Born of Woman Read Free Page B

had been a ship, hammered from the decking of an eighteenth-century frigate wrecked off the north-east coast. He and Hester had sat marooned at one small corner of it, dwarfed by its proportions, the row of empty chairs mocking their aloneness. Often, as a boy, he had filled those chairs with instant family—sisters with bare arms, all beautiful, all saving him the best bits, cushioned grandmas, cuddly aunts. Later he invited guests, figures from his school-books, Mohammed and Copernicus, artists—especially artists—people he could confide in, show his drawings to. Leonardo da Vinci, El Greco, Pieter Brueghel. Nice to have a name like Leonardo, instead of sissy Lyn. (‘Lyn’s a girl !’ they had chanted at his school.)
    He opened his eyes, stared down at the tablecloth. He and Hester had eaten off bare wood. Jennifer had made an ‘H’ out of the crumbs, his mother’s initial facing them both ways, legs firmly planted, arms folded tight across her middle.
    â€˜Are you all right, darling?’ Jennifer had got up from her chair and was hovering there beside him.
    â€˜Y … yes. Yes, of course I am.’ He tugged at the cloth. The ‘H’ shivered and collapsed. Jennifer’s hand was stroking down his neck. He seized it, trapped it between his own, pulled her down to him. He had all her hair spread out across his lap when the phone shrilled. He pushed her off, as if his mother had come in. He knew it was Northumberland before he even answered—let her answer.
    â€˜Hallo? Oh, Mrs Bertram. Yes, Lyn did explain. You won’t know me. I’m his wife, Jennifer. I …’
    Of course Molly Bertram knew her. Everyone knew everyone up there, gossiped about him and the wife he had never presented for their inspection. (Probably thought she was odd or cracked or crippled because he had hidden her.) How he had run away and left his mother to rot; how he was arty, selfish, never really fitted, couldn’t farm, fence, marry, couple, sow …
    â€˜How is my mother-in-law?’
    He winced. Jennifer mustn’t call her that. Mother-in-law meant marriage and Hester hadn’t sanctioned any marriage.
    â€˜What, the doctor? Oh, I see.’ She didn’t see. She had never lived there. Hernhope for her was merely a quaint and pretty name on an Ordnance Survey map, not a house which had lost its farm, its fields, its sons, abandoned in one of the remotest parts of England. England stopped at Newcastle for most people. It was easy to forget the country north of it, which butted against the Border and lost itself in the lonely Cheviots where your nearest neighbour (bar the sheep and crows) could be several miles away. He remembered looking at the map when he was just a boy at school and seeing his home in the scrawniest bit of England, as if someone had grabbed it by the neck and squeezed and squeezed until all the life and flesh and flowers had bulged above it or below it, leaving it bare and bruised, the hills still marked with purple-swollen thumb-prints. Northumberland had always been a strange uneasy county. Even at the time of the Domesday Book , it hadn’t been included—too lawless and remote.
    Jennifer was frowning as she replaced the receiver. ‘I’m afraid your mother’s … worse, Lyn. Mrs Bertram says she shouldn’t be left alone. She’s been sitting with her herself, but they’re so busy with the lambing, she can’t tear herself in two. And her eldest daughter’s gone to Glasgow for the week so she can’t help. Hester ‘s refused the doctor and the hospital. Mrs Bertram says she’d never forgive herself if anything happened when she wasn’t there. We’ll have to go up now. In fact, we ought to leave immediately.’
    â€˜We … c … can’t. I’ve got things to finish, w … work to …’
    â€˜But you said you wouldn’t work. You said we’d go to