Time to Say Goodbye (41 page)

But Will brushed all this aside. ‘Oh, I know it’s a lot of work, but it’ll be quite safe to put our furniture, such as it is, on the ground floor, and until we’ve done the bedrooms we can sleep on camp beds in the kitchen.’ He grinned at Imogen, who was cleaning the flat they would soon abandon. ‘Remember, this is an adventure, sweetheart! It’s necessary to have an adventure once in a while!’

But though they might suffer from moments of doubt, both Imogen and Will knew they would be able to cope and longed to start on the repairs, so they put in an offer which was so speedily accepted that they exchanged terrified looks. ‘Oh, Will, have we paid more than we should?’ Imogen asked anxiously as they left the estate agent’s office. ‘Only I do love it; not just Farthing Cottage, but the village and the green and the little pub . . . oh, everything about it. It’s just the sort of place we’ve dreamed of owning, just the sort of place to bring up babies. Only suppose we have twins, a boy and a girl? We’ll need more bedrooms . . .’

Will wiped imaginary perspiration off his forehead, then nuzzled a kiss into the side of her neck. ‘We’ve done it now: too late to retract, and anyway, I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘You’re daft, you are! We shouldn’t count our babies before they’re hatched! And we’ve got vacant possession, which means we can start moving stuff from our flat to Farthing Cottage just as soon as we like.’

The baby was due in the New Year, the exact date being 10 January, though when Imogen attended the clinic she was told that first babies seldom come when they’re expected. However, they moved into the cottage as soon as they could, to take advantage of the glorious summer weather. Imogen had always loved gardens and gardening, so if she wasn’t painting or plastering within the house she could be found in the garden, digging, wrenching up the waist-high weeds, planting and watering. It had been Will’s dream to own and run a market garden, though it might be several years before this particular dream came to fruition; market gardens were not built in a day. Imogen shared his urge to become proper country people and not just commuters, and was determined to do everything in her power to see that this dream, too, became a reality.

She had left her job in order to cope with the work on Farthing Cottage, but had decided that if anything came up in the village which was within her capabilities she would apply for it, though not until the baby was born. Mrs Grindley, who ran the little general store and post office, had said she could do with someone who understood book-keeping. ‘’Twould only be a couple of days a week,’ she had explained, ‘but I don’t understand this double-entry stuff. Ever since Mr Grindley went off with that flighty flibbertigibbet, leavin’ me to make what I could of the business, I’ve fair longed for someone what understood figures to give me a hand. If you’d be willin’, Mrs Carpenter, I reckon atwixt the two of us we’d manage just fine.’

Imogen formed the habit of walking down to the station to meet Will on his way home from work. Because of the expense, they had decided to use the car only when it was absolutely necessary; his season ticket was a good deal cheaper than petrol and the wear and tear on their beloved vehicle.

One day she must have been a little later than usual for she and Will met in the middle of the village green. Will gave her an exuberant kiss, and Imogen was about to remonstrate when she suddenly gasped and clapped a hand to her waist. ‘Will? I’ve just had the oddest feeling. You know when you were a kid and you caught a tiddler and held it for a few minutes in your cupped hands? And its little tail sort of fluttered? It was a feeling like that, inside me, where the baby is. Oh, Will, it’s the first sign he’s given me that he’s real, and alive, and longing to come out.’ She smoothed a protective hand over her still flat stomach. ‘How nice that he chose to wriggle for the first time just as we approached our new home! I feel sure that I won’t get that horrid sickness again.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, but can I try to feel it?’ Will said eagerly, but though she agreed that he might, he could feel nothing.

‘I knew you wouldn’t – feel anything, I mean – because it was such a tiny, tiddley wriggle,’ Imogen said. ‘Perhaps, in the circumstances, we ought to call it Tom Tiddler’s Cottage instead of Farthing.’

But Will just laughed. ‘Farthing Cottage is good enough for me, and I expect Tom Tiddler will be satisfied with whatever we choose to call it,’ he said. And from that moment on, the baby became Tom Tiddler, though Imogen pointed out that if she had a girl they would have to call her Thomasina.

Imogen continued to work hard in both the house and the garden until she was almost seven months gone, and what finally stopped her was the onset of winter. Farthing Cottage had never known insulation against the cold, but Imogen and Will did their best with thick curtains at the windows, home-made ‘sausages’ against the bottom of every door and a roaring fire in the living room, as well as another in the range. It had been a glorious summer, the best on record, but it soon became obvious that they were going to pay for it with a truly terrible winter.

They began to measure waiting time for the new addition in weeks rather than months, and Imogen had never felt healthier, but Will was anxious, saying that competent though he felt himself to be, he had no desire to end up delivering Tom Tiddler himself. At one point he actually suggested they should move into town when the birth was imminent, but Imogen pooh-poohed his worries. ‘I expect they’ll send an ambulance for me from the hospital, and I’m sure this dreadful weather isn’t going to last,’ she said airily. ‘And even if the ambulance can’t get through I know the Rover is in tip-top condition, so you can drive me.’

‘Suppose the baby comes when I’m not here?’ Will asked anxiously. ‘I can’t take time off before Tom Tiddler has even arrived because I’ll need to do so when the pair of you come out of hospital. Still, Ida Roscoe’s a sensible woman and she’s promised to pop in every day once Christmas is over. She’ll ring for the ambulance – or for me, if necessary.’

Ida Roscoe was a tiny, energetic woman in her mid-sixties, with a wrinkled face, grey hair pulled back into a bun on the back of her head, and shrewd brown eyes. She described herself cheerfully as a “char” and had been happy to add the Carpenters to her list of employers. She promised Will that she would see Imogen was never alone for long, and not only did she pop in for a few minutes every weekday, but she also scrubbed floors, thundered up the stairs to tidy the bedrooms, changed sheets and pillow cases when necessary, and generally confirmed Imogen in her belief that Ida was a treasure.

By early January the work on the cottage was almost completed and Will decreed that enough was enough. One of the two bedrooms had been converted into a nursery and when they could afford it the little scullery would become a bathroom, though for now they carted cans of hot water up the short steep flight of stairs and washed in their room.

At first time had seemed to fly. Imogen, with a great deal of help and advice from Ida, made baby clothes and knitted warm little cardigans, bootees, and a rather odd-looking shawl. She told Will indignantly that what he had rudely called holes were in fact the lacy design she had copied from a woman’s magazine, but she did not think he believed her.

As luck would have it, the weather, which had been terrible, eased just about the time the baby was due to be born. The thaw did not last, but though it was still cold and frosty most of the snow had melted. They awoke in the mornings to a fairy tale-like scene of trees outlined in white icing sugar and puddles reflecting an ice-blue sky, so that Imogen was happy to stay indoors and keep the fire in the living room supplied with the logs which Will cut and stacked in the old chicken house.

By the middle of the month she began to suffer for the first time from some of the consequences of her condition, and the district nurse told her that this was not uncommon and added, rather depressingly, that first babies were often two to three weeks late. Backache plagued her if she spent too long on her feet, and she had to watch her diet since she had started to suffer from dreadful heartburn. And when the frost seemed determined to remain she only walked down to meet Will’s train when she saw someone else setting out too, for a fall, in her condition, was the last thing she wanted.

‘I’m bigger than that haystack,’ she moaned as they walked, arms entwined, back from the station one dark afternoon. ‘If Tom Tiddler decides to be one of those babies who won’t put in an appearance until they’re three weeks late I bags be the one who smacks his little bottom and hears his first cry.’

But a week or so after the baby was due, Imogen fairly danced to the station, her eyes like stars. ‘First sign of imminent arrival,’ she told Will, cuddling his arm, for it was horribly cold still. ‘He’s stopped kicking and wriggling, bless him! The district nurse says babies do that when one is near one’s time; it’s almost as though they’re preparing for the big dive down.’

‘Gosh, the things I’m learning,’ Will said. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday; how would you like a trip into Wickenham? A ride in the car might hurry things up and I know you wanted to buy a little present for Ida to say thank you for all her help. There’ll be far more choice in one of the big stores than you’d ever find in the village shop.’

‘Well, I had meant to buy her cigarettes because she smokes like a chimney,’ Imogen confessed. ‘But I’d far rather buy her a really pretty headscarf, because the one she’s got is dyed orange from the cigarette fumes, and she does like to look smart. Oh, Will, you are kind to me! A trip out would be wonderful and it would take my mind off Tom Tiddler. I know I want him to start getting born, but there are moments when every old wives’ tale I’ve ever heard pops into my head and I start expecting the worst.’

They reached Farthing Cottage and went in to find a welcoming blaze from the living room fire and a delicious scent coming from the oven. Will rolled his eyes. ‘You marvellous woman. Of all the food I love, beef casserole comes out on top. So it’s decided then? We’ll get up early tomorrow and attack the shops!’

They set out early next day, for although Imogen tried to put together a packed lunch, Will was firm. ‘We’ll go to that posh restaurant on the top floor of that big store on the main street,’ he said.

Imogen pulled a face. ‘What’s wrong with my sandwiches? Don’t forget, any day now we’re going to be a real family, so we mustn’t splash money around. And I’ve made a batch of scones, so we could have had them for our elevenses.’

Will chuckled. ‘Did you say stones?’ he enquired innocently. ‘The last lot you made, if you remember, I broke a tooth on.’

Imogen leaned over and gave him a playful punch between the shoulder blades. Will was driving carefully because of the icy conditions, and had turned to upbraid her when she gave a sudden squawk as a movement ahead of them caught her eye. ‘Will! Look out – it’s a cat . . . !’

She heard Will swear, felt the car jerk and swerve, and after that everything happened at once. Will slammed on the brakes and she catapulted into the windscreen. She felt the impact, felt something wet trickling down her face, and the last thing she heard before she plunged into darkness was Will’s voice. ‘Immy? Oh my God, Immy . . .’

She awoke what could have been hours or days later to find a man in a white coat bending over her with what looked like a long pair of tweezers. He must have noticed her eyelids fluttering apart and stopped his work for a moment to explain. ‘You went through the windscreen, my dear, when your husband had to stop rather abruptly. You’ve got some nasty cuts, with the glass still in them; I’m picking out every piece, and when that’s done we’ll give you something to make you sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be stitched and bandaged and fine.’

Imogen made a tremendous effort and tried to smile. ‘Will? My husband?’ she whispered.

‘He’s fine,’ a woman’s voice said soothingly. ‘He’s waiting outside Theatre, very anxious to see you. He told us you’re going to have a baby quite soon, so we are to take especial care of you. Now just you relax, my dear, and let Dr Samuels get on with his work. He’s given you a little shot of something to numb the pain.’

Imogen moved her head a trifle and saw a woman in nurse’s uniform holding a kidney basin, heard the tinkle as a piece of glass was dropped into it, and plunged once more into unconsciousness.

After that, the nightmare began in earnest. Will was there, white and shaking, gripping her hand and murmuring loving words into her ear. He told her the baby had started, that she was now on the labour ward and that she had no need to worry. Everyone said she and Tom Tiddler would be fine; she must just do exactly as the staff told her and all would be well. She begged him not to leave her, but a large woman – not the one who had assisted the doctor to remove the glass – told her briskly that this was women’s work, and men on a labour ward were just a nuisance.

She was on the labour ward for thirty hours, attended by various nurses, several of whom showed signs of worry at the baby’s slow arrival, and there were occasional visits from a very young and very frightened doctor. She was given gas and air, but when this merely made her even sleepier and less capable of obeying the command to ‘bear down’ they took it away and tried bullying. ‘The baby’s in the birth canal and can’t breathe until it comes out,’ a particularly sharp-tongued nurse told her. ‘Your baby’s doing its best to get born; now it’s up to you to help it. Push, Mrs Carpenter, push with all your strength; give the baby a chance of life.’

‘I am pushing. I’m pushing as hard as I possibly can,’ Imogen panted. She tried to struggle into a squatting position, but every time she attained it someone pushed her back, saying that the correct way to give birth was when supine.

For the first time in the nightmare scenario, Imogen fought back. She reared up on the birthing couch and pushed feebly at the hands trying to hold her down. ‘Get – my – husband,’ she screamed, or rather she thought she screamed; all that emerged was a husky whisper.

It had its effect, however. The young doctor suddenly took command. ‘Fetch Mr Ramsden,’ he shouted, and when the nurse said coldly that it was not necessary, that Mrs Carpenter must just try a little harder, he ordered her out of the room and presently a tall, balding man with kind eyes was at her side, patting her shoulder, telling her that he would have to perform a Caesarean section, that he was very sorry . . .