My Real Children

by Jo Walton

  “And your relationship with Miss Dickinson is?” the social worker asked, making a note.

  “We’re friends,” Pat said, blushing.

  “I have a note that you are sisters.”

  “We said that to make visiting easier.”

  “I see.” The social worker made another note. “And whose are the children?”

  “Ours,” Pat said, drawing herself up. The social worker’s eyebrows rose. “That is, Flossie and Philip are mine, and Jinny is Bee’s.”

  “And you’re taking care of Jinny while Miss Dickinson is in hospital?”

  “Yes,” Pat said.

  “Can I see the upstairs bathroom now?” the social worker asked, and Pat heaved a sigh of relief.

  Now Bee was home, in a wheelchair, but home. They thanked the ambulance driver and Pat wheeled Bee inside. The chair was heavy and not well balanced. Pat had been thinking the girls might be able to push it, but it was immediately clear that they wouldn’t.

  The children hung back for a moment when they saw Bee, then they flung themselves on her and all of them were crying and hugging, and then the chair tipped and Bee was on the rug with them. Pat saw her wince.

  “How are we going to get you up?” Pat asked.

  “Don’t worry about that for the moment, you come down here,” Bee said. Pat pushed the chair back and got down on the floor. She pulled Bee back against her and held her steady as the children again flung themselves on her. Bee winced again, but said nothing.

  “Mamma, Mamma,” the children said, over and over.

  “I loved the cards and pictures you sent me,” Bee said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t always write back as much as I wanted. But they kept me going in that place, being able to see your drawings. I missed you so much. And you’ve grown. It’s not fair you growing while I couldn’t see you!”

  They had grown, but not as much as Bee had shrunk. Pat managed to haul Bee up into the old green velvet armchair, which she said she wanted. “I need to get my arms really strong,” Bee said. “I’ve been having physio, and I need to have more. I need to swim, and exercise. I can swing myself from the wheelchair to the toilet—did you get bars put in the toilet?”

  “Yes, yes, and we have a new toilet downstairs!” Philip said.

  “Two toilets, what would my parents say!” Bee said, smiling over his head at Pat. “Luxury! And then what we need is an electric wheelchair. They’re expensive, but it’ll be worth it. And I can propel this one myself, if there aren’t any steps. Wheel it over here, one of you.”

  Jinny won the tussle and wheeled the chair over next to the armchair. “A bit more this way, good. Now watch,” Bee said, as she swung herself from the chair into the wheelchair.

  Pat’s heart was in her throat. “Don’t fall!” she said.

  “I fall a lot,” Bee said. “It’s better to risk falling than to give in.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” Jinny asked.

  “Yes, it hurts, but there are worse things. And speaking of hurting, try not to bounce on me quite so much!”

  “I love you,” Pat said. “I am so glad to have you home.”

  “No matter how glad you can’t be as glad as I am to be out of bloody hospitals!” Bee said. “Now, I’m going to have arms like an orangutan, so I hope that’s all right?”

  “That’s wonderful,” Pat said. “Now dinner?”

  “Food!” Bee said. “Not that awful hospital pap! How I have been looking forward to some real food!”

  “It’s pasta with mushrooms and chicken,” Flossie confided. “Oh, and Eva in Perche No! wanted to send you some gelato.”

  “Mum told me about that in hospital,” Bee said. “Well, next summer.”

  Bee was plainly exhausted by the time the girls went to bed. “Let’s give them half an hour to fall asleep and go to bed ourselves,” Pat said. “We can talk in bed.”

  “More than talk,” Bee said.

  “I can see how tired you are,” Pat said.

  “Not so tired as I am randy.” Bee laughed. “Four months in hospital, and I hadn’t seen you for weeks before that.”

  They went up to bed. Bee swung herself onto the stairlift and off again onto the light wheelchair Pat had bought for upstairs. “This one is no good,” Bee said. “It can only be pushed.”

  “I’ll push it for now,” Pat said. “We’ll get another self-propelled one for up here. Or if we get an electric one for downstairs we can haul that one up here.”

  “That’s the best idea,” Bee said.

  In bed they held each other quietly for a long time before either of them made a move towards making love. Afterwards Bee lay back against the pillows. “Well, that’s something I don’t need legs for.”

  Pat laughed, but she was close to tears. “You’re wonderful,” she said. “Did it hurt you, making love?”

  “Well … yes. A little. But not enough to stop me.” Bee kissed Pat. “What we need to do is get a lawyer and sort out powers of attorney and all of that. Whatever we need to do to become each other’s next of kin. I never thought of it until I needed it. And about the children too, to name each other as guardians. I think that’s the way to do it, legally. Each other and Michael—if he’ll agree, and I think he will. I don’t know how I would have coped without Michael when it first happened. He was a tower, he really was. He’d listen to me, when Donald and the doctors wouldn’t. And he posted that letter to you. And he put up with all that fuss and the papers and everything.”

  “Bless him,” Pat said. “Yes, we need to do that.”

  “I’m lucky to be alive, and Jinny’s even luckier that I’m alive. If I’d been killed I don’t know what would have happened to her, but they might not have let you keep her.”

  “I don’t think they would,” Pat said. “I got her into the country on sheer class privilege—she’s on your passport and I didn’t think. Thank goodness for the identity cards, because she had that. There was a social worker looking at the arrangements for you coming home, and she asked me about the children. We need to set that up for all of them—it might be me something happens to. I was thinking Donald and your mother might have agreed to let me keep Jinny, but they might not. And if something happened to me, who is there? My mother wouldn’t be able to make any decisions.”

  “Michael,” Bee said. “We put him on the birth certificates.”

  “It would really put him on the spot. We need to talk to him. I mean we’ve decided to live in a certain way, an unconventional way, and the children can’t be the ones to suffer by it.”

  “Well, not any more than is inevitable. They already know not to say they have two mothers. We’ve talked to them about it.”

  “Yes, I gave Philip that talk before he started school in September.”

  Bee sighed. “I’m so sorry to have missed that.”

  Pat stroked her arm consolingly and then hugged her close. “It really is so wonderful to have you here again. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Me too, you.”

  Pat rang Michael the next morning after she’d taken the children to school. He agreed to come down at the weekend. She also called Lorna, and asked if she knew any friendly lawyers. Lorna called back later with a name, and Pat called and made an appointment for Monday.

  Bee’s resolution sometimes faltered and she sometimes grew short-tempered with pain and exhaustion. In general Pat was astounded by how well she dealt with everything. They ordered an electric wheelchair and were told it would be delivered in a few weeks. Michael arrived on Friday evening and disappeared beneath a wave of children. He had brought them cylinders of bubble mixture with wands, a different shaped wand for each child. “Only outside!” Pat said. “Which means not until the morning!”

  Michael was very impressed at how Bee swung herself around. “You wait until I have my electric wheelchair,” she said.

  After the children were in bed it was Michael who opened the subject. “I’ve been worried about what happens to them if something happens to you.”
>
  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Pat said. “We’re going to make each other the legal guardian of all the children.”

  “You can’t adopt them,” Michael said. “I looked into that. Two women…”

  “We think we can name each other the legal guardian if anything happens. Anyone can be a guardian. But you’re down as the father on their birth certificates, you’d be the automatic person they’d ask.” Bee looked at him inquiringly.

  “Are you asking me to give up my rights in them?” he asked.

  “No, only to agree if it came to it that the one of us that was left would keep them all,” Pat said.

  “What if neither of you were left?”

  Pat and Bee looked at each other. “Well in that situation what would you do?”

  “I suppose I’d look after them,” he said, slowly.

  “I know this isn’t what we originally said,” Pat said. “We hadn’t thought about this at all.”

  “It was all so theoretical,” Michael said. “Now they’re people, all of them, even little Philip. Yes, all right, if something happens to both of you I’ll do it. But what if I did get married the way you’re always telling me to do?”

  “That would be more complicated,” Bee said. “Are you thinking of it?”

  “What, jilt you after that photo in the Standard making half of London and my own parents think you’re my fiancée? When would I have had time to think about it?”

  Bee laughed and then turned serious. “I’m eternally grateful to you for that.”

  “It was the least I could do.” Michael turned his teacup in his hands. “Do you have anything stronger?”

  “I think I might have some wine we brought back from Italy last year. I didn’t bring any this year because I left in such a hurry,” Pat said, getting up.

  “She didn’t even bring any olive oil or dried porcini,” Bee said.

  Pat dug up an unopened bottle of red wine and dusted it before taking it through to the sitting room. She gave it to Michael with the corkscrew and went back for two glasses.

  “Who opens the wine when you’re alone?” Michael asked.

  Pat and Bee looked at each other. “Either of us, when we have parties,” Pat said. “We don’t usually drink wine when it’s just us. I mean I don’t really drink.”

  Michael opened the wine and poured a glass for himself and another for Bee, taking hers over to where she was sitting in the green chair that had become hers in the week since she had been home. He took a sip. “Red Tuscan wine, like we were drinking the night we started this whole thing,” he said, turning the stem of the glass.

  “I remember that,” Bee said. “In Bordino’s.”

  “So I think the sensible thing is if you designate each other guardians and all that. Ideally you’ll never need it and everything can go on as it is and the children will grow up with nothing worse to worry about than the European independent nuclear deterrent and the creeping privatization of everything in sight.”

  Bee raised her glass to that, and Pat raised her teacup.

  “But if something does happen to one of you, then the guardian thing, and if that holds up that’s all well and good. But if there’s a problem then I think the sensible thing is if I marry whichever one of you is left. I am their father, and that’s all legal and on their birth certificates and their ID. I’m the natural guardian, and if I’m married to whichever one of you is left, then she’d be the natural stepmother. We wouldn’t have to live together or have sex or anything.” He drained his glass.

  “That’s wonderful,” Bee said, and there were tears glistening in her eyes. “But it does put an awful burden on you. Philip’s not five yet. That means you’d have to stay unmarried for thirteen years. Well, eleven.”

  “The older they get the less of a problem it is,” Michael said. “But I wasn’t planning to get married anyway.”

  “But don’t you want children of your own?” Pat asked.

  “I have children of my own, isn’t that what this is all about?” Michael filled his glass again. “I’m very very fond of both of you, and I love the children. I know it wasn’t the plan, it wasn’t what we agreed, but I can’t help it. I don’t know if it’s genetic instinct or if they’re just so lovable I’d have loved them whoever their father was.”

  “I have never seen anyone so embarrassed at making a declaration of love,” Bee said. “And that includes me and Pat, who were really pretty embarrassed when we first admitted that we loved each other.”

  They all laughed. “Well, with that settled we can safely go to the lawyers on Monday,” Pat said.

  Bee looked at Pat with a wicked twinkle in her eyes. “And as far as sex goes, well, there might be sex,” she said.

  Pat looked back at her and nodded. “If you want to,” she said.

  “What?” Michael looked from one to the other of them. “I thought you didn’t want more children?”

  “It might be news to you that there are ways of having sex that do not result in children,” Bee said. “Nice ways.”

  “We do them all the time,” Pat said. “We wouldn’t have to do that.”

  “So if you want you can come upstairs with us and have lesbian sex,” Bee said, leering.

  “Oh my God,” Michael said. “I don’t know whether you’re joking.”

  “We’re not joking,” Pat said.

  22

  “Getting Married on the Moon” Trish 1977–1980

  It was Duncan, one of the men in the Lancaster Preservation Society, who suggested that Trish should stand for the local council. At first she was skeptical—she had no qualifications, and why would anyone vote for her? She wasn’t even a local, although by now she had been living in Lancaster for more than ten years.

  “The council needs people who care, and who have their heads screwed on right about environmental issues. There’s so much corruption in the Town Hall,” Duncan said, shaking his head. “It’s all established interests, and they’re all in each other’s pockets. They need a shake-up.”

  “I don’t think I have time.”

  “It’s part time. And unpaid, but they get an allowance.”

  “You stand,” Trish said.

  “I’m going to, but we need more than one person.”

  Duncan stood as an independent, and Trish campaigned for him. He was elected, to her surprise, and immediately the profile of the Preservation Society rose. Duncan kept talking to her about what the council did and how it worked and encouraging her to stand next time.

  In June of 1978, George graduated from Cambridge with First Class Honors. Trish, Helen, and Tamsin, now almost three, drove down to watch him graduate. Cathy had exams that day and couldn’t be there. Mark showed up at the last minute. They sat together to watch him accept his scroll from Princess Camilla. “Now you’ll be able to tell them at MIT that you’ve met her,” Helen teased him beforehand. Trish found the ceremony moving, much more so than when she had graduated herself, which she barely remembered. They didn’t have this kind of ceremony at St. Hilda’s. Even though New College was still new they managed to make the occasion feel special. After all the BA and BSc graduands, those completing Ph.D.s came in, with their bright hoods over their academic gowns. Last a special award was made to a female scientist, Professor Dickinson, who had apparently done something to cure Dutch Elm Disease. Trish clapped with everyone as she walked across the stage, then got up immediately to try to find George in the crush.

  Mark insisted that they should all have lunch together in a restaurant he knew. George brought along a girl. “This is Sophie Picton,” he said. “She’s a biologist. I wanted you to meet her.” She had long fair hair neatly wound up in a French twist. Trish liked her smile and the way she listened patiently to Tamsin’s chatter. This was especially noticeable as Mark was not patient with Tamsin and kept telling her to be quiet. They ate overcooked food. George, Helen, Mark, and Sophie shared a bottle of white wine, which Mark ordered. Trish noticed that Sophie wrin
kled her nose up when she took her first sip.

  “So are you still planning to go to America?” Mark asked.

  “Yes, I’m going to do my doctorate at MIT, starting in the new academic year,” George said.

  “You’re not expecting me to pay for that?”

  “It’s fully funded,” George said coolly. “As was this. You’ve only been expected to bring my living expenses up to what you could comfortably afford. I’m sorry if it has left you short.”

  Trish noticed that Sophie had put her hand surreptitiously on George’s elbow, whether to give him support or stop him she didn’t know. Mark spluttered and changed the subject—Tamsin had just dropped a piece of chicken onto the table and picked it up and eaten it, which gave him an excuse to fulminate about her table manners.

  When they had finished, Mark paid for the meal and left. “I’ve got a long way to go to get home.” He did not seem to realize that the rest of the family also had a long way to go. The rest of them stood outside the restaurant after he had left. “Are you in an awful hurry too, or shall we go down somewhere outside for an hour and enjoy the sunshine?” Sophie suggested.

  “Are there any playgrounds where Tamsin could run around for a bit?” Helen asked.

  George and Sophie looked at each other blankly. “I can’t think of anything like that in Cambridge,” George said. “But if we go down by the river she can run around, as long as she doesn’t fall into the water.”

  Trish agreed happily to the river plan. “I used to adore rowing when I was at Oxford. In fact I think I’ve missed it ever since. I haven’t lived anywhere where there was a river.”