She said 'I've seen you at the house.'
I said 'Yes, I've seen you.'
She said 'What work are you supposed to be doing?'
I said 'We're not supposed to tell.'
She said 'Well, I'm supposed not to tell what I'm doing here.'
I said 'The work I've been doing up to now, which is not secret, has been to do with discovering what might be a suitable moderator for the irradiation of uranium so that a nucleus might split and produce further neutrons.'
She said 'I just couldn't bear to see this cottage with its back broken.'
I said 'I see.'
She said 'Is that all you're doing?'
I said 'The rest is difficult to explain.'
She said 'Yes, the rest is difficult to explain.'
Holding one of the saws, she slid down the sloping thatch of the roof and landed on the ground. She was like a child going down a slide at a fairground. Then she walked with the saw round the branches of the tree that were pressed against the ground.
She said 'Did you say we should cut these branches?'
I said'Yes.'
'And then we can saw more easily the main bit on the roof?'
'Yes/
She said 'Isn't it lucky then that we have two saws.'
I took the other saw and slid down to the ground. I went to the far side of the tree from where she stood. We both began sawing the minor branches.
I wanted to describe this to you: to say — This scene is to do with those who might be our children.
She said 'I wanted to build a home. But, of course, I know I'll never live here.'
I said 'Why won't you live here?'
She said 'Of course I can't!' Then — 'But you don't think it's odd, that I want to build such a home?'
I said 'I once did an experiment with salamanders. I wanted to produce a perfect environment for them so that they would produce an offspring, a mutation, that would be different.'
I could see her face peering at me through the branches. She had stopped sawing. We had cut through quite a lot of the branches that had been resting on the ground, so that the main branch of the tree was becoming cleared.
She said 'How did you know?'
I said 'How did I know what?'
She came round to my side of the tree. Together we looked at what were left of the smaller branches.
I said 'We can now try cutting it again at the top.'
She said 'And was it?'
I said 'What?'
She said'Different.'
I said 'Oh yes. But I couldn't really tell. I had to go back to school.'
She said 'And didn't you have anyone to help you?'
I said'No.'
She said 'Then aren't I lucky.'
At first I didn't know what she meant. Then I thought I might cry.
She had begun to climb up again on to the roof of the cottage.
I went and looked in through the doorway. The floor of the cottage seemed to have been swept and the walls and ceiling brushed down; the grate was clean with sticks in it ready for a fire. There was a table with one leg almost off and two rickety chairs; these had
been scrubbed; there was a pile of bracken as if for a bed in one corner, and on a table a vase of exotic-looking lilies.
It was quite like something I might have made for my salamanders; or like that room, perhaps, where you and I sat in front of the fire.
There was the sound of sawing from the roof. Bits of dust and rubble drifted down.
I went out of the cottage and round to the back where there was the heaviest part of the fallen branch. The girl on the roof was sawing just past the ridge, so that the top part of the tree would fall at the front of the cottage and the heaviest part at the back. I said Til catch this part at the back, then it won't damage the cottage.'
She said 'Thank you.'
When the branch where she was sawing cracked it was difficult to support the heavy end of the branch and swing it round; I got it somehow into my hands; I staggered about like someone tossing a caber.
The girl watched me from the roof. She said 'Do you often do things like this?'
I said Tm practising.'
She said 'For what?' Then — 'Would you like a cup of tea?'
I said 'Yes, please.'
She slid off the roof. I got rid of the branch of the tree, and went into the cottage. She was lighting the fire. I took a chair and sat in it.
She said 'I'm pregnant. Did you know?'
I said'No.'
She left the fire and went through to the back where there seemed to be a larder. From there came the sounds of utensils and crockery being moved about.
I said 'Where are your parents?'
She said 'They're abroad.'
'And you're living with your grandmother.'
'I'm staying with my grandmother.'
'Are you still at school?'
'Yes.'
'How old are you.'
'Nearly seventeen.'
She came in from the larder carrying a kettle. She knelt down in front of the fire; she blew on it; she put the kettle on the flames.
I said 'Does anyone else know?'
'No.'
'You haven't told the father?'
'There isn't any father.'
She left the grate and went back into the larder. I took a stick and poked at the fire to make it burn properly. She called out 'And I don't think I'm the Virgin Mary!'
I thought I might say — Then who do you think you are?
She came back into the room. She said 'I wanted to make something like a home, yes; what did you call it, an "environment" — '
She had brought in a teapot and a mug. She stood by the fire, watching it.
I said 'You want your child to be different.'
She said 'I think the grown-up world is mad. People seem to want to die, to kill. They seem to get people strung up, to get themselves strung up, like Jesus. That's why I wouldn't want to be the Virgin Mary.'
I said 'What can people do to you? I mean, about the child.'
It took some time for the kettle to boil. We watched it.
She said 'They can't make me get rid of it. They can make me something called a "ward of court". Then perhaps when it's born they can try to take it away from me.'
I thought — So you are building some sort of nest; here, and in your mind.
I said 'Why don't you tell the father?'
She said 'Because it wasn't his fault.'
I said 'Who said it was anyone's fault!'
I thought I saw her smile. She went back into the larder.
She said 'Anyway, I love him too much. I don't want to ruin his career.'
I shouted 'God damn it, why should it ruin his career?*
She said 'Milk? Sugar?'
I said 'Yes, please.'
When she came back into the room she was certainly smiling. She said 'I'm afraid I've got only one cup.'
I said 'Thank you.'
I thought — Will it do good if I manage to have tears?
She stood with her back to the grate, facing me. Her yellow skirt was embroidered with flowers. It was torn in several places.
She said 'All right, I don't want to blackmail him into marrying me. I want him to be free.'
I said 'If you tell him, you will not be blackmailing him into marrying you.'
She said 'How do you know?'
I said 'I know.'
She said 'How will I ever know he loves me?'
I shouted 'Oh of course you know he loves you!'
She said 'You're mad.'
She made some tea in the teapot. She poured the tea into the mug. She offered me milk and sugar. I took them: I said 'Thank you.' I drank. Then I offered her the mug.
I said 'It's the grown-up world that you think is mad. You're building this house. You want things to be different.'
She said 'Are you married?'
I said'Yes.'
'Where is your wife?'
'In Switzerland.'
'Why?'
'Because she has work to do there.'
'Do you love her?'
'Yes.'
Then she said 'Well, why do you think I don't tell him?'
I said 'What people like you and I are frightened of is to have not too little but too much. It's easier, as you said, to be strung up.'