THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

screeches to a halt in front of the terraced house in King’s Lynn, she can’t help thinking that her name is now on some mysterious blacklist of Bad Mothers. The childminder, a comfortable older woman called Sandra, found after much exhaustive interviewing and reference checking, is understanding. ‘Doesn’t matter, love. I know how it is when you’re working,’ but Ruth still feels guilty. She never knows quite how to talk to Sandra. She’s not exactly a friend but she’s not a student or another academic either. She once heard one of the other mothers (Sandra looks after two other children) having a chat with Sandra in her kitchen, all about her husband and his untidiness, about her other childrenrefusing to do their homework or eat their greens. It sounded so friendly and comfortable, Ruth longed to join in. But she doesn’t have a husband or any other children. And her job as a forensic archaeologist, specialising in long-dead bones, is hardly conducive to cosy kitchen chats.
    As soon as four-month-old Kate sees Ruth, she starts to cry.
    ‘That always happens,’ says Sandra. ‘It’s relief at seeing Mum again.’
    But as Ruth struggles to get Kate into her car seat, she can’t detect any relief or even affection in her crying. If anything, she just sounds plain angry.
    Kate was a big baby. Long rather than heavy. ‘Is your partner tall?’ one of the midwives had asked, putting the red-faced bundle into Ruth’s arms. Ruth was saved from having to answer by the arrival of her parents, hot-foot from Eltham, bearing flowers and a cop of
Baby’s First Bible Stories
. Her mother was meant to have been with her during the birth but contractions had started during a Halloween party hosted by Ruth’s friend and sometime druid, Cathbad.
    Cathbad, wearing white robes to honour the good spirits, had accompanied Ruth to hospital. ‘First babies take ages,’ he had assured her. ‘How do you know?’ Ruth had shouted, rent by pain which seemed both unbearable and continuous. ‘I have had a daughter,’ said Cathbad with dignity. ‘You didn’t have her,’ Ruth yelled, ‘your girlfriend did.’ Cathbad had ignored Ruth’s yelling, swearing, and assertions that she hated all men and him in particular. He had scattered herbs on her, walked around the bed muttering incantations, and finally had just held her hand.
    ‘She’ll be hours yet,’ said the midwives cheerfully. But Kate had been born at ten minutes past midnight, thus avoiding Halloween and arriving in time for All Saints’ Day.
    ‘I don’t hold with all that Catholic nonsense,’ said her mother, when Ruth informed her of this fact. Ruth’s parents were both Born Again Christians and considered that they alone of all denominations knew The Truth – a delusion which, as Ruth could have told them, they probably shared with every religious cult since the Assyrians first started burying bits of pottery alongside their ancestors, just to be on the safe side.
    When Ruth had looked down at her daughter’s furious little face, she had been surprised by a rush of recognition. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. The books had talked about Mother Love, about euphoria and joyfulness and feeding on demand. Ruth was too exhausted to feel euphoric. She wasn’t even sure if, at that moment, what she felt was love. All she felt was that she knew her baby: she wasn’t a stranger, she was Ruth’s daughter. That feeling carried her through the agonies of breast-feeding (nothing like the bucolic descriptions in the book), through the loneliness that engulfed her as soon as her parents had left, through the sleepless nights and zombie-like days that followed. She knew her baby. They were in this thing together.
    Her mother had been pleased with the choice of name. ‘Short for Catherine, just like your Auntie Catherine in Thornton Heath’. ‘It’s not short for anything,’ Ruth had retorted, but she found that, increasingly, when she spoke, people tended not to hear. This was a shock for Ruth, who has been a university lecturer for all her working life. Peopleused to pay to listen to her. Now, unless she was talking specifically about the baby, her mouth simply opened and shut like one of those nodding dogs in cars.
    Cathbad had also liked the name. ‘After Hecate, the witch goddess. Very powerful magic.’ Her friend Max, an expert in Roman History, had made the same point. ‘Hecate was sometimes called the child nurse, you know.’ Ruth