‘What sort of a pain?’

Dazed, Rachaela told her. She had to hold the frame of the door. For the first time in months she felt very sick again.

‘Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.’

She made it. Her body emptied itself in all its chambers. She came out shaking, and Emma Watt was still there of course, standing in the middle of the room.

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I think you’ve started.’

‘Started what?’

‘Your baby’s coming. Oh don’t be frightened. This will soon be over, and then the marvellous part begins.’

Rachaela sat down. The pain came again, griping her hollow guts, twisting her body like a cloth.

‘Must you be so stupid?’ she said.

Emma brushed this aside.

‘Say anything you like,’ she said, ‘call me names. I know this bit isn’t particularly nice. I’ll phone for you. The hospital—is it St Mary’s? What’s your doctor’s name?’

‘Oh, that,’ said Rachaela. ‘No doctor, no hospital.’

‘What?’

‘I haven’t been seeing anyone. That was just your happy little fantasy, Emma. Nobody knows.’

‘But my God, my God,’ said Emma. Panic took her all apart, and then she gripped herself together again. ‘Never mind. I’ll get an ambulance.’

Rachaela watched her, smiling. She took a mouthful of wine, but it came straight back up. This time she did not make the bathroom.

‘Don’t drink that,’ said Emma through a white blur. ‘Take my hand. That’s it. They won’t be long.‘The pain came and crushed her away. ‘My God,’ said Emma, ‘they’d better be quick. Just hold on. Hold on, darling. It’s going to be all right.’

‘Now push,’ said someone, some mad woman. ‘That’s it. Push. Good girl.’

Were they speaking to her, these lunatics?

She lay on a scarlet beach and Uncle Camillo bent over her. He hauled the crimson obstacle from her womb. She felt it go as if her body had been disembowelled.

So this was the abortion. The pain was terrible. Much worse than that girl had said.

‘One last try. Push.’

She could not push. What did it mean?

A fearful rhythm like galloping horses—stopped.

It was so quiet.

There was so much light, but growing darker.

‘You can rest now.’

Who were these people, so many of them, crowding round her in a white hedge. Had she fallen in the street?

The pain had ended. There was another pain, but it was different, slow and closing.

Something cried like a savage animal in the wilderness.

It was alive.

The thing had been got out of her, and it lived. It made noises, horrible and unhuman.

In a sort of aperture she saw a white baby hanging upside down from a nail of light. A single, blood-red ribbon marked its back, shining.

‘A girl. You see? She’s quite perfect.’

❖

Emma Watt sat by the bed. She was bright-eyed and faintly flushed. She had brought pink roses and a bottle of apple-juice, and grapes, and sweets in coloured wrappings.