And besides, I couldn’t face it. I’d suffered enough for my mistake. One little mistake! What horrible injustice, to impose a life-sentence for that! What moral law can compel anyone to stay in prison if they can get out?
I looked at the time. It was, to my astonishment, only a quarter to six. I felt as if I’d been sitting there half the night. But that was good – not six o’clock yet – Dr Graham might still be at his office. And suddenly I had to act quickly. My pulses were hammering in panic, as if I were really behind bars and spied an escape route that would close forever in a matter of seconds … I’d heard somewhere that you can’t stop it after the end of the third month.
I lifted John’s head carefully with both hands and slipped out from beneath it. He grunted a little as I rested it against the arm of the chair, but didn’t wake. My leg had gone completely to sleep and I couldn’t feel it at all, but I managed to hobble to the door, collecting fourpence out of my wallet, and down the stairs to the first landing where the telephone was. It struck me as I fumblingly dialled the number that it would be better to go out to a kiosk, where I would be more sure of privacy, but having come to this decision I only wanted to hurry, hurry – every minute’s delay seemed dangerous.
It rang a long time before a woman’s voice answered – the same woman.
‘This is Miss Graham,’ I said, surprising myself by the furtive urgency in my own voice. ‘I came to see Dr Graham two months ago. May I – is he there now? Could I have a word with him?’
The voice was chilly and formal. ‘I’m sorry, the doctor’s off duty from five-thirty. Is there anything I could do?’
‘I want to make an appointment to come and see him again – tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ The voice held the same polite incredulity as it had the first time. ‘I’m afraid that’s quite impossible. His appointments book is full until –’
‘Please,’ I said, ‘please.’ It was exactly like the first time. Only now I knew all the facts, and I knew what I wanted. ‘I can’t wait. It’s most urgent. I’m sure if you tell him, he’ll remember me.’
‘Well … I could give him a message. Miss – who, did you say?’
‘Graham, Jane Graham. He’ll remember me because our names are the same. Tell him – tell him I’ve changed my mind. Please.’
‘Very well.’
‘May I come round tomorrow? I don’t mind waiting until he’s got a moment free between patients.’
‘I think it would be better if you gave me your phone number. I’ll telephone you in the morning and tell you if the doctor can see you.’
I gave her the number and hung up feeling baulked of my escape, almost as if I’d expected that the thing could be done now, tonight. But at least I’d taken the first step, and not an easy step, considering what I’d said to the doctor at our last meeting. It proved to me that I was in earnest, that I was truly resolved. Three months was not too late – it mustn’t be. I had sixty guineas, I had a hundred if he asked for it. That was about all I did have, but it wasn’t much to pay for peace and a future of freedom. And it was for Toby, too, and for the baby itself. I stood by the phone prodding away at my mind with the unanswerable rationalizations, wondering why I didn’t feel happier and better now I’d decided.
I climbed the stairs slowly. On the next landing up, there was a faint suggestion of Chanel No. 9 and a small, tell-tale movement of a door swiftly closing the last two inches. I remembered now another give-away sound which at the time I hadn’t noticed – a click on the line at the beginning of my conversation with the woman. So, Mavis at least had been getting a good earful. Had I said anything revealing? I thought not.
John was awake. He’d put some more money in the meter and was warming himself by the newly-lit fire. He jumped to his feet as I came in.
‘I go to sleep,’ he said accusingly. ‘Why you don’t wake me? Let the room get cold …’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. I stood by the window staring out into the foggy darkness, taking deep breaths to try and stifle some hollow feeling of new dis-ease.
He stood awkwardly. ‘You forgive me?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, a little impatiently.
‘You think Toby come back?’
‘I expect so. I hope so.’ Then I thought of something cheering. ‘He’ll have to, all his things are still here – his writing –’
John’s face broke into a grin; I could see it reflected in the windowpane. ‘That’s right!’ he exclaimed. ‘Then I tell him – I tell him –’ he broke off, the grin fading uncertainly.
‘You can tell him,’ I said, turning and looking him in the face, ‘that you were entirely mistaken; that my boss really is my boss, and that I’m not going to have a baby.’ There. That meant I had to do it. That meant it was as good as done.
He put his big head on one side and looked at me, puzzled. ‘Not going to have a baby?’ he repeated.
‘No,’ I said, trying to sound convincing but daunted by the simple bewilderment in his face. ‘You were quite wrong about it.’
He took it in slowly but uncomprehendingly, and shook his head. ‘Honestly, Johnny. Now, please don’t worry any more. Go on off to the club, and don’t worry. He’ll come back, and we’ll all be friends again. All right?’
He shook his head again, not in denial, but just in unbelief. ‘I sorry,’ he said once again, in a hopeless voice that told me I hadn’t convinced him. He went to the door, and then turned round and said simply, ‘You know, I like you. Even when I sick in the head, I still like you. I like to help you, any way I can.’ His face lit up again. ‘I’m good carpenter. Make you wardrobe shelf, remember? Make you something else – very good cradle, like I see here sometime. You like that?’
I stared at him helplessly. I thought of several things to say to him, but nothing sounded right At last I said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow,’ and he nodded happily and went padding off to work.
It was very early, but I was suddenly feeling horribly tired, and I thought bed would be a good idea. I got undressed and, after my usual battle with the crumbling Ascot in the bathroom, forced it to yield enough hot water for a miserly bath. On my way back to my room I had another look into Toby’s. It was dark and empty. I thought then that, much as I longed to see him, it might be as well to start hoping he wouldn’t come back until I could truthfully tell him there would be no baby. I wondered uneasily whether he would be able to see from my face that though it might be the truth, it was not the whole truth.
I got into bed, turned the light off and lay with just the fire lighting the room. I lay on my back thinking deliberately how lovely it would be when it was over and I didn’t have to worry any more. I wondered where Toby was – he’d been gone for over thirty-six hours now. I thought of his sweetness in sitting beside me all night, and of the shadows on his face in the morning, and how I had gone off without telling him I loved him. Did I love him? I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt before. All I knew was that I felt married to him.
My hands were folded over my stomach like a sedate effigy, and now, against my will, they started to explore, pressing gently into the flesh. There was no definable shape to the bulge yet – in fact, I could make the bulge non-existent by drawing in my muscles. Surely a being so undeveloped – no, not even a being, an appendage, a little lifeless nubbin of my own flesh – had no claim on me, no claim on life when it couldn’t even sustain an existence of its own. There couldn’t be any wrong in disposing of it. It wasn’t a baby yet, just a potential; not much more than a seed. The chief reason I’d always been against abortion was that it seemed like tearing up a bill instead of paying it. What a piece of high-flown theorizing that seemed now! Why should one pay a bill that was out of all proportion to the goods received? It was absurd.
(Even if you knew in advance what the bill might be?)
Why should I pay it all alone? Anyway, I paid at the time.
(And since when was living a matter of straightfor
ward cash-and-carry transactions? How do you know you’re not paying now for something you’ll get later?)
So you’re back, are you? I snarled at the inner voice. A fine time you picked to wake up! Where were you in my hour of need? I was still arguing childishly against myself when I heard a little noise at the door.
It wasn’t a knock, really – more like a dog scratching to be let in. I lay frozen for a moment, and then I called out, ‘Who is it?’
There was no answer, but after a moment the scratching was repeated. I got out of bed and put on my dressing-gown with shaky haste. Could it be Toby? I ran round the corner to the door and opened it.
It was Mavis.
I was completely taken aback. She had never come up to my room before, in fact I’d never seen her outside her own. She had a shawl-thing round her shoulders, and a knitting bag in her hand, which seemed oddly heavy. She smiled at me shyly, as if uncertain of her welcome.
‘Hallo, dear,’ she said brightly. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming up – I thought I’d just come and see how you were, and perhaps sit and chat with you for a while.’
I said of course I didn’t mind, and stood aside to let her in.
‘Oh, but you’ve been in bed!’ she exclaimed as soon as she went round the angle. ‘I’m disturbing you!’ But she made no move to leave, so I had to say not at all, I’d gone to bed because it seemed the warmest place.
‘Quite right,’ she said approvingly. ‘Now, you just jump back under the covers, and I’ll sit myself here. I don’t want to be a nuisance.’ I did as she suggested, keeping my dressing-gown on, and watched her settle herself in the arm-chair and get her knitting out. She looked very homely and comfortable, but I had a feeling of misgiving. It was so unusual for her to move out of her own domain. I wondered suddenly whether her unexpected visit could have anything to do with my phone call. And almost at once, she confirmed it.
‘Well now, how are you feeling?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been quite worried about you – you haven’t been looking well lately, I noticed it this evening particularly when you dropped in.’
She had nothing at all to go on, I thought, except that phone call, and she naturally wouldn’t admit to having listened to that. I decided to bluff it out.
‘I don’t know where you got the idea I was ill,’ I said as heartily as I could. ‘I’m fine – I just felt a bit sleepy and chilly, that was why I went to bed so early.’
‘Oh come now, dear, you can’t fool an old hand like me.’ She smiled complacently down at her swiftly-flashing knitting needles.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, with an edge in my voice.
‘Just that I know, dear – that’s all.’
I felt myself turn pale with the sort of impotent fury a goldfish in a bowl might feel. Was there nobody who didn’t know? Did I look so obviously the sort to get into trouble that I couldn’t go about with circles under my eyes, or telephone a doctor, or throw up once in a while, without everyone immediately jumping to a single conclusion? Tears of futile anger and chagrin stung my eyes. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ I almost shouted.
Mavis laid her knitting aside and came over to the bed, where, to my redoubled annoyance, she sat down and took my hands.
‘Now listen, dear,’ she said kindly. ‘Don’t get upset. I know how you feel because I’ve seen other girls go through it. You may think it’s none of my business –’
‘I do!’ I interrupted rudely, enraged now more by the tears streaming down my face than by her.
‘– And I wouldn’t have said a word, ducky, if I hadn’t heard you phoning that doctor.’ My nose was starting to run and she released one of my hands and put a Chanel-smelling handkerchief into it. ‘Now, Jane, you must be sensible. Don’t go to that awful man and spend all that money.’
I stared at her, aghast.
‘Yes, dear, I know all about him. One of the girls in the company, ever such a nice little thing she was, she thought she’d got into trouble; well, I could’ve told her she would, the way she was going on – actors – you wouldn’t believe! They say the stage is a respectable profession nowadays, well maybe it is, but I can’t think it’s changed all that much in the five years since I left. There was one – the same one this little girl was carrying on with – tall handsome brute, not my type I’m glad to say, too florid like, but he was a regular goat. You couldn’t walk into his dressing-room five minutes after the curtain came down for fear of what you might find him doing. Where he found the energy – ! Anyway, this poor child, only nineteen she was (he should’ve been ashamed of himself and him a man of forty) – if she’d only come to me at the start! But no, she let him tell her what to do – him that was the cause of it all – and what does he do but fix up for her to go and see this Dr Graham? Mind you, he paid, I’ll say that for him, but it might just as well have been her – the money was thrown down the drain all the same!’
In spite of myself I was forced to ask, ‘What do you mean? Didn’t the operation – didn’t it work?’
‘Work?’ she said. ‘Work? There was nothing for it to work on. When she came round after the anaesthetic the first thing she says to the nurse is, Well, was I or wasn’t I? Because I’d told her it was funny this doctor never even touched her before he sent her in there. Nothing of the sort, says the nurse, wherever did you get that idea? It was some little blockage or something, not a baby at all. All that money! She could’ve had the same thing free on the National Health! And then of course, silly girl, she went and told him – he was so livid he wouldn’t have nothing more to do with her.’
‘But –’ I struggled to digest all this. ‘In my case, it’s different. There’s no doubt –’
‘Oh, I dare say,’ she said with a sniff. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is, the man’s a crook. He’s not to be trusted. And why should you give him all your money for doing something –’
She stopped. She looked at me slyly.
‘How far along are you, dear?’
‘Three months,’ I mumbled.
She sucked in her breath and shook her head. ‘Pity you let it go so long,’ she said. ‘Have you tried anything at all? No? Well, you know, you’d be silly to spend all that money, now wouldn’t you? If you didn’t have to?’
I was staring at her as if she were turning into a witch in front of my eyes. I felt faintly hypnotized.
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Oh, nothing wrong, dear,’ she said, giving me a clear-eyed look of total innocence. ‘Don’t think that. But you know, there are ways, without any sort of tinkering about. Now, look here.’ She picked up her heavy knitting-bag and took out of it a half-bottle of gin and a small tin of Nescafé – only it wasn’t Nescafé, because it rattled. I had a good idea what was in that. It was the gin that surprised me. It was a good brand. Did Mavis drink? Where did she get the money? Again as if she read my thoughts, she said: ‘After I heard you talking on the phone, I nipped out and bought this – you can pay me back, if you like. Mother’s ruin. Now you know why they call it that – one reason, anyway. Of course, you have to drink lots of it – “lots and lots, no tiny tots”, as they say.’ She tittered genteelly. The double meaning, when it struck me, forced a gasp of half-hysterical laughter out of me before I could control myself; I clamped a hand over my mouth. I felt I must keep a very firm hold on myself if I were not to lose control altogether. The whole situation was so grotesque, so funny and so preposterous. ‘Nothing wrong, dear!’ Oh no, nothing at all wrong. It was all just like being given a new recipe or a knitting pattern. I put my other hand up to my face too, and put my head down on my knees, trying to keep myself from going to pieces.
Mavis thought I was crying, and indeed I wasn’t far from that either. She patted my shoulder with her dry, spinsterish little hand. ‘Now, don’t upset yourself, there’s a good girl. I’ll stay with you, if you like, and by the morning it’ll probably all be over.’
I didn’t answer. I was wondering how often she did this mini
stering-angel act, and what she got out of it. Not money? Surely not. Not when she wouldn’t take any for making chair-covers. Perhaps she just did it out of the goodness of her heart – or perhaps (and this thought provoked a fresh spurt of giggles in my throat) half the little souvenirs that littered her room were tokens of gratitude – from Torquay, Margate and Llandrindod Wells – I pulled myself together with a great effort, and took my hands from my face. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Mavis, with her neat grey bun and demure brooch linking the lapels of her Peter Pan collar.
I said, ‘That’s very kind of you, Mavis, and of course I’ll pay you for the gin, but if you don’t mind I’d rather be alone. If I need any help, I’ll call you.’
‘Oh – all right, then,’ she said, concealing her disappointment. She got up and gathered her knitting together. ‘Now, you know what to do? Just take two of these every two hours, and drink plenty of gin. If you feel you’re going to be sick, just try not to be, and don’t drink any more till it passes off, otherwise it’ll all be wasted, won’t it? Mind you,’ she said quickly, ‘I’m not making any promises. Three months is rather late.’ It was as if she were giving me some hyacinth bulbs and saying December was a bit late to plant them. I said seriously that I quite understood, and that I wouldn’t hold her responsible if nothing happened.
The L-Shaped Room Page 17