“I hope she’s writing her tetrodotoxin paper. Millie may not be Jim Hunter, but her research is illuminating, speaking as the ex-administrator of a neurological research institute. I’m looking forward to seeing her next week.”
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1969
Millie did indeed arrive at the house on East Circle bearing a fat notebook and several pens. She was driving her own car, a new Monte Carlo, and wearing a casual pantsuit in deep blue; her beauty left Desdemona feeling, as she told Carmine later, like a six-foot-three lump. The brainwashing of Julian was proceeding apace, and he was under strict instructions to keep Alex occupied elsewhere. It hadn’t proved as difficult as Desdemona had imagined; perhaps Julian was the kind of child who needed a job he felt important? His feelings toward his little brother were genuinely loving, and his ego enjoyed the assumption of power. As Carmine explained to Desdemona, it would last until the day Alex grew physically bigger than Julian: then they’d have a battle royal and readjust the parameters of childhood.
“We’re not cooking anything,” Desdemona said to Millie, inserting her guest into the breakfast booth and pouring coffee. “Instead, I’m going to go through the various methods of cooking with you — steaming, braising, stewing, roasting, boiling, frying — from a scientific point of view, so that you understand why bread or pastry or cakes rise, why you have to cook this slowly and that quickly, and so forth. I’m also going to strip some of the hierophantic mysteries away by teaching you to make a perfect soufflé entirely on a Mixmaster, and quenelles — oh, heaps and heaps of things.” She put down a plate of tiny pancakes lightly smeared in raspberry jam and topped with dollops of whipped cream. “These are pikelets with jam and cream — exactly right for putting on the dog at a morning tea.”
It was done so deftly that Millie had no idea Desdemona was easing her into the position of friend as well as pupil; they were not far apart in age, and, as the chatter went on, it became obvious to Millie that Desdemona too was a scientist whose career until she had become a rather late housewife had been a respected one. They had much in common.
The notebook was used, but not in a formal lesson, and about noon she told Desdemona her most treasured secret: she was going to have a baby, due some time in earlyish October, she thought.
“Oh, my dear, how wonderful!” Desdemona exclaimed warmly. “Are you sure of your dates? Who’s your gynecologist?”
“I don’t have one,” Millie said, a little blankly.
“Pregnancy is the most natural function in the world, Millie, but you must put yourself in the care of a gynecologist. It’s only since the advent of the National Health in Britain that women are ceasing to die in childbirth and the infant death rate has improved. Before National Health, the only help available to poor women was a midwife on a bicycle who pedaled to the home and dealt with the birth there. Get a gynecologist, girl!”
“It never crossed my mind,” said Millie.
Which remark made Desdemona realize how strange Millie’s life had been from the beginning of her sixteenth year and her commitment to Jim Hunter. At an age when other girls were forging active interconnections and friendships, Millie had cleaved to Jim and no one else. Choosing to estrange herself from her parents, this brilliant, widely read and amazingly competent scientist had never even begun to develop a feminine network. The scientist knew she was pregnant; the woman had no idea what its practicalities entailed.
“If you’re due around the second week in October,” Desdemona said, “then at the moment you’re about eight or nine weeks gone. Any nausea, vomiting?”
“Not yet,” said Millie, recovering her equilibrium. “May I ask for the name of your gynecologist? Would he take me?”
“His name’s Ben Solomon, and like all gynecologists, he loves the obstetrical side of his profession. Shall I call him?”
Her face lit up. “Oh, would you? Thank you!”
So five minutes later Millie had an appointment for the morrow, and had written Dr. Ben Solomon’s name, address and phone number into her diary.
“Oh, Desdemona, can’t you see our children?” she asked, transfigured. “Not as light as me, not as dark as Jim, and eyes of all colors!”
“Yes, I can see them,” Desdemona said gently. “Have you told Jim yet?”
“Yes, last night. He was over the moon.”
“Your parents?”
She flinched. “Not yet. In a little while.”
Now what’s going on there? Desdemona wondered, having seen Millie off the premises and going to check on Julian and Alex. It hadn’t escaped her and Carmine that Patrick and Nessie had absented themselves from extended family doings thanks to that wretched sequestration, but why wasn’t Millie seeking her doctor father out about this pregnancy? No gynecologist! A woman of thirty-three she might be, but an abysmally ignorant one for all that. Incredible in this day and age, it truly was. Which led Desdemona to think more deeply and detachedly about Millie. Was she perhaps just the tiniest bit “not all there”? Total love was an entity, yes, but in Desdemona’s fairly wide experience it was always mixed with other emotions directed in other directions. I, thought Desdemona, love Carmine passionately, gratefully, with complete loyalty — he’s my shield companion. And I love my two little sons with a visceral urgency that has led me in the past to put my life on the line for them, especially Julian. I love my mother-in-law, Emilia, all my sisters-in-law … But it’s a tapestry that displays a rich picture, including the grim greys and blacks of post-partum depression. That’s what people are, complex tapestries. But not Millie. I wonder has anybody ever pondered on — no, not her state of mind, but the state of her mind? There’s something missing, or else something so inflated that it blots out all sight of the rest …