The Millstone

by Margaret Drabble

  "I don't see why," I stubbornly repeated.

  "What does he say, anyway?" continued Joe. "It's his fault, it's his job to get you out of it. He's rich enough, isn't he? Why don't you make him pay and go off and have it done in comfort?"

  "Roger, you mean," I said faintly.

  "Well, yes, Roger. Why don't you get married? No, for God's sake, don't bother to tell me. I can't imagine anyone wanting to marry a selfish well-dressed lump of mediocrity like him. Still if you don't marry him, you might as well do something about it."

  "I don't want to do anything about it."

  "Don't tell me you want to have a baby."

  "I don't mind," I said.

  "What does he think about it, anyway? If he does think."

  "I haven't told him yet," I said truthfully.

  "You haven't told him? You really must be out of your mind. Whyever not?"

  "I just haven't got round to it."

  "Oh Christ. I give up. What have you done about it?"

  "I went to the doctor," I said with some pride, "and he's booking me a hospital bed."

  "God," he said to himself, staring up at the black sky through the neon-lit trees, "she means it, she's going to have it." He was rattled, poor Joe; I could feel him being rattled. He didn't like the idea at all.

  "You can't," he said, after another few yards of silence. "You just can't. I forbid you. It'll ruin your life. If you want some money, I'll lend you some. How much do you want? A hundred? Two hundred? How much do you need?"

  "Thank you very much, Joe." I said, touched, "but I don't need anything. It's too late now, anyway."

  I said this with some authority, though I did not know the facts, as I had not known the facts about gin or doctor's waiting rooms; but he did not know the facts either and he believed me.

  "Oh well," he said, "if you want to make a fool of yourself. Don't tell me, you've probably been longing to have a baby all your life. You won't be able to keep it, though. They won't let you keep it. So you'll go and get yourself all upset about nothing, the whole thing'll be a complete waste of time and emotion."

  I could not work out my response to this immediately, as I was highly offended by both its implications: first, that I was the kind of person who had always had a secret yearning for maternal fulfilment, and second, that some unknown authority would start interfering with my decisions by removing this hypothetical child. I decided to tackle the first one first.

  "Of course I haven't always been longing to have a baby," I said, "I can't think of anything that has ever crossed my mind less. The thought of a baby leaves me absolutely stone cold."

  "Nonsense," said Joe. "All women want babies. To give them a sense of purpose."

  "What utter rubbish," I said, with incipient fury, "what absolutely stupid reactionary childish rubbish. Don't tell me that any human being ever endured the physical discomforts of babies for something as vague and pointless as a sense of purpose."

  "What does it feel like?" said Joe, momentarily distracted.

  "Nothing much. One can't really tell much difference," I replied untruthfully. "Yet."

  "Anyway," said Joe, "so I believe you, so you've never thought much about having babies, but just the same, I bet you'd be pretty annoyed if somebody told you you couldn't have one, wouldn't you?"

  "Not at all," I said staunchly, "I would be highly relieved. There is nothing that I would rather hear." Though, as a matter of fact, he was quite right and I was in some perverse and painful way quite proud of my evident fertility.

  "In that case," said Joe, "I don't see why you didn't have something done about it."

  I was silent because I did not see why not either. We had by this time reached Marble Arch: there had been a suggestion at an earlier point in the evening that Joe should here catch the tube home, and we paused by its entrance, and I said:

  "Well, I think we ought to stop going around together, or whatever it is that we do."

  "Why?" said Joe.

  A complete silence fell, and I suddenly felt quite overcome with weakness and misery. At that moment I could not envisage any kind of future at all, and the complete lack of any sense of control or direction scared and alarmed me. All I knew was that I must get rid of Joe quick, before he sensed my poverty, because even Joe was capable of pity and of kindness.

  "I don't know why," I said brightly. "I just don't kind of fancy the idea of going out much any more. Anyway, think how embarrassing it would be, taking around a pregnant woman. Everyone would think it was yours, wouldn't they, and get on at you about it. You know how incredulous people are of the finer points of any relationship."

  "You'd better tell Roger," said Joe, staring moodily at the ground.

  "As a matter of fact," I said, thinking that however convenient I really could not allow this misapprehension to flourish, "it isn't Roger's."

  "Not Roger's?"

  "No. Not Roger's."

  "Oh."

  "So you see, things aren't quite what they might be." I made this remark with a wealth of bogus implication that must have convinced him completely, because all he said was, "Oh well, I do see." Which in the nature of things he could not possibly have done. However, on the basis of this totally meaningless understanding he took my hand and gave it a fatherly squeeze and said:

  "Look after yourself, anyway, Rosamund."

  "Oh, I will," I said.

  "I suppose we'll see each other around, anyway."

  "Yes, I suppose so."

  And so we parted. As I walked home, I wondered what he could possibly have imagined the real situation to be, as the truth itself was far too unlikely, far too veiled by deception to hit upon: perhaps, I finally concluded, he had thought that I had another permanent man about, whom I refused to marry or discuss through some perfectly characteristic quirk of principle. I hoped that he had thought that. It was the kindest conclusion to my vanity and to his.

  Having thus successfully disposed of Joe, I knew I would have to dispose of Roger. I relished this task even less than the former one, for whereas Joe and I shared a certain area of moral background, Roger and I shared nothing at all. As it turned out, however, the evening on which I divulged my state to him was far pleasanter than the one I had spent with Joe, which had been marked by rather too much walking and chilly night air. Roger did not believe in walking: he would drive for miles and miles round his destination looking for parking places rather than park five minutes' walk away and continue on foot. I did not approve of this, being made of sterner stuff myself, but I enjoyed it.

  On the evening in question, we had been to a cocktail party at Earls Court, given by some businesslike friend of Roger's: the drink was far too strong and after a couple of glasses I actually began to feel rather faint. Roger, being a gentleman born, soon noticed my pallor and the glassy look with which I was countering a young man who was telling me in great detail about the joys of accountancy, and he arrived to my rescue instantly and removed me to his car, which was waiting just outside the front door of the house. I sat there for a few minutes and then felt better: I felt cheerful enough in the first place because of the drink, and as soon as my ears stopped buzzing I felt quite splendid.

  "Feeling better?" said Roger, as he noticed me perking up.

  "Much better," I said.

  "What's the matter with you?"

  "Nothing," I said. "I was probably just hungry, I didn't have much for lunch."

  "Let's go and have dinner," said Roger.

  "All right," I said, though as a matter of fact the prospect made me once more feel slightly queasy as Roger had a passion for highly elaborate food of the most indigestible kind: usually I survived it quite well physically though I doubted if I would tonight, but it always gave me moral qualms. My misgivings became stronger when he said:

  "There's a new place in Frith Street that someone was telling me about the other day. I thought we might try it."

  I nodded and tried to look pleased, and as we drove past the lighted windows of Har
rods I summoned up my courage and said,

  "What nationality?"

  "What nationality what?" said Roger, trying to beat a car of his own make to the lights, and making it, thank goodness.

  "What nationality food?" I said.

  "I'm not sure," he said, "but they said it was quite clean. For foreigners."

  He made this remark with an impassive countenance: I was quite unable to tell whether such remarks were straight or intended as jokes, or even intended as attacks upon my ridiculous notions of liberal equality. He was always making such ambiguous statements about subjects like black men, money, modern art and so forth: on the whole I think they were meant to provoke, but I never rose as I was always too amazed to react at all. Nobody else that I had ever known had made remarks like those: it was a continual surprise to me that he could make them and yet at the same time like me enough to pay for my dinners.

  The restaurant turned out to be French, and rather flashy. The tables were too close together. Roger had mussels and some infinitely messed-about steak. I had vegetable soup and grilled sole and mashed potatoes and even so I did not feel too good by the end of it. Then Roger started thinking about having crêpes suzette, and tried to persuade me to have some too, as they made it for two, but I simply could not face it. It was quite a novelty for me to feel so doubtful, as until then I had always had a cast-iron constitution, and on the rare occasions when I had suffered, I had suffered with good will. Roger would not let the topic of crêpes suzette drop but went on about them quite mercilessly, and I felt sudden retrospective insight into the plight of all those whom in the past I had sneered at for delicacy of health and appetite. In the end I said:

  "It's no good, Roger, I just don't feel well," and he set about ordering crêpes for one. When he had dealt with the waiter he turned back to me and said, "What's the matter with you, then?"

  "I'm pregnant," I said, hoping that the American lady at the next table was not at that moment listening to us, as she had been for most of our meal.

  "I thought perhaps you might be," said Roger, and poured himself a little more claret.

  "You what?" I said, in genuine astonishment.

  "Well, I mean to say, and don't think I'm being rude, my dear, but you are beginning to look a little bit that way ... that dress, for instance."

  "I did wonder," I said, "when I put it on. But it's the only one I've got that does for your horrid friends."

  "Don't insult my friends," said Roger equably; "look at what your horrid friends have done, and to a nice girl like you too. That's what comes of mixing with all those nasty artists."

  "It's not really very noticeable, is it?" I said anxiously.

  "Oh no. I only noticed it myself this evening. And with your feeling off-colour too. Have a drink, I should think you need it."

  "No," I said. "I do need it, but it makes me feel awful."

  "Oh look," said Roger, "here they come with my crêpe mixture. Let's just sit quietly and watch the flames."

  So we sat and watched the flames, and when Roger had with great satisfaction finished eating he turned his attention back to me, and said:

  "Well, what are you going to do about it, if that's not too tiresome a question?"

  "Nothing," I said.

  "Nothing at all?"

  "Nothing at all."

  "You're going to let nature take its course?"

  "That's right."

  "Well, well," said Roger. "What a brave girl you are."

  "It might be quite nice to have a baby," I said, thinking that if I said this to everybody for the next six months I might convince both myself and them.

  "My dear girl," said Roger, "it's not quite as easy as all that, you know. It's quite a performance, having a baby. And then what do you do with it when you've got it?"

  "Keep it," I said.

  "What on? Is he going to support you? I don't suppose for a moment that he is, and you couldn't possibly keep a child on what you've got."

  "People," I said, "bring up families of four on ten pounds a week."

  "Nonsense," said Roger. Though it wasn't nonsense.

  Our discussion paused for a while as our coffee arrived and was poured out. While he was stirring in his sugar, he said, "You don't feel like getting married, do you?"

  "Not particularly," I said. "In fact, not at all."

  "That's a pity," he said, "because I thought you might like to marry me."

  "Good heavens, Roger," I said, touched and impressed, "how extremely noble of you. How lucky for you that I declined before you offered."

  "We could always get divorced more or less instantly," he said.

  "I don't see that that would do any good to anyone," I said. "Think of your career."

  "That's true," said Roger. "Still, it would have its compensations."

  "I can't think of any," I said. "I think it's a ridiculous notion. But nice, just the same."

  "Good," he said. "I'm glad you liked it."

  And there our conversation seemed to rest as I could not think how to continue it: the thought of marrying Roger was pleasantly exciting and most unattractive, and I glanced at his smooth hands with a kind of horror. His cheek to touch was always firm and taut like a child's, and his teeth were very clean and even. We drank our coffee in silence, and I watched all the people at the other tables: to me, sober and slightly sick, they all looked disgusting as they sank heavily into their chairs over plates of food that would have kept a child alive for a week. No wonder, I thought, that waiters always dislike their clients so much, when they see them at such sordid moments. I had myself taken a particular dislike to the couple at the next table, both fat Americans, both bulging from their ill-chosen clothes: she had been making a nuisance of herself throughout the meal, sending things back, changing her order, asking for things that weren't on the menu. She had started off with melon and had choked on the ginger, which she had applied with ludicrous liberality. From their highly intermittent conversation, I gathered that they spent their time eating all over Europe. I thought of the woman in the doctor's, who had been of the same build, though for different reasons.

  They started on their coffee just as we were finishing ours. I watched her pour it out, with her fat dimpled beringed hands, and then I watched her reach for the sugar, except it wasn't the sugar, it was the ginger, which was in a small glass dish and which had been on their table throughout the meal. I knew it was the ginger; my attention had been drawn to it by the choking episode. Anyway, it was too fine for brown sugar and rather too pale. Fascinated, I watched her take a spoonful and stir it into her cup. It didn't quite mix and I was afraid that she was going to notice in time, but she didn't. She didn't take a drink for quite a while, but when she did she really gulped it down. I watched her face closely: her expression changed, her eyes twitched, and she put the cup down rather quickly. But she said nothing. She must have noticed, but she said nothing. In fact she finished the cup. I have never made up my mind whether she was too drunk to know what she had done or had too bad a palate; or whether she knew quite well but wasn't going to admit her error. Only waiters err.

  Roger drove me home, as ever. We parted in the car in the road outside: it was not necessary to make any formal move towards discontinuing our contact because I knew quite well that Roger would not ring or try to see me again. He said that if I wanted help of any sort I was to get in touch with him, but I wouldn't want help, would I, he said. No, I agreed. Will you announce it in The Times, he asked, and I said certainly, why not: but thinking such announcements a waste of money, myself.

  So much for Joe and Roger. I was of course acquainted with a few other people but most of them were neither here nor there. The only people that really worried me were my pupils. I never saw any of my superiors in the academic world and as far as I knew there was nothing in any of my endowments or scholarships about illegitimate children: there was some qualification in one of them about not being married, but I considered myself clear on that score. I saw no reason why my
proposed career of thesis, assistant lectureship, lectureship and so on should be interrupted: I saw a few non-reasons, I must admit, but in my wiser moments I knew they would not weigh heavily enough against my talents. However, I was worried about the people I was teaching. They were an odd lot and I had taken them on for odd reasons. Most of my research student acquaintances who were not teaching regularly did a little private teaching, mostly for the money, and partly for the practice. At this time I was myself teaching four separate people for an hour a week, which involved about as much homework as I could find time for; I had foolishly consented to teach a wide and abstruse variety of subjects instead of sticking to my own field. My reasons for undertaking this work cannot have been financial, for I undercharged all of them, as I seriously distrusted the value of the commodity I was offering: somebody pointed out to me that as a good socialist I was making a grievous error by lowering the price of my profession which, God knows, was low enough anyway, and she was quite right too, but by then it was too late and I was humanly incapable of raising, once stated, my charges.

  As a matter of fact, while distrusting the value of my own teaching, I felt a simultaneous pride and confidence in it because I knew quite well that I was offering this strange quartet a far higher standard of information and intelligence than they would have been likely to get elsewhere, particularly through the education agency that had sent them to me. Yet while I was expounding to them my theories, I was always overcome by a sense of inadequacy, for which I paid at a rate of seven and six an hour.

  I suppose I taught because of my social conscience. I was continually aware that my life was too pleasant by half, spent as it was in the gratification of my own curiosity and of my peculiar aesthetic appetite. I have nothing against original research into minor authors, but I am my parents' daughter, struggle against it though I may, and I was born with the notion that one ought to do something, preferably something unpleasant, for others. So I taught. The identity of my pupils would certainly bear out this interpretation of my conduct, for they were as I have said an odd lot, and three of them at least would have been rejected by my more serious friends as a waste of time. The fourth was an orthodox enough case; a seventeen-year-old girl who had left boarding school under a cloud, and wanted coaching for her University Entrance. She was very bright, and easy to teach; in fact, she had been passed on to me by a reputable don and did not come from the same dubious source as the others.