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‘I love the baby,' I said, and my voice was fierce and choked. ‘I look after her, you know; Stella's too ill and doped.'

‘I know you love her,' he said. ‘I knew you would.'

‘I wish she was mine,' I said, and bit my lip hard.

He smiled, but sadly. ‘Listen. Will you listen to me?'

‘Of course.'

He got up from his knees and lay down on the bed. ‘Come.'

I lay down with him on the narrow bed, our faces just inches apart, and the heat of his body beat a pulse in the air, which my own pulse joined with as he spoke. He described his early conversations with Stella, his frustration with her negativity and the breakthrough when he got her to believe in Jesus and to believe in life. He'd gone back to Soul-Life, he said, in the hope that I would have returned or contacted him there since I hadn't let them know at Wood End where I was.

‘And there I had a dream,' he said, ‘and in the dream Jesus spoke to me.'

‘Don't you even need herons any more?' I said.

He flattened his lips and was silent for a moment. ‘Jesus told me I must have a child.'

‘But –'

‘He told me you would come back to me, but that until you did I must take Stella – Leila – into Soul-Life and that she must bear me a child.'

‘Why did you give her a prettier name than mine?' I asked.

‘It was not my wish to be with her. I've never seen her in that way. I don't find her –' He paused. ‘I'm not attracted to her.'

The throb that surrounded us was becoming deafening and my heart was thudding and my blood was beating in my ears.

‘And what did she say when you told her that?'

‘I think she was glad to get away from home.'

I forced myself to look him in the eye as I asked, ‘And what was it like, screwing my sister?'

His eyes were sad as he looked back, the pupils dilating madly. I didn't expect him to answer, but: ‘She's not happy in her physical being,' he said. ‘However . . .'

‘However, you did the deed. How
could
you?' My voice warped and so did my face and I stuck my head against his shoulder to stop him seeing the ugliness. I was helpless to stop the tears and the sobbing that ripped through me and as he held and soothed me I was furious that he, who had caused me so much pain, should be the one to comfort me, and yet I couldn't bear him to take his arms away.

‘You're my wife in the eyes of the Lord, and in my heart,' he said. ‘You, Martha; you.'

‘But what about the others? What about Hannah? I can't forget what I saw. I wish I could.'

‘Find the hum,' he said, ‘and block it out.'

‘I can't bear that you –'

‘If it hurts you so much, and if you will come back with me, then I will stop it. I will make that sacrifice for you.'

‘Will you?' I said. ‘Will you really?'

‘I will. I need you.' He kept saying that and stroking my back. I could smell his sweat and my own tears that had soaked the pillow and the shoulder of his shirt. He kissed me and our mouths were wet and salty with tears and feelings that flared through me, through both of us, and made us fuse into one hot animal – and we yelled, we both yelled, at the passion; it was like a detonation.

‘It's never like that with anyone else,' he said, when we'd got our breath back. ‘Oh, Martha, I want
you
to bear me a son.'

‘But what if I can't?'

He was quiet for a moment, and then: ‘Martha, Stella told me about your operation,' he said. I hid my face against his chest. Of course she would tell him, of course she would. My skin was burning.

‘You lied to me,' he said softly.

‘Not lied –'

‘Lied by omission.' I could feel the puffs of breath his words made in my hair.

‘I thought you wouldn't love me.'

‘How little faith in me you have,' he said.

I counted twenty of his heartbeats before I dared to look up. Love was flowing from his eyes.

‘I won't ever be able to have a baby,' I said.

He smiled, bent down his head and licked away my tears. ‘Jesus has said it will be so,' he said. And he rocked me in his arms, his hairy thighs tangled round my smooth ones, the stickiness itching on my skin and his voice soothing in my ear, his heartbeat thrumming the rhythm for mine to join with. I couldn't believe his faith in miracles. But they do happen sometimes, they do, and maybe this one would. I had to be open to the possibility that it could.

Adam went to sleep, his mouth loosening and drool spilling from the corner. I studied his face in the dying light: so beautiful, so right, so mine. I heard the very beginnings of your waking from the little room beside mine. I never let you cry for long, didn't want Stella disturbed. I wriggled out from under Adam's leg, put his shirt on and crept out into the hall – but Stella was already up and on her way to pick you up.

‘There was no need to make such a song and dance about it,' she hissed. ‘You woke Dodie.'

‘Did we?'

‘I've just put her back down.'

‘I didn't hear.' I was shocked. You began to squall. ‘I'll get her,' I said. ‘You need to sleep.'

‘You honk of sex,' she said. ‘I'm not having you touching her like that.'

‘I'll wash, then I'll take her.'

She didn't answer, but stomped into your room. I heard her pick you up, your crying stop for a moment and then begin in regular bursts like someone trying to start a moped. It made me hurt to hear you cry like that and I knew it was for me. You'd grown used to
me
in the night, not cross, doped-up Stella who never had a comfortable way of holding you. I had a quick wash and crept into my room – where Adam was making the little pocking noises in his sleep that I'd forgotten. I removed his shirt and put on my own nightie and dressing gown.

Stella was sitting on the sofa downstairs and your too-hot bottle was waiting on the table while she struggled to keep you quiet. She held you as if you were made of wood and in response you made yourself stiff against her shoulder.

‘You go to bed, Stella,' I said. ‘Let me.'

She got up and shoved you into my arms.

‘Remember she's
mine
,' she said.

‘I know.'

She went upstairs and I heard the door of her room slam shut. I carried you over my shoulder, singing into your ear and you chomped angrily at your fist until I'd cooled the bottle under the tap. We sat down on the sofa together and you were so hungry that you gulped and choked at first, before you settled into a rhythmic suck.

‘Hey,' Adam said, ‘my two best girls.' He was naked but for a towel around his waist. I gazed down at his long narrow feet. They had black hairs on top and on each of the toes except the smallest. I could hold both your tiny feet in one hand and feel the petal quality of soles that have not yet been walked on.

‘I can't come with you,' I said. ‘I want to, but I can't. How can I leave Stella? She can't look after the baby on her own.'

‘Bring her, then,' he said. He sat down on the sofa beside me and put his hand on your round tummy. ‘Bring Dorcas with you.'

‘Stella would never . . . and anyway . . .' I trailed off. We both knew that you were Stella's only reason for living. ‘I
could try and persuade her to come back to London with us,' I said.

‘No,' Adam said, with surprising vehemence.

‘Why?'

‘She's not good there. Not a good influence.'

‘Not a good influence?' I asked.

You finished your bottle then and I sat you up to burp. We both laughed at the mature, manly tenor of the belch.

‘You're a natural,' he said.

‘But you can come and see us? Often?'

‘We'll sort it somehow,' he said. ‘I'll pray for guidance.'

You needed to be changed, but still you drowsed heavily against my chest. He put his arm round me as I was holding you and we sat there for hours in perfect harmony while Stella slept upstairs and while the starry sky wheeled past the window and paled into dawn.

†

Adam left early in the morning, before Stella was awake, and I went back to bed alone. The bed smelled of him now and I luxuriated in the frowsty sheets and pillows, burying my nose and sniffing and sniffing until I fell asleep. I woke late. It was hot again. I could hear birds and your voice too. For once, Stella was up before me and out in the garden.

I leaned out of the open window and looked down. She was wearing her dressing gown, her pale hair hanging greasy and dull. She was hunched over and so thin you could see her ribs and the knobbles of her spine even through the material. I thought that if a person saw her this way they'd think she was thirty at least. She was smoking, even though she had you on her knee. I hated it when she did that. Sometimes I'd pick you up and find your fluffy hair smelled of smoke, or was speckled with flakes of ash.

I showered and went down. Stella was still outside and you were lying on the ground now, kicking your legs and fretting. I scooped you up.

‘Hi, Stell,' I said cautiously. ‘You're up early. For you.'

‘I'm the mother,' she said.

‘I know that. I'm just trying to help.'

She looked at me and blew out smoke and then her face softened just a bit.

‘Yeah,' she said, ‘but I've been taking advantage . . .'

‘No, I like it.'

‘I need to do more myself. She'll grow up thinking you're her mum at this rate.'

‘You can't help being ill,' I said. You were happily playing in my arms, snatching at my nose and mouth, even gnawing my chin, as if it was a teething ring. ‘Adam told me you told him about my operation.'

She wound a strand of hair tight round her finger and blew out a puff of smoke.

‘It's OK, he doesn't care,' I said. ‘I'll get her bottle, shall I? She needs changing.'

‘I'll do it.' She ground her fag out with her clog and took you from my arms.

It was hard but I had to let her take you over. She wasn't good at it. She didn't have the softness or the love in her – well, you above anyone know that. Adam was right that she wasn't happy in her body. She'd hold you in the wrong position and my fingers would itch to take you myself and to show her how, but I resisted. Of course, it was partly to punish me for getting back with Adam that she developed a sudden interest in you. I understood and took a step back. Though I think she was already beginning to develop her agoraphobia, she did take you out to the park sometimes – and it was on one of these outings that she met Ross.

She didn't tell me straight away. She began to go out more and I was pleased by this sign of recovery. I noticed after a while that she'd started paying attention to her appearance again. She washed her hair and got me to trim the ends. She put violet kohl round her beautiful pearl-grey eyes.

And one day she asked me to babysit in the evening.

‘Babysit?' I said. It seemed such a demeaning word. We were together always and never went out in the evenings. That seems strange when I write it now, two young women,
a bit of money (Adam was quite generous). Why didn't we go out? Why didn't I, as Stella put it, get a life? The three of us huddled together in that house, as if protecting ourselves from something. When Adam came he was included, of course. And Aunt Regina and Kathy visited us sometimes, had a go at the garden and stocked the fridge with home-grown greens and goats' cheese. Otherwise it felt as if we were under siege – but there was no siege, just you to nurse, and Stella's condition.

‘Sure,' I said. ‘Where are you going?'

She smiled mysteriously. ‘Just somewhere.' Before she went out she had a bath and brushed her hair until it shone like platinum. She looked young again and nearly beautiful. After your bath and feed, I lay with you on my bed, watching you grow drowsy, and it made me drowsy too and I fell asleep to be woken hours later by movement in the kitchen.

I tiptoed you to your cot. It wasn't long before the smell of dope, along with the sound of the Eurythmics, drifted up the stairs.
I'm never gonna cry again
. I managed to restrain myself from going down, and after a while they came upstairs. I heard a male peeing, that heavy horsey sound so unlike a female piddle. And then I heard much more than I wanted through the bedroom wall. At first I thought Adam was wrong about Stella – she didn't sound frigid to me – but then I understood. This was payback for the noises Adam and I had made. But while we'd been so abandoned that we hadn't given noise a thought, hers was a calculated performance.

In the morning, when I carried you downstairs for your bottle, there was a stranger making tea in the kitchen, dressed only in his underpants. I wasn't startled; I'd heard him moving around, but he nearly dropped the kettle in his fright. He was tall, with a skinny, caved-in torso, feathered hair and eyeliner – smudged from his night-time exertions.

‘I'm Stella's sister,' I said, ‘and this is her baby.'

He opened his mouth but nothing came out, and then Stella came floating in wearing her nightie, with a lovebite on her neck and stars in her own smudgy eyes.

‘This is Ross,' she said and put her arm round his naked waist.

Later she told me that he had a pierced foreskin and that she loved him. She told me he was the first person she had ever loved. ‘The first person, or the first man?' I asked, and she had to think before she said, ‘Well, after my family, I mean.'

It wasn't long before Ross had moved in, and I was glad for Stella. He was a good guy. But when Adam found out he was not pleased. He liked to be the only man, I think, with us like three females marooned on an island, desperate for his visits. At least, I was desperate for them. But now there was another man around and music all the time, music Adam didn't like – Bowie, The Pretenders, The Police – but I persuaded him to let Ross stay. It makes her well, I pointed out, like nothing ever has, not even Dodie. He had to see the sense in that.