The Liberation of Celia Kahn

by J David Simons

  “That’s because he’s a butcher,” Charlotte responded. “He likes a nice juicy slab of meat.” More laughter. Big Bessie rang the bell again.

  “For goodness sake, comrades. A few glasses of sherry and you’re at each other’s throats. Now please let Celia continue.” Big Bessie peered over her nose at the company then back to Celia. “Well?”

  “As I was saying, when Agnes died she left me a liferent in this flat so we could continue to hold our meetings here. But there was another condition too. I’ve held back talking about it because it’s a touchy subject and we’ve had other matters on our plate. But I feel now the time is right to pursue Agnes’ wishes. Because so many of the problems that Bessie has just mentioned could be solved by doing so. And that is to further the cause of birth control in this city.” She held up Stopes’ book. Wise Parenthood. “Has anyone read this?”

  Silence. A few intakes of tobacco, ash flicked into saucers, chairs scraping on the lino.

  “Where did you get it?” Charlotte asked.

  “It was among Agnes’ possessions from the jail.”

  “What’s your point?” Maggie asked.

  Celia took a breath, steadied herself. “If we really want to lift families out of poverty,” she said. “If we really want to rescue women from the tyranny of their husbands’ sexual appetites, this book clearly tells us the road to follow.”

  “And what road is that?” Maggie again. “Victoria Road? Argyle Street?”

  “Giving women proper knowledge about birth control.”

  Again silence. To her surprise, it was the normally quiet Christine who spoke first.

  “It’s not right.”

  “What’s not right?”

  “You asking us to discuss this.”

  “Why not?”

  “All this sex talk. It’s men’s business. Down at the pub with their smutty tongues.”

  “That’s the whole point,” Celia countered. “It is about women talking. About women taking responsibility for their own bodies. It’s about lifting women out of their ignorance.”

  “It’s loose women’s talk,” Christine went on, wringing the silver wedding band on her finger as she spoke, her neck flushed from the yoke of her Fair Isle sweater right up to the hairs on her chin. “Whores’ talk.”

  “You’re a married woman, Christine,” Celia said, trying to keep her composure. “Where did you get your information on sex?”

  “I told you. I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “What about you, Bessie?”

  Big Bessie’s loud laughter broke through the tension. “I’ll tell you what my dear dead mother told me.” And here Bessie put on a voice of a prim matron. “The bairn comes out the same way as it got in.”

  “That was it?”

  “Aye, that was it. The entire words of wisdom imparted before I was wafted away to the marital bed. She might as well have been talking about a wee lad scampering up a chimney.”

  “One black hole’s same as any other,” Charlotte said.

  Big Bessie scowled. “Enough of your cheek.”

  “Well, I’m still not having anything to do with a contraception crusade,” Christine insisted.

  “Why are you so against it?” Celia asked.

  “Because I’m a Catholic, that’s why.”

  “How many children have you got?”

  Christine wrapped her arms around her thin body. “Six.”

  “And how many have you lost on the way?”

  “Another three.”

  “Have you not done your insides enough damage?”

  “My man will have nothing to do with any contraception. And neither will the priest. I don’t know what you Jews do in the bedroom. But no-one’s telling me to go against the word of the Pope.”

  “I’m not in favour of birth control either,” Maggie said. “And I’m no a Catholic. I just think you’ve got to let human nature take its course.”

  “Let man’s nature take it’s course you mean,” Big Bessie sniffed.

  “Doesn’t matter whose nature,” Maggie replied. “I dinnae want to walk around with any rubber appliance inserted up my secret passage.”

  “What about you, Charlotte?” Celia asked.

  Charlotte was flicking through the pages of Stopes’ book. “I’d like to read this. Anyone else after me?”

  “I’ll have a go,” Big Bessie said. “But I’ll tell you what worries me. It’s all very well giving women information about birth control. But where are they going to get the money to pay for it? I cannae see your average working class wifie asking for extra money out of her man’s pay packet. ‘Excuse me, Tommy. Can I have a few extra pennies to buy a Dutch cap?’ He’ll probably thinks it’s a new bonnet from Holland I’m after.”

  Charlotte cornered her afterwards in the hallway. She had a habit of talking up close like some kind of spy. Perhaps it was a habit she had picked up during the war. ‘Careless talk costs lives’ the posters used to say. She had always thought Charlotte was a bit of the Mata Hari type anyway, her voice coming out hoarse and breathless on a gust of tobacco.

  “I apologise for teasing you back then,” Charlotte whispered.

  “I didn’t mind really.”

  “Well, I just thought… you know… never knowing you with a man in your life. There isn’t anybody, is there?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve embarrassed you.”

  Celia stood there as Charlotte fingered the collar of her blouse then patted it down flat. It was a strange action yet something her father would have done, Papa Kahn checking on the texture of the cloth before making sure it sat just right. “It would be a pity if you didn’t have someone though,” Charlotte continued. “Given that you’ve got yourself a nice little love nest here.”

  “I’m a social purist, Charlotte. No sexual intercourse. No marriage.”

  Charlotte smiled. “Well, that’s the best form of birth control, isn’t it? So what’s made you get on your high horse about Stopes then?”

  “It’s something Agnes believed in. And I happen to agree with her. And now that one of the Labour councillors in Govan has started agitating for a family planning centre, I thought it was a good time to get involved.”

  “Bessie’s right about the cost though. It’s all right for the middle-classes like Stopes to be wittering on about contraception. It’s the working-class women who need it most. Yet have the least means to pay for it.”

  “I agree. If you’ve just got feminism without any of the socialism attached, you just end up with a whole lot of privileged women sitting around being aggressive. We need to get the message and the means of contraception out to the poor. I was hoping we could get some kind of funding. Maybe from the Labour Party. Buy in come caps from France, distribute them for free.”

  “I see you’ve got all this figured out.” Charlotte looked around, then moved in even closer. “I could contribute a little something myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My father, as you probably know, is very wealthy. It would be no great hardship to deprive him of some loose change to further the feminist cause. After all, he could do with a little birth control himself given the way he goes around distributing his seed.” Charlotte flicked a quick smile at her.

  “That would be very helpful.”

  Charlotte returned her attention to fingering her collar again. “I was also wondering whether you might consider renting out a room.”

  “I thought you were an heiress living in a grand mansion?”

  “Well, I happen to have a gentleman in my life at the moment. And having access to a pleasant room in the West End would be extremely convenient. Utmost discretion guaranteed from all parties. And the best practice of birth control firmly in place.”

  She laughed to herself. Charlotte had trapped her nicely. An offer of money on the one hand, a friendly favour on the other. But then again, she’d never told Charlotte she used her as a cover story whenever she decided
to bed down in Agnes’ flat for the night. “Why don’t you read the Stopes book,” she suggested. “Then we can talk again.”

  Twenty

  TO BE LATE WAS TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S TIME. That was what Agnes used to tell her. If that were the case, she certainly was a thief now. For the clock at Gorbal’s Cross told her she was late for dinner. And not just any dinner. But the meal before the Kol Nidre service, the mountains of food necessary to sustain her during the fast of Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. When she had to repent for all her sins of the last year so that once again her name could be written in the Book of Life. She stepped up her pace. Jew Street. Gentile Street. Gentile Street. Jew Street. Her own Thistle Street almost empty, no doubt all the sinners busy indoors getting dressed up for synagogue or already at table stuffing their faces. As if twenty-four hours or so without eating or drinking was the greatest hardship that could befall them. She knew poor families elsewhere in the city for whom a mere one day of starvation would be a blessing.

  The flat was surprisingly quiet. Dark too, all the doors off the hallway sealed against her, the telephone already unplugged for fear it might ring during this holiest of days. For a dreadful moment, she thought she might have missed dinner altogether, that her family were already repenting in the synagogue. She opened the door to the living room. A figure rose from one of the chairs to greet her.

  “My God,” she exclaimed. “Look at you.”

  Avram. He had left a boy, returned a man. What had happened to that little Russian immigrant? Tall and straight he had become, cheeks chafed from the country air, a fine suit on his back. A credit draper turned successful purveyor of waterproof clothing in Oban High Street. Smocks, coats, hats and leggings all made from airplane fabric, designed by her brother Nathan, manufactured by the staff at Kahn & Son Tailoring. Avram. Her own personal hero those few years back when Solly had concocted some football betting scheme to release Uncle Mendel from his gambling debts. “Don’t ask,” Solly had told her at the time. “Just don’t ask. But everything is fine. Avram saved the day. Your Uncle Mendel is safe.”

  She dumped her bag full of notebooks and pamphlets down on a chair. “Don’t you have a hug for me?” she said.

  He came towards her, clasped her around her waist, swung her around, making her feel like a bride. Once he had dropped her back onto her feet, she held him at arm’s length, then moved in to kiss him on both cheeks.

  “Is that a kiss for a comrade?” he asked.

  “That’s a kiss for someone I’ve missed very much.” She looked him up and down. “My, my. You’ve grown up.”

  “So have you. You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you. Beautiful but with bags under my eyes.” She danced around him as if he were a model on display. “A brotherly compliment, I assume.”

  “I’m not your brother.”

  “Might as well be.” She let herself drop down into an armchair, took out a packet of cigarettes from a coat pocket.

  “They let you?” he asked.

  “They can’t stop me.” She picked up the chunky solid-silver lighter usually reserved for guests. She flicked at the lever several times but without success. “Damn,” she said, rummaging again in her coat pockets until she found a box of matches. “Why are you staring?”

  “You’ve changed.”

  “You mean I smoke and swear.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps you are wondering what happened to darling little Celia?” She blew a couple of purses of smoke into the air. Just like Charlotte, she thought. She realised she was starting to do that quite a lot recently. Copying her friend’s mannerisms.

  “You were always different.”

  “Not ‘always’ surely?”

  “Yes, always. I remember you wanted to be a clippie. You could only have been sixteen then. The last time I saw you, you were off to a demonstration in George Square.”

  “You tried to give me that silver thimble. And I refused to take it. Oh, Avram, you must forgive me. I was so heartless.”

  “I forgave you a long time ago.”

  “Good. That’s one less sin I need to repent for later.”

  He laughed at that, they both did. “Go on, sit down,” she said. “You’re making me nervous.”

  He hiked up his trousers at the knees, sat down opposite, crossed his legs. His shoes were polished up so fine she fancied she could see the ceiling reflected in them. In fact, everything about him was just right. The handkerchief straight-lined in his top pocket, the starched-white collar and cuffs, the knot of the tie, the crease in his trousers cut sharp, the socks gartered up tight, she realised he would want to impress. This immigrant child who had once turned up on their doorstep with nothing. He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  “You must have other men chasing you now?”

  “I’m a Jewish spinster through and through. Twenty-three years old, left on the shelf. Even dear Mama has given up on me.”

  “I find that hard to believe. What about that chap Jonny Levy?”

  “How do you know about him?”

  “Uncle Mendel mentioned a while back he’d been courting you.”

  “Courting me? He took me berry-picking once in Blairgowrie.”

  “I remember him. He used to play football with us on the streets. A bit older though. What happened to him?”

  “He went off to Palestine to build a kibbutz with his own bare hands.”

  “Socialism in the sunshine. That would be right up your street.”

  “Sometimes I threaten Mama and Papa that I will go there too. If you don’t let me do this, I’ll just go off to Palestine to see Jonny Levy. They hate it.”

  “I thought they would like you going off with a Jewish boy. You’d get to keep the candlesticks.”

  “They don’t want me going to Palestine. They’re in favour of Zionism for all the other Jews. But they believe they have a perfectly good Jewish homeland right here in the Gorbals. Jerusalem on the Clyde, they call it. Anyway, what about you? Have you found yourself a pretty country lass?”

  “I think I have.”

  She felt the slightest twinge of remorse. It was the way he had lifted her up this now, spun her around. No-one had ever done that to her before. Easy as you like. “And who is she? This country lass who has stolen your heart. I can’t imagine there are many Jewish girls residing north of Loch Lomond.”

  “Her name is Megan,” he said. “And she’s not Jewish.”

  “Mama and Papa will not approve. Have you told them yet?”

  “I don’t need their approval. I’m not their real son. I’m also a young man of independent means living far away from this Gorbals shtetl.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  He rubbed his palm back and forward across his chin, suddenly all thoughtful. “It’s a difficult situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “My goodness. You’re going to be a father.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. It’s not my child.”

  “I don’t understand. If it’s not your child then…”

  “She doesn’t want it. She’s come down here for…” His voice trailed away, he sat staring at his hands.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “To… to get rid of it.”

  “You mean an abortion.”

  He reddened at the word, looked furtively around the room as if a constable might jump out at him for just saying it. “Yes, an abortion,” he whispered. “I’m paying for it. And I’ve come down with her to make sure she’ll be all right. She said there was a good chance it would be fine. If it was done early.”

  “That’s just her being brave. It’s a bad business. You’ve got to be lucky to survive, early or not. If she doesn’t bleed to death, the infection can kill her.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “It’s my business to know these things. Are you sure this child isn’t yours?”

  �
�I told you already.”

  “Well, you’re going to an awful lot of bother for someone not carrying your own.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “So where is she, this Megan?”

  “I’ve put her up in an hotel in the city.”

  “When is the appointment?”

  “Seven-thirty this evening.”

  “Right in the middle of the Kol Nidre service.”

  “She didn’t want me around anyway. But I’ll try to get away right after synagogue is finished. Just to make sure she’s all right.”

  “And I’ll come with you. This is woman’s work, Avram. You wouldn’t have a clue what to do.”

  Her mother stood at the doorway. “I see the wanderer has returned,” she said, looking at each of them, dwelling smugly on the ambiguity of her statement. “Ah yes, returned for the High Holidays without telling anyone. Expecting dinner to be on the table. Just like that.” Her mother tried to snap her fingers in emphasis but failed.

  Twenty-one

  YOM KIPPUR. The Day of Atonement. To confess, to ask for forgiveness, to start life afresh. Yet looking down on the congregation from her perch high up in the synagogue all she could think about was death. Death, death, death. The death of an unborn child – her own child. Was that not the sin that could never be forgiven? No matter how much she fasted, beat her heart with her fist, she still felt it as the murder of an innocent life. It had been years since she had consciously thought about her own abortion, somehow locking away the memory in some secret vault in her mind. But the poison from that event still seeped through to her life, staining her every mood, word, deed and dream. Agnes, God bless her, had arranged everything, ferrying her to and from some place in the East End in a hansom, made the necessary excuses to her parents for her absence. She had found the best woman she could to carry it out. Not some back-street abortionist working in a pool of infection but a retired mid-wife willing to take a risk with some proper sterile tools in exchange for the nice wad of guineas Agnes had put on the table. The danger had still remained great. But she’d caught the pregnancy early, her bleeding moderate, staunched quickly, the foetus discarded unseen and without fuss. And then she was back to scrubbing floors and white-washing walls as if nothing had happened. Except for the ache in her scraped-out womb. She refused to remember her rapist’s name, yet she thought she saw him once. Walking along Buchanan Street in the city, hands in his pockets, watching his pock-marked reflection in the store windows, her reflection there too, witnessing his passing, his free and swaggering gait, no vicious memory staining his thoughts. She had often dreamed of what that encounter would be like, how she would stab him in the chest again and again with some blade miraculously come to hand. But when the time had actually come, she felt nothing at seeing him. Just a numbness as she watched him disappear down the steps to the St. Enoch Underground.