Free The Fruit of the Tree by Jacquelynn Luben

He just didn’t seem to realise that there’s a world of difference between driving down a ditch and reversing down a ditch.

8. Let There Be Light
    It was about the middle of December when we received the letter.
    It was from the Colonel; he had written to the Electricity Board saying that he was prepared to accept a lesser sum as compensation from them, as he ‘did not like to think of the Lubens being without electricity for Christmas.’
    Was he genuine? I couldn’t decide. I had often seen him driving around when I was walking with Robert. He never looked at me; I believe he couldn’t look me in the face.
    On the other hand, he may just have realised that the powers of the Electricity Board would catch up with him soon, and he might as well try to compromise.
    ‘Let’s send them a cheque for the balance,’ I said to Michael. There were at least three months of winter still to come and I was suddenly aware that I couldn’t go on much longer.
    We sent a cheque to the Electricity Board right away, but within a few days it was back. They were prepared to agree to the Colonel’s suggestion and since they were settling the matter themselves, they would not require our money.
    The New Year, 1970, was only a fortnight away, and suddenly it had a magic sound to it.
    We had arranged to go to a dinner dance in a hotel on New Year’s Eve with the family, and I was looking forward to it tremendously. We hadn’t been out for such a long time, other than family visits.
    ‘It’s going to be a good year, Michael,’ I kept telling him. ‘We’ve got the telephone; we’re going to get electricity—and a new baby in the summer. I just know it’s going to be a good year.’
    We hadn’t told many people about the baby this time. As in my first two pregnancies, there were no obvious signs yet—no appreciable weight gain, no swelling of the limbs, no nausea. I was lucky; I felt extremely fit. But it was difficult to be extra careful when I felt so normal.
    Michael had recommenced the task of connecting up the electricity, for we had never located our original electrician. Except for the lounge, a whole houseful of wires stuck out of the walls or hung from the ceiling in clusters, and each one must be followed from its source to its eventual outcome.
    It crossed my mind briefly, when I was helping Michael identify the electric wires, that some people said that stretching upwards wasn’t a very good idea. So I tried to be careful and used my kitchen stool, when it was necessary to reach up to the ceiling.
    At intervals, I would hear banging from the loft above.
    ‘Can you hear me? Do you know where I am?’
    ‘You’re in Robert’s bedroom, (kitchen/bathroom, etc.)’
    ‘Can you see the wires hanging from the ceiling? Take hold of one and tie a knot in it.’
    All the wires eventually had knots or S-bends or just came straight down, and that all apparently had some meaning for Michael, and was carefully noted on a complex wiring diagram.
    It was such a painstaking job; it was heartbreaking to think that the electric power would be sitting outside our house, ready and waiting for us before we were ready to receive it.
    A few days before Christmas, a group of navvies arrived and, in Arctic conditions, dug a trench the length of the lane. As snow descended from the bleak heavens, I thought of offering them all some whisky; but I always felt uncomfortable making such grand gestures, and in the end, my nerve failed me. They were probably warmer than I was anyway.
    The Christmas holiday was to be spent partly with Michael’s mother and partly with my parents in Hove. Michael could do very little of the electrical work before we left home. The lounge, of course, was now equipped with light and, in addition, an electric fire and television. Without an aerial, the flickering picture from the T.V. must have resembled the early moving pictures, but after such a long period without that form of escapism in the home, we were