by Maeve Binchy
Another examination, another confirmation, more checking of dates. Good, good, she had come in plenty of time, sensible girl. No reasons she would like to discuss about whether this was the right course of action? No? Oh well, grown-up lady, must make up her own mind. Absolutely certain then? Fine, fine. A look at a big leather-bound book on his desk, a look at a small notebook. Leather-bound for the tax people, small notebook for himself, thought May viciously. Splendid, splendid. Tomorrow morning then, not a problem in the world, once she was sure, then he knew this was the best, and wisest thing. Very sad the people who dithered.
May could never imagine this man having dithered in his life. She was asked to see Vanessa on the way out. She knew that the girl would be called something like Vanessa.
Vanessa yawned and took £194 from her. She seemed to have difficulty in finding the six pounds in change. May wondered wildly whether this was meant to be a tip. If so, she would wait for a year until Vanessa found the change. With the notes came a discreet printed card advertising a nursing home on the other side of London.
‘Before nine, fasting, just the usual overnight things,’ said Vanessa helpfully.
‘Tomorrow morning?’ checked May.
‘Well yes, naturally. You’ll be out at eight the following morning. They’ll arrange everything like taxis. They have super food,’ she added as an afterthought.
‘They’d need to have for this money,’ said May spiritedly.
‘You’re not just paying for the food,’ said Vanessa wisely.
It was still raining. She rang Celia from a public phonebox. Everything was organised, she told her. Would Celia like to come and have a meal somewhere, and maybe they could go on to a theatre?
Celia was sorry, she had to work late, and she had already bought liver and bacon for supper. Could she meet May at home around nine? There was a great quiz show on telly, it would be a shame to miss it.
May went to a hairdresser and spent four times what she would have spent at home on a hair-do.
She went to a cinema and saw a film which looked as if it were going to be about a lot of sophisticated witty French people on a yacht and turned out to be about a sophisticated witty French girl who fell in love with the deck-hand on the yacht and when she purposely got pregnant, in order that he would marry her, he laughed at her and the witty sophisticated girl threw herself overboard. Great choice that, May said glumly, as she dived into the underground to go back to the smell of liver frying.
Celia asked little about the arrangements for the morning, only practical things like the address so that she could work out how long it would take to get there.
‘Would you like me to come and see you?’ she asked. ‘I expect when it’s all over, all finished you know, they’d let you have visitors. I could come after work.’
She emphasised the word ‘could’ very slightly. May immediately felt mutinous. She would love Celia to come, but not if it was going to be a duty, something she felt she had to do, against her principles, her inclinations.
‘No, don’t do that,’ she said in a falsely bright voice. ‘They have telly in the rooms apparently, and anyway, it’s not as if I were going to be there for more than twenty-four hours.’
Celia looked relieved. She worked out taxi times and locations and turned on the quiz show.
In the half light May looked at her. She was unbending, Celia was. She would survive everything, even the fact that Martin would never marry her. Christ, the whole thing was a mess. Why did people start life with such hopes, and as early as their mid-twenties become beaten and accepting of things. Was the rest of life going to be like this?
She didn’t sleep so well, and it was a relief when Celia shouted that it was seven o’clock.
Wednesday. An ordinary Wednesday for the taxi-driver, who shouted some kind of amiable conversation at her. She missed most of it, because of the noise of the engine, and didn’t bother to answer him half the time except with a grunt.
The place had creeper on the walls. It was a big house, with a small garden, and an attractive brass handle on the door. The nurse who opened it was Irish. She checked May’s name on a list. Thank God it was O’Connor, there were a million O’Connors. Suppose she had had an unusual name, she’d have been found out immediately.
The bedroom was big and bright. Two beds, flowery covers, nice furniture. A magazine rack, a bookshelf. A television, a bathroom.
The Irish nurse offered her a hanger from the wardrobe for her coat as if this was a pleasant family hotel of great class and comfort. May felt frightened for the first time. She longed to sit down on one of the beds and cry, and for the nurse to put her arm around her and give her a cigarette and say that it would be all right. She hated being so alone.
The nurse was distant.
‘The other lady will be in shortly. Her name is Miss Adams. She just went downstairs to say goodbye to her friend. If there’s anything you’d like, please ring.’
She was gone, and May paced the room like a captured animal. Was she to undress? It was ridiculous to go to bed. You only went to bed in the day-time if you were ill. She was well, perfectly well.
Miss Adams burst in the door. She was a chubby, pretty girl about twenty-three. She was Australian, and her name was Hell, short for Helen.
‘Come on, bedtime,’ she said, and they both put on their nightdresses and got into beds facing each other. May had never felt so silly in her whole life.
‘Are you sure we’re meant to do this?’ she asked.
‘Positive,’ Helen announced. ‘I was here last year. They’ll be in with the screens for modesty, the examination, and the pre-med. They go mad if you’re not in bed. Of course that stupid Paddy of a nurse didn’t tell you, they expect you to be inspired.’
Hell was right. In five minutes, the nurse and Mr White came in. A younger nurse carried a screen. Hell was examined first, then May, for blood pressure and temperature, and that kind of thing. Mr White was charming. He called her Miss O’Connor, as if he had known her all his life.
He patted her shoulder and told her she didn’t have anything to worry about. The Irish nurse gave her an unsmiling injection which was going to make her drowsy. It didn’t immediately.
Hell was doing her nails.
‘You were really here last year?’ asked May in disbelief.
‘Yeah, there’s nothing to it. I’ll be back at work tomorrow.’
‘Why didn’t you take the Pill?’ May asked.
‘Why didn’t you?’ countered Hell.
‘Well, I did for a bit, but I thought it was making me fat, and then anyway, you know, I thought I’d escaped for so long before I started the Pill that it would be all right. I was wrong.’
‘I know.’ Hell was sympathetic. ‘I can’t take it. I’ve got varicose veins already and I don’t really understand all those things they give you in the Family Planning clinics, jellies, and rubber things, and diaphragms. It’s worse than working out income tax. Anyway, you never have time to set up a scene like that before going to bed with someone, do you? It’s like preparing for a battle.’
May laughed.
‘It’s going to be fine, love,’ said Hell. ‘Look, I know, I’ve been here before. Some of my friends have had it done four or five times. I promise you, it’s only the people who don’t know who worry. This afternoon you’ll wonder what you were thinking about to look so white. Now if it had been terrible, would I be here again?’
‘But your varicose veins?’ said May, feeling a little sleepy.
‘Go to sleep, kid,’ said Hell. ‘We’ll have a chat when it’s all over.’
Then she was getting onto a trolley, half-asleep, and going down corridors with lovely prints on the walls to a room with a lot of light, and transferring onto another table. She felt as if she could sleep for ever and she hadn’t even had the anaesthetic yet. Mr White stood there in a coat brighter than his name. Someone was dressing him up the way they do in films.
She thought about Andy. ‘I love you,’ she said
suddenly.
‘Of course you do,’ said Mr White, coming over and patting her kindly without a trace of embarrassment.
Then she was being moved again, she thought they hadn’t got her right on the operating table, but it wasn’t that, it was back into her own bed and more sleep.
There was a tinkle of china. Hell called over from the window.
‘Come on, they’ve brought us some nice soup. Broth they call it.’
May blinked.
‘Come on, May. I was done after you and I’m wide awake. Now didn’t I tell you there was nothing to it?’
May sat up. No pain, no tearing feeling in her insides. No sickness.
‘Are you sure they did me?’ she asked.
They both laughed.
They had what the nursing-home called a light lunch. Then they got a menu so that they could choose dinner.
‘There are some things that England does really well, and this is one of them,’ Hell said approvingly, trying to decide between the delights that were offered. ‘They even give us a small carafe of wine. If you want more you have to pay for it. But they kind of disapprove of us getting pissed.’
Hell’s friend Charlie was coming in at six when he finished work. Would May be having a friend too, she wondered? No. Celia wouldn’t come.
‘I don’t mean Celia,’ said Hell. ‘I mean the bloke.’
‘He doesn’t know, he’s in Dublin, and he’s married,’ said May.
‘Well, Charlie’s married, but he bloody knows, and he’d know if he were on the moon.’
‘It’s different.’
‘No, it’s not different. It’s the same for everyone, there are rules, you’re a fool to break them. Didn’t he pay for it either, this guy?’
‘No. I told you he doesn’t know.’
‘Aren’t you noble,’ said Hell scornfully. ‘Aren’t you a real Lady Galahad. Just visiting London for a day or two, darling, just going to see a few friends, see you soon. Love you darling. Is that it?’
‘We don’t go in for so many darlings as that in Dublin,’ said May.
‘You don’t go in for much common sense either. What will you gain, what will he gain, what will anyone gain? You come home penniless, a bit lonely. He doesn’t know what the hell you’ve been doing, he isn’t extra-sensitive and loving and grateful because he doesn’t have anything to be grateful about as far as he’s concerned.’
‘I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t ask him for £200 and say what it was for. That wasn’t in the bargain, that was never part of the deal.’
May was almost tearful, mainly from jealousy she thought. She couldn’t bear Hell’s Charlie to come in, while her Andy was going home to his wife because there would be nobody to cook him something exciting and go to bed with him in his little manager’s flat.
‘When you go back, tell him. That’s my advice,’ said Hell. ‘Tell him you didn’t want to worry him, you did it all on your own because the responsibility was yours since you didn’t take the Pill. That’s unless you think he’d have wanted it?’
‘No, he wouldn’t have wanted it.’
‘Well then, that’s what you do. Don’t ask him for the money straight out, just let him know you’re broke. He’ll react some way then. It’s silly not to tell them at all. My sister did that with her bloke back in Melbourne. She never told him at all, and she got upset because he didn’t know the sacrifice she had made, and every time she bought a drink or paid for a cinema ticket she got resentful of him. All for no reason, because he didn’t bloody know.’
‘I might,’ said May, but she knew she wouldn’t.
Charlie came in. He was great fun, very fond of Hell, wanting to be sure she was okay, and no problems. He brought a bottle of wine which they shared, and he told them funny stories about what had happened at the office. He was in advertising. He arranged to meet Hell for lunch next day and joked his way out of the room.
‘He’s a lovely man,’ said May.
‘Old Charlie’s smashing,’ agreed Hell. He had gone back home to entertain his wife and six dinner guests. His wife was a marvellous hostess apparently. They were always having dinner parties.
‘Do you think he’ll ever leave her?’ asked May.
‘He’d be out of his brains if he did,’ said Hell cheerfully.
May was thoughtful. Maybe everyone would be out of their brains if they left good, comfortable, happy home set-ups for whatever the other woman imagined she could offer. She wished she could be as happy as Hell.
‘Tell me about your fellow,’ Hell said kindly.
May did, the whole long tale. It was great to have somebody to listen, somebody who didn’t say she was on a collision course, somebody who didn’t purse up lips like Celia, someone who said, ‘Go on, what did you do then?’
‘He sounds like a great guy,’ said Hell, and May smiled happily.
They exchanged addresses, and Hell promised that if ever she came to Ireland she wouldn’t ring up the hotel and say, ‘Can I talk to May, the girl I had the abortion with last winter?’ and they finished Charlie’s wine, and went to sleep.
The beds were stripped early next morning when the final examination had been done, and both were pronounced perfect and ready to leave. May wondered fancifully how many strange life stories the room must have seen.
‘Do people come here for other reasons apart from . . . er, terminations?’ she asked the disapproving Irish nurse.
‘Oh certainly they do, you couldn’t work here otherwise,’ said the nurse. ‘It would be like a death factory, wouldn’t it?’
That puts me in my place, thought May, wondering why she hadn’t the courage to say that she was only visiting the home, she didn’t earn her living from it.
She let herself into Celia’s gloomy flat. It had become gloomy again like the way she had imagined it before she saw it. The warmth of her first night there was gone. She looked around and wondered why Celia had no pictures, no books, no souvenirs.
There was a note on the telephone pad.
‘I didn’t ring or anything, because I forgot to ask if you had given your real name, and I wouldn’t know who to ask for. Hope you feel well again. I’ll be getting some chicken pieces so we can have supper together around 8. Ring me if you need me. C.’
May thought for a bit. She went out and bought Celia a casserole dish, a nice one made of cast-iron. It would be useful for all those little high-protein, low-calorie dinners Celia cooked. She also bought a bunch of flowers, but could find no vase when she came back and had to use a big glass instead. She left a note thanking her for the hospitality, warm enough to sound properly grateful, and a genuinely warm remark about how glad she was that she had been able to do it all through nice Dr Harris. She said nothing about the time in the nursing-home. Celia would prefer not to know. May just said that she was fine, and thought she would go back to Dublin tonight. She rang the airline and booked a plane.
Should she ring Celia and tell her to get only one chicken piece. No, damn Celia, she wasn’t going to ring her. She had a fridge, hadn’t she?
The plane didn’t leave until the early afternoon. For a wild moment she thought of joining Hell and Charlie in the pub where they were meeting, but dismissed the idea. She must now make a list of what clothes she was meant to have bought and work out a story about how they had disappeared. Nothing that would make Andy get in touch with police or airlines to find them for her. It was going to be quite hard, but she’d have to give Andy some explanation of what she’d been doing, wouldn’t she? And he would want to know why she had spent all that money. Or would he? Did he even know she had all that money? She couldn’t remember telling him. He wasn’t very interested in her little savings, they talked more about his investments. And she must remember that if he was busy or cross tonight or tomorrow she wasn’t to take it out on him. Like Hell had said, there wasn’t any point in her expecting a bit of cossetting when he didn’t even know she needed it.
How sad and lonely it would be
to live like Celia, to be so suspicious of men, to think so ill of Andy. Celia always said he was selfish and just took what he could get. That was typical of Celia, she understood nothing. Hell had understood more, in a couple of hours, than Celia had in three years. Hell knew what it was like to love someone.
But May didn’t think Hell had got it right about telling Andy all about the abortion. Andy might be against that kind of thing. He was very moral in his own way, was Andy.
HOLLAND PARK
Everyone hated Malcolm and Melissa out in Greece last summer. They pretended they thought they were marvellous, but deep down we really hated them. They were too perfect, too bright, intelligent, witty and aware. They never monopolised conversations in the taverna, they never seemed to impose their will on anyone else, but somehow we all ended up doing what they wanted to do. They didn’t seem lovey-dovey with each other, but they had a companionship which drove us all to a frenzy of rage.
I nearly fainted when I got a note from them six months later. I thought they were the kind of people who wrote down addresses as a matter of courtesy, and you never heard from them again.
‘I hate trying to recreate summer madness,’ wrote Melissa. ‘So I won’t gather everyone from the Hellenic scene, but Malcolm and I would be thrilled if you could come to supper on the 20th. Around eightish, very informal and everything. We’ve been so long out of touch that I don’t know if there’s anyone I should ask you to bring along; if so, of course the invitation is for two. Give me a ring sometime so that I’ll know how many strands of spaghetti to put in the pot. It will be super to see you again.’
I felt that deep down she knew there was nobody she should ask me to bring along. She wouldn’t need to hire a private detective for that, Melissa would know. The wild notion of hiring someone splendid from an escort agency came and went. In three artless questions Melissa would find out where he was from, and think it was a marvellous fun thing to have done.
I didn’t believe her about the spaghetti, either. It would be something that looked effortless but would be magnificent and unusual at the same time. Perhaps a perfect Greek meal for nostalgia, where she would have made all the hard things like pitta and humus and fetta herself, and laugh away the idea that it was difficult. Or it would be a dinner around a mahogany table with lots of cut-glass decanters, and a Swiss darling to serve it and wash up.
