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.They should have got the crutches instead of the cart in the first place.Didn’t you ever think of them, Miss?’Jane nodded her head as she said, ‘Yes, but.but for the future, somehow I couldn’t see him balancing.’‘Why not?’ said Winnie.‘He balances on his stumps.’ Jane nipped slightly on her lower lip.It always did something to her to hear his short appendages referred to as stumps.As they stood watching him Winnie voiced a fear that was already growing in Jane’s mind.‘The job now,’ she said, ‘will be to keep him put.You knew where you had him afore, but now he’ll be as free as the rest; and you can’t go on forever locking the door.’‘No, don’t lock the door again.’ They both started.The boy had stopped and was staring at them.His face was straight, it was wearing the set look of determination they both recognised.They were amazed that he should have heard their low-pitched conversation.It came to them in different ways that he must have heard all that they had ever said in that room, be their voices ever so low.Jane moved slowly towards him and, dropping on to her hunkers again, she said, ‘I must lock the door, darling.’‘NO.’‘Yes, yes, I must.You see, your mama is not at all well.’ It was strange but she herself had never called her mother ‘mama’ or her father ‘papa’, but in placating the child when answering his first questions about his parents, which incidentally came after she had explained that Molly was the mother of the little girl he often saw down in the yard, she had used the terms mama and papa because they seemed softer, warmer somehow, making up for the lack of physical presence of what they represented.‘If I saw my mama I would be good, I would not make a noise.’She glanced back at Winnie, and Winnie said softly, ‘Your moth.your mama has to be kept very quiet, and can’t have visitors.That’s what the doctor says.’‘Does no-one see my mama?’‘Only the doctor and.and Parson Hedley.’ Winnie nodded down at him, and he stared back at her for a moment, then turned from them both and began once more circling the room on the crutches.Winnie turned towards the door, saying, ‘Well, I’d better be gettin’ a move on, Miss, but I’ll just slip across the way first and see if my lot have eaten, and tell them about’ – she nodded towards the boy – ‘and that they are fine, just fine.’‘Thank you, Winnie.’ Jane went to the door with her.‘Tell Sep and Ned I’m so grateful, and we’ll be over later.He’ll’ – she jerked her head backwards – ‘he’ll thank them himself.’‘They’d like that.’When the door had closed on Winnie, Amos came towards Jane, walking slowly now, the crutches making a clip-clop, clip-clopping sound, and he said, ‘I want to go down and show Biddy.’‘As soon as I’ve tidied up and you’re washed; you must be washed and dressed, you can’t go out like that, can you? You can wear your blue velvet dress today.’The boy looked down towards his feet, at the horn-like big toe sticking out from beneath his nightshirt, and he said, ‘When can I wear trousers?’‘Oh!’ She was nonplussed.‘Later.Later, you can wear trousers.’‘When?’‘Well, when I get them made for you.’‘Soon?’‘Yes, soon.’‘I should wear trousers, I am a boy.I’m not like Biddy; Biddy has to sit on the ground to pee.’‘Oh my God!’ She actually muttered the words aloud.Not only were his observations distressing to her, but more so was the fact that he had a very keen interest in Biddy.One day he would have to be told of their relationship, for his attraction to their half-sister – because that was what Molly’s daughter was – was troubling her even at this stage.It would have solved the problem if Molly had left the farm years ago.But where could she have gone except into the workhouse, because employers didn’t take on young mothers with suckling babies, a suckling baby deprived a mother of some of her strength.It was half an hour later that she went out of the door and turned the key in the lock and was immediately startled by a loud hammering on the door from the inside and the child screaming, ‘No! No! Jan.Don’t lock it.No! No! Don’t lock me in.I can walk, Jan.I can walk.’When she quickly unlocked the door and thrust it open she pushed him on to his back, and he lay there looking up at her with a crutch in one hand.‘Oh, Amos, Amos.’ She brought him upright.‘Oh, I’m sorry, are you hurt? But I’ve got to lock the door, I must.’‘No!’ He shook his head slowly, ‘No, Jan, not any more.Please, please, Jan, I’ll be good.But if you lock it I’ll scream, I will, and batter, yes, with the crutch, I will all the time.’She lowered her head on to her hand and closed her eyes; and after a moment she looked at him and said softly, ‘Well now, listen.If.if I don’t lock the door will you promise not to leave the room until I come back?’He stared into her eyes for a moment, then drooped his head, and she passed her hand over his curls and murmured, ‘That’s a good boy.Now I won’t be more than five minutes.Play with your toys, and when I come back we’ll go out.We’ll go and see Sep and Ned and you’ll thank them for their present, eh?’He nodded his head but did not look at her, and so she backed from him, then turned slowly and went out and closed the door.On the landing she stood looking at it, at the lock, and only resisted the temptation to turn it by hurrying away and running down the stairs.At the bottom of the stairs she paused and glanced across the landing towards her mother’s door.It was time for her morning visit but she must go to her own room first, there to attend to her personal needs which she had never been able to perform in front of the child.Delia heard her daughter come down the stairs, she heard her hesitate before going to the lower landing and to her room.There was no movement that her daughter or the child made that she did not hear.Sometimes she might only be dimly aware of the activities in the room above her, especially after she had taken the strong medicine that Doctor Cargill prescribed from time to time, yet some part of her mind was always conscious of the activity in the attic room.She knew when they went to bed, and when they awoke in the morning.She heard the child cry, and scream, and laugh, and at times she heard her daughter laugh with him.This, strangely, hurt her most of all.In the past eighteen months she had been only twice out of the room.Prior to that, except during the first six months after the child’s birth when she was prostrate and often not in her right mind, she had periodically made an effort to get back into life.It might be once in two months, or three.She would dress and go downstairs into the sitting room, but she never went outside, her legs didn’t seem strong enough to come in contact with the hard earth, nor her face the sharp air.But for the past nine months she had not even moved out of the bed.No-one spoke to her of the child, his name was never mentioned.But then she saw so few people.Only four in fact: Winnie, the doctor, Parson Hedley, and, of course Jane.She wondered time and again why she was not dead
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