Five Winters(95)

I could have sworn that woman was psychic. She knew something was wrong the second she came in through my front door. She’d barely got her coat off before she said, “I can sense a change in you today, Beth. Has something happened?”

I swallowed. Nodded. Then, feeling as if I were jumping off the edge of a cliff, I told her about my plans.

She could have put her coat straight back on, collected her files, and left right away, I suppose. But being the dedicated professional who cared deeply about children that she was, she didn’t. Instead, she quizzed me for ten minutes on my childcare choices, my strategies for managing my work as a single parent, and what I planned to tell the child about its origins. And because I’d done my research and thinking, I answered all her questions with a confidence that gave me hope.

Finally, she pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “You need to know that should your fertility treatment be unsuccessful, you’d need to take a six-month break before you restarted the adoption process,” she said, holding her hand out to me. “That’s our policy for everyone undertaking fertility treatment. But I wish you good luck, Beth.”

I shook her hand. “Thank you, Clare. For everything.”

“Are you all right?” Mark asked as we waited for the lift to arrive to take us to the maternity unit.

I nodded, sending a tear spilling down my cheek. I couldn’t stop thinking about that perfect baby, so completely innocent of what was to come and what had just happened.

Good luck, I whispered to her inside my head. Good luck.

Then another contraction arrived, punching away thoughts about anything else but my own baby’s imminent arrival.



“Push, Beth, push.”

“I am bloody pushing!”

“Push harder, darling.”

“I can’t . . . bloody . . . push . . . any . . . Oh Christ! Argh!”

“That’s it, you’re doing so well,” said the midwife. “He’s almost here.”

“I can see him. I can see him! Our little boy’s coming, Beth. He’s coming!”

I had stopped being a woman and become a ball of fiery pain instead. A ball of fiery pain that was going to explode at any moment.

But then there was a sudden slippery feeling. A gush. And I caught sight of Mark’s face at the exact moment it transformed from anxious to ecstatic.

“He’s here,” he said, tears running down his face. “Our baby’s here.”

Right on cue, our son took his first breath and began to cry. Seconds later, I was cradling him, a perfect tiny weight that my arms had never truly dared to believe they would hold.

“Hello there. Hello, little one.” I couldn’t stop smiling. Couldn’t stop gazing and gazing down at his perfect face. “He’s beautiful,” I whispered. “So beautiful.”

Mark was still crying. “He is. Oh, he is.”

“Do you want to hold him?”

“Can I?”

“Of course. He’s your son.”

Awkwardly, so carefully, Mark took the precious bundle from me and held him in his arms. I watched them. Saw Mark’s beaming smile as our baby’s fingers curled around his thumb. Noticed the similarities in their features. Rejoiced in them.

It was Rosie who’d dissuaded me from going down the whole sperm-donor route in the end, although I’m sure I would have changed my mind anyway, even if it had happened on my way to the fertility clinic.

Mark was far too afraid of upsetting me to have said anything to stop me going through with it, I’m sure. But Rosie was having none of that.

“Look,” she said. “I know my brother can be remarkably slow on the uptake, and I know he was hurtfully deluded for a while when he thought Grace was a better marriage bet than you. But actually, beneath it all, he’s all right, you know? I’m just saying I think you ought to give it a try naturally. You know, just do it, and see what happens. And if it turns out you do need a turkey-baster job, why not use Mark’s sperm? If he’s firing blanks, you can always go back to the sperm donor. Just my two pennies’ worth of advice.”

“But he told me he was relieved he wasn’t a father,” I said.

“He’ll have been talking about Grace, dimwit,” Rosie told me. “About being relieved he and Grace hadn’t had a child. Not that he doesn’t want one with you. Of course he wants to have one with you. The man’s besotted. He’d give you ten babies if you asked him to. Go on, speak to him. Try it. See what happens.”

I’d taken her advice. All of it. I spoke to Mark, and he reassured me that Rosie was right. He did want my babies. Very much. So we took some very pleasurable action to do something about it. And now here was the result: gorgeous Alfie, our son.

I like to think I’d have loved any baby I’d given birth to. In fact, I was certain of it. But I was very happy Alfie came from both me and Mark.

“Would you have loved him as much if he’d been conceived via a sperm donor?” I asked Mark now.

He looked up at me. “Of course,” he said. “No question.”

I nodded, satisfied. But a little later, when Alfie was lying on my chest, skin to skin, I thought of another question.

“And if we were ever to adopt, the two of us, maybe an older child who really needs a home with a loving family, do you think you’d be able to love him or her too?”