Read Loving Amélie for Free Online

didn’t know what else
to do. I haven’t got the first idea how to look after a baby. I’m sorry, Rick,
for ruining your day, but I think I need Sara more than you do.”
    Sara bustled into the loo. Rick
said nothing while he poured Chris a glass of wine and put it near his elbow.
    “Take her out of there,” he
said, indicating the baby carrier. Chris duly unclipped it to release Amélie
from his sweaty chest. She stirred and grunted. Rick deftly removed her from
her suit and held her at arm’s length like an oversized, curled up prawn.
“Yikes, she’s pretty wet and smelly. Did you bring a change of clothes?”
    “Erm, only a bottle,” he
replied, not daring to look at Sara - who had emerged from the bathroom -
fearing she would be thunderous.
    “Great.”
    Rick handed Amélie to Sara and
applied himself to the hotel telephone. He organised a bottle warmer for the
milk and, with some persuasion, sent out for some nappies, wipes and a babygro.
    “Can you go down and fetch
them, Chris, when reception rings up?” Rick was a director of Human Resources:
the organisational impulses of his “day job” were no doubt hard-wired somewhere
under that shiny, capable cranium and ready to kick in any time.
    “What am I, a complete fuck-wit?!” said Chris, with weary good humour. “Sorry...sorry, again . I
didn’t mean that like it sounded. But I’m not completely stupid: I’m just currently out
of my depth.” He held out his hand. “I’m Chris Skinner. I’m actually really
pleased to meet you, at last.”
    Rick laughed again; and shook
Chris’s hand.
    “I’m Richard Gale; but Rick, to
my friends,” he said. “I have heard a great deal about you. You are in love
with a woman who has run away.”
    Chris took a grateful gulp of
his wine.
    “In a nutshell,” he replied.
“And this is her – our - baby.”
    “She’s a little smasher,” said
Rick. He was kneeling at the foot of the dishevelled, standard issue double
bed, while Sara nestled baby Amélie – now in the protective wrapping of a
hotel towel – in the cradle of her crossed legs. She smiled at her
boyfriend: a little bit amazed by the ease with which he had received these
strange interlopers into the room where they had been making love not half an
hour ago.
    When the phone buzzed, she got
up and pulled on her jeans.
    “I’ll go,” she said. “Maybe you can get
the lowdown from Uncle Richard on looking after a baby.”
    Chris watched while Sara’s
lover changed Amélie from her wet clothes into something new and clean, and
settled down to feed her the warmed bottle of formula. Rick had removed her
nappy and carefully cleaned the crevices of her tiny legs and buttocks, all the
while talking to her quietly and calmly.
    “So, you’ve done this once or
twice before?” said Chris with irony.
    “Just once or twice,” Rick
replied. “Like anything, it’s easy when you know how.”
    Chris stared at a second glass
of wine:
    “My God, I mustn’t drink any
more tonight; I’m shattered and it’s not even six o’clock!”
    “No, best not,” said Rick. “She
will sleep well after this, but you should get her back home. Try and keep to a
routine while she’s with you: feed, change, sleep. Lots of cuddles, too. How
long will she be with you?”
    Chris looked at Sara who looked
blankly back at him.
    “I don’t know,” he said.
    Before the impact of this truth
had the chance to seep too far into his consciousness, Rick was adding briskly:
    “Can I treat you to a taxi,
Chris?”
    “No! No, but thank you. Thank
you, both. You have helped.”

 
    The tube train lumbered home:
Chris and baby Amélie set against the tide of people heading out on the town.
    So that was Rick.
      Being ‘allowed’ to meet Sara’s man would have been momentous
in its own right, had it not happened on the day that a baby had arrived on his
doorstep, making anything crazy a possibility. He hoped she was alright about
it all. She declared she loved Rick; and