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I 've been here all along, sitting with the others in the 'overflow'…

Not to worry! I was waiting for an opportune moment, that's all

Yes, hello! And…congratulations! You look very well. You enjoyed yourself?

Good…What a shame we haven't spoken all night, and now you're getting ready to leave

Yes, it is late

No, I'm going to sit right here till this wine is gone. I wasn't sure how long we'd be, so I ordered another bottle, and then everybody seemed to get up all at once and start making their excuses

That would be splendid! And very brave of you, too

Oh please don't deny it, you're a bit frightened of me, otherwise why look so startled when I appeared just now? I must be the last person you expected to come

That's true, I haven't. But consider my position - I took you on less than three months ago, and already…this

Well, yes. It would've been better if you told me yourself. But I wasn't exactly 'out of the loop' - in fact I was probably one of the first to know

Oh, nobody. But I can always tell. Something slightly…disturbing about the eyes. Almost as if I can see the other person in there, peering out

Well, it is eerie, isn't it? You have a second person inside you

You have thoughts that aren't your own…

But it does! Of course it does…You think of something, but behind it there's a second thought, you see? And that's what I can see peering out - the thought behind the thought

No, I don't. Brr! The whole idea scares me. Look - goosebumps! I don't know what I'd be capable of, if I had to defend them

Oh, I don't know - germs, bullies, dogs

I'm delighted to hear it. I'm sure you'll be an excellent mother

She…she…She wasn't really up to it, in the end. She always wanted someone to tell her she was doing the right thing

That's not what I mean…Not the right thing for the baby exactly - the right thing. She had a strong sense of duty. And perhaps when you have a strong sense of duty, but no particular example to follow, you are bound to be anxious

From her parents, I suppose. Are you sure you don't want a cup of tea or something? Glass of water? I feel awkward, sitting here with my bottle of wine and you empty-handed

True, true! A good haul, so to speak. And so beautifully wrapped. I'm sorry I didn't have time to organise anything

No, no, I'm still planning to give you something

Is it far?

Well, you'll manage, I'm sure. You can always call a taxi

Don't be silly - call a taxi. I'll give you the account number

Well, if you want to bother him …There's no need, that's all. You can use the company account; I don't mind. Excuse me - a glass of water, please

You're welcome. Gosh, you're polite! You really don't need to be afraid of me, whatever they said in the office

Really? That sounds so … I don't know, Victorian … Like some sort of benevolent society. 'The Friends of the Working Mother' - I like that

Indeed. And not just working mothers: mothers period

Well, yes, ultimately it is … She spooked me rather badly, I suppose

No! Nothing like that … Good Lord, what an awful euphemism. Is that what people say nowadays? No, she didn't 'interfere' with me

Are you sure you want to know?

Well - it's nothing really - compared with the situation in the rest of the world, and all that.

But - she killed a dog once, right in front of me

Yes - in our own back yard. With a turf-cutter - do you know what that is? A garden tool with a heavy wooden handle and a straight blade on the end for slicing through turf - you use it to square the edges of a lawn

No, not really. Maybe she thought he was. Actually he was more or less stuck under the fence, so no, I couldn't say he was threatening me

She just …she just hated him. He was the neighbour's dog, and she couldn't stand him in our yard

How old? - Oh, brand-new - it was just before I was born, in fact. I was a few weeks early

That's right

Yes, of course - doesn't everybody?

I'm sure you do, if you could only untangle it from everything that's happened to you since. The problem is that as soon as you're born, other people start interfering with your memories straight away - taking pictures of you, telling you stories about yourself, commenting on everything you do. Which makes it hard to keep anything pure

Well - that's as may be. But I have pretty vivid memories

No, of course not, not everything. Just sounds and feelings - impressions

Well - like that incident with the dog, for example

If you like … It's late August. The yard is a bit of a mess - the grass hasn't been cut for weeks, the tomato plants are falling over - and my mother is feeling guilty about it, so we've come outside. We're standing next to the fence that my father built, specifically to keep out the neighbour's dog, who was called Kim, by the way

A Doberman

I know - horrible dogs, bred for cruelty. Anyway, my mother is out to here - seven plus months - and she's wearing a blue denim dress with white and yellow flowers embroidered on the pockets. Bare legs and feet. Her bump is so large, she can't reach her toenails any more, to paint them. Her ankles are brown and pricked with mosquito bites. It's so hot, the sky in the background is almost white. The dog, Kim, has dug a narrow trench under the fence and started to worm his way through. There's a big gash in the top of his head. My mother is leaning on the turf-cutter, stunned, flushed, soaked in sweat

Perfectly…Surely the question is, how could you not remember it?

Of course.

Well, no, not the very beginning, obviously. But most of what happened that summer

Why? Babies can hear and feel everything

Oh, for example, setting off one day to go to a demonstration at the supermarket. The farmers were protesting against America - something to do with subsidies? - and my mother agreed to take part, even though she didn't understand it, really, and it was so hot. She had a sign, a placard, that said Boycott California Grapes and Lettuces, and she was walking down our street with the sign over her shoulder, the way you carry a snow-shovel, and it was heavy, and she knew it would leave an ugly red mark on her shoulder to go with all the other marks of being pregnant. And she went past Mrs Rush's house, that was our old neighbour, who died a few months before, and she saw that new people were moving in, and made a mental note to call on them when she got back from the demonstration

No, of course not. I just don't want to bore you

Well, somewhere in the neighbourhood, someone was hammering wood, and someone was using a hedge-trimmer, and the boys were playing hockey in the street with a tennis ball, scraping their sticks along the asphalt, flicking pebbles into the air and then batting them. I could hear June bugs droning, and a television, and a plastic bag with a shirt from the dry cleaner being ripped open, and the hiss of a sprinkler combing through the grass of the Taylors' front yard. Mr Taylor was working on his flowerbed. A few drops from the sprinkler papped on the placard we were carrying over my mother's shoulder. Mr Taylor didn't notice, or he would have been mortified - he would have dropped his trowel and hurried after us, apologised profusely, dabbed the water-drops away with his hankie, slipped out his familiar slim brown calf-skin wallet and made a cash donation then and there …That's the sort of neighbour we were used to, you see

To tell you the truth, we were both hoping it would rain and wash the whole thing away. My mother was too tired for the demonstration, it was hot and sticky, her hearing wasn't right, her mind was blurred, it was all she could do to keep shuffling her keg in a straight line along the road

That's what my father called it - her 'keg'

I think it was meant to be friendly. He was very caring, in his way

Well, he did whatever she asked. But mostly she didn't ask. She felt it was her responsibility, and she had to go through with it all herself

Yes, she did - not that day, another time, when she was feeling stronger. By then we knew a little bit more about them. They were from South Africa, which my mother immediately found disturbing

Schofield

Yes, of course. He was a lawyer and she was a teacher, supposedly. But we didn't know their circumstances or why they left South Africa. My mother was afraid they would be horrible racists

Yes, unfortunately

We went round to call on the woman, Lily. It was strange for my mother, because here she was making the short walk next door for the first time in weeks, when for several months she'd gone back and forth, back and forth, two or three times a day, to check on poor Mrs Rush, tuck in her pillows, adjust the blind, bring her something to drink

I don't know. A stroke, perhaps?

No, just extremely stiff and frail

I suppose so

Well, as I said, she had a strong sense of duty

The main thing about this Mrs Rush was that she was thirsty all the time. She just couldn't get enough to drink! Once, when my mother was running a bit late, she was so thirsty she managed to drag herself out of bed to search for water, she could smell a glass of water in her room somewhere and it was driving her crazy that she couldn't lay hands on it, then she found it and brought it to her parched lips, only her senses hadn't completely deserted her and she realised in time it was a vase of flowers which hadn't been changed in days, and just dumped it out. So when my mother got there, Mrs Rush was drenched with stagnant water all down her front, and little bits of green

I have no idea

Well, there was no sign of them, put it like that. She was easily old enough to have grown-up grandchildren, I should think, but we never met them

Well, no, she didn't. Not from any family member, at least. I think someone came from the borough and asked why she hadn't gone into a home

Yes, well - I'm afraid that's how it is …Did you still want to call your partner?

Are you sure? You look a little flushed

If you're sure …Where was I …Yes - so we went up the driveway of Mrs Rush's house, which now belonged to the Schofields, and my mother noticed a long strip of scorched, yellow grass along the edge of the drive, and she knew someone must have poured boiling water onto the little chain of anthills that used to be there. And that made her even more unhappy, because Mrs Rush would never hurt a fly, or an ant, I should say

Do you know - that's exactly what my mother thought! - she was always, always making allowances for people that way. 'Maybe in South Africa the ants are more of a problem …' Priceless. This hopeless, yearning, generosity towards others - always giving them credit - always letting people have their say

Who knows, maybe they are! Ah - here's your water…So - the front door was wide open, but the screen door was shut of course, so my mother rattled it a bit and called out hello, and then she waited for a minute or so, wondering if they were out back, or in the laundry room, and gradually the heat of the sun on the back of her head started to get to her, and she vowed to start wearing a sunhat, if only to set a good example for me. In fact she felt quite dizzy, almost nauseous, and she started to perspire, as much from the fear of being overcome as from the heat itself. When Mrs Rush lived there, she had a little plaque on the wall, with a poem:

Welcome, stranger

Welcome, friend

But welcome most

At journey,s end!

And as much as she loved Mrs Rush, my mother always averted her eyes from that plaque; it depressed her no end that the engraver had been so clumsy or lazy or ignorant to use a comma instead of an apostrophe, but of course she couldn't criticise it openly, so she just had to look away …And now the plaque was gone, and my mother put her hand on the empty square of wall by the door where it had been, partly out of sadness but partly to steady herself, because her head was starting to swim. In the cool, dark hallway a pink and yellow form materialised, glowing softly like a candle. My mother had to blink away the sweat from her eyes. It was Lily, her new neighbour, in a yellow summery dress. She said, "Hello, can I help you?" in her South Efrican exent, and my mother said, "Hello, I'm from next door, I just wanted to say hi, and welcome to the neighbourhood," but that was as far as she got, because suddenly the nausea came surging back, and she turned on her heel and marched away, right back to our house, which luckily enough had a bathroom on the ground floor. And afterwards she sat on the lid of the toilet and wiped her face with a cold flannel and cursed herself for being so ridiculous and making such a bad first impression

No, of course it wasn't her fault. It was mine, if it was anybody's

I know, I know, don't worry

Of course not … Anyway, she felt awful, as if she'd done something wrong, and that meant she had to tell someone right away - she had to confess - which in practice meant phoning my father and telling him. And he was a bit guarded, because he was at work, and first he just asked if she was sure she was all right, and when she explained again that she was physically fine, it was just that she was so embarrassed, he asked if she had met the husband too, which was not as much of a non sequitur as it sounds, because what he meant was that, so long as no man was involved, everything was fine and she didn't have to worry what sort of figure she cut. And she said, "No, there was nobody else there," but for some reason she felt there had been another presence in the house, someone looking at her from inside the front hallway. Which of course was Kim, the dog

He sort of - blended in …He was black and brown, and the hallway was black and brown too - very old-fashioned - that strange, textured wallpaper, with awful brown stains on it, and dark floorboards

Oh, that was later. They didn't really fit in, somehow; I mean they didn't want to mix with anyone on our street. And when Mr Taylor went to say hello, he got told off for walking on the lawn

I know! He just crossed from his lawn to theirs, but apparently she looked at him and said, "I thought only postmen did that"

Completely…But, yes, the racism thing. Well, we went round again, moved by my mother's nagging sense of duty - believe it or not, she was going to ask this Lily woman to join the boycott against California grapes and lettuces. So she got together a few pamphlets and flyers and we went next door and offered them to Lily. Some people had put them up in their windows, and there was a bumper sticker version too. And Lily opened the screen door, but only part-way, so she was standing half-in and half-out of her house, and said, "Whatever's this," and took one of the leaflets. A mile or two away, the sky had turned black, there was a big summer storm coming, and it was almost as if Lily didn't want to get caught outside, even on her own front porch. "We've been demonstrating," my mother said, "raising awareness…If you'd like to join us, I'd be happy to take you along," and Lily gave her a sort of pitying smile, and said, "Raising awareness?" and at that point I gave a savage little kick, because I had become aware of the dog again, lurking in the shadows in the hallway. My mother said, "Oh!" and stroked the prow of her belly, at which point she would normally get a query like, "And how is Baby coming along?" or something like that - you know what I mean, obviously - but Lily didn't say anything, just stood there. Then she handed the leaflet back and said, "Thank you, but I don't hev the time. I hev the whole house to sort out." And my mother nodded sympathetically and said, "Well, if you need any help, we're just next door," and Lily said, "It's times like this I wish I hed a pair of black hands"

Exactly

Well, she was taken aback, but she wanted to be sure she hadn't misheard, so she said, "I beg your pardon?" and Lily said, "A black, to do things around the house." Then she looked at me and said, "I don't know how you'll cope." "I'll be fine," my mother said faintly, but she didn't believe it, and suddenly the idea of bringing a child into the world just seemed so big, if she was going to have to deal with racist neighbours and the welfare of the farmers too; but Lily was scrutinising the leaflet again, although she had given it back, and now she said, "If it were me, I would not put 'Boycott'. It's not a word that everyone understands." And my mother said, "Oh no?" as if this were a surprise to her, when in fact people came up to us all the time - when we were picketing a supermarket, I mean - to ask where the Boycott grapes were kept - they couldn't find them with the other fruit - and my mother had to explain that Boycott was not a name like Del Monte; it was a demonstration, we were protesting, not launching a new brand. But then she rallied her strength and looked at Lily straight in the eye and said, "If I were you, I wouldn't say 'blacks' that way. In this country it's considered disrespectful"

Well, yes - though of course, there was a bit of her that was - you know - racist too

Well of course - how could there not be?

Oh, nothing specific - just the residual, lingering, love-hate thing

How would she have known any black people? I mean, yes, at church, but things were still pretty segregated otherwise

Of course it was. I just meant, she was standing up to that part of herself, too

She pretended not to hear; she just arched her eyebrows and went on talking about the leaflet. "I would keep it simple," she said, "I would put, 'Say No to California Grapes and Lettuces'. Not 'Boycott' - just 'Say No'. It's more obvious"

Well, I could feel her starting to sink, so I gave another kick, and it was like I had kicked the dog, because suddenly he moved up to the doorway, with a sharp clicking noise of his nails on the floor, and looked at us, and in spite of herself my mother shied away, which made Lily laugh. "Don't be afraid," she said, "this is Kim, he won't hurt you. Will you, Kim?" and scratched him behind the ears. "He's been in quarantine," she explained. "He's just got out, haven't you, Kim? Haven't you?"

No, not quite, because my mother stopped looking at the dog and said, "I mean it. About saying blacks. Like they aren't people." And Lily gave her that pitying look again and said, "Are you the expert, then? How many blacks do you actually know? Have you ever had any in your home? At your dining-room table, I mean? What about Italians? Indians?" And my mother was so shocked that she said, "No, I haven't," as if she was prepared to learn more. Then three things happened, more or less at once: Lily yanked the screen door open to go inside, Kim slipped out like smoke, and the whole world was rocked by a terrific clap of thunder which frightened both women, not to mention me. Suddenly my mother was drenched. "Look what you've done," Lily shouted, pushing past us and running down the steps of her porch in pursuit of Kim. The rain was falling so hard, it bounced off the street, and I was afraid she would slip

No, we got home, and she was trembling with fear, but also terribly depressed, because once again she felt she'd failed somehow, in front of this woman. So she called my father at his office and told him the story, and this time he was worried about her, she was crying, and he came home. And she said she was sorry, but she couldn't bear to bring a child into a world that was full of vicious racists like Lily Schofield, and he produced his favourite non non sequitur again: was the husband there? Because if it was just the woman talking, that was one thing, but if she had spoken in the presence of a man, that was another: it meant she took her opinions seriously. So my mother said no, Lily was on her own, except for the dog, which I stupidly let escape, and then she shuddered, and I lay as still as I could, because this talk about not wanting to bring a child into the world had got me nervous, as you can imagine

I know you don't. But you are the trainee, and I am going to teach you something

I'm perfectly calm

Thank you … My father was more concerned about the dog running around than about the … shall we say … opinions the Schofields held, so that evening he went next door to see for himself. He was going to make a polite suggestion that the Schofields keep their pet tied up, or only let him out in the back yard, but Mr Schofield apparently wouldn't hear of it, he just shook his head and said, "Kim is well-trained. It's an invisible leash"

Yes, he was. My mother was afraid of dogs anyway, and she couldn't understand why people wanted to live with them. This Kim was very smooth - they have very short hair, don't they - and it made my mother think of convicts with shaven heads. His black saddle and tan chest, his lean flanks and square muzzle were so hard and smooth, he might have been something turned on a lathe, and his legs and feet and tail looked almost manicured. She thought he was gross, she couldn't bear to look at him

Well, no, she didn't have to, but you could see into their back yard from our kitchen - we were right next door

Right, though not at first - only a hedge. But it was quite thick and full of thorns, and I don't think Kim would have braved it, except there was a thin place near the back where he could easily pass through

Oh yes, all the time. He was very stealthy. He surprised us in the garden a few times, and then my mother got too scared to go out there unless she could actually see him in his kennel, or she knew they had all gone out. That was when she asked my father to block off the thin part of the hedge somehow, but he was a bit reluctant, he thought it would look un-neighbourly. I remember him saying, "We don't want a feud"

That's what I thought too, but of course - well, you know - I wasn't in a position to influence things, really …

The only person who seemed happy around him was Harry Schofield. They went jogging together, in the early evening; on weekends they sat in the garden together; every other Saturday they cut the lawn together - Harry pushing the gas-fed mower up and down, while it spewed bits of grass and twigs over his bare shins, and Kim leaping around in front of him, barking as if the mower were another dog, with a snarling green snout and a terrible smell …

No, nothing at all somehow she managed to blank that out entirely. But the thing she was grappling with was Lily Schofield's advice about the stupid Boycott sign. Can you believe it? She would sit at the kitchen table doing designs in pencil for an alternative sign. The problem with Lily's slogan, from a sign-painting point of view at least, was that the two key words, 'No' and 'Californian', were of such unequal length. She tried writing NO in large, thick letters, with CALIFORNIAN in much smaller letters underneath; but if it was too small, people would miss it, and think they were opposed to grapes and lettuce in general. So she tried writing CALIFORNIAN at an angle, bottom left to top right, which looked quite good, and divided the placard into equal halves, like the design for a shield; but in fact it was too stylish, it made the sign look jazzy and threw the very word they were trying to stigmatise, CALIFORNIAN, into prominence. By this time of course the boycott had moved on anyway, but she was obsessed with making her sign, as a way of not thinking about other things

Well - like me

The thought behind the thought, remember?

Believe me, I know, and it made me twitchy

Then you should have fortified yourself with something stronger than water, like I told you

In a minute. I'm almost finished

How can you say that? This is my gift to you - I said I would get you something

Thank you … Then one day, my mother fell asleep in the sitting-room, it was another of those humid, exhausting days, she was getting tired of carrying me around, and while she was sleeping there on the sofa, I heard this faint noise, click click click on the back stairs, and I knew exactly what it was, and I gave a frantic kick to wake her up. The back porch ran the width of the house, and the sitting room had double doors that opened onto it, which my mother had left open, despite the flies and mosquitoes, because it was so clammy otherwise. And when my mother opened her eyes, there was Kim, framed in the doorway, looking in at us. I felt her heart stop, and she turned to ice, but before either of us could move, Kim just turned and walked away

That's right: like a prison guard, checking up on us

Well, you can imagine. Absolutely crazy

Then he finally agreed to build a fence, but only across the last bit, where it was thin, where Kim was actually getting through. And he went to the rent-all for a post-drill, and to Mansion for lumber, and he put up two fence-posts with a solid board between, painted dark-green to blend in with the hedge. And get this - painted both sides, so the Schofields wouldn't have to look at a plain piece of board either. So considerate …! It looked a bit like a bumper, you know, like you get at the end of the railway tracks, but even though I tried incorporating it into my games, I couldn't, I was too scared of it

Of course I did, what else was there to do?

Well then … Oh never mind, I can't deal with that now. The point is, we were scared of it, for different reasons, my mother because she didn't think it would be strong enough to keep the dog out, and me because of what it represented about her

Oh, her obsession, her weakness - I don't know

Let's just say, when I said she went absolutely crazy, I wasn't speaking figuratively

Yes, I do, or I did - it was making me extremely nervous

So we avoided it, we just didn't go down there

All right, all right - no rush - you know how it ended anyway

The fence was in place, the scene was set…One afternoon we were in the back yard, my mother was sluggishly prodding the lawn with some tool or other, she barely knew what she was doing or why, she was so groggy from the heat, or not the heat, just heartsick at the thought of having a child, her skin was full of ugly spots and pregnancy marks, her bites were itchy, there were even spots in front of her eyes sometimes. She was gazing at a mound of differently coloured grass that had sprouted in the middle of the lawn somehow, and it spawned a momentary fantasy in her mind of a man lurking underground, with only his imperfectly camouflaged scalp showing through, when we heard a scrabbling, panting sound and she whirled around to see that black and brown worm of a dog writhing under the board of the fence! He was still trying to get through! He had dug a sort of trench, and so far it was just his head and his front paws on our side, so the board didn't look like a bumper anymore so much as the blade of a guillotine, or rather, like the blade they use in magic shows, when they cut the lady in half. And he was obviously stuck, because he couldn't get enough power or motion to his front paws to dig any deeper, and he couldn't reach far enough forward with his back paws either, so he was just squirming there, looking at us with his angry mouth open. But my mother had had enough, and she raised that heavy turf-cutter high above her head and brought it down with a crunch on his skull. One blow. He didn't make a sound, just collapsed. The impact sent a shock-wave through us, and at that very moment, I opened my eyes to the world for the first time, and I saw the skinny little dog lying there with a gash in his head, and I thought: Now!

I mean - Now! Get out, now, before she loses it entirely

Yes! Exactly!

I certainly did! I absolutely threw myself into it, and she staggered inside and phoned the ambulance, and my father, and the ambulance again. And about six hours later, I was born

It amuses me that you're so confident, and all the time it can hear me perfectly well

What would you like me to say? Do you know yet?

Well then, 'it' seems perfectly reasonable

Four weeks early. Not a moment too soon, as far as I was concerned

But I haven't even come to that yet! Oh, all that stuff we could've got over - it was afterwards, in the hospital, when she was talking to my father. I had to strain to hear, because they had put me in one of those Perspex boxes, with a heat lamp and a little wire attached to my wrist, so they could monitor my pulse. My father had been back to the house, and by then Kim had been discovered, and there was a note for him from the Schofields, who were spitting mad, but he told them the accident was their fault, for not controlling their dog - he thought it was an accident, you see, he thought the cutter must have been propped against the fence the wrong way round, and it had somehow tipped over and fallen on Kim as he was digging away. And he had the stature of the father about him, so he was able to put them in their place and carry right on … But then, at the hospital, my mother told him the truth, and he was taken aback, and at first he tried to persuade her that his version of events was actually correct. But she just shook her head and said that she had done it, she had 'chopped' him, as she put it, and then he began asking her why? why? in a desperate way, because he really didn't want her to be responsible for such a cruel, bizarre act. I was half-expecting him to say, Was the husband at home? as if that were some kind of escape hatch, but she wasn't feeling guilty or upset about it, which my father put down to the drugs, but according to her she had a clear conscience, she said, because for me to come into the world, someone else had to go out of it … that was the balance of nature. And if I tell you that up to that point I had been keeping a bit of mental distance from her - well, from then on I just took off into the wide blue yonder, I couldn't get far enough away, because I really didn't want to be dealing with someone who could believe she'd just exchanged a dog's life for mine…

Yes, that's the end

Well, obviously, yes

Until I was able to leave

No, it came back to me gradually

Yes. Yes, I do

Why? Well - three reasons, I suppose: First, because you're the trainee, and as I said, I'm supposed to teach you something; second, because I owed you a gift for your baby shower; and third, because I - I'm

What on earth makes you say that?

Are you serious? Of your shiny skin and stretchy tops? I don't think so - Look, here's your partner …Congratulations! You must be very proud of her

Not at all, I was keeping her company till you got here. I'm afraid I talked rather a lot

Crying? No, I don't think so, she's been fine all evening - radiant

Well, it's an emotional time

Here, let me help you take them out to the car. Are you parked nearby?

You're sure?

In that case, I'll love you and leave you …Goodnight!

And remember: the thought behind the thought! Good luck, you…