The Pillow Friend

by Lisa Tuttle

  “Is Nancy a nickname for Agnes?” she asked, handing her guest a cup of tea.

  “I was christened Agnes Isobel Gates, but no one at any time has ever called me anything but Nancy—and my mother and her mother the same! You'd think that by the time I came along they'd have dropped the Agnes, which no one ever uses, and just christened me Nancy, wouldn't you? I can tell you, if I ever have a daughter, her name won't be Agnes or Nancy. Are you always called Agnes?”

  “The only person who ever called me Nancy was my husband. But—Nancy never really felt like me.” She drew a deep breath, coming to a decision. “Actually, we've separated, my husband and I. That's why I'm here. I mean, I had to go somewhere, and London's so expensive, and I didn't want to go back to America—or not yet, anyway.”

  Nancy nodded. “Well, I hope you'll feel it was the right decision. Of course, I think Argyll is the most wonderful place on God's earth, and it's been my choice to live here, but—aren't you going to miss your friends? You might feel cut off, and when a marriage has just ended, that can be a time when you need friends the most.”

  “All my friends are far away, they were far away already. There's really nowhere else I could go.” She looked up and out the window, to the sea and the sight of mountainous Jura on the horizon and felt again that lifting of the heart, that sense of being at home, and said with deep conviction, “And there's nowhere else I'd rather be.”

  She was happy in a way she had not expected, and had perhaps never been before; happy when she woke in the morning to the sight of the sea and the sky and the islands, or even to the clouds and rain. She went for long walks, regardless of the weather. She read in the devouring, eclectic fashion she'd had as a child, picking up whatever came to hand, whether it was a mystery, a Victorian novel, or a natural history guide, and reading until she felt like trying something different. She kept a journal, and for the first time in her life it was not about her feelings or her fears or her experiences with other people. Instead, she made notes about things she was reading and things she saw, listed plant names, kept track of the changing weather, described the scenery, again and again, struggling for accuracy. And she was writing poetry, for the first time since high school.

  Most of the time the solitude she had chosen suited her, but at the beginning of her second week, just as she was starting to feel lonely and wondering if she'd done the right thing, Nancy turned up.

  “I hope you don't mind unannounced visitors,” she said. “But as you don't have a telephone I didn't know how else to ask if you'd care for a lift into Lochgilphead for your shopping. ‘Getting the messages,' we call it here.”

  It became a regular thing after that, the visits from Nancy and the shopping trips. She enjoyed the other woman's company, although she felt guilty that Nancy was doing all the giving and she the taking. Nancy, she suspected, was someone who adopted waifs and strays, and she didn't like to think of herself as fitting into that category. But the truth was she needed help and friendship and could not afford a standoffish pride.

  Then one chilly, late autumn day as the early evening was drawing in and they were sitting together in front of the fire, Nancy said in a quiet, conversational tone, “You know, whatever you intend to do, and wherever you intend to go later, you're not doing yourself any favors by staying away from the local doctor now. Why don't I—”

  Agnes turned to look at her in astonishment. “I don't need to see a doctor.”

  “Why don't I come by and pick you up tomorrow morning and take you in to the surgery in Lochgilphead. The consultant from Glasgow will be—”

  “I don't need to see a doctor! What makes you think I do?”

  “Agnes, I'm a midwife. I'm not blind.”

  “And I'm not pregnant.”

  “You mean you wish you weren't.”

  “I mean I know I'm not.” She stood up and moved away from the fire. “I'm not some silly little—”

  “Not so little, no.”

  Agnes looked down at her belly. She smoothed the wool of her sweater as gently as if it covered a precious child. “I know what it looks like. I know what it feels like. For sixteen weeks I was sure I was pregnant, even though my husband said it was impossible. And then I went for an ultrasound scan and—there's no baby in there. There's nothing. The doctor said so.”

  “I can't believe that.”

  “Neither could I.” She laughed a little, sounding surprised. “Neither can I. They told me I wasn't pregnant, they showed me the screen with nothing on it, nothing inside my womb, and I thought: right, that's the end of that—but it wasn't. I put the money Gray'd given me for an abortion into an account, and I came up here to decide what to do with my life now that my marriage was over and I wasn't really pregnant, and I kept on feeling pregnant and I kept on getting bigger. I don't know how it will end.”

  “It will end with a birth,” said Nancy. “You must see a doctor. Who were these people who told you you weren't—”

  “They were doctors and technicians at Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow. They weren't cranks, Nancy, they weren't fakes. I can give you names and a phone number. They offered counseling. They wanted me to see a shrink. Well, I didn't want to do that. I didn't see the point. I thought a hysterical pregnancy must be like a balloon, one prick from reality and it'd deflate. I guess I was wrong. I guess there's still a part of me that believes there's going to be a baby.”

  “Why did your husband want you to have an abortion?”

  “Because it's not his. This baby doesn't have a father. It's just mine.”

  She never knew if Nancy checked up on her story. She made a point of giving her the name of the consultant and the GP in Harrow, but never asked her afterward if she'd used them. It wasn't necessary. The midwife clearly had accepted Agnes' truth: she was pregnant, but not with a material child.

  Agnes had to accept the contradictory, impossible truth, because it was hers. That Nancy did so was an act of genuine friendship. She was grateful, in more need of a friend now than perhaps at any other time in her life. She didn't know what would happen when the expected delivery date of January 30th arrived, but she was glad she wouldn't have to go through it alone.

  She had never spent so much time alone; she had never felt less lonely. A certain satisfaction had entered her soul from the moment she realized she was pregnant, and it had never, despite what had happened since, entirely dissipated. But no matter how happy she was walking through the woods, gazing out to sea, sitting beside her fire with a book or lying in bed imagining her baby, there were times she wanted companionship. Sometimes she walked into the village and chatted with Mrs. MacPhee and whoever else came into the shop, gradually making the acquaintance of people who lived in the area. And every few days Nancy called by on her way home from work, and once a week took her to get the messages in Lochgilphead.

  For Christmas, she went with Nancy to her parents' home in Ayrshire. She was uneasy about the prospect of spending the holidays among strangers, but the Gateses made her feel welcome immediately. They had a large, comfortable house, and there were lots of visitors coming and going. She was away more than a week, from Christmas Eve right through New Year's Day, and although she was exhausted by the end from the unaccustomed strain of associating with so many different people, she did not regret it.

  She was even more pleased she had gone away with Nancy when she got home and discovered that someone else had been in the bothy while she was away.

  They had been very neat, and the evidence they had left of their presence was not enough to tell her who they had been. Gray and Alice? His older brother and his family? His younger brother with friends? She wondered if the visitors, whoever they had been, had been able to translate the signs she'd left, and for the first time since she had left Harrow worried about her husband. What was he doing? Was he thinking of her? Was he still with Alice? Did he want to get in touch? Until now, he would have had no way of doing so. But if he'd spent Christmas in the bothy, if he'd noticed, and recognized, the
clothes and other personal possessions she'd left behind, he would know.

  For the next week she worried and watched for the postman, but no letter came for her. No one knew she was here; her secret was still safe.

  She knew she would have to get in touch with Graham eventually. Things would have to be settled between them, formally ended; there would have to be a divorce. But not until her pregnancy was over. She felt she was under a spell, wrapped in some charm—for good or evil was impossible to say—until the 30th of January.

  Nancy, who made daily visits now, warned against fixing all her expectations on that one day. “Babies get born early and late. And two weeks before or two weeks after the expected delivery date isn't even considered early or late. You might still be pregnant come Valentine's Day.”

  “Oh, I don't think so,” said Agnes serenely. “This is no ordinary baby, after all. Nobody got me pregnant. I wished it. It won't give me any trouble.”

  “Oh no? Your wishes have never given you any trouble before?”

  The other woman's words, and voice, implied a knowledge which frightened her. She'd never told anyone about the pillow friend. “What do you mean?”

  Nancy cocked her head, puzzled at the tremor in her voice. “You must know that saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.'”

  “Oh. That. Oh.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Nancy, and came to sit beside Agnes on the couch and put an arm around her. “I shouldn't have said anything. I didn't mean to worry you—there's nothing to worry about! But all the same, I wish you'd get a telephone.”

  “I can't. It's not my house. Graham would—well, he'd hate it.”

  “Then move in with me, just for these last few weeks. Or with someone. Get a room in the Argyll Arms. I bet I could get the landlord to do you a deal, January is such a dead time. Or I could ask one of my friends who does bed and breakfast. . . .”

  “I want to stay here. I want to have the baby here. Or I would if there was a baby. But there's not, so there's nothing to worry about.”

  Nancy took her arm away and studied her face. “There's you, big as a cow, saying there's no baby.”

  “Do you think there is? You've examined me. You couldn't hear a heartbeat, or anything.”

  “I don't know what to think. But I don't like taking chances, and leaving a pregnant woman on her own, without a phone or a car or even a next-door neighbor goes against everything I know.” She sighed heavily. “How about this. You stay here in your own cozy nest—but I move in with you, just until we see what's what.”

  She didn't want anyone else living with her, but there was a certain steely glint in Nancy's eye which made her give in. If Nancy was here, to help her with the birth, she wouldn't have to go into hospital. That was what she dreaded most. Although she had read in her pregnancy book that women in this country had the right to choose where to give birth, she suspected that if a midwife and a doctor believed she was willfully endangering the life of her unborn child she might find herself under restraint. She had gained twenty-three pounds and her breasts were huge. She looked and felt pregnant; no one would believe she was not. They'd have to get her into a hospital to scan her belly and learn the truth, and then, well, might not a hysterical pregnancy be considered a sign of insanity? What if the doctors decided among themselves to keep her locked up and under observation. Frightened by this imagined scenario, she meekly agreed.

  “Thank you. That's very kind of you. I know it won't be as comfortable for you as your own home. . . .”

  “It'll be more comfortable for you,” said Nancy, relaxed into graciousness. “That's the important thing.”

  Contractions began on the evening of the 23rd of January, as they were listening to “Kaleidoscope” on the wireless. She'd been feeling a sensation which Nancy had told her were Braxton Hicks contractions—tightening sensations getting her womb ready for the real thing—for several weeks, and now they were stronger and more frequent. After about an hour she realized they were much stronger, and heaved herself off the couch in some excitement to look for her watch.

  “What's up?”

  “Contractions,” she said importantly. “It's started!”

  Nancy didn't move. “How frequent?”

  “That's why I'm looking for my watch—where is the thing?”

  “You usually leave it next the sink.”

  Now that she was paying attention, getting ready to count, she felt nothing. She slumped down on the couch and chewed her lip impatiently. She waved her hand in the direction of the radio. “Oh, turn that thing off, would you? It's too distracting.”

  “You'll be wanting some distraction soon.”

  “Well, I can't stand that man's voice, and I'm not interested in modern art anyway, especially on the radio. There's one!”

  Nancy glanced at her wristwatch, then gazed at the ceiling. Agnes kept her own gaze fixed on the watch in her hand. Time crept past with agonizing slowness until at last she felt another. “There! Eight minutes!”

  “And another.”

  This one came seven minutes later, which she thought a promising sign, but the one after that took almost nine.

  “We've got a long wait,” said Nancy. “It won't be tonight. This might even be a false start—contractions can start and stop and start again for days before you're really in labor.”

  “I'm in labor now!”

  The midwife shook her head. “They'll have to get a lot stronger—”

  “How do you know how strong they are?”

  “—and a lot closer together. Until they're less than three minutes apart there's no point in even thinking about it. You need something to take your mind off it. Want to come over to my house, watch a video?”

  But she wasn't going to risk going anywhere now. She was staying where she was. So they played Scrabble, and then cards. Nancy taught her how to play poker. All the while the contractions continued, but although they remained regular and got stronger, they were no closer together than they had been when they started by the time Nancy began to yawn and said she was going to bed.

  “But what about me?”

  Nancy looked as if she was trying to keep from laughing. “You go to bed, too. You'll need all the rest you can get, because once you're really laboring you won't be able to sleep.”

  “I can't sleep now!”

  “Try. Remember those relaxation exercises I taught you? This is a good time for them. Lie down in bed, in the dark, and just relax as much as you can. It'll be a long time until morning if you don't.”

  It was a long time until morning. She spent a dutiful seven hours in bed, in the dark, trying to sleep and failing. The contractions weren't painful, but they were too strong to ignore; rippling, internal sensations which reminded her, every few minutes, that she had embarked irrevocably on a process which she could neither stop nor control, and which would end in nothing she could predict. It was like being strapped onto a powerful horse taking her to an unknown destination. But it was excitement she felt, not fear; excitement which kept her from sleeping and resisted the relaxation exercises. It was too late now to worry about what sort of monster she might be carrying. She felt it was herself that was about to be born.

  When day brightened the windows she got up and went downstairs to make tea and toast. Nancy joined her a few minutes later, grumbling, “I don't know what I'm doing up so early; nothing's going to happen for hours, maybe for days, yet. This has all the marks of a very long labor.”

  “And nothing to show at the end of it,” said Agnes. But she hugged her huge, hard belly, not believing her own cynical words. There would be something, although she didn't know what.

  As it was a dry day, they went for a walk after breakfast, but the weather was so cold that they cut it short and hurried back inside to build up the fire. To pass the time they played cards, told each other jokes and stories, and listened to music. “I should have brought the video,” Nancy said.

  By late evening the contractions were only tw
o minutes apart, and so strong that she could concentrate on nothing else. All earlier distractions failed. She could only try to rest in between.

  “Am I nearly there? When do I start to push?”

  “Let me take a look at you. Lie down.”

  “Can you see anything? Can you see the baby?”

  “My dear, you're barely dilated.”

  “How long . . . ?”

  “Hours yet. Tomorrow, maybe late tomorrow.”

  She began to cry. “I can't. Not that long. I can't bear it.”

  “My dear, you have to. There's no other way. Unless you want me to phone for an ambulance.”

  “No! I'm staying here.”

  Her breathing exercises did nothing for the pain, but they did give her something to focus on, something else besides the pain. When the contraction ended the pain vanished utterly, but she couldn't use the time, the minute or so in between the pain, for anything. She felt exhausted, desperate, with no resources to call on. Her mind wandered back to childhood, and she remembered the dream. It was the dream which had started it all, the dream which had implanted the desire in her which had led finally to this labor, this struggle which she began to believe would never end.

  Yet for just a moment, remembering the dream, she seemed to reenter it, and was lifted above the pain as she felt again that miraculous, thrilling closeness, the happiness that the doll baby had inspired.

  Other memories from childhood came flooding in, and she lost track of time and place, speaking to figures from her past as if they were still with her. It occurred to her that this birth she was struggling through was in fact her own—she was being reborn, and had to live through her own life again before she could move on to something new. Then she forgot that, and thought that Nancy was Leslie. Later, she was sure Roxanne was in the room. Then she realized it wasn't Roxanne. Someone else, another woman, was in the house with them.