The journey I will never forgot

1 The summer wore away, and autumn set in, with rain, damp and an unseasonal frost at night. When I put gloves on the baby she chewed them and had to sit in her pram with cold, wet hands. I did not mind for myself, but I did not know how to keep her warm. She dribbled too and her chest was always damp. She resisted for some time but in the end she caught a cold.
2 I did not know what to do with her, as I hated going to the doctor. I had thought I would be 5 finished with doctors at her birth, though I subsequently discovered there was an unending succession of inspections and vaccinations yet to be endured. Now, hearing Octavia’s heavy spluttering, I knew I would have to take her, much as I would hate it. I felt I was bothering the busy doctor unnecessarily. But it was not a simple choice between comfort and duty, and moreover it was not even my own health that was in question, but Octavia’s, and so I tried 10 to dismiss the thought of sitting in a freezing cold waiting room with her. Had it been my own health, I would never have gone.
3 After I had made up my mind to see the doctor, I consulted my friend Lydia, who suggested that I should ring up the doctor and ask him to come and see me at home, instead of going to him; I immediately thought how nice it would be if only I dare. ‘Of course you dare,’ said Lydia. 15 ‘You can’t take a sick baby out in weather like this.’ Then, with sudden illumination, she said, ‘Anyway, look how flushed she is! Why don’t you take her temperature?’
4 Astounded, I stared at her, for truly the thought of doing such a thing had never crossed my mind. Looking back, after months with the thermometer as necessary as a spoon or a saucepan, I can hardly believe this to be possible, but so it was; my life had not yet changed 20 for ever. I took Octavia’s temperature and it was high enough to justify ringing for the doctor.
To my surprise, the doctor’s secretary did not sound at all annoyed when I asked if he could call: I think I had half expected a lecture on my indolence.
5 When the doctor arrived, he took Octavia’s pulse and temperature, and told me it was nothing serious, in fact nothing at all. Then he said he ought to listen to her chest; I pulled up her vest 25 and she smiled and wriggled with delight as he put the stethoscope on her fat ribs. He listened for a long time and I, who was beginning to think that perhaps I should not have bothered him after all, sat there absently aware of how innocent she was, how sweet she looked and that her vest could do with a wash. Had I known, I would have enjoyed that moment more, or perhaps I mean that I did enjoy that moment but have enjoyed none since. For he said, ‘Well, 30 I don’t think there’s anything very much to worry about there.’ I could see that he had not finished, and did not mean what he said. ‘Just the same,’ he added, ‘perhaps I ought to book you an appointment to take her along to the hospital.’
6 I suppose most people would have asked him what was wrong, but I was too frightened. I think that the truth was the last thing I wanted to hear. When I heard his voice coming at me, 35 saying that the hospital appointment would probably be for the next Thursday, I was relieved a little; he could not be expecting her to die before next Thursday. I even mustered the strength to ask what I should do about her cold, and he said, ‘Nothing, nothing at all.’
7 When he had gone, I went back and picked Octavia up and sat her on my knee and gazed at her, paralysed by fear, aware that my happy state had changed in ten minutes to undefined 40 anguish. I wept, and Octavia put her fingers in my tears as they rolled down my cheek, as though they were raindrops on a window pane. It seemed that, in comparison with this moment, the whole of my former life had been a summer afternoon.