But Nola, her eyes closing again, smiled and shook her head.
‘No, Claire. I went to see the old woman first and, desperate as I was – well, I could think of a more comfortable way of committing suicide. Although she can’t kill everybody she touches, since her business is pretty brisk.’
‘They don’t die on her premises, I suppose, and not always straight away.’
‘I suppose not. But there is a doctor – or so he says. One could hardly ask to see his qualifications. Not with the risk he’s taking. He’d go to prison, wouldn’t he, if he was caught?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would I?’ She opened her eyes wide and it seemed to Claire that she could see straight through them to the naked fear, the panic.
‘I don’t know. If he got caught you’d probably be dead anyway.’
‘Oh – thanks. That cheers me up no end. Is abortion so dangerous then-?’
A long time ago, in Upper Heaton, there had been a fourteen-year-old scullery maid, Claire remembered, who had bled to death in a coal-shed. In France, a nurse she knew slightly had poisoned herself in her efforts to procure a miscarriage. Through long generations she knew that desperate women who, for whatever reason, did not wish to bear a child, would not do so, no matter how great the risk of pain or punishment, deformity or death. She knew that a great many of the unregistered midwives still practising among the labouring classes continued to offer abortion as they had always done, as the only contraceptive available in the mean streets and overcrowded hovels of any city, where penniless, under-nourished, ill-informed women conceived annually like cattle. And when one, or several of those women died, who cared to ask too many questions? She knew that mill-girls and shop-girls, refusing, like Nola, to beg from an unwilling lover, would submit themselves to this furtive, often fatal surgery for the simple reason that they had been told by generations of fathers and mothers ‘Don’t ever bring trouble home to me’; not for moral reasons alone but because the family could not bear the burden of another mouth to feed. And so they bled to death in coal-sheds, sometimes, at fourteen. Or they sat, laughing and trembling and talking of death and prison at thirty-eight, like Nola. At Upper Heaton, all those years ago, no one had shown the slightest interest in discovering the identity of the dead girl’s lover. Nola herself, in this case, did not wish to involve Roland.
‘Don’t do it, Nola,’ she said.
‘Darling –’ And, again, she unveiled those transparent, terrified eyes. ‘What else? Let’s be sensible. What else is there – except the river? Naturally I’ve considered that. And what it comes down to is this. Drowning is certain death. My doctor friend may kill me or he may not. So I’ll just have to take my chance …’
They faced each other in silence and then, quietly and slowly, Claire said.
‘You don’t want to consider having the child?’
‘Are you mad?’
And Nola’s voice was equally quiet and slow.
‘It could be arranged.’
‘Yes. I could go abroad for my health, and come back in nine months’time looking much better – leaving a little bundle behind me in a convent or somewhere to be adopted. I know. But I’d need help for that. And money.’
‘Yes.’
‘And who has money? Cousin Arnold, of course. He might even lend me some. But he’d talk about it in the Tangerine Suite, to his flappers, to prove how generous he is and how safe they are with him. Cousin Bernard? Nanette wouldn’t let him. She’s a good woman, you see, which means she doesn’t help people in trouble. She finds it too shocking. And my mother –. Could you go to your mother, Claire, with something like this?’
‘No. I couldn’t.’
‘Exactly. You’d get a warmer welcome from the river. So would I.’
‘But you could get money, Nola.’
‘I dare say. But what I can’t do, my sweet, innocent child, is get away from Benedict. What do I say to him? I’m just off to Cannes for a few months, darling. He’s no fool. He’d know.’
‘Yes.’
And once again they looked at each other long and levelly, eye holding eye.
‘You’re not suggesting I should tell Benedict?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d prefer to die.’ It was a statement of fact, delivered coolly, without drama. Claire believed it and, shaking off the silence, the false calm, she threw herself suddenly forward and took hold of Nola’s hands, holding them fast, propelled to make this contact by a rush of compassion, the desperate need to prevent Nola’s life, and the life it contained, from being thrown away.
‘Tell him, Nola. Yes – you can tell him.’ Suddenly, almost joyfully, she was sure of it. ‘And whatever he does – whatever he says – oh good Lord – what can he do to you?’
The panic which had been simmering, waiting its moment, broke free with the force of an underground torrent spluttering through Nola’s pores, pushing her over the brink of herself into raucous hysteria.
‘Tell him? I’d jump in the river now before I’d do that. I’ve made a fool of him for years – years – you know that. He’d – oh God knows – he’d crucify me, one way or another.’
And because she knew how much Nola had enjoyed believing that, had somehow needed it as an essential spice to all her untidy, often pointless adventures, Claire hesitated and then, in her determination to keep Nola safe from that unkempt, unsterilized surgery, she took a deep breath and went on, ‘Nola – I feel quite sure that he knows – about you and Roland, I mean – and the others …’
‘Knows!’ Nola was so shocked, so scornful, so completely aghast that it could, in less potentially fatal circumstances, have been comic. ‘Of course he doesn’t know. Come on, Claire, let’s not be naive. It’s all right to talk modern – look modern – but in the end – well – rules are rules. And when you’re a woman the rule is not to get caught. My mother taught me that. And when you are caught – like I am now – then the thing is to cover your own tracks, clear up your own mess, have the good taste not to be a nuisance or an embarrassment to one’s kith and kin.’
‘I suppose your mother taught you that, too.’
‘Yes – didn’t yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then –?’
‘All right.’ And she was treading very warily on egg-shells now. ‘Nola – I think –’ and she was conscious of weighing every word separately on her tongue, ‘now – for this – you can trust Benedict.’
‘Do you really?’ She might have been in a dream, her voice coming through a haze of distance.
‘Yes, I do. You don’t have to go to that doctor, Nola – really you don’t.’
‘Fancy that.’
‘Nola – I mean it.’
‘Yes, I know you do. I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
Taking another enormous swallow, her throat contracting again, Nola sat rigid and very still for a moment, allowing the quietness to return before she said, ‘Because the bastard cheated me – oh God, Claire-!’
Her body reared backward and upward in a fierce contraction of pain, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, her eyes staring.
‘Claire!’
‘Yes. Hang on to me.’ There was no point now in recriminations. She saw that the damage had been done. And what mattered was giving aid to whatever remained.
‘The bastard said-’
‘Never mind, Nola.’
It was too late for that.
‘I believed him. I thought he could do it, then and there, and it would be over. That’s what I paid him for.’
‘This afternoon?’ Of course. She understood it all now, the jaunty swing of furs, the talk of Miriam’s slow poison, the sudden throwing of her arms around Kit, the story of rushing off to meet the love of her life – again. Of course.
‘And then, when he’d put me through the hell of it –. Dear God! I thought it was over and it was just beginning. He said “Go home and in a few hours you’ll have a miscarriage. If the pain gets too bad
or the bleeding won’t stop call your doctor”. He said that. “Go home to your husband and call your doctor” – oh – the bastard! I can’t do that, Claire. It’s one thing I can’t do. That’s what I paid him for. And now – look at me, Claire – look –’
‘Yes, I know-’
She had seen, moments ago, that Nola was sitting in blood.
Chapter Fourteen
She had never nursed women. But, throughout the ages, one woman had always helped another in childbirth with no greater skills than the example her own body had taught her, and enough instinct remained for Claire to get Nola to bed, to prop up her legs, to calm her with false reassurances ‘It’s going to be all right. Yes – yes – of course I know what to do, and, so far as possible, to keep her warm, and clean.
Blood in itself did not trouble her. Men’s blood, that is. But this blood, containing the particles of an unborn life, was different. Very different. So far removed, in fact, from her previous experience that she felt compelled to treat it with tenderness, to remove each gore-soaked towel with care, to fold it gently instead of bundling it hurriedly away.
She had seen so many men in pain that even her compassion, at certain times, had blunted. Female agony was new to her and because it was this agony, this deliberate turning of birth into death, it entered her own body, the muscles of her own abdomen contracting with Nola’s, her own womb forced open, straining and labouring to deliver these gouts of blood which had been – which were – a human child.
She understood wounds inflicted by guns and shells and gas. She did not understand wounds like these. She did not know how to stop the bleeding nor how long, without fatal results, it might be expected to continue. She did not know whether Nola was dying or not.
And Nola did not care.
No doctor must be called. She was adamant, hysterical about that, crying out and choking, her throat full of tears, making herself worse. A doctor would admit her to hospital. Questions would be asked and even if the police were not informed, then her husband certainly would be. This was not London or some other big city where she could give a false name. This was Faxby. Two years ago she had herself officiated, with Miriam, at the opening of the new General Infirmary, wearing an oyster satin turban with an ostrich feather pinned to the front of it, a yard long. And somebody there would be sure to remember her. Which meant, of course, that by tomorrow morning everybody would know.
No doctors.
‘I can’t manage alone, Nola.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll take my chance.’
She had set herself to endure pain and the risk of death and endure it she would. It was not courage. She had gone far beyond that. For when no alternative existed, neither courage nor cowardice had any meaning. And this afternoon, when she’d gone, dry-mouthed, light-headed not from gin but from lack of food, to that prim little house with its potted plants and lace curtains, even the offensive cordiality of the ‘medical practitioner’who lived there, his hands folded together like two plump, white slugs, had seemed better than the disgrace of discovery. Men were allowed to treat themselves to their little sexual fads and fancies. Men – her own mother had made clear to her – were made that way. Women were made differently. Or at least – since men wanted it so – pretended to be. It followed, therefore, that if a woman had to sin – and, really, the sin itself never seemed to matter much – she either covered it up or paid the price. And paid it, of course, alone. Silently. Fatally, if necessary. Any way she could, so long as the good name of her family and her lover’s family were not dragged through the mud. That was what mattered.
And so she had gone with that cordial, furtive little man into his back parlour, lay down upon his sofa and allowed him to rape her with cold steel, her skin crawling with disgust for the man himself, those fat slug fingers on her bare skin, that oily smile, until the sweat of pain and blind terror wiped her revulsion away making her weep and plead for him to stop – dear God how had she sunk so low? – and then sob with the heartbreak of bereavement when he had told her why he could not.
Bereavement! Why had that word, for God’s sake, written itself inside her head?
Even now. Bereavement.
‘No doctors,’ she said, rearing backwards again in her extremity, her whole body rigid with hurt and horror. Her other pregnancies had been luxuriously drugged and distant. This was her first acquaintance with raw pain and she had not expected it to be so ferocious. Nor had she expected to feel so debased, so filthy. It made no difference. ‘No doctors.’
‘All right. But listen, Nola – I’ll have to leave you for a minute –’
‘No – why? No you won’t.’
‘Yes. I have to.’
‘No. Why? To call a doctor?’
‘No. If you want me to look after you then I need the things to do it. I’ll have to run to the chemist –’
‘No.’ And she dissolved, almost faded into weak and angry tears.
‘Listen, Nola. I have to look after you properly, don’t I – for my own sake as well as yours.’
‘Oh God! I never thought of that.’
‘So – you lie still. Very still. Please, Nola.’
‘Yes – but promise. No doctors.’
‘I promise.’ And quickly washing her hands she ran across to the dentist on the other side of Mannheim Crescent, begged permission to use his telephone, and when, with considerable suspicion, he showed her to the instrument and stood back, not quite out of earshot, to make sure it really was the matter of life and death she had described, she could not, for a moment, remember the all too familiar number of High Meadows.
She had no guarantee that Benedict would be there. None. It was seven o’clock. An hour before dinner-time. Miriam, who never answered the telephone in any case, would be upstairs changing. So would Polly. Benedict, just as likely as not, would be at Thornwick or dining out at the Redfearns. What then? There was no telephone at the farm. Dare she contact him at the Redfearns, who would want to know why? Yes. Of course. She would have to. And if she couldn’t find him, if he had gone into Lancashire or God knew where, then she would have to get medical attention as best she could. She would call Kit. He would help. She would call him now. It was a reassuring thought, instantly wiped away by the realization that she could not take the risk of implicating him in what might well become Faxby’s greatest scandal for many many years. No. She must find Benedict. Or she would have to cope alone.
She asked the operator for his number as quietly as she could, although it seemed unlikely that either the dentist or his sharp-eyed wife would recognize it, enduring a long wait before a dignified voice announced himself as ‘The Swanfield residence’; and then more agony as no firm promise could be given as to whether Mr Benedict might be at home or not.
‘One moment, Madam. I will enquire.’
‘Please hurry.’
‘Certainly, Madam.’
But the house was a large one, its pace leisurely. And Nola should not have been left for a moment, much less the time it would take for that cadaverous butler to walk upstairs and down that interminable corridor to Benedict’s bedroom door. She went with him, every ponderous step of the way, willing him to walk faster, to be propelled by her own fierce urgency. Dear God. And if Benedict was there – if – then he would have to come all the way downstairs himself to take her call. Please hurry. Certainly, Madam. She had never before in her life felt so compelling a desire to scream.
‘Swanfield here.’
She had found him. And now, how did one convey to a man on a far-from-private telephone, that his wife had taken refuge in a common lodging-house and might well be bleeding to death.
‘Oh, Benedict.’
‘Claire?’ She had never telephoned him before.
‘Yes. Could you come to Mannheim Crescent at once, please. Nola is with me. You must see her.’
There was a slight pause.
‘Can you be more explicit?’
‘I’ll try. She’s been taken ill. Very ill
.’
‘Have you called a doctor?’
‘No. One would have to – choose discreetly.’
This time the pause was imperceptible.
‘I see. Yes – I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.’
‘Thank you.’
What else could she say?
Nola was barely conscious when she returned, her breathing laboured and guttural, her cheeks already sinking, her face fleshless, assuming the mask of bones and hollows Claire had seen so many times. Men wore this mask before they died. So, it seemed, did women. Automatically she performed the routine gestures of care, checked the pulse, the temperature, smoothed the brow, made the patient and the patient’s bed tidy, tidied herself, sat down and waited for a higher authority. The doctor. Or Benedict. Or something even more final. Whichever should come first.
Not long. Benedict. Entirely composed, rock hard, she thought, but no rock to lean on; a rock, rather, on which vessels would break themselves if they ventured too close. Once she had almost – almost – sailed too near to him herself. Never again.
‘Did I understand you correctly, Claire?’
‘Yes.’ And as he entered her flat it was no longer her own, his presence filling it, arranging it, disposing of her time and ingenuity – her services – in a manner best calculated to suit his needs. He had already arranged for a doctor to attend. Since he was himself in evening dress she realized he must also have cancelled a dinner engagement somewhere or other, before setting out. Had his memory stumbled with shock as hers had done so that he had been unable to recall a familiar telephone number? She doubted it. She could, with very little effort of the imagination, even hear his voice making cool explanations, ‘I do apologize – something has just come up – no, no, nothing serious – just a slight hitch.’ And even Elvira Redfearn would be unlikely to question him as to what sort of hitch it might be.
‘I don’t think you should go in to see her before the doctor comes,’ she said, standing between him and her bedroom door.
‘Do you not?’ He brushed her aside somehow without even touching her, opened the door, went in and stood for a moment looking down at his wife. Claire did not see his face. She was looking at Nola. Nola was looking at her. ‘Judas,’ she said.
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