Something brushed her face. That delicate touch, skirting her cheekbone and down to her jaw, sent a spark straight to her heart and so did the missive that followed.
"Go on" she heard whispered in a male voice. "Wake Mummy up for me Freds. Go on".
The slight tickle was the pad of her son's index finger on her face, skimming gently. In some ways she was glad it was Freddie now feeling the weight of her son as he clambered onto her knee from where he had been sitting next to her on the settee, placed there moments earlier by her husband. If it was Peter she might have expected a good-natured shove or perhaps, at best, his lips on her neck and neither was she in the mood to reciprocate.
"Fred and I are going for a walk in the park. Are you coming with us?" he asked as Chummy opened her eyes flickering pupils against the afternoon light. She had fallen asleep in the ray of warmth and Peter had left her there.
"Do you mind if one doesn't" she replied, looking up at him holding Fred close who had now decided to rest his head on her chest and twirl the crucifix between his fingers. "I am not sure I have the strength".
"No, that's perfectly fine" Peter replied, sitting down next to her. "I thought we might buy dinner on our way back".
"To avoid eating what I cook?" she replied, knowing it was a standing joke now, even though her cooking attempts were actually far better than they were even a couple of months ago. Now, she didn't feel too bad with slightly charred or inordinately dry meat or vegetables that fell apart as soon as you lifted them from the pan. Thankfully she had mastered an Irish stew that disguised most of her happenings and close calls and her son's taste in food was anything that was placed in front of him.
'He'll be so used to your cooking in the next few years anyway that he won't realise food tastes any different'. Her husband had very nearly received a clip around the ear for that one. He would have had a clip around the ear if he had not been standing there on his second slice of home made apple pie, drowned in custard whilst she washed the dishes and she had feared it all over the floor.
"I was thinking you might not want to cook" Peter said as he frowned at her, bringing her back to reality. "You do look so pale, Camilla".
"Your child is sapping my energy" she replied with a smile as she sat up, straightening Freddie and her back the same time.
"Yes, but you weren't like this with him", he responded as their son objected to being shifted around from his comfortable spot on his mother's knee.
"Every pregnancy is different Peter" she replied, having seen far too many around her every single day to think otherwise. "I'll be bouncing around like nobody's business tomorrow, just you wait!"
Peter nodded, having heard that phrase yesterday too. "Did you speak to Sister Julienne?" he asked, knowing his last words to her this morning were to make sure she had a certain conversation.
"I did" she replied, head lolling back on the settee as her son continued to amuse himself. "She has agreed to reduce my hours to Tuesday days and Thursday afternoon clinics only. Just for the time being. Until I feel better" she concluded.
"Good" Peter replied. Whilst Freddie's brother or sister should not have been, and was not, a surprise, the shock was just precisely how debilitated she could feel and she could not help but wonder if that horrific birth had done some permanent damage to her bodies way of coping in sustaining new life. Short and sharp morning sickness with Freddie had not been repeated but those moments where nausea would jump at her, even now at almost six months gone, and catch her finding her rushing to the bathroom morning, noon and night. She would rather have had those three weeks in Sierra Leone of acute sickness that stopped on the walk to the Mission than this lingering sensation in her stomach that had persisted for months now. No matter how many hours of sleep she had, she could not shake the yawns and the weakness in her muscles and just exactly how much energy cycling a few miles stripped from her.
Chummy sighed as, as soon as she heard the door click shut behind her husband and son thinking that perhaps she should get together plates and cutlery, the telephone rang.
"Poplar 407" she announced.
"Chummy?" a male voice asked, deep, foreboding and decidedly familiar. The author of her nickname.
"What ho Pa" she replied, throat drying as a wave of nausea hit that was not, she was sure, entirely to do with her soon to be born second child. It had been over nine months since she had spoken to him to tell him when his wife's funeral would be. A funeral he failed to attend in all but a simple wreath of lilies and freesias. Chummy had mused at the time that this was nothing but a token and, whilst the news of another grandchild had been written in a letter, she had received no response.
"How are you?" he asked. Her father suddenly sounded quieter than she remembered him.
"Very well" she replied, smoothing her hand over the evidence of Fred's brother or sister. She was lying as she felt just terrible but the last thing she needed was a stilted conversation, trying to be familiar like a father and daughter should be, as they discussed her health.
"There is an invitation in the wilds of the postal service for you and your husband to come to Madeira" her father announced, thinking perhaps it was best to come straight to the point. "Tickets for the boat are with them".
"Oh!" Chummy replied, not thinking to ask why. "Alright".
"The housekeeper felt that I should also telephone you too" her father continued, "so it might not be too much one of those old surprises". Perhaps her father after all had realised the inordinate length of time since he had seen his youngest child but she would hope it would not take one of the staff to remind him.
"Yes Pa" Chummy replied. "What for?" she finally asked desperately trying not to sound as shocked as she was even with this telephone call to warn her. A request to go and see her father? Really? It set her mind racing as to why wondering for a moment if she might be told not to be asking questions that were not frankly her business.
"Just a get together for my family" he replied. "One has asked those brothers of yours as well although one does not expect them to appear even on such as day that it will be".
There was an uncomfortable pause, Chummy simply not knowing whether she ought to be reading into that comment or not.
"You will bring my grandson?" he asked.
"Really?" Chummy responded, voice speaking before her mind could catch up. Children. Not seen. Not heard. That was usually her father's attitude towards her when she was tiny and she had, for a moment, pictured herself dolefully kissing her son goodbye at Waterloo if Peter agreed with her to take up the invitation.
"I would like to see him", her father replied clearing his throat. "I am yet to see the boy in anything other than picture form and it would be…" He had lost the words he was looking for. "Pleasant to see him".
"Yes of course we'll bring him" she said, voice softening. The last photograph she had sent Freddie had been barely six months old. Now, she had mused with some disbelief, that he was losing his 'baby' features and how time was quickly moving on turning her youngster into a proper little chap. Those aching arms when he wandered off from her, not wanting to be carried, would be filled again soon and she craved the warmth of the helpless body nestled close to her; a desperation that even demolished the fear of it happening again. Occasionally.
"You have been married how long?" her father asked.
"Nearly three years". Three years in four weeks if she was being precise.
"And the boy…my grandson… is how old?"
"He will be two in October", Chummy replied, sadness clear that her child's birthday seemed to pass her father by and that he had to ask. She could perhaps excuse the fact that he was one of fifteen grandchildren, sixteen if you counted the child slowing turning circles inside her for her father's failing memory, but somehow it felt a limp and pitiful justification for her father's lack of attention.
"Good" he replied. "Well, one does suppose that one had best….One is due to play golf shortly". She could almost picture him, pacing, fidgeting to put the telephone down.
"Yes Pa". Chummy replied, knowing he was going; knowing again that the conversation would not last.
"One will ensure a car is there for you at the port when you arrive".
"Thank you Pa", she replied, and with an awkward goodbye she placed the telephone back down herself, standing for what must have been a good proportion of a minute staring at the receiver. Even the swishing and swimming of of the child inside her could not distract her from wondering what on earth had prompted the telephone call and what in God's name they, as a family, had been invited to Madeira for.
How she wished that her first reaction was not suspicion.