And suddenly it’s over. There is a name for it, and it’s not exactly common, but it’s benign. You can go, they say. 101Come back six months after you finish breastfeeding, or at most a year from now, and we’ll re-examine you to be on the safe side. They’ve changed the boxes on the form so the registrar can’t find which one to tick, and then she does, and then it’s done, the flimsy white paper to the ground-floor receptionist and out of there, into the merciless, beautiful, stultifying heat. I will make my life matter, I promise to the day. I will use my voice. I will fight for what is right. The promises well up in me. I will spend less time on social media. I will not take my husband for granted. I will never snap at my children again. My children. I will teach them that it’s their job too to make a difference. I will try to be a good example. I will. I will.

Back in 1863, Caroline finishes a novel in which her heroine refuses to bow to shame. Beatrice Brooke is seduced and then abandoned by the rich, predatory Montagu Treherne; alone in Wales, her illegitimate baby boy dies. But Beatrice rebuilds her life: she sells her drawings and handmade lace, she moves back to London, becomes an artist’s model. Against all odds and social conventions, Lost and Saved has a happy ending: Beatrice marries and has another child. This time, the reviews are split. Some call it a work of ‘true genius’, her best to date, but others are offended that a fallen women could be so redeemed. Caroline defends her heroine in the Letters pages of The Times, then starts work on her next and final novel, although of course she does not yet know it will be her last. Her middle son, in a dreadful echo of my youth, becomes increasingly violent, his wild and capricious moods taking dark turns. He flies into irrational rages 102and blames her for things that are not her fault, so that she is afraid to see him and hides in her room. He shoves her about and tells her to get out of his sight. He berates her in foul language. He hits her, and he hits his wife.

We go on. We endure, and go on. The old battles, the same battles, once again and in endlessly new configurations. On 24 July it is announced that the inflatable baby will travel to Sydney for the forthcoming US presidential visit there. On the same day RAICES tweets a plea to its followers to

Keep this in mind:

Children are still in cages. Parents still
don’t know where their children are.
Some were coerced illegally into leaving
the country.

The media isn’t writing as many stories
but the problem has not gone away.

Please, don’t let up.

103

Lady Moon