Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt Page B

annoyed by Martha’s readiness to praise Daisy’s artwork. Martha said it showed real pain, a real sense of human harm, and threats to the female body. Damian said that the reason for this was simply the Things from the Collection, of which she had made an opportunistic use—a
parasitic
use. Damian shouted at Martha as though Martha was Daisy, about the desecration of other people’s dead babies and body parts and suffering. Martha said she thought Damian had said that Daisy had lost a baby. That affected people. Damian said she had wanted to lose it, hadn’t she, and for his part he didn’t think that was why . . . And why does she haunt the hospital, Martha went on, inexorably. Because she scrounges, I told you, said Damian. Why was Martha so keen on defending a compulsive thief? I’m a woman, said Martha, vaguely and sadly. She had wanted him to notice that, this evening, she had dressed carefully, she had had her hair cut.
    THE PRESS—luckily only the local Press—got hold of the story. “SHOCKING ARTWORK ‘BOR-ROWED’ FROM GRUESOME HOSPITAL RELICS.” The hospital’s overworked secretariat fended off queries with talk of a misunderstanding, said all was well that ended well, and said that when eventually the Collection was open to the public the public would see the true fascination and information value of the relics.
    It was probably because of the Press stories that Dr. Nanjuwany, one of Damian’s colleagues, thought of coming to see him. She was a young woman herself, good with patients, still a little nervous with medical difficulties.
    “That young woman you were looking after—”
    “I wasn’t.”
    “The one who stole the Things from the Collection. She came to see me.”
    Damian closed his face into a simple polite listening.
    “She wants an abortion. I looked at her records. She asked for one before, and we made a mess of her, because it turned out to be ectopic. She lost an ovary and most of the tubes. She says she was told she couldn’t have any more children and I suspect she
was
told something of the kind. She worries me. She won’t see a counsellor. I feel bad—since the pregnancy is a bit of a miracle—”
    “I’ll speak to her. Do you have an address?”
    “Not really. We tried the one we had—which was the one she gave again when she filled in the forms— and they say she left months ago, they don’t know where she is—”
    “I want to know when her next appointment is.”
    If Dr. Nanjuwany was surprised, she hid it. “Thank you,” she said, as though she meant it.
    DAMIAN CREPT UP on Daisy as she sat in the usual long queue in the antenatal clinic.
    “I want a word with you,” he hissed, his face rigid with anger. She was sitting with the dandelion head bowed down, staring into her lap. She looked up at him whitely.
    “No, thank you.”
    “It’s not ‘yes please’ or ‘no thank you,’ Daisy, it’s stand up
now
and come with me.
Now.
”
    “You can’t hit me.”
    “Don’t be silly. I’m trying to help.”
    “That’s not what you look like you’re doing.”
    “That’s because I’m also upset. I’m human. Now, come and talk this over, in private, come into my office.”
    SHE SAT THERE in his office, facing him, where all his patients sat. She said:
    “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
    “Well, apart from theft, and unlawful entry, no. I want to talk to you about the baby.”
    “It’s not a baby, right. It’s a problem. It’s got no future. We all know that, so just fuck off, OK?”
    “Whose baby is it?”
    “It’s
not a baby.
The last one wasn’t, it was a life-threatening
incubus,
that’s what it was. Nearly killed me.”
    “Whose baby is it?”
    “Whose do you think it is? That’s all you men care about, nice potent sperm, sod the consequences—”
    “Shut up, Daisy. If this is my baby—and it is a baby, it’s a minor miracle—then I can’t just let you destroy it—like that, without thinking.”
    “You don’t know if I think or