I could see myself in his face, see Birgit’s familiar looks, all indefinable yet exact. I could see me and therefore I could see my brother. Everything of my life was contained there in that tiny fragment of new life.
Birgit had moved so that she was standing beside me. She rested a hand on the arm that I was using to support the little boy’s weight and I felt her squeeze my muscles.
‘Joe, he’s such a lovely baby!’
‘What’s his name? Have you named him yet?’
‘I wanted to wait for you, but everyone has been pressing me to call him something.’
‘I’d no idea he was coming now. I thought he wasn’t due for another three weeks!’ I stared down blissfully at my son, trying to think of a good name to call him.
‘It happened at the weekend, while you were away,’ Birgit said. ‘It started on Saturday afternoon. He was early, but he’s almost up to normal weight. He’s going to be OK, Joe!’
We stood together, beaming down at the tiny child, waves of happiness radiating from us.
‘We decided to call him after my dad, Joe.’ I turned in surprise. It was Harry Gratton, standing behind me. I could feel his weight on my arm as he too leaned forward to peer down at the baby. ‘His name is Stuart.’
‘You named my baby?’ I said incredulously. ‘You called him Stuart! How the hell-?’
‘It was my decision, Joe,’ Birgit said. ‘My idea to call him Stuart. It is what I wanted also. Stuart is a good British name, I think.’
Beyond Mrs Gratton, who had paused in her ironing to watch me cuddle the baby, I saw a movement. A man had been sitting in the armchair behind her, facing away from me. He stood up now and turned towards me, smiling and beaming, joining in my difficult moment of paternity.
Happiness swung full circle to tragedy in that moment. It was Jack, standing there in his RAF uniform, standing in my house, already there with Birgit and the baby when I arrived. Jack, who I had been told was unconscious in hospital somewhere, Jack who haunted my lucid imaginings, who thrust me back to reality.
I stared at him in amazement, knowing that it could not be him. Not really.
I glanced once more at the little child, who looked so like me, so like Jack, but then I thrust him away.
Birgit took the baby from me, cradling her arm around him protectively, pressing him closely to her soft body. I was losing control as exhaustion and emotions overtook me at last. I moved back, one halting step, then another. My heel caught on something behind me and I tripped at once. I fell backwards, crashing to the floor, my arm colliding with the wicker cradle, pushing it to the side. I hit the back of my head hard on the floor and for a moment I thought I was going to lose consciousness.
The others rushed towards me, Birgit reaching me first, kneeling down with the baby clutched against her chest, a hand reaching out to me. Jack moved to stand behind her, over her, towering above me. They were both speaking but I was deaf to their words. I looked away from them both, up at the ceiling immediately above me. It was cream-painted, made of metal, held in place by a line of tiny painted-over rivets. The vehicle was lurching as we bumped along, but my legs and waist were held in place by straps. I was finding it difficult to breathe, as if other straps had been tightened across my chest. Panic rose in me. I could raise my upper body, twist to look around, but in the cold and dimly lit interior of the ambulance there was little to see.
On the stretcher shelf across from me was a young woman, sleeping. I remembered her name was Phyllida. Phyllida managed to look at ease in spite of the swaying of the vehicle, the endless racket from the engine and transmission. Her eyelids lay quietly at rest. Her lips were slightly parted and one of her arms dangled over the side. The stiff, utilitarian cut of her Red Cross jacket took on softer lines as she slept. Even as I was struggling for breath I was captivated by the unexpected intimacy of finding her there with me.
I gripped the side of the shelf as the ambulance ran across a pothole in the road’s surface. The jolt expelled breath from me. I knew where I was, what had happened. Everything I feared about my lucid imaginings had come to be. Six months of my life had reversed, slipped away from me.
The vehicle rumbled on through the night. All that I thought I had gained and put solidly and unarguably behind me, the flying journeys abroad, the meetings in great houses, the deal between Hess and Churchill, the outbreak of a final peace, once again lay ahead in that delusional future.
All of it would be lost if I gave way at the end.
Yet also ahead of me lay that life which was obscurely rejecting me: my alienated brother, the marriage that was failing, the son who had been born and named in my absence, the intrusion of others, all of it the product of my own neglect.
I lay on my back, staring up at the neutral ceiling, watching helplessly as my vision slowly dimmed. Desperation for life rose in me. I wanted to hold on so that I could re-awake in that post-war world. I dared not lose what I had gained, whatever the personal price, but each breath was becoming harder to take in and use. Darkness spread within me, bringing a feeling of stillness, an end to turbulence, to the struggles. The close of my life, the loss of that peace.
Surely it had not all been an illusion, the noble peace we had struck, the separation of the two great countries away from the horrors of war?
The pitching motion of the ambulance stabilized, the harsh sound of the engine died away, the dim lights faded. I struggled against it for a while, but gradually a sense of calm began to flow meekly through me, offering me peace - not the kind I had always sought, but an alternative to it. I felt the encroachment of final darkness, its cold and endless embrace.
The terror of it made me resist, however, through that night.
I clung to my life, forcing myself to breathe evenly, without anxiety, watching Phyllida sleep and dreaming of waking to a better future.