‘Are you sure?’ Richard was saying. ‘Liffey, are you there? You’re sure you haven’t made a mistake?’

  The telephone went dead, and although Miss Martin, sobbing, denied that it was her doing, and did her trembly best to re-establish the connection, Liffey at the same time was trying to get through to Richard, and by the time she did he had indeed gone off to a meeting.

  ‘Is there any message?’ asked Miss Martin, who had recovered her composure, and blamed Liffey because she had lost it in the first place. ‘I’d ask him to ring back, but he is so busy this week, and we’re expecting a call through on this line from Amsterdam.’

  Liffey put down the phone.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that secretary,’ said Mabs. ‘She sounds for all the world like a wife.’

  Suppositions

  Knowledge of pregnancy comes early to modern woman, perhaps too early, before body and mind have settled down into tranquillity.

  Liffey, all alone, trembled and feared and cried. She thought her life was over. She thought that to be pregnant was to be ugly, and that afterwards her body would be spoiled; she would have pendulous breasts and a flabby belly.

  Her mother Madge had strange creases over her stomach, flaps of ugly skin, for which she held Liffey responsible. ‘Stretch marks!’ she would observe, making no attempt to hide them. Madge viewed her body as something functional: if it worked that was all she cared about. But Liffey loved her body and cherished it: she feared maturity, she wanted to be looked after, for ever; to be placed, physically, at a point somewhere between girl-child and stripling lad: hips and bosom all promise, waiting for some other time, but not now, not now. Not yet.

  Richard wanted a boy-wife, she knew it. She knew it from the way he groaned at biscuits and moaned at buns and worried in case she grew fat.

  On the way home from Cadbury Farm Liffey slipped and fell, and lay for a moment, stunned and shaken, with the world slipping and sliding about her.

  A face loomed over her. It was Tucker. Tucker helped her up and set her on her feet, calmly and kindly. ‘You look after yourself,’ he said. ‘And don’t go drinking too much of Mabs’ wine. It isn’t good for you.’

  Liffey ran home, as quick as she could over slippery ground, for light snow had been falling, and locked the door. During the night more snow fell, fine and light and driven by strong winds, which in the morning left a blue, washed sky. And such a brilliant tranquillity of white stretched across the plain to the Tor, broken only by the sketched pencil-lines of the half-buried hedgerows, that tears of wonder came to her eyes, and she felt better.

  Richard woke on Bella’s sofa to the sight of Bella’s books: the works of Man, not nature, and found it reassuring. The news of Liffey’s pregnancy had come as a shock. He was glad, but not altogether glad.

  If Richard was to be husband and father, how could Bella continue his education? How could he in all conscience continue to lie on his back with Bella on top of him, wresting from him any number of degrading pleasures? How could he discover what it was in Miss Martin that made her cry when she lay beneath him, as if she had the key to all the sorrows of the Universe?

  How could he discover the nature of Helga’s being, which he now passionately desired to know?

  But to be a father! There was pride in that, and pleasure in looking after Liffey, and wonder in the knowledge that a man was not just himself, but so stuffed overfull with life that there was enough to pass on—and here in Liffey was the proof of it.

  Richard decided to give up Bella and Miss Martin and concentrate on Liffey.

  It was a decision he was to make frequently in the following months, as a dedicated but guilty smoker decides to give up smoking.

  Six weeks. The limb buds of the foetus began to show and the tail to disappear. The heart formed within the chest cavity and began the activity which was to last till the end of its days. Blood vessels formed in the cervical cord. Parts of the stomach and intestine formed.

  Liffey wondered how to be rid of a baby she did not want, without telling anyone that she did not want it.

  Richard wondered how to subdue in himself that part of his being which did not dovetail with his nature as husband and father.

  Liffey thought she was growing a malformed baby, which would have a lolling head and tongue, and flippers for arms, finished off by Tucker’s black fingernails. Liffey was guilty, in other words, and believed that no good could come out of her.

  Mabs walked about the hills and fields, and the rain poured out of the heavens so hard it stirred up the ground where she trod, and there was little to choose between heaven, or earth, or her. The Tor vanished altogether, obscured by water, fog and cloud, in which occasionally, sheets of lightning danced. Earth, water, fire and air no longer retained their separate parts.

  Seven weeks. Budding arms and legs, and little clefts for fingers and toes. Blood vessels throughout, and the liver and kidneys forming. A spinal cord, and a well-shaped head with the beginnings of a face, and a brain inside. It was not, all the same, conscious. It was an automota, as the jellyfish are, and the whole kingdom of the plants, and much but not all of the insect world. It was not yet truly a mammal. Mammals have the gift of consciousness: decision can override instinct, and often, but perhaps not as often as we assume, does.

  ‘You are looking poorly,’ said Mabs, and made Liffey a brew of ergot and tansy tea; a rich abortificant, which had, fortunately for Liffey but unfortunately for Mabs, no effect on Liffey or her baby beyond giving the mother slight diarrhoea. ‘This will do you good.’

  Liffey had become a little frightened of Mabs, and drank whatever she suggested, for fear of offending her.

  Richard succumbed to loneliness, vague resentments of Liffey, various worries connected with the varying saline content of the water flow at the soup works, and fornicated as much as possible with Miss Martin and Bella.

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ whispered Miss Martin. ‘Not if your wife is pregnant.’ But she did, and even left out her own contraceptive cap, once, and fortunately did not get pregnant, an episode which led her to believe she was infertile, and did nothing for her self-esteem. She knew nothing about ova, where they were, or how long they lasted. All she knew was that her very being cried out to have Richard’s baby, if Liffey did: and her conscious mind, that glory of the mammal kingdom, did very little to protect her.

  ‘Live as much as you can while you can,’ said Bella. ‘Before life and Liffey close in.’ Bella was old, by nature’s standards, and her conscious mind had less trouble over-riding her instinctive drives. All that remained of naturally rivalrous behaviour was her current irrational dislike for, and impulsive disparagement of, Richard’s pregnant wife Liffey.

  Mabs’ period began, staining oyster silk underwear. Mabs scrubbed away, hating Liffey, and focused her ill-will. And in London Helen looked up and saw the letters to Liffey on the mantelpiece and said, ‘I suppose I’d better post those,’ and did, and Mabs at once felt better and actually baked a cake for tea.

  Liffey opened the letters and understood that she was no longer rich, that she was to live as the rest of the world did, unprotected from financial disaster; that she was pregnant and dependent upon a husband, and that her survival, or so it seemed, was bound up with her pleasing of him. That she was not, as she had thought, a free spirit, and nor was he: that they were bound together by necessity. That he could come and go as he pleased; love her, leave her as he pleased: hand over as much or as little of his earnings as he pleased; and that domestic power is to do with economics. And that Richard, by virtue of being powerful, being also good, would no doubt look after her and her child, and not insist upon doing so solely upon his terms. But he could and he might: so Liffey had better behave, charm, lure, love and render herself necessary by means of the sexual and caring comforts she provided. Wash socks, iron shirts. Love.

  And that to have been unfaithful was a terrible thing. That financially dependent wives are more faithful than independent wives. That she must go carefully.

  Liffey thought of all these things for the space of three days.

  ‘You’re looking worse,’ said Mabs, and offered Liffey more ergot and tansy tea, which Liffey pretended to take, but emptied instead into a pot plant which was altogether dead two days later. Had Liffey known this she might indeed have drunk the tea.

  On the fourth day Liffey ran up country lanes, and over rough ground, fleeing her past, and her present, and her mother, and trying to shake her baby free. But the baby barely noticed any change to its environment. How could it?

  Annunciation

  The wind sang in Liffey’s ears, and told her she was wasting effort and energy: that all things were destined, that she was what she was born, and would never change: would for ever be the girl without a father who wished she had no mother; and that though she ran and ran she would never escape herself. As Liffey ran, so antelope run over the African plain, and kittens across the domestic lawn, frightened by themselves, seeking refuge in flight, running as likely into danger as to safety. Her muscles ached: her energy drained. Liffey stopped running.

  Liffey looked about her. The rain, which had poured and poured for weeks, had stopped, and the sky was washed and palest blue. She could still see the Tor, but now from a different angle, so that its slope was less acute, and the tower on top was clearly man-made, not eternal. It was friendly: scarcely nuministic at all. It had been weeks, she felt, since she had looked about her and noticed the world in which she lived. She saw that the leaf buds were on the trees, and that new bright grass pushed up beneath her feet, and that there was a sense of expectation in the air. All things prepared, and waited.

  Liffey sat on the ground and turned her face towards the mild sun. She felt a presence: the touch of a spirit, clear and benign. She opened her eyes, startled, but there was no one there, only a dazzle in the sky where the sun struck slantwise between the few puffy white clouds which hovered over the Tor.

  ‘It’s me,’ said the spirit, said the baby, ‘I’m here. I have arrived. You are perfectly all right, and so am I. Don’t worry.’ The words were spoken in her head: they were graceful, and certain. They charmed. Liffey smiled, and felt herself close and curl, as a sunflower does at night, to protect, and shelter. The words dispersed, and the outside sounds came in. Birdsong, traffic, distant voices.

  ‘I have been blessed,’ said Liffey, to herself, walking carefully and warily home, eyes inside and misting from time to time. She did not say it to anyone else, for who would believe her?

  ‘Richard, I felt the baby’s spirit arrive. It was the soul that came. I know it was.’

  No.

  ‘Madge, mother, did you know I was pregnant? No? Well, I am and what’s more the Holy Ghost, or something, descended and now inhabits me.’

  ? No.

  ‘Mabs, friend, you know how I slept with your husband, Tucker, well you don’t, but I did, except it isn’t his baby; well, I just know, because the baby’s said so—’

  ?

  No.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Lee-Fox, your daughter-in-law speaking, the flimsy one who trapped your only son into marriage: the never-quite-accepted, never-to-be-accepted one, who tried to charm her way into your hearts but failed, who now says just to have Richard’s child isn’t enough, but has to have an Annunciation instead, as if Richard was some Middle Eastern carpenter and she was Mary—’

  ?

  No.

  ‘Bella and Ray, Liffey speaking. You know, Richard’s wife, your lodger’s wife, who chose to live in the country and apart from her husband and is now pregnant and poor but compensating with quasi-religious experiences—’

  ?

  No.

  Liffey made up the fire and polished the windows to let every scrap of light in, and settled down to cherish the baby.

  Growth

  Richard, told of the loss of Liffey’s wealth, frittered away on pretty things and useless things and delicious things, was first irritated, then relieved, and then filled with a great sense of protectiveness and love for Liffey, as if by her very helplessness she solicited something from him which she hitherto had not. He moved through the world with an added weight and dignity, so that presently his colleagues remarked to one another that Richard had changed. ‘He’s older than one thinks,’ somebody said, and at meetings his voice was listened to, and not just heard.

  Richard resolved to give up Miss Martin and Bella, and kept the resolution for a full week.

  Then Bella got him drunk, on free champagne at a restaurant opening, and if he did with Bella, then why not Miss Martin?

  And Helga was sulking slightly, as if thanks were not sufficient recompense for her ironing of his shirts, and the folding of his socks in the neat Continental way, not the angry convoluting inside out way the English had.

  Eight weeks. The baby’s heart beat strongly now. The inner ears were growing fast, although they still showed no external part. The face had nostrils and a recognisable mouth, and black pigmentation where the eyes were to be. Elbows, shoulders, hips and knees were apparent. The spine moved of its own volition, for the first time, although fractionally. The length of the foetus was two point two centimetres. There was no apparent room within for the soul which gave grace to its being.

  Mabs, or so she thought, knew everything there was to know about Liffey. She certainly knew about Liffey’s new poverty. Liffey used Mabs’ telephone, having none of her own; and if she wished to be private had to walk a mile to the public call box at Poldyke—a manual exchange, where it so happened that the operator was a friend of Mabs. Letters to and from Liffey were left at Cadbury Farm, for the postman would not walk up the track, and Mabs was not above steaming open any she thought interesting. Shop assistant friends gave an account of what Liffey purchased, and the doctor’s receptionist, also a friend, passed on details of her health.

  ‘She’s having to learn to live like anyone else,’ said Mabs smugly, observing that Liffey now bought groceries much as anyone else did, and that her order at the butcher’s was for mince and sausage, no longer fillet steak and stewing veal. ‘Her Richard won’t like that!’

  And it was true that Richard did not like it very much. The euphoria of his compassion and tenderness faded; difficulties, so bravely anticipated and overcome in principle, remained in detail to plague and depress him. With the merest suspicion in the mind that Liffey’s skinny, shabby clothes might be chosen because they were cheap, she stopped looking chic, and looked dowdy instead. Her cooking—when she was obliged to use inexpensive ingredients, and deprived of the cream and brandy she liked to add to everything, from soup to stewed apples—was not as seductive as before. And what Richard had construed in Liffey as sexual delicacy, now seemed rather more like sexual limitation—for without a doubt what had occurred to Liffey had occurred to Richard too—that once a wife is financially dependent, she is sexually dependent too. Richard felt by that token the more in a position to criticise.

  He cherished Liffey, of course he did, but no longer quite as an equal. He was almost sorry for her; he came down at the weekends because he ought, not because he wanted to. Nothing was said: the movement in their relationship was slight: too slight to find voice, but both sensed it.

  Now he was rich, and she was poor.

  Mabs knew it, and she was glad.

  Mabs knew everything about Liffey except what she could not know—that Liffey’s baby had spoken to her; settled clear and bright inside her and promised that everything would be all right. That Liffey, now, had powers of her own: that Mabs could no longer have Nature all her own way: that forces worked for Liffey too, and not just Mabs. Winter winds were on Mabs’ side, and frost, and lightning and storms. Liffey loved sun, and breeze, and warmth; and they loved her. And spring was coming.

  Danger

  Tucker put the cows on Liffey’s side of the stream field. One of them was pregnant. It bellowed and groaned one misty evening. It lay down: it shuddered: it jerked its limbs and arched its neck. It rolled its eyes in a terrifying manner, showing an expanse of red-veined white. Could any eye on earth be so large? A single leg, Liffey was horrified to see, stuck out from under its tail. A single leg, a calf’s leg, in a frozen wave to the world, as if a frame of a film had been frozen. Blackish mucus gushed out around it, even as Liffey looked, and with it came a stench strong and disagreeable. Liffey looked and gasped and ran, crying for Mabs and Tucker.