Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 57

The nurse shrugged and picked up the baby like he was a little football. To Polly’s eyes she handled him quite roughly, but then she herself was hardly versed in picking up brand-new infants. She’d have to assume the woman knew what she was doing.
She unwrapped his swaddling, then his fresh organic cotton babygro. The baby didn’t like that at all and started bawling lustily. His hair really was very dark.
His nappy looked ridiculously large on the tiny form. Polly had never seen such a new baby naked; she hadn’t realised they were like tadpoles really, all head, with kind of little flippery arms and legs.
‘Okay,’ said the nurse. ‘Well here it is.’
Polly was gripping Huckle’s hand so hard it was going white. They peered over.
Right across the baby’s tiny bottom was a bright streak of red; a huge strawberry mark that made him look as if he’d been spanked.
Polly’s hand shot to her mouth, and for just a second she was unutterably terrified that she might laugh.
‘A birthmark?’ said Huckle, astonished. ‘You called us out here because you’re worried about a birthmark?’
‘Yeah,’ said Reuben. ‘Not just any old birthmark, though. A huge, ass-obliterating satellite of a birthmark! Just like I had and my dad has. Thanks, Pa!’
‘You should have told Kerensa!’ said Merv, his hand drifting behind his back. ‘I told Rhonda!’
‘No, Ma found it!’ said Reuben. ‘They couldn’t get rid of them in those days.’ He turned to Kerensa, whose hand was also over her mouth. ‘Aw, honey, I’m so sorry. I had mine lasered off when I got my legal emancipation. So I’m not a fricking lizard skin like Pops. You’ve been awesome about this,’ he added tenderly.
Kerensa couldn’t do anything except wave her free hand about. She was half smiling, half crying, as was Polly.
‘It’s nothing!’ scolded the nurse. ‘You have to stop getting your knickers in a twist about it. He’s a lovely healthy baby.’
‘Why didn’t it show up on the scan?’ asked Huckle, probably more crossly than he intended.
‘Well it wouldn’t. Plus he’s a very wriggly baby,’ said the nurse. ‘I wonder who he gets that from.’
Reuben stopped fidgeting with his phone for long enough to look up.
‘Huh?’ he said. ‘Yeah, whatever.’
The nurse expertly rebuttoned the baby into his babygro and swaddled him so tightly he couldn’t move. Polly thought he would hate it, but in fact the little body relaxed and turned into a parcel, and the nurse handed him straight back to Kerensa, who took him cheerfully and snuggled him right up the front of her nightie, as if she was a kangaroo and he her joey.
They didn’t say anything in the lift. They didn’t say anything to each other in the long hallway, quiet now with as many beds as possible empty so people could be with their families for Christmas; plus it was late, after the normal visiting hours that applied to the rest of the hospital. This was just them.
They didn’t say anything until they finally reached the end of the corridor and the automatic doors opened silently into the whirling wonderland beyond, the flakes illuminated by the lurid orange of the hospital’s external lights but the ugly car park and the squat buildings hidden by the beautiful soft white. The trees beyond were lit dimly by the glow from the city, and had transformed into a Narnian wood, and without a word to one another they ran towards it.
Once safely inside, both of them screamed, ‘YESSSS!’ at the top of their lungs, then grabbed one another and whirled each other round and round in the snow until they were pink-cheeked and sparkling-eyed with delight, and bursting with happiness. Huckle crushed Polly to him and she laughed, and Neil fluttered down from a tree he’d been exploring and watched them jump up and down with joy, then joined in.
At last the cold drove them back inside, both of them beaming. They went to the lobby to call a cab.
‘Where are we going?’ said Polly.
‘Aha!’ said Huckle.
‘What?’
‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘Stay here, I’m going to make a call.’
Polly waited, her heart completely full. Oh, the mind-bending, world-crushing relief. She took out her nearly-dead phone and texted Kerensa. She didn’t know what to say, so in the end she just put five hearts and loads of kisses, then some more hearts and a very small emoticon of the closest thing she could find. That was going to have to do.
She glanced up and back into the main body of the hospital, wondering where Huckle had gone.
And that was when she saw them. A large group of people walking along the corridor, quietly, slowly. They had their arms around one another, as if they were consoling each other. One, a woman around Polly’s age, was weeping, and a man was holding her close. There were a couple of children, walking solemnly, as if they knew something bad was happening but weren’t quite clear as to what it was. Someone was carrying a very small child, fast asleep, nuzzled against his mother’s neck.
And bringing up the rear, weeping copiously and supported by two older men – her brothers, by the look of them – was Carmel.
Polly shrank back, hidden by the vending machine, watching the sad parade of people walk past.
They looked – well, they looked normal. Nice. Mixed race, married to black and white, just a totally average, supportive, well-dressed family.
She turned away, in case Carmel saw her face, but Carmel was bowed over and blinded by tears.
Tony must have died, thought Polly. This was it. The father she had never had was no more. The kind of father he must have been, she supposed, she could see in the utterly distraught faces of the men and women passing by.
She stood stock still and watched, feeling incredibly sad and strange, as the party made its way out into the freezing night.
‘Okay!’ said Huckle, bouncing round the corner. ‘Madam, your carriage awaits. Hey hey!’
A cab had pulled up outside.
‘Where are we going?’ said Polly, glancing around the car park, but the family had dispersed.
‘Just get in,’ said Huckle, winking at the driver. Neil followed close behind.
Polly desperately needed to talk to him about her father, but she didn’t get a chance, as Huckle was bouncing up and down in his seat and talking about how amazing it was, and how great things were, and weren’t they lucky, and surely Kerensa would never, ever do anything like that again, and how now they would all appreciate every moment…