Back then you see, when I returned to work, I was still one of the only women in the faculty. Down in the basement, where the physics labs were housed, I was studying early-stage cell development with microfluidic delivery. But King’s was an old university, theology its biggest department, and upstairs the seminary dominated.
I felt like I was being followed by those men in their cassocks and collars who paced silently across the stone courtyard. And watched. Haunted by the sound of the hymns that resonated through the labs below. When you feel you’re being judged, you imagine that same judgement is coming from everywhere. Though there was another type of haunting there, too – Rosalind died the same week my daughter was born. I was grieving for my friend, while my colleagues were still taking credit for her work. To remember how they used to make fun of her behind her back! It made me more angry than ever. I knew that if I gave them the slightest cause, they would push me out. They didn’t want me there. They were waiting for me to get something wrong, and so I couldn’t. My work had to be perfect.
Still, in some ways King’s was progressive, for its time – in Princeton women weren’t even allowed to step foot in the physics department. Being patronised was the price we paid for walking through the door. Not that we were allowed in the staff common room. That was the backdrop, you see. That was the world I’d worked so hard to gain access too. It made me different, I think. Different from whom I would otherwise have been. All the time I had to feign a sort of steely confidence, of arrogance, if I were to get any of them to listen to me. And I had to make them listen. I felt like I was on a mission, I was so certain that I knew what had to be done.
Unusually for King’s at that point I was more interested in whole cells than in DNA – living cell research was how I wanted to study human reproduction, and I needed the engineering capability as well as the biology to sustain them. I worked with microscopes rather than X-rays, manufactured carefully designed substrates to keep my cells alive rather than wire hooks to hang and stretch molecules from. It wasn’t until after I’d built my first living cell chamber that I heard Haldane speak at the Royal Society.
He sounded smooth and assured as he talked about genetics and biostatistics, wearing a deep navy blazer with distinctive white stripes and that full moustache – it was almost a surprise he wasn’t holding a pipe. He was something of a celebrity already, being such close friends with Aldous Huxley, but it took me a moment to realise what he meant when he started going on about ectogenesis. I hadn’t read Brave New World – for the best, I’d say. So as he talked about external wombs and selective breeding and child production rates I thought to myself, no, no, that’s all wrong – that’s such a man’s way of seeing a woman’s world. It’s never going to be about mass production in all the symmetrical sterility of a laboratory. Human beings, if nothing else, need to feel like individuals. Don’t you see? Any change must allow for individuals to remain an intrinsic part of their own reproduction, or it will fail. I wanted to create a liberating form of pregnancy. A genuine equality. A more reliable bond between parent and child. In that moment, I realised that my work was intensely personal. That was why I was the one who would succeed.
I was single-minded in my aims, back then – you’ve seen it for yourself. I’m not like that any more. Not sure if it’s old age or new wisdom, to be honest. But things do seem to have spiralled out of control since I last spoke to you.
It was one of those crisp-as-frost days. The sun was giving out the unnatural sort of light that appears up here – an exaggerated form of colour that takes over the world. The rocks past the gorse were glowing in it, sparkling like quartz rather than coarse battered sandstone. I had gone walking along the coast, thinking myself quite alone until I saw that big green van parked outside my lighthouse, clearly visible against the flat outcrop that is the extended finger of my peninsula.
I thought, there is no need to rush, he’s early and will leave my delivery outside the front door. But I turned and began walking back to the lighthouse anyway. The downpour from the day before was still visible in the muddy puddles along the track, in the smell of marsh that seemed more intense than usual. It felt wrong, in that light … in the dry clarity of the day. And as I watched, the van did not leave.
I continued towards home, using my stick to test the depth of puddles and propel my steps faster. The gorse was a rich dark green, almost black in places. Black and thick and vibrant in its success. There are not many plants that survive so completely here. The willowherb, with its red tendrils and cotton-wool seed head, when the weather is better, but not now, not in December. This time of year the gorse dominates completely. And still the van was there.
I arrived at the lighthouse to find him, the Asda man, sitting in his driver’s seat eating a sandwich. Astonished does not begin to cover it. What was he doing there, parked outside my lighthouse, when he knows I don’t like to be surprised, when anywhere else in the world would have been less of an imposition?
His window was closed and his door shut, so when he started trying to speak to me I had no idea what he was saying. I could see his lips moving and I started backing away, but he wound the window down and called out:
‘Hello, Freida. How are you?’
I was speechless.
‘I’m a bit early,’ he said.
Which was true.
‘Give me five,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bring your delivery in.’
So, there we were. I nodded, turned, and made my way indoors. I can only suppose, looking back, that it was my shock at him sitting there eating his sandwich that made me forget to lock the door, but that’s what I did. I walked inside, leaving the front door open.
So perhaps you can guess what happened a few minutes later. I was making myself a cup of tea, standing facing the kettle, which was just starting to whistle when I heard this noise behind me. In my kitchen. Right inside my kitchen. So I turned round, and there he was. It was the first time anyone but me had stood in my kitchen for over a decade. I kept thinking – how can you be here when I didn’t invite you here? But it didn’t seem to have occurred to him that he was doing anything wrong.
He placed the crate on my table, the one that I’d made out of the old Scots pine that fell in the storms, and started unloading the contents. I can’t tell you what it all was, there were tins and fruit and milk, long-life milk and some other things. ‘Plenty more to come,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll carry them in for you, aye?’ I felt unable to stop the scene unfolding before me. He disappeared out the door, but was back a moment later, the next three crates piled high in his arms. When he’d finished he looked around and said: ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Then he pulled out a chair and sat in it. Smiling. The empty crates were stacked up against the kitchen door like unstable scaffolding.
‘It’s my wife’s fiftieth today,’ he said. ‘You’re my last delivery, I’ll be heading into town now to collect her cake …’ He laughed, a big natural laugh as he dug around for something in his pocket and eventually pulled out his wallet. ‘This is us. Handsome couple, eh? Taken a few years ago, mind.’
I looked at the photo, then at him. What did he want from me?
‘And this is our husky,’ he continued with the family slideshow.
Was I supposed to admire his dog now?
‘She’s pregnant again.’
‘Your wife?’
He laughed his belly laugh at that.
‘No, Snowdrop. The dog.’
‘The dog?’
‘Aye. We’re thinking of keeping one of the puppies this time, too. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in taking one … No?’
What a horrifying thought.
‘Not to worry. We’ll find plenty good homes for them I’m sure. But to answer your question—’
Good grief, had I asked him a question?
‘—We don’t have any kids. Bea and I, we’re happy with life as it is, see? Plenty of time for gardening. Always time for each other.’
I swallowed.
‘Speaking of which, I could help you set up a polytunnel if you like? Out the back there. It’s a great way to extend your growing season.’
The door was open, wide open. All he had to do was walk through it.
‘Well …’ he said, standing again now.
I thought he was about to go at last, but instead, casually, like he wasn’t even thinking about it, he picked up my one pint of fresh milk, and walked to the fridge. I couldn’t have it – a complete stranger opening my fridge, looking through my cupboards. I moved as quickly as I could from round the counter and grabbed the milk from his hand, holding the fridge shut by leaning against it with my other shoulder.
‘There are boundaries,’ I said.
But he was still holding on to my milk, a look of total confusion on his face. And so I pulled. I pulled and it hit the floor with a pop and liquid splattered the cupboards and the fridge and leaked out into a seeping puddle on the floor.
‘Oh no,’ he said, watching the puddle grow. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’ Reaching for the kitchen towel. ‘Let me help. We’ll replace the milk, of course, get you fresh. I feel awful bad about this …’ kneeling on the floor, mopping up the milk. ‘Still, there’s no point crying over—’
I had to get him out of my house.
‘Just go,’ I said, my voice rising.
He stood up.
‘Get out,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you here.’
He looked at me without moving.
‘Why do you live here, all alone like this?’ he said. ‘I was just trying to help.’
‘Get out.’ I was shouting now. ‘Get out! Get out!’
He left then, and I watched from the window as he walked down the path back to his van. Whistling, again, I could swear to it. Bet you anything he was whistling, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
I cleared up. The kitchen is back to normal and I have plenty of long-life milk so it won’t be a problem. Everything is OK.
It has upset me though, and I worry what will happen a fortnight from now when my next delivery is due. At first I hoped they wouldn’t send him here again, but then I thought of how they could send anyone in his place, and I couldn’t stand that. All of a sudden, I was worried that he would refuse to come back. That they’d send someone else instead, someone with no idea how I like it to be done, some strange person bringing me what I need to survive. How awful. And so now, despite myself, I worry that he will not come back. It’s painful to admit, but it seems I cannot live entirely without other people, after all.