The Little House

‘I was going to take you both down to the cottage. It’s all ready,’ Patrick whispered.

Ruth looked despairing. ‘Well, I’m not waking him up. He’s only just gone. I can’t bear to wake him.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Patrick said. ‘He’ll probably drop off again if we just transfer him into his carry cot.’

Ruth thought for a moment. ‘We could walk down, and push the pram down with us.’

Patrick instinctively shrank from the thought of walking down the road, even his own parents’ private drive, pushing a pram. There was something so trammelled and domestic about the image. There was something very poverty-stricken about it too, as if they could not afford a car.

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘Anyway, I don’t have the time. I have to go in to work. I wanted to drop the two of you off.’

‘Not work again…’

‘It’s a crisis…’

‘It’s always a crisis…’

‘Why don’t the two of you go?’ Elizabeth interposed. ‘And leave Thomas here. Ruth can settle in, have a little wander around, have a bit of peace and quiet. I’ll keep Thomas here until you want him brought down. You can phone me when you’re ready. The phone’s working.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Ruth said, ‘but…’

‘It’s no trouble to me at all,’ Elizabeth assured her. ‘I have nothing to do this afternoon except a spot of shopping, and Thomas can come with me. He loves the supermarket. I’ll wait till he wakes and then take him out.’

Ruth hesitated, tempted by the thought of an afternoon in her new house.

‘If I get away early I’ll come home in time for tea,’ Patrick offered. ‘We could have a bit of time together before we collect Thomas.’

Elizabeth nodded encouragingly. ‘Enjoy your new house together,’ she said. ‘Thomas can stay with me as long as you like. I can even give him his bottle and bath him here.’

Ruth looked directly at Patrick. ‘But I thought we were moving into our house, all together, this afternoon.’ She let the demand hang in the air.

Elizabeth smiled faintly and moved discreetly out of earshot. Patrick slipped his arm around Ruth’s waist and led her away from the pram. ‘Why don’t you go down to our little house, run yourself a bath, have a little rest, and I’ll bring home a pizza or a curry or something and we’ll have dinner, just the two of us, and christen that bedroom?’

Ruth hesitated. She and Patrick had not made love since the birth of Thomas. She felt a half-forgotten desire stir inside her. Then she remembered the pain of her stitches, and the disagreeable fatness of her belly. ‘I can’t,’ she said coldly. ‘It’s too soon.’

‘Then we’ll have a gentle snog,’ Patrick said agreeably. ‘Come on, Ruth, let’s take advantage of a good offer. Let’s have our first night on our own and fetch Thomas tomorrow. Mother will have him overnight for us; he’s got his cot here and all the things he needs. And they love to have him. Why not?’

‘All right,’ Ruth said, seduced despite herself. ‘All right.’

Ruth had longed to be in her own house, and to settle into a routine with her own baby. But nothing was as she had planned. Thomas did not seem to like his new nursery. He would not settle in his cot. Every evening, as Patrick returned Ruth’s cooling dinner to the oven, Ruth went back upstairs, rocked Thomas to sleep again, and put him into his cot. They rarely ate dinner together; one of them was always rocking the baby.

During the day, Thomas slept well. Ruth could put him in the pram and wheel it out into the little back garden.

‘That’s when you should sleep,’ Elizabeth reminded her. ‘Sleep when the baby sleeps, catch forty winks.’

But Ruth could never sleep during Thomas’s daytime naps. She was always listening for his cry, she was always alert.

‘Leave him to cry,’ Elizabeth said robustly. ‘If he’s safe in his cot or in his pram he’ll just drop off again.’

Ruth shot her a reproachful glance. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said.

‘But if you’re overtired and need the sleep…’ Elizabeth said gently.

‘She’s determined,’ Patrick said. ‘It’s in the book.’

‘Oh, the book,’ Elizabeth said and exchanged a small hidden smile with Patrick.

Ruth stuck to the book, which said that the baby should be fed on demand and never left to cry, even though it meant that she could never settle to anything during the day, and never slept at night for more than a couple of hours at a time. She saw many dawns break at the nursery window before Thomas finally dozed off to sleep and she could creep back into bed beside Patrick’s somnolent warmth. Then it seemed to be only moments before the alarm clock rang out, and Patrick yawned noisily, stretched, and got out of bed.

‘Be quiet!’ Ruth spat at him. She was near to tears. ‘He’s only just gone off to sleep. For Christ’s sake, Patrick, do you have to make so much noise?’

Patrick, who had done nothing more than rattle the clothes hangers in the wardrobe while taking his shirt, spun around, shocked at the tone of her voice. Ruth had never spoken to him like that before.

‘What?’

‘I said, for Christ’s sake do you have to make so much noise? I’ve been up all night with him. He’s only this minute gone off.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ Patrick said reasonably. ‘I heard him cry out at about four, and I listened for him. I was going to get up, but he went back to sleep again.’

‘He was awake at one, for an hour, and then again at three. He didn’t go back to sleep at four, it was you that went back to sleep at four. He woke up and I had to change him and give him another bottle, and I was up with him till six, and I can’t bear him to wake again.’

Patrick looked sceptical. ‘I’m sure I would have woken if you had been up that often,’ he said. ‘You probably dreamed it.’

Ruth gave a little shriek and clapped her hand over her mouth. Above her own gagging hand, her eyes glared at Patrick. ‘I couldn’t have dreamed it.’ She was near to tears. ‘How could I have dreamed anything? I’ve been awake nearly all night! There was no time to dream anything, because I’ve hardly ever slept!’

Patrick pulled on his shirt and then crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, touching her gently on the shoulder. ‘Calm down, darling,’ he said. ‘Calm down. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d had a bad night. Shall I call Mother?’

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