Random reminder

Press, 24 December 1985, Page 14

Random reminder

A glass of wine , and thou .

Could he, asked, pick up a loaf of bread from the comer shop on the way home? He said he could, and set off to work on what looked to be another ordinary day. At first it was, but late in tlie morning she got a distraught phone call from the man at the comer shop. His wife- had gone into sudden labour, and the person who was supposed to help wasn’t at home, and . . . Leave it all to me, she instructed, years of midwifery behind her. Of course she would take his wife to the hospital. Of course she could mind the 10-month-old for a few days. Everything would be fine. Everything was. So the baby decided to arrive before they reached the hospital? No problem. She was driving a large van and really, there’s nothing to delivering a baby if you have plenty of room, and some clean string. With the baby delivered, and warmly wrapped in one of the

towels she’d thoughfully taken with them, she drove off again. By the time she had seen mother and baby safely installed in a hospital bed and cot respectively, and set off for home, she was tired. Getting old, perhaps, she thought, but still, everything had gone well, and it was nice to be appreciated, nice to be able to help. She had spoken to the happy father by phone, but she thought she d better stop at the shop on the way home to repeat her assurances . . . oh, and, collect the older baby, too, she remembered. Dear little chap. It would be nice to have a baby about the house again . . . But when she reached the shop her homeward-bound husband was before her. Coming out the door, in fact, carrying a baby and a suitcase, and followed by the shop owner, also laden. “Darling,” he said, sounding puzzled, “I thought you only wanted a loaf of bread.”