ABSTRACT
Scene 8. A two-bedded room in the Buxton Maternity Unit, Derbyshire. The year 2001.
LUCINDA. Could I please keep the baby sir? I'm willing to drop a grade. I could live a Grade Four life. Leeds and its environs is quite a pleasant place. [CRUDWELL. The latest regulations apply to all grades. Of course Grade Fives are not allowed to breed at all. (He looks at DOT, she stares back at him. She would like to shout and scream, but daren't.) DOT. You won't take mine off me. CRUDWELL (brightly). We have made other arrangements
for your child. A boy, a perfectly healthy boy. Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes. Everything in its place. Quite an exceptional child. We are very interested in him. DOT. His name is Peter. CRUDWELL. Is it? I'll remember that. Peter Bird.] [No,] I'm afraid you don't understand, I don't mind about the toe. What's a missing toe? She'll have nine others to compensate for the lack of one. I must keep her, I've carried her around for nine months and I've grown rather fond of her, in fact very fond. And we've paid a great deal of money for this baby. We've liquidised a share portfolio to pay for her nursery. The decorator's bill alone! Blush pink walls, white ceiling and a lilac dado. We've bought the furniture: a wicker basket lined in handmade lace. A patchwork quilt which took six women five months to complete. A changing mat on a table of a suitable height to prevent back injury. An Edwardian nursing chair. Her clothes are waiting for her! They're in an old sea captain's chest. My husband has ordered six cases of genuine Australian champagne from an ex-directory wholesaler, Freephone OOIl22. I've enrolled for a part-time degree in child nutrition - she won't be allowed to eat sugar or salt. I will train her palette - I was 25 before I enjoyed a quail's egg. [CRUDWELL. Now stop it.] She's going to the best playgroup in Greater Manchester. Ralph knows influential people. I've ordered a sand-pit. I've chosen her name . Her pram cover is hand embroidered, copied from the one Zanna's mother gave her for Phoenix in Flippers Retreat. The women stitching it went blind - that's how small the stitches are. I've chosen her friends! I've pored over genealogical text books. I know who she's going to marry! His name is Crispin Browne-Hogg and he's two and a half years old and he's going to be a plastic surgeon. We've planned a huge party for next Saturday - my deep freeze is packed to the gills with frozen canapes - look! Look! Frostbite! So you see, don't you, Mr Crudwell, that you
cannot take my daughter away and kill her, because of all the aforementioned arrangements?
