It's your turn

A baby changes his parents' attitude to parenting.

IT’S YOUR TURN

  It was two-thirty on a Saturday afternoon in the spring. Damian was enjoying a good game of golf. He hadn’t played for a few weeks as his wife, Ella, demanded that Saturday was for her. Damian and company went from hole to hole without a care in the world. No wives or children to disturb the peace of the golf course, just themselves, and that was enough. The club was surrounded by woodland, and every so often someone would send a ball into the trees. No one was worried about how long it took to retrieve it, the atmosphere was free and easy. No stress or strain, their conversations were limited to the game and what they fancied eating in the club restaurant afterwards. The players were all well-dressed in the latest golfing fashion, besides being keen on the game they were also keen on looking good.

 

Ella was studying a post graduate course in painting. There was a class at four o’clock every Saturday afternoon. The class was run by one of the teachers that she had known at college, and she assumed that, as an old pupil she would get a good grade, which would help her to go up the educational ladder. There had been a time when Ella had had a crush on Rhys Parnell, the teacher. But that had vanished like smoke in the wind, on finding out that he was married with children. Damian had come along and that had terminated any feelings she had felt for Rhys. Now she and Damian were married and had an infant son called Max. Ella went to work part-time at a school, helping the pupils to do their best as artists. She had been lucky that the school had accepted her as part-time, as the majority of schools preferred full-time. The best thing for Ella and the other part-time art teacher, was that they had more time for themselves and their families.

 

Now Ella was getting fidgety, time was passing, and Damian hadn’t arrived yet. She switched on the television and then switched it off again, went to look over her notes for the afternoon class for the umpteenth time, and then wandered over to the window. It was no good ringing Damian up, who once at he club switched off his mobile and left it in the car.

Ella went upstairs and stood in the bedroom watching as the neighbours went in and out of their houses. Cars were pulling up, stopping, and then people getting out or getting into them, some weighed down with shopping and others on their way out to shops or sports venues. Ella saw all this as she observed the bags they carried. A bit further along the road some men were hosing down their cars, and once in a while halting as they exchanged words with neighbours who were out with their  children on bicycles or walking their dogs. Ella looked at her watch and the bedroom clock which said three-thirty, and then the baby cried. ‘Uff! That’s all I need. Now I‘ll have to give it another bottle. He’d better hurry up or he’ll be in dead trouble. He’s supposed to be home at three, so that I can get ready for my class. After all, he’s had all morning at the golf club, now it’s my turn for a bit of fun. He’s had his.’ Ella gave the baby another bottle, changed him, and put him in the car-chair she used for the car and indoors.

 

Her small car was parked outside her house in the street. She left the house, locking it up after her, walked to her car, put the baby in his chair on the back seat, belted him in, and got behind the steering wheel, and drove to the golf club.

The golf club was a good half-hour drive from their home, and Ella made it in twenty minutes, as she was in such a bad mood. The club entrance was open and there was a bar and restaurant at the back, which looked out onto the golf links. Ella took the baby and his changing bag out of the car, and walked into the bar and said to Carlton, one of the two barmen, the other being Andy, “When you see my husband, inform him that it’s his turn.”

She placed the changing bag and the baby in his car-chair on a nearby chair, and left.

Ella had calmed down by the time she reached the class, and sat back and enjoyed everything, knowing that Max was safe and sound with his father.

 

Damian and his golfing friends, Mark and Brett, decided to have lunch in a fish restaurant to celebrate having had a good game. They didn’t enter the club bar and restaurant. The men weren’t a bit perturbed about going home or ringing up. Their wives understood that golf was their only way to unwind after a long, hard week at work. The lunch was taken slowly with coffee and brandy afterwards.

It was gone four-thirty by the time Damian got home. He saw Ella’s car had gone, and assumed that she had taken the baby with her to the class. He showered, changed into a track suit, and sat on the sofa to watch a Saturday afternoon sports programme. After half an hour he was sound asleep.

 

The sky outside was getting darker as the afternoon became early evening.

 

The art class Ella attended lasted three hours, with a break in the middle for coffee and a snack. The atmosphere was genial and those who went were all ages, all of them with a different reason for willing to spend their Saturday afternoon away from homes, families, shopping and television. No one was ever willing to cut short the pleasant afternoon spent in the company of like-minded people. Ella usually got back home on Saturday evening at ten o’clock. Damian would have made himself a small snack and would be watching the sports results. That evening neither Damian nor Ella had any reason to think anything untoward would take place.

 

The golf club closed at eight o’clock on Saturdays and Sundays. The restaurant closed earlier after lunches had been served and cleared away. The barman had taken no notice of Ella, and he had no idea who her husband was. Maisie and Amy, the cleaning ladies, arrived to do what they had to, and the two barmen left. A light grizzling was heard, and Maisie went to see what had caused the sound. She found the car-chair with a grumpy Max still on the chair, “Amy, come and have a look at this! There’s a baby here.”

Amy joined her friend, and the two ladies stared down at the baby, “Don’t touch it, or we’ll get into trouble,” Amy told Maisie.

“We’d better ring the police and the social services, they’ll know what to do. We can do nothing, or we’ll get a telling-off for interfering,” Maisie said.

Amy rang both the police and the social services representatives, of which both arrived in record time. One of the officers in charge asked Amy and Maisie about the timetable of the club.

“Officer, the strange thing is that there are never any children here, except when there is a teaching class on. Apart from that, never,” Amy told the Officer.

The two official parties looked in the changing bag for any identification for Max, and one of the social workers took him to the toilets to change his nappy. The other lady accompanying, warmed up the bottle Ella had left ready in the changing bag.  The policemen took note of the baby and his chair and clothes, and said to the social workers, “You’ll be taking him to hospital, won’t you? although he seems to be in pretty good condition to us.”

The social workers said that they would take the baby to the infant and maternity unit in the local hospital until the parents were found.

Everyone agreed, it was a sad thing to find a lovely baby abandoned in such a way.

That all took place at eight-thirty.

 

At ten o’clock, Ella and her friends broke up outside the pub, The Queens Pearls, their normal rendezvous on a Saturday evening. The second part of the evening after the class was over, they all had dinner at the pub, where they all ate the most delicious food. Rhys, in spite of being married, still made a play for Ella, and she encouraged him in the hope of getting a good reference for a better job with a higher salary. The rest of the class were not much different in the attitude to Rhys, they all crept round him in the hope of getting something out of him. That Saturday, Ella and the rest of the class said their goodbyes outside the pub and each got into their cars and headed off home.

 

Damian heard the front-door open and called out, “Is that you, Ella?”

Ella entered the front room and said, “How’s the baby been?”

“The baby! I haven’t got the baby. I thought he was with you,” Damian said.

“What have you done with him? I left him in his car-chair with the changing bag in the bar at the club, and told one of the barmen to tell you that it was your turn,” exclaimed an angry Ella.

“I was playing golf, as you know. Why did you leave him in the bar?”

“It was your turn to have him. I had him all morning, and you know the arrangement, that you go to golf on Saturday mornings and I have the afternoons for me at the art class. We made the decision before he was born, that we should share the baby duties. I suppose now you want out. Well the decision was made and has to be kept to.”

“Where shall we look for the baby?” Damian asked.

“He may still be at the Golf Club,” Ella stated.

“I don’t understand you at all. What on earth made you leave the baby in the bar?”

“My turn with the baby was up, and I had to go to art class and it wasn’t fair that you hadn’t come home at the time arranged. So I left him in the bar, thinking that the barman would tell you the baby was there when you went for lunch.”

“We went out to another place for lunch, so your plan came adrift. You shouldn’t have done what you did.”

 

They went outside and got into Damian’s car and drove to the golf club. The building was in darkness, with only one small light coming from the janitor’s room. Damian rang the bell and the janitor went to the door. “Good evening, Sir, Madam. The club is shut. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“We’re looking for our baby, that was left in the bar by accident,” Ella exclaimed quickly.

The janitor stared at them, and then said, “A baby was found by the cleaners and the social services have taken it to a hospital. It all happened as I was coming on duty.”

“You don’t happen to know the name of the hospital, do you?” Damian asked, getting frantic at what the outcome might be.

“No one said. But I suppose it would be the local one.”

“We’d better be off, then. Thank you, and good night,” Damian said, as they shot out of the door and got into their car.

“What do we do when we get to the hospital?” Ella asked Damian.

“Ask them if they have our baby. Have you got a photo of the baby in your camera?”

“Yes I have, as a matter of fact. You don’t think it’ll be too hard to get him back, do you?”

“We’ll soon know,” Damian said, as he drove into the hospital car park.

 

The registrar looked up at the couple as they entered, the whispering sound of the sliding doors gave them away. “Good evening. How may I help you?”

“We left our baby boy in his chair at the golf club, and when we realized what had happened we went to the club and the janitor told us that he had been taken to the nearest hospital,” Damian blurted out. “Was a baby boy brought in this evening? He was in a car-chair, and there was a changing bag of his necessities with him as well.”

The registrar said, “Are you in the habit of leaving your baby alone in a bar?”

“No, of course not. Well, if he’s here, we’ll take him home now,” Ella said.

“Not so fast,” said the registrar. “A small baby was found alone in a bar without his parents being anywhere around, this evening, at the golf club. You will both be expected to give an account of your actions this afternoon, because the police were involved.”

The registrar made a call on her mobile for internal hospital business, and then said, “Your baby is fine. A nurse is bringing him down. Would you both please sit down and write down what happened this afternoon. What was the cause of leaving the baby alone in the bar.”

The registrar gave them each a sheet of paper and pens to write their stories. Damian gave a description of his activities at the golf club, and Ella in her description said how frustrated she was by Damian not being at home at the correct time. The police arrived at the hospital at around the time the married couple were finishing up their explanations. Damian and Ella felt afraid when they understood all the mayhem that had taken place. The ladies from social-services came down into the room where everyone was awaiting the presence of the baby. They were all in a state of high anxiety. The erring parents were shaking, and Ella felt like a right idiot, when she considered it had all been Damian’s fault.

The senior of the ladies from the social-services infants department said, “We hope you’ve learnt your lesson. It’s easy to understand both of you wish to keep up some of your pre-baby activities, but now things are different, and unless you can afford a nanny you’ll have to look after him yourselves. As this is your first offence, we’ll let you go, but now you’re down on our books. So be careful we don’t have any more to do with you. This kind of behaviour isn’t tolerated by the social-services towards children, especially babies who are the victims of parents who still like to think they’re single. Here’s your baby, and get home quickly before it gets any colder outside.”

 

Damian and Ella cooed over Max, and put him in his chair on the back seat and went home. On the way home for a few seconds it was as if Max was smiling and there was a shower of stardust inside the car.

 

Damian’s golfing days came to an end, and Ella’s art classes went out of her life for ever when they became parents of twin girls nearly a year later.

“We said we’d would wait some time before having another baby, and here we are with three close together,” Ella said.

“I think there’s something odd about all this.  It’s rather like a punishment after what happened to Max last year.”

 

Baby Max, who was now no longer the baby of the house, peered at his two sisters in their cribs. It seemed as if he were smiling at the thought that he was in some way involved in their being there.