The baby is asleep. After inexpertly changing and then feeding her, Hannah places a clean towel on the living-room sofa and puts her down on it, patting her gently on the tummy, humming quietly too until she finally falls asleep. She leans forward and looks at the infant more closely, the tiny nose and rosebud mouth, the dark, fine hair combed to one side to reveal a large, ungainly head, the small body wrapped tightly in a cotton blanket that is no longer as white as it should be, moving as its nameless owner inhales the short, urgent breaths of life.
Hannah is moved almost to tears by so much helplessness and vulnerability, and wonders if this is the kind of unease that always comes with taking care of a child, especially one so young.
In the early years of her marriage, she had twice fallen pregnant and miscarried within the first few months on both occasions. By the time doctors discovered a medical condition that meant she would never be able to carry a baby to full term, both she and Peter had decided that being together was enough, that in their closeness was the kind of connection that would not be destabilized even in the absence of a child. Yet despite Peter’s reassurances that their relationship was sufficient unto itself, despite the safety she felt within it, somewhere in the back of her mind doubts lingered, disappointment waited to pounce. Eventually, even these yearnings left her, and in their place, in that hollowness that love for a child would have filled, were her own pursuits, the work involved in self-discovery and in relationships.
She lifts her head and sighs. When she gets up off the couch, the child stirs and then thankfully settles down to sleep once again. She could do with a proper bath, Hannah thinks, and fresh clothes. Rummaging earlier through Fatima’s plastic bag, she had found only a less than clean bottle and two cloth nappies but nothing in the way of clothing for the baby. She decides to go out later in the day and pick up some things for both children, perhaps even for Fatima too, if she allows her to do it. The weather will be changing soon and they will need warmer things to wear. She tells herself that she must also remember to ask Peter, when he examines the child later, what vaccinations she will need, whether he thinks she is receiving adequate nourishment and so on. But I am getting ahead of myself, Hannah reminds herself in an attempt to stop her mind racing.
In truth, what she is more concerned about is Fatima’s apparent indifference to this child, something she finds much more alarming than anger or resentment would have been. She is filled with dismay at the idea that the baby may not yet have been given a name, and hopes that it is only anxiety causing Fatima to forget to mention what the baby is called.
She remembers once, in a restaurant in a seaside resort, observing a young mother with a child slightly older than this who came in and placed her baby on a chair beside her with total lack of interest, as though the child were a bag or something else inanimate, and not once, throughout her meal, turned to look or speak to it. Hannah, by then a teenager, had gathered the courage to go to the woman’s table and bend down to smile at the child, who grinned back with such readiness and joy that she had felt vindicated for her forwardness, although even then the mother had not acknowledged the gesture.
But the circumstances of an affluent member of the middle class and those that Fatima is facing now can hardly be compared and Hannah wonders again what the reasons behind the young woman’s obvious coldness towards the child really are. Is it because the baby is a girl and, like most female children in conservative, rural communities, seen as more of a burden than a blessing? The thought crosses her mind that if Fatima is determined to ignore the baby’s existence, then perhaps she and Peter could take her on and give her the love and attention she needs. But as quickly as the thought appears, Hannah dismisses it, telling herself it is too late, that given the uncertainties she and Peter are facing about their future, a child would not gain the security it needed, indeed it might suffer along with them the consequences of these turbulent times.
I go out on to the balcony and look down at the garden below, quiet now at the end of the day, empty and somewhat bleak. It occurs to me now that I was harsh at times in judging my parents, accusing them of being the reason behind this or that fault in my character, sometimes voicing dissatisfaction and expecting to find reward in their apologies. Mother often said that while she was convinced having children was the best thing she had ever done, it was also the most difficult, a challenge she was not always capable of meeting and which invariably revealed weaknesses in both her character and spirit. Yet despite the blunders my parents inevitably made, there was never a time when I did not feel completely and abundantly loved. Perhaps there is so much room for making mistakes in bringing up a child that this is why Peter and I, as we grow older, feel less and less able to take on the challenge.