by Weldon, Fay
Miss Leonard would sit stroking her swollen stomach. Now she had decided to keep the baby she had grown to love it. She had high hopes for its future: of the world into which it would be born. Hitler was in retreat: the seeds of a new Jerusalem sewn thick in the churned-up soil of old England, waiting for the sun of freedom to shine, and the rain of equality to fall.
‘I wonder whose it is,’ she would say. ‘The father’s, the son’s, or the American’s? I hope it was the American. He was so tall, and clean, and free. He didn’t care. I would like to have a baby who didn’t care. Someone to take its pleasure and move on.’
Miss Leonard went into labour on the day that Praxis sat her first Higher School Certificate examination. English language. Praxis had worried about leaving Miss Leonard alone that morning, but had gone all the same. Her future loomed larger than Miss Leonard’s present.
Miss Leonard died waiting for the ambulance to arrive: a London-aimed buzz-bomb – shot down over the Channel, but not quite in time – came down not in the sea as had been hoped, but just inland. By the kind of miracle, half-good, half-bad, which seemed to attend bombing raids, and made for memorable headlines and tales of valour and hair’s-breadth escape, Miss Leonard was killed, her torso crushed, but the baby was saved. The umbilical cord was literally bitten through by a woman passer-by, who later collapsed from shock, but not before snatching the child from the mother, seconds before bed, room, dead Miss Leonard, canary, kettle and all toppled into a crater, just as the ambulance arrived. The row of battened doors, falling, made a kind of coffin lid, or so it seemed to Praxis, coming home from school.
‘I told you,’ said Hilda. ‘Anti-Christ. A female anti-Christ. Anti-Christs are female. Pattie, you take trouble with you wherever you go.’
Pattie could see that it might well be so. She sat the rest of her examinations, but in retrospect could remember nothing about them. She did well, however, and was accepted by Reading University. She stared and stared at the letter of acceptance, but it did not seem to mean what it should. She could feel on her face that expression of angry distaste which so characterised her sister Hilda.
Mrs Allbright took in the baby, christened Mary, and for a time, Pattie. The first Mrs Allbright, she felt, would have done no less.
She quickly fell pregnant.
Virtue, she was glad to observe, was thus, naturally, rewarded.
11
How much is fiction and how much is true? There can be no objective truth about our memories, so perhaps it is idle to even attempt the distinction. We are the sum of our pasts, it is true: we are altogether composed of memories: but a memory is a chancy thing, experience experienced, filtered coarse or fine according to the mood of the day, the pattern of the times, the company we happen to be keeping: the way we shrink from certain events or open our arms to embrace them.
Was my mother in a strait-jacket, a real tangible, canvas strait-jacket, or is this merely how I envisage her? Do I pinion her in fact as she was pinioned in her mind, prevented by circumstance and her own nature from stretching her soul and encompassing Hypatia and myself in the warmth of unconditional love? Did Hypatia really stand Audrey Denver on her head to shake the rat-thoughts out of her brain? Of course not. But she stood me on mine, metaphorically, often enough, until I doubted the truth of my own perceptions.
It is all over now: it lives only in my mind. Dead and gone, as is the reality of my mother, and Hypatia, and as I fear if things go on like this, shall be my own reality. My whole foot is swollen now: if I look closely I can see a puncture on the shiny red skin near the outer edge of the nail of my big toe. This, I imagine, is where the infection entered. I should ask for help. People do help, I tell myself. Miss Leonard helped – and see where it landed her.
Mind you, it is pleasanter to help the young than the old. The young need crutches for a time, and then throw them away, going boldly forward of their own volition. Give the old crutches, and they use them for ever, complaining of their poor quality the while.
But that is not the real reason for my hesitation: why I continue to sit here, in pain and frightened, instead of crawling out of the door and into the street, and demanding help, charity and release from passers-by.
No.
It seems to me that the wall between my own reality and theirs is so high, so formidable, as to preclude any waving or smiling over the top: let alone the touching of hands or the healing of minds: certainly not the actual calling of an ambulance. Other peoples’ realities are non-existent: they vanish to the touch; like my own past, they are the sorry projection of a drifting imagination. My mind may leap ahead to practical action, envisaging this course or that: my body, knowing better, simply stays where it is, and waits for the end. It prefers death. It really does.
I am alone in the reality I have created for myself. In my mind I invented old age, illness, grief, and now I am stuck with them, and serve me right.
12
‘Wherever you go,’ Hilda whispered to Praxis, pressing a small black square into her hand, ‘you have to take yourself with you.’
The square, unfolded, proved to be a black chiffon scarf, frayed to grey along the folds, which Lucy had worn in the old days, the good days. A small group had gathered at Brighton Station to say goodbye to Praxis, as she set off for Reading University, a course in political science, of all things, and the world. Praxis’ senses were finely tuned to the first disparate chords of the dance of Hilda’s madness, and knew from the whisper, and the gift, that she was being ill-wished.
You may think you are leaving, but you are wrong. You will never be free. Childhood is never over. Thank you, Hilda, bad fairy, for this gift.
One by one the others stepped forward, good fairy godmothers, to undo the harm.
‘Have a lovely time,’ said Mrs Allbright, ‘I’m sure you deserve it.’ Her waist was already thickening: her eyes were bright with satisfaction. Her elder step-daughter was back at boarding school, her husband back to normal, and life was serene. Mr Allbright, she was sure, would find a renewal of youth, in this their own new baby, and that was all that was required. Baby Mary Leonard lay in a pram at the other end of the platform and cried. ‘Shouldn’t you pick her up?’ Praxis enquired, anxiously. ‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Allbright. ‘Babies must learn discipline. It’s the root of all morality.’ Mrs Allbright was sorry to lose Praxis in one way, since she was useful about the house, but glad in another – for Praxis would keep picking up Baby Mary, and staring into her wide, serious eyes, as if searching there for God, or the Devil, or at any rate some trace of momentous events, and spoiling her.
‘Don’t get in with the wrong crowd,’ said Mr Allbright. ‘Join the Students’ Christian Movement: you’ll meet some nice young men there.’ His hair was white with lime and plaster-dust, and his nails horny and cracked. He had come straight to the station from the building site where he and his parishioners were rebuilding the church with their own hands. ‘I’m going to study,’ said Praxis, but clearly no one believed her. She only barely believed it herself.
‘Be careful of the ex-servicemen,’ said Elaine. ‘Or rather don’t be careful. Who wants little boys?’ Elaine was off to secretarial college. While she waited for term to begin she helped in her father’s shop. She had parked his bread van in the station yard, in order to say goodbye. Her parents would not let her go to University; they feared for her virtue, rightly.
‘Don’t worry about your mum,’ said Judith. ‘I’ll go and visit.’ Judith had two of her nameless, swarthy children by her side. She was in mourning for her husband, and it was as if, with his death, her resentment against the Duveen family had evaporated.
‘You’ll write if anything happens? If she seems unhappy?’ begged Praxis, as the train left.
‘Nothing you can do about it if she is,’ called Judith after her. ‘You have to live your own life, not hers.’
It seemed a supreme benison, leaving Hilda black, shrivelled and meaningless in the retreating station. Praxis had he
r head out of the window, waving, and placed the chiffon scarf on her head to calm her hair: but the wind whipped it away and it vanished into someone’s vegetable allotment.
It seemed a good omen; a further confounding of Hilda’s ill-wishes.
Hilda had been staying at the Allbrights’, too. They were kindness and generosity itself, everyone said so. But Praxis felt uneasy. She took care not to be alone with Mr Allbright: he spoke sensibly but looked strangely. Mr Allbright’s elder daughter, a big bouncy bosomy girl, would sit in her father’s lap after supper and nibble his ear while Mrs Allbright played the pianola with too many stops out, and she and Hilda washed up. It had been hard work: Baby Mary to be cared for, and her nappies and clothes to be washed, for now Mrs Allbright was pregnant she seemed to have little strength or desire to do it herself: and, moreover, seemed to believe that even a small baby could tell the difference between right and wrong, unselfish and selfish behaviour, and should be punished accordingly.
Hilda had become obsessive about the stars. Praxis would wake in the night to find her sister staring sadly out of the window at the night sky. Perhaps she missed the searchlights, and the drama war is never over,’ said Hilda. She had a gift for making such statements: meaningful in general of battle. Now the war was over the sky was boring. She said as much.
‘The, but in detail meaningless. It was a gift which was to stand her in good stead in later life.
‘Miss Leonard is that star over there,’ said Hilda, pointing. ‘The reddish, twinkling one. She must be suffering terribly.’
‘That’s Betelgeuse,’ protested Praxis. ‘It’s a red dwarf.’ Praxis read books on popular astronomy.
‘A dwarf? I sometimes believe you’re mad,’ said Hilda. ‘Stars are souls burning in hell: that’s why they flicker.’
Baby Mary slept in the room with them. When she woke and cried, Hilda would wake first and get to the crib while Praxis still struggled with sleep. She would take the baby to the window, rock her in her arms, and point out the stars. Hitler, Mussolini, her own father, Miss Leonard: the strange black patches in the milky way were spaces waiting for new arrivals. The baby would find her thumb, and suck, and stare, and stare and suck, and finally consent to be put down, and sleep again.
Praxis knew that presently she would have to rescue Baby Mary, and did not doubt but that she could do it.
At college Praxis lived in a Ladies’ Residence some half a mile from the campus. She shared a room with a large, strong, red-haired girl. The hair was wiry, mangey and curly, not the deep smooth and sultry kind: and her complexion patchy and freckled. She seemed unaware of these misfortunes: she fell on her knees at night and thanked God for her blessings. She wore a strong white nightgown; scrubbed her face and hands at night with carbolic soap, and her smell was high but not unpleasant. She was friendly and noisy, was studying German, played a good game of hockey, ate heartily, and regarded college as a continuation of school life. Her name was Colleen; ‘Just call me Collie.’
Praxis half-despised, half-envied her her ordinariness; taking for the person what was only the crackly shell, grown in self-defence in a world in which to be fragile and pretty was to be valued, and to be cheerful and practical the best a girl could do, if not blessed by nature. The first time Praxis heard Colleen cry in the night, she was astonished. Later, she became accustomed to it. It was years before she was to consider it.
Praxis, mind you, studying herself in the mirror (as she frequently did) saw little to indicate that she herself had been particularly blessed by nature. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, all regularly placed. Brown, short, curly hair, complexion rather pinker than she would have liked, but at least clear. A white, solid neck. Praxis feared that there was no distinction about her face at all; on the other hand perhaps she was merely over-used to what she was in the mirror. As for her body, other people’s clothes seemed to fit it well enough, so presumably it was in no way bizarre. By virtue of clothes rationing and shortage of money – Praxis lived on a local authority scholarship grant of £120 a year, paying £105 of that to the Ladies’ Residence – she wore mostly second-hand clothes.
The pride of her wardrobe was Miss Leonard’s leopard skin coat, blown into the street when the bomb fell. Praxis had also salvaged a string of bold metal beads which Miss Leonard so often wore, taken from her dead body by rescue workers and placed in a canvas bag with other bits and pieces for the family to go through at their leisure. Waste not: want not: it was the motto of the war: and Praxis was sure, besides, that Miss Leonard would not mind. She had taken two of Lucy’s dresses and three of Lucy’s skirts, one black wool, one brown rayon, one green silk, which she had found at the back of a wardrobe at home, and which more or less fitted, although still smelling strongly of mothballs. Hilda had given her two spotted blue and white blouses which were too large for her: and she had a great quantity of the first Mrs Allbright’s underwear – stout white cambric knickers and brassieres, woollen vests, and beige lisle stockings, which the second Mrs Allbright had given her. Washing and drying the latter took a long time. On her feet, Praxis wore the black court shoes which Judith had bought to go to her husband’s funeral; but bought too small, her judgment clouded by her distress. They fitted Praxis very well.
Praxis did feel that there was perhaps something odd about her appearance: a feeling made more pronounced by the existence in the next room of a girl called Irma Henry, who would wander idly down the corridors towards the bathroom – while others scurried, if immodestly dressed – naked beneath a clinging wrap made out of parachute silk: the shape of her breasts, and even her nipples, clearly visible. She had no parents, but a guardian, and some distant cousins in Sussex: she had been to Roedean, a girls’ public school, and spoke the language of the privileged. She painted her nails scarlet, studied French, and made long-distance telephone calls from the booth outside the dining-room, while the other girls waited about for the toad-in-the-hole to be served. When it arrived, she would push aside the soggy batter – the best part – and disdainfully eat a morsel or so of the sausage. She was pretty, in a hollow-eyed, bad-tempered kind of way. No one liked her: everyone admired her. For some reason she made a friend of Praxis, shaking her head in wonderment over the white cambric knickers.
Irma dressed and undressed in front of Praxis, who was relieved to find that other girls too had a triangle of hair where their legs started. Praxis’ body seemed as much of a mystery to her as ever. She bled once a month, regularly, but barely knew why, and had ceased to wonder. She neither felt nor investigated the area between her legs, and certainly never took up a mirror to look, imagining that an area so soft, private and forbidden was better left alone. Irma seemed to have no such inhibitions.
Irma was accustomed to going to the weekly students’ dance, and asked Praxis to go with her. Colleen advised against it.
‘The ex-servicemen will be there,’ said Colleen.
‘They’re like animals,’ said Colleen, ‘they’re men, not boys any more, and they’ve seen and done terrible things. They go to the dances and just lie in wait for nice girls.’
‘They can’t do any harm,’ said Praxis. ‘What harm could one come to?’
‘But they’ve been abroad,’ said Colleen, ‘and their passions have been inflamed by hot climates and spicy foods. Don’t you understand, Praxis? Men like that can’t control themselves. They’re like animals. If you dance with them you’re just asking for trouble.’
‘If you’re interested in boys,’ said Colleen, ‘they have nice socials at the Students’ Christian Movement, with free coffee and cakes.’
Praxis went to the dance with Irma. Nothing would stop her. She wore Lucy’s cerise satin dress and hoped that no one would notice how unevenly the hem had dropped. Over the dress she wore the leopard skin coat. ‘You’d do better to go in your ordinary clothes,’ said Irma, but Praxis couldn’t agree. Irma abandoned her at the door.
Irma wore a low-cut black sweater and a full pink skirt; her hair was swept up in a pon
y tail, one of the first to be seen in the West. Irma danced all evening, abandoning one partner, choosing another. She was all candid eyes, laughing mouth, and pressing breasts.
‘Cock-tease,’ someone muttered in her ear, and did not mean it pleasantly. Irma had heard it often enough before; she took no notice.
Praxis danced the first dance; then her partner took her to the bar. She had learned dancing at school. This felt different. He gave her gin and lime. She was unused to drink.
‘That’s a funny dress,’ he said. ‘Is it very fashionable?’ She did not care for her partner, or his opinion. He was no taller than she: he wore no tie: his hair needed cutting: his chin needed shaving. His face was flat and shiny and seemed a matter of planes and angles, like a piece of cut glass. His eyes were small but bright behind thick spectacles: his arms were hairy: his cuffs were frayed: he wore ex-army boots. His hand upon her arm trembled with nervous energy. His name was Willy. He was, he told her, doing political science and economics.
‘So am I,’ said Praxis.
‘It’s a men’s option,’ he said, surprised.
‘They thought I was a man,’ said Praxis. ‘I have an odd name. But once they accepted me they could hardly throw me out. They tried, but I wrote a letter.’
He wasn’t listening. His eyes were on her breasts. Her dress was without straps: it kept up by virtue of whalebones, which had escaped their padding and now dug into her flesh.
It was, perhaps, too large for her. She became aware that anyone taller than she, looking down, could see more than he ought.
Fortunately, Willy was not tall: and besides, she reckoned, his opinion of her hardly counted. She accepted another drink and then another. It seemed preferable to dancing. She did not like the feel of his arm around her waist. It seemed very familiar. At school girls had danced with girls.
‘Why do you look so odd?’ he asked. ‘Is it policy, or accident? I look odd, but then I mean to. I don’t believe in washing, for one thing. It reduces the body’s natural defences against disease; soap is a needless expense. I’m very mean, I warn you. I got in here tonight through the back door. It’s very easy. All you have to do is just walk in: there’s no one to stop you.’
