With No Crying

by Celia Fremlin

  On the third evening, Daddy was brought in on the act. One on each side of her bed, in the last of the evening sunshine, the motes weaving back and forth between the two pale faces in the shafts of dying light, they sat like two effigies attendant on a medieval tomb.

  They were telling her—or, rather, Mummy was telling her, with Daddy nodding, and polishing his glasses, and making little noises of assent while furtively glancing at his watch—about the lovely lovely holiday they were going to have, a real family holiday, as soon as Miranda was quite recovered. Sicily… Tangiers … Morocco … it was going to be the holiday of a lifetime: warm seas, hot sunshine, exotic foreign food, and dancing in Tavernas far into the night…

  It was reminiscent of a funeral service for someone who has died in not very creditable circumstances: the hushed, uneasy evocation of bliss to come, combined with a careful avoidance of any reference to the unfortunate goings-on that had led to the demise; and all this against a background of overpowering scent from the roses with which Mummy, in a frenzy of conciliation, had filled her daughter’s bedroom. What with one thing and another, Miranda felt that she was lying on her own bier, all the formalities of death completed except only for oblivion, which had somehow, in the press of funeral arrangements, been overlooked.

  I hate them. I hate them. I hate them! I’ll never forgive them: never! With eyes downcast, Miranda allowed the gruesome travelogue of sea and sky to flow round and past her, and spoke never a word in answer.

  “And of course you’ll need lots of new clothes, darling,” Mrs Field was continuing, bright and indomitable as ever, and embarked straight away on a dazzling list of all the crisp sun dresses, all the expensive tailored slacks and the stylish bikinis with which she proposed to pay for the death of Baby Caroline.

  I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I’ll die in the gutter before I’ll go with you on your grisly, murderous holiday, before I’ll wear a stitch of clothing bought with your bloodstained conscience money!

  If only she’d dared to say it aloud! Where was she now, the proud girl who had flung defiance across the summer lawn, head held high, eyes blazing?—the girl whom even wild horses couldn’t subdue?

  Ah, where was she? Defeated, broken, traitor to her own true self as well as to her child: a craven, vanquished thing, without courage, without pride. She hadn’t even the nerve, now, to say so much as “I’m sorry, I don’t want to go.”

  “And perhaps,” Mrs Field was concluding, with the bright panicky optimism of a conjurer scrabbling for a last rabbit in a final, desperate hat, “perhaps, if he’s home in time, Sam could come too? It’s years since we’ve had a holiday all together, all four of us. Or maybe we could meet him somewhere en route—wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Fun it would not be, nor ever could have been, even in circumstances far more propitious than these. Fond though she was of her older brother, Miranda had often found herself wondering why it was that her parents could not accept, once and for all, that deeply though they loved their now grown-up son, they simply could not stand his company. Hadn’t been able to for years. He’d been such a disappointment to them, for one thing—and such a poor advertisement, too, for the painstakingly enlightened methods by which they’d brought him up. They’d had to stand by and watch first one and then another of his contemporaries—products, quite often, of broken marriages, corporal punishment, rigid authoritarianism, the lot—watch them one after another sailing successfully through University, landing good jobs, forming stable relationships, while all the time here was Sam continuing mildly but inexorably a disgrace to them.

  Not that Sam had ever done anything so very dreadful: it was more the things he hadn’t done. Hadn’t finished his homework ever; hadn’t gone in for any creative hobbies; hadn’t practised on the expensive violin they’d bought him; hadn’t done well enough in A-levels to warrant applying to Oxford or Cambridge; hadn’t even filled in his UCCA forms properly. And when, finally, he’d arrived at his not very prestigious University, he hadn’t stayed there. Even his dropping out hadn’t been a positive act of defiance; he hadn’t marched out in mid-term as a gesture of protest against something or other, shaking the dust of the place off his feet; rather, he had simply failed to return at the end of one Easter vacation, had failed, if the truth must be told, to wake up in time to catch the right train.

  From then on, the things that Sam hadn’t done were as the sands of the sea. He hadn’t applied for any proper jobs, attended any courses, or even found himself a nice steady girlfriend; and on top of everything else, he had made not the smallest attempt to get away from home and lead a life of his own. He had seemed perfectly content to remain in his parents’ house, lying in bed till midday, playing pop records, and conducting singularly labour-saving love affairs with such girls as happened along. And when, in a last desperate attempt to get him to lead a life of his own, Mr and Mrs Field had had the top floor of their house converted into a self-contained flat for him, he had taken neither pride nor interest in his new domain, letting it go to rack and ruin, never tidying it, never cleaning it, and never even cooking anything much in the spanking new little kitchenette; preferring to bring home take-away meals from the local Kebab House, and to eat them in front of his parents’ television, just as he had always done, leaving a trail of greasy plastic containers all over the drawing room. Occasionally, when a more than usually domesticated girl happened to have floated within his range, things would be different for a few weeks. The flat would burst into sudden hectic life, pans of burnt rice left soaking in the little sink, and all the woodwork suddenly daubed with orange (or Prussian blue, as the case might be) emulsion paint, splinters, rusty nails and all; and yet another batch of gallon paint cans (bought wholesale, for economy’s sake) would stand with their lids off on the little landing, gently drying up in company with yet another set of brand new paint brushes, standing caked with paint in a jar of dried-up turpentine.

  No, there was no harm in Sam; as older brothers go, he wasn’t bad at all. Miranda had always found him kind enough, and quite fun to have around. She had long ago formed the opinion that his failings, many and various though they might appear, were really only one failing: he couldn’t stand bother.

  And yet, this couldn’t be the whole answer either, because hitch-hiking overland to India must surely be a bother, by any standards; and this was the adventure from which he was expected home some time during the next few weeks.

  *

  The daylight was nearly gone now, and as dusk gathered in her pretty flower-filled bedroom, Miranda pretended to have fallen asleep, her eyelids closed in apparent tranquillity over the hatred, rage and misery that seethed beneath. She heard her mother’s bright, strained voice faltering at last into hopelessness; and then, a little later, she heard the two of them tiptoeing furtively from the room. Presently, the familiar evening sounds of the household sank likewise into silence; and now, at last, Miranda crept softly out of bed and tiptoed across the room.

  It was hard to decide what, if anything, to take with her; hard, even, to decide what to wear for the journey. What sort of travelling outfit is the right one for a future stretching bare and featureless as a desert into the unimaginable distance?

  “You’ll need lots of new clothes!” Mrs Field had declared, with manic, desperate optimism: and all the time, right here in Miranda’s wardrobe, were the new clothes she should have been needing, never yet worn: two very pretty and becoming maternity smocks, bought with her birthday money when she became fifteen only a couple of weeks ago.

  So practical had these purchases seemed at the time, as well as exciting and delightful; because although it was early days yet, she would be needing them before winter set in. She had been quite unprepared for the little gasp of horror her mother had been unable to suppress at the sight of them.

  Now, she understood it only too well. Already, Mummy had known that the garments would never be worn, that no maternity clothes would ever be required. Even on that first evening, w
hen the two of them had clung together in such apparent closeness and love, the decision must already have been quietly taken…

  It was easier, somehow, to write it down than it had been to say it out loud.

  “I hate you,” Miranda wrote, neatly and carefully, bending over her desk in the little circle of rosy light from the reading-lamp which had been so marvellous a Christmas present three—or was it four—years ago. “I hate you so very much that I can’t go on living here. I have gone to stay with Sharon.” After which she straightened the bed, drawing the pretty candlewick coverlet over it, and pinned the note with a safety pin in the very middle of it, where it could not fail to be instantly seen.

  Then, cautiously and quietly, rattling the metal hangers as little as possible, she reached into the back of the wardrobe for the never-worn, crisply-new smocks that were hanging there.

  *

  Even with the chair-cushion stuffed into the front of her knickers, the effect was still a bit skimpy, unworthy of these billowing folds of material that gleamed darkly in the lamplight. Not until she had wrapped a bath towel round and around her waist as well, securing it with safety pins in four places, was she satisfied with the effect achieved.

  And so marvellous was it, so exactly tailored to the dreams of these past weeks, that despite herself the tears dried upon her cheeks, and she stared at herself in the dim reaches of the mirror with a sort of incredulous joy. All a pretence, of course—was she not at this very moment re-deploying the bath towel to better advantage with a new adjustment of the safety pins?—but—ye gods and goddesses—what a pretence! What balm it brought, albeit temporarily, to her bruised and battered soul!

  And it was not until she was actually on the top deck of the bus, rumbling through the half-darkness of the summer night, that it dawned on her that she couldn’t possibly, in this get-up, go and stay at Sharon’s.

  CHAPTER VIII

  IT WAS NOT so much that Sharon’s parents would be shocked and incredulous—though of course they would be: it was Sharon herself whom Miranda knew she could not face. Though less well up in the subject than Miranda had succeeded in making herself during the past weeks, Sharon would certainly know enough about the normal course of pregnancy to realise that this sudden and dramatic increase in girth within such a few days could not possibly be genuine. Confronted with the inevitable barrage of searching questions, Miranda would have no alternative but to confess to her friend the silly subterfuge to which she had resorted; and this would lead inevitably to the whole sorry tale of weakness and cowardice in the face of parental pressure, right up to the final ghastly and despicable surrender. Even to a close friend—perhaps particularly to a close friend—the revelation of such shame was unthinkable. Bitterly, Miranda recollected those proud, defiant declarations of hers, in the presence of most of Four A: “They’d have to kill me first!” she’d boasted when Doreen had come out with her tactless suggestion about abortion. She remembered the open-mouthed admiration of her audience, their flattering, half-incredulous awe… After all that, to have to go crawling to Sharon, her staunchest supporter, with a miserable confession of humiliation and defeat, knowing, too, that by next term it would be all over the school. Miranda Field isn’t pregnant after all. Miranda Field has had an abortion. Miranda Field got cold feet when it came to the crunch, just like we said she would…

  Unthinkable! Unendurable! She must never see them again, any of them, for as long as she lived! From now on, her existence must be among strangers, people who knew nothing of the girl she had once been, and could pass no judgement on what she had become—had, indeed, not the smallest interest in doing so.

  Strangers! How tranquil is their company, how liberating to one whose own self has become a burden beyond enduring! Undemanding, unconcerned, empty of expectations, they take you at face value, looking no further than whatever image you choose, at that moment, to project.

  Already, before she had been riding on the bus for as long as five minutes, Miranda was aware of this lightening of burdens; aware too—intensely and comfortingly aware—of the interest and sympathy her existence was once more arousing. A white-haired old gentleman had already stepped aside to let her go in front, and when she’d boarded the bus the conductress had said “Careful, dear!” putting a hand solicitously under her elbow as she climbed on.

  She was special again. Glances of interest and sympathetic speculation were coming her way again, and the comfort of it was beyond belief.

  Spurious comfort, obviously. The whole thing was a pretence, nothing more than a silly daredevil charade, she kept dutifully reminding herself; but it was extraordinary, all the same, the way it soothed her wounded spirit and boosted her shattered ego. And indeed, there is no doubt that by projecting with sufficient energy an image in accordance with one’s heart’s desire, one can indeed infuse that image with a sort of spurious life of its own. Mirrored in the admiring eyes of others, the image acquires a kind of substance, generating feedback which truly feeds, providing genuine scraps of nourishment for such starving, desperate souls as come scavenging in these perilous waste spaces of the mind.

  The bus stop at the corner of Sharon’s road had long been left behind, but the conductress (no doubt in deference to Miranda’s awesome and interesting state) had done nothing about extracting from her any excess fare, and merely asked her if she was sure she was all right … was anyone meeting her … where would she like to be put down?

  “The terminus, please,” said Miranda, quite at random, and revelling in every small, unmerited mark of special attention. “Yes, I’ll be quite all right, thank you. I live just round the corner from there…”

  Was there a corner? Would she be caught out, making rash guesses like this out of the blue? For she had no idea at all what terminus they were heading for, or what it was like. It could be a station forecourt, or an amorphous expanse of concrete in the middle of nowhere, not at all the sort of place that anyone could live round the corner from.

  But it was all right.

  “O.K., love,” said the conductress, beginning to lose interest; and presently, with the bus gradually emptying as it neared the end of the route, she settled herself in a front seat, with her back to Miranda, to check her takings. And when the bus finally reached its destination, alongside a triangle of tattered grass overlooked by tall buildings, she was content to call out, “Good night, dear, watch how you go,” without looking up.

  It was as well, perhaps, that she was thus preoccupied, or her young passenger’s behaviour might have roused her suspicions. For Miranda was not behaving in the least like a person who lived “just round the corner”, wherever that might be. Instead of walking briskly and purposefully in some definite direction as might be expected of someone nearing home, she stood uncertainly on the grass verge, peering this way and that along the unfamiliar roadway, and clutching her carrier bag of hastily-assembled belongings in a state of absolute indecision and completely devoid of plans. She had not the faintest idea of where she was going, or what she meant to do. She didn’t even know where she was, except that it was a good hour-and-a-half’s bus ride, right across London, from her parents’ house.

  The lights in the interior of the bus were being extinguished now, and as it pulled away into the darkness, Miranda felt an absurd little pang of homesickness and loss. For it had been her home, had it not, for well over an hour: the last home, perhaps, that she would know for many a long day.

  “Hi!”

  As the small battered Ford drew up beside her, Miranda gave a little start. She wasn’t frightened, exactly—like most people who have just suffered a shattering blow, she felt somehow immunised against further disasters—but all the same she stepped back warily as the dim talking outline of a head became visible through the lowered window, and an arm in some sort of a shaggy garment reached out towards the door handle.

  “You look like you could use a lift,” the pleasant young-ish voice was addressing her. “Hop in.” He swung the door open inviting
ly, apparently unaware of, or else unconcerned about, the awful warnings about strange men to which a well brought-up girl like this one had probably been subjected throughout her formative years.

  “Where do you live?” he continued, as Miranda still stood uncertainly at the roadside “—or are you on the way to the hospital?” he amended, after a second look at the bulging, ungainly figure.

  Oh dear! Did she really look as pregnant as all that? Evidently the bath towel had been overdoing it.

  “No… Oh no… I … that is…”

  “Look, love, you can’t hang about here all night, now can you? The last bus has gone, you know, it’s a rotten service these days, they used to run till gone midnight. So come on, there’s a good girl, tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you”—and then, as she still hesitated, his voice took on a sharper edge: “Hell, I can’t just leave you here, now can I? At this time of night, and in your condition—have a bit of sense!” Briefly, his eyes swept her figure once more, and came back to her face.

  “You’re properly in trouble, aren’t you, my dear? Why not tell me all about it while I drive you home? Even though I am a Strange Man in a Car, and you don’t know me from Adam—”

  Had he but known it, he couldn’t have hit on a stronger recommendation. She longed, she hungered for people she didn’t know from Adam, henceforth they were her blood brothers, her new tribe; from now on she would have dealings only with people she was never going to see again.