The Longing

by Jane Asher

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t say anything. It’s all right. We’re here together, and just for now let’s hang on to that and not try and make any sense out of it. Don’t move – let me hold you like this for a few more moments.’

  As they lay clasped together, Michael looked around the small room. The opening buds of a small bunch of daffodils on the windowsill, brought in by WPC Susan Calvert in a kindly attempt to bring a little of the March sunshine into the wintry unhappiness of the room, made a splash of yellow against the curtains. The threadbare armchair, lace-covered coffee table and unwelcoming plastic-seated chairs were becoming quite familiar to him, and even the uncomfortable sofa on which he was lying had come to acquire a friendly intimacy. Now it held even greater significance, and he knew red Dralon would never look quite the same again. His head still lay propped up on one arm of the sofa, his right eye an inch or so from the mass of blood-red fabric, and he found himself marvelling at the intricacy of the thousand woven tufts of shiny nylon. ‘It’s really rather magnificent,’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that you’ve made me take a whole new look at your sofa. It’s amazing.’

  ‘Oh sure,’ sighed Anna. ‘I’m going to get up now – can you move your arm?’

  He watched her as she walked towards the bedroom. The back view of her thin, pale body bathed in the warm, red light stirred such a strong protective instinct in him that it almost hurt.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Yes?’

  As she turned, he took in quickly with a tiny electric shock of desire the sight of what he had up to now only known by touch: her full breasts, flat stomach and long, slim legs.

  ‘Come here a moment – just for a second.’

  She moved back towards him, utterly unshy in her nakedness, and squatted down beside the now awe-inspiring sofa as he raised himself on one elbow and looked at her. Very slowly and gently he bent his head towards her and kissed her on the lips, so softly and carefully that it made her feel like crying again. ‘I’ll look after you,’ he whispered, ‘whatever happens, I’ll look after you, I promise.’

  ‘Have they given you a date yet?’ asked Mrs Palmer, as she swerved to avoid a startled young man in jeans and anorak on the zebra crossing.

  ‘Oh Mummy – for heaven’s sake, do be careful. Yes, September the fourth.’ She could hardly keep from smiling as she said it.

  ‘So you’ll be at your biggest by late summer. Nothing too heavy then, and of course you get surprisingly hot when you’re carrying. Do get a move on!’ She hooted impatiently at the car in front.

  ‘Mummy, he’s turning right, don’t—’

  ‘We’ll go straight up to the first floor, and ask Mrs Wallis to help us. I know it’s early days, but we might as well make a start so there’s one less thing for you to worry about when you start to get sick and then tired and heavy.’ (Great, thought Juliet, thanks, Mother.) ‘Now, let’s see; any sign of a meter? Oh look – are they coming or going?’

  She stopped suddenly and peered out of the window. Juliet was aware of a red car behind them slamming on the brakes. Being driven by her mother meant having to be utterly thick-skinned about the reactions of other drivers at the best of times. But the fact that it was the height of the Christmas shopping rush meant those reactions were all that bit nearer to breaking point. Juliet had once mentioned something about lane discipline, to be greeted with incomprehension: Mrs Palmer’s driving was more of the weaving, drifting style, making her way in chatty unawareness of her effect on other motorists, whom Juliet could see in the wing mirrors gesticulating as they desperately dodged to avoid collision.

  They sat out the hooting and shouts until the meter was free, then, after some inventive reversing, left the car at an interesting angle in the parking bay. As they walked purposefully into Harrods, Juliet found herself idly wondering if it had been a mistake after all to tell her mother of the pregnancy. She had held out for two weeks, but a nagging instinct left over from childhood had made the secret burn inside her with such pervasive guilt, that she finally decided the downside of revealing it and enduring her mother’s interference was more bearable than the tension of keeping it to herself. Just as she had foreseen, her mother’s reaction was practical and positive, the reservations about the method by which the pregnancy had been procured apparently forgotten or superseded by the importance of doing everything in the right way from now on. Already instructions were flying about birth announcements (‘Only The Times, whatever anyone else tells you.’); the place of birth (‘Obviously Queen Charlotte’s.’); the layette; the christening; and all the other hundred and one things that must be seen to be put in motion correctly. Juliet was quite happy to let her mother take charge in this way; and Michael was his usual easy-going self about such things – as long as the mother-to-be was happy he would go along with whatever arrangements she thought best – and Juliet herself was in a state of such unreal emotional bliss that she felt as if she floated above such practicalities, protected from the sharp edges of decision-making by the cocooned wrapping of silky happiness in which she was enveloped.

  ‘I’m mostly going to live in casual things, you know, Mummy. Tracksuits, jeans and things. It’s really not worth buying anything too special.’

  Her mother frowned and stopped walking for a moment. ‘But darling,’ she turned and looked at her, ‘I’d really like to buy you something. Something pretty.’

  For just a split second they looked straight into each other’s eyes, and a flash of understanding passed between them.

  ‘Yes, well, one outfit would be good, wouldn’t it?’ said Juliet. ‘Thanks.’

  They made their way through the throng of Christmas shoppers towards the packed lift and then up to the first floor, where after an uneventful crossing of a vista of coats, suits and dresses, they finally ran aground at one of the cash desks. A small woman in her sixties dressed in a navy blue suit over a neat white blouse looked up and removed a pair of glasses from her nose at their approach, letting them hang round her neck from a gilt chain, smiling in recognition as she disentangled a section of the spectacle chain from where it was caught over one ear in her hair. Juliet’s mother greeted her with the friendly familiarity tinged with superiority that befitted the relationship. ‘Ah, dear Mrs Wallis – you are still here. How lovely to see you again. This is my daughter – I don’t think you’ve—’

  ‘No, I haven’t, madam. How do you do? How lovely to meet you. Your mother and I have known each other for many years.’

  ‘Hello,’ beamed Juliet back to her.

  ‘I want to buy my daughter a maternity outfit. She naturally wants to buy herself mostly casual clothes, but I do think it would be good for her to have one smart outfit to mark such an important event.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, Mrs Palmer – that’s up on the fourth floor. But how very exciting for you. Is it the first?’

  ‘Yes, yes it is,’ answered Juliet, enjoying the warm rush of pleasure that she always felt at any discussion of her condition.

  ‘And you’re to be a granny, then, Mrs Palmer? It’s such a thrill, I can tell you. Nothing like it – my three are my pride and joy.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they are. How delightful.’

  Juliet smiled to herself at her mother’s quick dispatch of Mrs Wallis’s grandchildren; naturally they were not of a class to discuss in the same breath as her own. A quick glance and patronising approval of a photograph or two, perhaps, but any implication that they were in some way directly comparable to the future Palmer grandchild and that it gave them something in common to chat about on equal terms had to be nipped in the bud immediately.

  They said their polite goodbyes and headed back to the lift. When it stopped and opened briefly on the third floor, Juliet caught a glimpse of a sea of grand pianos, the white teeth of their keys smiling in the open-jawed lids of walnut, oak and polished black. She longed to run into the middle of them, to st
retch out a hand to touch them. What a waste, she thought: how they look as if they want someone to play them, to fill the hall with music.

  They left the lift on the fourth floor to be greeted by the exciting notice, ‘Children’s World’. Mrs Palmer spotted an assistant and strode off towards her through racks of smocked dresses, corduroy dungarees and little blue blazers. ‘Could you tell me where the maternity clothes are, please?’ she asked loudly.

  ‘Yes, certainly, madam, they’re just along the—’

  ‘Oh Juliet, do look! Isn’t that charming?’

  ‘—just along the aisle there, and then left at the bottom.’

  She was holding one of the tiny blazers by its sleeve. ‘Oh darling, isn’t that just sweet. Shall I buy it, do you think?’

  ‘Mummy, don’t be so silly,’ laughed Juliet, ‘that’s for a three- or four-year-old. Give me a chance. Anyway, it might need to be a pink party frock instead.’

  ‘Yes, it might, mightn’t it?’ She peered at the label hanging from the sleeve end, before letting it go. ‘Good heavens – a hundred and four pounds.’

  They walked on past clothes that were getting smaller and smaller, until by the time they reached the end of the aisle, Juliet’s stomach was clenched in a confusing mixture of joy and anxiety as she looked at the rows of tiny white cardigans and blue romper suits hanging from display stands topped with a mixture of fluffy bunnies, pink and blue rattles and Christmas tinsel. She could only just stop herself from wrenching the miniature clothes from their hangers and burying her nose in them.

  ‘This way, darling,’ called her mother. ‘I can see them. Over here.’

  The maternity department wasn’t large, and at a glance Juliet could see that they weren’t the sort of clothes she pictured herself in at all, but she decided to make the effort to find something to please her mother.

  ‘Don’t pick anything tight, will you, Juliet? It looks simply frightful when things cling round the bump.’

  ‘I think the bump looks marvellous. I certainly don’t want to hide it, not at all. Did you see the Vanity fair cover with Demi Moore?’

  ‘What, dear?’

  ‘Oh, never mind. Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’

  After a few minutes searching among the voluminous skirts and dresses, trying to avoid her mother’s eye when she could sense her pulling something she knew she wouldn’t like from one of the racks, Juliet managed to pick out two dresses that were simple enough to be useful and a saleswoman showed them into a small changing room while she went to collect them in her size.

  As they were waiting, Juliet studied her mother, who had taken a compact from her bag and was powdering her nose, still chatting as she did so. Her normally immaculately coiffed hair was wispily disarrayed and Juliet noticed how the pinky powder was gathering unevenly in clogged patches on the papery dry skin and collecting in a thickened layer round the hairline, like debris left at a high-tide mark. Her red lipstick, worn away where the moist lips clashed repeatedly as she talked, still clung around the rim of her mouth – shooting away from it in little lines, like the rays of a sun drawn by a child, as the colour followed the creases etched into its outline. Mrs Palmer had never quite penetrated the mysteries of eye make-up, but a gesture at blue shadow was smudged across the upper lids, gathering in similar style to the lipstick in the deeply engraved creases, giving the unnerving appearance of the shiny skin being scored by sharp blue lines as she looked down or blinked. For the first time in her life, Juliet felt sorry for her. The delight at her pregnancy had provided her with a shield against the guarded tension she normally felt in her mother’s presence, and she now saw her objectively as the insecure, elderly relic of a bygone era that she had become; quite at sea in the high technology world around her. Only in her small flat or in places like this was she comfortingly insulated from reality by a safe domain of polite shop assistants, quiet music, immigrants tolerated solely as cheery bus conductors or incommunicative workmen, and gin and tonics before dinner.

  Mrs Palmer took a lipstick from her bag, popped off the lid and tilted her head back to get a clear view in the small mirror of her compact. She opened her mouth and stretched her lips over her teeth, still talking like a ventriloquist in a stream of consonant-less chatter, a gluey string of mucus wobbling between the yellowing rows as her jaws moved in the effort. Watching, Juliet was suddenly engulfed in a tide of nausea that swept up from the pit of her stomach and threatened to erupt at her throat. ‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, and only just managed to stop herself from falling off the chair with a hand on the mirror as she retched loudly and bent double.

  ‘Darling!’ cried her mother. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes I think so,’ panted Juliet, ‘hang on a sec. Phoo! That was nasty. Sorry, Mummy, I thought I was going to throw up all over you for, a moment.’

  ‘Put your head between your knees.’

  ‘No, Mummy, I’m OK now. I’m better.’

  ‘Juliet, I do wish you wouldn’t be so stubborn. You really must allow that other people do sometimes know what’s best for you. Now, put your head between your knees. Did you have anything to eat this morning?’

  ‘No, I didn’t feel like it.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. That’s really stupid, isn’t it. What do you expect? You must eat a little something in the mornings, I told you—’

  ‘Mummy, stop it please.’

  ‘—or you’re bound to feel like this. You know how you’ve always been about eating and—’

  ‘Mummy, stop it. Stop it!’

  ‘—and you can’t just think about yourself all the time now, like you usually do. You’ve got someone else to consider. Eat little and often.’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘A cup of tea with sugar in it in the morn—’

  ‘STOP IT! SHUT UP FOR A MOMENT. Just shut up. Please:

  Juliet looked up to see an embarrassed assistant hovering round the entrance to the cubicle, a bundle of dresses balanced on one arm. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid we’ll have to call off the fitting after all,’ she said quietly. ‘I have a telephone call to make.’

  She reached down to the floor for her handbag and lifted her coat off the back of the chair as she got up. She made her way out of the cubicle and walked quickly away from the two women across the crowded floor of the shop towards the lift.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The telephone rang in Michael’s office just as he was finishing off a consultation with a claimant. Two weeks on, Michael continued to see the world in such benign terms from the rosy heights of his newly acquired ‘father-to-be’ status that he was considering accepting the dubious evidence of Mr Bartleet’s latest claim, much against the advice of the assessors which lay in a green file on the desk in front of him. But something in the tone of voice of the caller changed his mood in a moment.

  ‘Mr Evans?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Anthony Northfield here. Dr Northfield from the clinic. I’ve just had a call from your wife, and I wonder if you could spare a moment to pop in?’

  ‘Is she all right? Is the baby all—’

  ‘Everything’s fine. It’s nothing like that. I’d just like a quick word, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. Sorry to bother you at work, but I wanted to be sure of catching you.’

  ‘Of course. Look, I could come over now if you—’

  ‘No, no, there’s really no need for that.’

  ‘Shall I come over after I finish? Do you want to see both of us? About six-thirty? Will you still be there then?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. But, perhaps just a quiet word with you alone at this stage, if that’s all right. There’s no need to drag Mrs Evans over here.’

  Disturbed, despite the doctor’s reassurance, Michael agreed, put the phone down and looked back at Mr Bartleet, who had become increasingly unhappy during the telephone conversation.

  One glance at Michael and the other man sensed, correctly, that his chances of a successful claim had di
minished as rapidly as had the smile from his broker’s face. Struggling against the thudding crash of plummeting hopes within him, he bravely tried to resurrect the atmosphere of bonhomie and good will that had existed only moments earlier. ‘Well, now, Mr Evans. The ceiling. I’m delighted that you understand about my wife’s problem with the tap; I think you were saying that you saw no reason why—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bartleet. I have to agree with the assessment. I can find no merit in your claim whatsoever.’

  As soon as he had dispatched his last client at six-twenty that evening, Michael made his way to the clinic, having resisted the temptation to telephone Juliet first, sensing instinctively that he should wait to talk to Dr Northfield before contacting her. He spent most of the car journey going over the possible reasons that could have necessitated the visit, trying to ignore the images of dead and deformed babies that insisted on taunting him, dancing and floating in front of him against the background of the rain-spattered windscreen. Instead he attempted to conjure up a positive cause for the sudden meeting – twins, perhaps? There had, after all, been two embryos implanted, and he remembered only too well the excitement he had felt when Professor Hewlett had warned them about the risk of multiple pregnancy initially. But surely Juliet would have been asked along too, if it were news of that kind? Or would they rather Michael broke it to her, afraid that the shock, although a welcome one, might upset her in her delicate condition?

  He reached the clinic without coming up with a satisfactory answer and, after finding a space on a single yellow line just outside, climbed quickly up the front steps and ran the gauntlet of the cheery Happy Eater photographs before reaching a disappointingly empty front desk.

  ‘Hello?’ he called optimistically into the empty space, ‘Hello? Anyone around?’

  ‘Oh I’m so sorry, Mr Evans,’ said a smiling and slightly breathless receptionist as she emerged from a door behind the desk, ‘I was just putting the kettle on in the back. You’ve come to see Dr Northfield, haven’t you? Do take a seat in the waiting room a moment and I’ll tell him you’re here.’