Newman

Chapter 3

John Newman was a long time coming. “Like me,” said his father. “A slow starter.”

He had been officially due a fortnight earlier, and they had panicked calmly into hospital after a microscopic symptom on the due day. Subsequently however, John put his feet up and kept them up, sensing with the impeccable judgement of youth that his present billet was almost certainly superior to any other he was likely to get.

His father visited the hospital faithfully each day and gazed at his wife Ann with reproachful concern. After a week, the joke was palling. His “slow starter” slowly expired, as did his wife’s “burnt the house down yet?” and each day, when all relevant instructions for the more or less efficient running of the house and the stocking of her hospital locker had been issued, they held hands and awaited the whim of their about-to-be firstborn.

Despite his underlying concern and his embarrassing incompetence at routine household tasks, Peter Newman quite enjoyed the limbo period of his wife’s stay in hospital. The quiet, empty house, the solicitous concern of neighbours, the sense of impending events, gave a timeless quality of immediacy to his life and, business also being quiet, he engrossed himself in the minor tasks of his temporary bachelor existence.

Over the two weeks, the journey to the hospital, the long walk through confusing corridors, the identifying of significant personnel, etc, ran the gamut from hesitant strangeness through cheery ritual to unseeing familiarity. He was worldly-wise enough to corner the appropriate shamans and to persist pleasantly until his enquiries were answered. Technicalities aside, this boiled down to, “Stop worrying. It’ll come when it’s ready,” and he reasoned, without solace, that if they were unconcerned, why should he be?

Contractions came and went, but showed no signs of attempting a long run until Ann had been in hospital for ten days and was about to be sent home after having been subjected to a variety of drips and potions in an attempt to galvanize her recalcitrant offspring. It seemed, however, that the threat of being sent home unseparated, triggered mother and child’s ancient genetic machinery more effectively than these several modern chemicals, and triggered also the hospital’s far cruder machinery, which slowly refocussed on Mrs. Newman, and started grinding into action.

It had been the intention of Peter Newman to remain with his wife to comfort and encourage her through the darker moments of her travail and, for quite a time, clammy hand held clammy hand while he uttered platitudes, though these were as much for his benefit as for hers. Inevitably it was not what either had expected. It was mundane, earthy, and hard work, although occasionally, as he looked down at his wife’s red, sweat-stained face and sweat-dank hair, he felt a faint stirring of awe at what it was they were doing. She lay in the temporary wreck of her looks and dignity, and he in the temporary wreck of his domestic and business affairs, while forces outside their careful rationalizations inexorably prepared to sacrifice them for the continuation of their kind.

After an interminable period, Ann’s eyes began to glaze with fatigue, and the tone in the delivery room altered.

“How long has this been going on now?”

“She’s getting very tired...”

“Hm...”

A white coat put its hand across its mouth in thought and then, abruptly, the proceedings jerked into a new gear.

The force of this accelerated tenor of events deposited Peter Newman in a deserted waiting room across the corridor. He knew he had been professionally out-manoeuvred, but his instinctively polite reaction to a polite request — “Would you just wait here for a moment, Mr. Newman, while doctor...” etc etc — had carried him beyond the pale of a dignified return, so he sat and felt vaguely inadequate.

Fifteen minutes later, just as he had started prowling, a round cheerful nurse he had never seen before, congratulated him on the birth of his son.

“b****y hell,” he said softly, as if winded, and sat down abruptly. For a few moments he gazed vacantly ahead, stunned like, many before him, by the advent of the unexpected emotions of fatherhood. To his considerable surprise, he experienced and understood a feeling of humility, and saw the truth hidden in the clichés appropriate to such an occasion. All he could do was keep saying to himself, “Welcome, little one, I’ll do my best for you.” Then, clenching and unclenching his hands in excitement, he got up and walked to the delivery room to examine the wrinkled red scream that all the fuss had been about.