With no crying

A day-dreaming fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, from a very `good' home, becomes pregnant. She has encouraged a boy to seduce her, glories in her pregnant state, and is bitterly resentful when her parents talk her into having an abortion. To try to recapture her lost bliss, she pads herself up to appear pregnant, runs away from home, and finds refuge with a houseful of young squatters, most of whom are thrilled by the prospect of "their" baby. But Miranda has overdone the padding, making it appear that the baby's due any moment now. How can Miranda save face and carry off the situation? The plot contains many twists and surprises, but all of them stem naturally from the characters and dilemmas of very real and troubled people. The novel also provides an incidental and implicit commentary on the present controversy concerning abortion. And, after a remarkable denouement which combines the intensely human with the tensely dramatic, the reader realises that Celia Fremlin has played absolutely fair from the very beginning.