4.30am. I am woken by the thudding of footsteps in the
hallway. Thud thud thud down towards the bathroom and a moment later thud thud
thud, back again. The baby is crying. Her cry is the mewling of a newborn,
seven weeks old, mouth persistently wide. My husband is on duty, but from behind the closed door
of the spare room, maternal instinct rouses me and I stumble from bed.
I almost collide with my husband, who’s standing just
outside the doorway, holding a muslin in one hand, an empty milk bottle in the
other, his hands raised in announcement.
‘Something is wrong with this bottle,’ he says. ‘I’ve
already been downstairs once to fill it again because the first bottle has
soaked the baby, now this one is doing the same. I don’t know how it’s
happening.’ He speaks as though there are gremlins at work.
