Weldon, Fay - Novel 07 (28 page)

 
          
She
sang as she worked in the garden. She had to sit on the ground to weed; she
found it hard to bend.

 
          
The weather was hot.
Liffey spoke to
the birds and the butterflies. Tucker came up from time to time to see how she
was. She quite looked forward to his visits: she ran to make him tea—ordinary
tea bags now, not Earl Grey—discussed the cows, Dick Hubbard’s perfidy,
the
knack of making silage. Tucker made no more sexual
assaults upon her. He seemed satisfied, having made his mark, having made her
remember.

 
          
The
baby kicked and heaved, and made her laugh and pant: it seemed to have a foot
wedged under her ribs. She hoped he was all right, that a leg wouldn’t grow
crooked for being so long in one place.

           
The doctor said that was highly unlikely.

 
          
“No
bleeding?” he asked.

 
          
“No
bleeding,” said Liffey. Liffey still believed she would have her baby
naturally. She felt that fate had dealt her quite enough blows. It could not be
so cruel as to make her submit to the surgeon’s knife.

 
          
Slice
into the smoothness, the roundness, the taut health of her tummy? Ah, no. That
was a bad dream. Liffey loved her tummy now. She lay on her back and sang to
it. The earth was warm and so was she.

 
          
Liffey
looked better. She was almost pretty again. The doctor said she would be
delivered on October 10. It was now the beginning of September.

 
          
Thirty-six
weeks.

 
          
The
first puffball of the season appeared. A blind white head pushed its way out of
damp warm ground, down in the dip by the stream where once, a year ago, Richard
and Liffey had made their ordinary everyday love and thought themselves much
like other people. Then, when the world was innocent, and Liffey was not
pregnant or Mabs so desperate to be so, and Richard was faithful and Bella
nothing worse than bored, and Karen was a virgin and Ray was not a laughing
stock, when Miss Martin still looked up to her fiance, and Tucker contented
himself with looking, through field glasses, at Liffey in the act of love—then
indeed the world was young.

 
          
Mabs
was the first to see the puffball. She was out early, bringing the cows in.
This was normally Tucker’s job, but the night before she and he had
drunk a bottle of whiskey between them, almost inadvertently, one on either
side of the fire, while
the children, barred the kitchen, snivelled and
snored upstairs.

 
          
Mabs
was having trouble with Debbie. Debbie was dirty. Debbie wet the bed. In the
mornings she’d stand at the sink crying and washing out her sheets, cheeks red
from a slapping, and doing her best—even Mabs had to admit it—but she was a
cack-handed child, and never seemed to get through before it was time for the
school bus, so she’d have to leave it, and then Mabs would have to load the
dripping mass into the washing machine and finish it off. And now that it was
school holiday time, it was even worse, for Debbie would spend the entire
morning washing and getting in Mabs’s way.

 
          
Debbie
was eleven. She was a delicate-looking child, the prettiest of the girls and a
throwback to some obscure ancestry. Mabs had the heavy, jowly features and
prominent eyes of the Norman invaders of these parts: Tucker the smaller,
darker, cautious looks of the Celts. Once, in any case, the general belief
was—in the very old days—there had been two races about, the giants and the
little people, but time and civilisation had diluted the strain, and now
everyone was much of a muchness—only Mabs would look out, as it were, from the
surface of her head, and Tucker from within it. But Debbie seemed a new, neater
breed, incompetent with her hands, full of whims and fancies, uncertain of
necessities, a decoration placed on the face of the earth instead of something
part of it—and reminding Mabs for all the world of Liffey.

 
          
Slap,
slap. You dirty little thing!

 
          
Mabs
sent the whole lot of them to bed early and then drank more whisky than she
meant
,
to calm her nerves. Soon she was talking about
Richard and Liffey.

 
          
“Of
course he won’t put up with her for long,” said Mabs. “Dumping her down here is
just the first stage. He’s on the way up in the world and she’s a millstone
round his neck.”

 
          
“You
can’t tell what goes on between man and wife,” said Tucker.

 
          
“I
can,” said Mabs. There was still a light left in the sky. The Tor seemed very
near tonight, as it did when rain was about.

 
          
“Judging
by the things he lets slip,” added Mabs.

 
          
“I
think he’s interested in a whole lot of things,” said Tucker, “not just his
office.”

 
          
“It’s
going to rain,” said Mabs, as if willing
it,
and the
Tor stepped nearer, listening. Tucker told himself it was only a sudden shift
in the pattern of clouds above the Tor.

 
          
“I
wonder who it will take after when it’s
born?
”

 
          
“Not
me,” said Tucker, rather too quickly.

 
          
“It
had better not,” said Mabs.

 
          
“Well,”
said Tucker, “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. We got the cows in
Honeycomb field, didn’t we?”

           
“Not for long,” said Mabs, and the
rain started and drove against the window pane in sudden gusts. “She’s a slut
and a thief and she came out of nowhere and stole my baby.”

 
          
“That’s
nonsense,” said Tucker.

 
          
“Then
why haven’t I got one?”

 
          
Mabs
went to the cupboard under the sink, where the candles were kept in case of
powercuts, and lit one, and waited until the wax began to melt, and then took
the drips and began to mould them. First
came
the
head, white and blind, with a pinch for the neck, and then a half-pinch, not at
the waist but where the trunk joined the legs, so that the belly curved out
round and full.

 
          
“Don’t
do that,” said Tucker, “it gives me the creeps. Who is it?”

 
          
“Who
do you think?” said Mabs.
“Liffey.
I’ve done one for
the baby. That one’s in a drawer keeping its strength, but this one’s the
mother. I’ll get them both.
Why not?”

 
          
She
took a hairpin from her head and was about to pierce the belly, but Tucker
thrust her hand aside and slapped her, and then bore her down on the floor,
pushing up her old skirt and down her pretty, slippery knickers, and had her,
while she laughed and panted and struggled.

 
          
“Why
do you do it?” Tucker asked later. “It’s a wicked thing to do.”

 
          
“She
stole my baby,” Mabs persisted.

 
          
“If
she did, it’s not her fault,” said Tucker doubtfully. Perhaps such things did
happen—who was to say? Certainly Liffey was pregnant and Mabs was not. And
Liffey had never been pregnant before and Mabs usually was.

 
          
“That’s
neither here nor there,” said Mabs. She slept peacefully afterwards, but
Tucker did not, and he groaned and moaned, so in the morning Mabs kindly rose
and brought in the cowson his behalf from Honeycomb field. And there, down in
the long grass, as a kind of omen and reward, was the puffball.

 
          
Mabs
stared long and hard at it and after breakfast went up and knocked on Liffey’s
door. Liffey was hemming cot-sheets. Liffey quite enjoyed the task: to sit
patiently sewing, each stitch an act of faith in the future of both her child
and herself, stemmed up anxiety and sorrow and made her feel at peace. But Mabs
wouldn’t have it.

 
          
“It’s
unlucky to sew for babies before they’re born,” said Mabs, peering over
Liffey’s shoulders.

 
          
“I
hadn’t heard that,” said Liffey.

 
          
“Well,
now you have. It’s tempting providence.”

 
          
“I
suppose it is, in a way.”

 
          
“Come
over and use my machine. And stay for lunch,” said Mabs.

 
          
So
Liffey took the pile of old flannelette sheets that Mrs. Lee-Fox senior had
sent her by parcel post and walked over to Cadbury Farm and sat in the kitchen,
where Mabs’s children yammered and cowered and snivelled and were slapped and
shouted at, and used the sewing machine and wondered if she really wanted a
child.

 
          
The
baby kicked Liffey. It had changed its position. Its head lay somewhere over
her left groin, its legs tucked under her right ribs. Sometimes it waved its
elbows and made her gasp. It’s not what
you
want, it seemed to say, it’s what
I
want.

 
          
Tucker
was out with the cows. A cat sat by the fire. Eddie crouched beside it, poking
at its eyes with a stick. Jab, jab.

 
          
“You
leave the cat alone,” shrieked Mabs, “or I’ll have you put away.”

 
          
Jab,
jab, jab, went Eddie, until his mother seized him and flung him half across the
room.

 
          
Mabs
served cabbage and bacon for lunch. She would let the cabbage cook for a couple
of hours, then squeeze and press some of the water out of it, and cut it into
wedges.

 
          
Mabs
walked with Liffey back to the cottage after lunch. She said she wanted the
exercise. Liffey wished she didn’t. Moreover, she ran her large hands over
Liffey’s tummy before they set out, and Liffey wished she wouldn’t do that
either.

 
          
“It’s
a girl,” said Mabs, “you can tell. What do you want?
A boy?”

 
          
“I
don’t mind,” said Liffey.
“So long as it’s human.”

 
          
It
was a little joke she made, but Mabs seemed to think she was serious.

 
          
Mabs
saw the puffball.

           
“Look,” she said. “Isn’t it
horrible!
” And she pulled back the long grasses and ran her
hands over its surface rather as she had run them over Liffey’s tummy. Then she
straightened up and kicked the puffball, and it spattered into pieces. “I can’t
abide those things,” Mabs said. “Coming up from nowhere like that.”

 
          
Liffey
felt quite sick and trembled, but Mabs smiled pleasantly, and they walked on.

 
          
“They’re
only big mushrooms,” said Liffey presently. “They don’t do any harm.”

 
          
“Can’t
abide them,” said Mabs.
“Nor does Tucker.
No one round
here does.”

 
          
Liffey
sat for a while after Mabs had gone. It was a lovely, warm afternoon. Bees
droned, sun glazed, flowers glowed.

 
          
Changes had recently
been occurring in
the lower part of Liffey’s uterus. It was gradually softening and shortening,
in preparation for labour, and it was to this lower part, of course, that the
baby’s placenta was attached. Now the placenta separated itself fractionally
from the uterus, and Liffey lost a few drops of blood, but failed to notice.
For there was a thunderstorm over the Tor that evening and lightning struck a
cable, so that there was a powercut. Mabs had to take out her candles again,
but Liffey had none and had to undress in the dark and did not notice the
staining.

 
          
“Make
the lights come on again,” said Tucker to Mabs, half joking, and no sooner had
he spoken than they came on. “You’re a witch,” said Tucker, “that’s your
trouble,” and then had to spend half the night pacifying her. She did not like
to be called a witch by anyone, let alone her husband.

 
          
The
doctor sent Sister Davis, the midwife, up to see Liffey.

           
Sister Davis was a slender, doe-eyed
girl, who had no intention of ever having a baby herself.

 
          
“No
bleeding?” she asked.

 
          
“No,”
said Liffey.

 
          
“The
minute there is,” said Sister Davis, “you’ll come along in to hospital, won’t
you?”

 
          
“Of
course,” said Liffey.

 
          
“I
don’t know why they haven’t taken you in already,” said Sister Davis. “Of
course they’re short of staff up there and it’s a question of priorities.”

 
          
“I
feel fine,” said Liffey. “I really do.”

 
          
“Up
here, on your own,” said Sister Davis, running expert hands over Liffey’s
tummy. “No telephone, no husband. It isn’t right.”

 
          
“It’s
very peaceful,” said Liffey.

 
          
“And
you have good neighbours,” said Sister Davis, “that’s the main thing. Mabs
Pierce is an old hand at motherhood. I wonder when her next will
be?
She’s leaving it longer than usual.”

 
          
“I
don’t think she wants any more,” said Liffey, surprised.

 
          
“No?
What a pity. She’s such a lovely mother. The babies slip out like loaves from a
greased tin!”

 
          
Sister
Davis reported to the doctor that Mrs. Lee-Fox seemed in good health and
spirits, and she was sure that Mabs Pierce would keep an eye on her. The doctor
replied that somebody ought to be keeping an eye on Mabs Pierce and sent the
health visitor up.

 
          
The
health visitor called in to see Mabs.

 
          
“You’ll
keep an eye on Mrs. Lee-Fox, won’t you?” said the health visitor, an eye on
Eddie’s facial bruises.

 
          
“Of
course,” said Mabs.

 
          
“What’s
the matter with Eddie’s face?” asked the health visitor.

 
          
“Fell
into the grate,” said Mabs, “didn’t you, Eddie?”

 
          
“That’s
right,” said Eddie. Mabs clasped Eddie to her with a spurt of genuine
affection. She was feeling better. She felt that in some way or other she’d
off-loaded a bit of bad.

           
Eddie looked up at his mother with
such evident pleasure and gratitude that the health visitor decided she’d
better let well alone. Even if you feared a child was being battered, the
problem of alternatives remained. Mrs. Wild was of the opinion that short of
death, a natural home was better than an unnatural one, with changing foster
parents, or in institutions. The child’s spirit died, in any case, if the
mother failed to love it, no matter who intervened—just the same way as its
body would die if she failed to nurture it. And once the spirit died, you could
do what you liked with the body, and make yourself feel better, but scarcely
ever the child.

 
          
Eddie’s
spirit hovered on the brink of life and death.

 
          
Liffey’s
baby floated free and wild. In normal first pregnancies the baby’s head
descends into the cavity of the pelvis at the thirty-eighth week, a process
known as lightening, inasmuch as the pressure on lungs and heart and digestive
organs lessens and the mother thereafter feels more comfortable. Liffey’s
baby’s head did no such thing: it could not. The placenta barred its way. Liffey’s
baby did not care. Liffey’s baby, headstrong, trusted to a providence that had
already acted against it, whether twisted by Mabs’s malevolent will or merely
by the laws of chance. One pregnancy in a hundred is a placenta praevia. Does
every one of those foetuses have a Mabs in the background? Surely not; such
foetuses are merely accident prone, or event prone, as some individuals are, at
some time or other in their lives. Ladders fall on them or pigs out of
windows,
or bombs go off as they approach; or, in country
terms, their crops fail and their cattle sicken and a witch has overlooked
them.

 
          
Liffey’s
baby, overlooked or accident prone, take it how you will, leapt in Liffey’s
womb, and its umbilical cord—now twenty inches long—exerted gentle pressure on
the upper side of the placenta; so that it slid further over to cover Liffey’s
cervix fully. And then it leapt again and contrived an actual knot in the cord,
but fortunately—or whatever we mean by that word —the knot did not tighten, and
the cord continued to supply the foetus with blood through its two ingoing
arteries and remove it through its single outgoing vein. But there the knot
was, and should it tighten, that would be the end of that.

           
The baby sang to Liffey: Liffey
drowsed: the knot did not tighten. Nor did Liffey’s blood pressure rise: it
stayed at around 20/77 of mercury—the upper figure being the pressure reached
within the blood vessel at the height of a heart beat, and the lower figure
being the minimum level to which the pressure falls between heart beats. The
upper figure could vary, safely enough, with exercise, fatigue, excitement and
emotion—and indeed had risen dramatically when Mabs kicked the puffball to
pieces—but the lower figure could only vary as a result of some fundamental
change in the circulation, which might tend to reduce the blood supply to the
uterus, placenta and baby, and result in what must at all costs be
avoided—premature delivery.