Mother Ship by Francesca Segal

Author:Francesca Segal
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473561687
Publisher: Random House

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The head cannula is in and, in truth, A-lette cried very little. But it is not stable, the tape doesn’t hold it well on the curve of her skull, and babies are renowned for yanking out these particular lines. I see their point. It recalls me to the day the orthodontist tried to convince me to wear my head brace to school. It was one thing to sleep in it, lying rigid as a geisha, but to be seen in public was unthinkable – protruding teeth were better. Why should A-lette be the only kid on the ward to appear in such a humiliating get-up?

As Thomas is speaking, A-lette begins to bash repeatedly at her own forehead, displaying precocious proprioception for a person still many weeks in advance of her own birth, I think, with some pride. But this fighting spirit will have to be subdued. I assume that there is a bit of kit for this but there isn’t; this is bush medicine, it seems, and so we have scissors and cotton wool and surgical tape, and we are manufacturing a protective device from the sort of shallow plastic cup in which a nurse might deliver medication. Moments later my child is lying before me with a yogurt pot taped to her gleaming head, affixed at a jaunty angle as though she is dressed, avant-garde, for the Ascot ladies’ enclosure. Thomas withdraws, with evident relief to be away from me.

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