"That's nice. She's very loyal, isn't she? It's nice to have such a good friend."
"I suppose so," says Bella, continuing to look out of the window.
"Aunty and Uncle send their love," ventures Miranda.
Bella scowls. "No, they don't. You're just saying that. They don't want anything to do with me."
"Of course they do. That's so silly! Why won't you see them? I wish you would; you're making them very unhappy, especially Aunty."
"It's not me that won't see them, it's them that won't see me! Anyway, he's not our uncle, he's our father. I know you know, so it's no use pretending."
Miranda looks uncomfortable. Probably she feels guilty for not sharing this momentous knowledge with her own sister, for keeping it from her all these years. "Have you heard about Pat?" she asks, clearly keen to change the subject. "She's passed all her navigation exams and last week she sailed round the Isle of Wight and back in Reg Woodcock's new yacht, with him and Uncle as crew. They didn't help her or anything. They just followed orders."
"Father as crew," corrects Bella.
"Father, then," says Miranda hurriedly. "Isn't that amazing, considering she was frightened of water just a few months ago?"
"Yes, amazing," agrees Bella.
There is a longish silence, during which Bella gets tired of looking at the treetops and strip of sea and sort of half-reads her magazine instead. She wishes Miranda would go away and leave her alone. "What about Bluebell?" she asks suddenly. "Is she still with that horrible Darren?"
"God no, he's long gone!" exclaims Miranda, becoming almost excessively animated. "She's got a really nice boy now. Tony Blackcap-Smew. He's seventeen."
Bella frowns. "Not . . ."
"Yes! Stanley and Roberta's youngest. Amazing isn't it?"
"Quite a step up from Darren," agrees Bella. "Where did she find him?"
"At the Hunt Ball! The boys were queueing up to dance with her. She's turning into something of a beauty, though I don't think she knows it yet."
"Humph, bet she does."
"I don't know, I'm not so sure. She's still quite innocent in some ways. Anyway, she can't see too much of him at the moment as she's got her 'O' levels coming up. Not that they're likely to stretch her much. And the riding of course. I've had her doing some point-to-pointing."
"Is she still at the house?"
"Yes. We decided it was best. There's not much privacy in Roz, for studying and so on, and it might be a bit embarrassing for her with Tony. Anyway, she'll be company for me, now that Dolores has gone. I don't suppose I'll bother replacing her. I'll probably just have a daily."
There is another silence.
A nurse pops her head round the door. "Would your sister like a coffee or something Bella?"
"Yes, please," smiles Miranda.
"What about me?" demands Bella.
"Sorry, I didn't think you'd want one. You just had one."
"I let it go cold."
"All right, I'll bring you another."
Bella returns to her magazine.
"I've got something to tell you," says Miranda presently.
"What's that?"
"Well, you'll be pleased to hear that we're not going ahead with reopening the pit now. We've definitely decided against." "Oh?" says Bella, indifferently.
"Yes! Do you want to know why?"
"If you like."
Miranda begins rooting in her bag. "You'll be amazed; it's the strangest thing. Julius was down at the ponds the other day, photographing some bug or other, and he suddenly found all these little frogs."
"Frogs?" asks Bella, disingenuously.
"Yes, but not just any frogs. Apparently they're the European Spotty Frog, Rana maculosus, and they're incredibly rare. In fact there's only one other known colony in the entire country. Here it is look; it was in the Bugle. Aunty kept the cutting." She passes it over. "The odd thing is, no-one can remember ever having seen them there before. I certainly haven't. But then I haven't exactly been looking. You don't, do you? Julius reckons a bit of frog-spawn got onto a bird's foot or something and they gradually built up from there. Isn't that amazing?"
"Gosh," says Bella flatly. She glances at the cutting. There is a rather boring wide-angle view of Tenstone Ponds, an inset picture of a spotty frog and a full-length shot of Julius in rubber waders, looking smug. The headline is 'Vicar discovers rare species.'
"Amazing, isn't it!" says Miranda. "So of course it'll be impossible to develop the heath with them there, not with them being internationally important and everything." She shakes her head. "I can't say I'm sorry, really. It would have meant an awful lot of upheaval. I was never very taken with the idea as you know; it was Michael's thing." She looks rather disappointedly at Bella. "Aren't you pleased? I thought you'd be really pleased. It means no-one will be digging any holes anywhere near the Stones. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"They can dig the bloody things up and turn them into a rockery for all I care," says Bella, "and you know perfectly well why." She pushes back the covers and swings her legs out of the bed. "Anyway, I've got to go to the loo. Chuck me that dressing gown, will you?" Too late, she realises her mistake. Perhaps she unconsciously meant to do it. At any rate it's too late now. She'll just have to brazen it out.
Miranda does a sort of double take, then gazes at her open mouthed, an interesting variety of emotions playing on her features. "Good God! You're not . . . I mean . . ."
"What? Yes, pregnant," says Bella, turning sideways and smoothing her nightdress over the bump. "Twenty-nine weeks now. To tell you the truth, I'm sick and tired of it. I feel fat and ugly and it's ages yet."
*
Bella is once again in the hot little room.
"Would you like to sit in my chair?" says the doctor solicitously. "It is perhaps more comfortable, for your condition." He pulls the chair back from the desk. "Yes, that is good. Now you are doctor and I am patient. How is baby?"
"Still kicking," says Bella indifferently. "I've found out some things, about the cats. Important things."
Dr Chuckar sits in the upright chair and peers over his half-glasses at her, looking expectant.
"Do you want me to tell you, then?" asks Bella.
"Of course. Certainly. Please proceed."
"All right. I've been having these dreams. Except they're not really dreams because I'm awake. I'm not sure, but I think I might be accessing the Akashic Record."
Dr Chuckar smiles. "And what is that?"
"The Akashic Record? It's like a sort of library of everything: the past, the future, everything. It's the holy grail of the adept, really; I never expected to see it. But I can't control it yet. It just happens."
"And what did you find there?"
"The cats. I found out what they do. They use the Stones as a sort of transport system. They dance round them in a certain way and make this horrible caterwauling and then the lucky ones, if that's what they are, disappear and come out somewhere else. It might be in the future, or in the past, or they might come out at another stone circle, like Stonehenge. I think that's what Sylvester did. That's how he found me there. Well, near there. He knew I was going to be passing by and he planned it, except it went a bit wrong and I ran him over. Maybe even that was planned, I don't know."
"I'm sorry, who is this Sylvester?"
"I told you, a cat; one of the leaders, if not the leader. My aunt wanted him killed, just before I was born, but my Uncle let him go and he came back, and Fieldfare, that's Miranda's gardener, except he's retired now, had him taken to Salisbury Plain, but he just went to Stonehenge and waited for the next dance and came back, only he didn't come back to Windy Point, he went to Mrs Wren's. They're all linked, you see; all the circles are linked. We think we built them for us, but we didn't, we built them for the cats. Or it's the cats that use them anyway."
"And why are they doing this? Why do you suppose they are they travelling around like this?"
"I don't know, but I've got a theory about it. I thi
nk it makes them evolve faster. If they were to go back and breed with their great, great grandmother, or whatever, that would make their offspring more evolved, wouldn't it? And if they did it again and again, that would make them more and more evolved. I think they're probably way ahead of us, in some ways. I think they've evolved to become super intelligent, maybe with powers we can barely understand. I think they may have got into the Record so they can contact me here."
"Why are they doing that?"
"Because I'm still the Priestess of the Stones and they need me. Except I'm not going to help them because they're evil. They're getting stronger and stronger and they're going to take over the world, but they still need my powers. That's why I'm telling you this, so you can stop them. It's absolutely essential that you stop them. I think you ought to tell someone — the police or something."
*
They make love lazily in the warm semi-darkness, listening to people chattering in their deckchairs and the cries of children playing in the water. The beach is busy now. Every time they visit 'their' hut they expect to find it occupied, but it never is.
"This airbed ain't big enough for the three of us of us," giggles Jacqui. "I'm hangin' orf the edge."
"Not long now, thank God," says Bella. And to herself: four of us, actually. Although in a way, of course, I'm not really here; I'm just a proxy for my mother.
"Ooh, I think I felt her kicking then, right against my tummy!" gasps Jacqui. "Was that her kicking?"
"Yes it was."
"Isn't it exciting! I can't wait to see her born."
"Nor can I. I want my body back."
"I'm a little bit jealous really. I want one too. Perhaps I should find a nice man to give me one."
"Then I'd be jealous. Anyway, you can share mine. I daresay there'll be plenty to do."
"Yes, but it's not the same. It's a pity we weren't together when you got pregnant. You could have come straight to me and shared the semen. People do. I've read about it."
"I'm not sure what Michael would think of that."
"I shouldn't think he'd care. That's what men do, isn't it? They just squirt it all over the place and hope some of it sticks. It's horrible, isn't it? Like liquid soap."
"How would you know what it looks like?" teases Bella. "You've never seen any."
"Yes I have, I've seen dogs'."
"Yuk!"
"Jacqui frowns. "I was just thinking. Are you sure we should be doing this? It won't start you into labour, will it?"
"I shouldn't think so. I don't much care if it does."
"Gosh, imagine! I'd have to rush out and shout: 'Is there a doctor on the beach?'"
"Or a midwife."
"Or a midwife. Failing that it'd have to be a veterinary nurse. I don't suppose it's that different to puppies or kittens. You will be bringing her home straight after, won't you? Please say you will. You can't look after a little baby in a loony-bin."
"I don't know yet," says Bella. "Anyway, shut up; I think I'm coming."
"Ooh, so am I! I always do when you say that."
*
"There's more you should know," says Bella. "About the cats." She wonders why there is another doctor today, sitting in with them. He seems quite young. Perhaps he's a trainee of some kind. In her booklet, 'Your Hospital and You', it says they might want to have a trainee there. You have a right to refuse, but of course people have to learn, so it seems churlish to object.
"The thing is," she says, "I was wrong about them. There aren't dozens of them after all. Well, there are, but actually it's all the same one. All the Jellicle cats are Sylvester."
"How is that? How can there be hundreds of the same cat?"
"Well, it happens like this. Say it's now. Of course, it might not be now, I don't know when it was, but let's say it's now. If he goes to the Stones and goes back in time, maybe to last week, he'll obviously find himself there already, so that makes two Sylvesters existing at one time, and then if they both go to the Stones and go into another time, where there are already two Sylvesters, say, that would make four of them, and then if they all did it again that would make eight and so on and so on and so on. Do you see? And some of them have bent tails, which are all the Sylvesters that have been made since his accident and some haven't, which are the ones that were made before his accident or made from the ones that were made before his accident. And in the same way, sometimes he's burned, and sometimes he isn't."
"Er, what was this accident you mentioned," asks the other doctor.
"The tail, or the burning?"
"Either — the tail."
"Ah, well, the tail's a long story, but you see he got into a Viking longship, the sort with the dragon's head and the shields and everything. And when they were rowing away they found him, and one of them hurled him ashore by the tail and broke it and after that it stayed bent, except he wasn't called Sylvester then, he was called Gerbert and he belonged to the monastery. That's the monastery of Saint Ethelfleda, which the Vikings sacked. They caught Saint Ethelfleda – except, of course, she was just plain Mother Superior Ethelfleda then – and hung her upside down and slit her throat and drained all the blood out of her. But I expect you know that. Everyone knows that. I don't know why they showed me that bit. Perhaps because I was there."
"You were there?"
"Yes, in a past life."
"You were Saint Ethelfleda?" asks the new doctor.
"No, of course not! I was the Priestess. I'm always the Priestess. Do keep up. You'll have to do better than that if you want to be a consultant. I was the Priestess, but I was also a nun. If you were noble, they made you be a nun until you were married off, and if nobody wanted you, you stayed one, which was awful. Anyway, I had an affair with this rather dishy Viking, which got me into a lot of trouble, because they thought I'd betrayed the monastery, which was really a convent, only I hadn't, and they bricked me up in a wall until I died. And in another life I was accused of being a witch and they tried me in Tenstones church and burned me at the stake, which was horrible, especially as it was my own family that accused me and even now I can't bear to go into the church because it brings it all back; and they thought Sylvester was my familiar – that's what they call a witch's cat – so they tied him to his own little stake and burned him too, except he escaped to the Stones and came to our own time and I found him on the doorstep, all burned, except, of course, I didn't know why then, and it's really, really tiring, as if I'm actually doing it all again, as if I'm actually there. I feel I just want to sleep all the time it's so tiring."
Dr Chuckar sits and nods his car-ornament nod and gazes his kindly gaze at her. He gazes for some time. Then he writes something on his pad and passes it to the other doctor, who nods too. Perhaps it's something they all do, this nodding. Finally he says: "I think we're going to change your tablets," Bella, "Or rather, the dose. That should make you feel a lot more comfortable. Is that all right?"
"Yes, all right," says Bella impatiently. "The thing is, it's even more important now to get rid of them quickly, because there are more and more all the time. I mean, if they keep doubling, that's two and four and eight and sixteen and thirty-two and sixty-four and a hundred and twenty-eight . . .and . . ."
"Two hundred and fifty-six?" suggests the other doctor.
"Yes! And so on and so on. If something isn't done soon, we'll be up to our necks in cats."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Bella's time comes. And goes.
"It should be here by now," she complains.
"We've given you the tenth of July. It's over four weeks yet."
"It can't be that late. I know when it happened, more or less."
"Trust me, everything's fine. People often get it wrong."
Bella is annoyed. "Just because I'm mad, it doesn't mean I don't know when I got pregnant. I'm not stupid you know."
It is the tenth of July, about three a.m. Waiting until she is briefly alone, Bella puts her coat on over her nightdress and leaves the ward. She doesn't want
to do this, her mind is straining against it, but her body, now firmly under the control of her mother, will not respond. She is a prisoner, bound and gagged and tossed into a dusty corner of her own brain. Slipping past the duty nurse, she goes to the public telephone near the entrance, desperately hoping someone will come by and challenge her. No-one does.
"Hello, yes. I'd like a taxi to Tenstones please . . . Yes please. From the end of Bay Road. I'll meet you by the garage."
Bella waddles awkwardly out of the building and down the road to the all-night petrol station on the corner. She hopes the taxi won't be long. She feels desperately vulnerable standing there under a street lamp in the middle of town. She wishes Jacqui were with her, even if she has only delivered puppies. As she waits and shivers, her waters break, soaking her drawers and streaming down her legs. She has never felt more miserable.
"Do I have to do this?" she pleads.
"Yes," says her mother.
"Whereabouts, love?"
"Through the village. Just keep driving until the road runs out."
"Oh, you mean Windy Point. Been there."
"Yes, but drop me at the old pit entrance."
To the taxi man it must seem very dark on the heath. He comes round and gives her a hand out of the car, peering into the unrelieved blackness. "You sure this is where you want to be?"
"Yes, it's all right. I'm being met."
"D'you want me to wait?"
"No, don't worry. I'm a country girl, I'm used to it."
He looks at her doubtfully. "Not long now, eh? When's it due?"
"Any minute, I should think."
"What!"
"Joke," says Bella.
The taxi man chuckles. "Phew! You nearly 'ad me goin' there!"
"Don't worry, I'll be fine," says Bella, smiling. "You go."
"If you're sure."
"Yes, I'm fine, really."
"Okay, if you're sure."
Bella sadly watches the taxi turn and drive away, then falls to her hands and knees in agony, desperately trying to breathe through it as she has been shown. If it's like this now, she wonders, what on earth will it be like later?
Isabella: A sort of romance Page 54