T i m e O u t

BIRTHRIGHT Part I

Alone with her newborn infant in the semi-private ward, the best they could offer in that godforsaken hospital, Vanessa Lanterni had spent hours muffling sobs against her pillow. The silence of the sleepless winter night taunted her and the words that had been said pounded in her brain. Then succumbing to exhaustion she'd fallen into a liberating abyss of sleep only to be startled awake by the arrival of the Ward Sister and a young woman obviously near her term.

"Morning, Vanessa. We've got company, dear!" chirped the nurse. "This is Maria. Baby Lisa will soon have a companion."

Vanessa attempted a supportive smile, but the moment of oblivion passed and the awful memories flooded back.

Yesterday, in the space of a few minutes, an exciting, stable existence had crumbled round her like a house of cards.

Not now Vanessa!  You can deal with it later, but not now!

Willing her mind to numbness, she observed the newcomers.

The young woman, Maria, was trying to tame her long, dark hair, already matted against her damp forehead. In a denim smock and a woollen jacket that didn't quite meet across her tummy she lead the procession, followed by a husband, laden with two bulging carrier bags. A mop of black curls falling round his face and self-conscious eyes darting here and there made him look almost too young to be responsible for his wife's state. A tall, older, very robust woman dressed in black and gaggling at no one in particular, brought up the rear.

Vanessa turned to her daughter sleeping in the crib between her bed and the window. She hoped she wouldn't stir.

Her daughter! Their lovely Lisa! No, not so lovely. Not as perfect as she was sure Ernest felt they deserved. Not the beauty he'd often said would do them proud.

How they'd enjoyed those last weeks. Ernest loved to place his head on her bulge and talk to the moving mass inside.

"I'll take you everywhere, sweetheart, to the theatre... skiing... London..."

trotting her out like a prize thoroughbred, like he's  done so often with me! No! Stop it!

Poor little Lisa! Nothing had gone right at the end. No first photographs, no recording her first cry. And worst of all, she'd presented herself to her parents with a very disappointing visiting card, an unsightly, brown blotch that extended across under her right eye to her pudgy nose. It had taken over her tiny face and hidden every other feature. It was hideous. How could a baby with that huge, grotesque mole be considered beautiful?

Vanessa turned again. She had to stop thinking.

The man and woman nearby, evidently mother and son, were being ushered out. The woman nodded to Vanessa, hesitated as if to say something and then left the room.

Maria already seemed drained of energy. She eased herself down onto the narrow bed that looked as uncomfortable as Vanessa's was. The radiator hummed. Neither offered conversation.

Vanessa moved the white cover and gazed at Lisa - the miracle they'd planned together. Tears welled up again. What should have been a perfect moment was now an unreal, empty, marred farce. Because this child was symbolic of what their entire relationship amounted to. Like practically everything else in the last ten years of her life, this dream hadn't been hers. It had been Ernest's.

Her husband, her mentor, her companion had very ably taken over her life from the day they'd met and had remodelled it to embellish his own. He'd created a new Vanessa. And for years she'd been happy to play the part. She always loved the idea of Ernest calling the tunes. She loved dancing to his rhythm, following his lead.

When, after nine years of marriage, he suggested having a child, she hadn't objected. Nor had she told him she was rather indifferent to the idea of motherhood. She wasn't one of those women who would sacrifice their very souls for the joy of bearing a child. But, if it pleased him, it was fine with her.

Until yesterday.

Lisa wasn't meant to come into the world yesterday. Nor was she meant to have a mole on her cheek. And maybe what was said after that hadn't been meant. Because Vanessa knew her husband was a gentle man. He was rarely rude and even more rarely lost his temper. It just wasn't his style.

Until yesterday, when he saw the baby and the words tumbled out.

"Is that a blob of shit on her face?" he'd asked.

Ernest had actually said that! It was unbelievable! It was all so wrong.

Other memories surfaced.

It all started at a fashion show party when the very shapely, beautiful, tanned and ambitious Vanessa Mantovani, recently arrived from Syracuse in Sicily with plans to shake off her layer of southern simplicity and make a name for herself on the catwalks of Milan, met the delightful Ernest Lanterni, the most sought-after bachelor in town. The handsomest pair in the room gravitated towards each other at 8 p.m. on the fateful date 08. 08. 1988. "Look at that date!" He held up his gleaming Rolex. His delight was contagious. He got the crowd's attention. She got the crowd's attention and their scrutiny. As if they knew more than she did.

"Just look at it. I knew my life would change at this precise minute. I was right! I was right! It's definitely an omen. Vanessa and I have been singled out for happiness."

He hugged her to him as if afraid she would disappear and repeated the refrain to anyone who would listen. Again and again. At first she'd loved the fun of it all. Only much later did she realise how serious this otherwise vivacious man took, what he called, his combinations and she saw the fixation for what it really was - an addiction. Ernest was addicted to number combinations. His life practically rotated round combinations. He studied them like a punter studies a race card.

The number-mania amazed Vanessa. He'd gone to such lengths and pulled so many strings to have his car registered EL 123456, to coincide with his name. How they'd celebrated when the red Ferrari with the six consecutive numbers was finally his! And his passport, the jeep, the yacht, his bank account, their special occasions, all corresponded to numbers that Ernest found intriguing.

He'd presented her engagement ring on the deck of some liner, she couldn't remember the name, while passing a particular line of longitude on a particular day and she'd played along. It was only a game so why not? After all, being with Count Lanterni's only son was so exciting that recriminations about days or dates sounded like whining.

Ernest was so loving, it almost overwhelmed her. He showered her with gifts and seemed to be happiest when he was planning some surprise for her. She wanted to please him, to be worthy. She was learning the ropes of high-society. She'd lost her Sicilian accent and was lithe and vivacious. What a life! So different from her small town existence dressmaking with the aunts in Sicily and sidestepping the ogling locals, thugs and gentry. She adored Ernest, whose main occupation was planning race meetings where the car sponsored by his father's bank was often among the leaders. If asked about her job, she would reply sweetly that she was in modelling. She had no qualms in admitting that life meant simply being with Ernest at the race circuits and parties whenever she could and keeping her body beautiful for him when she couldn't.

Health farms, beauty centres, personal trainers, nips and tucks. Like all the women in the circles where they moved, she had the best and the results were evident. They'd often made the Who's Who magazines and she herself was sometimes amazed at her beauty on the glossy pages. And Ernest was so proud of her.

The handsome couple walked down the aisle at nineteen hundred hours on the nineteenth of September nineteen ninety-one. The number games went on through the years and now, nine years later, Ernest wanted to play the big stakes - their one and only child would be born on the first of January in the year two thousand.

So calendars were consulted and cycles duly monitored. It's what Ernest wants, she had to remind herself at times when the planning became almost intolerable. Scans and analysis soon confirmed that their dream child should arrive as planned. The best medical team had been consulted and Donna Lisa, Ernest's ninety-year old grandmother, was informed of the event. Donna Lisa's possessions would go to her great-grand-daughter who would, of course, be called after her renowned ancestor. Vanessa loved the name. It was a family name, rich in tradition.

But yesterday a snowstorm had caught them unawares.

To ensure that everything ran smoothly, they'd decided to go to the clinic in Milan on Thursday the 30^th, well in time for the birth. However, there had been one other social event that couldn't be missed on Wednesday evening and, much as Vanessa hated going, she didn't want to spoil things or offend their host. She sat through the evening holding her protruding belly and waited for Ernest to finish celebrating his soon-to-be-born child. She was numb and literally trembling with cold by the time they got home. The night sky looked menacing.

Next morning it was spitting snow when they left their home by the lake near the Swiss border for the two-hour journey to Milan and at eleven o'clock, as they came out of one of the many tunnels on the winding road, they got caught up in traffic jammed in the drifting snow. Snowploughs freed the stranded motorists who, at a snail's pace, reached the town of Valle Verde. They were advised not to try and reach Milan in the steadily worsening weather.

Over lunch they were discussing their options when Vanessa doubled over, a spasm piercing her back. She knew that labour had started.

Pain, confusion, phone calls, ambulance sirens, tyre chains rattling in the rising snow, a delivery room, faces, a doctor, a woman fussing over her.

She could hear Ernest in some faraway place protesting to the world at large that the baby wasn't due for two days, a woman telling him that the baby had decided that it was due there and then and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it, he telling them all that his daughter would not be born that day, that she would come into the world on the first day of the new millennium. He wanted his wife airlifted. He wanted their own gynaecologist team flown in. He wanted...

And, for what was perhaps the first time in his life, he'd been told to shut up and wait outside as he was of no use to anyone in his present state. He'd babbled about legal action and the woman removed him to the corridor and told him in very tired tones to go and have a cup of coffee.

Somewhere, through the haze of pain, Vanessa remembered thinking that her husband had gone completely mad. Lisa finally wailed her arrival and, for a while, the exhausted mother drifted in and out of a no-man's-land of voices, sounds and smells.

Ernest's anger penetrated the blur. The Sister was telling him that all births had to be registered when and where they occur. He didn't want his daughter registered in that hospital. He would not allow it.

And then he saw Lisa. The child had been brought back from somewhere and had been put in the cot. He looked down and saw the blotch on her cheek. He stared for what seemed an eternity and Vanessa finally found the strength to lift herself up and look too.

"My God, What's the matter with her?" Vanessa screamed.

Some invisible monster had left an imprint on her face.

 "Nothing dear. She's perfectly alright, just fatigued. She's had a hard time. You both have. She'll be fine in a few hours." It was the woman, the ward Sister.

Vanessa looked at Ernest. His face was hard and expressionless, his eyes glued to the blotch. She wanted to apologise that the baby wasn't perfect.

"I'm going to have her registered in Milan," he said at last.

"Whatever you say, but what difference does it make?"

"I don't want her registered in this neck of the woods."

She said nothing more.  A more subdued Ernest later bowed once again to hospital rules as the administrator registered the birth of Lisa Lanterni in the records of Valle Verde on Thursday the 30^th December 1999.

He kissed his wife a hurried goodbye, telling her that he hoped to make it to some nearby hotel as he had urgent business to attend to and he needed some rest. He would be back for her as soon as they told him she and the baby could go home.

That was when she'd asked him what he thought of their daughter. He'd looked at the baby at length and then made the jibe about the birthmark.

Never before had words had the effect of a slap on her face. She felt her skin sting and her eyes burn with tears she couldn't stop.

Since then, the baby had been fed and changed at intervals but Vanessa had made no effort to participate. It all seemed  pointless.

Maria was leaning over Lisa's cot, humming a tune. Vanessa pretended to be asleep. The other woman went on humming.

"Her name is Lisa." Vanessa decided to break the silence.

"You're a lucky girl Lisa. You have a lovely name." Marie whispered.

After a few moments, she added: "I hope I have a boy."

"Did you not find out?"

"No."

"You could have, you know."

"I know but I preferred not to."

"Is it your first child?"

"Yes, it is. And is Lisa your first?"

"Yes, and I'm glad it's a girl."

"No, I want a boy," she repeated.

"Is that what your husband wants?"

 "No!"

Vanessa decided to ignore the tone of the answer. She didn't feel like talking any more and was surprised when Maria said:

"If it's a girl I'll have to call her Adolfina."

"What?" Vanessa couldn't hide her disbelief.

"Adolfina" Maria repeated. "After her Granny."

"But you can't call a little girl Adolfina, It's just ..."

"I have to. It's what she wants."

"I know it's none of my business but it's not your mother-in-law's decision and you will hate yourself when your daughter blames you and that name and for making her life miserable."

"She said she'd put part of her pension money aside for the baby every week if it's called after her and we need that money."

"But your husband can't want a name like that for his daughter?"

"He doesn't mind!"

"But..."

"It doesn't matter. I'm having a section today. The doctor advised it."

"Today? But it's the 31^st.  Why don't you wait until tomorrow?"

"I don't want to wait another hour."

"But think about the date! Your child being born on the first day of the new century. Just imagine. I'd hoped to have my baby tomorrow."

"No, the doctor said it's to be this morning because they're expecting power cuts and my mother-in-law said it's better not to take any risks."

"But she can't decide everything for you."

"You're right there. Because, if it's a boy, I'll get to choose the name and I know exactly what I'll call him."

"Don't tell me, just in case."

"I haven't told anyone."

"Oh! God! I see. It's such a pity though."

But Maria had ended the discussion and was again pacing the small room.