Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beth Trapaga and PG Distributed Proofreaders
1919
The curtain of the big bed hung down beside the cot.
When old Jenny shook it the wooden rings rattled on the pole and greymen with pointed heads and squat, bulging bodies came out of the foldson to the flat green ground. If you looked at them they turned intosquab faces smeared with green.
Every night, when Jenny had gone away with the doll and the donkey,you hunched up the blanket and the stiff white counterpane to hide thecurtain and you played with the knob in the green painted iron railingof the cot. It stuck out close to your face, winking and grinning atyou in a friendly way. You poked it till it left off and turned greyand went back into the railing. Then you had to feel for it with yourfinger. It fitted the hollow of your hand, cool and hard, with a bluntnose that pushed agreeably into the palm.
In the dark you could go tip-finger along the slender, lashingflourishes of the ironwork. By stretching your arm out tight you couldreach the curlykew at the end. The short, steep flourish took you tothe top of the railing and on behind your head.
Tip-fingering backwards that way you got into the grey lane where theprickly stones were and the hedge of little biting trees. When thedoor in the hedge opened you saw the man in the night-shirt. He hadonly half a face. From his nose and his cheek-bones downwards hisbeard hung straight like a dark cloth. You opened your mouth, butbefore you could scream you were back in the cot; the room was light;the green knob winked and grinned at you from the railing, and behindthe curtain Papa and Mamma were lying in the big bed.
One night she came back out of the lane as the door in the hedge wasopening. The man stood in the room by the washstand, scratching his longthigh. He was turned slantwise from the nightlight on the washstand sothat it showed his yellowish skin under the lifted shirt. The whitehalf-face hung by itself on the darkness. When he left off scratchingand moved towards the cot she screamed.
Mamma took her into the big bed. She curled up there under the shelterof the raised hip and shoulder. Mamma's face was dry and warm andsmelt sweet like Jenny's powder-puff. Mamma's mouth moved over her wetcheeks, nipping her tears.
Her cry changed to a whimper and a soft, ebbing sob.
Mamma's breast: a smooth, cool, round thing that hung to your handsand slipped from them when they tried to hold it. You could feel thelittle ridges of the stiff nipple as your finger pushed it back intothe breast.
Her sobs shook in her throat and ceased suddenly.
The big white globes hung in a ring above the dinner table. At first,when she came into the room, carried high in Jenny's arms, she couldsee nothing but the hanging, shining globes. Each had a light insideit that made it shine.
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