The World is a Wedding (20 page)

Suddenly she felt overwhelmed and strangely hot, and all she wanted to do was sleep. She thought of Wilfred: strong and tall in his undertaker's suit, Wilfred in her bedroom, Wilfred holding her on the last night of their married life. He was the only man who had ever held her, or rather the only man who had held her with affection. Then she thought of Wilfred's da and his gentleness and how he had complimented her at the wedding breakfast on the honey from her hive. That was when she had Wilfred to love and bees to keep: when there had been hope.

She collapsed onto a muddy kerb. ‘Excuse me,' she called out to a tall man coming down the lane. ‘I'm looking for a convent.'

‘A convent?' the man replied, taken aback. ‘I don't know that there's a convent around here. This is near the picture houses in Leicester Square. Is there something the matter, miss?'

‘No.'

He looked at Grace and he looked at his watch. ‘There's a convent near Marble Arch, that way.' He pointed diagonally. ‘But it's a walk. You'll need to take the omnibus to Oxford Street, past Selfridges department store, miss.'

Grace stood up tentatively, ‘I'm well, thank you,' she said, not realising the man hadn't asked after her well-being, was already moving away. She walked slowly up the lane in the direction the man had indicated, but soon the child began to cry. Grace walked a little further until she found a hidden office doorway, which she crouched into. She put down the cardboard box, undid her coat and the buttons on her dress and tried to put her breast in the child's mouth without covering his nose. She saw his red and ugly face, pickled and raw. He was small enough to fit into a shoebox.

It was foggy and beginning to rain, steadily heavier. Grace sat in a damp huddle as the rain isolated her from the streets around. But she couldn't leave him here; he would get wet. And it might be a while before a passer-by found him. But there were childless people who wanted a child. She would give them a gift. The mother, the father and the child would be happy and complete. And her gift in return would be to walk away. She ought to do it quickly, the sooner the better. Someone would find him. When it stopped raining, she would look for somewhere sheltered and walk away.

‘Miss. Come out of the doorway, please. May I offer you assistance?' a police constable asked, the imposing silver star on his helmet glinting in the dark. ‘Would you like to come with me to the police box to get out of the wet?'

Grace shook her head, thrown by the policeman's presence, as if she was already guilty.

‘Where are you heading?'

‘Paddington.'

‘Well, there's a surprise: a baby. My wife has a baby. I know these things can be awkward, but come out of the rain, please, Mrs. . . .?'

‘Rice.'

‘Rice. Let me move that cardboard box out from under your feet, I don't want you to trip.' The policeman offered her a brolly as she stood up. ‘The Number 23 goes to Paddington train station. I will accompany you to the bus stop on Trafalgar Square, it's only two minutes away.' He guided Grace, his hand under her elbow, towards the end of the lane where Grace could see the silhouettes of streetlamps and passing motor cars. ‘He is a small baby. Is it a boy?'

Grace nodded.

‘How old is he?'

‘Two weeks.'

‘He's small for two weeks,' the constable said, the chain on his whistle rattling. ‘Our little chap is a bit older; two months and a day.' The young man beamed, eager to talk. ‘There's not much you can do to keep them quiet when they are that young but milk is the answer to everything. If they want milk, they have to have it, that's that. My wife has the same problem. But we can't have you out in the rain. Dear me, no. What are you doing in London with a Scottish accent? There's the number 23.' He ran to the kerb, waved a white-gloved hand and a red bus pulled over. Grace stepped tentatively onto the platform.

‘She's going to Paddington railway station, conductor,' the constable shouted.

The conductor tinged the bell, then began punching the buttons on his ticket machine.

‘Single?' he asked. Grace nodded.

The conductor quickly turned the handle on the machine, a ticket stuttered out and he handed it to Grace.

‘Threepence, please. Dreadful weather. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a pea-souper,' the conductor commented chattily to Grace. The bus stopped abruptly—he bent down and looked out of the window. ‘There'll be some drunks falling in the Thames tonight, but don't you worry yourself about that, miss. You and your baby get straight home to your husband and into the warm and dry. Have you got far to go when you get to Paddington station?' he asked, holding onto the back of a seat to keep his balance.

Grace nodded.

‘Where's that then?'

‘Narberth.'

W
ilfred woke abruptly. There had been a tap on the front door. Who was it? Mr. Probert! He looked at Flora Myffanwy, who was fast asleep beside him. He heard a knock again and quick, quiet steps. That was definitely a rap on the door. If he opened the curtains and looked out of the window, the light might wake Flora Myffanwy. And she needed to sleep. At least his da wasn't there; he'd gone to stay with Auntie Blodwen. His da had endured enough recently, and if there was any trouble, and if it was that Probert, he would deal with it alone.

He peered at the alarm clock. Twenty minutes to six. Who would knock on the door at this time of the morning? Someone must have died—that was the reason. He'd have to go and collect a body. In the pitch-dark, he got out of bed, pulled on his long-johns and padded barefoot down the winding staircase—avoiding the third step, which creaked loudly.

He peered through the bay window in the paint and wallpaper shop. No one. That was strange. He turned towards the ruins of Narberth Castle but there was no one to see there either. Wilfred felt sure he had heard someone. He was overwrought, that's what it was, and imagining things—what with the baby and his worry for Flora. Wilfred sighed, rubbed his forehead and turned to go back to bed. The brain could do things like that when one was frightened and on the edge, he thought to himself. He felt weary as he climbed the stairs.

‘Come here,' he whispered to Flora Myffanwy as he got into bed. He moved over to her and put his arm around her now-thin body, closed his eyes and felt his own body relax around the contours of his wife. Then he heard something again. He opened his eyes. He could hear a sniffling sound—like a fox or a badger. But there wouldn't be a badger in town: they were too shy a creature to come so boldly into Narberth, even in the darkest night. He would go and check one more time. It could be someone who was grieving, and he knew grief made people behave strangely.

Wilfred opened the unlocked door.

‘Hello,' he called cautiously. ‘Is someone there?'

No one there. He was imagining things. He stepped out with bare feet, knocking a cardboard box on the doorstep. He bent down and picked it up with one hand and something, a weight inside, slid to one side with a small mewl.

It was an animal in the box. Why on God's earth was someone leaving a cat on the doorstep in the middle of the night? No accounting for folk, as his da said. Perhaps it was dying and they wanted Wilfred to bury it. He balanced the box in his arms and opened it. There, wrapped in a kerfuffle of blankets, was a baby, a wide-awake baby, its dark, moist eyes staring up at Wilfred. Wilfred blinked. He was seeing things. A baby was on the doorstep. It was . . . it was his baby! His and Flora Myffanwy's baby! The thought flashed through his head in a split second. No, it couldn't be. It wasn't their baby, it was another baby. Why would anyone give him a baby in the middle of the night?

The baby made a small sound, a whimper. It was alive. It didn't need to be buried; it needed to be cared for. The baby looked at him unflinching, acceptingly, as if it was perfectly normal to be lying in a cardboard box on an undertaker's doorstep in Narberth, in the middle of the night.

He took the box inside and up to their bedroom.

‘Flora,' he whispered. She didn't move. The baby snuffled. Wilfred looked at the child: this unearthly creature with a wrinkly, raw face and flaking skin. This was a completely different sort of human being from him. It wasn't an adult and it wasn't a corpse, and so Wilfred was at a loss. The baby screwed up its eyes. Was it going to cry?

‘Flora!' he whispered urgently. Flora stirred, brushing a mass of brown curls from her eyes. ‘Look!' Flora looked at the cardboard box, puzzled, not understanding Wilfred's urgency. ‘Look inside the box.'

‘Is it a delivery?' she asked, half-awake.

‘No. Yes.'

‘Has the post been? That's early. Is it for me?'

‘No . . .' Wilfred said hesitatingly, whispering, ‘I don't know who it's for.'

The lid of the cardboard box flopped forward. There was a sound from inside. Wilfred looked around, not knowing where to put the box down. It had occurred to him that perhaps he should take the baby out of the box, but he didn't know how to pick up a baby, wasn't sure how to hold it or lift it up. How did you pick up a baby? The questions raced through his head.

‘Here, Wilfred, put it on the bed,' Flora suggested calmly, sitting up.

‘I'll put the box on the bed, then?' It came out as a question.

‘Yes, Wilfred,' Flora said, smiling, humouring him. Wilfred placed the box on the quilt and there was the sound of the baby slipping and hitting the side of the box. Wilfred gasped, utterly horrified.

‘Is it a box of china?' Flora asked.

Wilfred was now in a state of panic. ‘No.'

Flora looked in the box and caught her breath: ‘It's a baby.' The baby gazed up at them with dark, fresh eyes; absolutely perfect eyes. Wilfred was mesmerised by the tiny human being lying in the box.

‘Why has someone left a child with us?' Flora asked.

‘We have a child,' Wilfred heard himself saying. Yes, he thought, Flora and I have a child. All the grief and loss and shock of the past months disappeared as Wilfred's world, the world itself, was righted. They had a child. All was well with the world. The earliest light began to filter through the curtains into the room—somewhere a million miles away the sun was shining. The Earth was spinning on its axis and slowly, inexorably, the day was coming as faint sunbeams stretched and gently reached out into the room.

‘No,' Flora said. ‘This is not our child.' She looked at Wilfred. ‘We must find its mother,' she said.

‘But it has been abandoned!' Wilfred was taken aback by the force with which he heard himself say the words. ‘Its mother doesn't want it or why else would she have left it with us? On the doorstep? The child has come to us, Flora. To
us
.' He looked around. No one could see them, no one could hear them, apart from the child in the cardboard box.

‘No, Wilfred, a mother would want her child.'

Wilfred felt anger within him, something steel-like in his stomach, and he felt the strength in both his shoulders and his back as he spoke.

‘But she wasn't looking after it. You don't leave your baby on a doorstep in a cardboard box if you want it.'

‘You do.'

‘You don't.' Wilfred heard himself contradict his wife. He had contradicted his wife. Flora looked at the counterpane. They had never had cross words before; they had never disagreed before. Wilfred had never before thought his wife was wrong. Wrong!

‘But she's gone,' he continued, ‘and we'll never find her, and she's left him here. With
us
. And she could have left him with anyone in Market Street, in Narberth . . . in Pembrokeshire! She could have put him on the steps of a . . .' Wilfred tried to think of the places someone might leave their child . . . ‘a shop! Or—or a church!' Wilfred urged, remembering the places he had heard that people left babies. ‘She didn't leave him on the step of an undertaker's by accident.'

‘The child wasn't left with us by accident.'

‘No! She wanted us to have him. So she must not want it—him, her—the baby.' Wilfred realised he didn't know what sort of baby it was. Because it could be a girl. Or a boy. It definitely wasn't an ‘it'. But that was beside the point. ‘So, it's ours, then. That's all decided.'

Flora looked away. Somewhere in the depths of himself, Wilfred knew his grief was speaking, that his grief was being given voice.

‘We'll tell everyone you've had the baby and it was all right.' He heard the fantasies of grief come from him.

The baby lifted a small, curled hand near his face. Flora and Wilfred watched as the baby tried to rub his eyes, yawned wholeheartedly and then appeared to fall asleep instantaneously.

He was right. Yes! He was right. The child was meant for them. Their family was complete. And now he was a father.

‘Right . . . right.' Wilfred began to concoct a plan. They'd tell his da when he came back from Auntie Blodwen's that . . . the baby was—hadn't—was upstairs and Flora would be down with the baby soon, and he would be in the workshop today. Varnishing as usual. And his da wouldn't say anything. He would take it all as normal. His da accepted things, was dignified and kept his counsel. And they'd tell everyone else in Narberth that it had been a mistake and the baby hadn't died. These thoughts rushed through Wilfred's head in an instant.

He saw that Flora had put her finger into the box and the baby was holding her finger in its hand while sleeping; it looked as if it was renouncing itself to sleep. The baby was happy.

‘The baby is happy with us,' he said. ‘See, the baby is happy.' He gazed, awestruck, at the tiny child.

Flora thought for a moment. ‘This is Grace's child,' she said.

Reality hit Wilfred. It felt cold. He closed his eyes for a moment. Yes, it could be Grace's baby.