my inexpert eyes. She never looked at the little boy at all: when I had dislodged him from my feet, he wandered off to the other end of the room and started climbing on the empty chairs, trying the door handles of the changing cubicles, and kicking the radiators, with a face as expressionless as his mother's. She just stared straight ahead and the word that was written on her was endurance.
After a while, the nurse came and called her name. "Mrs. Sullivan," she called in her thin shallow voice, and the woman next to me stirred and responded, but did not get up: she looked around her for the boy and then looked at me and said, in a flat tone, "Would you hold the little one for me? It doesn't seem fair, like, to wake him up, and he plays up something shocking if he doesn't have his sleep out. Would you have him for a few ticks for me, duck?"
I could not have said No, though I was afraid of my charge, and she handed over to me the large and sleeping infant, and rose to her feet: I saw with alarm that she must be at least six months pregnant, even allowing for natural lapse of the figure through two successive births. She made her way off to the midwife's room and I sat there with this huge and monstrously heavy child sitting warm and limp upon my knee, his nose slightly running and his mouth
open to breathe. I was amazed by his weight; my legs felt quite crushed under it. I also realized that he was not only warm but damp; his knitted leggings were leaking quite copiously onto my knee. I shifted him around but did not dare to move much for fear of waking him and having to put up with his playing up something shocking: I was worried about whether the damp patch would show on my coat, and hoped it would not. I sat there for a good ten minutes with this child upon my lap; it was the first time I had ever held a baby and after a while, simultaneously with preoccupations about damp on my coat, a sense of the infant crept through me, its small warmness, its wide soft cheeks, and above all its quiet, snuffly breathing. I held it tighter and closed my arms around it.
Before its mother and brother returned, however, my name too was called: I was due to see the gynecologist that week, not the midwife. "Mrs. Stacey," the nurse called, and then again, "Mrs. Stacey," and there I was, trapped there with this child upon my knee, afraid to move, afraid to miss my turn, afraid of annoying the nurse. I could not pass the child along the row like a parcel: I was beginning to panic when the woman re-emerged from the midwife's office and I was able to return her child without too much delay.
The gynecologist did not keep me long: apparently I was the most normal of cases, not worth the attention of his students. I left as ever with relief, and started off, tolerably light of foot, along the Marylebone Road towards Ulster Place, where I was going to have tea with some old college friends. On the way, only a couple of blocks along, I overtook the woman with her two children. She was going painfully slowly along the other side of the road: the elder child was stopping to look in every litter bin and to run up the steps of every building, and she did not hurry him along but paused to wait for him, hardly looking at what he was doing but standing still, eyes fixed, the smaller
child slung, legs astride, over the swelling of the next. There was a solemnity about her imperceptible progress that impressed me deeply: she stood there, patiently waiting, like a warning, like a portent, like a figure from another world. Five months earlier I would have passed her without another glance, but now the weight of her child was heavy in my arms and my coat still damp from his dampness. I do not know how she could get along that road. Nor could I feel that weight till my own arms had tested it.
When I reached my friends, I thought I might tell them about the child and how I had held it, so that I could laugh it away; they were nice girls, three of them sharing a
After a while, the nurse came and called her name. "Mrs. Sullivan," she called in her thin shallow voice, and the woman next to me stirred and responded, but did not get up: she looked around her for the boy and then looked at me and said, in a flat tone, "Would you hold the little one for me? It doesn't seem fair, like, to wake him up, and he plays up something shocking if he doesn't have his sleep out. Would you have him for a few ticks for me, duck?"
I could not have said No, though I was afraid of my charge, and she handed over to me the large and sleeping infant, and rose to her feet: I saw with alarm that she must be at least six months pregnant, even allowing for natural lapse of the figure through two successive births. She made her way off to the midwife's room and I sat there with this huge and monstrously heavy child sitting warm and limp upon my knee, his nose slightly running and his mouth
open to breathe. I was amazed by his weight; my legs felt quite crushed under it. I also realized that he was not only warm but damp; his knitted leggings were leaking quite copiously onto my knee. I shifted him around but did not dare to move much for fear of waking him and having to put up with his playing up something shocking: I was worried about whether the damp patch would show on my coat, and hoped it would not. I sat there for a good ten minutes with this child upon my lap; it was the first time I had ever held a baby and after a while, simultaneously with preoccupations about damp on my coat, a sense of the infant crept through me, its small warmness, its wide soft cheeks, and above all its quiet, snuffly breathing. I held it tighter and closed my arms around it.
Before its mother and brother returned, however, my name too was called: I was due to see the gynecologist that week, not the midwife. "Mrs. Stacey," the nurse called, and then again, "Mrs. Stacey," and there I was, trapped there with this child upon my knee, afraid to move, afraid to miss my turn, afraid of annoying the nurse. I could not pass the child along the row like a parcel: I was beginning to panic when the woman re-emerged from the midwife's office and I was able to return her child without too much delay.
The gynecologist did not keep me long: apparently I was the most normal of cases, not worth the attention of his students. I left as ever with relief, and started off, tolerably light of foot, along the Marylebone Road towards Ulster Place, where I was going to have tea with some old college friends. On the way, only a couple of blocks along, I overtook the woman with her two children. She was going painfully slowly along the other side of the road: the elder child was stopping to look in every litter bin and to run up the steps of every building, and she did not hurry him along but paused to wait for him, hardly looking at what he was doing but standing still, eyes fixed, the smaller
child slung, legs astride, over the swelling of the next. There was a solemnity about her imperceptible progress that impressed me deeply: she stood there, patiently waiting, like a warning, like a portent, like a figure from another world. Five months earlier I would have passed her without another glance, but now the weight of her child was heavy in my arms and my coat still damp from his dampness. I do not know how she could get along that road. Nor could I feel that weight till my own arms had tested it.
When I reached my friends, I thought I might tell them about the child and how I had held it, so that I could laugh it away; they were nice girls, three of them sharing a
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