Human Croquet- Kate Atkinson: can’t work something out! Spoilers if you haven’t read :-)

[BogstandardBelle]

Just re read Human Croquet for the first time in many years: I love Kate Atkinson’s literary / fantasy / surreal story telling. But there is one detail that I just can’t work out... who is the father of Debbie’s red-gold haired baby (the surprise one the she actually has) ? Is it:

Gordon: and there genuinely is a recessive red hair gene in his line or...

Mr Baxter (shudder) or...

Someone else entirely??

Or is that baby part of Isobel’s dream??

Help.

Long time since I read it but I think I thought it was Audrey’s baby that someone (her mum?) left on the doorstep. So the father would be Mr Baxter.

The storyline with Audrey’s / Mr Baxter’s baby is part of Isobel’s dream. In the »real» story Debbie doesn’t know she’s pregnant, then goes into labour at home and has the baby, with Vinny catching it on the way out. When Gordon comes home and meets the baby, he sees that it has reddish hair (just like Charles - whose father is the unnamed boy in the air raid shelter) and says that it must be down to a recessive gene in his family. But he says it «ruefully»... I don’t know if that implies he knows that neither of the babies were actually his?

Mr Baxter is the only other red haired Male character.

Maybe Debbie had sex with him (as did Eliza) to try and get pregnant since she couldn’t with Gordon?

Or maybe the red hair gene is recessive in the Fairfax line, and I’ve missed it in the descriptions of Francis Fairfax, Lady Fairfax or their «sickly» son, born before she buggers off with Robert Kavanagh...