‘I don’t know. How would we live?’
He tried to keep his voice steady and practical. ‘You could put Sara in a nursery and go on with your dancing classes. Or your mother might look after her.’
‘She needs a father,’ said George.
He couldn’t say any more. All anyone wanted to use him for was a father. He vowed that as long as he lived he would take good care never to sire another child for bloodthirsty women to devour. Meredith had had the right idea when she had Sara adopted – there were people who loved children and people who didn’t and he and she belonged to the latter category. There was no such thing as a natural instinct. He thought he wouldn’t mind being dead. He wouldn’t commit suicide or anything, but if it just so happened that he was killed he wouldn’t mind. Not that he didn’t like being alive, but there were pros and cons for both states. Anyway, he didn’t have to wait to see Big Ben again to know that his way was clear. He was finished with duty and responsibility, he’d just go quietly off that evening.
It seemed silly to be stuck in the middle of the river with her after deciding that. He got up and walked round the boat to the other end and stood leaning against the rail. When they got to Greenwich, he’d give her a return ticket and the address of the nursery where he’d left Sara, and then he’d go back to the flat by tube or bus and collect his things.
He walked round to her end again as the boat drew up alongside the quay, and followed her off.
‘Your return ticket,’ he said, holding it out.
‘Why, aren’t you going back with me?’ she said.
‘There doesn’t seem much point, does there?’ he said. ‘I mean, you’ve proved your case.’
‘Right,’ she said, ‘thanks. Will I see you back at the flat?’
‘Probably,’ he said.
He turned and went off, and out through the landing stage gates, and then right along the river walk. When he came to a seat, he sat down, and watched the boat he’d just come on loading up to go back. George had got straight back on it, and sat in the same seat. She looked the picture of misery and all the old pity, which was once the only emotion he’d felt for her, came back. She was such a stupid, silly bitch. Once she’d been Meredith’s catspaw, making herself ill with jealousy and the conviction that she was ugly and useless and doomed to a dreary life, and now she was Sara’s. It was as though she had a talent for martyrdom. All her troubles this time were entirely of her own making. He got worked up thinking about it, and wanted to stretch his arms out over the path and docks that separated them and shake her hard.
He jumped on to the boat just as it was moving off. The captain spent five minutes telling him what a bloody fool he was, and he agreed unreservedly.
‘Hello,’ he said to George, ‘you’re very like a girl I used to know. In fact, I once took her for a sail on this boat, only it was the other way – Westminster to Greenwich.’
‘Why did you get back on?’ George said.
‘She was quite an attractive girl really,’ Jos said, ‘except that she would go around looking suicidal all the time and towards the end of me knowing her she never bothered to comb her hair or anything. She was very sweet and kind and loving too, do anything for anybody, but she had one big fault.’
‘You should have stayed in Greenwich,’ George said.
‘She kept imagining that she had to do things when really she didn’t have to do them at all,’ said Jos. ‘She made herself unhappy when she had everything she could possibly want. She worried herself sick about nothing and forgot that life was quite simple. The basic trouble was an over-active conscience and an inability to take life as it came.’
George got up and moved. He followed her. ‘That was a good idea,’ he said, ‘there’s a much better view from this side.’
‘Go away,’ she said, ‘or I’ll cry.’
‘Really?’ Jos said. ‘I’ve never seen you cry. How very peculiar. You mean salt tears will actually run down your cheeks? Now the cause of crying is an excess of something to somewhere, I’ve forgotten the technicalities. My God, yes, how extraordinary,’ he said, putting up a finger, and wiping one tear gently down her cheek, ‘tears. Have you thought about patenting them? Shall I cry? I’m trying, but it’s very difficult. I don’t think I’ve cried since I fell off the seat of my bike on to the crossbar when I was eight. Can’t you teach me? I mean, it must be so very useful being able to cry.’ George stopped crying and closed her eyes. ‘You’ve stopped,’ he said, ‘was it wearing you out too much? What have you got your eyes closed for? Is the pain too great to bear? Heh, fat face, I’m talking to you.’ She moved away again, and he followed. ‘That’s dangerous,’ he said, ‘you don’t want to be waltzing round ships with your eyes closed. Oh, I see, you’re maintaining a dignified silence. There’s nothing like a bit of dignity for putting a chap in his place. It’s really making me shrivel up inside, I can tell you. I’m going all hot and cold with the unbearable humiliation.’
George opened her eyes and looked round for a ladies, but it was a small boat and there wasn’t one.
‘Do you want to go to the lavatory?’ Jos said. ‘Forgive me for being crude, but I know how it is. I’ve always had a weak bladder. I think it was something to do with my early training. Do you know that my mother used to lift all three of us out of bed twice during the night and make us use the pot even if we didn’t want to? It was so that we wouldn’t wet the sheets. Even now my recurrent nightmare when I’m in a strange house is that I can’t find the lavatory. Shall I go and ask the guide if he has his own private one that you could use? I’ll do that – won’t be a minute.’
‘Jos – don’t dare,’ said George.
‘You’ve spoken. I’ll have to sit down, the relief has made my knees go all funny. I was afraid the suppression of emotion coupled with the suppression of urine would paralyse your vocal chords.’
‘I’m not really laughing,’ George said. The corners of her mouth twitched and her cheeks ached.
‘I’m sure you’re not,’ said Jos. ‘You can trust me. Even in the face of violent contortions and strange noises produced from the throat I won’t think you’re laughing. Other people might, but I won’t. I’m not easily fooled. I can see through what other people think is a laugh just like that.’ He tried to click his fingers. ‘That was meant to be my fingers clicking, only I used my tongue because I can’t click my fingers. I’m a ventriloquist actually, I’ve been taking people in for years. I don’t know why I can’t click them, I’m like Peter Pan, he couldn’t click his you know. It can be very embarrassing.’ She was laughing. He bent forward and kissed her and put his arm round her. ‘For God’s sake make me shut up,’ he said. ‘I’m shattered.’
George smiled at him uncertainly, and put her hand lightly over his mouth.
‘I don’t know what makes me behave so stupidly,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.’
Jos firmly knocked aside her hand. ‘I can stand anything,’ he said, ‘except abject apologies. We’ll both just shut up.’
They sat close together through what remained of the sail. Jos didn’t quite know what he had achieved, if anything, nor where they went from this truce, but he wasn’t going to ask. He’d done too much asking, it only encouraged a whole lot of self-analysis that didn’t do anyone any good. If they enjoyed fifteen minutes on the river and went home together, that was something to be grateful for.
The wind was blowing into their faces. Jos closed his eyes, and held his face up and back to feel the cold gust. It ought to iron out his worries, like a facial. He tried to concentrate on just feeling and not thinking, but it didn’t quite work. His head ached and his eyes felt tight and strained. He shivered.
At half past ten that night, Jos ceremoniously finished packing the large holdall that held all his belongings with ease. There was an old travel tag on it saying ‘Aer Lingus’, commemorating the one and only time he’d been out of the country. It gave him the idea that he might go to Ireland. He put on his raincoat, lifted the bag
up and walked into the sitting room where George was absorbed in feeding Sara. She didn’t look up. He pulled out the pay packet which was still in his jacket pocket, and drawing out five pounds, put the other ten on the table.
‘I won’t come back,’ he said, ‘but in case you ever want me, you can get me Poste Restante at the post office in Holborn. I’ll call there once a week and if I ever get a permanent address I’ll let you have it. I’ll send you some money every week so don’t worry too much. Keep Sara’s nose clean and don’t take her dear father’s name in vain.’ He picked up the bag. There was no risk this time of a repeat performance of the afternoon. ‘Good-bye, George.’ He opened the door as Peg lifted her hand to knock on it.
‘I was just going to knock,’ she said, ‘isn’t that funny.’
‘I’m splitting my sides,’ Jos said. ‘Excuse me, I was just leaving.’
‘Is George in?’ said Peg.
‘Naturally,’ Jos said. ‘Where else would she be at the witching hour? She’s all yours, my dear Peg. There you are,’ he gestured through the open door, ‘a most touching scene, mother with child. And now, if you’ll stand aside madam.’
‘Are you going out?’ said Peg, obeying.
‘With your usual brilliance,’ said Jos, ‘you’ve penetrated my feeble attempt to disguise my movements. I am going out, never more to darken this door. George will make your ears tingle telling you all about it.’
‘You’re not going on holiday are you?’ said Peg, looking at the bag.
‘Yes,’ said Jos, feeling his patience coming to an end.
‘At this time of the year?’ said Peg. ‘The clocks will be going back soon.’
‘I’m going with them,’ said Jos, wearily.
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘No.’ He stepped past her and went down the stairs, dosing the outside door quietly behind him.
There were a lot of small things to be done. First, he went to Euston Station and left his bag in the left luggage. Then he rang up a friend he hadn’t contacted since he’d married Meredith and asked if he could put him up for a few nights. The friend said no. He went to the nearest Y.M.C.A. and booked in there. By this time it was after eleven, so he went back to the station and had a cup of coffee and a wash and brush-up while he debated whether to spend his five pounds on a ticket somewhere. He decided that would be a waste of five pounds. He’d try to get a job with a band the next day, and if he couldn’t, then he would go home to Derby, and recuperate for a few months. He knew, as he made his mind up, that with that alternative as an incentive, he’d land something the next day. He’d live from hand to mouth until he found a team to shack up with, and he’d be as lonely and miserable as hell in the process. He felt cheerful and cocky for the first time in weeks.
‘Has he left you?’ said Peg, solemnly.
‘Yes,’ said George.
‘Why?’
‘He was fed up.’
‘Huh,’ grunted Peg, ‘he’d reason to be fed up, I don’t think. What did he have to be fed up about?’
‘Quite a lot,’ said George.
‘You were too soft with him,’ said Peg. ‘You let him take advantage of you. He took advantage of Meredith and then of you. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.’
George sat still, tilting the bottle up so that it trickled more easily into Sara’s mouth.
‘Did you quarrel?’ said Peg, greedily.
‘Not exactly,’ said George.
‘I thought I saw you going out this lunch time. You didn’t see me. I was coming out of the library and you passed me. It was about half past one.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said George.
‘You didn’t have Sara with you,’ said Peg, ‘you didn’t leave her on her own did you?’
‘No,’ said George.
‘Where was she then?’
George sighed. It would be much easier and quicker to satisfy Peg’s horrible curiosity in one rush, but she had neither the energy to do that nor to tell her to mind her own business and throw her out.
‘At the nursery down the road,’ she said.
‘You put her in a nursery?’ said Peg, scandalized.
‘Jos did.’
‘Why?’
‘He wanted to take me out for the afternoon.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Greenwich. On the river.’
‘Was it nice?’ said Peg. ‘Did you enjoy it? I don’t know how you could, knowing Sara was in a nursery.’
‘Yes, I did,’ said George. ‘We had a good time.’
‘What’s he left you for then?’ said Peg.
‘He was fed up,’ said George.
‘After a nice afternoon out?’ said Peg. George remained stoically silent. ‘How did he come to be off work anyway?’ said Peg. ‘It’s Wednesday.’
‘He left this morning,’ said George.
‘You mean he was sacked?’
‘No, he left. He was fed up.’
‘Well,’ said Peg, ‘that beats the band. What right had he to be fed up with the bank? I’d like to know what the bank thought of him.’
Sara was fed. George held her on her shoulder until she brought her wind up and then went to lay her in the cot. Peg went on sitting there till she came back.
‘What will you do?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ said George. ‘Work.’
‘Will you keep Sarah?’
‘Of course.’
‘She’s not yours,’ said Peg.
‘No, I know. But her parents won’t ever want her.’
‘I don’t see why you should keep her,’ said Peg.
‘Don’t you?’ said George, distantly. She wished Peg would go. ‘I’m going to bed now,’ she said.
‘Do you want me to stay with you?’ said Peg, eagerly. ‘I could bring my nightie up in a jiffy.’
‘No thank you,’ said George. ‘Good night.’
She turned and went into the bedroom, leaving the aggrieved Peg to see herself out.
Chapter Eight
GEORGE WOKE UP when it was still dark. Automatically, she groped for the cot and bent over it, but the baby was sleeping and making no sound. She got back into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck, staring round the room at the objects which took shape as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. The bed felt vast. She stretched out her arms on either side into cold nothingness, and drew them quickly in again to the warmth of her body. She wondered when Sara would be big enough to sleep with her.
Turning on her side, she put her left arm behind her back and curved the other round her head, and pulled her right knee as high as she could. She’d seen a diagram describing that position in the book of ante-natal exercises she’d bought for Meredith. The caption said it was the most relaxed position there was and that if you lay like that and breathed slowly and deeply, sleep would quickly follow. George breathed in and out, the out part sounding like a very sad sigh, and consciously let the tension out of her body. It was a long time since she’d had a sleepless night. She thought back, and could only remember the endless nights before Sara was born when she had lain awake rigid and squirming with longing for Jos. She couldn’t re-create the sensation. That part of her was satisfied, or dead. She smiled as she remembered her fears that she was a sex maniac. Some maniac. She hadn’t an atom of lust left after a bare three months, and somehow she couldn’t imagine ever feeling that way again, because she couldn’t love anyone as she had loved Jos.
I loved Jos. I love Jos. She gave up the relaxed position that only made her body ache, and turned flat on her back. She didn’t know if either was true. She’d wanted him, now she didn’t care. It wasn’t that she did not want him, anyway. She was just apathetic. She felt sorry for him, especially when she thought of how lonely he would be. He was supposed to devote himself to enjoying life, yet she didn’t think she’d ever seen him doing that for longer than a day.
It was a good thing they had never married, even for Sara’s sake. They really
weren’t suited. Only in contrast to Meredith had she seemed the ideal girl for him, and he, in contrast to no one, had glittered. Their compatibility hadn’t stretched further than liking the same food. She had admired him for qualities he’d never possessed, and she would only have made them both miserable by trying to create them in him.
She thought how he had been against them taking Sara, something so right and natural and inevitable. He’d said she would always be between them, that she’d wreck their marriage almost before it had begun. He’d been right, but not because Sara was his daughter and not hers, but because she’d become part of her flesh and blood and not his. He had no feelings for the baby. No pride, no excitement in her, no devotion to the mere fact of her existence. She didn’t think he’d foreseen how Sara would become an extension of her, how she would adore and think and live and breathe this baby daughter of his. He’d thought she would look after her through a sense of duty, that she would come between them in the sense that she was a burden.
There was no point in lying on so wide awake. She put the light on, closing her eyes against the sudden orange brilliance. Beside the bed, she had a matinée jacket she was knitting for Sara. She took it up, examining the lumpy stretch of material anxiously. No one had taught her how to knit. The actual knitting and purling were easy, but casting on and off and increasing were giving her a lot of trouble. Still, Sara wouldn’t notice the mistakes and she liked doing it. It made her feel she was trying.
She thought she must look something like the grandmother in Red Riding Hood as she sat up in bed with one of Sara’s shawls round her shoulders and her big glasses slipping to the end of her nose because of the angle she was sitting at. Anyone would laugh if they came in, not that anyone was going to. She began humming a lullaby until she became too aware of why she was doing it. The slight noise didn’t drive anything out of her head, it only made her feel ridiculous and pathetic.
Really, she hadn’t guessed how she would react to Sara either, even though she had thought so much about her. She had never imagined love for a baby, especially a baby that wasn’t yours, could be so strong and emotional. When she’d held her for the first time, there was a physical sensation not unlike one of desire. The same weak feeling in her stomach, the same breathless anticipation. She hadn’t noticed how absorbed she had become in Sara and everything to do with her until she was her willing slave, bound hand and foot.
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