A Little Learning

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, and put her head in her hands. What should she do? Tell Simon and have him marry her and feel she’d trapped him? Well, if she didn’t tell him, she reasoned, he’d know soon enough. Pregnancy was one thing it was difficult to conceal for long.

  And then she thought of her mother and father and the high hopes they had for her. ‘Bloody hell,’ she burst out. ‘Bloody, bloody hell!’

  Simon was annoyed. He didn’t know what was the matter with Janet. She’d been all over him on the Saturday he’d called, and he could have sworn she was really sorry for her behaviour with Ben and sincere in wanting to put things right. But since then, something had changed. They’d had just two dates and both had been awful, with stilted conversation, uncomfortable silences and a curious tension between them.

  The realisation of her pregnancy and not knowing what to do about it was causing a constraint in Janet’s behaviour that Simon saw as withdrawal. To protect himself, certain that Janet didn’t love him as she’d claimed, he curtailed their time together and put a brake on their lovemaking.

  That made the situation worse, for Janet was then sure that Simon didn’t want her any more. She longed to be back on their old familiar footing and had begged him more than once to go on as he kissed and caressed her, but each time he would break away, leaving her frustrated and unfulfilled. One night she’d even taken his hands and placed them on her trembling, eager body, begging him to stay the night, but he’d pulled back with an embarrassed laugh to cover his own burning desires.

  The only high spot during this time was Claire’s return to England. Janet was still cool with Ruth, and consequently Ruth claimed to be busy the day of the Carters’ arrival, thinking it would be better if Janet met Claire by herself. Janet was pleased, though the nagging problem of her pregnancy troubled her even as she was waiting for Claire and Richard to come through customs.

  But then it was all right. Claire handed the baby to her husband as she spotted Janet, and they flew into each other’s arms as naturally as if they’d done it every day of their lives. When they pulled back, both of their faces were wet with tears.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ Claire said, holding Janet at arm’s length. ‘You’ve not changed much except you’re thinner,’ she said at last. ‘And your eyes look a bit puffy. Have you been ill?’

  ‘No,’ Janet said. ‘I’m fine, and I’ve never been fat, and I was so excited at meeting you again I didn’t sleep at all last night.’

  Janet thought Claire looked well, although she noticed with surprise that the brown hair was liberally streaked with silver strands, and Richard was completely grey at the sides. Claire’s face, though, was still unlined and her eyes as beautiful as ever. ‘Oh, Claire,’ she said, ‘it’s good to see you.’

  ‘How is it with you and Simon now?’ Claire said, for though Janet had told her they were incompatible, the letter Ruth had written begging her to get in touch had said Simon was a great person and he and Janet were very much in love. Claire sensed a mystery, but was also very fond of Janet. In the end, Janet had given in to the urgent enquiries she made in her letters and told her of the quarrel, and what it was about, and the letter she’d sent to explain that had somehow gone astray, and how they met again anyway and agreed to give their relationship another shot.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Janet said, eager not to spoil these first previous moments together. ‘Let me see the baby.’

  Claire lifted him from Richard’s arms and put him into Janet’s, and she was enchanted by the beauty and perfection of him. He looked nothing like his half-sister Chloe, she was pleased to see, and aware of her own child growing within her, she marvelled at the soft skin and downy fluff on his head. The tiny toes were bare and the fingers with their minute nails were curled into fists, while his body was relaxed in the total abandonment of sleep. His eyes were closed and his fair lashes lay like perfect crescents on his pink face.

  Claire was not surprised at Janet’s absorption, for in the first flush of motherhood she imagined that everyone would be as enraptured by her son as she was herself. To Janet’s relief, they talked of Anthony and of their time in Canada all the way home in the taxi. Janet left them alone then, back at their old Erdington home to get straight and sorted out, and promised to be round shortly.

  But before that she tried to make peace with her family, who’d been horrified when she eventually admitted she was seeing Simon again. ‘Have you no pride?’ Betty said in pained tones. ‘After what he did.’

  ‘What are you thinking about, my girl?’ Bert asked angrily. ‘The man let you down once, isn’t that enough for you?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Janet tried to explain, but it was no use.

  Even her grandmother shook her head. ‘Ah, Janet, don’t be going about with such a blackguard.’

  ‘He isn’t a blackguard, Gran, not really,’ Janet said. ‘The break-up was partly my fault.’

  ‘Not the way we heard it,’ Bert said grimly.

  ‘And twenty-three’s not old, pet,’ Betty put in.

  ‘Oh, be quiet,’ Janet snapped. ‘Is that what you think? God, I’m not stupid, and I’m not going out with Simon for that. It’s just, I’m just … Oh, leave me alone,’ she finished wearily.

  Only Breda knew of the extent of the quarrel and the letter Simon claimed never to have received. ‘How’s it going, pet?’ she asked, and to her consternation Janet’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Terrible, Aunt Breda,’ she cried. ‘We’re like strangers.’

  Simon decided he had to have it out with Janet. He couldn’t go on like this. He couldn’t even concentrate on his bloody job. After yet another awful date, he wondered if they should simply admit that it wasn’t going to work. It was only the thought of Kenny’s smug face if he did that kept him hanging on.

  However, he was always being hauled over the coals about something at work, because he was unable to concentrate. Stupid really, because he wasn’t even hung-over – or at least not so often – when he came in now. He wished Sandra was there to talk to – maybe she could have given him the benefit of her advice, over what he should do next – give the woman’s viewpoint, as it were – but she was still on holiday.

  Only that morning his boss had had an irate customer on the phone complaining that the estimate and samples that Simon had promised to send hadn’t arrived. The boss told Simon that if they didn’t go out pronto – that day – the customer would go elsewhere and Simon himself could be joining the dole queue.

  Sighing, Simon got the samples and estimate ready and then found he hadn’t an envelope big enough to take them. Swearing to himself, he sat back, wondering what to do. If he just sent the estimate, the customer would only ring to complain. He swung his chair round and his eyes came to rest on Sandra’s tidy empty desk. Maybe, thought Simon, she had an envelope she wouldn’t mind him borrowing.

  Sandra’s desk drawer was tidier than Simon’s. The large envelopes were at the back, and as he pulled them towards him, he dislodged another, smaller envelope squeezed between them. His eye was caught by the writing on the front of it even as he was pushing it back where it had come from: ‘Simon Webster, Private and Confidential’, he read. What the bloody hell was an envelope addressed to him doing in Sandra’s desk drawer? He drew the letter out, knowing even as he did so what it was.

  Somehow the letter affected Simon more than Janet’s words had. How it had come to be in Sandra’s drawer could be gone into later; what Simon really wanted to know was what had happened between Janet writing the letter, when she so obviously loved him, and now, when she no longer seemed to. He left the office without obtaining permission or offering an explanation, and drove to the flat.

  It was empty, but this time when he rang, Betty knew where Janet was. She told Simon in frosty tones that she was with Claire. She didn’t seem surprised that Simon didn’t know; in fact she sounded pleased, for the fact that Janet hadn’t told him where she was going suggested that he wasn’t import
ant in her life. Simon thought it looked that way too, but this time he decided he’d wait for Janet in the flat, however long it took.

  Janet had spent almost the whole week with Claire. They had a lot to catch up on anyway, and she was able to tell her about the whole terrible business with Simon and the totally unsatisfactory reconciliation. Claire listened without a word, recognising Janet’s deep unhappiness and feeling unable to help her.

  She tried instead to interest her in a project which had begun as a spin-off from the media interest in the care of the mentally handicapped. Public awareness had been raised and debate sparked in Parliament. This in turn had caused local authorities to examine their own provision, and the Elmwood Home had been chosen to be developed as a school along the same lines as the units in the north Birmingham area.

  Janet knew all about it, and she also knew that Richard had been asked to work on the project in an advisory capacity and later to stand in as headmaster, but she just couldn’t interest herself in the developments. Claire was surprised at her indifference, especially after the sterling work she’d done with Ruth on Chloe’s Story and the television interview with Mark Taplow.

  Claire, however, wasn’t to know of the secret Janet carried around with her, the one thing she’d been unable to share, that made other things slide into insignificance. She watched Janet’s bleak face one day and wondered what it was that could possibly make her appear so despairing. She remembered the terrible days after Chloe’s death when her own life hadn’t seemed worth clinging on to, and the marvellous care she’d received in the Canadian hospital, and it brought to mind something she’d almost forgotten about. Maybe, she thought, it would help Janet, for she was almost out of ideas to interest her. ‘I met someone in the hospital in Canada who knows you,’ she said.

  ‘Knows me?’

  ‘Well, knew you, I suppose you’d say,’ Claire explained. ‘She was one of the psychiatric nurses. Name of Gloria Marsden.’

  ‘Gloria Marsden?’ Janet repeated incredulously.

  ‘You do know her, then?’

  Janet remembered the girl pinched with cold and walking with the aid of sticks who’d waited for her to come home from the airport to confess that she loved her brother but was setting him free. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know her, not well, but we did live close at one time.’

  ‘I used to talk about the past,’ Claire said. ‘It was part of the therapy, you see, and when I mentioned a Janet Travers one day she asked to be remembered to you. She said to say she became interested in nursing as a profession after all her treatment – apparently she’d been in an accident and decided to find out more. Later she specialised in psychiatric nursing and emigrated to Canada.’

  Sudden tears filled Janet’s eyes, and they were for Gloria, the girl from a deprived home with neglectful and brutal parents who’d nevertheless gone on to make a fulfilling life for herself. ‘Something worthwhile,’ she’d told Janet, and by God she’d done it.

  Suddenly Janet was angry with herself. She’d had a good start and a marvellous family who wouldn’t cast her adrift on learning of her pregnancy, regardless of how Simon was to behave. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and start making some decisions over what to do with her life.

  She took her leave of Claire shortly afterwards, needing to be alone to sort things out, and was surprised and a little unnerved to find Simon already in the flat, apparently waiting for her return.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, and glanced at the clock. It was four o’clock. She wondered what he had to say that was so important it couldn’t wait until he’d finished work.

  ‘What … what do you want?’ she asked fearfully.

  ‘I needed to see you,’ Simon said. Janet was not to know his serious tone hid the nerves that had been jangling while he sat alone in the empty flat and rehearsed over and over what he’d say. Her legs began to tremble and the roof of her mouth was suddenly dry. She was terrified of what Simon was going to tell her, but when it came it shocked her totally for he went on, ‘I’ve found the letter you sent.’

  Janet gaped. ‘Where?’

  Simon had already decided to say nothing about Sandra, otherwise he and Janet could go off at a tangent discussing the whys and wherefores of her actions. It had to be gone into, but later. This business with Janet was, in the end, more important.

  ‘It got mislaid,’ Simon said. ‘The point is, I got it today and read it. What I felt as I read it caused me to leave work to come here to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Janet’s voice was just above a whisper. She was suddenly very afraid. She could barely remember what she’d put in the letter.

  ‘What’s it all about, Janet?’ Simon asked sternly.

  ‘What? What d’you mean?’

  ‘You know, you’re not stupid,’ he snapped. ‘When you wrote that you truly loved me, I felt it, even through the pages, but now …’ He shook his head. ‘What’s gone wrong, Janet? What’s changed?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Janet said. ‘At least, my feelings for you are the same.’

  She wished she had the courage to go closer to him, put her hand out, make some form of contact, anything but the way they stood, facing each other across the room.

  ‘Then what is it? Is it me?’

  ‘No … Oh, God, I don’t know,’ Janet cried. ‘How do you feel about me?’

  ‘Don’t you know after all this time?’

  ‘I think you love me, but you said you … you couldn’t altogether trust me.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s it, if it’s anything,’ Janet said.

  The silence stretched out between them and then Simon crossed the room, took Janet in his arms, gave a great sigh and said, ‘Shall we start again? I was still chewed up when I met you at the nightclub, not ready to believe you, or forgive you, or anything really.’

  ‘You had reason,’ Janet said.

  Simon was silent a minute and then said, ‘I’ll ask you this just once. How does Ben Hayman fit into your life now, this minute? What does he mean to you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Janet answered firmly.

  ‘You swear he means nothing?’

  ‘Yes, and on anything you care to name – the Bible, my life or my mother’s. Ben Hayman is history.’

  She felt the relief relax Simon’s tense body. ‘You have no idea how that makes me feel,’ he said.

  ‘I think I have,’ Janet said and turned her face up to him, and as they kissed she asked herself why she didn’t tell him then of her pregnancy. But she kept quiet, and that night as she lay in Simon’s arms, their lovemaking held tenderness and a sense of cautiousness as well as passion. Afterwards Janet slept deeply for the first time in a long while.

  Just over a week later would have been their wedding day. Janet, aware of the new relationship with Simon, was wary of saying or doing anything to spoil it. She knew the family had planned to take her out of herself that day. Lou and Shirley had things plotted between them, and Claire said she didn’t want Janet left alone, while Ruth had insisted she come to her. Janet declined all offers and to the fury of her parents went away for the weekend with Simon to a hotel in a pretty village called Fenwick, which lay to the north of Doncaster in Yorkshire.

  As they lay in bed together on Saturday evening, Simon said, ‘This could have been our wedding night, Janet.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does that upset you?’

  ‘A little, but it was all my fault,’ Janet said, ‘so I refuse to feel sorry for myself. It’s you I feel sorry for.’

  ‘Ssh, I have everything I want.’

  Janet turned to look at Simon in the dim glow given off by the streetlight just outside the window. The news she’d had confirmed by a doctor just before they’d left the city had been pressing on her all day. She knew that if she didn’t tell Simon now, she might never find the courage to do it.

  ‘Simon,’ she said, securely held in the crook of his arm.

  ‘Mm.’ Simon had known al
l day there was something on Janet’s mind, but he was pleasantly tired now from the long walk they’d been on, exploring the countryside around their little love nest. He longed for sleep and hoped she’d not spend half the night talking, but what came next drove the tiredness from his mind, because she suddenly said, ‘Simon, I’m pregnant,’ and burst into tears.

  Simon was hardly aware of Janet’s tears, and though he didn’t withdraw his arm, Janet felt his body move away, and her heart sank.

  Eventually she fell silent, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks, though they still glistened on her eyelashes. Simon lay quiet and still, and Janet was frightened of breaking the mood. At last he gave a sigh and said: ‘Is it mine?’

  She broke away from him slightly and hoisted herself up on one elbow.

  ‘Of course it’s yours,’ she said and her tear-filled eyes flashed in hurt anger. ‘I told you, I haven’t had sex with Ben Hayman since I was eighteen, nor have I come anywhere near it recently. Anyway, I’m over three months pregnant already. I went to a doctor the day before we came away. This child was conceived even before Ben came back on to the scene.’

  Janet saw the slow smile spread over Simon’s face as he said, almost in wonder, ‘A father! I’m going to be a father!’

  ‘And I’m going to be a mother,’ Janet commented grimly, and Simon stopped smiling and realised the enormity of it all.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ he said. ‘We could have gone ahead with the wedding plans.’

  ‘Of course we couldn’t,’ Janet said. ‘For a start, I wasn’t aware of it straight away. I first thought something might be wrong the Monday after I met you in the nightclub. We’d just decided to see each other but on a casual basis. After that, how could I say on one of the awful, tense dates we had, “Oh, and by the way I’m pregnant”?’

  Simon was again quiet, then he said, ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?’ Janet said. ‘But whichever way you look at it, I’m going to have a child. Whether you’ll be by my side or not depends on how you feel.’