Audrey watched Miriam walk down the hill toward her caravan, arms held close to her sides as though she expected to slip, each step carefully placed. Her dress was a similar cut to the one she’d worn at Frank’s, this one fox brown, which suited her. Audrey liked that Miriam kept her clothes simple, it said something of her character.
Miriam kept glancing up as she approached, and Audrey saw that mixture of trepidation and awe that she’d seen in others who had come to visit. Not that there’d been many.
Audrey went out to greet her, took her to the river, where they stood admiring it, the trickle of the water lapping the bank, the sun hitting the surface with a flickering shimmer.
“I swim here. Almost daily,” Audrey said.
“Really?”
“We are water creatures, you know. Apart from the proboscis monkey, we are the only primate that plays in the water for the sheer joy of it. And whose offspring take naturally to it from birth. We are also alone in having subcutaneous fat, like whale’s blubber, for buoyancy and warmth.” Audrey took in a deep breath as if the river air itself had special properties. “Come, let’s have tea.”
Inside, the plate of scones she’d had Annie make for her sat on the table, and the kettle was on the two-burner gas stove and grill she’d bought in the spring. The luxury of it, a small indulgence.
They sat adjacent to each other, Miriam on the bench by the window, next to her a bookshelf built into the wall of the cupboard, and Audrey on the wooden chair, their knees nearly touching. Miriam pushed herself to the back of the bench and swung her knees to the side, her hands on her lap like resting kittens. Audrey placed the diminutive table off to the side and poured them each tea from a set placed on it.
“I’m sorry I haven’t any jam,” Audrey said. She was making too much of it, she knew, this lack of jam. She’d already explained about having Frank’s cook, Annie, make the scones and her forgetting to ask for jam, and that seemed to occupy Audrey to the point where it was difficult to jump off to the other more serious topics she wanted to talk about. This was an opportunity to speak to someone of some standing from the village, someone who might be interested in what she had to say. It was a hard subject to raise, she knew. She’d seen women squirm at the mere mention of abortion, avoid all eye contact, sometimes turn and walk away. It would be hard for Miriam to walk away, Audrey knew, though she felt no guilt in bringing her here.
“It’s quite all right,” Miriam murmured. “I don’t have a sweet tooth.”
There had been discussions about setting up a clinic in Godalming. What would a woman like Miriam think of such an initiative, Audrey wondered when she’d thought of inviting her to the caravan. Then, exactly what was a woman like Miriam like?
She’d seen Miriam as bright, one who thought beyond the world of the village. She wanted to fly, of all things. They owned the village shop, she’d learned; they were respected, people might listen to their views. If she could convince her to help with the campaign, they might have the ear of the villagers, even of the county women. That’s what the movement needed: local leaders.
The sun broke through at that moment, and the lace curtain painted intricate designs across their hands.
“Ah, glorious sun,” Audrey boomed, her arms raised upwards as a gesture of hallelujah, which made Miriam smile, this spontaneous physical reaction, so much more boisterous in the tight space. Audrey reached for a bottle from the top shelf over the books and for the two sherry glasses beside it. She poured a measure and passed one to Miriam, who suppressed a cough when she sipped the drink that turned out to be whisky and not sherry.
“My apologies. I should have warned you. A gift from Frank. He worries that I’ll freeze to death. This is his solution. He is one of the few who don’t see my domestic decision as a spectacular display of stubbornness.”
“He is good to watch over you. You could freeze to death out here,” Miriam said, looking around. “I nearly froze to death from stubbornness once.” She took another sip of whisky. “I was a teenager—stroppy, mule-headed, angry at my mother. One night I decided to sleep under the stars.”
There was a boy at the heart of this argument, one that Miriam liked, but he was older, worked in the pub in the next village, not one for a mother’s approval. Miriam stomped off, but her idealized notion of sleeping under a starry sky was akilter to what the night actually offered. It was October, much too late for such stunts, but once she got something in her head, her judgment, like the sky on that night, clouded everything. A cold front from Scotland rolled in and painted the landscape with milky hoarfrost, and there was Miriam in a makeshift tent of canvas and boughs, a mile from home. She’d lasted a few hours before she abandoned it, the point having been made. But she became disoriented and walked for over an hour, cold, lost, and in despair that she’d ever be found. Fear, she told Audrey, came later. After a farmer came across her, bundled her up on the horse he was riding when checking on a cow gone loose, and took her back to her house. Her mother, waiting, a kettle of hot soup on the boil.
“The strange thing about fear,” Audrey said, “is that it creeps up in anticipation of something, and again in the aftermath, but lets us alone when we need to cope.”
“‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’” Miriam’s deep-voiced recitation surprised even her. “Roosevelt,” she said, feeling the heat go up her neck. “My husband heard him on the wireless once—he’s taken to quoting him.”
Audrey laughed, sat back, her look one Miriam mistook to be judgment.
“That’s good . . . very good.” Audrey shook her head. “When we find wisdom in our politicians, is that a good sign or not?”
In these close quarters, Audrey was able to catch the scent of the other woman; rosewater, she guessed. There was an intimacy brought on by the whisky, and their proximity made the meeting feel conspiratorial. Miriam’s guard was down, Audrey could see, at first so formal and now she was quoting American presidents. Her instincts had been right. This was a woman to know.
“I’m campaigning for a clinic,” Audrey said, each word enunciated fully.
“A clinic?”
“We need to raise funds so that women, all women, including those from this village, have the knowledge about the functions of their body.”
Miriam blushed.
Audrey talked about abortion activist Stella Browne, and the advancements she’d made, gave Miriam a pamphlet that was used in other clinics. “Browne was one of the founders of the Abortion Law Reform Association in 1936. Its membership is almost four hundred, many of them from the working classes. You should hear her speak. She advocates for the right of women to have a sexually active life, with access to birth control and abortion.”
“I know the functions of my body,” Miriam said when Audrey finished. It was not the blush of embarrassment, Audrey now saw, but one of anger.
“Yes, but there are many women who don’t. And we need your help.”
“Help? What can I do?”
“Women who know can help women who don’t know. Knowledge is strength.”
Miriam remained quiet.
“Will you come? The meeting is next week. Stella Browne will be speaking.”
The caravan sunk into half-light with the shuttering of the sun, and Miriam’s face blanched so quickly that Audrey thought she might be ill. Miriam looked outside and then at her watch and saw that it was after five o’clock.
“I have to go.” She knocked the table when standing, then steadying it, reached for her coat. “Thank you.” Her voice formal again.
Audrey stood, too, flustered by the sudden shift in the room. “Of course, it’s late.” She stepped aside to let Miriam pass through to the door. Audrey offered to walk her to the house, have Michael drive her home, but Miriam told her she’d left her bicycle by the road and that she would outrun the darkness.
Outside on the landing they said their goodbyes, and Audrey saw the colour return to the other woman’s face. Whatever had come over her had passed, and she now seemed hesitant to leave.
“Next Tuesday at the Guild Hall,” Audrey called after her.