Puffball, p.28
Puffball,
p.28
There was a brief rain-sodden autumn. The last of the rose petals fell. A few last blackberries stayed on the brambles. The days became cold and short.
Eddie would come up with firewood; he liked to hang close by Liffey’s side. Audrey came to talk about sex, and religion, and whether she preferred the vicar to the curate, the former being older, wiser and richer, but married. Debbie, though still pale and fragile, would trudge over the fields unasked, to get Liffey’s shopping. Liffey thought perhaps she was quite content with the company of children.
Local events became important in her life. Carol’s husband broke Dick Hubbard’s jaw in a brawl and was sent to the local prison for two weeks to teach him what the magistrates called a lesson. Carol did not visit him on visiting day, but was seen in the car park in Dick Hubbard’s car. Public opinion finally turned against Dick Hubbard.
Mabs laughed. She and Tucker drank a bottle of sherry between them. They let Audrey have a sip. Mabs was pregnant; the price of beef was high, of foodstuffs not so high as usual; one of the dogs had a puppy, unexpectedly: they were happy. Liffey lived in Honeycomb, properly subdued. It had taken them a year to achieve it. Christmas was coming.
Conclusion
Liffey’s baby lay in its cot by the fire and smiled. It seemed, to the outside eye, a perfectly ordinary baby. It spoke to Liffey, silently, but less and less, as its body grew into better proportion to its being. It gave up all apppearance of being in charge, of knowing best. It left all that to Liffey, now.
Liffey looked at herself in the mirror and laughed. She thought she seemed a very average person: no longer pretty, or elfin, or silly, or anything particularly definite, any more. She was much like anyone else. She thought that she too had become what Richard wanted. He had triumphed in his absence.
She put on another jersey. The baby wore two pairs of leggings. The wind turned to the north. Black clouds heaved around the Tor: sometimes it was obscured altogether by mist and rain. In the very cold weather the fire smoked to such an extent it would put itself out, like a scorpion which stings itself with its own tail. On Christmas Eve Liffey ran out of kindling wood to relight the fire. It was raining, and the branches and twigs outside were wet and useless. She went into the outhouse and there found the withered remnants of Richard’s puffballs. They were tough, withered and leathery, and she remembered what Richard had said about their use as firelighters, laid them in the grate, and lit them. They burned slowly, patiently and brightly, and she thought there was some good in them after all.
She wanted the baby to speak, to mark so momentous a thought, but his spirit was finally cut off from hers. He smiled at her and that was all.
The fire lit by the puffballs stayed in over the Christmas holiday, to Liffey’s satisfaction. The baby smiled at the flames. On Boxing Day a car drew up outside. It was Richard, and his arms were full of soft fluffy toys—white bears and pink fish and orange lions. Liffey thought that vitamin drops and disposable nappies would have been more sensible.
‘Christ, Liffey,’ he said. ‘I am sorry. I don’t care whose baby it is.’
Liffey opened the door, not without reluctance. But she knew the baby liked to see people. He enjoyed company more than she did. He would smile at everyone, Liffey told herself, at Mabs and Tucker and the postman and the milkman. But now he smiled at Richard too, claiming him for a father, shuffler of the genes, and she knew that that was that. He claimed them all, everyone, as bit-part players in his drama, dancers in his dance, singers to his tune.
Come in Richard. Here is Liffey.
Fay Weldon
was born in England and raised in New Zealand. She took degrees in Economics and Psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and after a decade of odd jobs and hard times began writing fiction. She is well known as novelist, screenwriter and cultural journalist. Her works include The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Big Women, Rhode Island Blues and The Bulgari Connection, plus the acclaimed memoir of her early life, Auto da Fay.
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Also by Fay Weldon
Fiction
THE FAT WOMAN’S JOKE DOWN AMONG THE WOMEN
FEMALE FRIENDS
REMEMBER ME
LITTLE SISTERS
PRAXIS PUFFBALL
THE PRESIDENT’S CHILD
THE LIFE AND LOVES OF A SHE-DEVIL
THE SHRAPNEL ACADEMY
THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY
THE HEARTS AND LIVES OF MEN
THE RULES OF LIFE
LEADER OF THE BAND
THE CLONING OF JOANNA MAY
DARCY’S UTOPIA
GROWING RICH
LIFE FORCE
AFFLICTION
SPLITTING
WORST FEARS
BIG WOMEN
RHODE ISLAND BLUES
THE BULGARI CONNECTION
Children’s Books
WOLF THE MECHANICAL DOG
NOBODY LIKES ME
Short Story Collections
WATCHING ME, WATCHING YOU
POLARIS
MOON OVER MINNEAPOLIS
WICKED WOMEN
A HARD TIME TO BE A FATHER
NOTHING TO WEAR AND NOWHERE TO HIDE
Non-fiction
LETTERS TO ALICE
REBECCA WEST
SACRED COWS
GODLESS IN EDEN
AUTO DA FAY
Copyright
Flamingo
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Published by Flamingo 2003
First published in Great Britain by
Hodder and Stoughton Ltd 1980
First published in paperback by Coronet, an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd 1981
Copyright © Fay Weldon 1980
Fay Weldon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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EPub Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-38966-7
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Fay Weldon, Puffball
