The Fruit of the Tree Read Online Free

and special tiny equipment had to be brought into the casualty department where the operation took place. The nurses made a great fuss of baby Robert when he was brought in during the next few days; they said they were used to seeing much bigger children with scrapes on their knees.
    Despite the varying times of my arrival at the casualty department for dressings of the wound, the receptionist was brisk but sympathetic. Her conversation suggested she imagined the baby was playing me up, and I perpetuated that injustice, rather than admit that I just couldn’t get up in the mornings, after the dreadful night feeds.
    The whole abscess episode was a bit of a nuisance, disrupting what little routine I had. But I didn’t really worry about Robert, because I’d heard so many times what hardy creatures babies are. Four years later, I had cause to doubt that generalisation, and remembered wryly my simple faith that all would be well.
    The months went by and we progressed through breast-feeding to mixed feeding and from incisors to molars, and still Robert was happy. Now he chose to eat at more civilised times and we all breakfasted together on boiled eggs. The days of the hurried slice of toast in a vertical position were over. We had become a family!
    Despite a large and well-justified inferiority complex about my inability to run the home, I felt I had made a fairly successful job of bringing up the baby, and for the first time in my married life, I gained some confidence. Baby Robert appeared to be a credit to me, and Michael often said, ‘I always knew you’d be a good mother.’
    But although I spent much time reading articles on babies, on aspects of feeding and weaning, teething and toilet training, I did not really build a relationship with Robert when he was a tiny baby. Perhaps I would have been better advised to put away the books and get down on the floor to play with him, but I was too guilty about my inadequacies as a housewife to spend time in the enjoyment of play.
    It was Michael who had a special relationship with Robert. As the oldest of four children, Michael was totally at ease in the presence of little ones. Immediately recognised by small boys as a ‘romper’ and ‘rough-and-tumbler’, and by larger boys as the sort of uncle-figure who would allow them to help with pasting, tarring or whitewashing jobs, he could in addition communicate with this foot-long creature, at present devoid of any appreciable powers of mobility or conversation. He would pick the little boy up with two hands and, holding him a few inches away from his face, address him solemnly, carefully articulating his words.
    ‘Say, “Dad-dy, Dad-dy”.’
    And the baby, no more than a few months old, would watch goggle-eyed and form shapes with his mouth in imitation or response.
    In time, he learned to recognise the pale blue Wolseley which Michael drove and would shriek with delight at the sight of his father approaching, and howl at his often speedy departure, en route to another job.
    When Robert was in the middle of his first year, the plumbing business began to take up more of my time. Michael’s secretary had left and one of the plumbers had been installed in the front office. In theory, he would be a clerk-cum-emergency plumber. In practice, there were so many emergencies that the telephone rang incessantly, calling him away, while the bookkeeping ground to a halt.
    For the next few months, I answered the telephone more than a dozen times a day, and became an expert on ball-valves and leaks, often advising panicking housewives to ‘…turn the water off at the stopcock, and make a small hole in the ceiling, to prevent the ceiling coming down.’ I don’t suppose a single housewife ever took notice of my advice, and while I dispensed it, Robert sat poised—mid-bosom (mine) or bare-bottomed (his)—awaiting my attention.
    Luckily for me during this period, Robert had an easy-going temperament. He had become an attractive baby