Shadow Baby by Margaret Forster Read Free Book Online Page A

met there was this same interrogation, always leading back to the birth of Shona. Catriona had written from Bergen, where Archie was based at the time, and told her that she was pregnant again but said she wanted to keep the expected birth date secret because she was superstitious, after three miscarriages and a stillbirth, and believed that if she revealed it another tragedy would follow. Her mother rang her saying she would come at once. But Catriona had been adamant, no, her mother was not to come. The doctors had declared her perfectly fit and the maternity hospital in Bergen was excellent.
    So her mother had been out of it, deprived of the whole experience. She had never seen Catriona pregnant with Shona nor was she anywhere near for Shona’s birth. When Catriona rang her and said she had a beautiful, healthy new granddaughter, Ailsa had remained quite silent for a full minute before she had said, ‘I can hardly believe it, not without seeing her.’ When she did see her, a month later, there was a sharpness in her mother’s eyes which Catriona feared. ‘Let me look at her properly,’ she had said, almost snatching the baby from her cradle. But then the sharpness had disappeared as Shona was minutely inspected. ‘She takes after Archie,’ Ailsa pronounced. ‘Look at the colouring of her. But she has your shape of face, Catriona, heart-shaped, just like your face, and see the way her right ear is a wee bit bigger than the left, that’s the same as yours.’ The birth weight, 7lb 3^ oz, was exactly the same as Catriona’s had been and so was Shona’s length, eighteen and a half inches. Once these comparisons were made, Ailsa was happy. ‘I never thought you’d do it,’ she said. ‘I thought it was going to be your cousin all over again, what with the miscarriages and stillbirth, just like her, and then nothing ever again. You’ve been lucky in the end, Catriona.’ ‘I know,’ Catriona had said, ‘I know I have.’ ‘But,’ her mother had added, reverting as she did so to her usual more hectoring tone, ‘let that be enough, will you? Don’t tempt fate, don’t try again, be grateful for what you’ve got, mind.’ “I’ll be grateful,’
     
    Catriona promised, though privately reflecting it was far too late, fate had already been tempted and she had tempted it knowingly.
    Without Archie, of course, nothing would have been possible. Another husband might not have been able to bear his wife’s obsession, he might have recoiled from the rawness, even the ugliness, of the hunger behind it. But Archie had not. He was patient and understanding and said only, ‘If this is what you want’ and ‘If this will make you happy.’ But he had been surprised. He had looked at her and his eyes had been shocked even though he said nothing. Then he had taken her hand - hot, feverish - and squeezed it and said she could have her way if she was quite sure she knew what she was doing. But she felt that she had caused him pain and was sorry for it. She knew that she had forced him into a position of surrender, though she was not entirely sure what she was compelling him to surrender. Control, she supposed. She had taken control away from him. He was not an overbearing man, for all that he commanded a ship, but he liked to do things his way. Now they were doing this thing her way, relegating him to a subservient role at this crucial point in their lives. Fortunately, once Shona was back in Scotland with them, the balance was restored, partly because it became apparent that neither of them controlled her. It amused them both, their little daughter’s independent spirit; it helped that they could see nothing of themselves in her. ‘She would make her way anywhere,’ Archie said, admiringly. He was glad their only child was a girl. A boy would have been more complicated, he felt, he would have worried about Catriona left for such long periods with a son. Leaving mother and daughter felt comfortable and he did not