“Won’t your parents be upset? Will they let you go to Munich?”
“I need to make them frightened of what I will do if they don’t. Tell everybody. Run away altogether. Kill myself. Waste away. Shout and shout at them. They wouldn’t like any of those. Which do you think?”
“I think you should lurk here and be stormy and intimidating. Whereas
“I don’t think I shall ever enjoy another ball.”
“Well, if I fix this for you, you’ll have to promise me to come to that one. As moral support. We shall have to
29
Elsie’s child was born in an attic in Dymchurch, from which you could see the sea. It belonged to a semi-retired midwife, who was a friend of Patty Dace. The labour was long and terrible, and the bruised child—a very small child—was slapped and shaken into a quavering howl, just as the dawn rose over the Channel.
“It’s a girl,” said Mrs. Ball. “She’s little, but she’ll live.” Elsie swam in and out of consciousness, like a mermaid in the sea.
“Do you want to see her?” asked Mrs. Ball, who had attended births where the mother turned away a grim, resolute face, and would not look. Elsie swam. Elsie floated. She heard a voice say
“Give me her. Let me see.”
Mrs. Ball put the bundle in the crib, and raised Elsie’s pillow, on the cast-iron bed.
“You must stay awake then, you mustn’t drop her.” The sea poured in and retreated. “Give me her.”
The baby was swaddled in a piece of towelling, like a peg doll. Mrs. Ball put her in Elsie’s arms. She had a creased little face, like an ancient wise monkey. She opened a tiny mouth, and mewed. Hair, of an indeterminate colour, was plastered to her head. She opened dark, dark eyes under bruised lids, and blinked, and then stared, letting light flow over them.
“Oh” said Elsie, catching her breath. Her breasts swelled and hurt. She said
“Her name’s Ann.”
“Did you think she might be a girl? Did you have a name ready?”
“No.” Elsie gave a kind of sobbing laugh. “I can see her name’s Ann. She’s so small, it’s a small name.”
“She’ll grow.”
“I want to see all of her.”
Mrs. Ball unwrapped the little body. Elsie touched the raw-looking feet, considered the swollen sex, put out a finger for the wavering hands to grip, and was gripped.
“Ann,” said Elsie, shifting her painful body so that she could rest the nodding head on her shoulder. “Hey, Ann. Stay with me.”
Mrs. Ball, who tried not to be sentimental, and failed, felt tears in her eyes, and a choke in her throat. It was not the first time, and would not be the last.
Philip came to see Ann. The whole business of her birth and begetting had shamed him, somehow. He felt sullen, and put out, and deeper than that, afraid of something that concerned him dreadfully and was out of his control.
“Her name’s Ann,” Elsie told him. Mother and child were clutching each other, Ann’s face pushed into Elsie’s breast.
“Just Ann?”
“Just Ann.”
“It suits her. She looks—she looks all right.”
“You’re her uncle.”
“I know that. You’ll keep her.”
“I don’t seem to have no choice. I thought I might. I didn’t know what I’d feel. I had an idea of turning me head away, you know. And then I saw she was mine.”
She said “They’re unbelievable, those ladies, they sorted it all, just like they said at the meeting about the women of the future, they said single women should be looked after, and they’re looking after me. And Ann.”
“Turn her face this way a bit. I want to draw her. She’s got your brow.”
Neither of them mentioned anyone else she might resemble.
Phoebe Methley came to see Ann, bringing a bunch of wild flowers for Elsie, and a blue vase to put them in. She also brought apples, and two little baby dresses, and a bonnet. She perched on the end of the bed, and watched Philip’s pencil move on his sketch-pad.
She sniffed, and got out her handkerchief.
“I’m sorry, it’s silly, I always cry when I see newborns.”
“Her name’s Ann.”
