The Light Between Oceans(29)

‘I’m not exactly an expert in this department,’ Tom said to Isabel on the afternoon of the baby’s arrival.

‘And you never will be if you stand around like that. I just need you to hold her while I check the bottle’s warm enough. Come on. She won’t bite,’ she said, smiling. ‘Not for now, at any rate.’

The child was barely the length of Tom’s forearm, but he took her as though he were handling an octopus.

‘Just stay still a minute,’ said Isabel, arranging his arms. ‘All right. Keep them like that. And now …’ she made a final adjustment, ‘she’s all yours for the next two minutes.’ She went through to the kitchen.

It was the first time Tom had ever been alone with a baby. He stayed as if standing to attention, terrified of failing inspection. The child started to wriggle, kicking her feet and arms in a manoeuvre which flummoxed him.

‘Steady on! Be fair on a bloke, now,’ he implored as he tried to get a better grip.

‘Remember to keep her head supported,’ Isabel called. Immediately he slipped a hand up to the baby’s scalp, registering its smallness in the palm of his hand. She squirmed again, so he rocked her gently. ‘Come on, be a sport. Play fair with your Uncle Tom.’

As she blinked at him, and looked right into his eyes, Tom was suddenly aware of an almost physical ache. She was giving him a glimpse of a world he would now surely never know.

Isabel returned with the bottle. ‘Here.’ She put it into Tom’s hand and guided it to the baby’s mouth, demonstrating how to tap gently at her lips until she latched on. Tom was absorbed by how the process performed itself. The very fact that the baby required nothing of him stirred a sense of reverence for something far beyond his comprehension.

When Tom went back to the light, Isabel busied herself around the kitchen, preparing dinner while the child slept on. As soon as she heard a cry, she hurried to the nursery, and lifted her from the cot. The baby was fractious, and again nuzzled into Isabel’s breast, starting to suck at the thin cotton of her blouse.

‘Oh, my darling, are you still hungry? Old Doc Griffiths’ manual says to be careful not to give you too much. But maybe just a drop …’ She warmed a little more milk and offered the bottle to the baby. But this time the child turned her head away from the teat and cried as she pawed instead at the inviting, warm nipple that touched her cheek through the cloth.

‘Come on, here you are, here’s the bottle, sweet thing,’ Isabel cooed, but the baby became more distressed, kicking her arms and legs and turning in to Isabel’s chest.

Isabel remembered the fresh agony of the arrival of the milk, making her breasts heavy and sore with no baby to suckle – it had seemed a particularly cruel mechanism of nature. Now, this infant was seeking desperately for her milk, or perhaps just for comfort, now that immediate starvation had been staved off. She paused for a long moment, her thoughts swirling with the crying and the longing and the loss. ‘Oh, little sweetheart,’ she murmured, and slowly unbuttoned her blouse. Seconds later, the child had latched on fast, sucking contentedly, though only a few drops of milk came.

They had been like that for a good while when Tom entered the kitchen. ‘How’s the—’ He stopped in mid sentence, arrested at the sight.

Isabel looked up at him, her face a mixture of innocence and guilt. ‘It was the only way I could get her to settle.’

‘But … Well …’ Alarmed, Tom couldn’t even frame his questions.

‘She was desperate. Wouldn’t take the bottle …’

‘But – but she took it earlier, I saw her …’

‘Yes, because she was starving. Probably literally.’

Tom continued to stare, completely out of his depth.

‘It’s the most natural thing in the world, Tom. The best possible thing I could do for her. Don’t look so shocked.’ She reached out a hand to him. ‘Come here, darl. Give me a smile.’

He took her hand, but remained bewildered. And deep within, his uneasiness grew.

That afternoon, Isabel’s eyes were alive with a light Tom had not seen for years. ‘Come and look!’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t she a picture? She fits just beautifully!’ She gestured to the wickerwork cot, in which the child slept peacefully, her tiny chest rising and falling in a miniature echo of the waves around the island.

‘Snug as a walnut in a shell, isn’t she?’ said Tom.

‘I’d say she’s not three months old yet.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘I looked it up.’ Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘In Dr Griffiths. I’ve picked some carrots and some turnips, and I’ve made a stew with the last of the mutton. I want to have a special tea tonight.’

Tom frowned, puzzled.

‘We need to welcome Lucy, and say a prayer for her poor father.’

‘If that’s who he was,’ said Tom. ‘And Lucy?’

‘Well she needs a name. Lucy means “light”, so it’s perfect, isn’t it?’

‘Izzy Bella.’ He smiled, then stroked her hair, gently serious. ‘Be careful, sweet. I don’t want to see you upset …’

As Tom lit up for the evening, he still couldn’t drive away the uneasiness, nor could he tell whether it came from the past – reawakened grief – or from foreboding. As he made his way down the narrow, winding stairs, across each of the metal landings, he felt a heaviness in his chest, and a sense of sliding back into a darkness he thought he had escaped.