It takes a second for Erica to see what Vee is pointing at, but then she spots them; stacks of smaller stones, carefully balanced on top of another. She imagines the women who come here – perhaps the daughters of the ones who formed part of the human chain around the fence – selecting a pebble. They must choose it with care from the land around the garden, then place it on top of one of the piles that are already here, hand pausing in the air, a millimetre away, to see that the balance is kept. Erica feels her own emotional equilibrium teeter at the thought of it. ‘Cairns,’ she says.

‘Of course.’ Vee is bending, searching for a stone. ‘I couldn’t remember the word.’ She takes off a glove in order to pick up a small, sharp flat piece of flint, or maybe slate, and she looks at it for a moment, turns it over, before squatting to put it in place, on top of one of the smallest cairns there. Her hand is shaking. When she stands again, she says, ‘I was here.’ This time, though, it’s something more like a prayer than a statement of fact. There is power in this place.

Vee steps back, and then holds out her arms. It takes Erica a moment to understand: why would Vee take Tom from her? But then she sees the space that Vee is offering her, and why she’s done so. She hands the now sleeping child over, feeling how Vee is braced for his weight, then relaxes when she has sensed the perimeters of his body, its density. Half-woken by the movement, Tom looks between the two of them – both women hold their breath – and then he smiles and finds the space at Vee’s shoulder that will best cradle him, settling his head there. He reaches for Vee’s earlobe.

Erica squats and looks for a stone of her own. After a moment of searching she finds a smooth, tiny oblong, slightly tapering at one end. She places it, gently, on Vee’s flint.

And now she wants to cry again, which is not like her at all. Marcus laughed at her when they got married, because he cried and she didn’t. The only time she’s ever been this emotional was when she was first expecting Tom.

Oh, shit.

October 1981

October 1981

This Month magazine

Leonie Barratt: Letters from a Feminist

Our monthly column from the front line of the Battle of the Sexes

Dear John,