The great lover by Jill Dawson

Author:Jill Dawson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Poets, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), General, Fiction, Historical, English, General & Literary Fiction, Modern fiction
ISBN: 9780340935651
Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 2009-02-14T11:06:01.740000+00:00

It’s late afternoon by the time Tommy fetches me to Prickwillow and by then my stomach has turned to stone with the worry, with the knowledge that something is not right. It must be Lily, of course. Here I have been, stupidly dwelling on Rupert and the daft comings and goings of his heart, and my poor dear Lily’s time is drawing near. There’s nothing ghostly or magical, really, about my feelings; plain common sense would tell you that a girl of fifteen with her firstborn is never going to have a bed of roses.

Tommy turns the horse for Ely after he has dropped me at the drove, allowing me to walk the last fifteen minutes alone. He can tell from my mood not to try it on with me, so he tells me that after he has delivered the meat he can call back for me at five, but I shake my head–I want at least to stay the night.

I find Lily in the front room where someone, Sam maybe, has rigged up a space, with a curtain attached to the wall by two screws, and Lily lying on her side. Mrs Gotobed is with her, her fat rear greeting me from behind the curtain, and the others are outside, in the meadows down to the river, where she has sent them to catch rabbits and stay out of the way.

When I pull back the curtain the smell that only a woman knows reaches me. Mrs Gotobed is muttering her prayers–‘I pray thee Lord her soul to keep’–as she tries to sweep Lily’s damp hair from her forehead. For one horrible, breath-stopping moment, I think my sister is dead. Then Mrs Gotobed turns to me with her strange, flattened face, and says, without looking up, ‘She’s small, Nellie. The baby’s aside, and feet first too. Fetch me that brandy and tell the littlies not to come back till they’ve at least two rabbits apiece.’

I pass Sam outside on my way to fetch the brandy, kept hidden at the water’s edge under a large stone so that he won’t drink it. He sees me and lifts one eyebrow but carries on with his smoking and stripping the willow for an eel-grigg he is making, asking me mildly as I pass where his tea is, so I put the kettle on and set to making him some and taking it out to him, since there’s not much else I can do to help.

Lily’s damp hair is spread out like a giant golden spider on the pillow. Her head is as red as a bright poppy, so much redder than her pale swollen body in the sticky nightdress. She is not looking at me, but staring down at the pillow. I am filled with a longing to call her, to bring her back to me, but I know from the look in her eyes that she is fixed on the pain and on the urging inside her, tearing at her like a hook twisting inside the gut of a fish.

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