An Enormous Yes

by Wendy Perriam

  So, creeping back to Felix again, she relived last Friday’s class, when he’d had a private word with her and begged her to come home with him, once the class was over and the others had all left.

  ‘Yes!’ her avid body whooped, but her spoilsport mind took a rather different view, urging caution, circumspection; for fear of seeming too eager or – worse – an easy lay. Only after protracted argument had she agreed to postpone the visit till this evening, and her nervousness had been building ever since, wondering what might happen between them. And, if it came to undressing, he was bound to regard her body as too fat. He might even lose all desire and –

  ‘Great, Mum!’ Amy said, snapping her mobile shut. ‘The client’s not expected until three, which means we can have lunch out, once we’ve been to Babybliss.’

  Maria made an effort to banish Felix from the cab. ‘Perfect, darling. It’s a real treat to have some together.’

  ‘You’re not lonely in London, are you? I’d hate to think you wished you hadn’t come.’

  ‘No, I’m absolutely fine. I did feel a bit spare at the outset, but now I have my weekly classes and Kate just round the corner, I’ve plenty to do till the baby arrives. Oh, by the way, talking of babies arriving, how are Chloe’s getting on?’

  ‘Really well, apparently, although she complains she’s as big as three elephants and too uncomfortable to sleep at night. But the twins are monitored every second minute by some frightfully eminent obstetrician. Nicholas works as a hedge-fund manager, so they can afford to go private, you see – and private schools, as well, of course. He’s already planned for the twins to follow him to his old prep school and then to Marlborough. Which reminds me, Mum, we’ve decided to put the baby’s name down for St Peter’s Primary School.’

  ‘What, now?’ Maria exclaimed. ‘Before it’s even born?’

  ‘The earlier the better, if you want to be sure of a place. We can’t do a Chloe-and-Nicholas – not with our hefty mortgage. But, according to reports, St Peter’s is the next best thing. And we are in the catchment area.’

  ‘Is that the school behind the cathedral? I’ve passed it several times.’

  ‘No, that one’s Catholic. St Peter’s is C of E, which poses a bit of a problem, because the vicar’s incredibly strict about prospective parents being paid-up Anglicans. Hugo and I are agnostic, if we’re anything, but we’ve decided it might be worth our while to start showing up at church each week.’

  Maria could barely conceal her sense of shock. For all her scepticism towards aspects of the Church, religion for her was so serious a matter it seemed profoundly wrong to adopt a set of beliefs, or change denominations, simply to further one’s own advantage. ‘But isn’t there a good state Catholic school?’ she asked, partly out of loyalty to Hanna. ‘I went to a pretty decent one myself and that was in the wilds – and so did you, for that matter.’

  The car behind started hooting so obstreperously they could barely hear themselves speak. Amy raised her voice above the din. ‘No, nothing in the same class as St Peter’s – or not locally, in any case.’

  ‘But maybe in the next five years there will be,’ Maria persisted, wondering why she was championing Catholic education when her own faith was so half-hearted. ‘Do you have to decide things quite so early?’

  Amy nodded vehemently. ‘The competition’s really fierce, so the sooner we establish an interest, the greater our chances.’

  Best let the matter go, she decided, and simply be glad that her grandchild would receive a decent education. Besides, the taxi had now pulled up at Babybliss.

  ‘Oh, what a darling little shop!’ Amy enthused, once they were inside and surrounded by racks of babygros, diminutive sailor-suits and frilly party frocks.

  Maria felt it was tempting fate to be buying baby clothes at so early a stage – although Hugo’s mother, Beatrice, clearly didn’t share her concern, since she had already sent a parcel containing four exquisite matinee jackets and an ostentatious christening gown. Maria gave silent thanks that Hugo’s parents lived in deepest Shropshire and apparently had no desire to pitch in with hands-on baby care, but simply planned occasional visits and a financial contribution. She couldn’t compete when it came to such largesse, but at least there would be no rival grandma vying for the day-to-day role. Beatrice had even remarked that she found the title ‘Grandma’ ageing and downbeat and would prefer to be known as ‘Glam-ma’. But how long would glamour last, Maria reflected wryly, when one was intimately involved with a puking, pooing infant?

  ‘Don’t you just love this shawl?’ Amy held the fine lace against her cheek. ‘It’s so soft it’s like a cobweb.’

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful – and I’m going to buy it for you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mum. It’s not exactly cheap.’

  ‘No arguments. I want to give you something special for once. It can be your Mother’s Day present – the first time you’ve qualified!’

  Amy’s mobile shrilled through her words of thanks. ‘Shit! I hope that’s not Rebecca.’

  It was Rebecca, so while Amy moved to a quiet corner of the shop to continue with the call, Maria grabbed the shawl and took it to the cash register. Once it had been double-wrapped in layers of tissue and embossed white paper printed with gold storks, she hid it at the bottom of her bag – a surprise for Sunday next. Her money was dwindling fast, since she had splashed out only yesterday on a black lace bra and pants. Tachbrook market had been no help this time: it sold only passion-killing styles in puce-pink nylon or prim white interlock. Not quite the thing for—

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Amy said, re-joining her. ‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of a problem. They need me back at two, not three. But don’t worry, we can still have lunch – we’ll just have to cut the shopping. I know – let’s take a cab to Victoria, then I’ll be right on top of the office if anything else crops up. We can have a bite in the Grosvenor Lounge. It’s mainly sandwiches and suchlike but at least it’ll be quick.’

  ‘We can always skip lunch, darling, if you’d prefer to go straight to the office?’

  ‘No, Mum, this is our day, even if it’s shorter than I’d like. Anyway, I want to hear about you – how the classes are going and everything.’

  Well, Maria thought, suppressing a guilty smile, it’ll have to be the censored version.

  ‘Anything to drink, mesdames?’

  ‘I’d better stick to orange juice,’ Amy said, patting her little bulge. ‘But you have wine, Mum. They do a rather special Pinot Grigio here.’

  Maria deliberately quashed her instinctive twinge of guilt – her former Catholic self would never have been indulging during Lent. ‘Sounds lovely. Thank you, darling.’

  Once the waiter had departed, Maria gazed around at the spacious room, with its high, decorated ceiling, its gleaming chandeliers and the floor-length curtains, looped back with golden tassels. Chopin was playing softly in the background and on the centre table stood an enormous vase of exotic Madonna lilies. Indeed, if everyone in this crowded lounge were given a lily to take home, there would still be a creditable display left over in the vase. No wonder a sandwich here cost £14.95, rather than two quid at Sam’s Sandwich Bar.

  ‘Stop fretting about prices,’ Kate advised. ‘Amy can afford it, so relax and make the most of being with her.’

  So, leaning back against the padded seat, she allowed herself to enjoy the stylish ambience. ‘What’s great about London,’ she said, ‘is—

  ‘I’d love to chat, Mum,’ Amy interrupted, ‘but we’re pushed for time, and there’s something really important I need to discuss with you – and discuss on my own, without Hugo. So would you mind if we got down to it right now?’

  Maria felt a flurry of unease. Had her daughter found out about Felix? Impossible. In any case, there was nothing to find out – or not as yet. It was hardly a crime to kiss one’s tutor.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s something you’re not going to like….’ Amy shook out her napkin; seemed to take an age arr
anging and rearranging it on her lap. ‘It’s about my father,’ she blurted out, at last. ‘I must know more about him. Apart from anything else, they keep asking me at the hospital about inheritable diseases, but how the hell can I tell them when he’s always been a total mystery?’

  Maria stared at her, aghast. Extraordinary as it might seem, she had managed to avoid this conversation for all of Amy’s thirty-eight years. Amy had asked about her father, of course, especially as a child, but a string of pretty, not-quite lies had sufficed to fob her off and – thank Christ – she had never persisted in the enquiries.

  ‘Oh, I know you promised Silas you’d never get in touch with him, but frankly he had no right to make you give that promise. It wasn’t fair to me, for one thing. And anyway—’ Amy broke off as their waiter reappeared with a cheery smile and the drinks.

  Never, Maria thought, had a smile seemed so inappropriate. She willed the man to stay, to engage them in some idle chatter about the menu or the wine list – anything to stop her daughter continuing with a subject she had no desire to discuss, either now or ever.

  But Amy had already returned to the offensive. ‘Up till now, I’ve tried to spare your feelings. I mean, I understood how fraught the whole thing was for you. But don’t imagine it was easy to be left in the dark on such a crucial matter. Hundreds of times, I’ve wanted to ask you loads more details, but I knew, from past experience, that even a mention of Silas made you terribly upset. But now I’m pregnant, it changes the whole situation. Surely you realize it affects the baby, as well?’

  Yes, she did realize and, yes, Amy did have a right to the truth, just as the baby had a right to know about its grandfather. Yet that truth was so harsh, so wounding, how, in all conscience, could she reveal it? Besides, Silas didn’t even know that any child of his existed.

  ‘Mum, you haven’t said a word.’

  There were no words. It would be appallingly destructive to admit that Silas had blamed her for the pregnancy and insisted she had a termination. How could she tell her beloved daughter that her own father had wanted her destroyed? Not that she had ever considered such a thing. The very notion was unthinkable for a cradle-Catholic and for pious Hanna’s daughter. Pre-marital sex was crime enough, but abortion was a heinous sin that would damn her for all eternity. Hanna regarded any developing foetus as a new and precious soul for God, to be nurtured, cherished, honoured, not chucked out with the trash. So, when Silas issued his ultimatum – she either ‘got rid of the thing’ or he would never see her again – there had actually been no choice. Frightened in the face of his anger, she had pretended to agree to an abortion, but that, of course, meant she couldn’t see him again, or he would notice her swelling stomach.

  The loss had been colossal. Silas, her first and only lover, was a poet and a lyricist, and the most intoxicating person she had ever met or dreamed of. None of the men back home had shoulder-length black hair, so fiercely, emphatically dark it made jet and coal seem pallid, or eyes that could blaze a hole through steel. None wore Edwardian jackets or purple velvet trousers, or had such extreme opinions on art, religion, poetry, politics and sex: the Catholic Church was a self-serving patriarchy that oppressed women, forbade freedom of thought, and had long since overturned all Christ’s basic precepts; art school was a waste of time and suppressed most students’ talent rather than encouraging it; poetry didn’t exist before the Beat Generation; and all governments were corrupt – only anarchy should rule. As for sex, it was a primeval force that must be subject to no limits or restrictions.

  Everything she had ever believed had melted in the white heat of his certainties. Whether she agreed or not was immaterial. All that mattered was the stupendous fact that he had chosen her – a country mouse, with few opinions of her own – rather than the sophisticated women in his circle; the fellow poets, fellow revolutionaries. She had gained lustre from his status, from his greater age and experience, his—

  ‘Mum, are you ever going to speak, or am I wasting my breath? I actually have a right to know my father and that’s the end of it.’

  Maria glanced around in panic, as if someone, in this room of strangers, could help her find some words – correct, consoling words she wouldn’t later regret. But the people at the next table were giving raucous bursts of laughter as they drank toasts to each other, while the lone man on the other side was engaged in a long confab on his mobile. Nobody could help and, as for her, she had no idea where even to begin. Silas was completely unaware that she had given birth to the infant he had condemned to early extinction. And the whole ghastly muddle was totally her fault. She had let him believe she was on the Pill; allowed her own impassioned desire to possess a permanent part of him overrule his own distaste for procreation. Greed again on her part – demanding more than he could give, and profoundly wrong, she had realized only later in her life.

  Amy, however, was waiting for an answer, so she had to break her silence yet still endeavour to hide the hurtful truth. ‘Darling,’ she began, her voice constrained and hesitant, ‘you say you have a right to know him, but he … he didn’t want to know you.’ She took a gulp of wine, to try to dilute the sting in the words. ‘Oh, I realize how appalling that must sound, but it was nothing to do with you as a person. How could it be when you were only a tiny blob? It’s just that he made it clear from the start that he didn’t want commitment – not of any kind. He opposed marriage on principle and, in any case, he was planning to go abroad, so it wouldn’t have been easy to drag a wife and baby along.’ In point of fact, she was pretty sure that Silas’s travel plans were more a dream than a reality. Nonetheless, she had relayed them as genuine to Hanna, if only to excuse her lover from seeming just too callous.

  ‘He sounds frightfully dominant. Didn’t you challenge him or argue your case?’

  How could she explain that no one ever argued with Silas? He was like a force of nature, sweeping everything aside that might hinder his ambition or his will. She had always submitted, in return for the thrill of being in his bed; being both his mistress and his muse. ‘I did try, honestly, but he said I’d broken the terms of our relationship. You see, right from the beginning, he’d made it clear that he had to be free to pursue his art, which meant no ties or obligations whatsoever.’

  ‘If you ask me, he’s just a selfish shit. I’m not sure I want to know him.’

  ‘Well,’ Maria said, clutching at any straw, ‘it might save a lot of heartache if you just let the matter rest.’

  ‘I can’t. I promised Hugo I’d find out. And, remember, Mum, it wasn’t exactly easy for my poor husband, marrying someone illegitimate, and even more awkward for his highly conventional parents.’

  Maria winced at the word ‘illegitimate’ – one she had always detested, yet she couldn’t avoid the fact that for Beatrice and Tom, their only son’s marriage to a girl from a humble family, born out of wedlock to a Bohemian mess of a mother, must have been a bitter blow.

  ‘And it wasn’t easy for me. Even at school I was bullied – called a bastard and worse.’

  ‘But that’s awful.’ Maria pushed her glass away. Impossible to eat or drink when she felt such extremes of guilt. ‘Why did you never tell me?’

  ‘I had to protect you, didn’t I?’

  ‘I’m so terribly, terribly sorry. I just don’t know what to say.’ The music had changed to a jaunty tune, every note of which seemed to mock her desolation.

  ‘Even at Cambridge, I felt inferior. Most of the others had wealthy, doting dads, who’d turn up in their swanky BMWs and take their little darlings out to five-star restaurants and the like.’

  Maria put her head in her hands. Everything was crumbling: her daughter’s carefree years at school and euphoric time at university; her own now clearly premature belief that Amy had reversed the family’s misfortunes. ‘But Hanna and I thought you were so happy at Cambridge.’

  ‘I know. It was because of you and Grandma that I just put up with it. I mean, I realized what a lot you’d both given up, fo
r my sake, and you were so proud of me and everything, so.…’ She shrugged ‘… it seemed wrong to make a fuss. Anyway, I was happy after the first ghastly year. I decided to show the snobs that I was every bit as good as them, with or without a father. So I deliberately went all out for success – changed my accent, read the right books, was seen in the right places. But this is all beside the point, Mum. I’m not interested in years ago; I’m interested in now. And what I want now is for you to track down Silas and arrange a meeting for the three of us.’

  Track him down? Impossible when they had parted on such bitter terms. And that was her fault, too. She’d felt so utterly rejected and so terrified of giving birth alone, she had lost her cool and shouted abuse: the first and only time in their relationship. And, in the heat of that moment, the hateful things she’d said made any sort of rapprochement completely out of the question. The whole affair with Silas had been one of wild extremes: frantic love, voracious need, then unrelenting fury at the break-up.

  ‘It’s really simple nowadays. You can trace more or less anyone online and with a name like Silas Keegan it’ll be a good deal easier than hunting down a John Smith or David Jones. And easier still if he’s a published poet.’

  ‘He’s not.’ Maria picked up her knife and jabbed it into her palm. She deserved punishment for what she had done.

  ‘But you told me he was famous – on a par with Keats, or some such.’

  Maria cursed the lies. Her sole intention had been to make Amy feel good about herself, so she had deliberately stressed the superior genes passed on to her daughter; those of an exceptional man with outstanding talent. Yet, even when she had known him, Silas hadn’t actually written much. Poetry for him had been less a daily practice than an ambition and a calling; something that imbued him with an aura, a mystique.

  ‘Well, we know his age, which helps. And he must have done some sort of job, so we can search professional organizations and company records and all that sort of thing.’