Would she really have been happy thus to have bartered away all the years of her youth in exchange for the joys of instant motherhood? Had it, indeed, been truly the joys of motherhood for which she’d yearned; or had it been, rather, the joys of fame, of showing off, of being one up on the other girls, of being a focus of wonder, awe and admiration? Had it, in short, not been a baby that the abortion had deprived her of, but rather the biggest ego-trip of all her young life…?
Miranda had long ago forgiven her mother for the awful trauma of the abortion; had come, painfully, to realise that the harsh and agonising decision really had hurt her mother very nearly as much as it had hurt herself, and had been prompted by the sincere belief that any other course would be the ruin of her daughter’s future happiness. For a long time now Miranda had accepted, absolutely, that her mother’s intentions had been of the best, and motivated solely by loving concern for Miranda herself; but only now, pressing down the lid of her shiny new suitcase to make it lock, did it suddenly cross her mind to wonder whether Mummy had not merely been well-intentioned, but might even, possibly, have been right…?
She shrank away from the thought. It was too new; she wasn’t ready for it, somehow. And there was much too much else to think about, anyway, this evening.
Delphi! They were going to see Delphi! In less than a week from now, she, Miranda Field, would be standing at the ancient shrine of Apollo, where, all those centuries ago, men, women, and maybe girls no older than herself, had brought questions as intractable as her own, and had received answers from the god himself.
And yet, the answers hadn’t always been right, as Greek history, with all its inter-city defeats and victories, amply proved. And if Apollo himself hadn’t got all the answers, how could you expect Mummy to have them, either? Or Miranda herself, for that matter? What answers were there, anyway, that could be sure and certain? You just went forward, as best you could, in this direction or in that, and who could tell if the other, the different path would have proved better? Or proved worse…?
“Miranda! Miranda, darling! Sharon’s on the telephone, she wants to know if you’ve remembered about the guide-book to the Acropolis…”
How pleased and excited Mummy sounded, just as if she was the one to be going off on this marvellous trip, instead of being the one to be left at home coping with Daddy’s gloom about having lost the election! Well, naturally he’d lost it, without Mummy around during that crucial period of canvassing, he hadn’t a hope. Everything he’d ever done had depended, always, on Mummy doing it for him.
Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. And it had become even less true since those long weeks when Mummy had been away, and he’d had to cope with things. To telephone the plumber himself: to put his own arms round his daughter when he came upon her sobbing bitterly on the bottom step of the stairs. “Norah! Norah! Come quickly, that girl’s crying again!” was no longer a complete and sufficient response to the situation.
Sometimes Miranda felt that she would remember till her dying day that first time when, through a blur of tears, she’d seen Daddy’s tired, worried face staring at her in fear and bewilderment: and then how he’d slowly, uneasily taken off his gold-rimmed glasses in order to embrace her.
Having finished with the phone call from Sharon, complete with giggling and many a wild surmise about the days ahead, Miranda went back upstairs to complete her packing, and to check over what she might have forgotten.
Her address book, yes; there were lots of people she’d be wanting to send picture postcards to; she might even send one to the crowd at the Squat, just for the sake of keeping in touch, vaguely.
She’d imagined, when she first left the Squat in humiliation and headlong haste, that she’d never be able to face any of them again as long as she lived; but somehow, it hadn’t worked out like that. First, Belinda had phoned; and then Tim had turned up with a load of her belongings, and had even stayed, quite friendly and without undue embarrassment, for a cup of coffee.
“Let us know how you get on, won’t you, love?” he’d said, with a brotherly kiss, on parting; and after that it all began to seem not quite so absolutely frightful. She’d learned, in fact, one of the most important lessons in the whole of life; namely, that no one—no one at all—is one hundredth part as bothered about your humiliations as you are yourself. Within a week, whatever it is you’ve done, however shameful, no one—but no one—will be talking about it any more. They’ll be talking about something else.
Some people take half a lifetime to learn this lesson; others never learn it at all; and so to have learned it by the age of fifteen is quite something.
Miranda paused, checking her address book. It was only barely worth while sending anything to the old address anyway, what with so many of them having left now: Alison back with her Mum and the Secretarial Course, and Iris having married a South American millionaire quite a bit older than herself, after what appeared like a whirlwind courtship.
“I’m damn well going to marry the very next man who asks me, I don’t care who he is!” she’d been heard to announce during one particularly fraught evening just after Miranda’s departure: and the fact that this randomly-acquired gentleman should turn out to be a millionaire seemed to be just sheer luck—though of course with Iris you could never tell. No doubt she was in many ways just the right wife for a man trying to remain a millionaire during these devious and difficult financial days; and this, together with her decorative appearance, her efficiency, and her undisguised enthusiasm for providing him at top speed with an heir to the putative family millions, must have added up to a major attraction.
Anyway, marry him she did, and went off to South America. Tim, too, was gone, having taken up an appointment as a newly-qualified Junior Registrar in a distant hospital. Even Christine had once more departed, having gone back to Keith—this time, taking her shoes with her: a gesture just about as near to “For better, for worse” as you could hope to find within the confines of her chosen life-style.
So really, there was only Belinda left of the old crowd—except, of course, for—and here Miranda rummaged again through her address book. Yes, she really must send a postcard, if only to convey her congratulations.
Because while out on that shopping expedition with Mummy, they’d happened to pass a bookshop in the window of which was an eye-catching display of a new novel, flanked by ecstatic quotes from the reviews: “Gloriously understated mockery”, “The send-up to end all send-ups!” were only some of the extravagant plaudits lavished by the critics upon the much talked-of, best-selling satirical novel “HENRY”.
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2014
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Celia Fremlin, 1980
Biographical Sketch © Chris Simmons, 2014
The right of Celia Fremlin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31300–6
-ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
With No Crying Page 17
