Secret Scribbled Notebooks Read Free Page A

turn round.
    I gave A Room of One’s Own to Sophie that afternoon, but could see that it would be a while till she would be strong enough for such a book. All her desire for something interesting to read had disappeared; she declared that her fanny was so sore she doubted it would ever recover (the other women in the room looked at each other and tittered), but that she was still blissfully ecstatic. She added almost balefully that the feeling would probably wear off when the hormones that had kicked in just after the birth wore away. She exchanged glances with the other new mothers around her, as if they were in an exclusive club together.
    She slipped the book into a drawer, not even glancing at it, and devoured the chocolate I had brought without offering me any.
    I went to see Sophie in hospital every day. On one visit she wept bitter tears, and complained that she leaked from almost every orifice; she waddled to the toilet with enormous pads stuffed down her pants; she held nappies to her breasts to staunch the flow of milk that welled from them at inconvenient times. Otherwise, she seemed very happy. She read snatches of Oscar Wilde and snorted with laughter. She undressed Anastasia and inspected her for any flaws or imperfections and found none. I wondered if she also searched for any resemblance to the man who was the father, but if she did she said nothing. Mostly, Sophie just lay beside her baby and gazed at her. ‘She’s just perfect,’ she said.
    Naked, Anastasia was all secret folds of skin, and surprising hairiness. Her mouth was fleshy and dimpled, with all the twirls and convolutions of a flower, her fingers a group of blind, plump grubs. I learned that a baby is not simply a larger person in miniature, but a creature with an almost entirely different terrain. Everything was in the right place but shaped so differently that I was awed to think that she would one day resemble a real, flawed person. Anastasia had the disposition of a baby bird, and either rested in a state of flaccid, helpless dreaminess, or reared up urgently, demanding food.
    Because I was at the hospital so often, I was there when the nurses taught Sophie to bathe her, and learned how to test the temperature of the water, unwrap her from the layered confusion of her clothing, and wipe her small protesting face with a warm cloth. I learned how to immerse her in tepid water, where she hung suspended peacefully on my arm like a creature returned to its natural surroundings. I learned how to dry every last tender fold of her skin, and wondered if she minded her lack of privacy, but she bore it all with grace. I thought how amazing it was that Anastasia came to be alive at all. All of life seems so chancey, but each birth must be the biggest miracle of all.

The Red Notebook
    Music: none. written in absolute silence
    The Journals of Anaïs Nin, Volume 5, 1947-1955
    On the cover, Anaïs Nin is a fragile, yet strong-looking woman. She looks fearlessly into the camera. She looks at me.
    She was a writer, and she lived in wonderful places like Paris and New York, and wherever she went she attracted people like writers, artists, composers and film-makers. Which I have never known (and may never know), but some of the things she says make me feel that I know her.
    It says she lived between 1903 and 1977. I’m reading her book and I love it and I can’t believe she died before I was even born!
    In winter, 1948, she wrote that we receive a fatal imprint in childhood, at the time of our greatest plasticity . . . she writes of the fallibilities, the errors, the weaknesses of parents . . . and more besides. I only half understand this . . . I will keep reading.
    I wonder if I read enough about the lives of other women whether I would find out how to live my own. Whether I’d feel surer about what I wanted to do with myself. Everything that has happened to me up to now has been by chance. I feel that I have been waiting my whole