Chapter 8
It was two weeks to the day of the twins’ birth - Friday - that Lisa woke before the clamouring for the six o’clock feed. A hot flush suffused her body. She felt uneasy, about to get up and look at the twins although there was no sound, no crying to alert her. Alec was by her side, sleeping heavily. And, as she turned away, she made out a little figure standing just inside the bedroom.
‘Hello, Mummy,’ Seb husked hopefully, shadowy by the creaking door, whispering.
Was that what had woken her? Seb had managed to climb out of his cot and she’d heard him coming?
‘Ssh,’ she sibilated at him. ‘You should be asleep.’ She got out of bed as softly as she could, lifted Seb up and tiptoed with him back to his room. He squirmed out of her arms and stood, pulling at her hand. A tearing at her guts. Her little boy was hoping for some time alone with her. She’d neglected him, sending him off to Meg’s first thing every morning, too busy to do much with him even at lunchtime. Just like yesterday: no sooner started on helping him with painting his kittens than Janus and Jeffrey had demanded their feed.
‘More,’ Seb announced, confident. He took her hand and tried to pull her with him towards his door. ‘Seb got more bother.’
Something was wrong, she knew immediately something was wrong. A fast pulse drummed reverberations into her ears as she realised the twins’ nursery door was wide open. Had Alec left it like that? But there was no sound of crying. Their rhythmic breathing told her they were still asleep.
‘It’s not time to get up yet, Seb,’ she told him gently, calmed by the sound of mingled breathing. She disengaged her toddler’s hand. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘More,’ he told her again, eagerly. ‘More, more.’
‘More what, Seb?’ He was keen on his food, additionally so now that his baby brothers were potential rivals for it. ‘It isn’t time for breakfast yet.’
‘More bother.’
More bother? Did he mean more mother? He wanted to see more of his mother? She hated the look of resignation on his earnest little face. Was that what he was desperately trying to tell her? He wanted to see more of her?
Her heart contracted as she forced herself to remain with him for a few moments. She bounced Seb in her arms, stroked his hair out of his eyes, tucked him up in his cot again and softly sang Pop Goes the Weasel to him.
‘More bother, Mummy,’ he insisted again, his voice becoming louder. He loved nursery rhymes, but this time there was something distracting him from them. And her. All the time she spent in Seb’s bedroom she had to stifle an odd nervousness which urged her towards the nursery. The babies were all right, she kept repeating to herself. There were no noises off, no need at all to get worked up.
Even so, she left Seb after only one verse to go through to the twins’ room and was, at first, relieved to see Jeffrey sleeping soundly in his cot, the relaxed sleep of the recently born. A weight off her shoulders, she turned to the other cot. Her heart thudded into her throat, then palpitated crazily.
Was she seeing double? It was still not quite day, cotton curtains blocking out the strengthening light, but surely she could make out two infants’ heads in the second cot?
She pulled herself together. Alec must have put the twins in one cot, by mistake. So tired out after the two o’clock feed that he’d lumped Jeffrey together with Janus instead of putting him in his own carrycot.
No, it couldn’t be that. She’d just checked on Jeffrey. Gulping, keeping her eyes away from the second cot, she swished the curtains to the sides. She could not face the harshness of electric light. Turning round from the window she held her breath, eyes turned to Jeffrey’s cot. One small head and, lower down, his body bare except for a Pampers nappy, his limbs sprawling, the coverlet thrown back. He was sleeping peacefully, his breathing even, normal. She looked at him, forcing her mind to accept what her eyes saw. Tortuously, reluctantly, she twisted her body round to look at the second carrycot. Two heads, close together, crowded in the small cot. Two babies, both completely naked, boys, identical, the nappy which had been on Janus popped open and lying loose. The cover had been kicked beneath two pairs of legs.
A cold finger of terror held her shoulders tight as she stopped concentrating on irrelevancies and the real situation forced itself on her: three infants where there had been two, two in the cot where there had been one. She stood, rooted to the spot, and gaped at the four legs in front of her, then looked towards the top - two heads. Two separate infants lying side by side. Even at her most idiotic she could not mistake two for one.
Lisa pinched herself. Was she asleep? Another nightmare? If so, it was terribly vivid, more lucid than her ordinary dreams. She counted babies, time and again. Had Seb crawled into a cot, retreating, somehow, back to infancy? She made herself return to the child’s room. He was safely surrounded by the bars of his own cot.
‘More bother,’ he assured her again, smiling at her.
More bother - he meant more brother. He knew! He’d simply accepted what seemed to him a fact in his short experience of life, something she could not begin to understand. She stood at the foot of Seb’s cot, wanting to stay, wanting to ask him questions, knowing she had to leave, and forced herself back into the twins’ room. She knew what she had to do: switch on the electric light, flood the room with illumination, and disperse the deceptive flickers of strengthening daylight. A trick of shadows, perhaps; that’s what it had been. Clouds scudding over the sky, creating double images. She looked again.
Three babies; two were naked, crowded together in one carrycot. Another one was in the second cot, with his nappy on. All three identical. She tried to still her heart now beating at twice its normal rate, tried to subdue her horror, gasped, drank down great drafts of air.
The single infant in the carrycot, no doubt woken by the sudden brightness, began to stir and open his eyes, to mewl, then cry demand for his feed. The response to mother him took over. Lisa lifted him out of his cot and swayed with him, cooing to him, her back turned to the other cot. This was Jeffrey, her second twin, born just two weeks ago. She took the prepared bottles of goat’s milk from the small fridge they’d set up in the nursery and placed them in the bottle warmers. The routine she’d worked out - changing the first infant to wake while she warmed the bottles - occupied her sufficiently to stop her from thinking. Force of habit made her sit in the rocker as she fed Jeffrey, her eyes firmly fixed on his little face, prattling at him, making baby noises, enjoying the sensation of his weight against her breast. He sucked the teat lustily, quickly, as though sensing that now he had two rivals.
Distracted, unable to come to terms with what she’d seen, Lisa fed Jeffrey until a growing din from two more babies forced her to place him in his cot and prop the bottle on a towel so he could feed himself.
She turned around. Two red squalling infants. As far as she could tell - identical. Where had the second baby come from?
And there it was again. That odd deep yellow stain. The open nappy, Lisa saw, was wet and faintly yellow. But the bedding, and the babies’ legs, were covered in a deeper wet, a curious permeating substance.
She took the gauze nappy she always kept slung over her shoulder and rubbed it gently against one leg. The yellow soaked into the gauze, leaving the leg quite clean. Just urine. She was making a fuss about a little urine. Then she understood. The heat had concentrated the urine, and it was highly coloured. No wonder Janus had asked for so much food, gobbled it up. She should have given him water. Foolish of her. What she’d done was to offer him large quantities of goat’s milk. Whatever Meg said, it occurred to Lisa, the stuff was too rich. Janus had looked quite puffy yesterday.
As Lisa watched, the two babies turned puce, their mouths wide open, screaming for food. Were they both real or was she hallucinating one? Which child should she pick up? They decided for her, the cries of one drowning out the other. She put a dummy in the less insistent mouth, then carefully put her hands under the raucous one’s arms and lifted him up.
He was a baby, just like the one she’d just fed. Quickly, expertly, she cleaned him up, powdered him and placed a nappy on him. Was he Janus? Who could tell? She held him to her, nestling her face against his, feeling her motherhood. This was her child, her son.
Settling him against cushions, Lisa propped the bottle for him to feed himself. It was time to pick up the third baby. Would this one disappear as soon as she touched him? Had she brought a phantom baby on herself with her superstitious wishing for twins on a four-leaf clover? The First Commandment said: ‘Thou shalt not have false gods before me.’ Was this her punishment for breaking it?
Gingerly Lisa forced her hands to support the third baby under his armpits. She held him up to look at him. The dummy dropped out of his mouth and he began to whimper. He looked so helpless, so lost, she could not resist him. She pressed the little body secure against herself, felt his responsive heartbeat, wrapped her arm tenderly behind his neck, took in his baby smell. He was as solid, as tangible, as the other two. Her warmth had calmed him for a moment. He gazed at her with trusting baby eyes. She sighed. She could not see the slightest difference, the faintest mark, to distinguish him from the two infants she’d just seen to. A baby: adorable, enchanting.
Lisa hoisted the child on to her left arm and hip, balancing him as she walked over to the other two. Tiny baby fingers gripped tight as she settled the bottles at better angles. Third bottle in the fridge, she told herself briskly. The twins were such eager feeders that Lisa always made an extra bottle for topping up.
The child on her arm puckered his mouth for a teat. Lisa settled back in the rocking chair and offered him some goat’s milk. He sucked as ardently as his brothers, his left-hand fingers wisping over hers. His brothers! This was her baby. She and Alec had yet another son.
Should she tell Alec how she’d found him? She toyed with what that would imply. And there was no doubt in her mind: he would immediately call in the medical profession.
Doctors - she shuddered at the thought. The doctors, if they got the faintest whiff, the slightest suggestion, that something out of the ordinary had happened, would take over. There would be searching questions, a clinical atmosphere, disinfectants, and aggressive nurses. Tests, she could already see; revolting, disgusting, possibly painful tests on her three infants and herself.
Hospitals - they’d insist she go to hospital, be prodded by unsmiling consultants, obsequious interns. The children taken care of in a different part, nursed by strangers, Seb left alone… if all that happened she could say goodbye to her dream of motherhood. She must not allow even the slightest suspicion of this event to get to the doctors. They’d all conspire to take away her children. They would tear them right out of her loving arms.
The baby on her lap had emptied the bottle. He seemed gentler than either of the other two, quieter. He lay, limpid and tranquil, his blue eyes open. Her heart went out to him as love flowed over her. The soft intelligent eyes seemed to invite her to hug him, to burp him. She wouldn’t - could not - be deprived of this happiness. She was his mother; she was the mother of them all.
The baby gurgled at her, stroked at her hands. Delicate fluttering hands, so unlike Janus and his hard strong grip. She was convinced that he was the new arrival. He might look the same, but his personality was quite unlike either of his brothers. Lisa was sure she was holding her latest son.
Tenderly she laid the baby she was sure was the new one on one of the coverlets on the floor, burped Jeffrey and put him back into his cot, and removed the third infant from the easy chair, then burped him, too. This one was Janus. There was no doubt in her mind. She could not mistake that clear bright penetrating look, those gleaming eyes. His lips began to move as though he were trying to communicate. He put strong grasping arms around her neck. She had to extricate herself and was surprised at the strength it took.
She prattled at Janus, returned him to his carrycot, picked up the new baby and wrapped him in her nursing apron. She sat back in the rocker, held the infant to her, tried to calm the turmoil in her mind, to think. The baby bubbled at her, the blue eyes blinked, composed. Small fingers twined themselves endearingly around one of hers. He looked content, his eyelids lowering down, trusting her. She was his mother; he belonged to her.
She looked down at herself. Her normal slim figure was back again. The extra bump she’d mentioned to the midwife had definitely gone.
The new child was obviously her latest offspring. He had to be, he looked exactly like her other babies. He was so sweet, so trusting. Her love, her passion, her very existence were all involved with these babies. She had identical triplets now - and she had no intention of giving any of them up.
Intent on her thoughts she hadn’t heard any noise and was horrified to see the door opening, slowly and quietly. Was Alec up already? What should she do? She hugged the infant in her arms, held him protectively against her breast. He’d have to pry him loose –
‘Hello, Mummy.’ Seb edged in, smiling winsomely up at her. ‘More bother.’
‘Seb,’ she whispered hoarsely, putting an arm around him, covering the top of his head with kisses. ‘Sweetheart, I told you. It isn’t time to get up yet. Come on, darling. Back to bed.’
‘More bother,’ he said again, looking at the baby in her arms, at the baby in the cot. ‘Mummy got Seb more bother.’
‘Another little brother,’ she agreed, lowering the infant she was clutching. ‘We’ll have to think of names for him.’
‘Yames,’ he said eagerly.
‘Mummy’s very busy, Seb. Go back to your room and I’ll bring your special book.’
He looked at her, she thought, almost conspiratorially.
‘Yames,’ he said, clearly trying to pronounce the J. ‘Mummy got Yames.’
‘James?’ she said, almost to herself. Seb clearly understood she was holding the new infant, and wanted to call him James. Well, why not let Seb have a go at naming his new brother?
Could he have? She was letting her imagination run away with her again. He might be bright and very forward for his age, but he couldn’t spin a new baby out of thin air any more than she could.
She was shaking now, trying to control her trembling. The infant on one arm, Lisa led Seb back to his room. She didn’t dare to put the baby down so that she could lift the little boy back into his cot.
‘Sit on the sheepskin rug, Sebbie. Play with your helicopter book, there’s a good boy.’
Lisa walked towards the guestroom clutching the new baby to herself. She’d mentioned to Alec that she might go and lie down in there after the early morning feed so as not to deprive him of that last precious half hour or more of sleep.
Seb had seen the third infant, Seb had understood that there were three. And he knew the one in her arms wasn’t Janus, he knew he was ‘another one’. She wasn’t clear how he could spot the difference, but he seemed quite sure. He’d confirmed what she instinctively felt. Whatever the actual case, the infant on her arm was the one she’d call James.
“More bother”, Seb had said. Of course that’s what he’d been trying to tell her before. He’d already seen the new child, had come to fetch her. How had it happened? It was simply crazy. How could it have happened? Babies didn’t appear out of nowhere.
Had she given birth to a third infant? Sleepwalking, unaware? Was she so tired she’d done it all in a sort of trance? Cleaned up after herself? That was the only possible sane explanation, the only thing that could have happened. She’d tell Alec the simple truth: this was her child - their child.
Quaking, shivering in spite of the hot humid weather, Lisa took the new baby and lay back, exhausted, on the guestroom bed. She pulled the covers over them both and waited for Alec to get up.