Timon Cort walked down the stone steps, along the cloistered courtyard; then he crossed the small, grass lawn, past the fountain and joined the sombre queue of brothers at the chapel door.
Entering through the screen into the sweet smell of incense, he was enveloped by the deep golden light glowing in the nave of the church. A sign.
God confirmed the sign in his prayers. God told him it was time to take the next step in the Great Rite.
48
Naomi’s Diary
Made a friend today! Her name is Sandra Taylor. She came up (in a green Range Rover, what else?) to ask if we’d like to subscribe to the Caibourne, Firle and Glynde parish magazine. Subscription three pounds a year. Bargain! Sandra has three young children, one just eight months old – the same age as Luke and Phoebe. There’s a toddlers’ group in the village, where the mums meet every Wednesday. I’m going to check it out.
Today, Mum came to stay and I went shopping for a pram. I hadn’t realized there were so many different designs of prams for twins. The salesman in the store pointed out the advantages of a side-by-side, explaining that would give each child an equal view, and a shorter wheelbase, enabling it to get round tighter corners. But that needed to be balanced against the problem of width in some supermarket aisles
…
I worry so much. One of my worries is about cot death, and I constantly listen to the babyphone speakers around the house when they are sleeping. I wake in the night panicking that I can’t hear them breathing.
Another major cause for worry is that Luke and Phoebe seem to go longer between feeds than the books – and Megan, the health visitor – say is normal. The paediatrician thinks this is strange, too, yet he insists they seem totally healthy. And he says they definitely are bigger than normal for their age. Noticeably bigger. But I remember Dr Dettore telling us that they would grow and mature faster than normal babies, so that’s not such a big concern.
We’ve been told it is important to give them separate identities, not to call them twins, and to be sure on their first birthday, which is fast looming up, that they have separate birthday cakes and presents.
I’m thinking it’s strange how perspectives change. I know I should be grateful to have two such lovely, healthy babies. But how true that expression is about other pastures looking greener. Los Angeles seems a million years ago. A million years since I had a life.
49
Naomi, standing by the kitchen window at seven thirty in the morning, watched John drive off. She saw his brake lights come on as he reached the cattle grid, heard the clatter as he drove over it. Wednesday.
Baby and toddler group day today. Bliss! And it was, relatively speaking.
The highlights of her weeks weren’t much. The Wednesday toddler group she had started attending with Luke and Phoebe, held in a house in the village, at which she met other mothers – and caught up on the local village gossip. Occasional visits from friends or her mother. A cup of tea with the health visitor. Then there was the Friday morning arrival of Ron, the World’s Most Miserable Gardener, who came as part of the rental deal, and spent most of the morning tinkering around in the garage until it was time to leave. He was north of seventy and couldn’t dig because he had a bad back. For the same reason he couldn’t mow. He had no conversation and he smelled like damp furniture. Naomi had suggested to the rental agency that he be replaced. The agency had written to the owners out in Saudi Arabia and were awaiting a reply.
Her thoughts were disrupted by Phoebe banging on the side of her plate with her spoon, and moments later Luke began screaming, drowning out the theme tune of breakfast television. He hurled his cereal bowl onto the floor and the contents spattered all over the place.
She bit her lip in fury, staring at the mess, yet another thing – on top of the nappies, the sheets, the pyjamas, all the regular laundry and all the regular housework, now she had to scrape sodding breakfast cereal off the floor and the walls.
She felt like screaming back at him. Instead she found a teething ring and tried to get it into his mouth, but he windmilled it away with his hands, screaming even louder, and almost immediately Phoebe threw her spoon on the floor and began screaming, also.
Naomi grabbed the remote and hit the volume button, turning it up to maximum. ‘I’m listening to this interview!’ she shouted back at them, defiantly. ‘I like this guy, OK? He’s one of my favourite actors. We’re going to have some Mummy Time here. OK?’
Blanking out their screams, she stood right in front of the television and watched the interview all the way through, her ears ringing from the cacophony of sounds behind her.
Then, sinking the volume back down, she turned and, to her amazement, both babies were staring at her in total silence, mouths open, eyes wide.
Naomi grinned at them. ‘OK. So now we’ve figured out who’s boss around here.’ Then she gave each of them a kiss, made Luke a fresh bowl and spoon-fed him. He ate it all in silence without protesting. Good. Almost too good. ‘Very good!’ she said.
He stared blankly back at her.
‘And you’ve eaten all yours by yourself! Good girl!’ she said, wiping cereal from the edges of Phoebe’s mouth.
As if in some kind of synchronization with her brother, Phoebe stared blankly back, too, for a moment. Then they both smiled.
They remained silent as she carried them up and placed them on the bathroom floor while she grabbed her morning shower. Normally, before she had finished, two little heads would be peeking around the shower curtain, watching her. But today they lay motionless, where she had placed them.
Back down in the kitchen, as she threw the first load of laundry into the washing machine, they continued to remain silent. Usually they would have rolled around on the floor together, sometimes Luke, sometimes Phoebe crawling on top of the other, pinning the other down. But this morning, nothing.
She began to be a little unnerved.
At nine thirty she changed their nappies; afterwards, lying in bed, she gave them a feed then snoozed for a while. When she woke, they were still both staring at her, still silent.
She carried them up to their bedroom, settled them in their cots and went down to the kitchen. After tossing the laundry from the washing machine into the dryer, she made herself a mug of tea, checked the sound of their breathing on the speaker of the baby monitor for some moments, then settled down at the kitchen table to read the Daily Mail. It was ten o’clock. With luck she would have a whole blissful hour to herself.
Soon after the dryer finished its cycle, she heard them giggling and calling out to each other in their cots, as if they were playing some game. First she heard Luke make a gurgling sound, followed by a burst of giggles from Phoebe, then Phoebe made a similar gurgling sound that was followed by a burst of giggles from Luke.
She went upstairs. It was time to give them one more feed, then get them dressed for the baby and toddler group. As she entered their room, she was expecting to hear them still making a noise. But she was greeted by total silence. Both of them were staring at her, the way they had been staring at her down in the kitchen, but with even more intensity.
She stopped in her tracks, spooked out. It really felt, for an instant, as if it was she who was the infant, and they who were the parents.
50
John was disturbed by the expression on Naomi’s face as she opened the front door for him. She looked pale and strained.
‘Kids OK?’
‘They’re fine. Upstairs. Asleep.’
‘How was the toddler group?’
‘Embarrassing.’
He heard a gurgle come through the baby intercom. Then another gurgle, like a response.