The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online Page A

always known it was too good to last, and went off back home to her mother, who had just remarried and did not really want her.
    The girl who had come to help went home, and David looked for a trained nanny in London. He could not afford one, but James had said he would pay for it. Until Harriet was better, he said: uncharacteristically grumpy, he was making it clear he thought that Harriet had chosen this life and now should not expect everyone to foot the bill.
    But they could not find a nanny: the nannies all wanted to go abroad with families who had a baby, or perhaps two; or to be in London. This small town, and the four children, with another coming, put them off.
    Instead, Alice, a cousin of Frederick’s, a widow down on her luck, came to help Dorothy. Alice was quick, fussy, nervous, like a little grey terrier. She had three grown-up children, and grandchildren, but said she did not want to be a nuisance to them, a remark that caused Dorothy to make dry remarks, which Harriet felt like accusations. Dorothy was not pleased to have a woman of her own age sharing authority, but it could not be helped. Harriet seemed unable to do anything much.
    She went back to Dr. Brett, for she could not sleep or rest because of the energy of the foetus, which seemed to be trying to tear its way out of her stomach.
    “Just look at that,” she said as her stomach heaved up, convulsed, subsided. “Five months.”
    He made the usual tests, and said, “It’s large for five months, but not abnormally so.”
    “Have you ever had a case like this before?” Harriet sounded sharp, peremptory, and the doctor gave her an annoyed look.
    “I’ve certainly seen energetic babies before,” he said shortly, and when she demanded, “At five months? Like this?” he refused to meet her—was dishonest, as she felt it. “I’ll give you a sedative,” he said. For her. But she thought of it as something to quiet the baby.
    Now, afraid of asking Dr. Brett, she begged tranquillisers from friends, and from her sisters. She did not tell David how many she was taking, and this was the first time she had hidden anything from him. The foetus was quiet for about an hour after she dosed herself, and she was given a respite from the ceaseless battering and striving. It was so bad that she would cry out in pain. At night, David heard her moan, or whimper, but now he did not offer comfort, for it seemed that these days she did not find his arms around her any help.
    “My God,” she said, or grunted, or groaned, and then suddenly sat up, or scrambled out of bed and went doubled up out of the room, fast, escaping from the pain.
    He had stopped putting his hand on her stomach, in the old companionable way, for what he felt there was beyond what he could manage with. It was not possible that such a tiny creature could be showing such fearful strength; and yet it did. And nothing he said seemed to reach Harriet, who, he felt, was possessed, had gone right away from him, in this battle with the foetus, which he could not share.
    He might wake to watch her pacing the room in the dark, hour after hour. When she at last lay down, regulating her breathing, she would start up again, with an exclamation, and,knowing he was awake, would go downstairs to the big family room where she could stride up and down, groaning, swearing, weeping, without being observed.
    As the Easter holiday approached and the two older women made remarks about getting the house ready, Harriet said, “They can’t come. They can’t possibly come.”
    “They’ll expect it,” said Dorothy.
    “We can manage,” said Alice.
    “No,” said Harriet.
    Wails and protests from the children, and Harriet did not soften. This made Dorothy even more disapproving. Here she was, with Alice, two capable women, doing all the work, and the least Harriet could do …
    “You’re sure you don’t want them to come?” asked David, who had been begged by the children to make her change her mind.
    “Oh,