‘I think I’m in labour,’ said Leonora to Florien. It was six in the evening and she was running a hot bath. She placed her hand on her naked belly and smiled up at him. ‘I’ve had mild pains all day, but now they’re coming more regularly. Every four to five minutes. I’ve been counting.’
‘Shall I call the midwife?’ Florien asked, panicking that the baby was due imminently and not having the courage to deliver it himself.
‘Tell her labour has started, but it’ll be hours yet,’ she replied calmly. ‘All first babies are slow in coming, so I’m told.’
‘Should you have a bath?’
‘Of course,’ Leonora grinned at him lovingly and touched his anxious face. ‘I’m fine. I’m excited. Our baby is announcing himself.’
‘Well, I hope he doesn’t come before the midwife!’
‘He won’t,’ she said, patting her stomach. ‘He’s a long way off coming yet.’
‘I’ll tell Aunt Cicely and call your mother, too.’
Leonora climbed into the bath and let the warm water ease the pain of the contractions. By the time Audrey arrived they were coming every three minutes. Leonora had been taught how to breathe with the pain and panted away on the bed, holding her mother’s hand, while Florien paced about the bedroom in a state of nervousness until the midwife arrived. Mary was a soft-spoken, spongy-bodied Irish woman with a wide-open face and reassuring smile. ‘There now, nothing to worry about, I’m here and it’s all going to be all right,’ she said in dulcet tones. When the waters finally broke Aunt Cicely and Audrey left the room at Leonora’s request. They patted her on her hand and wished her luck, both looking as worried as she. Florien was about to leave too when Leonora’s frightened voice called him back. ‘Don’t leave me, Florien. We’re going to go through this together.’ So Florien stayed. At first he felt powerless. The contractions intensified and each time he watched his wife’s body seized by agonizing spasms he held onto her, desperate to alleviate her suffering but knowing there was nothing he could do but give passive support. However, as labour progressed he soon felt needed as she gripped him around his middle and cried out into his shirt. He wrapped his arms around her head and stroked her hair, feeling as never before such intensity of love and despair. ‘You’re so brave,’ he said, kissing her temple. ‘You’re so brave.’ The hours passed rapidly as they lurched from contraction to contraction until she was barely able to breathe as the tail end of the last merged with the beginning of the next.
If the contractions had been bad, nothing could have prepared them for the hour and a half of pushing, for as eager as the child was to break out into the world, he was too busy chewing on his fingers to notice that they were holding him up. Leonora pushed and prayed and cried out in desperation while Florien wept, visualizing out of fear the death of them both. When the little boy finally appeared, all red and blue and shivering, they both wept again, overwhelmed with awe and reverence for the miracle of life.
Mary wrapped him up in a towel and placed him in the arms of his mother. Florien was still trembling from what had most certainly been the most harrowing experience of his life. He sat on the edge of the bed and placed his finger in the grip of his son’s tiny hand. ‘Look, my love, he’s holding onto me.’ Leonora’s face flushed with surprise and joy for Florien had never called her by anything other than her name before.
‘You called me “my love”,’ she said, leaning her head against him.
He nuzzled his face into her hair and kissed her. ‘That is because you are my love,’ he replied in a hoarse voice. ‘I have never loved you as much as I love you now. But more than that I admire you. You were so brave and strong. You’ve brought my son into the world and we shall love him and care for him and give him the best that we can give. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.’
‘Nor me,’ she whispered, bending to kiss the baby’s damp face. ‘Nothing will ever be as important to me as my child.’
‘What shall we call him?’
‘What would you like to call him?’
‘Panazel, after my father.’
Leonora smiled. ‘Little Panazel.’ She sighed and kissed him again. ‘You shall be blessed with your grandfather’s name. You’re a very special little boy.’
The next time Alicia wrenched herself out of her frenetic social scheming to drive down to Dorset, Leonora and Florien had settled into their new cottage. Little Panazel was asleep in his Moses basket in a bedroom that smelt of lavender and talc and Leonora was bustling about the house transforming it into a warm home. Florien met her at the door which he was painting white. To her dismay her brother-in-law smiled at her with the coolness of a distant friend. The glimmer of desire was now extinguished, never to be rekindled, and Alicia knew that Leonora had somehow managed to conquer his rebellious heart. ‘Go on up and see him,’ he said with a smile. ‘He’s the sweetest of all God’s creatures.’