Read Online Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido - Free Book Online Page A

tonight.’
    â€˜Sweetheart,’ he says, accepting the inevitable. He turns to Annie and Sam. ‘Jane will have a baby for you tomorrow. Rosie will be more than pleased to see you two lose your place as the family babies.’ Jane laughs a little.
    â€˜She will, won’t she?’ she says. ‘Poor Rosie.’
    Jane makes the children’s supper that evening, leaning against the table periodically, to breathe deeply as her uterine muscles contract. She has ‘phoned the midwife and the doctor from the kitchen telephone. I find it all more exciting than I can say and am astonished at how cool she is.
    â€˜I thought people gripped a bed and screamed,’ I say.
    â€˜That happens later,’ she says. ‘Later on is when I go to pieces. I’ve never been one of these insufferable people who does it all right.’ Jacob and John are watching the television news in the playroom. Jonathan is doing some homework at the kitchen table. He had spread a newspaper over the mess and has his Latin on top of it. I engage Rosie and the twins in a game of Snap on the kitchen floor, but Rosie’s perception is, of course, too quick for the others. Nor is she old enough yet to indulge their urge to win.
    â€˜Snap!’ she shouts relentlessly. ‘Snap! Snap!’ The babies storm her to grab back their cards. Jane despatches the twins sharply to the playroom to join Jacob before she goes into another of her spasms.
    â€˜Jont,’ she says, ‘I’m going to be sick.’ Deftly, Jonathan grabs a large antique jug from the shelf beside him and inverts, on to the table, a small pile of paper clips, trading stamps and string before handing it to her.
    â€˜Heave into this, Ma,’ he says, which she does.
    â€˜Get Jake,’ she says, when she can raise her head. ‘Tell him I’m going to bed. Tell him there’s puke on the table.’
    â€˜Snap!’ Rosie shouts. ‘I’ve won.’
    Roger comes home with his violin in its case.
    â€˜Hello,’ he says. He turns a chair round and sits on it astride the back. He puts his violin on top of Jonathan’s Latin. Rosie is doing a handstand against the kitchen door.
    â€˜Jane is having her baby,’ she says, glad to be first with the news. Jonathan comes in.
    â€˜Mother is giving birth,’ he says. He picks up the jug of vomit and goes to the door with it. ‘Cheers,’ he says, disgustingly. We hear him flush it away in the downstairs loo. Roger says nothing but the event puts him on edge.
    â€˜Let’s go for a walk,’ he says. We coincide with the midwife on the path to the front door. I eye her bag for signs of crochet hooks and lead pills.
    â€˜Which one are you?’ she says heartily to Roger. ‘Did I deliver you?’ In spite of their differences, the Goldman children have the look of having come off the same conveyor belt.
    â€˜I am Myself,’ Roger says witheringly. He has a powerful line in animosity. He pulls the Hamlet hat further over his eyes to hide from her. We walk across a field to the right of the house towards a stream. Beyond the stream, which we cross, is a rather morbid little chicken battery belonging to the neighbouring farm, and, alongside that, a blackberry wilderness where we pick and eat.
    â€˜Jane says you can get blackberries without thorns,’ he says as he examines a scratch on his wrist. ‘She’s going to grow them.’
    â€˜Have you always lived here?’ I say. He shakes his head.
    â€˜Since I was five,’ he says. He hands me some blackberries which he has picked from beyond my reach. ‘We used to live in Belsize Park. Where do you live?’
    â€˜Hendon,’ I say. ‘I take my cat to the vet in Belsize Park.’
    â€˜We used to live on Haverstock Hill,’ he says. I grow silently desperate, thinking that Roger will be gone in four days and all we do is have these dead-end conversations.