Working My Passage

I felt miserable and angry and wandered disconsolately round the back to look the place over.

The garden was full of flowers and towards the end of a path that ran down the centre of the garden I saw a pram. I went towards it and there, behind a row of climbing beans, was Amanda, kneeling and digging with a trowel.

So as not to give her a fright I said quietly, “Hello, Amanda.”

She looked up at me, startled. “Adrian!” She rose and stood before me, looking straight into my eyes.

All the things I had planned to say on seeing her fled from my head. She was dressed in old gardening clothes, but looked lovelier than I had ever seen her before.

I stammered out, “M-m-mother g-g-gave me your address, so I came.”

She smiled and said, “So I see.”

There was a strange distance between us that I did not know how to overcome. I thought when I saw her we would be in each other’s arms, kissing, but no, we just stood there looking at each other almost as if what had been between us had never happened.

That is had happened was quickly made evident when Amanda said, “Would you like to see our daughter?”

My throat seemed to have gone dry but I managed to croak out, “Yes please.”

We went to the pram and I looked down at a tiny bundle lying there. She was asleep but I thought she must have been the world’s most beautiful baby.

“I called her ‘Amorina’,” Amanda said. “I hope you don’t mind. It means ‘Love’. I thought it appropriate as she was conceived in love. Perhaps you’d like to hold her when she wakes up.”

There was something very calm and peaceful about Amanda. She was also a little remote.

She glanced at her watch and said, “She should be waking soon, it’s getting close to her next feed. Come in and we’ll have a cup of tea and talk.”

I sat the kitchen table as she made the tea. She had brought the pram into the kitchen and it was next to me. I found my attention divided between looking at Amorina and watching Amanda’s graceful movements as she went about her simple task.

She asked me neutral questions like how had I been, how were my studies getting along, and she was sorry to hear about my father. I tried to respond in kind and managed a few hoarse questions as to her wellbeing. I hardly needed to ask since she looked in the peak of health.

The tea made she sat opposite me at the table.

“So your mother thought it was time to give you my address?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any special reason she chose now, do you know?”

I gave her brief outline of events since my father’s death, ending with mother setting up house with John.

Finally I could contain myself no longer. “Why did you leave me, Amanda? I thought you loved me.”

She looked at me as if weighing her reply for a moment, then said very tenderly, “I left you because I love you.”

“How can that be?” I protested. “When you love someone you don’t want to leave them.”

“You’re right,” she went on, “you don’t want to leave someone you love, but if you really do love them, then you leave them if you think your presence in their life is destructive. I told you before I left that I would not ruin your life.”

“I knew I would have to leave Arthur when I knew the baby was coming. Would you believe, when I told him I was pregnant he said nothing about my leaving. I think he understood that being heterosexual I had been severely deprived both of a sex life and a child.”

“I wasn’t told, as they used to say in the old melodramas, to ‘Never darken my doorstep again’, but I felt the need to leave. When I decided that, I also decided you were not to know where I was.”

“I tried hard to find you,” I said miserably. “I went to the police and the Salvation Army but they couldn’t or wouldn’t help. I used to look for you everywhere I went, hoping one day to see you.”

“I know, Adrian, your mother told me.”

“And that’s another thing,” I retorted, “you two seem to be set on making decisions for me without bothering to consult me. And also you went off with my baby inside you, was I supposed never to see her?”

“Adrian, you are seeing her,” Amanda said with obvious logic.

Suddenly she changed the direction of the talk.

“So your mother thought it was time we met?”

“Yes.”

At this point a sort of gurgling noise came from the pram.

“Feeding time,” said Amanda, and came to pick the baby up. “Would you like to hold her for a minute? I’ll need to change her after her feed so if you just look after her for minute I’ll get the things ready.

She put the baby in my arms and I was at a loss to know what to do. I had never in my life held a baby before, and seeing me wavering about with the child Amanda said, “For goodness sake, Adrian, just hold her close to you. She won’t break and they say babies like to feel masculine strength, it helps them feel secure.

I finally got the hang of the thing and looked down at Amorina. Even at that stage she had Amanda written all over her except for her eyes, which were the same colour as mine. I experienced a sensation I had never had before. However foolish it may sound, I felt protective. I wanted to guard this little scrap of humanity. “She’s lovely,” I said, more to myself than Amanda or Amorina.

“Well tell her so, you idiot,” Amanda scolded. “You know girls like to hear that sort of thing.”

“But she won’t understand,” I protested.

“Of course she will if you say it properly and mean it. She’ll feel it.”

Amorina was looking up at me speculatively so I said very softly, “Your lovely, Amorina.”

“Glurkel.”

“You see, I told you she’d understand. Now give her to me.”

Amanda had undone the shirt she was wearing, and taking the baby from me she sat and undid her bra that was fastened at the front. Her milk laden breasts seemed to tumble out, and she put her hand under one breast to extend the nipple, and the baby began to suck. It reminded me of the time when we had first come together when she…I stamped on the memory as too painful to bear.

I had never seen a baby being breast fed before and now I was riveted by what I was seeing.

“Oh God, Amanda, that is beautiful.”

Amanda flushed and even knowing what I meant she asked, “What is?”

“You and the Amorina. I wish I could paint a picture of you both. Oh Amanda, I had no idea it was so exquisite.”

I felt a wave of love overwhelm me, a sensation of love I had never experienced before. I didn’t know how to cope with it or express it. Amanda nourishing my…our baby. However much I had loved Amanda before, I now felt…what? I wanted to weep, to embrace them both, to absorb them into my life.

There were no categories, no words or easy platitudes that I could resort to. I loved them, but how did you express this new sensation of love – no, not sensation – this reality of love?

I spoke out without even thinking of what I said. “Don’t take this way from me, Amanda.”

She was in the process of transferring Amorina from one breast to the other, so she was silent for a moment. As Amorina settled to the new source of nourishment Amanda looked up at me.

“Is this what you really want, Adrian?”

“Yes, this is what I really want. Don’t shut me out.”

She said nothing in response and I sat silent, drinking in the sight of mother and child. How was there such beauty, and I had never known?

Amorina, sated with breast milk, nappy changed, went back to sleep. A sleep that would one day prepare her for her own acts of love and creativity.

Her breasts tucked away, Amanda turned her full attention on me.

“Adrian, is this what you really want? Amorina and I? I left you so you could have time to work out what you really want in life. I left you so you would have time to consider. You didn’t even have sexual pressure. I know your mother relieved you of that. We arranged it before I left.”

“You what…”

“Adrian, I wanted you to make a free choice about me…and Amorina. If you only wanted me for sexual relief, then we had no future. If that’s all you want from me, then seek your sexual pleasures elsewhere. If you feel you can love Amorina and me, then say so, but don’t deceive yourself or us.”

I felt as if my life was in the balance. Could I accept the responsibility for these two human beings?

Amanda had confronted me clearly and now I voiced my instinctive response to the challenge.

“I want you and Amorina…I want to be with you.”

I don’t know what I expected in that moment; perhaps falling into each other’s arms, a long passionate kiss, and then bed time. It didn’t happen like that.

I made a move to kiss Amanda, but she backed away.

“No, not now.”

“But if I’m going to move in with you…”

“You’re not moving in, Adrian, at least, not yet. I want you to move with your mother to the new house she and John will be living in. Then if you really mean what you said about wanting us, come and visit us. Get to know Amorina…and me.”

“But I do know you.”

“No you don’t, Adrian. You think you do, but you have to understand that when a woman has a baby there are certain changes that take place in her, both physically and emotionally. You will need to grow used to that. When we first made love I was in a sense young and free, now I have the responsibility of a child I intend to be very careful about who comes into our lives.”

“You have to consider whether you want to take on a woman sixteen years your senior with a child. You still have to get on with your studies and prepare yourself to earn a living, because you’ll have to do that for Amorina if you want to be with us. All that is some way down the track.”

I asserted that I had money already, but she already knew that. Mother and Amanda certainly got their heads together over me. She pointed out correctly that what I had would hardly keep me, let alone her and a baby.

I was prompted to ask how she had managed to live over the past months.

“I told you Arthur bore me no grudge for being pregnant. He had his own needs which from the very beginning ran diametrically opposite to mine. As I told you, we both knew this when we married. He was and still is grateful to me for being what he calls, his ‘Saviour’. I was his mask of respectability. So, he continues to give me some support. If you eventually move in with us, that support will cease. Even if Arthur doesn’t stop it, I will.”

“Come and visit us often Adrian and when you do I’ll show you how to change a baby.”

We both relaxed and laughed.

“Well if you want to be a responsible father, that’s a good place to begin,” she said.

We made arrangements for my further visits and I returned home.

“Well? Asked mother, “What did you think of your lovely daughter?”

“You’ve seen her, then?”

“Of course, I was there at her birth.”

“And you never said a word to me!”

“No, Amanda was adamant I shouldn’t. What did you think of Amanda?”

“She’s changed, I couldn’t get close to her, physically I mean.”

Mother gave a chuckle. “You know what you are going to have to do, my boy. You are going to have to engage in a bit of old fashioned courting.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to have to woo her, win her.” She laughed and said, “You might even have to go out and slay a fire breathing dragon for her.”

So my courtship of Amanda and I suppose Amorina began. I moved with mother and John into a smaller house. I had never got to know John as mother kept their relationship very private. I found him likeable enough but he and mother were so wrapped up in each other I felt a bit like an interloper.

Considering how many years they had been lovers one might have expected that some of the heat would have gone out of their relationship. From what I could see, it hadn’t. Well, not so much from what I could see as from what I could hear. The house was fairly solid, but even given the substantial nature of the walls and the distance of my bedroom from theirs, I could often hear mother’s cries as she climaxed. This made the absence of a sexual partner in my life even more distressing, and I felt the urgent need to move out and leave these two passionate lovers to their joy in each other.

My wooing of Amanda moved along slowly. I learned the art of changing baby, including bottom cleaning. Amanda, much to my deep pleasure, continued to breast feed Amorina in front of me and I never seemed to tire of the beautiful picture that they made, but the time for weaning arrived. I was put to further uses in preparing the food and heating bottles, followed by washing up.

I tried the old fashioned ploys of wooers, and knowing that Amanda did not like cut flowers I bought her plants in pots and even unromantic tomato seedlings for her garden. I plied Amorina with rattles and soft toys to what effect I wasn’t sure, but my holding her when she cried seemed to have a calming effect on her, so I felt as if I was winning her to some extent.

One day Amanda said soon after I arrived, “Arthur and I have divorced.”

I had no idea that they had even begun divorce proceedings, so the announcement took me a bit by surprise. It also gave me pause for thought. If Amanda was free, then if I did end up being invited to live with them, marriage was a distinct possibility. I let that sink in for a while.

I wondered how Amanda was going to manage financially now Arthur was gone. I asked her and she said briefly; “We came to a settlement arrangement to be continued until I remarry.”

That was even more food for thought.

Amanda and I had got to the point where we exchanged kisses. They were very virtuous kisses but at least they were an advance on no physical contact.

Amanda did not use disposable nappies for Amorina and one day I was battling at the kitchen sink to remove the worst of Amorina’s joyous emissions when Amanda came up behind me and putting her arms round my waist and hugging my back, laughed and said, “You really do want to be a daddy, don’t you?”

This was the first such physical contact of this sort since I began visiting her, and its effects of me were electric. My penis began to expand and harden at a rapid rate along with it my blood pressure must have roared up. I wanted to turn and clutch her to me, to feel her body once more. Instead I continued my endeavours at the sink and said, “No, I don’t want to be a daddy. I want to be a very specific daddy – Amorina’s.”

“I can see that,” she said, and moved away from me.

My need to move out of the house and away from mother and John became more pressing a week later. Mother, now in her forties, announced she was pregnant. I had heard of the dangers women of that age faced when pregnant, but when I voiced this mother seemed to be quite tranquil about it.

“It’s what I want, Adrian. John felt the same as you, but I have to confess I trapped him into it. I took myself off the pill and waited to see what happened. It’s probably my last chance, and I want this with John.”

On my next visit to Amanda and Amorina I carried my wooer’s gift of two packets of beans for planting. Amorina had for some time now recognised my presence as a particular entity in her life and in her own way made me welcome.

I told Amanda about mother’s pregnancy, but as usual, she already knew. “Kylie’s been plotting that for some time,” she commented, and seemed to become very preoccupied. She was so inattentive that she began dropping and tripping over things. I even made sure I did the baby holding, just in case.

I had my evening meal with them and together we put Amorina to bed. We talked for a while seated in the lounge, then I said I had better go. Amanda stood up as I did, came to me and kissed me very softly but sensuously on the lips and said, “Would you like to stay with me tonight, darling?”

“You mean I’ve served my apprenticeship?”

“You’ve served it very well and devotedly, my love. Are you going to stay?”

“I’ll ring home and let them know I won’t be home tonight.”

So Amanda and I had that night what came to be called our “second honeymoon.”

Doubts fled. We both knew what we wanted with great assurance. What comes to us easily is often dismissed by us just as easily. Amanda had as they say, made me “work my passage,” and as on that night I sought to meet her passionate needs, I realised that she too had been working her passage and both of us were the stronger in our love for having gone through the time of trial.

I did not move in permanently for some time but started to spend more and more nights with Amanda until it got to the point where it was ridiculous not to move in. Having learned not to press matters too hard or soon, I still waited for word from Amanda. In her usual way the invitation came in a simple and direct manner.

“Be with us all the time, darling.”

I left the two love birds in their nest and mother was looking in splendid health. I think even at her age pregnancy agreed with her, and she looked as lovely as she ever had looked in all the years I had been with her. A wicked little memory came to the surface of my mind and I thought, “Lucky John.”

After I moved in my courtship had to continue in a sense. There was the matter of marrying Amanda and she was going to make me work my passage for that as well.

She told me she would not even consider marriage until I had graduated and had a career started. That put rather a sense of urgency into my studies. I wanted no failures to halt my journey towards the longed for goal, and Amanda was as good as her word. It was not until I began work in the city Botanic Gardens that she would think about marrying me. It is my contention that she already knew what her answer would be; she was just forcing me to think again. This I did, many times, and I always came up with the same answer.

Finally I got exasperated with her delays in giving me a straight answer, so one evening I said, “I’m asking you to marry me for the hundredth time, Amanda, but I won’t be asking again after this.”

She looked at me for a while, smiling sweetly and then said, “So long as you know you own mind, Adrian. If this is the last time you’ll ask I’d better say ‘Yes’, hadn’t I?”

She took the wind right out of my sails and I didn’t know what to say.

“Adrian, I said ‘Yes’, didn’t you hear me?

“Er…yes…er, I heard you.”

“Well aren’t you supposed to kiss me?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Let’s do it in bed, shall we?”

“All right, but we mustn’t wake the baby, I’ve only just put her down.”

That’s family life for you!