32
The Naming Ceremony
SATURDAY 29TH MAY 2010
Looking down at the tiny baby suckling at her breast, Blaze wondered if her heart might explode. How was it possible to love anything so much? She’d never liked babies and hadn’t wanted one of her own. Now this unexpected, perfect creature had blown apart an orderly life and rewired every aspect of her emotional being. Only a few weeks old, Perrin already had a thatch of auburn hair. As she sucked, she made little snuffling and squeaking noises and thumped her tightly curled fist against her mother’s breast. Once in a while she raised a large blue eye upwards and let it roll backwards in its socket like a drunk on the verge of unconsciousness. Bending down, Blaze kissed the downy head and breathed in the milky scent.
She had seen the baby’s father once since the child’s conception. He had accused Blaze of tricking him, treating him like a sperm donor and deliberately, cruelly ignoring his principles. He did not believe it was an accident: why hadn’t she taken precautions? But it had never occurred to Blaze that she might conceive—having babies was something that happened to people with steady periods and partners. The discovery had been a complete surprise. Hospitalised after passing out in the street, she’d woken up in a ward to be told that she was five months pregnant. The routine blood test also revealed that the foetus had a higher-than-normal chance of being born with Down’s syndrome. The doctor suggested an amniocentesis and showed her the long needle to be inserted through her stomach into the womb.
“It comes with a risk of self-induced termination,” he said matter-of-factly.
Blaze, stunned by the news, looked at him blankly.
“The way I put it to patients is that you have to choose between death by a car or plane crash?”
“I don’t understand.”
The doctor cracked his knuckles and leaned across the desk. “Having a baby with Down’s is one outcome; losing it with this procedure is another.”
Every latent maternal instinct came rushing to the fore: Blaze didn’t care if the baby was born with Down’s or with thirty fingers; all that mattered was protecting, nurturing and bringing it safely into the world. She had never been more certain of or more committed to anything. No one was going to stick a needle into her unborn child’s secret space or endanger its chances of survival. Giddy with love and a sense of purpose, she had rushed from the doctor’s waiting room back to her flat in Maida Vale.
Perrin took herself off her mother’s breast and fell into a deep sleep. Blaze laid her daughter over her shoulder and rubbed her back until the infant let out a huge, contented belch. Downstairs Blaze could hear the sounds of her family getting ready to leave for the ceremony, which was due to start at 4 p.m. With any luck the baby would sleep through the short service and wake only for her late-night feed. To her astonishment, Blaze never minded being woken—any excuse to look at Perrin, to hold her and look after her. During the week, Blaze took the baby to her office in Islington from where she managed her micro-financing company. The business had grown quickly since its inception six months earlier and now employed eleven full-time people investing in hundreds of small start-ups across the world.
She was glad to be out of the City. Each day brought news of more endemic toxicity. The Securities and Exchange Commission had accused Goldman Sachs of willfully defrauding investors through the sale of sub-prime mortgages. A court-appointed examiner charged Lehman Brothers with knowingly manipulating their balance sheet. In Ireland, a former chair of the Anglo Irish Bank was arrested for suspected fraud. The uncoupling of cause and effect, the blanket denial of culpability and consequences, reflected attitudes in much of the industry. The billions of dollars of quantitative easing being pumped into America and Europe seemed only to prop up large businesses instead of reaching those individuals or small companies most adversely affected. Blaze was sickened by what she saw, but also aware that less than a year ago she’d have regarded the turmoil as an opportunity to look for interesting investments. Perrin had reset her ethical barometer; now she feared for her daughter’s and the next generation’s future.
There was a gentle knock on the door and Jane’s head appeared.
“We should leave soon, it’s nearly three fifteen.” Jane looked at Blaze and her sleeping child and smiled. “I love seeing you as a mother.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
“Shall I hold her while you get ready?” Jane stepped forward to pick up Perrin, who was now dressed in the Trelawney christening gown: yards of beige-coloured lace, worn by two centuries of the family’s new babies.
“It’s only now I’ve added to the family that I feel part of it,” Blaze said, fastening her nursing bra and slipping on a burgundy cotton dress. She put on a pair of flat shoes and tidied her hair in the mirror, leaving her face free of make-up.
Blaze walked across the room and felt the damask curtains. “I recognise these.”
“Ayesha threw most things out. Whatever we could fit in here, we took.”
“Have you seen her?”
Jane shook her head. “I rehearse what I’d say.”
“How does your speech go?”
“Pretty short.” Jane hesitated. “It starts and ends with one word.”
“Which one?”
“Bitch.”
Blaze laughed.
“I’m not joking,” Jane said crossly.
“She sent Perrin a present.”
“I hope you sent it back.”
“Certainly not; I made her husband millions.”
Blaze looked at her sister-in-law thoughtfully. “I thought when we lost Trelawney that the family would disintegrate and there’d be no reason to see each other and nothing to come home to. But it turned out that, far from being the interloper, you are the family’s heart. The one who’s keeping us all together. Where you go, we’ll follow. Thank you.”
Jane smiled weakly and looked out of the window at the white horses dancing across the seascape and the gulls wheeling above the water. Once she’d have been happy for this accolade; now it made her feel trapped.
“Mum, we’ve got to go,” Arabella called up the stairs. Outside, Kitto honked the car horn. Blaze took her baby in her arms and the two women made their way carefully down the narrow painted stairs.
“Do you wish Perrin’s father was here?” Jane asked, turning off the kitchen light.
“Yes, but at least he’s part of her. I see him in her smile, in her eyes.” As Blaze spoke, her voice broke; she missed him.
Jane looked at her. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
“You can’t have everything.” Blaze shrugged and coughed to clear her knotted throat.
“Mum, get a move on,” Toby shouted through the letter box.
Jane opened the door and let Blaze and the baby out first. A gust of wind blew the two women’s dresses up above their heads and they stood, knickers on display, in front of the house.
“Standards, darling,” Blaze yelled through the material which entirely covered her head.
“Standards,” Jane echoed.
In the car Clarissa turned her head away and under her breath muttered, “I think I might disown all of you.”
“What then would be the point of living?” Kitto asked.
Clarissa couldn’t answer.
Kitto leaned towards her and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. “All we have is family.”
They drove in convoy to the tiny chapel at St. Madryn. The former church was set in an ancient wood behind a crescent-shaped white sandy beach named Petroc. Hidden from sight by rolling dunes on one side and a huge granite rock on the other, it was only accessible by a steep mossy track lined with ferns and lichen. Once the private domain of a Cornish queen, it had been deconsecrated in the 1970s and was now used for secular ceremonies and parties.
“Why do we have to come to this frightful dank dingley dell?” Clarissa asked, as she tottered down the steep path, clinging to Toby’s arm for support. “We have a perfectly good church of our own where Trelawneys have been buried, baptised or married for at least seven centuries.” She was secretly relieved that none of the locals would witness this event and that Enyon hadn’t seen the arrival of his beloved daughter’s illegitimate baby. How pathetic of Blaze to fail to get the father to marry her.
“The Sleets would never let us use it. The church is part of Trelawney,” Jane said.
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” Clarissa trumpeted. “I have rights.”
“What’s wrong with doing something different?” Tony asked, trying to keep upright as his thin-soled shoes slithered on mossy stones.
“Change for change’s sake is ridiculous. Just because something is new, it doesn’t make it better,” Clarissa snapped. “There are lots of churches, why go for hocus-pocus?”
“Blaze didn’t want to offend the baby’s father by having a Christian ceremony.”
“Is he a Druid?” Clarissa asked. “Or worse? Come to think of it, what could be worse?” She thought a bit. “Actually I can think of many more awful alternatives.” She shuddered theatrically.
The family made their way down the path, which was lined with banks of buttercups, campion and valerian. “This must be the best year ever for wild flowers,” Kitto said and, unable to contain his excitement, danced with abandon in their midst. Arabella and Toby exchanged weary looks; their father’s behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic.
“Waltz with me, my darling,” Kitto called out to Jane, who pretended not to hear.
Blaze cradled Perrin in her arms. “I will make a great life for us,” she whispered in her tiny ear. “You won’t want for anything or anyone, I promise you.”
Rounding the corner, the family saw that the windows of the chapel were glowing and candle flames danced behind brightly coloured stained glass. In the gloaming light it looked like a tiny ship on a sea of wild flowers. Mr. Fogg, the master of ceremonies, a vicar turned preacher, pushed open the heavy, studded oak door and stepped forward to welcome them. Clarissa held out her hand imperiously. Toby cringed; it was the first time his girlfriend’s father had met his family and, far from being worried about their reaction, he was concerned what Mr. Fogg might think of them. Jane broke with tradition and kissed the preacher; Arabella dug her toes into a crack in the paving stones and tried not to giggle; Tuffy, who hated meeting new people, looked the other way; and Blaze, shifting Perrin to one arm, clasped Mr. Fogg’s dry, warm hand.
“The organist was indisposed at the last minute,” he said apologetically. “But it’s not a total loss; Miss Fox’s left arm is playing up and the organ’s a bit flat.”
“My organ gave up years ago.” Tony said.
“Anthony,” Clarissa remonstrated.
“I’ve lived in Cornwall for forty-five years and never knew this chapel existed,” Kitto said.
“It dates from the early sixth century,” Mr. Fogg explained. “It was founded by a Welsh princess named Madryn, elder daughter of King Vortimer of Blessed of Ghent. The spring is supposed to have healing qualities.”
“Exactly what this family needs,” Jane said. “Perhaps we should all get blessed here; come out the other end fresher and better people.”
“Don’t tell me the father’s a Jew?” Clarissa said in a stage whisper.
“I’ve noticed an interesting type of Polytrichum by the wall,” Tuffy said, holding up a large wedge of moss. “How many variants are there here?”
“I must admit I don’t know. My speciality is divinity,” Mr. Fogg confessed.
“Or is he a you-know-what?” Clarissa asked, putting a hand to her scrawny bosom. “A Ninth-day Adventurist?”
“You’re missing out on a whole world.” Tuffy was aghast, unable to believe the man’s willful and woeful ignorance.
“Gods of different varieties are my universe,” Mr. Fogg said, clasping his hands together in supplication.
“And those so-called varieties don’t spread as far as nature?” Tuffy snorted and, turning to Arabella, asked, “Did you bring some specimen bags?”
“Of course.” Arabella nodded and pulled copious plastic bags out of her pocket.
“Who wants smelly old moss?” Toby said, wanting to ingratiate himself with his girlfriend’s father.
“Oh, no. He’s a Pentecostal Mormon,” Clarissa groaned. “Or an Epicurian.”
“There are over a thousand different species of moss in Great Britain, many undiscovered. They are our heritage, the first visible colonisers of our ancient land,” Tuffy explained.
“We used to call moss nature’s underpants,” Tony said.
“Mosses can hold many times their own weight in water; it’s like a miniature cooling and humidifying system,” Arabella told Tony.
“Pity my underpants couldn’t do that—it would have saved a great deal of trouble.”
“Do you think we should crack on with the service?” Kitto asked. He had forgotten to wear a jumper or jacket and, although it was late May, the chapel was cold and draughty.
“Don’t tell me: the father’s a Buddhist—the baby will grow extra limbs and sit around cross-legged all day.” Clarissa leaned against the wall for support.
Mr. Fogg checked his watch surreptitiously. He’d hoped to be home before the nut roast was polished off by the little Foggs, but the service was running half an hour late already. In an attempt to hurry things along a bit, he handed out the small red books and an adapted Church of England christening sheet.
“Please take your seats,” he said firmly. The family shuffled into the two front pews. Luckily the church was small and the lack of a full congregation was barely noticeable.
Mr. Fogg took his place by the font, rearranged his duffel coat and bobbly hat and announced, “We will sing number twenty-three, which is on page thirty-four of the little red book. You’ll recognise it from the popular version by Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.”
“The father is a Muslim!” Clarissa proclaimed.
Clearing his throat, Mr. Fogg led the singing in a thin reedy voice.
“Morning has broken,
Like the first morning.”
“I refuse to sing a Muslim song,” Clarissa said, snapping her hymn book shut. “Or a Jewish or a Catholic one, for that matter.”
“It was written in 1931 by an English poet Eleanor Farjeon, set to a traditional Gaelic tune,” Kitto told his mother.
“I like ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ or a good psalm.”
Toby looked at his girlfriend’s father in consternation; he couldn’t help wondering if she’d develop the same bulbous nose and wild ear hair.
Tony sang loudly and badly; this was his funeral as well as Perrin’s baptism and he was determined to enjoy his last contact with his family and a Higher Power. He missed the pomp and formality of a traditional church service but supposed that God, if there was one, would overlook today’s eccentricities. Clarissa thought about Enyon and their perfect marriage; Tuffy and Arabella were lost in dreams of moss. Only Blaze didn’t sing: her throat hurt with the effort of not crying her heartbreak to the rafters. She felt lonely and afraid, daunted by the task of raising Perrin on her own and haunted by memories of her brief time with Wolfe. Jane, seeing her friend’s face, leaned forward and put an arm around Blaze’s shoulder.
When the song was finished, Mr. Fogg beckoned the family up to the font. Made in the thirteenth century from a single piece of local granite, it had a criss-cross pattern on the outside and the well was covered with an intricately carved iron lid.
“In naming a child, a Higher Power calls us out of darkness into His marvellous light. To follow this light means absolving our sins and rising to new life.” Mr. Fogg was sure that the motley crew before him were thinking about other things, but he lived in hope of reaching one stray lamb. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the old uncle wipe away a tear and wondered if it was too late to draw him into his flock.
“The water is a symbol of a Higher Power washing away our sins in an act of forgiveness.” Mr. Fogg beamed—it was his favourite line in the service.
“Total tosh,” Clarissa tutted.
“Amen,” Kitto said, looking furiously at his mother.
“A-women too,” Arabella added, remembering that feminism was an active cause. Toby kicked his sister.
Mr. Fogg pondered what it was like to be part of this family, brought low by time and ill fortune. Who would have thought the mighty Trelawneys—builders of counties, castles, battalions and businesses—would be reduced to such inconsequential circumstances? The community had talked of little else for the last few years. He thought of an appropriate passage from the Bible and was tempted to say it out loud, but decided against it. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. He looked at his watch and realised that the nut roast was in the oven. Closing his eyes, he imagined the smell and his taste buds began to twitch.
“Who’s doing the reading?” he asked.
Arabella stepped forward. She’d been told to write a poem but, while finding the sentiment was easy, rhyming and metre had refused to coalesce.
“All that matters is that we don’t harm the planet.
Every living thing is equally important.”
“Is this Shakespeare?” Clarissa asked waspishly.
“Well said,” Tuffy exclaimed.
Arabella pursed her lips and continued.
“A blade of grass is as significant as an elephant.
A flea is as necessary as a horse.”
Clarissa shuffled in her seat. “The world’s gone mad. What’s wrong with the Lord’s Prayer?”
“Shut up and listen, Clarissa!” Tuffy shouted.
“I’ve been longing to tell her that for years,” Tony guffawed.
Arabella straightened her shoulders and continued.
“ ‘Mice have as much right to live as men.’ ”
“That’s very beautiful, Bella,” Kitto said.
Clarissa snorted.
Mr. Fogg wondered if anyone would notice if he cut the rest of the service short. “Will the parents and significant others step forward?”
“What is a significant other?” Clarissa asked.
“The reading isn’t finished,” Arabella protested.
“The great thing is to know when to stop,” Clarissa said.
Blaze and Jane shuffled forward and Toby helped Mr. Fogg lift up the font’s heavy lid. “Good people, will you welcome this child and uphold her in her new life?”
The Trelawneys nodded. Behind them, the door to the chapel opened and closed quietly. Tony wondered if Miss Fox had come to play the closing hymn.
“Will you be giving the child to the Higher Power?” Mr. Fogg asked Blaze.
“Higher Power?” Clarissa repeated. “Is that the name of the father?”
“I hope I’m in the right place?” a man’s voice said.
Everyone apart from Blaze turned around to see who had spoken. Blaze didn’t dare, in case she had misheard. Footsteps approached the font. Blaze held her breath.
“Could I hold the baby?” Wolfe asked. “Please.”
Blaze closed her eyes.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” a voice whispered in her ear. Blaze inhaled deeply and looked up into Wolfe’s face. Placing their sleeping baby in his arms, she held on to the font for support. Perrin wriggled but didn’t wake.
Mr. Fogg continued with the ceremony. “Naming a child is a sign of a new beginning and becoming part of a universal family.”
“We are not and never have been universal,” Clarissa said.
“The cameras are not on, Mother. Can’t you behave like a normal person?” Kitto snapped.
Mr. Fogg, stomach rumbling, decided to miss out the last chunks of the service; this lot would never notice. He gestured to the latecomer to lower the baby over the font and, taking a small metal cup, splashed the infant’s head with water. Perrin, rudely awakened from a deep sleep, let out a loud cry of alarm.
Making the sign of a smiley face on Perrin’s forehead, Mr. Fogg said, “Welcome to the world, sweet baby. May your days be happy.”
“Unspeakably common.” Clarissa scowled at her son, but Kitto, along with the rest of the family, was staring at the interloper, wondering if he was Perrin’s father.
“Shine a light in the world to the glory of mankind.” Mr. Fogg raised his voice in order to be heard over the baby’s wails. Then, seeing that all attention had turned to the newcomer, he decided to use this diversion to make a swift exit. “Would you mind blowing out the candles and locking up after you go?” he said cheerfully. “Put the key under old Moses Wilson’s gravestone, please. Third one down on the left-hand side.” With that he was gone. Blaze and her family stayed standing, all staring at Wolfe.
“Could someone hold our daughter?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s who you are,” Clarissa said. “An introduction wouldn’t hurt. I presume you are the aforementioned Mr. Higher Power. I am the Dowager Countess of Trelawney.” She held out her hand.
“Joshua Wolfe,” he said, taking it and bowing slightly before turning to the others and smiling broadly. “Sorry I was late; it was hard finding this place.” Jane stepped forward, gave him a kiss on the cheek and took the baby. “Lovely to meet you.” Following her lead, Kitto pumped Wolfe’s hand. “You are most welcome.”
“Would you mind if Blaze and I stepped outside for a few moments?” Wolfe asked the family and, without waiting for their response, he placed his hand in the small of Blaze’s back and steered her towards the door. They walked in silence between the old gravestones until they reached the lip of the churchyard and stood side by side overlooking the seashore below.
“What are you doing here?” Blaze asked.
“I had a visit from Ayesha two days ago.”
“Ayesha?” The situation was becoming increasingly confusing.
“She turned up unannounced in a helicopter, making an entrance and frightening the animals to death.”
“What did she want?” Blaze, hurt and shocked by Ayesha’s duplicitous behaviour, dreaded hearing what had happened next.
“She told me how stupid I was being. How a love like yours and mine rarely comes along and, when it does, we have to grab it and never let it go.”
Blaze fixed her eyes on a point on the horizon and held on to a headstone for support; the ground beneath her feet felt as uneven as her thoughts.
“Ayesha doesn’t believe in love; she likes money and status.”
“She told me you were the bravest and kindest of people, that she admired you more than any living person.”
Blaze looked at him blankly.
“I agreed with her.” Wolfe hesitated and stepped towards Blaze as if to kiss her.
Blaze put her hand up to keep him at bay. “What happened to Ayesha?” Nothing was making sense.
“She went.”
“Went?”
“In her helicopter.”
Wolfe touched her arm gently. “I have been a terrible fool. Have I left it too late? Will you, can you forgive me?”
“What do you want?” Blaze tried to organise her thoughts.
“To be with you and our child.”
“You don’t want children; you made that clear.”
“Not any children, but I do want ours.”
Blaze didn’t answer. She couldn’t find the words. Joshua looked at her. After a very long pause, when no reply came, he reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Blaze looked up into his face.
“It’s too late, Joshua. I don’t have the strength or the imagination to start all over again. For Perrin’s sake, I can’t take the risk; I am millimetres away from falling to pieces.” Her words trailed into a whisper and she gazed at him silently, resigned. “Perhaps I loved you too much.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.
“I want you to go. Now. And not come back.” Blaze clenched and unclenched her fingers. She felt an overwhelming tiredness; she longed to lay her head against a mossy gravestone and go to sleep.
Wolfe opened and closed his mouth. He was desperate to say something to make her change her mind, but could see from her expression that it was too late for words.
“I am so desperately sorry. I will regret my behaviour for the rest of my life.” He hesitated. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Blaze’s heart and body had never felt so heavy; a thousand tiny weights pulled down on every fibre, every cell. Summoning every ounce of strength, she opened her mouth. “I am sure.” Turning away from her, Wolfe walked up the path towards the road.
Blaze looked out over the water at two gulls flying along the shore, their white feathers turning pink in the fading sun. She was glad he’d gone. Her love for him had been a kind of madness; sudden thoughts of him could knock the wind out of her lungs and then moments later an inexplicable current of hope would send her spirits soaring. She was lovesick: the only cure was total abstinence. And now, just when she had begun to recover from her mania, he’d come back to tell her all the things she’d been so desperate to hear. But she didn’t have the strength or courage to risk a further bout of insanity. It was her duty to construct an orderly life for herself and her daughter, even if it meant forsaking a chance of happiness.
Added to which, the involvement of Ayesha, although apparently benign, terrified her. Nothing that Anastasia’s daughter had done—not one single action—suggested anything kindly. There had to be an ulterior motive: of further revenge on the people whom her mother hated.
From the chapel, she heard Perrin start to cry and, impelled by instinct, she turned to go back inside.
A twig cracked loudly and she jumped. Looking into the darkening shadows, she saw Wolfe.
“Why are you still here?” she asked.
“You always needed extra time,” he said. “I thought I’d wait, in case.”
Blaze, bewildered, looked at him. Then, without thinking, she ran into his arms.