Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [90]
Jane reached the house and went into the bedroom. Chantal lay naked on a folded towel inside her cradle, which was actually a cardboard box cut in half. She had no need of clothes in the warm air of the Afghan summer. At night she would be covered with a sheet—that was all. The rebels and the war, Ellis and Mohammed and Masud, all receded into the background as Jane looked at her baby. She had always thought small babies ugly, but Chantal seemed very pretty to her. As Jane watched, Chantal stirred, opened her mouth and cried. Jane’s right breast immediately leaked milk in response, and a warm, damp patch spread on her shirt. She undid the buttons and picked up Chantal.
Jean-Pierre said she should wash her breasts with surgical spirit before feeding, but she never did because she knew Chantal would not like the taste. She sat on a rug with her back to the wall and cradled Chantal in her right arm. The baby waved her fat little arms and moved her head from side to side, frantically seeking with her open mouth. Jane guided her to the nipple. The toothless gums clamped hard and the baby sucked fiercely. Jane winced at the first hard pull, then at the second. The third suck was gentler. A small, plump hand reached up and touched the round side of Jane’s swollen breast, pressing it with a blind, clumsy caress. Jane relaxed.
Feeding her baby made her feel terribly tender and protective. Also, it was erotic. At first she had felt guilty about being turned on by it, but she soon decided that if it was natural it could not be bad, and settled down to enjoy it.
She was looking forward to showing Chantal off if they ever got back to Europe. Jean-Pierre’s mother would tell her she was doing everything wrong, no doubt, and her own mother would want to have the baby christened, but her father would adore Chantal through an alcoholic haze, and her sister would be proud and enthusiastic. Who else? Jean-Pierre’s father was dead. . . .
A voice came from the courtyard. “Anybody at home?”
It was Ellis. “Come in,” Jane called. She did not feel she needed to cover herself: Ellis was not an Afghan, and anyway he had once been her lover.
He came in, saw her feeding the baby and did a double take. “Shall I leave?”
She shook her head. “You’ve seen my tits before.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You must have changed them.”
She laughed. “Pregnancy gives you great tits.” Ellis had been married once, she knew, and had a child, although he gave the impression he no longer saw either the child or its mother. That was one of the things he would never talk about very much. “Don’t you remember from when your wife was pregnant?”
“I missed it,” he said, in that curt tone he used when he wanted you to shut up. “I was away.”
She was too relaxed to respond in like manner. In fact she felt sorry for him. He had made a mess of his life, but it was not all his own fault; and he had certainly been punished for his sins—not the least by her.
“Jean-Pierre didn’t come back,” Ellis said.
“No.” The sucking eased as Jane’s breast emptied. She gently pulled her nipple from Chantal’s mouth and lifted the baby to her shoulder, patting the narrow back to make her burp.
“Masud would like to borrow his maps,” Ellis said.
“Of course. You know where they are.” Chantal belched loudly. “Good girl,” Jane said. She put the baby to her left breast. Hungry again after burping, Chantal began to suck. Giving in to an impulse, Jane said: “Why don’t you see your child?”
He took the maps from the chest, closed its lid and straightened up. “I do,” he said. “But not often.”
Jane was shocked. I almost lived with him for six months, she thought, and I never really knew him. “A boy or a girl?”
“Girl.”
“She must be . . .”
“Thirteen.”
“My God.” That was practically grown-up. Jane was suddenly intensely curious. Why had she never questioned him about all this? Perhaps she had not been