When it was pretty obvious that she had had her baby, the chanting stopped and the two men came out of the tent. I thought they would be over the moon, breaking open the champagne and the cigars and all the rest of it, but they seemed a bit subdued. Her boyfriend, Martin, the one like Jesus, just stood there with his back to the tent and the other one walked up towards the van. I thought there must have been some tragedy, like Emily had said, and I lost no time in getting out there to see what was going on.
There was no tragedy, the baby was tiny and beautiful and Celia was sitting up and smiling and holding it to her breast. I think it was the most beautiful sight that I have ever seen in my life. But there was just one thing. That baby hadn't been fathered by Martin. It had light brown skin and a head of jet-black hair. When I saw that I understood everything.
I tucked back the flap of the tent and I put my hand on his shoulder. He didn't say a word, just stood there. I didn't say anything either. What was there to say? Congratulations? Bad luck? That's free love for you?
I don't think it had crossed his mind for an instant that it mightn't be his own kid. He had despised the whole notion of fidelity, attacked it in detail and at length: so what was he supposed to say now? I really felt for the boy. I suppose his whole world had just fallen to pieces. It's that whole thing about getting your heart and your head to agree. What can anybody say about it? I just went inside and poured him a stiff drink and took it out to him. He downed it in one.
Talking about drinks, I think the kettle's boiling. I'll just go and make the tea. There isn't much more to tell you anyway.
The ending? Oh there isn't one really. Their friends in the other van loaded up all the stuff out of the broken-down one and took it away. Apparently they were going to sell it at stalls at pop-festivals or something. They never got the other van going. I had to phone up to get it taken away in the end.
I drove Celia and Martin and the new baby to the train station. She gave me her address in Bath but I never looked her up. I suppose I didn't want the spell to be broken. Didn't want to hear that she was a part-time bar-maid at the local pub and her daughter was up for shoplifting or something. I wanted to go on believing that that child was going to be special. That she was going to help to change the world. That I had witnessed some kind of miracle.
Martin? Yes, I think he stayed with her, at least for a while. But he was talking about going to London to look for work. I somehow doubt if they were together for very long after that. You could tell that something had died between them. Something... changed between Emily and me too I think. I've never been able to put my finger on it, but something did.
Oh, the three rose bushes? Yes, I planted them in the holes that were left when they took out the tent-poles. So right in the middle of that triangle was where the baby was born. I've always thought of it as sacred ground, somehow.
Yes, I suppose the birth of that little baby disrupted a lot of lives in one way or another. Not the first time that a teenager having a child has done that. I seem to remember something about it in the New Testament.
I wonder if that inn-keeper had a wife?