life. And it would go on forever, a life sentence – despite her innocence.
She replaced the teat in the child’s mouth. Thought of the future sickened her, not merely the sight of meals stretching to the end of the century, nor the clumsy intrusion of a wheelchair, nor even the start of Ginnie’s menstruation. The question that lingered over tortuous feeds and disturbed her early morning sleep was whether the child would be retarded, whether she would have the capacity of thought.
Elizabeth had seen what she most feared at an institution for handicapped people: children with larval bodies, children rocking, banging heads, others with scarcely any movement at all, their wizened bodies and twisted limbs knotted on the floor, their haggard faces staring at the ceiling. Ginnie’s paediatrician had advised the visit. ‘To acquaint yourself with the child’s future,’ he had said, ‘and to make sensible decisions,’ with a warning emphasis on ‘sensible’. It was difficult for Elizabeth now, he had said, but she would thank him for his uncompromising attitude when all this – he waved his hand at the infant – was behind her. He had wanted Elizabeth to see what Ginnie could become, what she might look like, he had wanted Elizabeth to look at the little creatures and find menace and disgust in their bodies. But instead of menace, she saw stark neglect in their deformities and wretched deprivation in the strangely colourless skin. She saw cruel yellow walls with neither pictures nor toys to please the eye, she saw thirty-five metal cots with hospital-issue white bedding placed in straight rows like packets of flour on a supermarket shelf. She saw two nurses chatting above the freckled contortions of a naked child as if he were a stale discarded dinner. The paediatrician had meant her to envisage a life with Ginnie; but it had been impossible for Elizabeth to glimpse her own weary future while the poor neglected creatures were crowding her vision and snorting in her ears from their vast empty cages.
So the institution fixed the child to her, by an unnatural bond that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with duty. If Elizabeth had not seen those children managing to survive an environment intent on wearing them away she might have given Ginnie up. But she had seen, and a remnant of justice, worn thin and ragged by the months with the baby, pulled the child tightto her chest and held her there while she spooned and washed and wiped her own young life away.
The baby gurgled and gulped and gagged. The tiny body, usually limp like a stick of tired celery, stiffened, and for a moment Elizabeth felt the touch of a normal infant, a small quick joy before the body slackened once more. Even when you know how it is, hope is embarrassingly tenacious. Bloody lurking hope.
She tipped the baby further back, too defeated to think about its choking, besides if it should happen, which was unlikely, the speech therapist had shown her what to do. So many helpful hints these smiling therapists handed out, but there were times when Elizabeth wished she did not know, times when she acknowledged the iniquity of it all, that while the child had never really lived, her own life had finished at the age of twenty-three. The baby was a murderer, the flaccid lump of flesh had killed as surely as any assassin; all that remained were a few memories of how it was before and how it should have been now. But as the days rolled on, even the memories, now so shrivelled with guilt, became as fragile as the summer grass. Elizabeth had expected to jostle for happiness in her turn at life, but what she had received was really too mean: trampled, bruised and sinking, she no longer aspired to happiness.
The bottle slipped as Elizabeth raised a hand to her forehead. The skin was cold as clay. She jammed the teat more tightly into the child’s mouth and idly turned the pages of the newspaper. ‘Read the paper,’ Adrian would say, ‘take your
She replaced the teat in the child’s mouth. Thought of the future sickened her, not merely the sight of meals stretching to the end of the century, nor the clumsy intrusion of a wheelchair, nor even the start of Ginnie’s menstruation. The question that lingered over tortuous feeds and disturbed her early morning sleep was whether the child would be retarded, whether she would have the capacity of thought.
Elizabeth had seen what she most feared at an institution for handicapped people: children with larval bodies, children rocking, banging heads, others with scarcely any movement at all, their wizened bodies and twisted limbs knotted on the floor, their haggard faces staring at the ceiling. Ginnie’s paediatrician had advised the visit. ‘To acquaint yourself with the child’s future,’ he had said, ‘and to make sensible decisions,’ with a warning emphasis on ‘sensible’. It was difficult for Elizabeth now, he had said, but she would thank him for his uncompromising attitude when all this – he waved his hand at the infant – was behind her. He had wanted Elizabeth to see what Ginnie could become, what she might look like, he had wanted Elizabeth to look at the little creatures and find menace and disgust in their bodies. But instead of menace, she saw stark neglect in their deformities and wretched deprivation in the strangely colourless skin. She saw cruel yellow walls with neither pictures nor toys to please the eye, she saw thirty-five metal cots with hospital-issue white bedding placed in straight rows like packets of flour on a supermarket shelf. She saw two nurses chatting above the freckled contortions of a naked child as if he were a stale discarded dinner. The paediatrician had meant her to envisage a life with Ginnie; but it had been impossible for Elizabeth to glimpse her own weary future while the poor neglected creatures were crowding her vision and snorting in her ears from their vast empty cages.
So the institution fixed the child to her, by an unnatural bond that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with duty. If Elizabeth had not seen those children managing to survive an environment intent on wearing them away she might have given Ginnie up. But she had seen, and a remnant of justice, worn thin and ragged by the months with the baby, pulled the child tightto her chest and held her there while she spooned and washed and wiped her own young life away.
The baby gurgled and gulped and gagged. The tiny body, usually limp like a stick of tired celery, stiffened, and for a moment Elizabeth felt the touch of a normal infant, a small quick joy before the body slackened once more. Even when you know how it is, hope is embarrassingly tenacious. Bloody lurking hope.
She tipped the baby further back, too defeated to think about its choking, besides if it should happen, which was unlikely, the speech therapist had shown her what to do. So many helpful hints these smiling therapists handed out, but there were times when Elizabeth wished she did not know, times when she acknowledged the iniquity of it all, that while the child had never really lived, her own life had finished at the age of twenty-three. The baby was a murderer, the flaccid lump of flesh had killed as surely as any assassin; all that remained were a few memories of how it was before and how it should have been now. But as the days rolled on, even the memories, now so shrivelled with guilt, became as fragile as the summer grass. Elizabeth had expected to jostle for happiness in her turn at life, but what she had received was really too mean: trampled, bruised and sinking, she no longer aspired to happiness.
The bottle slipped as Elizabeth raised a hand to her forehead. The skin was cold as clay. She jammed the teat more tightly into the child’s mouth and idly turned the pages of the newspaper. ‘Read the paper,’ Adrian would say, ‘take your
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