Tamar waved at Harriet. Harriet waved back. Tamar didn’t do half-hugs—she hugged tight, and she’d left traces of her jasmine perfume on Harriet’s jumper. Harriet walked to Gabriel’s room in a sumptuous haze of scent, and as she walked she thought it would be best if she and Gabriel reached their limit before Tamar was able to confirm that anything had changed.
* * *
—
GABRIEL . . .
Harriet was in Gabriel’s bed writing about Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, and Gabriel was at his desk going over notes from a lecture. From time to time he murmured fussy titbits of vocabulary and surnames involved in landmark cases, and his back was to her; they were better at keeping their hands off each other when there was no eye contact.
Gabriel.
Mmmmm?
She asked if he thought doing well at his degree would matter to Ari and Tamar.
Tamar yes, Ari no.
She asked if he thought failing his degree would matter to them.
Tamar no, but she’d be surprised. Ari . . . huh, actually, Ari might be both surprised and interested.
She asked if he was thinking about failing in order to surprise and interest Ari. (If so, then Harriet was off the hook: She didn’t deserve Tamar’s wrath for holding on to an ill-loved son in this way; she was just a necessary step in Gabriel’s plan to produce paternal surprise and interest.)
He came to her and said yes, or no, he came to her and she didn’t care what he said.
12
Dear Perdita, dear dolls, it’s almost morning. You’ve already been told that Harriet and Gabriel were thin in those days, and now you must hear it again: even after Harriet and Margot left the Minimum FrankenWage zone, Harriet and Gabriel were thin. They were too nervous to eat properly, too precariously happy (If I stay close, can’t I just stay close to him/her?), too worried that they’d be made to stop what they were doing. You know that they were both thin and that Harriet’s thinness meant she couldn’t track her periods with any regularity. And you know that she and Gabriel were . . . you know that Gabriel Kercheval was spending more time inside Harriet Lee than he was anywhere else. As they lay in bed watching TV one morning, he ran his hand over the curve of her stomach and frowned. She moved away without quite knowing why, but he brought his hand back to the very same spot and pressed down, hard. She slapped his hand.
Get off.
They were watching The Jerry Springer Show, and usually they talked over it . . . OK, not talked . . . usually they fucked their way through all the shrill mudslinging and the shock testimony of the secret mistress, philandering father, dowdy-looking housewife who was also a pimp who defended her girls and boys with such violence that customers took care not to even so much as raise as their voices to them. That day Harriet and Gabriel just watched the show. And when the credits rolled, Gabriel handed Harriet her clothes and got dressed himself. They bought a pregnancy test at Boots, and some food. From now on we’re eating more.
She wondered about his saying “we,” especially after the test said she was pregnant.
Dunno how accurate this thing is . . .
They waited two days, and Harriet took another pregnancy test—a different brand. That test said she was pregnant too. He didn’t even bother saying “we were so careful”—she was a fecund farm girl, and he was a stud and they hadn’t been careful. It was simple; Harriet didn’t want to go to the Kerchevals’ family doctor, so she booked an appointment at a clinic in Bradford. Harriet didn’t want a kid. She was seventeen, and she wanted to go to Oxford and study and not have to look after a kid. Keeping an eye on her mother was preoccupation enough—Harriet felt she’d been doing that since she was born. And it wasn’t just that Harriet didn’t want a kid; she didn’t want to have one with Gabriel Kercheval. Gabriel Kercheval didn’t want a kid either. His not wanting a kid was initially quite understated, but when Harriet missed her appointment, he made her sit down at his computer and book another one. She missed that appointment too, and the next. They didn’t stop having sex—they couldn’t somehow, but they left scratches and bite marks on each other that were deeper than before, and the bruises reminded Harriet of the pinching session at the Gingerbread House, the semiautomated spite of it.
Harriet. Harriet, I can’t have a kid. I can’t, OK?
OK. I don’t want to either. She had a few reasons for saying so, but the primary one was that he was holding her by the throat at the time—a pleasurable sensation for the moment, but one that could become rapidly less so if she said something he didn’t like.
Don’t say it like that. It’s not about wanting to; it’s that I can’t. We can’t. It’s not the right time. I—we’ve got to . . .
That’s true, that’s true. We’ve both got a lot of things to do first. You’re right, it’s not about wanting to, you can’t, we can’t.
He kept saying he didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t have a kid.
When he said that, Gretel spoke up. Not at the back of Harriet’s mind, more speaking directly in her ear: Change alert. Hurting you has occurred to him as an option.
You may have noticed the absence of informational boundaries between Harriet and Margot, but it was at around this time that one went up. Harriet tried to tell Margot that she was worried about certain actions Gabriel might take in order to see to it that he didn’t end up with a kid, but Margot didn’t believe her.
An uncommon occurrence, so Perdita and the dolls have to wonder in what manner Harriet’s concern was conveyed and whether Harriet really wanted Margot to believe her. The line of thought could have gone something like this: If Margot doesn’t believe it then it can’t be true. Even though Margot saw no dark potential in Gabriel (Shall I tell you who’s a complete wrong ’un? That girl you went around with for a bit at the farmstead . . . Gretel . . . ), that didn’t keep her from making a fuss of her daughter and the possible Third Musketeer she carried, getting in supplements and keeping a “Days Since Last Bout of Morning Sickness” count going. Margot also took an average of the number of times Harriet had told her she wanted the kid as compared to the number of times Harriet had told her she wanted to just keep being a kid.
(I do still count as one, don’t I? Sort of? Upper end of kidhood?)
It was exactly fifty-fifty.
I don’t want to rush you, Margot said. But: tick tock.
Can I ask you something, Margot Lee?
Go for it.
Would you say you’re a good mother? Hand over heart, would you say that?
Would I say I’m a good mother . . . but why would I need to be one of those when I’ve got a daughter like you?
Mum. If you get any worse than this I might not be able to take it anymore . . .
Oh, poor Harriet. So persecuted. But you shouldn’t glare at your mother like that . . . you should be good to your mother while she’s still alive to be good to. Listen . . . just listen a second . . . when I was younger, my dad was always shouting that things wouldn’t go well for me. Just make sure you have a child of your own! Have a child just like you, and you’ll know how I feel. He loved dishing out curses like that. And obviously that curse was a flop, because you—well, I think it’s one of the hardest things in the world to somehow make sure that the ones you love receive your care for them as physical information, as definite as—raindrops hitting your palm. Like when you hold out your hand to check if it’s raining and it is. But with you, it’s that definite every time I hold out my hand to check. So just . . . maybe it won’t be this child, but at some point, if you do want to give it a go, you should . . . have one just like you and you’ll know how lucky I feel.
Harriet’s stomach felt full of what she could only describe as glitterfizz; it seemed the baby had decided to have some fun and convert its amniotic fluid into prosecco.
Perdita and the dolls are shaking their heads, and Prim speaks up: “Are you saying this t
o make Perdita feel like a filial slacker? Perdita’s a loving daughter too, OK?”
But Perdita raises her hand and draws a line across the air, separating her opinion from Prim’s. She’s either sticking up for Harriet or saying she could do without this talk of loving daughters. Then, as if realizing she hasn’t made her position clear enough, Perdita Lee leans on her mother’s shoulder, gives her three brisk nods of encouragement, and even suffers her forehead to be kissed. To Perdita, and only to Perdita—the dolls can stay out of this—Harriet says: “Yes, I loved it when my ‘take you for granted until the very end’ mother suddenly seemed to have had a true heart for me all along and told me I should have a child just like me. But that really is a curse no matter who you say it to, so I’m thankful it flopped again. Do you think that could be our family legend . . . that curses just bounce off us? But what I really want to say is—why should you be loving anyway? Yes, you’re a daughter—that’s just how things have worked out. But it’s like I was saying about me and my own mum—because of Margot, I’m a daughter too, and if you love or even like the person who put you in such a situation, then that loving or liking is happening inexplicably.”
Perdita shrugs . . . you pour your heart out to Perdita Lee and she shrugs. The girl drops back onto the mattress so she’s fully horizontal and tucks handfuls of her hair behind her head so her neck is well supported. She closes her eyes, opens them again, taps Harriet’s knee with her foot.
“So I go on,” Harriet says, looking around at the dolls, who immediately begin talking among themselves and making it clear that if some listeners are going to keep being left out like this, there doesn’t have to be a joint bedtime story at all, that there can be one for the dolls and one just for Perdita and her mother, no problem.
“But, dolls! Dolls and Perdita! Are you really going to be like this? What about the scare Gabriel gave me . . . ”
The dolls took a vote. Three to one in favor of hearing about the scare, which was given around the beginning of the fourth month of Harriet’s pregnancy. She no longer went up to see Gabriel at university, but they talked on the phone—argued, really. He had end-of-year exams to take, and what was she trying to do to him, and so on. She booked two appointments at that same clinic in Bradford, the site of all her other no-shows—she used her middle name and his surname this time, so Araminta Kercheval, and she sent him a notification for the first of the two appointments necessary for a medical abortion and hoped the arguments would stop for a while. Her appointment was at a date and time that meant Gabriel couldn’t go with her. She told him she’d go with her mum (Your mum knows???) and he should just take his exam and there was nothing to worry about.
And the scare went like this:
Gabriel called her just after she’d got home from school that afternoon—if she’d gone to the appointment, it would have been about an hour after she’d taken the first round of medication and begun the procedure. How did it go? Are you OK? “How did it go” seemed a bit of a casual way to ask what he was asking, and she told him so.
She looked at the clock and thought, But his exam won’t be over for another half hour, and just as she was thinking that Gabriel said, I’m asking how the other thing went . . . the thing you skipped the appointment for. And he asked if he could come and see her. Gabriel. Are you telling me you missed the first exam of your Law Mods to make sure I was at the appointment? He continued to ask if he could come and see her, and she asked where he was.
Still at the clinic, Gabriel said. Can I come and see you? Don’t you think we should talk?
Yeah, we should, and I do want to. But you sound a bit . . . I don’t know. Let’s talk tomorrow?
No, today. It’ll be OK, Harriet. We’re good in person, remember? Where are you? At home?
No, she said. I’m at the shop. Got to go—bye.
After they hung up she went out of the flat, took the lift down to the ground-floor entrance to the building, and looked out of a window that faced the street. Gabriel was there, and when he saw Harriet, he came up to the security door and pounded on the glass until another tenant stuck her head out of her front door and asked, in very reluctant tones, whether Harriet wanted her to call the police. It didn’t look like the kind of lovers’ tiff that ended with the couple kissing and making up—the man’s face exhibited no emotion whatsoever . . . he had none left. Or he was no Romeo, but a debt collector.
Thanks but there’s no need, Harriet said. She couldn’t wait for the lift to come, so she ran up the stairs, and when she got back inside the flat, she bolted and chained the door. As per prior arrangement, Margot wouldn’t believe this, so Harriet sent Rémy a very long text message.
* * *
—
RÉMY ARRIVED ON A MOTORCYCLE. He’d bulked up a lot since she’d last seen him out on the window ledge at Kercheval House, so when Harriet looked through the peephole, she saw a rugged young man in a leather jacket carrying a bouquet of sweet peas. Under any other circumstances she’d have been tickled to receive such a tribute, but when she let him in, she asked him what the flowers were for.
Oh, is this a bad time to woo you? He laughed at her expression. Harriet, a man can never get tired of winding you up. They’re not “for” anything—I just wanted to give you some flowers.
Oh. Thank you. How are you?
I’m well, thanks. Learning the ropes at work. Oh, I’ve got a pet tortoise, and I’m learning a lot from her.
What are you learning?
How to eat lettuce as if it’s caviar. Tell me about your text message . . . what’s all this about wanting me to ask Gabriel where your body is if you go missing?
For once she was reassured by his concentration in reading her lips and hearing all that she said and didn’t say. She confessed that it seemed to her that almost all of this had arisen from her not knowing how she felt. Willful ignorance, in fact. He touched her face—that light touch that almost toppled her—and he uttered a single, regretful Hmph. Then he became business-like. OK, we’re taking this out of his hands. The longer it’s a secret, the more difficult it will be for that cousin of mine to get a grip. By the way, after this you’re never to ask me for anything again.
That’s fair, Harriet said.
I mean really, never, ever.
Yes, I understand.
Of course any de-escalation plan devised by Rémy “fuck this family” Kercheval involved preliminary escalation. It involved calling a family meeting, during which everybody’s face was a masterwork of unsuccessfully concealed emotion except for Ari’s. Ari couldn’t have been more surprised and interested and looked like he was on his first trip to Disneyland. Rémy leaned on her for a moment, his head on her shoulder; she raised her hand and didn’t let it fall; it was less than a moment, really, but he laid his cheek against the cloth of her ragged antiques-shop robe before he took her hand and spoke to them all. Harriet’s pregnant, and we didn’t want to hide that from you anymore. Mum, Dad, Margot, Uncle Ari, Aunt Tamar, I know we’ve already had so much help from you, but we’re going to need even more . . .
Nobody knew how to begin asking what they wanted to ask—what, when, how . . . Tamar’s eyes were on Gabriel, though, and the shallow breaths he drew, as if the air had turned foul. Then he spoke as if he, Rémy, and Harriet were the only three in the room:
You sure it’s yours, Rémy? Really sure?
Margot said, Oi, and Ari told Gabriel to pipe low. Ambrose and Kenzilea exchanged glances, trying to see each other as grandparents and not disliking the view. Tamar took four different pills from four different pillboxes, washed them down with some green juice but didn’t seem much calmer afterward.
Harriet was aware of Rémy’s personal mission to wind up the whole wide world, so her heart didn’t skip a single beat when he told his family that he’d felt love at first sight. He walked Harriet and Margot down to the driveway, and Tamar Kercheval followed them. She he
ld the taxi door before Rémy could close it, and she bent down to look into Harriet’s eyes. As for Tamar’s own eyes—they bulged. A swollen vein fluttered across her temple, and her words came out in fits and starts—what she was saying was far less disquieting than the overall impression she gave of being about to spew intestinal tissue: So what now—what is this—can’t wait a little longer for a passport so you’re having a passport baby? Or is it that you think you’ll get more from us if you join the family? Thought—we were taking you in—but we—were the ones—completely taken in by—you—little tramp—after all we’ve given you—how—how dare you try to get more!
Rémy began to reply, Margot began to reply (with nuclear asperity), but Harriet had her own answer. She said, I’m sorry you were tricked, Tamar. You probably feel poorer now. Not money-wise—I know you didn’t mind about that. It’s because you believed in something that turned out not to be real. That’s what happened, but I wasn’t the one who tricked you. Trickery occurs all the time, all the time . . . people exchange fake money for things of genuine value, people spend their life savings on lies. Let each person involved in those exchanges consider their losses and gains, the benefits and drawbacks of trusting others and gaining the trust of others, but as for you, Tamar, don’t you dare say it’s trust that’s made you poorer today . . . first of all, what was the source of that trust? Wasn’t it the value you placed on my obedience? Isn’t that what you thought you’d bought . . . affectionate obedience? Somebody who wouldn’t feel any more or any less than you wanted her to feel, someone who’d love but not dare to—whatever it turns out I’ve dared to do. But really you shouldn’t be surprised this happened; this is what you get for placing people in your debt in such a way that they can never repay it!
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