Case Histories

Apart from her father's whiskery bedtime benedictions, Victor was the first man Rosemary had ever been kissed by (albeit awkwardly, lunging at her like an elephant seal). Rosemary's father, a railway signalman, and her mother, a housewife, were startled when she brought Victor home to meet them. They were awed by his undoubted intellectual credentials (the black-rimmed spectacles, the shabby sports jacket, the air of permanent distraction) and the possibility that he might even be a bona fide genius (a possibility not exactly refuted by Victor), not to mention the fact that he had chosen their daughter – a quiet and easily influenced girl, hitherto overlooked by almost everyone – to be his helpmeet.

The fact that he was twice Rosemary's age didn't seem to worry them at all, although later, when the happy couple had departed, Rosemary's father, a manly type of man, did point out to his wife that Victor was not "a great physical specimen." Rosemary's mother's only reservation, however, was that although Victor was a doctor, he seemed to have trouble giving her any advice about the stomach pains that she was a martyr to. Cornered at a tea table covered in a Maltese lace cloth and loaded with macaroons, Devon scones, and seedcake, Victor finally confirmed, "Indigestion, I expect, Mrs. Vane," a misdiagnosis that she accepted with relief.

Olivia opened her eyes and stared contentedly at the nursery-rhyme wallpaper. Jack and Jill toiled endlessly up the hill, Jill carrying a wooden bucket for the well she was destined never to reach, while elsewhere on the same hillside Little Bo-Peep was searching for her lost sheep. Olivia wasn't too worried about the fate of the flock because she could see a pretty lamb with a blue ribbon round its neck, hiding behind a hedge. Olivia didn't really understand the afterthought, but she would have welcomed a baby. She liked babies and animals better than anything. She could feel the weight of Rascal, the family terrier, near her feet. It was absolutely forbidden for Rascal to sleep in the bedrooms, but every night one or other of them smuggled him into their room, although by morning he had usually found his own way to Olivia.

Olivia shook Blue Mouse gently to wake him up. Blue Mouse was a limp and lanky animal made from toweling. He was Olivia's oracle and she consulted him at all times on all subjects.

A bright slice of sunlight moved slowly across the wall, and when it reached the lamb hiding behind the hedge, Olivia climbed out of bed and pushed her feet obediently into her small slippers, pink with rabbit faces and rabbit ears, and much coveted by Julia. None of the others bothered with their slippers, and now it was so hot that Rosemary couldn't even get them to wear shoes, but Olivia was a biddable child.

Rosemary, lying in her own bed, awake, but with limbs that she could barely move, as if the marrow in her bones had turned to lead piping, was at that very moment trying to devise a plan that would stop the other three from corrupting Olivia's good behavior. The new baby was making Rosemary feel sick, and she thought how wonderful it would be if Victor suddenly woke from his snore-laden sleep and said to her, "Can I get you something, dear?" and she would say, "Oh, yes, please, I would like some tea – no milk – and a slice of toast, lightly buttered, thank you, Victor." And pigs would fly.

If only she weren't so fertile. She couldn't take the pill because it gave her high blood pressure, she had tried a coil but it dislodged itself, and Victor saw using condoms as some kind of assault on his manhood. She was just his broodmare. The only good thing about being pregnant was that she didn't have to endure sex with Victor. She told him it was bad for the baby and he believed her because he knew nothing – nothing about babies or women or children, nothing about life. She had been a virgin when she married him and had returned from their one-week honeymoon in Wales in a state of shock. She should have walked away right there and then, of course, but Victor had already begun to drain her. Sometimes it felt as if he were feeding on her.