Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  he’s banged out Tea for Two. Tea for two thousand, more like

  it—or tomorrow morning’s breakfast.’

  Jennifer shifted her bags to the other hand and inched a few

  paces forward. ‘Nearly there now. Only three in front of us.’

  ‘Yeah, look at the sods behind, though. Somebody ought to have

  warned them to bring camping-stools and Thermoses.’

  Jennifer turned to look. The queue snailed right along the corridor

  and disappeared down the stairs. Although it was only the first

  week in December, Harrods was already packed with Christmas

  shoppers—besieging the Toy Department, crowding round the

  Christmas cards, thronging through the Food Halls, loaded down

  with parcels or fractious children.

  Susie kicked off her shoes, rubbed her aching feet. She had

  already removed her scarf and coat and cardigan.

  ‘Don’t, Susie. It’s us now. Quick—put your shoes back on.’

  Susie picked them up, limped stocking-footed through the door.

  The pin-striped restaurant manager was beckoning them in, whisking

  them across an elegant room, bright with lights and flowers.

  Floor-length mirrors reflected silver teapots and crystal chandeliers.

  The walls were panelled, the ceiling a swash of sumptuous

  decoration. Susie stopped, stared at the centre table, piled with fifty

  different varieties of cakes and pastries, tarts and gâteaux. The

  cakes were every bit as fancy as their surroundings. Even the

  humblest of them wore a tiara of nuts and cherries, or were brightly

  jewelled with crystallised fruits or coiffed with chocolate curls.

  ‘Cor!’ said Susie. ‘Is it real?’

  She started with éclairs, ignored the bread and butter, went back again for cheesecake and meringues, capsized them in a froth of thick whipped cream.

  ‘Come on, Jen. You’re the Birthday Girl and you’re hardly eating a thing.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Jennifer took a small bite of her scone. Up till now, it had been a very low-key birthday—no cards, no presents, except Susie’s extravagant pink azalea which she had bought with Jennifer’s money and which needed strong light and would only fade and sicken in a basement. She had listened for the postman. Surely there would be a letter from Lyn today. He had always been good at birthdays—spent patient fiddly hours making her home-made cards, or constructing three-dimensional cut-outs which opened up to spell ‘I Love You’; choosing small but exotic presents.

  The postman was late and brought a circular.

  When they arrived at Harrods, the birthday changed to Christmas—decorations in every department, the windows full of reindeer and fake snow. Here, in the restaurant, gold foil Christmas trees glittered round the walls, bright with scarlet baubles and swags of tinsel. Even the pianist was weaving the odd Christmas carol into his standard repertoire. Jennifer preferred not to think of Christmas. She and Lyn were always invited to Putney for Christmas Day. Christmas needed families and children, a crowded table, a bright and cheerful house. There would be nothing cheerful about Putney if Matthew remained as tense and agitated as he had been in his office. He would be furious with her now for escaping from his clutches, distraught about her separation from Lyn. She couldn’t go there, anyway; couldn’t abandon Susie, alone and eight months’ pregnant, on Christmas Day. And where might Lyn be, then? Three hundred miles away, grubbing in the hedgerows for his Christmas dinner?

  ‘Cheer up, Jen. My Ma used to say if you’re gloomy on your birthday, you’re gloomy all year round. What’s it like being twenty-six?’

  Jennifer forced a smile. ‘Just the same as twenty-five.’ That was a lie. This time last year, Lyn had still been with her, the book was not yet published, Edward Ainsley just two short lines on a secret torn-out page. Fame had proved as hollow and insubstantial as the meringue which Susie was crunching up to nothing. Even the wealth which she and Lyn had been promised would never now materialise. It would be squandered on solicitors or transferred to Edward’s account. Edward didn’t need it. According to the papers, he lived comfortably; congenially, with everything he wanted. He had only taken action to try and save his name and reputation, and when he failed in that, he continued to fight his case more from revenge and injured pride than out of any greed for gain.

  She couldn’t fail to sympathise. Hester, too, had been proud and uncompromising. In fact, in trying to save Hester’s name, she had succeeded in blackening Edward’s. Yet how could she have known how cunning and persistent those investigative journalists were?

  Susie had returned from the centre table with two strawberry tarts piled high with fruit and cream. She placed one on Jennifer’s plate. ‘Real strawberries in December! Eat up, mate! If we scoff enough today, we won’t need to eat tomorrow. That’s economy!’

  Susie didn’t bother with a fork—just bit straight into the tart, cream oozing down her chin, strawberry glaze dripping off her fingers. All her attention was concentrated on what was on her plate. She was like a child—greedy, eager, unselfconscious—licking her lips, relishing each mouthful, trapping the last stray crumbs with a moistened finger.

  Jennifer tried a forkful of her own tart. It was just filler in her mouth. The first year of their marriage, Lyn had made her a birthday cake—or tried. It had come out wrong, thin and biscuity, with charred bits up the sides. He had covered the burnt with runny yellow icing. They sat in front of the fire, feeding each other morsels. It was one of the best cakes she had eaten in her life.

  She wondered if Lyn had remembered her birthday at all—even in his mind. If he were living rough, he might long ago have lost track of days and dates—might be sick still, and disorientated. She tried to blank him out. She ought to be chatting to Susie, not fretting for her husband, but how could she not miss him when everyone else seemed to be in families? At the table next to theirs, a young and doting couple were feeding their baby son with fingers of bread and butter, all three heads bent in towards each other, forming a small closed circle, shutting strangers out. Jennifer put her fork down.

  Susie stretched across and stole a strawberry. ‘If you don’t fancy that, I’ll finish it.’

  ‘Go easy, darling. You don’t want to be sick.’

  ‘God! I’ve eaten nothing compared with some of the guzzlers here. See that woman in the corner—the one in all the furs? She’s been stuffing non-stop since we got here and she must be fifteen stone at least. Quick—look now—she’s just started on her fifth éclair and she’s already crammed a couple in her handbag when she thought nobody was watching.’

  Jennifer turned round. The woman was sitting on her own, dressed in a matching fox fur hat and jacket, pearls at her throat, diamonds on her fingers, plate piled high with all the richest gâteaux. Jennifer glanced at the podgy hands, the lines of loss and loneliness etched beneath the elaborate make-up. Perhaps she had lost her husband, never had a child. Is that what she herself would do, once the baby had been adopted and Susie disappeared—sit drowning her loneliness in whipped-cream ballast, getting fatter, older, uglier?

  She glanced around the other tables. Leftovers littered the plates—lipstick-stained bread and butter, squashed and mangled cheesecakes, bleeding jam doughnuts. Almost everyone had taken more than they could eat. Yet the crowd at the centre table was even bigger now, customers jostling and pushing each other to grab the cakes which would glut and sicken them.

  Pack Up Your Troubles, the pianist was playing. She tried to obey. It was only tea, for heaven’s sake, and she was turning it into a tragedy, seeing Armageddon in a pile of pastries. She must make an effort for Susie’s sake. Susie herself was back at the centre table, hovering over the slabs of Chistmas cake, greedy fingers reaching for the largest.

  Suddenly, Jennifer froze. Susie was talking to someone—someone she recognised. She sprang to her feet. ‘Oh, no!�
�� she said aloud, stood gripping her chair, trying to decide whether to go across and join them, or make a quick escape.

  ‘Auntie Jennifer!’ It was too late now for either. A rush of feet, a swoop of arms, a hug. Oliver was grinning there beside her. ‘We thought it was you! We’re sitting on the other side behind a sort of pillar thing, but Charles spotted Susie going to get her grub. Isn’t it super here? We’ve only just got in. We waited hours for a table. Why don’t you come and join us?’

  A thousand reasons! She had written a letter to Oliver’s father, excusing her abrupt departure from his office just four days ago, blaming a sudden attack of sickness and diarrhoea, then adding more elaborate lies about accompanying a girlfriend on a motoring tour of Yorkshire, which meant she’d be out of touch. Now the boys would contradict it, report her presence in London, and—worse still—Susie’s, too. She was getting careless about the lies, reeling them off almost automatically without thinking out the problems. This was her retribution.

  She turned back to Oliver, tried to mumble some excuse. ‘We’ve … er … finished tea now, darling. We were just about to … leave.’

  ‘You can’t be. Susie’s got her plate full and you haven’t drunk your tea. Oh, come on, Auntie Jennifer. Be a sport.’

  Susie was walking back towards them, an unmistakably pregnant Susie, looking cornered and embarrassed, Hugh and Robert skipping along beside her, Charles shuffling a little behind. Robert might be still an innocent, but the other three boys knew where babies came from and how long they took to grow, how they were seeded by a husband, sanctioned by a marriage …

  ‘Hallo, darlings.’ Jennifer’s smile felt stiff and unconvincing. She was trapped now and surrounded. ‘Fancy seeing you here! What a … lovely surprise. Isn’t Mummy with you?’

  Charles stepped forward. ‘No, she’s not well. She was going to take us, but …’

  ‘Mrs Chenies brought us instead,’ Hugh broke in. ‘You know, the lady who lives opposite. You’ve met her, haven’t you?’

  ‘Y … yes.’ Jennifer was frantically trying to think, work out some salvage operation. At least Vera Chenies was less hazardous than Anne herself, although she was one of Anne’s close friends. Jennifer had met her several times, could see her now, waving from the corner. She couldn’t just ignore her, walk out without saying hallo. But she could explain they had to leave, plead another engagement—dinner guests, a party, even a bad headache.

  But what was the point of that, when the damage was done? The boys had seen quite enough already to file a full report for Anne and Matthew, undo all her careful lies—she in Yorkshire, Susie in Great Yarmouth. She could see Robert now, casting furtive sideways glances at Susie’s stomach.

  ‘You’re very fat,’ he said, at last. ‘D’ you come here every day and eat all these cakes?’

  Hugh giggled. ‘She’s having a baby, mutton head.’

  ‘A baby?’ Robert’s eyes were huge.

  Charles blushed. Oliver jabbed his foot against the chair-leg, Robert went on staring. No one said a word. They were all standing like dummies, obstructing the waitresses, blocking access to the centre buffet table.

  Jennifer collected up the coats and bags, spoke briefly to their waitress, then shooed the boys in front of her. ‘Come on, darlings. I’d … er … like to say a quick hallo to Mrs Chenies. Shall we go across to your table?’

  Oliver whooped. ‘Great—you’re going to join us! I knew you would. Bags I sit next to Susie.’

  The expanse of carpet seemed to stretch for ever. Mrs Chenies had risen to greet them, a fleshy woman with soft wispy hair escaping from its bun, and a plump good-natured face. Her only son, Christopher, was small and fair, with a slight stutter caused by shyness.

  ‘Jennifer! How nice to see you! I was just thinking I could do with a few more females to redress the balance. Five against one is hardly fair! How are you, my dear?’

  ‘I’m … er … fine. I think you’ve met Susie, haven’t you? She used to look after the boys. Susie Grant.’

  ‘Blenkins,’ corrected Susie, who was trying to diminish her bulge by draping her coat in front of it like a shield. ‘Jenny always forgets. I’ve been married several months now, and she still calls me Grant.’

  ‘Married?’ Oliver’s voice crescendoed to a shout.

  ‘Yeah. I kept it secret. Didn’t want you all showering me with confetti or sending me lace tablecloths or something.’

  Vera laughed. ‘Look, do sit down, all of you. I’ve had a word with our waitress and she doesn’t mind an extra two. Christopher, move your chair a bit, dear, and then we’ll all fit in.’

  Jennifer was still dithering. ‘We shouldn’t really stay, you know, we’ve got another …’

  ‘Of course you must stay! I haven’t seen you for at least three months. I want to hear all your news. And Susie’s.’ Vera motioned Susie into the seat beside her. ‘When did you get married, my dear? Anne told me you had to leave very suddenly, but I understood your mother was unwell.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Susie could only mumble as she lit a cigarette. At least she was wearing a wedding ring—a Woolworths one which they had purchased just that morning, partly as a joke, and partly as a concession to what Jennifer called convention and Susie scorned as Harrods’ stuffy morals. She exhaled a spiral of smoke, nodded at Vera. ‘Yeah—she was ill—very. But the doctor gave her some new amazing wonder-drug and she was better in a fortnight. Or perhaps it was my wonder-nursing! I’m quite a little Florence Nightingale, you know. I got my reward and all, because while I was up there doing my bit with the beef tea and the bedpans, I bumped into my old childhood sweetheart, and’—Susie smirked and shrugged—‘things took off from there. I’ve known him since I was only eight or nine. Love at first sight and all that stuff. It’s so damn corny, I didn’t want to tell people. There were jokes enough back home.’

  Charles was frowning. ‘But you only left the first week in September.’

  ‘Yeah. Quick work, wasn’t it? I met him the very first day I arrived—went out to get some fags and there he was, hanging around outside the tobacconist’s. It was sort of … meant, I reckon.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Hugh asked.

  Susie kicked Jennifer under the table. ‘Oz—short for Oswald. Classy, isn’t it? Oswald Oscar Blenkins.’

  Robert giggled. ‘That’s a funny name.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with it.’

  ‘Has he got a motorbike?’

  ‘Course. Wouldn’t marry a bloke without one. A Harley Davidson 1200. And a Lotus Elan.’

  ‘Gosh! You lucky dog. A Lotus!’

  ‘I’d rather have the bike. D’you think he’d let me try it?’ Charles was pleading.

  ‘’Fraid not. He’s … er … left it up at Great Yarmouth. Lent it to his brother. He’s only working down here for a month or two. He’s a photographer, you see—one of the really top ones—and he gets better jobs in London, working with all the debs and film stars and famous fashion models. We’re trying to save all we can at present—’ Susie looked convincingly coy—‘Now we’re starting a family.’

  Vera was pouring tea for eight. ‘When’s the baby due, Susie?’

  ‘Oh, not till … er … late spring. Actually, it’s … twins. That’s why I’m so big.’

  Vera overflowed a cup. ‘Twins? Good gracious me! You will be busy.’

  All five boys were staring now. Christopher put his cup down. ‘My g … guinea pig had twins,’ he said. ‘But b … both of them died and then the m … mother ate the c … corpses.’

  Jennifer swallowed. ‘Does … er … no one want any cakes? You’ve all get empty plates.’

  Susie pushed back her chair. ‘I do. I’m ready for my second tea and you lot have hardly started. Race you to the table!’

  All the boys stampeded after her. Jennifer slumped back in her chair, stole a glance at Vera. She looked her usual placid self, seemed to have accepted Susie’s story without undue suspicion. She probably had her doubts about the date of Susie’s con
finement, but was too polite to voice them. They would all be relayed to Anne as soon as she got back, of course, but at least the baby was legitimate now, Susie safely married. There would still be the problem of killing off the twins, but she refused to plot that now. She mopped her face with her napkin. She felt as if she had been sitting under searchlights.

  ‘Aren’t you eating, Jennifer?’

  ‘I’ve … er … had enough already, thanks. How about you?’

  ‘No, I’m trying to lose a bit of weight. I’ve never had a sweet tooth, anyway. This is the last place I’d ever choose to come, to tell the truth, but Anne had it all arranged and she didn’t want to disappoint the boys.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her, exactly? She seemed fine when I saw her last.’

  ‘Difficult to say. I suspect it’s mainly stress. She’s been worrying a great deal over Matthew—he’s really in a state—and she works far too hard, in any case. I don’t know I’m born, I suppose, with no job and just one child. How she copes with four and all that pressure in the office, I’ll never understand.’ Vera paused for breath and a gulp of tea. ‘I only hope Susie’s going to manage. I mean, she’s not much more than a child herself, and twins are quite a handful. She’s very big, isn’t she? Did Anne not know she was married, by the way? She never mentioned it.’

  ‘No—well—Susie didn’t tell anyone, you see. She’s been … out of touch. I only knew myself a day or two ago. She’d just come down to London with her husband and I bumped into her at … er … Charing Cross.’

  ‘Is her husband really a top photographer? I mean, she used to hang around with very scruffy types, or so Anne was always complaining. Mind you, Susie’s quite a stunner, isn’t she, and those photographer chappies always go for looks. I’m glad she’s done so well for herself.’ Vera drained her cup.

  ‘Look, my dear, could I ask you a favour? Would you be an angel and hold the fort here while I dash to the Toy Department? I want to get Christopher’s present without him seeing—and just a couple of other tiny things. I tried to do some shopping earlier, but it wasn’t easy with all five boys in tow. I won’t be long, I promise.’