The Fifth Child: Pages 33 – 74 Summary & Analysis

Dorothy phones to say that she’s taking a break from helping Sarah and Harriet for a few weeks because she’s tired. Harriet is beside herself at this news and Dorothy breaks down and agrees to come help. When Dorothy arrives, she knows right away that Harriet is pregnant again. She reprimands them for their lack of responsibility, complaining that they are selfish and think of her as a servant. Harriet rushes from the room, upset, and David tells Dorothy that he doesn’t believe Harriet has been herself lately. Dorothy says she’ll provide childcare again but that she can’t do it alone. David joins Harriet in bed that night and Harriet asks David to feel her stomach. He feels an immediate jolt from the three-month-old fetus. They wonder if the pregnancy is further along than they thought.

Harriet visits Dr. Brett who admits he might be off by a month in estimating the date of conception, but if so, he says Harriet’s carelessness is to blame. Harriet hopes for an explanation, but Dr. Brett insists there’s nothing unusual about the child’s movement. He recommends Harriet take it easy. The family arrives to celebrate Christmas and wait on Harriet, but each time David or Harriet enters a room, it’s clear people have been talking about them. Paul, the youngest child, seems hungry for attention, but Harriet doesn’t have the strength or energy to provide it for him. A fourth girl arrives to help with housework, but she isn’t useful. The holiday ends more quickly because of the change in the atmosphere.

David and Harriet look for a trained nanny in London, but their search is unsuccessful. Instead, Frederick’s widow cousin Alice, who is down on her luck, comes to help Dorothy, who struggles with having to share her authority. Harriet returns to Dr. Brett at five months. She feels as though the fetus is “trying to tear its way out of her stomach.” Dr. Brett says the fetus is large and active and he prescribes Harriet a sedative for her nerves. Harriet also begs her friends for tranquilizers, keeping this dependency secret, even from David. David, too, seems overwhelmed by the fetus’s strength, but he believes Harriet is overreacting. Harriet paces to distract herself from the intense sensations prompted by the fetus.

Though Harriet says they can’t host Easter in her current state, the rest of the family insists. However, when the rest of the family arrives, it’s clear the atmosphere has become hostile because of the stress of Harriet’s pregnancy. Harriet begins to refer to the fetus as an enemy. Time passes slowly for the sixth month of the pregnancy. Harriet thinks of the being inside her as a hybrid creature: a lion and a dog or a tiger and a goat. She imagines the fetus clawing her from the inside. In the seventh month, Harriet increases the amount of drugs she takes, hoping to quiet the fetus, and she speaks mentally to the fetus insisting he remain docile.

Luke begs David for a story one night during dinner. David tells the story of two children, a boy and girl who set out in the forest for an adventure. Jane watches her siblings to see how they react and copies them. Harriet hears a television broadcast about murders in a London suburb and flips it off. The children in the story find various sweets, including a pool of orange juice, to sate themselves and they nap under a bush. Suddenly, the little girl discovers she is alone and tries to find her way out, but cannot. When she comes upon the pool again, she finds it is water instead of orange juice. When she looks into the pool for a fish she might ask for help, she sees only the face of a girl staring back at her, but it’s a nasty girl she has never seen before.

The children beg to learn what happened. Harriet wants to tell David to stop because she believes the story is actually about her. Dorothy cuts David off and says that the little girl left the nasty girl in the water and ran until she found her brother, who was also looking for her, and they ran to safety out of the forest.  David confirms this to be the end of the story. The children want to know who the girl in the water was, and David says he doesn’t know, that she just materialized. David explains the word to the children saying, “It is when something that wasn’t there suddenly is there.” The children are ushered up to bed.

On his way up to bed, Luke asks if everyone is coming for the summer holidays. Dorothy and David look to Harriet for the answer because she’ll have given birth just before, but Harriet says yes. David compliments Dorothy again, thanking her, but Dorothy appears immune to the rote thanks. David encourages Harriet to put off a gathering until Christmas, but she suggests perhaps the baby will be born early, so it won’t be trouble to have people for the summer holiday.

At eight months pregnant, Harriet asks Dr. Brett to induce the baby. Dr. Brett is skeptical, not seeing why this pregnancy is different from the ones before. Harriet stops herself short of calling the fetus a monster, but she asks the doctor if he thinks she’s an unreasonable woman. Dr. Brett won’t go that far, but he says he believes Harriet is worn out and that she’s never dealt well with pregnancy. Harriet begs him to see that the baby moving visibly in her stomach is a different case. The doctor prescribes more sedatives in response. Harriet believes the doctor refuses to see the difference in this pregnancy, just as the rest of her family also refuses to acknowledge the hardship of her situation. On the walk home from the doctor, Harriet fantasizes about cutting the child out of her. She can’t imagine what she’ll see emerge from her.

Soon after, Harriet goes into labor and insists on being taken to the hospital. The child fights its way violently out of her as she exclaims, “Thank God, thank God, it’s over at last!” The nurses comment on the toughness of the baby and tell Harriet that she’s given birth to a healthy boy. Dr. Brett says, “He came out fighting the whole world.” The 11-pound child is placed in her arms and immediately it seems as though he is trying to stand up. David looks on with some alarm, calling the baby a “funny little chap.” The child is strange-looking, with a sloped forehead and a wedge of yellow hair, thick hands and green-yellow eyes. Harriet does not recognize the child as her own and immediately pities him for this fact. She calls him a troll or goblin, and then tries to make up for it by cuddling him.

Harriet tries to breastfeed the child, as everyone in the hospital room looks on, strained, but the child bites down hard. Harriet removes him and refuses to attempt to feed him again. The nurse reluctantly takes the child, who has not cried since he was born. The other children are brought in to meet their brother. Harriet notes David holding Paul and mourns the way she hasn’t spent enough time with her last baby, one that seems rightly small and sweet. Harriet notes that the new baby seems of a different substance than her other children and states that they will name him Ben. Ben refuses the touch of his siblings and Harriet wonders “what the mother would look like, the one who would welcome this—alien.”  After a week, when Harriet feels herself up to the struggle of looking after Ben, they head home.

That night, at home, Harriet nurses Ben who empties the first breast in under a minute, biting down hard near the end. David watches, astonished, and Harriet bitterly quotes the hospital, calling ben a “normal healthy, fine baby.” David bristles at Harriet’s anger. Ben bellows, practically standing as Harriet tries to burp him. She lays Ben down on his cot and crawls into bed, worried David might sense the ugly thoughts in her head.

Harriet quickly grows intolerant of the constant, violent feedings and she tells Dorothy, who’s been watching with some degree of fascination if not fear, that she plans to transition Ben to bottle-feeding. Dorothy, who Harriet believes would normally object, agrees at once that it’s a good idea. Dorothy reminds Harriet that the family will be coming for the summer soon, and Harriet identifies with the change in Dorothy’s voice: “So do people speak whose thoughts are running along secretly in channels they would rather other people did not know about.”

Dorothy buys the bottles and David agrees it’s a good idea. Ben empties a bottle almost instantaneously and roars for another. He empties that one, too, holding it himself. Harriet calls him a Neanderthal baby and David pities the child. Harriet requests that he pity her instead. Someone tries to settle her, saying, “The genes have come up with something special this time,” but Harriet questions what that something is. No one knows how to answer this.

Ben eats twice the amount recommended for his age and comes down with an infection. When Harriet takes him to see Dr. Brett, he admonishes Harriet for discontinuing breastfeeding, but Harriet shows him her bruised breasts and asks for a prescription for diarrhea, saying “After all, I don’t want to kill the nasty little brute.” Dr. Brett responds that it’s not unnatural to dislike one of your children. Despite Ben raising himself onto all-fours (at two months old), Dr. Brett insists there’s nothing wrong with the child, but his tone contains a note of bafflement.

The extended family descends on the Lovatt house for the summer holidays. Harriet notes the cheery way Paul behaves when held and entertained by everyone, and how this nature is often obscured by Ben’s demands. Ben’s cot is moved into the children’s room to try to socialize him, but it doesn’t work because of Ben’s constant bellowing and refusal to be treated sweetly. The family seems flummoxed by Ben’s odd appearance and behavior, and one day Harriet hears her sister Sarah say, “That Ben gives me the creeps. He’s like a goblin or a dwarf or something.” Harriet feels bad about this comment, but she can’t help but agree.

Harriet tries to spend some time each day petting and playing with Ben, but he resists all tenderness. At four-months-old he pulls himself up to standing. Soon after, he bites into Harriet’s thumb and she feels the bone bend. Ben smiles triumphantly. Harriet says, “You aren’t going to do me in. I won’t let you.” Harriet tries to make Ben “ordinary,” incorporating him into family life in the same way she has the other children, but the family scatters when Ben is in the room, since they’re afraid of him. Eventually Harriet begins to shut Ben into his room alone, but he doesn’t seem to mind. James stops through to drop off a check to pay for all the hosting needs.

Lying in bed one night, Harriet says to David that she believes people come to their house for a good time and nothing more. David, surprised, asks what else it would be they came for. It is revealed that they have not resumed lovemaking since Ben was born, as they both fear the possibility of producing another child like him, even if they were extremely careful. It’s as though Ben had willed himself into existence. Just after the summer holidays, as the school year commences, Paul puts his arm through the bars of Ben’s crib and Ben grabs Paul’s hand, bending his arm backwards and badly spraining it. Dorothy and Alice free Paul from Ben’s grasp, and Ben crows with pleasure. The children become fearful of Ben after this, and Dorothy and Alice remark on what a shame it is. Harriet feels this is an attack on her.

The day after, Alice excuses herself from the house, saying she’s no longer needed because Jane is being sent to school (a full year ahead of schedule, because of Ben’s presence in the house, though no one will admit it). Privately Alice has told Dorothy that she believes Ben might be a changeling. David and Harriet wonder, to each other, if this six-month-old child might destroy their family life. At nine months, Harriet catches Ben just as he is climbing over the bars of his crib. He walks easily and breaks every toy they give him to pieces. One morning, Harriet wakes suddenly and runs to Ben’s room, finding him balanced on the open windowsill. She rescues him, but thinks to herself, “What a pity I came in,” and finds herself unsurprised by this sentiment. They install heavy bars on the window.

At the Christmas holidays, Ben is kept in his room. The family politely asks about his well-being, but doesn’t press for details. The atmosphere is constrained by the specter of the child locked away upstairs. Harriet feels that the family looks at her as if she is a criminal for having given birth to such a “freak.” David insists that Harriet exaggerates everything and hopes that they might align themselves again. Cousin Bridget visits at Easter and inquires as to what it is that’s wrong with Ben, and Harriet, following others’ suit, says nothing is wrong with him. Bridget leaves and never returns to the house. At the 1975 summer holidays, fewer guests visit, saying they haven’t the funds to make the trip. Dorothy notes that people hadn’t found it difficult to visit before for weeks at a time at the expense of the Lovatts.

Ben, over a year old and yet to speak a word, can’t be kept in his room any longer. He observes how the children talk and behave, seemingly aware that he should be like them. The other children turn away from him, unnerved by his gaze. A summer guest brings along a dog that Ben obsessively follows around. One morning Harriet finds the dog dead and believes Ben is to blame. She locks Ben in his room again, fearing he might do the same to a child. The family, horrified, also assumes that Ben killed the dog, and a vet says the dog was strangled. Guests return home early. Three months later, the Lovatts’ old grey cat is killed in the same way.

At Christmas, the house is half empty. Harriet reflects on the worst year of her life. Ben has taken to trying to escape the house, running down the street. Harriet has had to run as much as a mile, chasing him through traffic, desperate to save him, but also thinking, “Oh, do run him over, do, yes, please.” Eventually she catches him and wrestles him into a taxi. Harriet takes Ben to Dr. Brett who says he’s hyperactive. He asks what Harriet expects him to do: “Drug him silly? Well, I am against it.” Harriet would appreciate this outcome, but keeps it to herself.

Dorothy suggests she might stay alone with Ben for a week in August so the rest of the family can have a vacation together. None of the regular extended family has asked to visit this summer. Harriet, David, and the four oldest children go to France and marvel at their happiness sans-Ben. When they return home, Dorothy is tired and bruised. She sits David and Harriet down in the kitchen to tell them that Ben must be put in an institution. Harriet says that no institution will take him because the doctor says he is normal. 

Harriet and David resume making love, but it’s not the same because of the apprehension they bring to the possibility of accidentally conceiving again. At night, they discuss what can be done about Ben. Harriet regrets that she became so consumed with looking after Ben that she forgot to feed the other children one night, and Helen stepped in to make dinner.

Harriet invites the family, determined to have a regular Christmas. Sarah asks if Amy will be safe in the house, and Harriet says yes, as long as they never leave her alone with Ben. Sarah comments that they’ve both been dealt a bad hand, but Harriet doesn’t believe fate is to blame for Amy’s Down Syndrome. At Christmas, the house is festive and noisy, but Harriet is eager for it to end, strained by watching Ben monitor Amy’s every move. Amy, adored by all now, tries to show Ben affection, but she, too, can tell that something is off about Ben.

Just after Ben turns two years old, Paul is sent to a nursery school to get away from Ben. Paul has begun having violent tantrums to try to get Harriet’s attention away from Ben. Dorothy departs to help with Sarah’s family for a while and Harriet is alone with Ben during the daytimes. She plays with him and he is able to mimic her actions, but he can’t seem to understand why he would want to. Harriet sees him stalk a bird in the yard and nearly catch it.

One day, Ben begins to talk, surprisingly in full sentences, saying, “I want cake.” The children encourage him and Ben watches them closely, studying how they act and react. Harriet notes that Ben is easier now, but Dorothy, returning to the Lovatt home, says that that is just Harriet’s point of view. Dorothy tells Harriet that she leaves the mothering of the other children to Dorothy, focusing all her attention on Ben, and that it’s not right. After Ben turns three, the house is only partly filled for Christmas. Amy brings along a large companion dog that all the children love, but one morning Harriet sees Ben approaching the dog with his hands out and calling to him. The dog runs away and everyone sees this interaction.

After seeing this, Frederick tells Harriet that Ben must be put into an institution and Harriet says they’ll have to find a doctor willing to diagnose Ben as abnormal. David asks who will pay for such a thing, and Frederick answers that James will have to pay the majority, but that Frederick and Molly will chip in (the first time they have offered financial help), though everyone knows their chipping in won’t be significant. James says he’ll do what he can, but that business has not been especially good lately. The family acknowledges that they’ll need to find a place that exists purely to take on children that families want to be rid of, because the alternative is catastrophe. David agrees firmly and Harriet agrees reluctantly.