A Fractured Winter by Alison Baillie

Author:Alison Baillie [Baillie, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Williams & Whiting
Published: 2018-04-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26 – Julian

Edinburgh – Sunday February 14th 1999

‘It’s a boy!’ Lucy heard the cry of the baby and the pain of the birth and the loneliness she’d felt during the labour disappeared. The midwife wiped the baby and wrapped him in a blanket before laying him on her breast. Looking down, she saw the perfect little face, with dark eyebrows and hair, looking like a Japanese doll.

He looked up at her with bright alert eyes and she felt love flooding through her. She’d never known an emotion like it. Now she knew why she was alive; the small vulnerable face in front of her, a perfect tiny finger curling out from the blanket, convinced her she’d do everything in her power to make his life as good as it could be.

The midwife reached over, took the baby to be weighed and measured and Lucy was vaguely aware of being washed and stitched up. She looked around for her little boy, already missing him. She hadn’t known if it was a boy or a girl and had found it difficult to settle on names for either. As soon as she saw him she knew. He was Julian, a name she’d always liked, not too popular, not too many associations and perfect for him.

The misery of the past months melted away when she looked at her son. After her disastrous visit to Frank and Therese, she’d spent the strangest of Christmases in Edinburgh, alone in her bedsit. All the other students had gone home. She imagined them standing round the tree, laughing and exchanging presents in the warm glow of candles and decorations in the best Hollywood tradition.

She did nothing to mark the day. She’d discovered the wonderful library on George IVth Bridge and read. She worked her way through the classics, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Raymond Chandler, living in other worlds to compensate for the insubstantiality of her own. Sometimes she began to doubt she existed, the action in the books having far more substance than her life.

She’d sent Therese and Frank a Christmas card, saying she was thinking of them and would always love them, but had received nothing in return. She thought a lot about Therese, who’d invested all her hopes in her. Olivia knew she’d disappointed her. She’d disappointed herself. How stupid, stupid she’d been to fall for an arrogant young man’s flattery. But as she touched her bump she couldn’t regret it. There was a child coming who would give meaning to her life. She’d worked hard at school and university to get good marks, wanting to be the best, but now it all seemed meaningless.

Julian was born in the early hours and as the morning routine started he was wheeled into the ward. Lucy propped herself up and gazed at him with wonder. Looking around at the other mothers, with fathers and, in one case of one young girl, a mother as the birth partner, Lucy didn’t feel alone anymore. She had Julian. Although the

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