repeated. ‘I could be back in a moment. You perch on your little stool and I’ll have you home in a flash.’
Ruth resisted for no more than a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully. ‘I’d like that.’
Elizabeth threw her a swift smile and slipped down the stairs. Ruth heard the front door bang and her quick footsteps on the path. She sat on her own in the quiet cottage and felt the friendly silence gather around her. ‘It’ll be all right when we’re in here,’ she said to herself, hearing her voice in the emptiness of the house. ‘As long as we get in here in time for the baby. The last thing in the world that matters is who chooses the wallpaper.’
Elizabeth, half running across the fields, fuelled with energy and a sense of purpose, reached the house and picked up the ringing telephone. It was the builder, calling about Manor Farm cottage and the damp around the French windows.
‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said. ‘My cottage. You must get that damp problem cured at once, Mr Willis. My cottage must be ready by August. I have promised my son and daughter-in-law that I’ll have it ready for them by then.’
It was not ready by August. The damp under the French windows was caused by a faulty drain. The flagstones of the path outside had to be cut back and a little gravel-filled trench inserted. None of it seemed very complicated to Ruth, and she wished they would hurry the work; but in the final month of her pregnancy she found a calmness and a serenity she had not known before.
‘The work will be finished this week,’ Elizabeth said worriedly. ‘But then that room will have to dry out and be decorated. I’ve got the curtains ready to hang, and the carpet fitters will come in at a moment’s notice, but if Junior is born on time he’ll just have to come home to Patrick’s old nursery here.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ruth said calmly.
‘Bit of a treat really,’ Patrick said. He was eating a late supper. Frederick had already gone up to bed. Elizabeth and Ruth had waited up for Patrick, who had been delayed at work by someone’s farewell party. Elizabeth had made him an omelette and he ate it, watched by the two women. ‘I like to think of him in my nursery.’
‘But I wanted to make the cottage ready for you,’ Elizabeth pursued. ‘I am disappointed.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ruth repeated. She had a curious floating feeling, as if everything was bound to be all right. She smiled at Elizabeth. ‘I’ll be five days in hospital anyway; maybe it will be finished in time.’
Elizabeth shook her head disapprovingly. ‘In my day they kept you in for a fortnight,’ she said. ‘Especially a new mother who was completely inexperienced.’
‘We have to start somewhere,’ Patrick said cheerfully. ‘And we’ve done the classes, or at least Ruth has. I’ll have on-the-job training.’
‘If you so much as touch a nappy I’ll be amazed,’ Elizabeth said.
‘He certainly will,’ Ruth replied. ‘He’s promised.’
Patrick grinned at the two of them. ‘I am a new man,’ he pronounced, slightly tipsy from the drinks at work and the wine with his supper. ‘I’ll do it all. Anyway, even if I miss the nappy stage I’ve already bought him a fishing rod. I’ll teach him fishing.’
‘And what if it’s a girl?’ Elizabeth challenged.
‘Then I’ll teach her too,’ Patrick said. ‘There will be no sexism in my household.’
Ruth got to her feet; the distant floaty feeling had become stronger. ‘I have to go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’m half asleep here already.’
Patrick pushed his plate to one side and was about to leave the table to go upstairs with Ruth.
‘I was just making coffee,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘I thought I’d have a coffee and a cognac before bed.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Patrick said agreeably. ‘I’ll stay down and have one with you. All right, Ruth?’
She nodded and bent carefully to kiss his cheek.
‘I won’t disturb you when I come up,’ he promised. ‘I’ll creep in beside you. And I’ll be up early in the morning too. I’ll slip out without waking you.’
‘I won’t see you till tomorrow night then,’ Ruth said. Despite herself her voice was slightly forlorn.
‘Unless tomorrow is the big day and he has to come dashing home,’ Elizabeth said cheerfully. ‘Patrick, you must leave a number where we can reach you all day, remember.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I’ll write it down now.’
‘On the pad beside the telephone in the sitting room,’ Elizabeth instructed.
‘Night, darling,’ Patrick said cheerfully and went to write down his telephone number as his mother had told him to do.
Ruth lay in her bed. The floating feeling grew stronger as she closed her eyes. The sounds of the countryside in summer breathed in through the half-open windows. They still sounded strange and ominous to Ruth, who was used to the comforting buzz of a city at night. She flinched when she heard the sudden whoop of an owl, and the occasional bark from a fox, trotting along the dark paths under the large white moon.
Ruth slept. Inside her body the baby turned and settled.
Between two and three in the morning, she woke in a pool of wetness, a powerful vice closed on her stomach. ‘Oh, my God!’ she said. ‘Patrick, wake up, the baby’s coming.’
He took a moment to hear her, and then he leaped from the bed, as nervous as a father in a comedy film. ‘Now?’ he demanded. ‘Are you sure? Now? Should we go to the hospital? Should we telephone? Oh, my God! I’m low on petrol.’
Ruth hardly heard him; she was timing her contractions.
‘I’ll get Mother,’ Patrick said, and fled from the bedroom and down the corridor.
As soon as Elizabeth appeared in the doorway in her cream corduroy dressing gown she took complete charge. She sent Patrick to get dressed in the bathroom and helped Ruth change from her nightgown into a pair of trousers and a baggy top.
‘Everything ready in your suitcase?’ she confirmed.
‘Yes,’ Ruth said.
‘I’ll phone the hospital and tell them you’re on your way,’ Elizabeth said.
‘No petrol!’ Patrick exclaimed, coming in the door, his jumper askew and his hair unbrushed. ‘God! I’m a fool! I’m low on petrol!’
‘You can take your father’s car. Get it out of the garage and bring it round to the front door,’ Elizabeth said calmly. ‘And don’t speed. This is a first baby; you have plenty of time.’
Patrick shot one anxious look at Ruth and dived from the room.
‘The suitcase,’ Elizabeth reminded him.
‘Suitcase,’
