The Fruit of the Tree by Jacquelynn Luben Page B

when a surfeit of energy on Michael’s part would cause them to be connected and the opening of a cupboard would automatically switch on a light within.
    The very first circuit that Michael had tackled had included the immersion heater, and what bliss it was to sink into a hot water without the prior water-boiling preparations.
    One of the last connections was the electrical aspect of our oil-fired boiler. It was interesting to realise that the passable heating system in our old home, fired by an old-fashioned oil burner, could have worked without electricity (requiring only the lighting of a wick with a match), whilst our new automated one could not. It left us with a distinct feeling that we should not put ourselves totally at the mercy of automation. We had already demonstrated the value of an open fire and chimney, at a time when many people were boarding up their chimneys, and new homes were being built without them. Now, having learned to live with bottled gas, we retained our three-legged gas cooker while we gave a good deal of thought to our next step.
    It was the middle of January when the lights went on, and despite the miscarriage, 1970 began to look pretty good from then on.

9. I and the Infernal Combustion Engine, etc.
    It was so luxurious to have light and warmth once again, and now that we were actually living like a normal family, I invited everyone we knew to visit us. From March through to December, almost every weekend seemed to be occupied by someone coming to us or vice versa. My cousins came for the first time, and the brothers and sisters came in turn and even stayed the night. Lots of our friends visited us too; everyone was subjected to a healthy march over the large area of common and woodland which we treated as our country estate. They all had a tour of inspection of the house too, and now that my faith in impossibilities really happening was restored, we blithely showed them the hole where the swimming pool would be, the gap where the built-in oven would be built in, the bare bathroom wall, and the roll of wallpaper that would in due course be stuck to it. Uncynically, we almost believed that they could see the finished picture that we could visualise in our mind’s eye.
    I visited the hospital and, after a cursory examination, was dismissed with the usual statistics that two in five pregnancies or was it one in four spontaneously terminated. My visit to my G.P. was much more satisfying; first he reassured me about the bumpy ride from Brighton.
    ‘If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else,’ he told me, suggesting one or two other innocent pursuits that might have caused it just as easily.
    And looking back, it is difficult to see why I felt quite so guilty, for if every woman could expect to miscarry as a result of the things I had done, there would be hordes of women taking fast car journeys and lifting heavy objects, instead of taking the proverbial hot bath and bottle of gin, or indeed instead of queuing up for abortions.
    My main concern now, however, was the next pregnancy.
    ‘As soon as you know you are pregnant,’ he said. ‘Come and see me. We will help you through it from the beginning.’
    After that I put it out of my mind, knowing I must now wait, and when Ruth and Roger arrived for a weekend, with Ruth well into the middle of her pregnancy, I do not believe I felt too many pangs of jealousy.
    The other all important event in January was the sale of our old home and office, and despite the great relief both to us and the Bank Manager, this was something of an anti-climax to me, since I was hardly involved in it. As a result of the sale, Michael now spent quite a lot of time at home, although he was looking around for a small lock-up office.
    With the house now in some semblance of order, I felt able to invite my parents to stay and we chose a sunny weekend in June, when the countryside would be at its most pleasant. My timing proved to be faulty, for only a