Chapter Twenty-Two

Little Maybe Baby

Leaves were blowing everywhere when I opened the door of the large Victorian house that served as an abortion clinic on the outskirts of Leamington. I sank into a chair in the little waiting room knowing I had nothing more to do or take care of.

I still felt prickles of guilt, but the social worker had said it was okay. Everyone felt that way. One other young woman was there, also alone, dressed in a tartan skirt and cardigan. I sensed that she too was relieved that the time had finally come. Soon we could leave all this behind. Day would pile up after day. I would get into a routine. I would go to class and study, and in the evenings and weekends see my new friends, maybe go to parties. I’d forgotten what it felt like to live a normal life.

Lying on the operating table as the sedative started to take effect, I said to myself, Good-bye, little maybe baby. The nurse told me I might have a funny dream or say something weird. In fact, I did have a sort of dream; I saw Geneviève holding my baby as though she had rescued it. I thanked her and then I was waking up already. I felt like a weight was pulling on the lower part of my body. “Did I say anything?” I asked the nurse as she helped me off the table into a wheelchair.

“You said you had to go to the bathroom, love, that’s all,” she said. “Do you want to?” I said yes, and she wheeled me to one nearby. Someone had stuck a pad to my underwear and it was covered in blood. That was what I’d been hoping to see for so long, but it didn’t matter now. The nurse wheeled me down the corridor to a large room with lots of other beds where women were sleeping, reading, or sitting on the edge of the beds chatting to each other. It was sunny in there; the gauze curtains let in light.

I got in under the covers and closed my eyes. At last, I could be still. I had been thrashing around like a fish on a hook, but now it was all over. I could rest. I felt numb all over except for an ache in my abdomen. It might have been a bad period. I just lay there thinking about how much I needed this time to lay low. My nerves had been taut, my insides clenched for days and days, even since back in London with Dad. The only break I’d had from feeling that way was the night I’d spent in Paris with Geneviève and the night with the Irish people.

I lay there watching the patterns of the tree branches moving against the gauzy curtains and I slept until someone came around with a trolley calling, “Tea, who’d like a cup of tea?” I sat up. I did want one, and it was just the way I imagined it, being brought tea and biscuits by kind nurses. Except they were probably aides, really. I sipped the hot liquid and gazed around the ward. It was quite a cheerful place. Some of the women were walking around, visiting at each other’s beds, or sitting in front of the television. The one in the next bed looked to be in her forties; she was knitting. It was comforting to be in a room with women all in the same situation as myself. I was young—my circumstances were different from the woman next to me. Maybe she was married. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone here, didn’t even have to talk at all if I didn’t want to.

They served us a nice lunch too. I spent the whole day that way, in bed except for getting up to go to the bathroom. Every time I woke up, the light was a little different through the gauze curtains, until finally dusk set in. I kept seeing an image of Geneviève with my baby, which made me vaguely happy in a weird way.

When I left the next morning, I walked slowly down the lane toward the road, beneath trees with yellow leaves, my backpack on my back. I watched the birds soaring in the sky, the wind ruffling the wheat in the fields. But these things did not evoke any pleasure in me as they usually would. I was tired. I hadn’t expected to feel like this, although the doctor in Coventry had warned me I’d need to rest for a few days.

I stopped at a Boots pharmacy on the high street to fill my antibiotic prescription and buy more pads and pain pills. Then I took a bus to the train station and began my journey to London and Paris. When the train stopped in London, I stayed in my seat.

I couldn’t seem to feel anything. I thought about Geneviève and couldn’t muster any enthusiasm. I didn’t get depressed very often and when I did it hit me hard. I felt like a stranger to myself. I thought, if I just wait, the person I used to be will come back—I have to believe that.

The day continued in this strange vein. Nothing seemed real. On the boat, all I wanted to do was sleep. My abdomen ached. I wasn’t hungry. I lay down on a bench and dozed to the rocking of the waves, which helped. Then we landed in Calais and I boarded a train to Paris. On the train, I bought a bottle of water and a sandwich and took another pain pill. I wondered whether Geneviève had received my message from Sylvie; probably she had. I wondered whether she would be there at her apartment or traveling like last time.

I probably should have told Geneviève about the rape. I talked to her about so many other things but kept back that important bit of news. What was she going to think now when I told her? I had a bad feeling. Maybe if those stupid trains had been running in Paris when I was on my way up, I might have told her then. But that didn’t happen.

I closed my eyes and saw Geneviève’s face in the dream about her saving my baby. Only this time she was looking at me with reproach in her gray eyes and holding the newborn infant tight to her chest.

It was early evening when I got to Gare du Nord. Being in France after England was like jumping into a swimming pool. It was like being in a completely different medium: not only the language but the whole feeling was different. This was starting to be the Paris of the real world to me, not the fantasy place Jade talked about. My depression lifted for a moment. I felt some warmth seep into me as I walked by the café where I’d stopped for breakfast on the way up and saw the same waiter. He caught my eye as he was carefully transferring tiny espresso cups from a tray to someone’s table.

Entering the metro station, I trudged down the long corridor where an accordion player was dredging out a melancholy tune. I stopped and fumbled for a franc to put in his hat. “Play something happy,” I pleaded after he’d finished his song. With a nod of the head, he squashed the halves of his instrument together, running his fingers over the keys. Out came “La Vie en Rose.” With a little thrill at the familiar tune, I quickened my steps down the tunnel, the lilting music reminding me of how happy I’d felt the last time I was with Geneviève .

But a little later, when I slowly climbed the steps to her dimly lit street, my anxiety and depression returned. I knocked on her door and at first, I could hear nothing inside, then footsteps and the floor creaking by the door. “Sophie?” she said, opening the door. She took my hand, pulling me into the kitchen, kissed me, then closed and locked the door.

“You cut your hair.” She led me to the sofa. “I like it.” A lamp produced a patch of light over the table with the clay sculptures. “What’s wrong?” she asked, glancing at my rigid posture. “Sylvie said you were in England again.”

I nodded, wondering where to begin. Geneviève waited. Finally, I let out my breath and said, “Remember those two men who were sitting with Jade and me at that table in Montpellier?”

“Yes. I thought they were your friends but you said not.”

“No, we’d just met them. I was supposed to be finding a place to live, but instead we spent the day with them and ended up on the beach at Palavas.”

She looked at me somberly. “And so?”

“Well, we camped with them on the beach that night.”

“But they would think you wanted sex with them if you camped.”

“Apparently. I smoked too much hashish, too.”

“What are you telling me? Did one of them have sex with you?”

I nodded. “I didn’t want to.”

She stared at me. “You told me nothing of this.” Her voice rose. “Why? I could have helped you! Such a bad thing and you told me nothing!” I had never seen her angry before. She looked at me with steely gray eyes.

“It’s not the kind of thing you talk about on a first date,” I said. “Or even on a second date.”

“You should have trusted me.”

“I hardly knew you!” I retorted sharply. I saw the hurt expression on her face; I didn’t want the conversation to go this way. “I’m sorry, Geneviève,” I said more softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to think of me as a stupid American. Even though that’s what I was.”

She took a deep breath as though trying to calm herself. “No, no.” She bit her lip and shook her head before speaking more gently. “I am sorry too, Sophie. I should not be angry with you. I should be giving you sympathy instead.” She rose from her chair and stood by me. “I would never think you were stupid.”

“But I was! Other girls I know would have managed to stop him. I just sort of gave up. In the culture I grew up in, girls are supposed to be nice. We are pleasers,” I said bitterly. “Maybe there is something wrong with me.”

Geneviève put her arms around me as I shook but did not cry. “Ça y est, Sophie. It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. The man was a rapist. Normal French men would have stopped if you said no.” I looked up at her, half-convinced. “Rape happens because there is a rapist,” she went on emphatically. “No other reason.” She looked at me intently. “Okay? Do you believe me?”

I nodded. She was right. I knew all along that Jean-Luc was different from other French men, but I think I needed to hear it from a French person to really believe it. I flexed my shoulders as if a real weight had just been lifted from them.

She smiled. “You know, I don’t see you as the pleaser type, really. You seem very original to me. You seem to do what you want.”

“Really?” I brightened, liking the sound of that. “I hope you’re right.”

Geneviève sat back down on her chair and looked at me, seeming to know there was more to the story. “So then what? Why were you in England?”

I sighed, wanting to get through it quickly. “Well, when I got to Montpellier I found out I was pregnant.” There, I had said it. Geneviève sat with her arms crossed, listening closely. “I guess it was the wrong time of month,” I said, unnerved again by the frown on her face.

“So, when I met you, you were already pregnant?”

“Well, I was, but I didn’t know it yet. Then in London I was tired, and I realized my period was late. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I wish you had told me,” she said, but this time in a more resigned way.

“I know.”

“So then what happened?”

“I got a test in Montpellier. It was positive, and I went to England to get an abortion.” Geneviève nodded slowly, staring at me. She lifted her arms, which had been crossed in front of her, extending her hands as if she were going to catch a ball. They were shaking. It was like she was looking at things inside her mind, not at me. She continued to stand there as tears emerged from her eyes and trickled down her face. I just watched her, incredulous, helpless. “Geneviève…”

“Excuse me, just a minute.” She lurched from the room into her bedroom. I could hear her through the closed door. She was crying noisily, like a small child, without trying to muffle her voice. Well, she’s Latin, I thought. They express their emotions. I listened, confused, sinking deeper into the couch. I couldn’t cry along with her, so I just sat there miserably waiting for her to return.

At last she did. Her eyes were swollen and red. Her whole face looked puffy, but she had dried her eyes. Sitting heavily beside me, she took my hand, saying, “No, don’t look at me. I look terrible. Excuse me for leaving you here alone. But I had to.”

“Why?” I asked. “I’m the one who should cry.”

“I have always wanted to be a mother. When I realized that you could have…as soon as you said you were pregnant, it was as though it was me, and I saw myself with a baby. Except I knew what you were going to say. I knew that it was gone.” She shuddered.

I leaned over and said into her shoulder, “I had a dream that you saved the baby. I knew you would have been a great mother.”

She nodded stiffly. “Perhaps one day.” We sat there for a long time, huddled together, her soft, warm bulk against me.

Finally, she said, “I dreamed about you too.”

“Was it a good dream?”

“Oh, mon dieu, oui.” She stroked my cheek and kissed me. It was our second kiss. As with the first, I was drawn quickly into it by her sensual mouth and tongue, my arms gripping hers with instant passion. And like the first time, I was disappointed when she pulled back. I wanted more. Although her pupils looked dilated, and I was sure she wanted to go on as much as I did, she began speaking again about practical matters. “Have you eaten anything?” she asked.

“Not since a sandwich on the train,” I said. She went to the kitchen while I sat on the sofa wanting her. I heard the sizzle in the pan as she cooked us an omelet. The smells from the kitchen were as tantalizing as Geneviève herself. But she was right, I needed to eat, and even more, to sleep. I was exhausted with travel, with emotions, with everything. I sat and ate with her and went into the bathroom and took off the clothes I’d put on that morning at the clinic in England. I sank into the hot water, feeling grateful that the hard part was over, replaying our kiss at the end. I almost fell asleep in the old claw-foot tub. Geneviève roused me by rapping on the door. “Everything okay?”

“Yes! Coming!”

“I am going to work on some sculpture,” she said through the door. “You can sleep in my bed. I will be there later.”

“Okay.” I got out before I fell asleep again, dried off with one of her towels, and put on my pajamas. I brushed my teeth and took another pain pill before I staggered into her bedroom, which felt familiar from that first time. Incredibly, only about two weeks had passed since then. I wondered for a second which side of the bed to sleep on and flopped onto the side near the door and drifted into a deep sleep.