The White Family

by Maggie Gee

  I took a taxi to the hospital. I went with a friend, who sat and cried. Lynn was a true friend – (indeed she still is, we try to meet twice a year to go shopping) – and funny, and kind, and not prim like Alison, but she was very fond of me, and scared of blood, and scared of me dying, so she wasn’t happy. By then I don’t think I’d have minded dying. To be taken away from all the horror. She kept saying ‘Are you sure? Are you totally sure?’ and staring at me with big frightened eyes.

  We sat side by side in the waiting-room on rock-hard chairs that made me long to go to the toilet. She held my hand, and both of us were sweating. ‘I hate the smell of hospitals,’ she whispered. Suddenly she took her other hand off her handbag and laid it on the lump of my belly, my swelling belly underneath my dress, it was warm late spring, I was young and pregnant – ‘Shirley,’ she said, in absolute horror. ‘I felt it move. I felt it kick.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. I’ve felt it.’ I wouldn’t look at her. I made my voice hard. Against You only have I sinned.

  ‘It’s alive,’ she said. ‘It’s really alive. It’s already alive. I know you know that –’ The tears were pouring down her face. You would have thought it was her who was having the abortion, and me the friend who was holding her hand. I was trying hard not to hear what she said except with a mechanical part of my brain.

  ‘I know she’s alive, I know she’s alive –’ It wasn’t what I had meant to say.

  ‘You know the sex.’ She was calm this time, almost beyond shock, but she dropped my hand. She sat there watching me as if I was an alien.

  ‘I don’t know why I said that. I feel it’s a girl.’ I got up off the seat, walked to the window with its view of a garden, a neglected, walled-in hospital garden, just scrub, really, in the gap between buildings. I stared out across the dark bushes to the sky, which was blue with wild clouds sprinting across, and I thought, this baby will never see it, this baby will never get out alive …

  She. She. Will never do it.

  And I couldn’t go ahead. Of course I couldn’t. I never had a chance, once she started moving.

  So I had to tell Mum. ‘I knew,’ she said. ‘I’ve been watching you. I hoped I was wrong.’ She went grey, I remember. She slumped by the sink, then sank on to a stool to stop herself falling. ‘He’ll go mad. Mad. You should have thought about your father.’

  ‘I don’t care about Dad.’ But I did, I did. ‘Will you tell him, Mum? Will you do that for me?’

  She looked at me. She twisted her rings. She twisted her rings as if to torture herself. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she whispered, like a little girl. ‘I’d do anything for you. Anything else.’

  So I waited till Dad came home from the Park, practising my lines, stroking my stomach. And he came home in a benevolent mood, and told me I looked pretty, and I was looking pretty, because pregnant women look pink and pretty.

  Mum brought him some tea. He put his feet up.

  I told him. He was remarkably calm. He sometimes was calm about big things; it was little things that annoyed him most. Or perhaps he hadn’t quite taken it in.

  ‘Who’s the father?’ he asked.

  I remember feeling blank. What on earth did he mean? He was the father, he would always be the father.

  ‘Oh, no one you know.’ It came out wrong, as if I were saying, he’s too good for you.

  ‘I suppose you know him, do you? You knew him a bit before you let him get you pregnant?’

  ‘He’s a university student,’ I said.

  For a moment he was cheered. Only a moment. ‘And when is he going to put in an appearance?’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Oh, I see. It’s like that, is it. We’ll see about that. If he thinks he can just muck about with my daughter …’

  ‘He’s gone abroad. He doesn’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s gone abroad? What do you mean, he doesn’t know?’

  I didn’t speak; didn’t know where to begin; and besides, his voice had begun to rise, and the lump was rising in my throat.

  But another part of myself was calm. I was different now. I was a pregnant woman. That made me a woman, for the first time.

  ‘What is this man? Some foreigner? Answer your father. What’s his name?’

  ‘He isn’t foreign.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘None of your business.’ It just came out, and I knew as I said it that he would kill me, and then I thought about the baby, and I saw him coming across the room, red in the face, his arm lifted –

  ‘Don’t you hit me.’ I backed away. ‘His name is Ivo.’

  And then he hit me. ‘Ibo! What kind of bloody name is that? He’s a bloody darkie, isn’t he? Isn’t he?’ He hit me on the shoulder and upper arm, the usual places he would hit me, but I was afraid he would hurt the baby, I couldn’t stand there and take my medicine.

  So I went on backwards, and he kept on coming, head down, fists up, as if he had to hit me but couldn’t bear to look at me. I suddenly thought, no more of this. I shan’t have any more of this. And I stepped aside, so he bumped into the mantelpiece, and waited for him to come round again, and hit him as hard as I could in the face, full in the face, across his huge red nose, and I winced as I did it, I winced for his pain, but I screamed from a place that knew how to scream, ‘I’ll kill you if you hit me again. I’ll bloody kill you. Are you listening? The child isn’t coloured. Not that it matters.’

  And then my mother came in from the kitchen and my father said in a muffled voice, ‘I’m bleeding. Do something, May. I’m bleeding. I think Shirley has broken my nose.’

  Then Dirk ran in, eyes wild, frightened. He had a cricket bat in his hand; he’d been out in the yard, batting at the wall. He saw Dad bleeding and began to cry. ‘Dad, you’re bleeding. What happened? What’s happening?’ I remember the blood splashing red on Dad’s shirt and a few drops going on Dirk’s new jeans, I was sorry the blood went on Dirk’s new jeans –

  And Dad said, ‘I bumped into the mantelpiece. Bent down to pick something up, judged it wrong. Mummy is bringing me some sticking plaster. Hurry up May, for goodness sake.’ And he didn’t look in my direction. I think I knew it was over then, and he wouldn’t dare to hit me again.

  It was just a habit, really, like smoking. People need help with breaking them. She helped me, didn’t she, my vanished daughter?

  By now she must be eighteen years old. If nothing bad has happened to her …

  She was eighteen on the twelfth of December. I thought of nothing else all day. I tried to keep my thoughts happy and hopeful. I have something to be proud of, after all. I kept her alive. I didn’t kill her. I hope she’s happy and beautiful. I hope her family is happier than mine – and yet my family will always be hers.

  I told myself adoption was the best thing to do. The doctors were helpful; almost too helpful. So many couples waiting, they assured me, for babies like yours (I suppose they meant white ones), you’ll make some childless couple very happy, so the whole thing should have been perfectly happy.

  I did what I was told. I had a Caesarean because she was presenting upside down. I was full of drugs, but I held her, briefly, and tried not to see that she looked like me, she looked like me, not at all like Ivo. She looked like me; weeping, weeping, screaming as if she was being abandoned.

  I did as they told me and took some pills that made me feel sick but suppressed the milk. My breasts hurt horribly. They sang and cried. They throbbed and yearned and I ignored the pain, and when it subsided, when my breasts lay down, I began to give up, I began to accept it, I gave her to the nurse to bottle-feed. ‘I can’t do it. She’s not really mine.’

  The rest disappears into a mist of terror. They took her away and I went back to college and two weeks later had a total breakdown. I left Winthrop College, never to return. Yet I’d given her up to protect my studies. If I had been older, richer, more confident, I would have done everything to get her back, because I knew without doubt that I wanted her back, that without her my life coul
d never be complete.

  Without her my life can never be complete. Without my daughter; without children.

  I did talk to my doctor. More than once. He sympathized briefly but pointed out it would be selfish to uproot her. ‘I hear it’s a completely successful adoption. They’re a family now. It would break their hearts. And besides … what do you have to offer?’

  Nothing, except my own broken heart. And a face like hers. I shall always wonder –

  If I saw her now, would I recognize her? Would she look like me, as I did then? She’s almost as old as I was when I had her.

  I hid it inside me, all that pain. I knew my mother couldn’t bear to listen. Somewhere, under those veils of rain. Somewhere, maybe in one of those windows, the hundreds of windows I see from here. Maybe it’s her I go shopping for, her I look for in all those faces.

  21 • May

  May closed her eyes and prayed very hard, her whole being cringing away from pain. Save me God oh save me God. Waiting for his shoe to crush her soft stomach, waiting for bone to smash into her face, waiting for her money to be torn away. He was shouting something, but she was deaf. He crouched down over her, almost on top of her, and his big black hands closed over her shoulders, perhaps he was going to strangle her … She opened her eyes and stared into his, big yellow eyes, cat-like, inhuman, veined with red, she couldn’t breathe – ‘Don’t touch me,’ she gasped, but hardly any sound came. ‘Help,’ and then louder, ‘Help! Help!’

  Curiously little was going on.

  No pain came, except the ache in her ankle. He smelled of unfamiliar aftershave, surprisingly sweet, almost floral. She began to wrestle her shoulder away.

  Then she heard what his voice was saying. ‘I’ve got your money, don’t worry. Is your leg all right? Can you get up?’

  Then she realized he was trying to help her. He was peering at her anxiously, clutching her bundle of notes in one hand, trying to help her up with the other.

  Then she felt shocked, and ashamed. And the base of her spine hurt horribly.

  ‘Oh,’ she wailed. ‘I’m such a fool.’

  ‘It can happen to anyone,’ he said. ‘It’s slippy.’

  ‘My bag came open,’ she babbled. ‘Then everything fell out. I’m sorry, young man. I’m very sorry –’

  ‘No problem.’

  Perhaps he hadn’t noticed she was afraid? But just in case he had, May plunged onwards, talking without stopping as she straightened her coat, tried her ankle, pulled down her hem. ‘My husband’s in hospital, I’m in such a state, I’ve got all the money to sort out, my son’s come back from America and he’s given me this but it’s got to last us, I was just off to the post office, do you know Mr Varsani, he’s a lovely man, my daughter lives with a West Indian …’

  ‘Steady on,’ he said. ‘Slow down.’ He was smiling at her in a different way, amused, now, and slightly ironic, she saw it was an intelligent face, a humorous face, not frightening at all. And he wasn’t very old. Sixteen? Eighteen? Nineteen at most. Younger than Dirk. ‘I think you’ve had a bit of a shock.’

  She began to haul herself back to her feet. ‘I don’t want to be a trouble to you.’ He was picking up her things from the ground, wiping off the black water with his handkerchief.

  Relief and shame washed over her in hot waves, and her voice rushed on. ‘Are you local? I’ve lived here all my life. It’s not what it was, Hillesden Rise. I don’t mean because of the foreigners. I’m not saying you’re a foreigner –’

  ‘I’m not a foreigner. Now, are you OK?’ He was putting her brush back into her handbag, and her mirror, and her shamefully hair-clotted comb. ‘Where shall I put this money?’

  She took it from him, humbly, and thrust it back to the very bottom of her ancient bag. ‘You’re very kind. Very kind. I don’t know how to say thank you –’

  ‘That’s all right. Have you got everything?’

  Six feet away she suddenly saw the carrier-bag from the off-licence. When she picked it up it clinked suspiciously. Peeping inside, she saw golden liquid and pieces of glass. ‘My bottles have broken.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  She realized at once he would think she was a drinker, and had fallen through drink, so she started again: ‘They’re for my husband, not for me, it’s to cheer him up in hospital …’

  ‘I’ve got to be off, now.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said, suddenly. ‘My name is May. I’m very grateful.’ And then, impelled by an obscure impulse, but also because she felt it was true, ‘My husband would be very grateful to you. For looking after me. He would.’

  ‘Winston,’ he said. His smile was self-mocking. ‘That’s not a foreigner’s name, is it?’ But he looked as though it embarrassed him. She thought about Dirk, suddenly. Maybe kids never like the names we give them.

  ‘No,’ she said, so as not to be rude, but inside she reflected that it was. No English people called their sons Winston, though Winnie himself was English, of course. It was only Americans, and blacks. Why were they more patriotic than us? ‘Thank you, Winston. I’ll remember you. I’ll tell my daughter about you.’

  ‘You say “Hello” to her for me.’

  There was something very boyish in his manner, his dancing smile, his soft intonations. ‘I will,’ said May. She didn’t know what to say. She was almost two feet smaller than him, but she realized, now, that he was very slender, and his eyes were gentle, rather shy. He looked exotic, and faintly out of place, outlined against the grim metal grille where Freddie’s Flowers had once flourished. It was cold, in Britain, and hard, and grey. ‘Take care,’ she said, rather foolishly, for it was she who was falling about, she who was breaking and losing things and imagining muggers and talking rubbish. She frowned up, trying to take him in, wondering why she had only just seen him. And then he was gone. ‘Take care, Winston.’

  22 • Shirley

  Shirley felt happy, gliding down on the escalator. God-like, swooping down over the world, a world that was made entirely good, light years away from the world of her childhood.

  She hoped she wasn’t being blasphemous. Shirley rendered to God and rendered to Mammon. She put the notes in the plate every Sunday, sometimes brown ones, usually blue ones. She didn’t do as well as Elroy, of course. Elroy paid tithes to the Paddington Temple, one-tenth of his income, before tax, not after, which she thought was too much, and told him so, quite early on in their relationship.

  ‘It’s better to give than receive,’ he’d said to her. ‘I’m surprised at you, Shirley.’

  ‘My church feels you should give as you want. Your way is like income tax.’

  ‘But my way means they get a lot more money.’

  ‘I know. But Elroy, you’re not rich.’

  ‘God will bless me. I got enough, woman. I try to give to you, but you say you don’t need it –’

  She went and put her arms around him. He was a proud man, easily hurt, and he wasn’t comfortable with her having money, especially since it came from Kojo. ‘You’re very good to me. I just worry … It’s as if they’re too interested in your money.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t like my church,’ he said. ‘Maybe you don’t like black people’s church.’

  ‘But I’ve said I’ll go with you every other week – I’m sorry. Let’s not argue about it.’ And they did go together on alternate Sundays, to Paddington Temple and St John’s in Piccadilly, where she had worshipped for sixteen years, since she lost her baby and had her breakdown.

  She’d tried very hard to respect his church, although it was so different from what she was used to. But only last month May had come to tea and made the subject of church more fraught.

  Shirley was out in the kitchen, getting out the cake-plates, and Elroy was taking off his coat in the hall. He had just come in, tired from work. May was pleased to see Shirley’s ‘new young man’; she had only met him half-a-dozen times. Elroy was pleased to see her, as well, though he remained wary; did she really like him? ‘Mum does like
you,’ Shirley had told him, ‘because you are young and nice-looking. And not being Dad, you can’t boss her about.’

  May picked up a booklet, Paddington Temple: Impacting the City, which Elroy had left lying on the dining-room table. ‘Impacting the City. What does that mean? Sounds like a bomb. Or a wisdom tooth.’

  Shirley didn’t always listen to her mother, and Elroy was complaining about his hospital, which had all gone downhill since it became a Trust. ‘Seems like everything is rule by money … Last year the cleaning is privatize, this month they put the catering out to tender, and our people lose it because their bid is two thousand pound higher than the other … Two thousand lousy pound! In a budget of millions! And now they’re telling me this new lot is saying they can feed a man for seven pound a week. OK, right, if they feed them rubbish –’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Shirley said. She knew he was upset. When he was upset he sounded more Jamaican. She was trying to listen, as she opened the oven.

  But her mother was waffling unstoppably on. ‘This isn’t English. It’s American. Discipling the Church to Impact the City. Disciple is a noun, not a verb. Shirley never did care enough about English. Kingdom Economics? What is that?’

  Elroy was suddenly listening to her. ‘It’s about giving, Mrs White,’ he said. Shirley knew she must shut her mother up, but she was trying to lift the sponge from the cake-tin without leaving half of it behind, and her face was too hot, and the gas was roaring.

  ‘This bit is a scream,’ Mum was saying. ‘“Question. Do I have to tithe on my gross or net income? Answer. That depends on whether you want to be blessed on your gross or net income.” Surely you don’t believe that, Shirley? Are you listening, dear? I’m talking to you. I mean, God isn’t an accountant, is he, sitting up there working out how much to bless you?’

  ‘Mum. That’s Elroy’s. Don’t be rude.’