He savoured the coffee and fatherhood. Somehow he automatically thought of a girl being like Meredith and that spoiled the enjoyment. He’d always thought of the baby as simply a child, his child, that he was responsible for and must protect. He hadn’t realized it might make a difference whether it was a boy or a girl.
‘What shall we do today?’ he said.
‘I have three classes,’ George said. ‘Aren’t you going to work?’
‘No. Neither are you. We’ll have at least one day celebrating.’
‘What?’ said George. ‘The birth of your baby?’
‘Don’t be mad.’
‘That’s the only thing I can think of that there is to celebrate,’ said George, untying her apron. ‘Unless it’s your birthday or you’ve got a rise or something madly exciting like that.’
She reached behind the door for her leather coat and girded it tightly round her.
‘Have a good time anyway,’ she said, brightly. ‘I’m off.’
‘You’re being – sensible,’ said Jos.
‘Yes,’ said George, ‘perhaps you wouldn’t be in such a mess if you’d tried it.’
‘Three cheers for you,’ said Jos. ‘You’d better go then.’
George hesitated. ‘It’s the only possible thing to do – I mean, for me to move out for a while. I’ll stay with Peg until Meredith’s out of hospital and you’ve found somewhere to go. Or I’ll move if you like. It will be easier for me to find somewhere.’
‘You do what you bloody well like,’ said Jos, ‘but don’t think it will make me stay with Meredith.’
‘But what about the baby? You cared so much about it,’ said George.
‘I don’t any more.’
‘What will Meredith do?’ said George.
‘Let her worry about that. And you needn’t bother staying with Peg – I’ll move out this morning.’
‘Don’t do that,’ said George, quickly. ‘It’s perfectly easy for me to stay with Peg and you haven’t really anywhere to go.’
‘You make me cry,’ said Jos. ‘I’m not Meredith. I don’t want to live in your lousy flat. Now go on, get out. Have a nice life.’
‘I would never have thought you could sound like that,’ said George, fighting against the inevitable tears.
‘You started it,’ said Jos.
‘That sounds like a child,’ said George. ‘You make it all into a game of tit-for-tat. You don’t seem to understand that I’m trying to do what’s best for us. What good can it possibly do if we start living together?’
‘Who wants to do good?’ said Jos.
‘All right, you just want to enjoy yourself,’ said George, bitterly. ‘Maybe you were better matched with Meredith than I thought.’
‘Compliments will get you nowhere,’ said Jos.
‘Can’t you be serious?’ said George, desperately.
‘Is that what you want?’ said Jos. ‘Shall I pace the floor saying my God what-are-we-going-to-do over and over again? Don’t be so dreary.’
‘I simply want you to think to the end,’ said George, now openly crying.
Jos sighed and went to comfort her. She tried to shake him off, but he held her firmly and kissed her hair and ears and wondered why he’d so deliberately given her the impression that he lived for the moment. Anyone knowing the facts would think so too. Genuine mistakes arising from the best possible motives just didn’t enter people’s calculations. He saw he would have to plan aloud before George would relax.
‘Speaking off the top of my head, old girl,’ he said after a bit, as pompously as possible, ‘I’d say the line of attack was as follows: wait till Meredith’s better, sue her for divorce, see that the child is cared for, and get married. But we can’t do anything until she is better so we may as well make the best of it and act as though she didn’t exist.’
‘You can’t do that,’ said George, dully.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘That’s the point – you really don’t.’
‘Look – what good does it do blighting my life because of one mess? Would Meredith and I be happy? You know quite well how we live. Dedicating a mockery of a marriage to a child would harm it more than help it.’
‘You should have thought of that before you married her,’ said George.
‘Christ, I know I should. I did, and I made the mistake of still thinking it might work. You can’t keep coming back to that. It was only a ceremony anyway.’
The doorbell rang.
‘Maybe it’s the milkman,’ said George, dabbing at her eyes. ‘We owe him two weeks.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Jos, thoroughly glad of the interruption. It was what they needed. He flung the door open with a flourish of welcome.
‘Have you had word?’ said Peg, lugubriously. ‘I thought I’d ask before I went to work.’ She peered anxiously past Jos for George.
‘My dear Margaret,’ said Jos. Peg frowned and raised her eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Peg is short for Peggy which by some ridiculous linguistic quirk is short for Margaret, is it not?’ said Jos. ‘Anyway, come in. We have indeed had word and were just celebrating. Come and join us.’
He ushered Peg in and leapt for the half bottle of whisky he knew George had. Seeing Peg bear down on George, who was furtively splashing water on her face, he said quickly, ‘George has been having a good old sentimental weep. She always saves her best tears for weddings, funerals and births.’
He poured three enormous glasses of whisky out and thrust one into Peg’s hands.
‘I don’t drink,’ said Peg, giggling so as not to give offence. ‘I’ve got to go to work anyway.’
‘Then I won’t tell you about the word,’ said Jos.
‘I don’t care,’ said Peg, defiantly, but she had to know. ‘How much of this do I have to have to know if it’s a boy or a girl?’ she asked.
‘All of it,’ said Jos. ‘At one gulp.’ He demonstrated and found when he’d righted himself that Peg had followed suit. He sprang forward as she heaved and spluttered and went staggering towards a chair. Her massive frame shuddered and the white of her eyes were turned up in appeal above her red, bulbous cheeks. Frightened, Jos patted her arm tentatively.
‘It was hot,’ said Peg, faintly.
‘I bet it was,’ said George admiringly, sipping her own drink. ‘You shouldn’t have told her to do that Jos. She’ll be ill.’
‘What was it anyhow?’ murmured Peg.
‘A girl,’ said Jos.
‘Oh. What you going to call it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jos.
‘Cherry’s a nice name,’ said Peg. ‘I always wanted to be called Cherry. Or Candy. I was going to have a boy called Ralph and a girl called Cherry then twins called Valerie and Patricia.’ She gave a vast yawn and Jos glimpsed her wisdom teeth far back in the wide pink cavern. ‘I’ve come all over sleepy,’ she said. She settled more comfortably into the protesting armchair, and her mouth fell gently open as she dozed off. The first snore sent George’s whisky dancing in its glass.
The thought of having Peg lying there all day didn’t appeal to Jos. He went down to lift her brogued feet on to a chair and dimly realized, as his head swam, that he too was suffering from the unwise gesture of drinking all that lovely whisky at one gulp. He smiled, and sinking to the floor leant his head gently against Peg’s large, dimpled knees. His cheek moved softly against the rough silk of her stocking and he felt a sudden desire to miaow like a cat. In front of his smoked spectacles, he saw a fine and rare ankle, and stretched out his hand to hold it. His arm would only reach tantalizingly short of the thigh at the top. Struggling, he heaved himself on to his feet and peered at George. She was smiling.
‘Oh George,’ he said, ‘you’re drunk.’
George held out her arms and they embraced like two pregnant women who couldn’t get any nearer because of their bellies. Jos closed his eyes hard, and opened them quickly which was a trick that gave him perfectly clear vision when he was drunk, for about two seconds.
Greedily, but with great sense of urgency, he located the bottle and swiped it before the mist swirled up around him. He pressed it to George’s lips feeling some trickle over his hand as her mouth rejected the overlarge dose he was putting into it.
‘I’m wicked,’ he said. He moved backwards to where he thought the bedroom was, but tripped over Peg’s huge, hard toe. He heard George laughing and rolled over on the carpet, squirming, trying to see her. She was on the bed. He did his eye trick again and crawled like a lustful cat across the floor space between them.
They lay on the unmade bed side by side. George thought no one could say she was so drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing. She did. She was going to make love and she wanted to. She remembered perfectly clearly about Meredith and the baby and how she’d felt about Jos half an hour ago, and she was consciously saying it didn’t matter. She felt Jos undoing her leather coat and he was too slow. She tore off all her clothes and clasped him eagerly to her. Everything seemed on another plane, sight and hearing giving way to the intensity of her feeling. It was all just as she had imagined in the dreams where she felt she was having it – impatient, unbearably enjoyable, and then the sharp, exhilarating climax. She cried with the sheer joy of it, and as Jos pulled the covers over them she was longing for the second time.
Peg had never had a drink in her life. Her mother had signed the Rechabite pledge for her when she was six months old and she’d never looked back. It wasn’t that she thought drink wicked, or even nasty, it was just that she knew she wouldn’t like it. The same with yoghourt. She’d never had or even smelled the horrible stuff but she knew instinctively that it was not for her.
No one had tried to point out to her that there is drink and drink, and that some she might actually enjoy. Peg hadn’t been to any teenage debauched parties, nor even to a wedding. Her lips were unsullied by even the drinks made specially for women who didn’t really like drink either but didn’t want to be thought teetotal. She didn’t know, therefore, what effect it would have on her, so that when she opened her eyes and saw the bottle and her glass and remembered, her first feeling was one of amazement. That was what drink did to you. Many a night she hadn’t been able to get to sleep and now she knew that if only she’d had a drink instead of Ovaltine there would have been no problem.
Peg had heard, of course, of hangovers. They were something, she had gathered, to be quite proud of, even though they were painful in themselves. She knew this because the girls at work sometimes said, to one another ‘Had a good night?’ and the answer would be ‘You bet. Gotta terrible hangover.’ George suffered from them occasionally and always seemed to Peg to be boasting when she groaned and clasped her head and announced that she had one. So Peg stood up carefully and tested each leg as though it had just come out of plaster before she stood on it. Next, she shook her head like a very wet dog, and rolled her eyes round and round. Gamely, she stepped out, swinging her arms and then came regretfully to the conclusion that she did not have a hangover. She just felt stiff and cramped from being all bunched up in that chair.
She looked around for a clock. She wasn’t really worried because she’d never had a morning off in her life so the firm owed her one. There didn’t seem to be a clock anywhere, neither in the sitting room nor in the kitchen. She pondered. There was no one there to ask if she might ring TIM and she didn’t like to take the liberty. She felt she had to know the time before she went downstairs. She pivoted in the middle of the room and then thought George would be bound to have an alarm clock beside her bed. The door of the bedroom was slightly ajar. If she pushed it a little she could take a big enough peek to see the clock.
Peg peeked. George was naked from the waist up and her hair was all over the place. She had a blanket up to her waist. Jos had his pyjama jacket on that he’d been wearing when he opened the door, but his trousers were in a heap on the floor and if that wasn’t sufficient she could see one bare leg sticking out. He had one arm curved round George’s head, and the other was bent, the hand cupping George’s left breast. They were both flushed and in a deep sleep.
She didn’t withdraw her gaze in a hurry, partly because she’d always wanted to see George naked and had never quite managed it. If she tip-toed in she could do what Jos was doing. Undecided, she went on looking. She could say she’d only been looking for a clock if they woke up. But she would be embarrassed if Jos saw and thought anything, so she pulled her head back through the door and turned away.
Back in her own flat, Peg saw that it was only ten o’clock. She could get to work, by the tea break and say she’d slept in, which was true in a sort of way. Yet she didn’t want to go to work, not with all that going on upstairs. She frowned heavily, and sat for a moment on her bed, with her hands on her knees. She’d seen which way the wind was blowing with all George’s talk about Jos, but she hadn’t thought it would end like that. George wasn’t that sort of girl, though she’d always known Meredith was. George was like her, she was plain and didn’t like men. It was all very queer. Peg got up and went out, pulling the door behind her. She stood in the hall, wondering what she could do. Something ought to be done. There was Meredith lying in hospital with the baby and those two lying upstairs like that. She thought of phoning George’s mother, then she thought of phoning the hospital, but she couldn’t think what to say. Other people might not feel the way she did, she’d just make a fool of herself and George would be furious and never speak to her again. Unhappily, Peg let herself out into the street and trudged solidly to the corner of the square. Here she paused, and looked back at the house, towards George’s window. Naturally, there was nothing to see. It was just an ordinary window. Slowly, Peg faced the right direction again and plodded on.
In hospital Meredith came slowly round from her semi-drugged state. She made out the white blur of the cover and the black iron bars of the bedstead at the bottom. Her belly felt sore and bruised and the flesh around it hung in slack folds like a sail from which the wind has suddenly been taken away. For a long time she wondered if she had the strength to raise an arm or a leg, and when she eventually did the effort exhausted her. Without wanting to, she found herself crying, the tears running unheeded down her cheeks because she couldn’t manage to wipe them away or turn her face into the pillow. Someone said ‘You’ll feel better soon, dear’ and she stiffened. Warily, she half turned her head and saw a large, rosy-cheeked woman leaning confidentially towards her, from the next bed. It was a warning given just in time. She closed her eyes and concentrated on giving the impression that she was asleep.
A nurse woke her at teatime and she dreaded the friendly barrage her neighbours would set up. She really couldn’t be bothered to think of some pointed rejoinder and it was so wearing to go on pretending she hadn’t heard. The nurse was quite willing not to talk. She washed her, plumped up her pillows, delivered the tea, and took it away without comment when Meredith had spent half an hour just looking at it with loathing. A little later murmurs went up all round the ward and everyone craned eagerly forward, like a lot of dogs obediently slavering at the sound of the foodbell. Meredith turned listlessly and saw them bringing the babies in. The canvas cot at her side was filled with a red topped white bundle.
Oh God, she thought, this is where I have to feel maternal and loving. I’ll have it adopted, immediately. She could hardly bring herself to look down at the thing which had given her such hell, and which she’d only seen as a messy, bloody ball held up at the end. With despair she leaned over and looked at it, then as quickly looked away. She was supposed to bathe and feed and clean it for years and years. She couldn’t do it. They would have to take it away. She lay back fighting the nausea that seemed never to have gone, realizing that she’d made a dreadful mistake. It was impossible to work out why she’d done it. It hadn’t paid off at all.
By the time the fathers’ visiting hour had arrived, Meredith had passed what she was already terming her own crisis. Really, she’d behaved rather like George with all her tears and emotional
upheaval. As she smoothed the coverlet with her hands and watched for Jos, she was thinking dispassionately this time about adoption. Jos might object, it didn’t really matter. It was her child. She’d had it and he couldn’t force her to keep it.
Jos didn’t arrive until half-way through the allotted time. He had almost missed coming at all, because they hadn’t woken up until five and in any case he’d felt no desire or even sense of duty about going to see Meredith. But George had insisted. She’d come as far as the hospital gate, making him buy flowers and chocolates on the way and telling him over and over again what Meredith had been through, what she must be feeling like and how kind and considerate he must be, at least for the time being.
But when he saw her she didn’t look any different. He’d almost built up a vision of a dewy-eyed, tearful Meredith after George’s graphic description. No such thing. She was very pale, certainly, and heavy eyed but her expression was one he knew well.
‘Hi,’ he said, and dumped the presents on the bed.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ said Meredith – she hated to think how eagerly she’d been waiting for him.
‘Sorry. I slept in. Had a late night last night,’ said Jos, smiling weakly. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Lousy.’
They sat in silence. Idly, Jos picked the petals off a rose, one by one. The baby let out a high, squeaky sound.
‘Aren’t you going to look at it?’ said Meredith. ‘This is your marvellous child that you couldn’t bear being destroyed.’
Jos bent over and looked.
‘It’s hideous,’ said Meredith. ‘I hate it.’
‘All new babies look like that,’ said Jos. ‘You wait till it’s a bit older.’
‘No,’ said Meredith. ‘I want to have it adopted.’
Jos suddenly had a terrible headache. ‘Got any aspirins or dope or anything?’ he asked.
Georgy Girl Page 9
