‘I can walk, you idiot. Just support me a little.’
Seven months of wedded bliss and she was still awestruck at the love that could so easily have eluded her, a love that seemed to grow with each passing minute. Their wedding had been simple and attended only by his closest family members and their mutual friends and she had enjoyed every second of it, basking in his tenderness and adoration, which he made no attempt to hide.
She could sense his frustration as he navigated the dark lanes, and finally the wider, better-lit roads, that he couldn’t take the pain away from her. By the time they reached the hospital, he was far more jittery than she was and she had to murmur softly that there was no need to worry, that everything was perfectly straightforward and, really, the staff there knew how to deal with women in labour.
‘How can you be so calm?’ he accused, seething with annoyance at the seemingly languid manner in which they were checked in whilst he tapped his foot and glowered.#p#分页标题#e#
‘One of us has to be.’
‘I am calm.’
‘Oh, yes, as calm as someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown.’ Their eyes met and Gabriel felt his heart swell with love, then finally things started happening. They were shown to the labour ward and after a brief examination, from which he was excluded by some very decisive drawing of curtains around the bed, the next few hours raced by with the terrifying speed of a runaway train.
And there was nothing he could do! Only be with the woman he loved, hold her hand, mop her brow and try to remember all those pearls of wisdom he had read in the various pregnancy books he had devoured, much to his wife’s amusement, and most of which he had now comprehensively forgotten.
‘She’s doing fine, Mr Greppi,’ one of the two midwives told him at some point in the proceedings, ‘but you look as though you could use a cup of tea. She’ll be here for at least another couple of hours. Why don’t you go down to the canteen and have something hoi to drink?’
‘I’m here for the duration.’
‘Well, just don’t go fainting on me.’
‘I never faint. Shouldn’t there be a consultant in here?’
‘I’ve delivered more babies than you’ve hail hoi dinners, young man.’ But the middle-aged woman gunned and winked at him. ‘She’ll be fine.’
Never in his life had Gabriel felt more lacked with nerves and never in his life had he ever been so reduced to speechless awe than when, an hour and a half later, he glimpsed his baby as one final push expelled his son. Eight pounds, eleven ounces and groggily unaware of his surroundings until he drew in his breath and released an outraged shriek.
‘It’s a baby boy,’ the midwife said, bustling with him and then handing him wrapped in a blanket to Laura. ‘What a lot of hair.’
Laura looked down at the small bundle lying against her, fists closed and eyelids fluttering, and smiled.
‘We have a son.’ Pride and joy threatened to make his eyes water. ‘Didn’t I tell you that it would be a boy?’ He stroked Laura’s blonde hair away from her face, which was still glistening with perspiration, and she glanced up at him with a tender smile.
‘Did you?’
‘Of course I did,’ Gabriel said gruffly. ‘And look at that mop of black hair. He looks just like his father.’ He bent to kiss his wife and then the small, warm cheek of his baby and watched in fascination as the little bundle wriggled and stretched and then settled back into position.
‘My family,’ he said with a lump in his throat. ‘My perfect family.’