Her mother-in-law, the midwife, had promised her that,
after the first three, leastways it would be wonderful easy this time around,
like shelling peas she said, but now that her belly had begun to bloat, now
that she had started spitting up that thin, bitter bile-water early in the
mornings again, now that the ache in her ankles was back to bite her as she
puddled about, and now that her already short temper was growing even shorter
by the day, she knew now that the lying old bitch was lying to her again.
She
cursed her for her lying, she cursed that feckless runagate streak she called a
son for lying to her, with his silvery words, his golden tongue and his brass
promises, and most of all she cursed herself for falling for them easy, empty
lies again. She cursed the stupid, boss-eyed bitch they’d sent to help her grub
out the last of these stupid, worm-riddled turnips, what with her stupid lisp
and her stupid whistling. She cursed her own aching back, her fruz fingers and
this stupid, stupid, unwanted brat. She hoicked her mire-spattered round-frock
about her knees, swung herself to one side and planted her otherside,
cack-caked clog half a yard to the left.
A rabbit erupted from the sod, its
scut bobbing in the half-light, she hadn’t seen it cowering in the turf and she
cursed the fright it gave her. If only she’d seen it first, she’d have brained
the thing and there’d have been spoon-meat in the pot tonight. The boss-eyed
bitch snorted and spluttered, hawking out what might have been a laugh, and
dropped her sack of swedes, spilling them in the mud. Mary skewered the
spawny-eyed silly with a gimlet glare for a second, spat a satisfying green gob
at her and turned back to the clung red clay. Stupid damn rabbit.
She flinched
as the gormless bitch plucked at her arm, spun and faced her, a curse forming in her mouth when she saw the
pointing finger. There. There in the hedge. Under an elder. Another rabbit
quaked, twitching and shivering, tight as a fist, hiding in brambles. Slowly,
she drew the hefty turnip from her trug, weighing it with a poacher’s pull as
she raised her weary arm back. Aim and weigh, slow, slowly, without blinking or
breathing, she hefted it, arcing it toward the brown buck’s back.
It sprang,
rising and jinking and kinking like a trout on a line, barrelling toward her, quirking afirst
then, at once, a wild thing screeching like a teething brat. She’d been told once
that rabbits could scream but she’d never heard one do it before. The banshee bolted
aright at her and then, in a blinking, it was gone, gone as quickly as her
bloom, her figure and her dreams. Too frightened to think, it had panicked and
now it was her turn to gasp and shiver, cold with sweat, trembling with fear,
wondering why. Stupid, stupid rabbit. And deep inside her belly, she felt a
kick.
Tomorrow - The True Tale of Mary Toft
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