house party filled five cars, children wedged in or on the adults’ laps.
Summer was the same: two months of it, and again the family came and went, and came again. The schoolgirl was there all the time, poor Bridget, clinging fast to this miracle of a family. Rather, in fact, as Harriet and David did. Both more than once – seeing the girl’s face, reverential, even awed, always on the watch as if she feared to miss some revelation of goodness or grace the moment she allowed her attention to lapse – saw themselves. Even uneasily saw themselves. It was too much…excessive…Surely they should be saying to her, ‘Look here, Bridget, don’t expect so much. Life isn’t like that!’ But life is like that, if you choose right: so why should they feel she couldn’t have what they had so plentifully?
Even before the crowd gathered before the Christmas of 1973, Harriet was pregnant again. To her utter dismay, and David’s. How could it have happened? They had been careful, particularly so because of their determination not to have any more children for a while. David tried to joke, ‘It’s this room, I swear it’s a baby-maker!’
They had put off telling Dorothy. She was not there, anyway, because Sarah had said it was unfair that Harriet got all the help. Harriet simply could not manage. One after another, three girls came to help; they had just left school and could not easily find work. They were not much good. Harriet believed she looked after them more than they her. They came or didn’t come as the mood took them, and would sit around drinking tea with their girl-friends while Harriet toiled. She was frantic, exhausted…she was peevish; she lost her temper; she burst into tears…David saw her sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands, muttering that this new foetus was poisoning her: Paul lay whimpering in his pram, ignored. David took a fortnight’s leave from his office to come home and help. They had known how much they owed Dorothy, but now knew it better – and that when she heard Harriet was pregnant again she would be angry. Very. And she would be right.
‘It will all be easier when Christmas starts,’ wept Harriet.
‘You can’t be serious,’ said David, furious. ‘Of course they can’t come this Christmas.’
‘But it is so easy when people are here, everyone helps me.’
‘Just for once we’ll go to one of them,’ said David, but this idea did not live for more than five minutes: none of the other households could accomodate six extra people.
Harriet lay weeping on her bed. ‘But they must come, don’t put them off – oh, David, please…at least it’ll keep my mind off it.’
He sat on his side of the bed watching her, uneasy, critical, trying not to be. Actually he would be pleased not to have the house full of people for three weeks, a month: it cost so much, and they were always short of money. He had taken on extra work, and here he was at home, a nursemaid.
‘You simply have to get someone in to help, Harriet. You must try and keep one of them.’
She burst out in indignation at the criticism. ‘That’s not fair! You aren’t here stuck with them – they aren’t any good. I don’t believe any of these girls have done an hour’s work in their lives.’
‘They’ve been some help – even if it’s only the washing-up.’
Dorothy telephoned to say that both Sarah and Harriet were going to have to manage: she, Dorothy, needed a break. She was going home to her flat to please herself for a few weeks. Harriet was weeping, hardly able to speak. Dorothy could not get out of her what could possibly be wrong: she said, ‘Very well, I suppose I’ll have to come, then.’
She sat at the big table with David, Harriet, the four children there, too, and looked severely at Harriet. She had understood her daughter was pregnant again within half an hour of arriving. They could see from her set angry face that she had terrible things to say. ‘I’m your servant, I do the work of a servant in this house.’ Or, ‘You are very selfish, both of you. You are irresponsible.’ These words were in the air but were not spoken: they knew that if she allowed herself to begin she would not stop with this.
She sat at the head of the table – the position near the stove – stirring her tea, with one eye on baby Paul, who was fretful in his little chair and wanted to be cuddled. Dorothy, too, looked tired, and her grey hair was disordered: she had been going up to her room to tidy herself when she had been swallowed in embraces with Luke and Helen and Jane, who had missed her and knew that the crossness and impatience that had ruled the house would now be banished.
‘You know that everyone is expecting to come here for Christmas,’ she demanded heavily, not looking at them.
‘Oh yes, yes, yes,’ clamoured Luke and Helen, making a song and dance of it and rushing around the kitchen. ‘Oh yes, when are they coming? Is Tony coming? Is Robin coming? Is Anne coming?’
‘Sit down,’ said David, sharp and cold, and they gave him astonished, hurt looks and sat.
‘It’s crazy,’ said Dorothy. She was flushed with the hot tea and with all the things she was forcing herself not to say.
‘Of course everyone has to come,’ Harriet said, weeping – and ran out of the room.
‘It’s very important to her,’ said David apologetically.
‘And not to you?’ This was sarcastic.
‘The thing is, I don’t think Harriet is anywhere near herself,’ said David, and held his eyes on Dorothy’s, to make her face him. But she would not.
‘What does that mean, my mother isn’t near herself?’ enquired Luke, the six-year-old, ready to make a word game of it. Even, perhaps, a riddle. But he was perturbed. David put out his arm and Luke went to his father, stood close, looked up into his face.
‘It’s all right, Luke,’ said David.
‘You’ve got to get someone in to help,’ said Dorothy.
‘We have tried.’ David explained what had happened with the three amiable and indifferent girls.
‘Doesn’t surprise me. Who wants to do an honest job these days?’ said Dorothy. ‘But you have to get someone. And I can tell you I didn’t expect to end my days as your and Sarah’s skivvy.’
Here Luke and Helen gave their grandmother incredulous looks and burst into tears. After a pause, Dorothy controlled herself and began consoling them.
‘All right, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘And now I’m going to put Paul and Jane to bed. You two, Luke and Helen, can put yourselves to bed. I’ll come up and say good night. And then your gran is off to bed. I’m tired.’
The subdued children went off upstairs.
Harriet did not come down again that evening; her husband and her mother knew she was being sick. Which they were used to…but were not used to ill temper, tears, fretfulness.
When the children were in bed, David did some of the work he had brought home, made himself a sandwich, and was joined by Dorothy, who had come down to make herself tea. This time they did not exchange irritabilites: they were together in a companionable silence, like two old campaigners facing trials and difficulties.
Then David went up into the great shadowy bedroom, where lights from an upstairs window in a neighbouring
