The waiting room was really trying hard not to be a waiting room. Its walls were a fashionable shade of grey, decorated with framed pictures of coastal views and wildflowers; there were scatter cushions on the unyielding plastic seats; and someone had put all of the healthcare information leaflets in a floral cardboard box. A digital radio was plugged in in the corner of the room, currently tuned into Classic FM. But all of the music, soft furnishings and Cath Kidston prints in the world couldn’t disguise what this room was for.
It was full of women of assorted ages, all inspecting their fingernails, their social media profiles or the contents of their handbags. There were only two men here. Eliza judged them to be partners, not fathers; they were both young, and they looked petrified. Which was ridiculous, she thought. This was not their battle, not their dilemma, not their body.
‘Elizabeth?’
Eliza reached under the chair for her bag, stood up and followed the nurse who’d called her name down a small corridor with four rooms going off either side. She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to release the tension that had been building in them since she’d arrived. She realised that her palms were sweaty.
‘We’re in here,’ the nurse said, in a lilting Scottish accent. She gestured to one of them, showing Eliza that she could enter and take a seat. The decorating fairies had also been at work in this room; it was painted lilac and there were at least two separate vases of good-quality fake flowers on display. The curtains, which were thin, unlined and made of a Laura Ashley floral material, reminded her of Patience’s childhood bedroom. The sight of them startled her.
‘Are you OK?’ the nurse asked, responding to Eliza’s facial expression. ‘I know that this is a tough time for you, but we can speak freely here. You can tell me how you’re feeling, and I promise I will never judge you.’
‘I don’t know how I’m feeling.’
She could feel her heart racing; her throat had suddenly gone dry.
‘That’s understandable. Lots of people feel like that.’ The nurse paused. ‘Would you like a glass of water?’
‘Sure.’ Eliza watched as she walked over to a water cooler in the corner of the room and came back with two plastic cups full to the brim. ‘Thanks,’ she said, meaning it.
‘Would you like us to do a test to confirm the pregnancy?’ the nurse asked, once she’d sat down.
‘No. It’s fine. I’ve done at least three.’ Eliza found herself smiling at this, despite everything.
‘Ach, OK. How about testing for STDs? Do you think you’d like that?’
‘Oh God, I don’t know. Probably. I have no idea what he’s been up to. Yes please.’ The nurse appeared completely unshocked by this statement. She must hear some stories, thought Eliza.
‘When I say I don’t know how I’m feeling, by the way, that’s a lie,’ Eliza added, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs. ‘I feel lots of things. Trapped. Unloved. Lonely. Abandoned.’ She wasn’t usually given to emotional outbursts, and the fact that she’d just shared that with the nurse made her feel even more uncomfortable. She was not herself at the moment and it was unnerving. She was not in control.
‘Oh, sweetheart, that’s a common feeling at this stage,’ the nurse replied. ‘It’s such a scary time. Can I ask – have you at this point decided whether you want to continue or terminate your pregnancy?’
‘That’s what I meant. I don’t know how I feel about it. But I do know I have to get rid of it.’
‘You don’t have to do anything. Would you like to speak to a counsellor before you make a decision? We have one available here.’
‘I do have to do it. I have no one to support me. My ex certainly won’t. And counselling won’t change that.’ Eliza was playing with her watch strap, opening and shutting the clasp as she spoke.
‘There’s lots of other support you can access.’
‘I can’t do it alone. I live miles from my family – and there’s my disabled sister to look after. Mum doesn’t have the capacity to care for me, too.’
The nurse reached for a folder on the table in front of her and brought out some leaflets.
‘I want you to take a look at these brochures, sweetheart, and decide what you want to do,’ she said.
Eliza was wringing her hands, refusing to look up. She didn’t take the brochures.
‘And what if my baby is disabled, too?’ she asked, still looking down. ‘How on earth will I manage then?’
‘Is it hereditary, what your sister has?’ the nurse asked.
‘Not usually. And I’ve had genetic screening, anyway,’ Eliza replied. ‘I don’t have it. But what if the baby has something else? There’s so much that can go wrong.’
‘The chances are that the baby will be fine,’ the nurse replied. ‘And even if it does have issues – there’s so much that can be done now. Lots of support.’
Eliza looked up at her. ‘Not enough,’ she replied.
The nurse gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I can imagine,’ she said. ‘Look, if you decide that you want to terminate the pregnancy, you can call this number to make an appointment,’ she circled a number on one of the forms, ‘and then we’ll go from there.’
As Eliza walked back down the corridor, clutching the brochures, she thought, not for the first time that day, about the other abortion clinic she’d been unable to avoid.
*
The roses her mum had brought her were red. As the sun came up through the ward windows, the petals were caught in its rays, projecting blotches of red onto the walls that looked like blood. She was the only girl on the ward with flowers, but other than that, they were all in it together, all guilty of the same sin. Fruit, ripening too early.
Michael had sat next to her in Maths. Well, more correctly, he’d been placed next to her, as Mr Wilson had a thing about controlling seating arrangements. Up close, Michael (he was never, ever Mike) was intoxicating. He was tall, just over six foot, had deep brown hair which fell down over his face, and eyelashes that framed his eyes, which were little whirlpools of blue.
When they’d met later that day beside the science block, away from the prying eyes of both teachers and other students, he’d asked her if she’d like to meet up with him out of school. In a burst of unguarded glee, she had agreed immediately.
And so, in an Oxfordshire playing field as darkness approached, he had taken her hand and led her behind a tree, into an even darker corner by a hedge. Without preamble, he had lunged at her, her lower lip disappearing into his mouth like quicksand. There was frantic fumbling with buttons and zips, fingers ricocheting between her legs, a clashing of limbs and teeth, and then a transient, searing pain. From her bed of earth, Eliza had stared up at the dusky sky and blinked, disbelieving, watching a swarm of parched leaves fall in ever-decreasing circles, buffeted by the breeze.
They had not told Daddy. That was her decision and she was glad of it. She didn’t want him knowing that she was such an idiot. Such a slag. He thought they were visiting Mum’s friend Serena in Brighton, enjoying walks on the beach, games in the arcades, ice cream on the pier. Far from it. Instead, she had endured wave after wave of pain and had had to give birth to the sixteen-week old foetus because they had said it was too far advanced to do it any other way.
She did not look at it when it came out. She had been sitting on the toilet and the nurse had said, ‘Sweetheart, just sit forward for a moment’, and she had just pulled it out, without ceremony. The nurse had advised her not to look and she hadn’t. Privately, she believed that it had been a boy.
They had left after breakfast the next morning and she had cradled those roses all the way home. They’d driven home to Kidlington together, her mother chattering away about everything she could think of, except the one thing Eliza wanted to discuss. ‘Look at those glorious leaves,’ she’d said as they drove past an avenue of trees in full autumnal bloom.
Eliza, already absorbed by a grief she would never be able to fully describe, had simply looked at her mother in despair.
*
Eliza and her best friend were sitting outside a café on the South Bank, making the most of some rare spring sunshine. Katy ran her ring finger around the rim of her coffee cup.
‘Thanks for coming with me to the cake makers,’ said Katy. ‘I owe you one. I know weddings probably aren’t your favourite topic right now, but I really needed to face that woman head on, and having you by my side helped. I really didn’t want that fruit cake.’
Eliza tuned out and stared into the distance, watching a tourist boat slowing before the bridge and beginning to turn.
‘Eliza? Liiiiiiieeezzaa? Earth to Lil?’
‘Oh, sorry, I’m just tired. Really tired.’
Eliza saw that Katy was taking her in. She knew that her hair was greasy, her skin spotty, and that there were distinct dark rings around her eyes. She also looked thinner than ever. ‘You don’t look too good to be honest, hon.’
‘Cheers.’
‘I mean it. Are you sleeping OK? Are you eating?’
‘Barely.’
‘Barely to which?’
‘Both.’
‘Shit. Lize, you need to see someone about this. You’ve had a hell of a time recently, what with Ed leaving and your parents being at war and then dragging you into it. You need to see someone professional, not just me. Although I do love you, you know that.’
‘I know.’ Eliza took a large swig from her cappuccino and looked up at her friend. ‘And I will do, when things are clearer. There’s just been too much going on.’
‘I know. When’s the gene therapy starting, then?’
‘Next week.’
Katy looked surprised.
‘Blimey, they’re not hanging around, are they?’
‘No. Oh, I really hope I made the right choice, Katy. The one Patience would have made.’
Katy shifted her chair closer to Eliza and leaned in for a hug.
‘I’m sure you did, lovey. You went with your instincts. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘Hmm.’ Eliza remained upright, resisting the embrace. She didn’t feel like human contact today, even from a human she genuinely loved.
Katy released her and sat back in her chair.
‘Will you go? When they’re doing it, the trial?’ she said, picking up her coffee once more, apparently unfussed at her friend’s refusal to engage.
‘I don’t think so. Partly because I’m already in plenty of trouble at work, and partly because I already feel like I’ve betrayed Dad by signing her up for this thing. I don’t want to make it worse.’
‘They really have a lot to apologise for, your parents,’ said Katy.
Eliza raised an eyebrow.
‘Why?’
‘Oh, come on, Lize, I’ve known you since you were tiny. I’ve seen the mind games your mum plays, the guilt trips, the martyrdom. I’ve seen how your dad absents himself rather than dealing with it. And I’ve seen you try, over and over, to fix things for them, to try to make them happy. But you can’t, lovey. Because it’s their mess.’
Eliza sat in silence for a few seconds. There might be some truth in what her friend was saying, but frankly, she didn’t have the brain power to process it right now. There was something else even more pressing to deal with.
‘You know you just said you owed me a favour for the caterer visit?’ she asked Katy, draining what was left of her drink, putting her hand in her pocket to feel for the leaflet from the clinic. ‘Do you think you could pay me back by coming to an appointment with me?’