Society of Women

The next day my supervisor introduces Claire. "I'm gonna put the two biggest blethers in the place beside each other, " she says, and smiles and leaves. I look at Claire. She's a teen, in the full bloom of mid-term pregnancy. We smile, awkwardly. We chat. It's gonna be OK.

I shut up and listen, keen as ever to learn. She talks. She tells me lots. Except her sperminator. He doesn't figure - at least for now.

So this old dear comes in. "It's my birthday," she announces to the two of us, proudly. "How old?" I ask - automatically and forgetting the protocol. (But actually the old girls love to tell you :) "I'm eighty seven!" she declares, beaming with pride. "No!" Claire and I chorus. "About 65!" I say, and reach to stroke her arm.

"Yes - eighty seven," she goes on. "It's seventy years since I had Tom my only boy. I was in hospital most of the pregnancy - and they thought I was gonna lose him. They tried to get me to have an abortion, but I said no. And you know, I'm so glad I didn't. Because now I've got four grandchildren and ten beautiful great- grandchildren. If I'd listened to them I would have nothing."

I smile at her, genuinely transfixed. And then I wonder if I dare venture....

"Claire here's just gonna have her first one," I tell the old lady. "Oh darling," she says, then the two women each reach out their hands and touch and hold for a long moment. Red hair, silver hair. I look away, overcome and superfluous as the baton passes down. It's a matriarchal species.