Free The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble

Mendelian mathematicians, the frauds and the faithful and the fanatics, the sociologists and the philosophers—they did their best and their worst. The story goes back a long way: to statistician Karl Pearson, who incidentally (entirely incidentally) computed the incidence and heritability of lobster claw in Scotland; to loveless tyrant Cyril Burt and his juvenile delinquents and his dubious twin studies; to gallant Lionel Penrose in the old Royal Eastern Counties Institution at Colchester, where he observed with affection the loving Down’s children and what he called their ‘secret source of joy’; then on to R. D. Laing, the liberator who redefined madness; and to Mary Warnock, the steel-haired, hooded-eyed, clear-sighted, no-nonsense wise old woman of the Warnock Report.
    Penrose saw the secret source of joy of the pure gold babies.
    There are schools now, as Jess will tell you, that specialise in many subdivisions of special needs and learning difficulties (Down’s syndrome, autism, hearing difficulties) and apply many differing pedagogic theories to the education of their charges. There are schools with spiritual or religious foundations, schools with large endowments from concerned and wealthy parents, schools with cranky dietary beliefs and schools with regimes that veer towards the rigour of the boot camp. All over Britain, there are little communities and care homes, some open, some heavily gated, where the able and the fairly able look after the less able, with varying degrees of compassion and success. Some hope to cure; some are content to manage. Some of these care homes have ageing populations, as some of the needy live longer, and their carers age too. This is a worry, as our demographic curve changes. There are new needy being born every day, as we strive to keep alive premature babies that are not really viable, but Jess says we haven’t even begun to worry about that yet.
    There was not so much choice of special-needs schooling then, when Anna was a child, or, if there was, Jess didn’t know where to look for it. Jess and Bob, during their courtship, thought they were lucky when a place for Anna was made available at Marsh Court. Anna’s social worker had made inquiries and discovered it. Anna was a lucky girl. Anna would like Marsh Court.
     
    Jess went to visit the school on her own, with a predisposition to find it suitable. She needed a safe stretch of time for Anna, she needed to marry Bob and have a year or two of quasi-normal life, she needed to like Marsh Court.
    Marsh Court was within easy reach of North London, and it seemed to Jess to be a pleasant enough place, with caring staff and good facilities. The director and the staff were out to make a good impression. Jess was too nervous to ask them any searching questions, but she felt that the atmosphere of the classes, the smiles of some of the young people she met, were a recommendation. She did not hear any wailing from locked rooms or see any pale faces peering through barred upper windows. No mad children in the attics, no orphans strapped into their cribs.
    After her interview with the director, Jess was shown round by a well-built, golden-skinned, broad-featured, crinkle-haired handsome middle-aged woman called Hazel, with a rich contralto voice and a beautiful carriage, who said she was in charge of music: was Anna musical, Hazel wanted to know? Yes, said Jess. She liked to sing. She knew a lot of songs.
    We love to sing here, said Hazel, and grasped Jess’s hand warmly in hers, and held her arm, hands linked, arms linked, as they walked down the corridors. Jess felt much better for this contact, and she would continue, in a long afterlife, long after she had lost touch with Hazel, to find the memory of it a comfort. Such small gestures are so much needed and not so often offered.
    As she walked away from Marsh Court, on this her first of many visits, Jess looked back, calm enough to take in the school building and its immediate