The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam Page B

heavy jam—sponges awaiting transport to fêtes. Gant floated about giving orders. It was before she got this tumour on her head—did I mention that?
    One day Gant asked if she could come and see me. “For luncheon,” she said. “Nothing elaborate,” and in she swept with Bella behind her, Bella smiling, the legs beneath the mini-skirt grown rather stringy. Gant wore her usual look of outrage, the face of a portentous mushroom. As they took off their coats Gant passed a finger over the hall table and examined it for dust. She was not aware of doing it, any more than she knew that when she picked up her fork for the cheese soufflé (packet; still learning to cook after diplomatic immunity—still am) she polished it with her napkin. Bella not only noticed but noticed me noticing and out of loyalty picked up her own fork and dabbed at it; whereupon Gant cried out, “Whatever are you doing, Bella?”
    â€œNow, what we are here for, Bella and I,” she said, “is to see if we can persuade you to work at The Shires. I know you’ve recently been out of sorts. The best thing in the world for you would be to get really busy. We don’t ask much of the Secretaryship of The Shires. Minutes, accounts, liaison with the State sector now and then, that sort of thing. It’s a friendly little committee. What I call a listening committee. And of course there is the rota of drivers to be drawn up. The drivers who take the babies into London for adoption. You would be called upon to do some of this. Most rewarding.”
    I said that there was nobody in the whole country who could be less qualified to do this work than I. It was impossible.
    â€œThat attitude, Eliza, has often proved the foundation of a useful, dedicated life. Bella, don’t keep all the butter to yourself. After all—what on earth are you doing with yourself now that you are back in England? Cleaning this great house all day?”
    I said that I lived a private life and did not care about team work of any kind.
    â€œYou know The Shires of course?”
    I did. I did.
    The Shires, dear Joan, is gone now but not long gone—just before you arrived here. It was a home for unmarried mothers that stood for nearly a century in the middle of the Common. It was founded by three mysterious sisters in Derbyshire, called Shire, who had most startlingly for Derbyshire left all their wealth to unmarried pregnant girls unpopular with their families. It was a fine solid house with encouraging views and healthy air. There was a kitchen of scrubbed tables and a dormitory of reliable iron bedsteads, a hall and stairs uncarpeted and vast. There was opportunity therefore for exercise, for the girls did the housework at the early stage of pregnancy and helped with the cooking towards the end. When their time came they were driven to the local maternity hospital where they stayed for up to two weeks and were then driven back to the home with the baby who was usually all set up with an adopting family longing to have him or her, but there was no compulsion to give the child up other than a briefing once or twice a week during the period in residence explaining the enormous advantages the girls were withholding from the child if they did not. There were only two rules at The Shires. These were that no mother was allowed to breast-feed and no mother who fell a second time was allowed to come back.
    The girls were well prepared before and after the birth of the child for the day when they were to give it up. They were encouraged to dress themselves and the baby in their best clothes. It was obligatory that every mother should hand the child over herself. It was, they were told, vital. The baby would be taken into the arms of a motherly official dressed convincingly in blue and starch, at an address in Belgravia. This woman would whisk the child kindly away into an adjacent room where its new family would be waiting. Usually two or