Ramsay 06 - The Baby-Snatcher
soon Owen would be starting school and that he had grown up too quickly.
    It had been Brian’s idea to buy the Coastguard Station on the Headland and knock it through into one magnificent house. She hadn’t been very keen. Even then, five years ago, she’d been dreaming of babies and thought a modern house on a quiet estate would be nice. Somewhere with other middle-class mothers to invite in to coffee during the day, pavements for trikes and dolls’ prams. She had kept her misgivings about the Coastguard House to herself. Brian was so generous to her in other things and he was so enthusiastic about the venture that she encouraged him. She had even pretended to share his excitement.
    The house was wonderful now. She had to admit that. There was so much space that they wouldn’t be cramped even if the latest baby turned out to be triplets. There were magnificent views out to sea on three sides. All the same if she were offered the chance to move she’d jump at it. She felt isolated on the Headland. She wouldn’t call herself snobbish but felt she had little in common with the residents of Cotter’s Row. She wouldn’t be happy for her children to play down there. Physically, too, the place made her uneasy. Although there was a high whitewashed wall right round the garden and the cliffs weren’t steep, more like rocky shelves down to the water and quite easy to scramble on, she worried that the children would fall. It was a secret nightmare and some nights she would wake up sweating to a picture of one of them limp and lifeless, battered by the waves at the foot of the cliff.
    The car bumped across the level crossing, jolting her back to the present. She saw with relief that they were nearly home. Her friend had offered to give the boys their tea so she’d have time to put up her feet, perhaps watch the television news, before they arrived back.
    ‘Shit!’ They were driving between the rows of houses when Brian slammed on the brakes, hit the horn and shouted. A woman had run out into the street in front of them. He missed her by swerving on to the pavement. The woman stood for a moment like a rabbit caught in a headlamp’s glare, then she ran off. Her pink anorak, unzipped, flapped behind her.
    ‘Idiot!’ Brian said. ‘She could have been killed.’ But his fury had passed. The BMW, his pride and joy, was unharmed. ‘Do you know her?’
    Emma shook her head and said nothing. She thought she recognized the woman but she had her own reasons for keeping quiet.
    Brian got out to open the double gates into the yard, drove in, then went to shut them again. She struggled out of the car with difficulty. She enjoyed being pregnant but she would be glad when it was all over.
    She was standing on the doorstep, rummaging in her bag for her keys, when her waters broke.
    ‘Oh God!’ Brian said with a trace of disgust, when she explained what had happened. Both thought with relief that at least it hadn’t happened when she was getting out of the car. Think of the leather upholstery.
    The daughter was born at midnight. Brian was there during labour though he disappeared regularly during the early stages. There was a television in the Visitors’ Room and Newcastle United was playing in a Cup match. His howl of dismay when Arsenal scored rivalled the cries of the women giving birth. He was with Emma when she needed him, and afterwards he sat beside her on the bed and stroked the baby’s cheek with his little finger. For an awful moment she was afraid he’d suggest they called the baby Sheena but he said: ‘Helen, then? Like we decided?’
    The hospital was on a hill and from the high bed where she sat, propped up with pillows, she had a view all over the town. Helen seemed dull and unadventurous all of a sudden, but it was his mother’s name and better than Sheena. Perhaps she could come up with something glamorous too.
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Helen.’
    She had planned coming out of hospital after twenty-four

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