The millstone door Margaret Drabble

Samenvatting:

The book is about a young woman. Her name is Rosamund Stacey. She lives at a n appartment in London, it’s her parent’s appartment exually, but they are in Africa for a year. She is writing a thesis about the sonnets of the period of Elizabeth. She is studying for doctor.

She is very succesful in the job she is doing, but she is very insecure too about sex. Because she don’t have much experience on that field. She is going out with two men. Their names are Joe Hurt and Roger Anderson. They think from each other that they have sex with Rosamund.

Once upon an evening she is hanging out with Joe, in the bar the are getting a fight and therefor Joe walks away. He is sad. Than she meets George, he offers her a drink. After that evening he offers her to bring her home. She thinks he’s gay. She thinks it feels pretty good with George. She feels very safe too, because she thinks that he don’t want to have sex with her. She asks him to come in and then it happens. They have sex.

After that time she avoids George because she is still very insecure about their relation. If he really love her he will contact her. In course of time it turns out that she is pregnant. First she is trying to get a miscarriage by drinking lots of gin and taking a hot bad. Now she thinks that her pregnancy is a punishment. Than she decides to keep the child. More than once she is thinking of calling George, but she couldn’t. At the moment that the pregnancy is visible she tells her friend and she dumps Joe and Roger. Joe sais that she must abort the baby and Roger would like to marry her.

Her friend Lydia moves in at the appartment of Rose to help her and because she don’t have money. She doesn’t ask money to Lydia. She decides that she will not tell her parents about it and her brother not either. She writes a letter to her sister who has children herself. She expect a lot of sympathy of her sister, but she get a letter back with the words she must let adopt her baby or else she have to took it away. Meanwhile, she works very hard at her thesis, which she will have finished before the baby comes. Now, she has to go to a doctor independently, what she has never done. Than she realises that she and her friends are a privilege group of people. The waiting room is full with people who are poor and ill. The doctor said she had to go to the hospital where students are learning their job. On the first check-up she realises that other people have a much worse fate and after a long time she has learned the right way inside the hospital.

The whole time she avoids the part of the city where George lives, but she does hope that she comes across him.

When Rose is home and takes her typewriter there is a piece of paper in it. It’s Lydia’s. Lydia is writing a book about the situation where Rose is in. She does not do anything with it because the same evening, the labour pains starts. After a period with a lot of doubt, because it was late, she calls an ambulance. In the hospital she gets painkillers. When there is finally someone with her the baby is almost direct born. When she is at the ward she is direct in love with her baby.

Lydia comes together with Joe to visit Rose and together they give the baby a name: Octavia. Rose thinks the period when her child is growing up is very nice, because she has a lot of social contacts with the other mothers. At the tenth day she is allowed to go home. Lydia has found a babysitter for two days a week.

After a couple of months Octavia is being ill. Rose is not sure going to a doctor. Lydia thinks she must let the doctor come home. Rose expects a lot of objections, but the doctor’s assistant is very kind and she will be helped very well. Not far after that the doctor leaves. Octavia is okay than sais the doctor that he heard a murmur. Octavia has to come immediately to the hospital. Rose is very upset about that, when she comes on the surgery she doesn’t understands what’s going on with Octavia. The only thing she know is that Octavia has to be operated and with that operation she could die. Doctor Protheroe (her doctor) knows the parents of Rose. They are having a talk and he calms Rose down. The operation is successfully passed. When Rose may not visit Octavia when she is in the hospital she realises that Octavia is the most important thing in her life and she is the most important thing in Octavia’s life. Rose is going to kick some asses now, that’s something against her character. She gets her right and she can visit Octavia now. Octavia is going better and can go home. In this period Rose also is not sure to call George or not.

The time before Christmas Octavia gets a cold and because she has problems with her heart she has to take penicillin. That evening, Rose goes to the chemistrie’s and there she comes across George. She tells to him she has got a baby and she lies about her age. She asks him to come with her to get a drink. Then she wonders how George will react when she sais to him she lover him. When they’re back at home she shows George her baby and is very proud of it. Then Rose realises that George the same man is than he was before the baby. Now, she understands that it is her own life and George ha snothing to do with it.