Sylvia Garland's Broken Heart (16 page)

She took his slight warm weight into her arms, not much, a couple of bags of sugar, no more and yet the entire world. She looked down at her grandson in breathless wonder.

To tell the truth, she had not known exactly what to expect of this moment. Would a partly Indian baby still feel completely like her grandchild? She had been secretly apprehensive that she might not feel what she ought to. Although she had shared her apprehension with Ruth Rosenkranz who had simply laughed.

Sylvia remembered still, thirty years ago, the disappointment she had felt when Jeremy had been laid in her arms; who
was
this, was this what all the fuss had been about? That feeling had eventually passed of course, to be replaced by a degree of maternal fondness and pride. But the feelings which she had experienced back then were nothing, she realised incredulously, compared to the rush of sheer elation which she felt now. For a start, today she was not exhausted by labour as she had been back then. This baby had landed in her arms weighing no more than his own small body weight, not with the leaden burden, the ball and chain of motherhood attached to him. Because of his visible difference, there was in the first instance none of that possessive petty cataloguing which she remembered so tediously with her own son; Roger’s eyes, Grandpa Neville’s nose, someone else’s hands, the baby ultimately only the sum of its parts, a descendant. This baby was a brand new adventure and Sylvia, confronted with his reality, his exquisite wriggling reality, was so excited she could barely breathe.

She took in the baby’s wavering unfocused brown eyes, newly arrived from another dimension, his puffy little cheeks and his shrewd mouth. The few strands of hair which emerged from under the skullcap were glossy black like Smita’s and his black brows seemed unusually well defined for a newborn. He looked to Sylvia like a diminutive Eastern sage and as she gazed down at him, lovestruck, she imagined that in the years to come this little boy would teach her far more than he would ever learn from her.

She remembered to look up at Smita and Jeremy and murmured, “He’s adorable. Oh well
done
, darlings.”

They beamed back, in unison Sylvia saw as they rarely were. Jeremy was already all gentle, soppy, caring gestures, as he usually was in fact only more so – and sweaty, she noticed, too – and Smita, even Smita seemed somewhat softened by the experience she had just been through; beneath her perfect make up she was less sharp, less diamond hard. For a rare moment, Sylvia could actually imagine that they might make each other happy after all. The baby would bring life to their unconvincing marriage and they would flourish as a family the way they had never really appeared to as a couple.

But this idea flashed through Sylvia’s mind in seconds and she did not want to let it distract her from her grandson for even a moment. She looked down at him again, relishing him, drawing out the moment until Smita asked her expectantly, “Well, Sylvia, who do
you
think he looks like?”

Sylvia answered cautiously. “It’s hard to say when
they’re so small, isn’t it? Who do you two think he takes after?”

Jeremy looked hesitatingly at Smita who answered promptly, “Oh, I think my side, definitely. Jeremy’s not sure.”

“I couldn’t say,” Sylvia said, she hoped diplomatically. “But whoever he takes after, he is absolutely beautiful.” Again, not wanting to say the wrong thing and not sure either how a brown-skinned baby could, frankly, take after Jeremy’s side, Sylvia changed the subject. “Tell me, have you thought about names?”

“No,” said Jeremy.

“Yes,” said Smita.

They all three laughed and Sylvia said hastily, “None of my business, I know.”

Maybe disturbed by the sudden laughter in the quiet room, the baby stirred in Sylvia’s arms and let out the beginning of a small wail. Sylvia made to hand him over to Smita but she waved him away.

“Put him back in the cot please Sylvia,” she said languidly. “I’m
far
too exhausted to be holding him constantly. And I want to begin as I mean to go on; not picking him up and cuddling him and fussing over him all the time so he just cries out for more.” She glanced warningly at Jeremy who looked ready to reach out and take his small son and fuss over him for all he was worth.

Obediently but regretfully, Sylvia returned the baby to his cot, surreptitiously caressing him as she covered him up. Wasn’t it funny; thirty years ago she was sure she would have acted exactly like Smita but today she yearned
to hold onto the baby and to be his warm source of comfort and reassurance.

Abandoned between the cold hospital sheets, the baby’s small wail rose to a frank scream. Jeremy hung over the side of the cot, looking thwarted but apparently not daring to pick him up.

Deliberately turning her face away from the cot, Smita said to Sylvia, “We have discussed names, obviously. But it’s difficult to reach a decision when there are
two
traditions to be taken into account.”

“Plus,” Jeremy interrupted, grinning, “up until last night we were convinced we were having a girl.”

“
Were
you?” Sylvia exclaimed. “
Really
? Why, I was absolutely sure –” she caught sight of Smita’s frown and broke off. “Who cares my dears, so long as he’s healthy.”

“Absolutely,” Jeremy agreed. Sylvia noticed he was sneakily stroking the baby with a single finger.

“Anyway, about the name,” Smita went on. “We’ll have to wait until my mother gets here; she’s been taking advice.”

Sylvia didn’t like to ask from whom. She assumed it must be a priest at Prem and Naisha’s temple and she felt that in any case the topic was probably best left alone. Besides, she tested herself; how much did she actually care what they called the baby? To her surprise, she cared very little. She didn’t seem to have any sentimental wish for him to be called after Roger or to bear any of the traditional family names. In fact she realized she was actually hoping the baby would have a brand-new name, a name which no-one in their family had ever had before, just to
underline what an exciting brand-new person he was. So long as she could pronounce it of course. She thought briefly of Heather Bailey with her far away Amharic-speaking grandchildren with whom she could barely communicate. It was true; you never knew how your children would take their revenge.

Benevolently, and raising her voice slightly above the baby’s crying, Sylvia said, “Honestly dears, whatever you come up with is fine by me. I won’t be sticking my oar in.”

Smita shifted uncomfortably in bed, whether at the implied comparison with her own mother or whether because she really was uncomfortable, Sylvia couldn’t tell.

“Now tell me Smita dear,” she asked kindly. “How are you?”

Smita shot Sylvia a dark warning look. Sylvia supposed she wanted to ward off any overly intimate questions about the birth; private parts made public, stitches, tears, that sort of thing. But, goodness, Sylvia would never have dreamt of asking about all that. She ploughed on, “You must take it easy as much as you can until you have got your strength back.”

“Jeremy and my mother will take good care of me.” Smita smiled frostily. “Don’t you worry Sylvia.” She turned to Jeremy and said, “Maybe someone could bring your mother a cup of tea?”

Sylvia sat with her tea, relegated to the status of visitor, drank and tried not to feel excluded. It was only natural that Smita should want to have her own mother to help. Sylvia was careful not to outstay her welcome especially when the baby’s screaming grew so anguished that Jeremy
had to lift him out of the cot and pass him to Smita and they began to bicker over whether or not he needed to be fed.

As she left, Sylvia reminded herself how secondary her concerns were. The little boy,
her
grandson, had come to rescue her from drowning. She had – as of this morning – a new and important role, whatever Smita said or did. From now on, she must drink less gin and take more healthy exercise. She had a vital task ahead of her; to be a superlative grandmother, to make up for the parents’ shortcomings and she was going to do it her own way and nobody else’s. Her world was so much more infinitely interesting with this little boy in it that she sailed beaming down in the upholstered lift, sailed out into the street, sailed onto the bus and sailed beaming all the way back to Overmore Gardens where she rang Ruth Rosenkranz’s bell to share her marvellous news.

“That is your mother all over,” Smita complained to Jeremy later. She was feeling tired to the point of tears and, as usual, Sylvia’s visit had been the last straw. “Either knock and wait or come in without knocking. Why do both? It’s so typical. She knocks so you think she’s being considerate but then she comes in anyway. She is so aggravating. What if I had been breastfeeding?”

Jeremy, looking haggard and apparently distracted by the perfection of his baby son’s fingernails, answered vaguely as he had so many times before, “She means no harm, Smi.”

“Marvellous!” Smita snapped. “She
means
no harm but she just does it anyway; barges in, tra-la-la, and causes trouble left, right and centre. At least my mother, whatever nonsense she inflicts on us, you know she has thought about it beforehand, planned it, worked it all out and she
believes
what she is doing is right even if it’s nothing of the sort.
Your
mother –” she broke off and gestured in exasperation at a large cardboard box in the corner. “I mean, what about her present? What sort of a weird outlandish thing is
that
?”

Jeremy considered his mother’s gift for a moment: a large, very brightly painted mobile of Indian figures twirling amid moons and stars and elephants and tigers. Sylvia had explained proudly that the two largest figures were the Indian deities, Rama and Sita. “I think it’s rather quaint,” he said carefully.

“Quaint!” Smita exclaimed crossly. “It may well be quaint but is it
safe
? Is it hygienic? Where was it made exactly? For all we know, there is lead paint on those figures. And look at the feathers on the elephants’ headdresses – where did
they
come from? I mean, doesn’t she
think
? It’s enough to give our little boy an allergy just
looking
at it.”

That evening, Sylvia’s phone rang particularly shrilly and it was Naisha.

“I
had
to ring and celebrate with you, Sylvia dear,” she exclaimed. “Congratulations to both of us, don’t you think? He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

Sylvia felt conscience-stricken that she hadn’t thought of ringing Naisha. She had always assumed that where other people had a heart, Naisha had a splendid gleaming calculator which worked out her every move. Her daughter had inherited the same calculator. Everything Naisha did or said was decided by a profit motive, either material profit or some other sort of tangible gain. Any altruistic motives in that household Sylvia attributed only to Prem, poor, grey, hen-pecked Prem with his never-ending devotions, his prayer corner and his long drawn-out visits to the temple.

But here was Naisha proving her culpably wrong. Why hadn’t
she
thought of lifting the phone and congratulating Naisha? She knew why (apart from her antipathy towards Naisha); it was because she was not sure what to say and in a stupidly English way, she had said nothing at all. Which was undoubtedly the wrong thing.

Naisha went on boldly. “He has the best features of both parents, don’t you think? The mouth and the chin are definitely Jeremy’s, wouldn’t you say, but the eyes, the eyes are Smita’s. For sure. Of course it’s probably far too early to tell anything, isn’t it? They change so much in the first few weeks. But the temperament; I think you can see the temperament already quite clearly in the first few hours, don’t you? And our little darling has the temperament of his maternal grandfather, of that I am sure. He lies there so calmly and sweetly, such a serene expression on his dear little face. Prem is beside himself with happiness. He has gone off to the temple just now.”

An unpleasant thought crossed Sylvia’s mind to the
effect that Prem would doubtless have gone off to the temple if he had been beside himself with sorrow too. She tuttingly suppressed it and tried her best to focus on Naisha’s deluge of presumptious pronouncements about the baby. In fact, their images of him were not that far apart; where Sylvia had seen the epitome of an Eastern sage, Naisha had seen her own local version, saintly Prem. In the distance, Sylvia thought she heard for a moment a bellow of indignation from Roger. But it faded. Besides, Naisha was continuing: “So lovely to be linked in this way, Sylvia dear,” she was saying graciously. “I hope you share my feelings.”