Emily lay in bed. She gazed up at the unceiled roof. The dead of night. Stillness. Then she listened as a lizard played beneath her window, tireless, noisy, awkward. Snatches of remembered prayers andanted their way through her head. Emily caught and held one. In a high breathless tone she hurriedly recited it, dedicating the prayer to those, like herself, whose only journeys were uprootings. And now she recalled the day.
'It's doubtful that he'll ever leave these parts. Strange fish.'
Emily lowered her eyes. Something had merely sheltered in her body. She had felt a certain relief at expelling it, covered as it was with a greasy film. Mr McDonald moved her gently to one side and revealed the dark medal of blood which stained where she had lain. Stella had already rescued the carcass. She stood weeping behind the table upon which stood three squads of bottles containing fluids of the unlikeliest colours. Soon Stella would step outside and introduce the child to the earth. Emily would not answer Mr McDonald's gaze. His silence begged her to try and live bravely and put aside any desire to feel a child's mouth on her breast. Put aside any desire to feel a kiss of undoubted devotion and dependence, unlike that of a man, a kiss which might cause a confident radiance to sear through her body. The slave-doctor looked her up and down with great economy of movement. Emily continued to ignore Mr McDonald. She watched the lamp, its orange flame, the clouds of smoke, the soot blackening the roof, and she sunk deeper into indifference, wrapping it around her like an old and friendly blanket. Unpleasant thoughts broke into Emily's bruised mind. They sought to further disfigure her memory. She turned away from Mr McDonald. Her body curled slowly into a protective foetal ball. She remembered her great thirst through pregnancy, her burning desire to taste the milk-stained breath of a child, and then. . how was it possible for a whole life to vanish before it has begun? How could so much love and care be squandered on the production of a child who selfishly reaches the far side of life without travelling through this one? Like goods in a shop-window, Emily knew she was becoming faded by too many bright mornings. She lifted her hand from her forearm and noticed the light blue finger-bruising against her white skin where she had held herself tightly. Her body had worked spitefully against her, as her mind did now. Go away, Mr McDonald. Emily attempted to console herself with the hope that time would chill the channel of her emotions, and that eventually the incessant waterfall of memory would freeze solid at its source. And then there would be peace.
'I do hope my driver hasn't made off without me.'
Emily said nothing. Stella reappeared and handed the doctor his hat.
'I'm so terribly sorry, Miss Cartwright.'
Mr McDonald bowed sharply.
At the dead of night, Emily climbed from her bed. She stood naked before a mirror that was powdered with the light dust of neglect. She noted (with a resigned sigh) that the masonry had truly tumbled from all corners. She noted that beauty was in the process of abandoning her, that the lined ruins of her face were telling her a story that did not please her. My God, I'm only. . Emily had aged as pregnant women age. Her face and hips had broadened as one. Her lightness of step had gone as though her foot had been chopped off. Her body had become leaden, but her vision had begun to pulsate with a new and magical life, her mind had become a frieze of sharp stabbling colours. Love, love, love. You see, I'm not such a bad woman am I? Except love for him ran only a short distance. To the point where he was losing control. And freedom. She knew this now. And then it was turned off. And forgotten. A mistake. She fell over like a foal. Emily thought warmly of Stella. Without doubt their greatest virtue was their unswerving loyalty. Dear Papa, your negroes are a deep, oily black, with the occasional matt one dulled by the sun. Emily looked in the mirror at the reflected evidence of her full, idle breasts. They had dropped and now rested heavily against her chest. Below them her belly stood up proud, a house of life which had shamefully pitched out its tenant. Emily turned her head and laughed as she watched moths breaking their wings against the glass chimney of the lamp. Above the stridulation of the crickets she heard voices. She wondered about her child, who knew nobody. Now she must keep it company. Soon. And her travelling companion, Isabella. Poor, good Isabella. They were close, mother and daughter (almost), their words running and racing like rivers, locked together at one moment, the next parting into separate streams of consciousness, then coming together again in a great burst of happiness. Now suffering on the ship. The beads of sweat individually spaced on her brow. Fever began to disfigure her ivory flesh, and then life was snatched from her just when she thought joy might finally present itself in the form of adventure. Her eyes were open, the stare clear and unglazed. Do not (Isabella had reminded her) grow old in a place that is unkind to you. They were kind, they journeyed up the hill and brought her food. Cassava bread and bush tea mixed with milk. The mistress. Six months, six weeks, six days, it mattered little for her status was secure. The mistress, she had a position, but they would never learn to read and understand her strange moods. And now fallen upon curious times, standing alone and listening to the voices that disturbed the night. Papa, was he dead? His endless pleas for her to return. To Thomas Lockwood? Papa dead? No. Would she be forgiven for her indiscretion? There was once a threat of impending arrival transported to her by a sad Mr Wilson. He could not lift his eyes to meet the glare in hers. Doomed. She laughed at him. He looked as though he might shed tears. And men Mr Wilson rode off and never came again to visit. And Papa's threat was never executed. And now? Was the pleading at an end? I'm still here. Emily gestured, palms upturned, eyebrows arched. Are there no ships that might take me away? But take me away to what and to whom? She giggled. A man strung up, mouth agape, tongue protruding. Hercules. Cambridge. With his Bible. Murderer. A slow chill rippled through her body. ('Please keep still and stop talking. Stop talking.') To encourage the delicate head of a child to lie peacefully in the shallow valley between her fallen breasts. But not now. The head ballooning out of her body into the earth. Emily squashed a mosquito against her arm, brushed it to the floor, and wiped away the blood with the back of her hand. Her autumnal eccentricities. Premature. Turning the last corner of beauty. Stella claimed that the estate would be sold off in small plots to free whites and mulattoes (and negroes who could afford such things). Ah, thought Emily. Ship? Useless thoughts fell quietly like over-ripe fruit into freshly lain snow. Snow-white face, unseen snow, never again. Emily. Miss Emily. Emily Cartwright. Emily. Emily. Inside of me once. The little foreigner now no longer resident in my womb. I speak and Isabella answers, and now silence. Emily listened. In this small cottage she listened carefully but heard nothing above the noises of the night. Quick, come quick, death. Emily understood that the patient ones decentre quietly and with more beauty. I have been patient. Quick, come quick. Quick.
Emily stood before the mirror. And now sunrise. She knew that she must bear the weight of yet another day. She knew that she must endure the undignified melee of dawn. She knew that, in all likelihood, she would have to witness the dying of the sun come dusk. She understood this. The fragrance of poinsettia came wafting into the room in small eddies that caused the light in the lamp to dance in tune to the scent. She remembered. Journeying up the hill to Hawthorn Cottage. With her friend. Stella. Dear Stella.