“Why is it that you live in a caravan?” The impertinence. But Miriam didn’t care, she felt she needed to know why this woman lived in a painted caravan. They were early for the meeting, time enough to walk along the river.
The silence a rebuke. But no, it appeared that Audrey was just gathering her thoughts.
“From the moment I saw it, I knew I would. It really was so beautiful, the wild spray of greens and reds, the intricacies of the markings. It was as though I’d fallen in love again, the stirring in my heart, the flush in my cheeks, that’s what love was . . . what love is, isn’t it?”
Audrey stopped then, as if surprised by her own words. Miriam stopped, too, waiting, wondering if Audrey was really expecting an answer to her question. Why was she speaking of love? How had Audrey gone from the lure of her caravan to the first blush of love? Miriam looked at her sideways, waiting for her to speak.
“Listen to me, talking of such things.” Audrey pulled the brim on her hat and took a few steps farther down the riverbank. “But whatever you think of me, I can tell you I was once like you. Young, a touch of the reckless, eager to step out of my life.”
Miriam was fretting, a quick glance back toward the meeting hall, a nervous fingering of her collar. What did Audrey know of her life? What could she possibly know? Just then a swan stomped out of the river, all elegance gone as it approached them.
“She doesn’t want us around,” Audrey said, grabbing Miriam’s arm and leading her away.
They were soon at the hall. Stella Browne had arrived, so there was a feeling of suppressed energy, everyone thrilled to be in her presence, but still they talked in whispers. The walk had taken longer than expected, and they now worried about being stuck at the back.
Audrey led Miriam to the side door and made it to the second row. They stared at the stage, just as the gathering audience did, without speaking. There was a mood of conspiracy. A conspiracy of silence. What did they have to hide, these women? Miriam wondered. They seemed confident in their right to be there, but these were women used to surreptitious activity, many of them at it for decades. Theirs was not a popular cause.
When a woman walked along the row in front of them to her seat, she saw Audrey and gave a fleeting smile in acknowledgement, a look of indifference to Miriam. It was the first time Miriam questioned her right to be with Audrey. There were things Audrey wanted in her, she knew, but there were things Miriam could gain, too. Were they just using each other? In some ways, yes, she supposed, but now Miriam considered how they could possibly balance each other. It was hard to be an equal with someone like Audrey.
The audience erupted as Stella Browne came onstage. Her appearance was as eccentric as later reported, “rather untidy, careless about her looks and appearance,” wearing “aggressively unfashionable clothes” with “wisps of hair floating from her untidy coiffure.” She told the audience that there were two groups of women concerned in the discussion on abortion. “There are those who wanted to have children but for the serious disadvantages in which they found themselves. In many cases they simply couldn’t afford to have another child to feed. The second group were those women who did not want to have children, even though we have been told again and again that there are no such women.”
“It is,” she said, “a crime against humanity to force them to become a mother. Let them choose, for what is this ban on abortion? It is a sexual taboo, it is the terror that women should not experience. They should experiment and enjoy freely, without punishment.” She leaned into the microphone. “Will you help, so that this terror shall be lifted from women, from love and from sex, which should be beautiful and inspiring but cannot be when two people have this ghastly shadow of undesired conception at the back of their minds the whole time? Will you help to make the world more fit to live in, and humanity better worth life and love?”
“Well?” Audrey was threading their way through the groups that had clustered after the lecture. “What did you think?”
“I’m not sure what I think. I didn’t expect her to be . . . so free.”
“To talk about desire, you mean?”
Miriam slowed her step, looked at Audrey. “Have you known love, Audrey?” They were out on the pavement now, Audrey guiding Miriam by the elbow to a tea shop.
“Desire,” she said, opening the door. “I’ve known desire.”
They sat at a corner table, with windows looking out at clouds that promised a downpour.
“I was young, barely twenty-one. There was a party. A garden party, and then Robert arrived. The memory of it is like photographs in someone else’s album.” She paused, glanced at someone coming into the tea shop. “Yes, there I was. Sitting with my family, my dress pinching on the side, and, oh, I was restless, unable to take it any longer, so I stood up to adjust it, but that movement, like all my movements those days, was awkward, and my skirt caught in the chair leg and the next thing I was tilting over. Then there was a hand at my back, another reaching for my arm. The teacups rattled on the table. Utter chaos. I can still hear my mother’s voice. ‘Oh Audrey, do sit down.’ Robert, still standing behind me, invited to the garden party by a cousin.
“I taught him how to play croquet. I remember the wind ruffling the lace at my neck, felt his eyes drawn to it. My face flushed, and then a tingling in my forehead.” She looked down at the menu that lay on the table before her.
They looked up at the waitress and gave their order, scones and tea.
“He was not one much for games. But, anything to get away from the table. I remember his smile, slanted as he lit a cigarette. I breathed in his exhaled smoke and felt intoxicated. I started babbling on about croquet being one of the first sports that women played in the Olympics. It was in Paris. The 1900 games. I showed him how to hold the mallet, my hands damp as I placed his hands on the handle, showing him how one hand needs to be lower. I had never been this close to a man outside my family before. I felt the heat of him next to me. I felt the burrowing of his attention. This had never happened before.
“His eyes were grey, like washed pebbles, and I sensed the intensity of them, as though he wanted to say something to me. It was forceful and flattering. Then the hard crack of the mallet broke the spell, and he became childlike when he saw where his ball had gone, blocking the entrance to the first hoop. I remember his scent, light, floral, soapy. A grown-up smell. Then came the rain, sudden and furious. He took my arm, and we raced to the gazebo where the party had gathered.
“Wild abandon. That’s the only way to describe that moment.” Audrey looked at Miriam. “I ran across the slick grass alongside Robert’s long, confident strides, strands of hair smeared across my face, I kept telling myself, Don’t fall, don’t fall. We made it to the gazebo before the rain turned to sheets. We stepped inside, his hand at my elbow as if we were together. Then, I saw that others had gathered in the gazebo. I had no idea where they had come from. Who they were. And then there was a woman next to Robert, as if she were with him.”
“A woman?” Miriam leaned in.
But Audrey was looking past Miriam, as if the woman of that day had reappeared with the telling of the story. “It’s funny what you remember. I’d forgotten about teaching him to play croquet.”
Scones and tea were placed in front of them. The voice of the waitress, the jangle of the door brought Audrey back. One of the women from the lecture had entered the tearoom and seen Audrey, so they were obliged to invite her over. There was no further mention of Robert.