be like his father the war hero, a legless fucking joke!”
“Oh, David, David,” she whispered. She knelt in front of his wheelchair. “David, don’t think like that. He will respect you. He’ll look up to you because you put your life together again, and because you can do the work of two men from your wheelchair, and because you carried your disability with courage and cheerfulness and—”
“Don’t be so damned condescending,” he snapped. “You sound like a sanctimonious priest.”
She stood up. “Well, don’t act as if it’s my fault. Men can take precautions too, you know.”
“Not against invisible trucks in the blackout!”
It was a silly exchange and they both knew it, so Lucy said nothing. The whole idea of Christmas seemed utterly trite now: the bits of colored paper on the walls, and the tree in the corner, and the remains of a goose in the kitchen waiting to be thrown away—none of it had anything to do with her life. She began to wonder what she was doing on this bleak island with a man who seemed not to love her, having a baby he didn’t want. Why shouldn’t she—why not—well, she could…. Then she realized she had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do with her life, nobody else to be other than Mrs. David Rose.
Eventually David said, “Well, I’m going to bed.” He wheeled himself to the hall and dragged himself out of the chair and up the stairs backwards. She heard him scrape across the floor, heard the bed creak as he hauled himself on to it, heard his clothes hit the corner of the room as he undressed, then heard the final groaning of the springs as he lay down and pulled the blankets up over him.
And still she would not cry.
She looked at the brandy bottle and thought, If I drink all of this now, and have a bath, perhaps I won’t be pregnant in the morning.
She thought about it for a long time, until she came to the conclusion that life without David and the island and the baby would be even worse because it would be empty.
So she did not cry, and she did not drink the brandy, and she did not leave the island; but instead she went upstairs and got into bed, and lay awake beside her sleeping husband, listening to the wind and trying not to think, until the gulls began to call, and a grey rainy dawn crept over the North Sea and filled the little bedroom with a cold pale light, and at last she went to sleep.
A kind of peace settled over her in the spring, as if all threats were postponed until after the baby was born. When the February snow had thawed she planted flowers and vegetables in the patch of ground between the kitchen door and the barn, not really believing they would grow. She cleaned the house thoroughly and told David that if he wanted it done again before August he would have to do it himself. She wrote to her mother and did a lot of knitting and ordered diapers by mail. They suggested she go home to have the baby, but she knew, was afraid, that if she went she would never come back. She went for long walks over the moors, with a bird book under her arm, until her weight became too much for her to carry very far. She kept the bottle of brandy in a cupboard David never used, and whenever she felt depressed she went to look at it and remind herself of what she had almost lost.
Three weeks before the baby was due, she got the boat into Aberdeen. David and Tom waved from the jetty. The sea was so rough that both she and the skipper were terrified she might give birth before they reached the mainland. She went into the hospital in Aberdeen, and four weeks later brought the baby home on the same boat.
David knew none of it. He probably thought that women gave birth as easily as ewes, she decided. He was oblivious to the pain of contractions, and that awful, impossible stretching, and the soreness afterward, and the bossy, know-it-all nurses who didn’t want you to touch your baby because you weren’t brisk and efficient and trained and sterile like they were;
“Oh, David, David,” she whispered. She knelt in front of his wheelchair. “David, don’t think like that. He will respect you. He’ll look up to you because you put your life together again, and because you can do the work of two men from your wheelchair, and because you carried your disability with courage and cheerfulness and—”
“Don’t be so damned condescending,” he snapped. “You sound like a sanctimonious priest.”
She stood up. “Well, don’t act as if it’s my fault. Men can take precautions too, you know.”
“Not against invisible trucks in the blackout!”
It was a silly exchange and they both knew it, so Lucy said nothing. The whole idea of Christmas seemed utterly trite now: the bits of colored paper on the walls, and the tree in the corner, and the remains of a goose in the kitchen waiting to be thrown away—none of it had anything to do with her life. She began to wonder what she was doing on this bleak island with a man who seemed not to love her, having a baby he didn’t want. Why shouldn’t she—why not—well, she could…. Then she realized she had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do with her life, nobody else to be other than Mrs. David Rose.
Eventually David said, “Well, I’m going to bed.” He wheeled himself to the hall and dragged himself out of the chair and up the stairs backwards. She heard him scrape across the floor, heard the bed creak as he hauled himself on to it, heard his clothes hit the corner of the room as he undressed, then heard the final groaning of the springs as he lay down and pulled the blankets up over him.
And still she would not cry.
She looked at the brandy bottle and thought, If I drink all of this now, and have a bath, perhaps I won’t be pregnant in the morning.
She thought about it for a long time, until she came to the conclusion that life without David and the island and the baby would be even worse because it would be empty.
So she did not cry, and she did not drink the brandy, and she did not leave the island; but instead she went upstairs and got into bed, and lay awake beside her sleeping husband, listening to the wind and trying not to think, until the gulls began to call, and a grey rainy dawn crept over the North Sea and filled the little bedroom with a cold pale light, and at last she went to sleep.
A kind of peace settled over her in the spring, as if all threats were postponed until after the baby was born. When the February snow had thawed she planted flowers and vegetables in the patch of ground between the kitchen door and the barn, not really believing they would grow. She cleaned the house thoroughly and told David that if he wanted it done again before August he would have to do it himself. She wrote to her mother and did a lot of knitting and ordered diapers by mail. They suggested she go home to have the baby, but she knew, was afraid, that if she went she would never come back. She went for long walks over the moors, with a bird book under her arm, until her weight became too much for her to carry very far. She kept the bottle of brandy in a cupboard David never used, and whenever she felt depressed she went to look at it and remind herself of what she had almost lost.
Three weeks before the baby was due, she got the boat into Aberdeen. David and Tom waved from the jetty. The sea was so rough that both she and the skipper were terrified she might give birth before they reached the mainland. She went into the hospital in Aberdeen, and four weeks later brought the baby home on the same boat.
David knew none of it. He probably thought that women gave birth as easily as ewes, she decided. He was oblivious to the pain of contractions, and that awful, impossible stretching, and the soreness afterward, and the bossy, know-it-all nurses who didn’t want you to touch your baby because you weren’t brisk and efficient and trained and sterile like they were;
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