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The floorboards are splintered here, where the rug doesn’t reach, and their roughness makes me realize what I am doing. I don’t know why I should be doing this. It is both ludicrous and senseless. I do not know what to say, or to whom. Yet I am on my knees.

I am not praying – if that is what I am doing – out of belief. Only out of need. Not faith, or belief, or the feeling of deserving anything. None of that seems to be so.

Help me.

Help – if You will – me. Whoever that may be. And whoever You are, or where. I am not clever. I am not as clever as I hiddenly thought I was. And I am not as stupid as I dreaded I might be. Were my apologies all a kind of monstrous self-pity? How many sores did I refuse to let heal?

We seem to have fought for a long time, I and You.

The ones who do not have anyone else, turn to You – don’t you think I know? All the nuts and oddballs turn to You. Last resort. Don’t you think I know?

My God, I know how suspect You are. I know how suspect I am.

If You have spoken, I am not aware of having heard. If You have a voice, it is not comprehensible to me. No omens. No burning bush, no pillar of sand by day or pillar of flame by night.

I don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve been demented, probably. I know what I am going to do, though.

Look – it’s my child, mine. And so I will have it. I will have it because I want it and because I cannot do anything else.

TEN

I can’t go to the doctor’s. He’ll ask about things that are none of his concern. “Have you told the man, Rachel? Would he be willing to marry you?” Or else he’ll say, “It’s going to be a pretty bad shock for your mother, Rachel, and with that heart of hers –”

Mother’s heart. I’ve only just thought of that. What if my telling her did actually bring on another of her attacks? It would be my fault. If it was fatal, it would be all my fault. I can’t. I can’t tell her, or Doctor Raven, or anyone. I’ll have to go away.

I can’t go away with no explanation. That would be impossible. Anyway, where? I have to get away. Where am I going to go? Stacey’s? No, not there, not ever.

I won’t be able to work, at least not as a teacher, once it shows. What will I do for money? I can’t see how I will be able to live.

There is only one thing to do, and that’s for me to get rid of it. By myself. No one will know, then. I was out of my mind to think I could have it. There’s only one thing to be done.

How? A knitting needle? That’s the favoured traditional way. Nobody knits, here. I’d have to buy a set for the purpose. How odd. Or a straightened wire coat-hanger? When I think of performing it, my flesh recoils as though hurt already. And if it all goes wrong, what then? Who would be there, to do anything? I wouldn’t only have killed the creature – I’d have killed myself as well. Barbiturates would have been kinder, if that’s what I’m really after. What am I really after?

– She is in the bathroom, and the door is locked, and she cannot cry out. The pain distends her; she is swollen with it. Pain is the only existing thing. On the floor, all over, and all over herself, lying in it, and even on her hair, the blood.

No, I won’t. That I cannot do. I refuse.

Maybe it wouldn’t happen that way. It would, though. What do I know of my own anatomy? What I need is a good book. Do-it-yourself. How to be an angel-maker in one easy lesson. Oh Christ, it’s almost funny, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Steady, Rachel. There is no time for letting go. Not now. You’ve got to do something. If I were very careful, perhaps it would be all right. How could anyone be calculatedly careful about a thing like that? They’re surprisingly difficult to kill. I’ve read that. No delicate probing would ever dislodge it.

Dislodge. It is lodged there now.

Lodged, meaning it is living there. How incredible that seems. I’ve given it houseroom. It’s growing there, by itself. It’s got everything it needs, for now. I wonder if it is a girl or a son.

– She is conscious. She has refused anaesthetics because they sometimes (she