Hostages to Fortune: A Novel [antikvár]

Chapter i § i 'Is it a girl or a boy?' 'It's a nice little girl.' 'I . . . thought it would be.' Catherine lay still. Through the slats of the blind she could see the hard white light of early morning; the bars were like a ladder. Black, white, white, black . . . was the white the rungs of the ladder or was it the space between? A white ladder, or a black ladder? Water splashed. The voice of the new-comer, hoarse and uncertain, rose and fell, broken by deep, sobbing breaths. A girl. An anti-climax. A girl . . . after all that! Oh well, William would be pleased. A 'nice little girl.' That was nurse, standing up for another woman. 'Can I see her?' 'Not yet. I'm just giving her a bath.' Catherine closed her eyes. She wondered if being born hurt as much as giving birth. Somebody pulled up the blind and opened the window. Instantly the room filled with the smell of slaked dust. It had been raining in the night, but the morning was windless, damp, and fresh. An early tram clashed and rattled down the hill, the overhead wires sang as it passed. Out in the Sound a tug hooted. The tide must be falling now all down the coast over miles of brown rocks, the gulls screaming in the pale June morning. A girl. But who wanted girls, now, in the middle of a war? Catherine had never believed in the equality of the sexes. Women simply did not have the same chance as men. Nature had seen to that. If you wanted to produce a human being at all, it was only common sense to want 7