Jack's Baby

Relief flooded through him. He wasn’t really on his own. Sally would help if needed. And there were Maurice and Ingrid and any number of friends he could call on. The panic receded somewhat.

“That would be great, Sally. Give Nina my love. And thanks again,” he said with sincere gratitude for her forethought and friendship.

Jack put the receiver down and took several deep breaths to unwind the knots in his stomach and get some oxygen into his brain. He was going to need a clear head and a cast-iron constitution. The kid’s life and well-being were in his hands.

It suddenly struck him that depending on friends to deal with this baby emergency could be viewed by Nina as a cop-out. In actual fact it was a cop-out.

Charlotte was his kid. He’d told Nina no nannies. He was not going to shunt his kid off onto anyone else. This was the big one. The proving ground. He had to make a success of it, or Nina would wipe him off and shut him out forever. Rightly so. If he couldn’t be a responsible father in a crisis, he didn’t deserve any further consideration.

With steely resolution he marched down the hall and into the bedroom. Charlotte was still bawling. He took her from Sally’s secretary and perched her against his shoulder so her ear was fairly close to his mouth. He pitched his voice low and intense and projected urgent command.

“Listen up, kid.”

The bawling hiccupped to a halt. Jack patted her back in warm approval as he spelled out the problem.

“You and I need to come to an accommodation. Just remember, we’re in this together. You and me, kid. We did the damage, and now your mum’s out of action. What’s more, we’ve got to come through this with top marks.”

A loud burp exploded near his neck.

“That’s good,” Jack encouraged. “Don’t start crying again. It’ll only give you more wind. Going onto a bottle after being on your mum’s breast may not be—”

A full-blooded scream told Jack in no uncertain terms this communication was not welcome. It raised the hair on the back of his neck. Sheer terror was electrifying. He did his best to rectify his mistake and failed miserably.

Patting didn’t soothe Charlotte. Rocking didn’t help. She paid absolutely no attention to his claim that everything would be all right if she just trusted him. The little legs kicked, tiny fists were clenched and waving aggressively, face screwed up in constant yelling mode, body contorting against every attempt to comfort. Jack had joked with his friends about babies from hell. His heart quailed.

With another burst of determination, he forced his mind clear of the paralysing noise. There was only one answer to this. His friends had informed him that car motion acted like a sleeping pill for babies. He had to load Charlotte into the Rover and hit the road. If she didn’t calm down, he had no hope of feeding her from a bottle.

Getting the formula right for her loomed ahead of him. He couldn’t expect to strike it lucky the first time around. The pharmacist had suggested he take three different tins of it, in case one or the other didn’t suit her taste. He had to try out different teats, as well. Bottle-feeding was a complicated business. He needed Charlotte’s full co-operation if they were to find an agreeable solution.

He lowered the wildly fractious kid into the capsule and used the bunny rug like a straitjacket to hold her tucked in. Charlotte did her fighting best to wreck his arrangement. Fortunately, he had everything ready to go. Sally’s secretary had been most helpful, packing for Nina while he had loaded all the baby stuff into the Rover.

With Nina ill, he wanted the quickest and smoothest transfer to his home. It gave him a sick, hollow feeling to think of her going to hospital instead of coming home with him. Making it worse was the frantic fear of failing the fatherhood test.

He passed on Sally’s report to her secretary as she accompanied him out to the street and watched him anchor the capsule to the back seat.

“Good luck!” she said with feeling.

He waved a salute and climbed into the driver’s seat, thinking he needed all the luck he could get in these circumstances but admitting such a need sounded weak. This was a time for unshakable strength. He had to show Nina he was a rock she could always lean on. Charlotte, too.

He did his best to ignore the wailing from the back seat as he started the engine and headed for home. It took Charlotte the length of Mowbray Road to the Pacific Highway to quiet down. Jack blessed the friends who’d told him about the car-motion trick.

With peace momentarily reigning, Jack moved his brain into high gear and activated the car phone to set the next critical step in motion. He’d told his two apprentices he’d be bringing his family home and they were to be on standby to help.

Gary, his older apprentice, answered the call. “I’ll be at Boundary Street in a few minutes,” Jack informed him briskly. “Nina’s gone to hospital so I’m on my own with the kid. I need all the baby stuff out of the Rover and inside as fast as possible, so come running when I pull up.”

“We’ll be ready for you, Jack. Anything else?”

Jack thought swiftly. “Yes. Find the biggest pots in the kitchen, fill them with hot water and put them on the stove to boil. Quickest way to sterilise bottles and teats.”

“Right.”

“That’s it for now.”

It wasn’t a cop-out to use his apprentices, Jack reasoned. He was still the one in charge, and there was no telling how quickly Charlotte would wake up and demand to be fed. It was best to be ready to give satisfaction. If he could. Pleased with his forethought, Jack concentrated on picking the fastest lane through the traffic.

Gary and Ben were only in their late teens, but he’d found them completely reliable, and meticulous in following his instructions. They had the same innate drive to get things right as he had, an important character trait for French polishing. Anyone who worked with him had to take pride in doing and finishing a job properly, down to the finest detail.

Jack reflected it was lucky all his pots were stainless steel. No possible mistake with them. The pharmacist had warned him against aluminium pots for use in sterilising. Of course, once he was over the hump of the first couple of feeds, he’d use the sterilising solution and equipment he’d bought, but that took six hours. Deal with the emergency first, Jack reasoned, then establish a routine. He had to keep thinking positively.