She is there, she is there, she is out, she is through, into the corridor, and she is running towards the staircase and the baby is warm and damp against her shoulder and she thinks that now she might be free, that she will take the baby and go home, that they will not turn her away, and that she could keep on running like this for ever but she hears footsteps behind her and someone catches her round the waist.
Euphemia, they say, stop it, stop it now. The nurse is there again, the old bitch, and she is puce with anger. She lunges at the shoulder where Esme has the baby but Esme jerks away. There is an alarm sounding around them. The younger nurse has her hands on the baby, Esme's baby, and she is pulling at him and he starts to cry. It's a small eh-heh, eh-heh, eh-heh sound, near Esme's ear. It is her baby, and she is holding on to him, they are not going to get him but the other nurse has her now, she has her arm bent up and she is twisting it into Esme's back and here is pain again and Esme thinks she can bear it and they will not take her baby, but the nurse has her arm round Esme's neck and is pressing in and it's hard to draw breath and she is struggling and she feels she feels she feels her grip on the baby slipping. No, she tries to say, no, no, please. The nurse is getting him, she is getting him, he is gone. He is gone.
Esme sees the whorl of hair on the crown of his head as the nurse hurries away with him, one clenched starfish hand, she hears the eh-heh eh-heh noise. People, men, big men, are running towards her with straps and needles and jackets. She is pushed to the floor, face down, a puppet without strings, and she sees that all she has of him is the blanket, the green blanket, which has unwound in her hands, empty, and she struggles, she screams, she lifts her head and she sees the feet of the nurse who has her baby, she sees the shoes and the legs as the nurse walks away but she cannot see him. She tries to lift her head further because she wants to see him, one last time, but someone is pushing her face into the tiles and so she must just listen, beneath the screams and the shouts and the alarm, to the footsteps as they recede down the corridor and, eventually, vanish.
– certainly didn't know. I don't think anyone did. I think we all just expected the man to have the knowledge and to get on with it. I certainly never asked Mother and she never said anything to me. I do remember worrying about it beforehand but then my concerns were different. It never occurred to me that he wouldn't know what-
– and there were times when I would look at her and wonder what it was about her. Her hair was frizzy, she had freckles because she never would wear a hat in the sun, her hands were uncared-for, her clothes were crumpled, carelessly put on. And of course I would feel guilty then because this was my sister and how could I be thinking these uncharitable thoughts? But, still, I would wonder. Why her? Why her and not me? I was prettier, it was often remarked upon, I was older, closer to his age, in fact. I had skills she would never master. I still think, from time to time, that if he hadn't gone away, it might have been possible for me to-
– I heard. I heard it all. I was in a room off the corridor, waiting. A nurse came in, then another, and they shut the door, bang, behind them. They looked flustered and they were both breathing hard. That wee, one of them said, then, seeing me, stopped. And we all listened to the screams. There was a gap in the top of the door, so it was very clear, the noise. And I said-
– and the specialist told me to remove the clothes from the lower half of my body, and it nearly made me sick but I did. I had to look up at the ceiling while he stretched and pulled and I was near to screaming by the time he straightened up. And he was looking nervous. My dear, he said, you are, ah, you are still intact. Do you understand me? I said yes, but the truth was I didn't. Have you not yet, he said, as he fussed about, washing his hands, his back to me, had relations with your husband? I said yes. I said I had. I said I thought I had. Hadn't I? The doctor looked down at his notes and said, my dear, no. And that night I sat on the edge of the bed and I tried not to cry, I tried really hard, and I repeated to Duncan the phrases that the doctor had used, I-
– time for a biscuit, that woman thinks. I wish she would go away. I wish they would all go away. How one can be lonely while constantly surrounded by people is beyond me. How am I to exist if-
– tried to pick up clues, girls did in those days, but it was all so hazy. You knew it happened in bed, at night, and that it was expected to be painful but, beyond that, it was veiled. I did think about asking my grandmother but-
– no, I do not want a custard-cream biscuit. There is nothing I want less. Will these people never-
– and the screaming stopped so suddenly. And after it there was such a silence. I said, what has happened? And the nurse nearest me said, nothing. They've sedated her. Don't you worry, she said, she'll have a nice sleep and when she wakes up she'll have forgotten all about it. And then I saw the baby. I hadn't noticed him until then. The nurse saw me looking and she brought him over to me and put him in my arms. And I gazed down at him and something overcame me. I was close, then, to changing my mind, to saying, no, I don't want him after all. He smelt of her.
He smelt of her.
I have never got over this.
But then I-
– thought they might be words he would understand. I said them to him: penetration, I said, and a release of fluid. I had learnt them like I had learnt French verbs, a long time before. I thought it would help. I thought it might fix the problem. I had put on my rose nightgown. But he leant over and picked up his pillow and then he walked across the room. I think until he reached the door I didn't actually believe he was going. I thought, perhaps he is just pacing about, perhaps he is going to fetch something. But no. He reached the door, he opened it, he left, he shut it behind him. And something in me shut too. And it was only the next day when I hid from him and my parents and I went to the hospital where I was intercepted by the doctor who said-
– the smell of that biscuit is nauseating. I will pick it up and push it under that cushion and that way I won't be able to smell-
– so I gazed down at the baby because I thought I couldn't do it, I thought I would have to give him back, and then I saw who he looked like. I saw it. I don't think, until that moment, I'd fully realised what had happened, what she had done. She had done that with him. And in me rose an anger. How had she known and not me? She was younger than me, she wasn't as pretty as me, she certainly wasn't as accomplished as me, she wasn't even married and yet she had managed to-
– went there because, in truth, I didn't know where else to go. Mother wouldn't have helped and I couldn't have told her, we just didn't have that kind of conversation, the visit to the specialist doctor hadn't helped, in fact it had made it worse. And I did want a baby so badly. It was like an ache in my head, a stone in my shoe. It is a terrible thing to want something you cannot have. It takes you over. I couldn't think straight because of it. There was no one else, I realised, whom I could possibly tell. And I missed her. I missed her. It had been months since she had gone away, so I took a taxi-cab. I was excited, on the way, so excited. I couldn't think why I hadn't done this before. I kept thinking about the look on her face when I walked in. But when the doctor intercepted me before I got to her and when he said what he said, about her, about a baby, I just-
– never came back to our room. He slept down the corridor, and when Mother died and I inherited the house we moved there and he took the room that had been my grandmother's, while I had the one I had shared with-