Chapter 4
Ian Parslow, the obstetrician at the Bristol Infirmary, was no less condescending than the one Lisa had consulted at the Hammersmith. She wondered vaguely why he had such a good reputation in the Bristol area.
‘We’re actually looking at the ultrasound, Mrs Wildmore,’ he was telling her, an edge of irritability creeping through the bedside manner. ‘You can see for yourself - one baby!’
He showed them both how they could tell it was a boy. Lisa, used to graphic representation, immediately caught on. Parslow smiled knowingly at Alec who was doing his best to decipher the vague blurred impressions. ‘You can’t always see, but he is lying exactly right.’
Was she imagining it, or was Parslow looking rather intently at the monitor? It was impossible to say, but Lisa sensed the man holding back. Her instincts told her that her new pregnancy was different from her first. She tried to imprint the pictures on her brain, intending to do her own research on the internet later. Had this bland specialist detected an intriguing irregularity? An unusual slant, perhaps, which might be worth discussing with a colleague but best kept a secret from the parents? It made her uneasy to see the doctor’s eyes flit busily from blob to blob, then write a note down on his pad.
‘Is there a problem, Mr Parslow?’
The obstetrician’s head jerked to a sudden stop. The jowls firmed into determined optimism as he shifted his eyes rapidly away from hers and looked at Alec. Something wasn’t quite normal, Lisa was sure; but this man wasn’t about to admit it.
‘A well-formed foetus, Mrs Wildmore. Nothing at all to worry about.’
If anyone was worrying, it wasn’t Lisa. It was simply that she’d no means of knowing what the scan actually told them. Her dream came back to her: was there a small blob within a bigger one? Is that what Parslow had noted down? She’d read about such cases. Perhaps that was why she’d dreamed of one. She watched as the doctor traced out the shapes to Alec, outlining a human in the making. Ultrasounds were not really of interest to Lisa, though Alec was insisting on the whole battery of medical tests.
‘You’re almost forty, pet,’ he constantly reminded her, as though she were trying to deny it. At least this test wasn’t intrusive; as far as she knew, at any rate.
Lisa was beginning to find the repetitious references to her chronological age threatening. Was Alec tiring of her, looking for someone younger? She had begun to age. Careful observation of young men’s reactions told her that. She wasn’t quite as girlish, maybe; more womanly. But not completely past it, either! Glances still followed her when she deliberately passed close by to men using pneumatic drills, or cleaning shop windows. They still whistled - most of the time. And last month, when Trevor had come to stay, he’d congratulated her on her appearance.
‘I don’t know how you do it, sweet, I really don’t,’ he’d said. ‘All the other mums I know are so frumpy.’ Her agent had thrown his expressive hands into the air and gazed, apparently delighted, at her clothes. ‘And ethnic is so clever for the country. You look wonderful, darling; brimming with health.’
Dear Trevor; he’d kept her spirits up all the long months when she was carrying Seb. He’d told her how trim she was, encouraged her to continue with her painting. He’d even praised her Somerset landscapes. Though prettier - just kitsch, if she was honest with herself - than her London work he’d managed to find the right outlet. Not at the usual gallery.
‘There’s this new chap on my list now,’ he’d told her. ‘Tiny place off New Bond Street. Marvellous for country scenes. Leo’s expanding by leaps and bounds. Moving to Albemarle Street in a couple of months.’
Alec, by contrast, was continually harping on possible misfortunes. ‘Things can go wrong, you know. We wouldn’t want a Down’s syndrome child, or one handicapped by any other congenital disease, now would we?’
Lisa wasn’t at all sure about terminating the life within her even if the doctors pronounced it inadequate. The summary execution of an unborn baby just because the medics had decided it might not be perfect wasn’t something she’d consider.
But she was feeling calmer, happier, than she’d ever felt before, and she had no intention of upsetting this blissful state for the sake of arguing a point which might never come up. Perhaps the cows around her exuded something catching to make her feel so tranquil. She had become, she felt, positively bovine.
Composed, she smiled at Ian Parslow. A slow unhurried knowing smile; mirroring Meg. If the baby could lie in such a way that one might not see its gender, perhaps he was lying in such a way as to obscure a second one, she reasoned to herself, serene.
Lisa watched her husband as he examined the scan carefully. ‘That’s really extraordinary,’ he said. ‘I’d no idea one could see the foetus so clearly.’
‘A perfectly normal pregnancy.’ Parslow turned affably towards Alec, then rapidly back to the machine. Had Alec noticed how the man hid behind platitudes? Lisa again had the odd feeling that he wasn’t being entirely candid, that the image contained something the consultant wasn’t entirely happy with. ‘An unusually clear picture,’ he insisted. ‘Your wife is doing very well.’
Lisa felt the blood begin to spurt at the deprecating tone, the oblique method of communicating with her. What was ‘an unusually clear picture’ supposed to convey? Something exceptional, clear to him, but which he’d no intention of discussing with them? And she was doing well to cope with it in her body?
‘In that case there won’t be any difficulty about my having the baby at home,’ she said sweetly, automatically smiling though the doctor’s back was turned to her. Only the throbbing pulse in her neck showed that calm had deserted her.
Mr Parslow seemed to freeze, then he turned from the scan to look at Alec again. ‘We do like to have our older mothers in.’
‘I don’t think, pet – ’
‘You just said all is well, Mr Parslow,’ Lisa interrupted, her smile disarming. ‘“A perfectly normal pregnancy” I think you said.’
The doctor turned to glance at her, his hooded eyes sweeping almost immediately back to the flickering images on the monitor.
‘There’s no suggestion of a possible - abnormality, is there?’ she asked softly, forcing her voice low and self-effacing.
He was, apparently, still examining the scan. ‘I do assure you, Mrs Wildmore, none at all. There’s no reason for anxiety. If you’re at all worried, I can prescribe something to calm you down.’ He pulled a prescription pad towards himself as he nodded reassuringly at Alec. ‘It’s just a matter, as I said, of preferring – ’
‘I prefer not to take any medication, thank you,’ Lisa said as amiably as she could. She’d promised herself to be particularly careful during her pregnancies. She’d even thrown out some of her favourite pigments - chrome yellow and cobalt violet - aware that her habit of licking her paintbrush could leach poison to her foetus. All she was suggesting to Parslow was to have her baby in as natural a way as possible. She smiled determinedly again. ‘And if everything is fine, I’ll go for a home birth.’
‘But, pet – ‘
‘Dr Gilmore is perfectly willing to take it on, and I’ve already seen the midwife. Of course, if the scan had shown anything unusual, however trivial, I know you’d feel happier if I came in.’
‘There would be no question about it then.’ Parslow actually turned to look at Lisa fully before returning to the machine. ‘As you can see, there’s clearly just one baby. He’s not even particularly large.’
The barely concealed exasperation, the put-down, made Lisa even more determined. She flicked her eyes over the screen. The vague shadowy forms it displayed were not what she was concerned about. Her body was reacting in a different way this time; she was as certain of that as she’d ever been of anything. Apart from that first attack of nausea - mercifully not repeated - she’d felt movement in the very first six weeks. Definite movement. Gilmore had, naturally, dismissed that as gas. But she’d still felt it. The images in her dream came back in force. She was convinced that, somehow, this baby would turn into more than one, even if he hadn’t done so at this stage.
‘My wife goes in for small babies,’ Alec said. For some reason he found this fact threatening to his virility. ‘Our firstborn weighed in at only six pounds.’
Lisa and Seb, visiting Crinsley Farm, found Meg and her twins in the converted barn she used as a dairy. Meg was making butter.
‘Was it exhausting, Meg? And did you get much bigger right from the start?’ Lisa pestered.
Meg didn’t answer immediately. ‘Said it afore,’ she finally brought out. ‘Didn’t notice nothing special. Susan were the one as said about me being bigger - quite late on, mind.’
Lisa took in the evasion and waited.
‘Well, I were bulkier, somehow. Thought I’d put on a bit of weight.’
‘But before you actually knew? Did you notice anything special early on?’
‘Felt like being a football ground towards the end,’ Meg sidestepped that, rather peremptorily. ‘Them seemed to be having a game between ’em.’
It wasn’t that Meg wasn’t being sympathetic, or supportive. But Lisa realised that her friend not only didn’t share her enthusiasm for the possibility of a multiple birth, she was positively against it. Lisa could see no reason for this attitude. Phyllis and Paul were enchanting little toddlers: pretty, bright and always on the go. Phyllis was the ringleader, the stronger one.
‘Let go that pushchair,’ Meg had scolded Phyllis last time they were there. ‘You’re pushing Paul in the rhyne.’
Lisa had wondered how a child as young as Phyllis could possibly have such strength. The clubfoot was a very minor defect. Phyllis wouldn’t even know she’d had it by the time she became an adult. And the twins were the darlings of their older sisters, and of Don.
Dour by nature, normally too shy to speak to anyone, Don Chivers seemed to take a special interest in Paul and Phyllis. Lisa had noticed him looking into the double pram, heard him say a word or two to them. Meg had told her that Don had never shown any special regard for her other children. ‘Those two young ’uns get to him, somehow,’ she’d boasted to Lisa. ‘Phyllie specially. He always be round her.’
‘Really?’ Lisa, though appreciating Don’s qualities, was nervous of a man who hardly spoke, but whose penetrating look she found disturbing. ‘And what about the birth? Anything difficult about that?’
‘Don’t know that I remember all that much on it.’ Meg’s eyes looked sad, almost dejected. She’d talked volubly about the birth of her other children often enough. Made jokes, put Lisa at ease during the last few days before she’d given birth to Seb.
‘You mean the gas and air?’
‘Gas and… No, didn’t bother none with that.’ Meg turned away, giving Lisa the distinct feeling that she was hiding something. But what? ‘The births be easy enough. All done in fifteen minutes.’
‘You are lucky,’ Lisa breathed, enjoying the three toddlers tumbling about. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? They clamber all over each other but never seem to come to any harm!’
‘Like kittens, I reckon. Keep they claws sheathed.’ Meg still sounded grudging in a way Lisa couldn’t really understand.
‘It would be lovely to have two.’
‘One way to get round Alec,’ Meg agreed, then seemed to become broody, oddly reserved. She noticed Lisa look at her and brightened. ‘Quite a bit of hard work, they be. Especially when there be a lively one, like my Phyllie. Had that new pram in tatters almost from the start.’ Meg smiled. ‘And she baint one for sleeping. Happen Paul goes through the night, you can be sure her won’t!’ Meg seemed more cheerful as, confident in her mothering, she bundled a toddler under each arm and carried them, squirming, to the waiting pushchair. ‘But you get used to it soon enough.’
Lisa watched her dexterously place one child in a seat whilst still holding the other under her arm. Then she wagged her finger at Phyllis to stay in place while she went over to the other side and settled Paul. She strapped them both into their seats.
‘Can’t afford to turn your back for one minute. What one don’t think on t’other will.’
Meg was taking her time over the scrubbing down. Always meticulous, this time she seemed to be exerting unnecessary energy. She polished the gleaming churn for the third time, her face and body red.
‘Don don’t like the look of it,’ she finally blurted out, returning to her butter, patting it into box shapes all over again. ‘Makes me feel agitated. What Don don’t know about farming just baint worth the knowing.’
‘He doesn’t like the look of what, Meg?’
‘All they multiple births. He do keep saying it “baint natural”.’
‘I expect he just remembers the way things were done in his young days,’ Lisa said absently, not sure what Meg was getting at, or why she took so much notice of Don. ‘Lambs are bred for twinning now; that means double the profit. Farming must have changed out of all recognition since he was young.’
‘Too much of a good thing. The hens be laying more than ever them did, and mostly double-yolkers. Seems creepy, somehow.’
‘Would you rather they didn’t lay at all?’ Lisa laughed.
Meg had a way of looking along her nose which Lisa didn’t much care for.
‘What us do mean,’ she added hurriedly, ‘is that it might all just as easily go the other way. You said it yourself, it all evens out in the end. You can’t fool nature.’
Meg shrugged her ample shoulders and heaved a milk container to one side.
‘Take some of my goat’s milk cheese,’ Meg urged Lisa. ‘I’ve started making ewe cheese as well. Better for you than factory cheddar, any day.’ She wrapped small cylinders of cheese in greaseproof paper. ‘And mind now; goat’s milk be better for babies than cow’s milk. We got plenty enough. There be two nannies, now.’
‘That’s really sweet of you. I’m going to try breast feeding again. Perhaps I’ll have more luck this time!’
‘Always the best,’ Meg agreed sagely. ‘You could try taking basil tea. Just the job for stimulating milk.’
‘Really?’
‘Easy to make.’ Meg smiled. ‘And just get Alec to bring Seb over if you’re pushed,’ she went on. ‘You know, if you feel tired, or the contractions start earlier than you’d planned on.’
‘It’s wonderful to know you’ll stand by,’ Lisa said gratefully. She was already sure she’d need Meg’s help. A frisson of happy anticipation shivered through her, then suddenly turned to dread. What if her wish for twins ended in tragedy? Was she wishing trouble on her family by being greedy?
‘Susan be very good,’ Meg reassured her again. ‘She saw me right.’
‘Didn’t Gilmore insist on hospital once the scan showed two?’
‘Gilmore? We didn’t bother none with him. No, t’was all agreed between Susan and me. Us managed very nicely, thank you!’
‘I hope I’m not early,’ Lisa said absently. ‘Susan’s going on holiday soon. Even Dr Gilmore might be away then.’
‘The relief midwife do seem sound enough,’ Meg put in quickly. Speed wasn’t Meg’s way, Lisa knew. It meant the relief midwife’s reputation wasn’t yet established.
‘What about Gareth Witherton? He’s the new doctor in the practice, isn’t he? I thought he was supposed to be specially keen on home confinements.’
‘Don’t know nothing about he.’ Meg rushed for Seb who was about to place his plastic duck in her butter churn. ‘Us don’t often feel poorly. Frank puts it down to sticking to organic grub. Pays to pay that bit more attention to proper food.’
‘And now the Flaxton fertilisers are producing results beyond inorganic farming, anyway.’
There was just a moment too long before Meg answered. Was she holding something back? A premonition of danger flitted through Lisa’s mind, then disappeared.
Meg looked her usual self as she hefted the double pushchair over a drainage gully. ‘That be you lot out of harm’s way.’ She gently kissed her twins. The love in her voice was entirely reassuring. She turned back to Lisa, her eyes faintly clouded. ‘Frank do say as Multiplier be organically based. Should be just the job.’
‘But you don’t entirely trust it?’
‘Don’t rightly know; nothing us can put our finger on for sure. Too good to be true, somehow. Something for nothing.’
Meg collected her butter, gleaming gold, a faintly acrid smell in the air, and looked at Lisa leaning back against the wall. ‘Just got to sluice the floor. Be through in a tick,’ she said, concern in her voice. ‘Then yer can have a sit down. Anyway, all be due to that special plankton them do use, Frank says. Fancy Multiplier being developed here, to Somerset!’
‘The grass looks marvellous.’
‘Almost a bit too lush.’
The field beyond the home meadow was drowsing in unusually warm winter sunshine. The latest herd of bullocks was huddled under the whitethorn hedge to the left of the field, the animals swishing their tails and keeping away from the sun. A few, thirstier than the rest, were exposing themselves to danger by steeping into the rhynes lining the pastures and now only trickling water. It had been a dry winter.
‘Frank’ll need to get they water pumps going,’ Meg was saying anxiously. ‘What with the size of the herd, there baint enough for they to drink. Us had one die only t’other day.’
‘Did you?’ One out of so many didn’t seem terrible to Lisa.
‘Costs a mint to get the knackers out. Can’t get nothing for a dead animal,’ Meg explained to Lisa. ‘Even for pet food. That be against they new regulations.’
Lisa looked uncertainly at the animals now crowding down towards picturesque withies edging a rhyne. ‘But you’ve had lots more than usual this year, haven’t you?’
‘What be strange is that when Frank goes out to tag they, he often finds them knows. Many’s the time them try to get away. None of they likes the tagging, of course, but them do seem to know as he’s going to do it. Maybe Multiplier makes they brighter as well as fatter!’ Meg laughed.
‘Can’t be bad,’ Lisa agreed, vaguely remembering that Don had also mentioned tagging lambs, and that one of them had managed to dodge him.
Phyllis bent down to her foot, pulling at the brace, fretfully kicking her leg.
‘Come on now, Phyllie. Us’ll be taking that off soon.’
The child kicked petulantly, with strength enough to displace the double pushchair.
It seemed to be taking the strain well. Lisa examined it critically. ‘Is this a good type of pushchair?’
‘Can cope with Phyllie’s temper,’ Meg snorted. ‘Got to be strong for that.’