The bairn’s squalling wakes me and so, in darkness, I take her from the cot in their room, thinking she’s hungry and could do with a bottle feed. Better, I decide, to let them sleep. Stella has not been well.
I become aware of the noise as I’m walking down the landing with the baby in my arms, a roaring that seems to shake the house at its foundations. No wonder she woke up.
I grope through the darkness in search of a light switch, fearing I will trip and drop her. I cup her head with one hand, the downy tuft of her hair tickling my palm as I use the other to reach for the switch. Nothing. The storm must have downed the power lines.
I put her down on my bed making soothing noises while I raid her father’s shrine for candles. She’s giving the storm a run for its money; I’m surprised the whole house is not awake. As the room fills with flickering light I hold her up to my face and kiss her, widening my eyes at the little face I can now see. She’s keening now, is breathing heavily from the strain of all that howling.
We go over to the window. The other houses in the street all sit in darkness, the scene strangely rural seeming without the glare of the orange street light. As our eyes adjust we watch a tree float down the street as though made of hollow papier mâché. Others have been plucked effortlessly from the earth by an invisible hand, gnarled roots raw and exposed. Poor Mr Moore opposite. His brand new Honda Accord has been crushed. The bairn squeals with excitement as I bounce her on the windowsill.
We sit and watch until the sky lightens and the winds subside. We have no reason to expect any visitors. The fierceness with which Stella loves her baby daughter is being smothered by exhaustion. She walks around in stained nighties like a befuddled ghost, glazy-eyed, her face fastened up. Sometimes I see her looking at her baby with confusion, as though she is wondering how it turned up here. I have no reason to expect Bryn, either. He is trying to do his bit but he no longer climbs the stairs to my room or enters my bed. I do not mind this development. I’m not wanting for love.
She wakes up again, smiling and making a cooing noise. The sun is coming up. Daylight reveals a scene of chaos, smashed windscreens from falling roof tiles, a fallen plane tree blocking the road, rubbish everywhere. People will have died in the night, I am sure of it. And yet I find the carnage exciting, the suspension of normal rules a thrilling respite from the tedium of everyday life.
The incessant blaring of alarms is disturbing the baby, so we go away from the window and make our way downstairs to put a pot of coffee on. I experience a sudden, secret urge for a bacon sandwich, one of Mam’s, dripping with fat and brown sauce. I take a banana from the fruit bowl.
Bryn’s coat is missing from the hook near the door. Perhaps he has gone out to investigate the damage. I balance the bairn on my hip and carry a mug of hot coffee in my other hand, being careful to hold it at arm’s length so as not to risk scalding her (another thing they never tell you – that holding a baby essentially disables you). We make our way slowly up the spiral stairs.
Their door is ajar, the cool light of morning a fissure in the floorboards. I push it open gently with my unoccupied hip.
‘Good morning,’ I say, my voice very quiet. ‘Look who we have here.’
Stella is sitting up in bed, her hair tangled from a night of disrupted sleep. She puts her arms out in front of her, smiling weakly, and takes the baby from me.
‘Have you seen outside?’ she asks me.
‘We watched it happen,’ I said. ‘Didn’t we sweetheart?’
‘Was there a horrible, horrible storm?’ Stella directs her attention to the baby and switches to motherese. ‘Were you very, very frightened? Were you? My poor darling.’
‘She loved it,’ I say, sliding into bed next to her, pulling the paisley duvet up over my cold arms and shivering. ‘She’d have given it a standing ovation if she could.’
‘She takes after her mother, then.’
We sit there with the baby happily between us, her legs in the air, goggling at us with her big inky eyes as we share the cup of coffee, passing it between us when the ceramic starts to scald our fingertips.
‘Thanks for taking her,’ says Stella. ‘I really needed the sleep.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ I say. ‘We’re in this together.’ She smiles and nods, looking past me to the baby, picking her up and patting her over her right shoulder.
‘Of course we are,’ she says. But there’s something in her voice, some small scrap of what feels like fear, which tells me she is not sure of this at all.