Basil and Sinclair: The Early Years

OUR PORTUGUESE BABIES

14th February 2005

It happened last night. The moment that all parents of adopted children must dread. The moment when the Big Questions must be addressed.

That morning we had enjoyed a long stroll around the garden. The ritual is firmly established. We have breakfast. We do not encourage faddy eating. Indeed, we are unsympathetic towards our English guests who we have seen over the recent years developing wheat, gluten, fat, starch, absolutely anything, fashionable allergies, preferring our visitors to be of the ‘bring on the dead dog and trough of beans’ variety. However, all four of us have different tastes first thing in the morning. Basile loves toast with lots of butter, Sinclair prefers something more savoury and, bizarrely, has a preference for bacalhau which is the national dish of Portugal or a little flaked kipper served in milk, while David’s world would fall apart without a boiled egg and soldiers. Then it’s off to the japoothra – David’s construction in our field of a raised area for a different view down to the sea – where we sit and contemplate the coming day while The Babies have a good-natured rough and tumble. We have designated a tiny patch of ground The Gaza Strip. This unremarkable scrap of dry red soil is the scene every morning of a scramble for occupation, usually won with stealth and cunning by Basile, and resulting in the need for big baths and towels.

And it’s a packed day. We are mindful of being Older Parents and so, perhaps, we overcompensate, exhausting ourselves and them with walks, and climbing, and gymnastics for Basile who is curiously skilled for one so chubby, and football practice for Sinclair…. and Sinclair Helping Papa when Sinclair is adept at helping Daddy get leaves out of the pool or stack logs or paint a wall…. and Basile helping Mama with administration, though in her enthusiasm Basile tends to consign more to the waste bin than Mummy intended…. and all does not always go well as I hear David saying to Sinclair those time-honoured parental words ‘Sinclair, I am so disappointed in you’, and gather that there has been some unfortunate conjunction between football and Papa’s vegetable patch…. and there are occasional accidents, usually to Sinclair, being The Boy, who becomes over-excited and too ambitious and we don’t want a repetition of the time we had to rush him to hospital after he had a fall and limped in bravely suppressing his tears, and at the hospital we had to wait while a specialist came in and Sinclair’s name was called and Our Little Hero tried to raise his feeble arm in answer but it fell back in pain, and how, after x-rays and examinations and painkillers and much passing of cash from us to them he was declared fit to be brought home and it was his first real experience of the car and he loved it all, except for the pain, and when home he lay on the sofa wrapped in a blanket and we fed him soup from a spoon and his sister looked on contemptuously….and sometimes, mindful that they need company other than ours, we allow visits away from home. Sinclair especially loves it when our German neighbours visit with their big soppy dog and he goes alone to visit and comes back all warm from his adventure and smells of pumpernickel and gluwein. Though not all such trips are without tension for us and we remember with horror the time Sinclair was late returning and all the usual parental fears enveloped us and David lay on the bed, unsuccessfully suppressing his tears, biting into his pillow and saying ‘I loved that boy.’ Note the past tense. And when he returned we grasped him to us, torn between anger and relief and let relief win as we covered his unrepentant face with kisses.

We try not to worry about them when we go out but I remember the first time we had to leave them and they were old enough to understand what we told them. I said where we would be going and for how long and that they weren’t to worry and they would be well cared for in our absence, which in any case would be no longer than two hours, and then I made the mistake of looking back at the house. And there were their tiny faces side by side peeping through the balustrades, waving their little mitts, and I was sure I heard Basile crying into the wind, ‘Write, Mama, write!’

We are sensitive, too, to their Portuguese heritage. Though we have no choice but to speak English with them. I fear cultural confusion but I already see in Basile a definite rejection of her Portuguese roots. For example she really doesn’t like Sossisol, our Portuguese maid, treating her with disdain and refusing to respond to her native language. Though she was very friendly with the boy who delivered our logs, toying with his affections, allowing him to admire her dark eyes, in a way that reflected the coquettishness of her French name. I take pains to tell them both about England. They have their little passports ready with suitably unrecognisable photographs and when it comes time for us to leave their homeland we shall make finding a house that suits their needs a priority. But I am still fearful for them. For one thing it is February and it is six months since they experienced rain. They will find England very cold indeed. And how will they cope with English boys and girls who will be more sophisticated and aggressive? I have told them about boarding school. Indeed we have researched one here, called Treetops, but Basile has shown what she thinks about it by helpfully filing the details in the waste bin during her administration sessions…I see trouble ahead.

In the evening, after a warm and sunny day, it is chilly enough for us to have lit the fire and the best part of our day begins.

Basile is snuggled on my lap. Her nose is proof that if there is a creator then he is a genius in detailing. It is so small and so perfect. Her little nostrils are perhaps the most beautiful thing ever created. Or do all mothers think this? I smile at the absurdity just after her birth when there was some gender confusion – apparently this is quite common – and it was thought she might be a boy. Hence her name Basil which we quickly amended to Basile pronounced with a slight French accent and which entirely suits her in its eccentricity and originality. How could anyone have thought this little angel with her feminine delicacy have been anything other than a girl? Don’t get me wrong. We haven’t treated the pair any differently but sex differences will out. Basile distains the football that is so dear to Sinclair. Certainly he shows the most extraordinary ball control skills and a marvellous ability to save goals, diving and stretching and holding the ball close to his chest. While Basile is happy just to follow me from room to room watching, taking in every action, sorting through the makeup drawer, considering the lipsticks, touching the powder with a light hand, watching, watching while I, like any mother, tell her that she is beautiful as she is and needs no enhancement. And then she is bored and off she goes with her brother into the garden and I see them running about and she is as competitive as he is in her tree climbing and she won’t be put down by a mere boy.

Basile and I look across at Sinclair. He is stretched out on the sofa, arms around David, half dozing, a slight smile on his face. He is more classically beautiful and He Knows It. He has a certain Mediterranean arrogance about him, a confidence built of being adored by his family, a masculinity in his taut leanness. But we know the secret that this little chap, one of nature’s gentlemen, is really still a baby at heart and loves nothing more than the reassuring cuddle from his Father before bedtime. Later we shall pick them up and carry them through to bed, wrapped in their blankets for all the world like a heap of kittens tangled together.

But for now I see the question forming in Basile. She looks across at her brother who, without waking, pulls his Father’s dressing gown to him and sucks on its corner. She may well marvel, given how different they are in appearance and nature, and how different they both are from us. So I pull her close to me and begin to talk and as I do Sinclair opens his eyes and he, too, is listening. I tell them the truth as David and I had agreed. I tell them how we had no intention of having any more children, that our own families were complete and that we were too old in any case for more; but that they came one wet and windy night, twins, brought to us quite unexpectedly, and while we had huge doubts at the time it was the best thing that ever happened to us; how really when we looked at their tiny frightened faces, felt their vulnerability, how they clung together, defiant and brave, we had no choice but to say yes and let them into our home and hearts forever. And of how, whatever we have given them and whatever we shall give them in the future, they have given us so much more in terms of love. And of how proud we are of them, now they have grown so big and strong and are generally so sensible.

But they have dozed off again, as well they might, and I put off the moment of carrying them through to their bedroom and look across to David. ‘All right, Papa?’ I ask. ‘Yes, Mama.’ He says.

Copyright of website, photographs and text Lesley Brain