The Partridge and the Pelican

by Rachel Crowther

It was incredible, she thought, what their bodies could do. Conjuring life out of nowhere: out of sheer lust. One moment of reckless pleasure could make a whole new being – a trail of dates in the ledgers of the registry office; a thread of humanity reaching down through the generations. A force for good or bad. She would never get over it, the miracle of procreation.

  “You know something,” she whispered into the darkness, “I love the boys dearly, but I’ve always wanted a baby girl. Do you think it’s too late? Would it be a mad thing to do?” She ran her finger down the length of Robert’s back, and he sighed deeper into sleep.

  “Someone like me,” Olivia said, into the hollow behind his ear. It had always seemed to her that there was something magical about mothers and daughters. Something magical about babies, altogether. She could feel now the soft heat of an infant’s newborn scalp, the magnificent sense of being necessary, important, omnipotent. It was the best thing in the world, she thought, her heart beating fast with the excitement of starting again. The thing she was best at. “Something of me, to leave behind. To do the things I haven’t done. Can you understand that?”

  She felt her mind drifting towards a dream, her limbs floating away from the bed. She let her eyes shut, then forced them open again.

  “I am the end of the line: none of my children will be mothers, and it’s all I’ve done. All I will do now.”

  Her words faded into silence and her eyes closed again. But then she felt a movement beside her. She couldn’t see Robert’s face in the dark, but when he spoke she could tell he was smiling.

  “It might be another boy,” he said. “Have you considered that?”

  Olivia didn’t answer.

  “It’s not too late for you to do something else, you know. To find a new way to be yourself.”

  “We could adopt,” said Olivia. “Then we’d know it was a girl.”

  “What about your friend Clive? His charity?”

  “He doesn’t really need me.”

  “Why not? You’d be excellent.”

  “Maybe.”

  He reached his arms to enclose her.

  “My love,” he said, “it’s your life. You must do what you want with it. Whatever you want.”

  Postscript

  The British Airways 747 is approaching Heathrow through the straggly grey clouds of a February afternoon. Eleven hours out of Beijing, having lapped nearly a quarter of the earth’s circumference, it’s just a few minutes behind schedule. It is a creature of the technological age, its path mapped by computer, its movements precisely controlled by slats and spoilers, flaps and ailerons. Twice it banks and circles wide again, like a predator prowling around a water hole, waiting for a gap to open in front of it. Twice the passengers feel the lurch and tug of its shifting momentum and see the flat world beneath them drop away. Then it sets its nose downwards and makes for the ground, descending towards the runway with the heavy, deliberate grace of an over-sized bird on the road to extinction.

  As the engines’ pitch sinks through a slow glissando, the tiny doors are already opening, mobile stairs and landing staff and luggage carts are already congregating. Within minutes the first passengers are discharged onto the tarmac outside Terminal 5, and swept along towards the glass palace of the arrivals hall.

  Among them are three women holding babies who were not with them on the outward flight. Li Jing-Wei gave birth in her home city of Shenyang, her baby delivered by her uncle, the professor of obstetrics, and cared for by her mother for six weeks before her return to London to join her husband in the postgraduate students’ accommodation at University College. By the time they return to Beijing in two years’ time, their son will have a smattering of English words which will prove a curiosity to the extended family waiting for him on the other side of the world.

  The other two women carry older babies, little girls who have spent their first few months in the Children’s Welfare Institute in Tianjin City. The shorter of the two new mothers, her dark hair held back in a tortoiseshell clasp, keeps close to her husband, their bearing betraying both exhaustion and elation as they shape themselves, already, into a family unit. The other woman, taller and blonde, walks close enough to show that they have travelled together, these three. The dark-haired woman’s husband pulls two sets of luggage off the carousel while the women stand together behind the press of passengers, hugging their babies close. A paragon of male competence, he stacks two trolleys and guides them both carefully through the customs channel and out into the main concourse.

  But there, the two women hug farewell, wipe tears from tired eyes, take a last look at each others’ new daughters. They are travelling in different directions now, but they promise to see each other soon, to keep in touch. They have only known each other for a few weeks, but they have established a strong bond in that time. It’s a shame, they have said over and over, that they don’t live closer, that their little girls can’t grow up together. Then the little family makes its way towards the bus for the long-term car park, the minds of the new parents turning to the long drive back to Cornwall, the bedroom prepared there for the baby, the grandparents waiting to welcome them home.

  As crowds swell and part around her, greetings and reunions bursting like firecrackers to left and right, the other woman stands, uncertain, the child wriggling and worrying in her arms as though she senses the enormity of what is happening to her. A beautiful child, with sleek dark hair and smooth skin and perfect, delicate features, her name is symbolic of a happiness she hasn’t yet known. Shushing and soothing, swaying from foot to foot, the woman surveys the collage of faces filling the hall.

  Watching her, you couldn’t be sure whether she was expecting to be met, or searching the crowd on the off chance of seeing a familiar face. You could only guess whether the message she left ten days ago had been picked up, or how it had been received. Or whether, in the end, she had clicked ‘cancel’ instead of ‘send’; had replaced the receiver without speaking.

  So if the mass of people, anxious and impatient, joyful and fearful, coalesce into a single person, and above the hubbub a name is called, will it be hers? Will she hear the single syllable – “Eve!” – and in its inflection recognise three decades of feeling? Across the airport arrivals hall, will she see in the face that greets her a sure and certain sign of the smooth, hard core of friendship?

  Acknowledgements

  Writing is supposed to be a lonely business. I am very lucky to be part of a community of fellow writers – from the memorable Arvon course at The Hurst, from OUDCE and from Oxford Brookes – whose support and encouragement have been invaluable. I am particularly grateful to Catherine Lloyd, Wendy Osgerby, Virginia Moffatt, Honoria Beirne and Jacqui Haskell, although many others have offered feedback, ideas and criticism. I’ve also been fortunate in having willing readers, especially Felicity Luke, who read several drafts with unquenchable enthusiasm, and Nilofer, Noel, Meriel, Miranda and Charlotta from my book club, who discussed the merits of an early draft in a punt. I am grateful to Clemmy, Katie, Toby, Daphne and Rowena for many, many things – entertainment, inspiration, perspective – and for their diligence in making sure that I am never left alone for too long. I owe a very big thank you to Yvonne Barlow and all the Hookline book clubs for their vote of confidence, and to Susan Moxley for her wonderful cover design. And there are two other people without whom this book would never have seen the light of day: Sheila Beesley has kept us all afloat with extraordinary patience and good humour, and Sarah Willans has been the wisest editor anyone could wish for. Thank you to all of you, and of course to Richard, for everything.

  Rachel Crowther lives in Oxford with her husband and five children, and with the sixty boys in the school boarding house they run. She trained as a doctor and has worked for many years in Public Health medicine, contributing to several publications in the field of child health. Her other interests include music (she plays the piano rather badly), mosaics, cooking, walking, planning holidays and reading. She has a diploma in crea
tive writing from Oxford University and is completing an MA at Oxford Brookes. She has had a number of short stories published in anthologies and magazines; this is her first novel.

  For more information visit:

  www.rachelcrowther.co.uk