Rumours and Red Roses by Patricia Fawcett Page B

They are not the least helpful. It’s not quite as bad as that, believe me, and as soon as the baby arrives you forget all about the pain. Instantly. It’s marvellous the way it just switches off. It wasn’t so bad having you and you were a decent weight at that. You’d never think looking at me that I was barely four pounds, would you? Mind you, I was premature so it was actually quite a good weight and Mother is a small lady. Poor Mother, it must have been a dreadful worry for her in those days. They didn’t have the equipment then. Nowadays you have no need to worry. You can even have an elective Caesarean I believe if you can get the doctor to come up with a good enough excuse.’
    ‘I’ve told you before.’ Adele closed the kitchen door on the partying sounds and spun round to face her. She didn’t want an argument, not today of all days, but honestly her mother just wouldn’t be told. ‘How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want children. I’ve thought longand hard about it and I’ve come to a decision. It’s not been an easy decision , Mother, so please try to respect it.’
    Louisa made a humph sound.
    ‘I’ve seen what happens to people when they have children,’ Adele went on, sparing no punches now for her mother would simply not be told and therefore she had to be brutal. ‘Once you have kids, you no longer have a life to call your own. And you seem to spend all your time worrying yourselves sick about them. You’ve said yourself you never stop. I don’t want that responsibility.’
    ‘That is so selfish.’ Her mother sighed. ‘What does James think?’
    Ah, well.
    She had not actually got round to telling him yet. In fact, she was beginning, just beginning, to have doubts about all this. And what a fine time to start having doubts when you have just announced your engagement.
    ‘They will be pleased, won’t they?’ James had said on their way over to show off the sparkling ring. They had chosen a Sunday when the two sets of parents were at Louisa’s for lunch. The four of them were thick as thieves, spending a good deal of their leisure time together. ‘I can’t wait to see my mother’s face.’
    Looking at him, did she detect a hint of a rueful smile?
    They had done what was expected of them.
    They had been good children.
    But had they been pushed into it?
    Had they done it, got together, merely to please their parents? She thought back to the proposal, such as it had been, with a rueful smile herself.
     
    ‘Why don’t we get married?’ he had said, almost as an afterthought.
    ‘What?’
    They were in the car, James’s car, and it was a Saturday afternoon and with James off duty for once, they were doing that most romantic thing together – the weekly supermarket shop. Completely focussed on the job in hand, they had done it in record time, keeping strictly to the list, loading up the trolley, unloading it into the car, almost all of this in silence for there wasn’t much joy in any of it.
    And then, on the way home, taking a detour to avoid the heavy traffic, they had passed by a church and the bells were pealing andpeople were pouring out of the entrance and, in the thick of it, the bride and groom. It was a nice day for it, the sun shining, the trees lining the church path at their summery best.
    ‘Slow down,’ Adele urged, wanting to do that most feminine thing and have a peep, catch a glimpse of the actual dress. Good grief, it was one of those awful over-frilly things and there was a preponderance of very large, very silly hats amongst the guests. She must have sighed, more at the fashion sense or lack of it, and looking back she thought James must have misinterpreted the sigh because it was then that he said it, pulling away and speeding up.
    ‘Why don’t we get married?’
    Had he really said it? To think that, about six months ago, she had been willing him to say it, expecting him to say it, wondering indeed if she should do the saying herself. They were