ANGELA CHANGED ALL their plans. Ben objected she was getting carried away but she was absolutely determined not to fail Mother in this one small respect. And so instead of dropping Mother and Father off on Saturday morning and continuing to London straight away, they stayed until the evening and the very part of the holiday she had most dreaded was painfully extended. They did not dump Mother and Father on the doorstep. They did not snatch a hasty cup of coffee and go. They witnessed the whole depressing ritual of the Trewicks’ return home.
The minute they entered the house, Mother rushed across the living room floor with astonishing speed and stood ripping the days off the calendar that hung above the fireplace—six savage tears across the perforated tops leaving in her hand a clutch of screwed-up paper slips.
‘Well, that’s that,’ she said, loudly, brandishing them at Angela, ‘that’s my holidays done. I’ll be stuck in this room for another twelvemonth likely.’
‘No you won’t,’ Angela said, ‘summer is coming—you can get out into the garden.’
‘It gets too hot,’ Mother said, ‘too hot or too cold—it’s me that’s the matter, not the weather. I never feel right.’
In the background Father was shouting ‘I’ve got the case unpacked—now do you want it on top of the wardrobe or under the bed? Eh?’—and then he began the endless recitation of all the trivial things that he claimed must be decided upon without delay.
‘There’s the milk tokens to get—how many?—and there’s the Parish Magazine waiting to be collected and do you want Mrs Collins in tomorrow as usual?’
‘Don’t care,’ Mother said.
‘Oh, now that won’t do,’ Father said, ‘she’ll want to know—Sunday’s Sunday—you can’t mess people about like that just because you’ve been on holiday—yes or no?’
‘Oh all right, if she wants to come in, though I’ve nothing to say to her and she talks a lot of rubbish.’
‘That may be,’ Father said, ‘but we have to take what we can get and after Angela’s gone that’s not much. Mrs Collins is regular—she’s a good neighbour.’
‘She’s boring,’ Mother said.
The children began to fight, noisily and in earnest. None of them had wanted to stop—the holiday over, home had a distinct allure. Against a background of screams and yells and Father’s roars to shut up or they would feel the back of his hand, Angela telephoned the dentist she used to have at St Erick and fixed up an appointment for that afternoon. It was a huge concession, obtained only by the use of that refined way of bullying that she had learned during the last decade. ‘You were rude,’ Mother said, as soon as she had finished. ‘They need somebody to be rude,’ Angela said. ‘And I’m not an emergency,’ Mother said, ‘the very idea—what a lie.’ ‘Of course you are. You’ve been an emergency for more than fifty years, going through agonies with those bloody teeth.’ ‘No swearing,’ Mother said, ‘and you ought to feed those children, noise they’re making.’ ‘I’ve no intention of feeding them,’ Angela said, ‘they’ve stuffed themselves for a week and now they can just starve. It will do them good.’
But she sent them off with Ben, to scrounge anything they could find in the town. Mother and Father had some soup, tomato, tinned, lurid orange and nauseating but eaten ravenously. Then ‘It’s ten to,’ Father said, and Mother went off to get ready. She took the greatest care, best dress and everything clean from the skin out. She even put on some make-up, dabs of powder high on her cheek bones and a smudge of lipstick applied with her good hand to a bunched-up mouth. Father looked pleased when she reappeared. He had always liked Mother to take care of herself, to dress up in such bits of finery as she possessed, to be the elegant lady he saw her as. ‘That hat’s not straight,’ he said, when she was quite ready. ‘You look like a drunk sailor—here, more on the back of the head, that’s it, that’s better. I don’t know what you’d look like if I didn’t keep an eye on you.’ Mother stood in front of him, blinking, humble, inviting remarks.
Angela helped Mother out of the car tenderly and was curt with the girl who took her time opening the door at the dentist’s. ‘No need to have spoken like that,’ Mother said. They sat in the waiting room for twenty minutes. Angela gathered up a pile of magazines and offered them to Mother, who refused them. ‘I can’t see them,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll just sit.’ ‘I could read something to you,’ Angela said. ‘No, thank you, I’m all right.’ With other people in the room Mother did not want to talk at all. She eyed those other occupants furtively and tried to sit up very straight, bolt upright, gripping the arm of the chair tightly as though it might take off. Restless, Angela paced up and down the dingy room, finding things to criticize as she went, publicly refusing to be as intimidated by the surroundings and situation. ‘Good god,’ she exclaimed, ‘you would have thought they could empty the ashtrays—ugh.’ ‘I think you should sit down and leave things alone,’ Mother said, looking frightened. ‘Are you cold’ Angela said, ‘Shall I put this gas fire on?’ ‘No, no,’ Mother said, ‘I’m quite warm—do leave things alone.’
Angela finally sat down beside Mother, though she continued to tap her foot impatiently and was ready to criticize anything else that occurred to her. Years and years of this sort of thing—of waiting rooms with Mother who treated them like holy shrines. Years of awe and dread building up into a great fear of anyone at all in a white coat. ‘Keep very quiet,’ Mother said before they entered the clinic with Angela’s septic finger. ‘Sit very straight and do what you’re told.’ The smell of antiseptic made her sick, but she pressed her lips firmly together and obeyed Mother’s instructions. The doctor was a lady, but big and heavy with short iron-grey hair and a voice like a man. ‘We’ll have to lance that,’ she boomed, ‘disgusting state it’s in. Keep still now, child, no fidgeting. I hope you’re going to be brave, are you? No fussing when the needle goes in?’ She fainted. Mother was embarrassed and kept apologizing. The first words Angela heard were ‘I’m so sorry—she’s only six—I’m so sorry—she’s usually very good.’ They were allowed to sit in the secretary’s office for a while before they went to get the bus home and although Mother cuddled her, and exclaimed at the awfulness of the operation, Angela felt wretched because she had let her down. There were too many mortifying occasions like that to remember. Doctors, medical personnel of any kind, were gods who held your fate in cool hands. You spoke of their wisdom in hushed tones and whatever they told you to do, you did, questioning not their infinite wisdom. Second opinions were things you had never heard of, doubt a sentiment out of step with gratitude.
Mother jumped when her name was called and struggled immediately to her feet, pulling at Angela’s sleeve. ‘Hang on,’ Angela said, ‘he can wait for you just like you waited for him.’ ‘Sssh!’ Mother pleaded. The very sight of the surgery had her genuflecting. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Trewick,’ the dentist said, smiling broadly and indicating the chair, ‘and Angela—my goodness, you’ve grown—how many years is it since you sat there in your gymslip, eh?’ His laughter was loud and Angela wondered why she had never thought him coarse. Quite the reverse. She and her friends had found him exciting—none of them had objected throughout their school years to the various unnecessarily tight embraces he had adopted while drilling their teeth. They loved the squeeze he gave them as he whispered ‘Just a wee rinse, now,’ and the grip of his hand as he consoled them if he had hurt. Angela was proud to go to him. ‘I’ve got a dentist,’ she said at home, aged thirteen, ‘I’m not going to the school clinic any more.’ She had arranged it all herself, benefiting from the expertise of her new-found friends at Grammar School.
‘Now what’s the trouble, Mrs Trewick?’ He spoke in that patronizing way Angela remembered so well—that faintly insulting though always polite tone reserved for the old, the stupid, the deprived.
‘My mouth’s sore,’ Mother said, nervously.
‘Well, let’s have a look. Can you take your teeth out for me, please?’
Out they came and lay on the tray provided like fossils newly unearthed. Bits of denture powder still clung round the base of the teeth. Angela’s own mouth went dry at the sight. Carefully and gently the dentist poked and prodded Mother’s poor mouth and then, while she sipped the pink antiseptic solution he gave her, he examined her false teeth.
‘Well,’ he said, giving them a disdainful look and wiping his hands fastidiously with a brilliantly white towel, ‘I don’t think there is much doubt that those things are causing all the trouble. They don’t fit, do they?’
‘No,’ Mother said.
‘I don’t suppose they’ve ever fitted. They’re a scandal, a disgrace to dentistry.’
Mother’s eyes began to look suspiciously watery. ‘The point is,’ Angela interrupted sharply, ‘what can be done about it? There isn’t much point in telling my Mother she’s had a bad job done—the point is, what can be done about it?’
Mother’s tears had been arrested at the price of horror. ‘Oh, Angela,’she said.
‘No,’ the dentist said, ‘she’s quite right. I ought to have begun by saying there is no reason why you shouldn’t be one hundred per cent more comfortable—you just need new dentures. The trouble is, the gums have receded of course and the dentures will be difficult to fit—they’ll need a lot of tricky measuring and that takes time and money.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mother said quickly. She snatched her teeth from the tray and put them back in, turning away from Angela and the dentist. ‘These will do me,’ she said, ‘they’ll see me out. Let’s go—thank you, thank you very much.’
‘Wait,’ Angela said.
‘I’m not up to it,’ Mother said, upset, getting worked up. ‘I couldn’t manage backwards and forwards—I couldn’t manage all that carry on—and your Father would play war.’
‘How many visits exactly would it take?’ Angela asked, glaring at the dentist, who appeared taken aback by her sudden antagonism.
‘Oh, three or four—say four, and a final fitting to be absolutely sure.’
‘Then we’ll have it done the next time I’m down and I’ll bring you each time, Mother. Can we make a series of appointments now, for August, so that the whole thing is arranged?’
Mother weakened and hesitated and wondered aloud whether it was worth it but Angela had spoken so decisively it was easier to go along with her. And it was not until August. The dentist shook their hands most cordially and leapt to the door to open it for them himself.
Sadie was taken to the dentist at three months old. She lay in a carrycot while Angela had her teeth drilled. Later, she sat strapped into a pushchair and laughed at the high-pitched whine of the drill. She continued to go with Angela until she went to school and then she had her own twice-yearly appointments made for her, to which she looked forward. The dentist had a box of small plastic games and toys which he invited children to delve into after he had looked into their mouths. Sadie enjoyed picking her toy and since she never had to have anything done she did not mind opening her mouth. She would rush to the tray, ignoring the dentist, and Angela would have to remonstrate and tell her to wait and to get into the chair first. Sadie was rather off-hand to the dentist. When he asked her if she had enjoyed her holidays she would say ‘Yeah, I did’ and when he inquired if she liked school she would say ‘of course’ scathingly. As she grew older she complained he was a bore. At twelve, to Angela’s alarm, something seemed to happen to Sadie’s teeth—in six months she had her first three fillings. They did not hurt but Sadie blamed the dentist for making her feel uncomfortable. ‘He’s such a clumsy fool,’ she said, and Angela worried that the dentist might have heard. He wanted Sadie to have a brace to correct the shape of her upper teeth. Sadie refused. ‘The dentist knows best,’ Angela said. ‘Oh rubbish,’ Sadie said. ‘You ought to listen to him and do what he says,’ Angela said. ‘Why?’ Sadie said, ‘I don’t believe I need a brace—he just wants to mess about with my teeth, that’s all. I don’t want a brace. I don’t care what my teeth look like. You can’t make me have one, nor can he.’ And Angela could not. The dentist had no authority in Sadie’s life.
They drove back to London at high speed with Tim asleep in the back and the others nodding off. They took it in turns driving, stopping only twice for petrol and a cup of coffee.
‘I hate driving in the dark,’ Sadie complained.
‘We all do,’ Ben said.
‘Then why did we have to? Why couldn’t Grandma go to the dentist another day?’
‘Because she wouldn’t have gone,’ Angela said.
‘It’s made us so late,’ Sadie said, ‘it’s such a stupid time to travel.’
‘Oh shut up,’ Angela said, ‘all you care about is yourself and your convenience.’
‘I don’t see why Grandma has to be put before us.’
‘No, you don’t. That’s the really awful thing—you really do not see why a poor old lady—’
‘—oh christ, not that bit, not—’
‘—and her comfort had to be put before your pleasure.’
‘All I don’t see is why you have to do it just at the wrong time,’ Sadie shouted.
‘Be quiet—you’ll waken Tim. I have to do it because she’s my Mother and nobody else will do it if I don’t. Do you think I like doing it? Do you think I like holding everyone up all the time? What I’d like to do is just collapse and let you all look after yourselves—I’m sick to death of looking after everyone—thinking and worrying about parents and children—I’m sick of it.’
‘Heh,’ Ben said, quietly, ‘calm down.’
‘I’m so tired.’
‘We’re all tired,’ Sadie said, ‘and no wonder.’
‘I’ll drive,’ Ben said, ‘you try to doze. And I want everyone to be quiet—is that understood? Not a sound until we stop outside our own front door.’
‘Thank god,’ Sadie said.
‘I said not a sound. Right. Seat belts on. No pushing, no shoving and no talking.’
But Angela could not doze. She closed her eyes and put her head back and was perfectly comfortable but her brain teemed with relentless thoughts. It was a trap. She ought to have known—she had known—having a mother, being a mother, they were both pledges to eternity, promises to be something impossible. She had tried so hard to break the chain but it was too tough and strong. She did not know which was worse—the agonizing pain of failing to be the daughter Mother needed and wanted and had a right to expect or the misery of failing to be the mother her daughter needed and had an equal right to expect. Nobody was satisfied with her. She could no longer hug and kiss Mother and be close in heart and spirit. She could no longer embrace Sadie, who every day retreated further and further from her and yet looked to her for everything. The cars flashed past on either side, headlights blazing, and the noise of the engine vibrated through her body and straight ahead the road stretched endlessly black and murderous.
She didn’t move when at last they stopped. She sat quite still, aching, while Ben got out and unlocked the front door and put the light on in the hall and gathered up the mail from the mat. Sadie followed him in, carrying only her own bag, and disappeared into her room. Angela could hear the record player being switched on immediately and the sound of pop music floated through the night air. ‘Where are we?’ said Max in the back. She did not reply. He yawned and groaned and said ‘oh, home’ and stumbled into the house. Ben went backwards and forwards alone, heaving cases and bags and junk from car to house until a great heap of paraphernalia spilled from the door to staircase. He carried Tim in and up to bed, and guided Saul on his way. Still she sat. He finished the unpacking and came round to her side and unclipped her seat belt. ‘Come on, old lady,’ he said. At last, she forced herself to get out, stiff and slightly sick. The house smelled of unaired rooms and paint. She wondered what on earth had just been painted and went into the kitchen with a puzzled frown on her face.
‘Well,’ Ben said, ‘that’s over.’
‘It’s not over,’ she said, dully, ‘it just goes on and on.’
‘Seeing them is over. You look fagged out. Go to bed. You’ve done your bit—for god’s sake, forget them for a while and rest. You’ll make yourself ill and then what would we all do?’
Mothers couldn’t be ill—it was against the rules. She lay in bed thinking how ill she felt and telling herself she could not be ill. There was nothing in the whole world as terrifying as a mother being ill. Everything seemed to stop. There were no comforts any more. Even the table set by someone else looked wrong and upsetting—nothing was done right. Mother had not intended to frighten them all when she went into hospital—it was Father. His worry turned into anger and flew in their direction, exploding when it hit its target. It caught her unawares as she stood at the back kitchen door, flushed and happy, off to practise the nativity play at Sunday School, excited about the silver foil wings she wore as Gabriel. He shouted after her ‘Get off with you then—all this hurry—rushing your dinner—get out—and pray for your Mother at that church—pray she doesn’t die when she goes into the infirmary next week.’ Her hand froze on the steel latch of the door. She turned back and looked at Mother washing the dishes. Mother looked guilty and apologetic. ‘Pay no attention, Angela,’ she whispered, ‘it’s nothing—I won’t be in long.’ Father didn’t contradict her. It was one of those rare times when he had shocked himself. Nobody elaborated on what had been said. ‘Bye, then’ Angela said.
Angela had always refused to say that she would never die. When Sadie first found out about death at nursery school when she was four and the class guinea pig died she had not been upset. She had been intrigued. She told Angela the guinea pig was asleep forever. They all buried it in the school garden and the teacher gave a good lesson about flowers dying and coming up again. Sadie was rather surprised when the guinea pig did not come up again. But later, when she realized properly that her father had no parents, that her other grandmother and grandfather were dead and that she had never seen them and was never going to see them, then death took on a new aspect. Where were those grandparents was the most insistent of her many questions—where exactly were they? Burial appalled her. Her face went white and still at the thought of the coffin and bodies and six feet of soil (Angela concealed nothing). But the fact that her grandparents had died in a car crash helped her to accept the fact of their death—a car crash was so easily understandable, so unlike normal life. Why people died continued not to bother her so much as what happened to them after they had done so. One night in the bath she sobbed endlessly and begged Angela not to put her in a box in the ground nor to burn her to cinders. ‘I won’t,’ Angela promised, ‘I won’t, I won’t, but you’re not going to die for years and years and years.’ ‘I want you to keep me beside you always,’ Sadie cried. ‘I will,’ Angela promised, ‘I will, I will.’ At the price of total truth she had temporarily relieved her little daughter. Death no longer meant maggots and wet blackness but merely a long sleep in her own bed. Sadie talked about death a lot for a while, but in a matter-of-fact way. She told Max, when his day of fear came, that it was silly to be frightened of dying. Dying was just going to sleep. Everyone died just as everyone was born—it was natural. It only happened when you were very, very old or very, very ill or very, very hurt in a car crash. Angela had serious misgivings as she heard Sadie come out with it all so pat, but she did nothing about them. Soon enough, one of Sadie’s contemporaries might die and then the whole thing would have to be gone into again. Gradually, the knowledge of what death was would come to her but Angela could not bring herself to foist it upon her.
Nobody guessed. Angela was quite startled at how little any of those who loved her and were closest to her noticed about what she felt was the dramatic change in her appearance. She felt she looked ashen. Every morning for a week when she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror she was shocked by the greyness of her skin and the huge dark shadows under her eyes. Nobody commented upon it. ‘I look awful,’ she said to Ben, but he looked and shrugged and said he didn’t think so and that he’d seen her look much worse. The children were oblivious to her looks whatever they were, and at school, because she was only part-time, there was no one she saw regularly enough or for long enough to remark on her health. She was glad to be at home and away from Mother’s and Father’s eagle eyes. They would have noticed. Mother would have looked at her suspiciously, and Father would have said ‘You don’t look right—what’s up?’ They would have discussed her condition gloomily and shaken their heads anxiously.
She felt as ill as she thought she looked—nothing specific, just a terrible tiredness, a feeling of being drained of all vitality. Everything she did was a superhuman effort, which she made but did not know how. When she woke up in the morning her first thought was how wonderful it would be to get to the evening and be able to go back to bed again. She went earlier and earlier each evening until she was hard on the heels of Tim. ‘This can’t go on,’ Ben said, ‘you’ll have to go to the doctor—you must be anaemic or something.’ ‘I’ve always been anaemic,’ she said. ‘Well, you must be more anaemic than usual, that’s all. It’s that awful holiday we had—it’s pulled you down. You just need some iron tablets or something.’
Her own doctor was away and she felt glad—she felt less foolish before a locum when her story was so weak. She was proud of her health and of her record of hardly ever coming to see the doctor and did not want it spoiled by the hysterical nature of her complaint. ‘I’ve got a soft spot for Mrs Bradbury,’ she had once overheard him saying to his receptionist, ‘she’s always cheerful whatever’s wrong with her.’ The compliment—silly, because the doctor knew perfectly well her cheerfulness had never seriously been put to the test—thrilled her. Remembering it, she did not want to hear herself say ‘I’m tired, doctor.’ The world was full of women who were tired. It was a whine she hated to hear on her lips.
The locum was nervous, much more nervous than she was. He was young and raw with an alarming Adam’s apple and a strong frown cultivated to make his smooth pink features more acceptable in a doctor’s role. He cleared his throat rather a lot and fiddled with her medical folder in front of him and took a long time to ask her what seemed to be the matter. She felt very old and experienced in front of him. ‘I’m tired,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I know it sounds feeble but I really am absolutely exhausted—I’ve got no energy at all and I’m dragging myself around. It’s gone on for two weeks and it’s getting worse and worse. I feel I’m going to collapse any minute.’ ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he said, and motioned towards the couch. ‘Take your top things off,’ he said. He sounded her chest carefully, back and front. He looked in her mouth and ears and eyes. He asked her to cough and prodded her breasts and armpits and backbone, and everything he did made her feel even more stupid. ‘I’ll be delighted if you tell me I’m a fraud and kick me out of the surgery,’ she said, but he was too young to want repartee.
She dressed and sat in front of him, not wanting to laugh in case a laugh ruffled the stern calm he was so successfully achieving.
‘How old are you, Mrs Bradbury?’ he asked, though her folder must quite clearly have told him.
‘Thirty-seven.’
‘Children?’
‘Four.’
‘Ages?’
‘Sixteen, thirteen, twelve and six,’ she said impatiently.
‘Mm. You’ve got your hands full.’
She was growing tired of his ludicrously conventional manner.
‘Periods normal?’ he asked, tapping his teeth with a pencil.
‘Yes,’ she said. She could not actually remember the date of the last one and knew he was going to ask her. ‘I can’t remember the last one,’ she said, ‘but it wasn’t long ago.’
‘Are you on the pill?’
‘No. I have been, but Dr Burnett took me off it for a year again, six months ago. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Could you get back on the couch?’ he said. ‘I’ll ring for the nurse.’
Faint pinpricks of alarm danced up and down her spine and her stomach felt queasy. He gave her an internal examination, working thoroughly enough to convince her that when he grew up he would make a brutal gynaecologist. ‘What’s this for?’ she said, ‘I’ve just had a smear.’ But he ignored her. She dressed again, flustered and irritated, wishing that after all she had waited until her own doctor came back.
‘I rather think,’ he said, ‘that you’re pregnant.’
‘What? But I can’t be—I’m still menstruating—it’s impossible—I use a cap and I know I haven’t made any mistake—I can’t be pregnant.’
‘I’m sure you are, in fact I’m quite positive you’re roughly fourteen weeks pregnant. It can sometimes happen that periods do continue, or what appear to be periods, though in fact the flow is greatly reduced and you probably thought you were just having a light period, or indeed . . .’
On and on he droned, pleased to have the opportunity to use all the information he had so recently learned, pleased too—or so it seemed to Angela—that he could put a patient in her place. She hated him violently. She hated the necessity of having to talk to him at all about things she would much rather not have mentioned and now she hated his objectivity, of which he was so proud. There seemed no humanity in him at all. She could imagine without any difficulty the way in which he would tell someone they were going to die. Twice a day he would repeat to himself a little homily about the importance of not getting involved with patients and never realize he was not in any danger.
Her hatred had distracted her from what the locum was actually saying. ‘. . . no difficulty,’ he ended.
‘What? I’m sorry—I missed what you said.’
‘I said there shouldn’t be much difficulty arranging an abortion, which is what I presume you would want.’ He was smiling, she thought condescendingly. His fingertips touched as he propped his elbows on his desk and put his hands in a praying position.
‘Oh,’ she said, a funny, sharp, distinct little ‘oh’.
‘With four children—and at thirty-seven—and I see you had a Caesarian last time. The only thing is we do need to move rather quickly. At fourteen weeks the foetus is getting rather big and it becomes quite a different sort of operation if it is left much longer. I don’t think we have time to try a National Health job quite frankly—you really ought to be done this week. Would you like me to ring Mr John at The Royal Foundation? Dr Burnett usually refers patients to him.’
He was waiting, his hands now rearranging the other medical folders for that morning. He looked at his wrist-watch surreptitiously. ‘I can’t think,’ Angela said, and he smiled again but got to his feet. Whatever happened, he was going to have a surgery that ran like clockwork. She knew she was fitting in with his preconceived notions about the behaviour of middle-class, middle-aged women. ‘Why don’t you go home and think about it?’ he said, ‘then you could ring me when you reach a decision. Either way, I’ll support you.’ It was a quaint thing to say and made her look at him again. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and followed him stiffly to the door, which he opened with a courtesy that added to her confusion.
She did not go home, but went straight on to school, where she sat in the staffroom and marked books, as she had planned, over the lunch hour. It was the humdrum nature of her task that anchored her firmly to the world when inside her head she floated through the window out into the summer sunshine. She taught the fourth form with her customary vigour, surprised to hear such a firm, matter-of-fact voice coming out of a throat so dry. She went home and set the table, cut the bread, put sausages into the oven, sliced tomatoes, mixed a salad, moved to the cooker, to the cupboard, to the table, to the refrigerator, to the wastebin, backwards and forwards and sideways in her kitchen, sure of touch, firm of purpose and all around her children asking for glue, for scissors, wanting to know where tennis shoes were, swimming things, racquets, telling her the date of the school fete, of the outing to Brighton, of being in teams and plays and concerts. No pause for thought and yet the thought there all the time—I am to be a mother again.
She said nothing. She supervised supper absentmindedly and hardly spoke. Of course, she would have the abortion—of course she would. There was no choice. She felt stupid and ashamed and degraded. But what would she tell the children? Her children had to be told something. She could not, like Mother, say that she was going into hospital and that would be that. They would ask why and ‘for an operation, dear’ would certainly not be sufficient. They would demand an explanation as any normal child would—it was she who had been abnormal, too afraid to ask why Mother was in hospital, too terrified to ask what it was. She had gone in and out of that horrible infirmary where Mother lay, white and weak, for a whole month without ever knowing what was wrong. She still did not know. Mother never told her and she never asked. Anything to do with Mother’s body, sick or well, frightened her. But her children would not show the same reticence. Any information would have to be exact. If she said she was having an abortion they would want to know what that was, and told what it was the image of bloody embryo babies burning in an incinerator would without doubt haunt their dreams, and the dangers would not elude their worldly minds.
Her head ached fiercely by the time they were all in bed. She sat in the garden sipping a large glass of lemonade watching the sun burn the brown brick wall to a ruddy red. An uncomfortable, illicit excitement made her tremble and shiver. She could have this baby. She could become a mother again. And as she sat in the half-darkness of the late May evening it came back to her how magical that time was—that eerie time when she knew she carried a growing baby without being able to feel it. She had walked through life so proudly, shooting sly looks at her own belly when no one was looking, stroking herself furtively with a sense of triumph. She ought not to be seduced by the sweetness of nostalgia, and yet there stole over her a dreamy contentment that made her smile. She could start all over again. Now that she knew what it was to be a mother she could make a better job of it. It would be a girl and what would she call her? Antonia—Rosalind—Cassia—Beth—she repeated them all to herself, a litany of ghosts.
Ben came home very late and went through the house calling her name before he found her sitting in the garden on the bench under the pear tree, her empty glass lolling drunkenly in her lap. They kissed. He took off his jacket and tie and yawned and stretched and sat beside her. ‘What an awful day,’ he said. She didn’t ask him why. Eventually her silence penetrated his fatigue. ‘You went to the doctor’s,’ he said, ‘I forgot—what happened?’ His tone was not really interested and she felt irritated by his apparent lack of concern. It was all so silly and melodramatic—she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘Darling, I’m pregnant.’ She squirmed at the thought and got up abruptly. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ she said, and marched into the kitchen, head erect. ‘I was enjoying sitting there,’ he said, ‘there’s no rush. It’s years since you’ve sat in the garden waiting for me to come home—can hardly remember the last time. Do you remember that first summer, when Sadie was born? Scorching. We lived in the garden.’ He rambled on, following her into the kitchen, accepting the sandwich she made and the cheese and biscuits. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘how did you get on?’
‘I hate the way you ask.’
‘How do you want me to ask?’
‘All smug. You hadn’t even remembered.’
‘I did in the end.’
Still she could not find the words. She knew he would latch on immediately to the part of her news that did not matter.
‘There isn’t anything wrong is there? Come on, for god’s sake, why all this touchiness?’
‘I’m pregnant.’ The viciousness with which it came out relieved her. ‘I know—it’s ridiculous. I’m three months pregnant.’
‘But how?’ He looked incredulous and somehow fragile when she wanted him to be strong.
‘The usual way, I imagine.’
‘You know what I meant.’ They were suddenly enemies, glaring at each other furiously when she wanted to be comforted. She knew perfectly well it was she who was dictating the terms.
‘We haven’t had intercourse without taking precautions.’
‘Oh don’t talk like that—I hate it—so coy—Christ—what does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters.’
‘Why? Do you want to pin the blame on me?’
‘Blame—don’t be silly—it never entered my head to—it’s just reasonable—’
‘I’m not reasonable, I don’t feel in the least reasonable, I don’t want to hear about reason. I feel terrible and all you do is carry out an inquisition.’
He came over to her and said ‘I’m sorry’ and tried to put his arms round her but she shook him off.
‘Don’t you want to know when it will be born—shall we choose a name—I thought Antonia—what do you think of Antonia?’
‘Don’t, Angela.’
‘Of course it will be a girl. A sister for Sadie.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Well, we’ve got enough boys, don’t you think? I hope it will be a girl.’
‘But surely you’ll have an abortion—I mean, these days it’s so easy, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely easy,’ she said, ‘you just get up onto an operating table and wham barn thank you mam out with the knife and the nasty thing cut out and thrown away. No trouble. After all, I don’t want to be a mother again, do I? Not when I’m such a disaster already—not when we’ve learnt our lesson—we’ve had our fill of mothers, haven’t we—’
She wept a long time. Ben soothed and hugged her and cursed his own clumsiness and said if she wanted the baby it would be lovely and she was the best mother in the world. It appalled her to discover the man she loved so dearly could find it so difficult to appreciate the turmoil she was in. She allowed him to hold her, and indeed drew the comfort she needed simply from the closeness of his body, but he was for the first time no good to her. He looked after her tenderly, he said he would make all the arrangements and all she needed to do was rest, he would take care of everything.
‘There’s Mother and Father,’ Angela said, ‘I don’t want them to know—they mustn’t know—I really couldn’t bear it.’
‘You can’t just disappear,’ Ben said. ‘What will I do if they ring—and they will, if you don’t.’
‘I’ll tell them I’m going on a teaching course,’ Angela said. ‘I’ve done it before.’
‘Christ, as if we didn’t have enough worries.’
‘I can’t bear them to worry about me. And the children—I don’t want them to know.’
‘Oh now look—’
‘I can’t bear them to be upset, and they would be—it’s too horrible—and they might think I was—I was going to die.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ He was angry because the thought of her in danger had never occurred to him. ‘Die?’ he repeated. ‘There’s no question of that. It’s a routine operation—’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘quite routine. Forget it.’