday, for all the months she’d not seen him. And with it came the same strange stirring deep inside her that she’d been conscious of the very first time she had set eyes on him.
It was an effort to face the day. Edwin was at home; the restaurant was closed on Sundays. It was an effort to behave normally, make conversation with him, smile at him. He noticed it.
“Something wrong?” he queried as she put their breakfast on the table She replied that she’d been awake part of the night with Angela teething, which was true. He asked again at lunch, however, this time more persistently.
“I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.” She dismissed his concern and went on eating the chicken salad she had prepared.
That night, as he kissed her before turning over to sleep, she clung on to him. “Make love to me,” she begged.
“I thought you’d be too tired,” he said amiably.
“No, not too tired for that. It’s ages since we really made love; Angela and her teething always gets between us. Make love to me, Edwin, before she wakes up. I’ve given her some medicine to soothe her gums. She should sleep for a few hours.”
