April was already halfway to the door. Tessa tried to make her voice reach, inflate it from a croak. ‘Mum … don’t.’
April stopped, swung round. ‘I’m blowed if I’ll let him get away with it. I mean, it’s a flaming racket, isn’t it? Didn’t you keep the flowers, so I could see just what he sent?’
‘N … no.’
‘Why not, for goodness’ sake? It makes it much more difficult. I can’t complain if I haven’t any proof. Did Sister get a peep at them?’
Tessa shook her head.
‘Well, someone must have seen them. Or do they leave you on your own all day, expect you to fetch and carry when you’re still bleeding and in shock? If I don’t complain about the orchids, at least I’m going to tell them you need proper looking after. You should be home with me, love. I wouldn’t let you gallivant around, disposing of dead flowers.’
Tessa watched the tears splash on her hands. She hadn’t meant to cry. It was shaming, hurt her eyes.
‘Toots, my pet, what’s wrong? Don’t fret about the flowers. I won’t say another word about them, not if it upsets you. I just wanted to do something sort of … different – you know, to show I cared. I mean, you’re off your oats at the moment, so chocolates would be daft. I did think of fruit at first – one of those posh hampers from Fortnum and Doodah, but fruit’s still food, and if your poor stomach’s playing up … Then I thought I’d buy you a nice nightie, but that didn’t seem right, either. I realize how strung up you’ve been, and I didn’t want to put my stupid foot in it, upset you even more. But orchids seemed so dignified, sort of halfway between birth and death, if you understand my meaning. I went to that florist down the road first, and she suggested roses. I ask you! Roses! How tactless can you get? It was only then I thought of Geoff. Mind you, I had a little private blub before I picked the phone up – what with memories of Ken, and that party on the boat when we were still talking love and marriage, and he all but popped the question while we were chugging past the Greenwich whatsit … Tessa, darling, you mustn’t cry yourself. Look, it doesn’t matter, not a fig, I swear. I’m only rambling on like this, because … because … I … I don’t know what to say about the … baby.’
‘I killed them, Mum.’
‘Killed what?’
‘The flowers.’
‘Of course you didn’t, pet. Geoff sent duds, to spite me.’
‘No, he didn’t. They were perfect. Perfect, and I killed them.’
‘You can’t kill flowers. You’re just tired, that’s all, and muddled. It’s time I took you home. I’ll go and speak to Sister, tell her …’
‘No! You’re not to tell her!’ Tessa’s voice was rising, a siren now, a requiem. ‘Don’t tell anyone. Nobody must know. I’m just telling you, that’s all. You’ve got to listen, Mum. You’ve got to hear exactly what I’ve done. I killed them, like I killed my child.’
Chapter Fifteen
Tessa stood Rigid on the pavement, buffeted by bad-tempered crowds of shoppers; people bumping into her, or trying to force their prams past. She had never seen so many prams – pushchairs, buggies, baby-slings. She had shopped here all her life, yet never noticed babies. And all the stores she knew so well had changed in just one day. She’d been to Boots a thousand times, bought shampoo or soap or hand-cream, lipstick or deodorant, but those had disappeared, leaving the shelves new-stocked with baby-foods, feeding bottles, nappies. Smith’s sold books and stationery – or had done till today. Now there were only baby magazines – Mother, Right Start, Nursery World – all with perfect infants on the front. She had leafed through them for half an hour, searching for a bruised child, or a scrap with crippled legs; a baby with a lump on its back, or an enlarged and swollen head. But, without exception, they were normal chubby specimens, and most were smiling broadly, enchanted by the camera, or chuckling to themselves. Those smiles had seemed so vulnerable; the infants blithely unaware that there were dangerous people waiting to destroy them – abortion clinics, doctors, Mr Lawson-Scott.
She made herself walk further on, surprised by the new shops: toyshops, pram-shops, shops for nursery furniture. And had Mother-care been there before? – she couldn’t remember passing it. She stood just outside the door, immediately feeling more at home as she peered in through the glass. There were the women she’d sat beside in the ante-natal clinic, or met in ultrasound; girls whose lives centred on their wombs, who carried someone else around inside them. She had become so used to carrying her child, she felt completely empty now; missed their daily dialogue. She had talked to him so often – in the bath, in bed at night; trying to tune in to him, establish a deep bond – it was proving hard to stop, to remember there was no one there. Her insides felt so hollow, they must have ripped out everything – not just the baby, but her womb itself, all her sexual organs. She never wanted sex again – couldn’t have it anyway, no longer had the parts. Though in reality her stomach had blown up, seemed to have bloated after the termination and stayed that way, regardless. She was wearing her maternity dress, since only that was loose enough, didn’t constrict her round the waist. And in Mothercare, it would make her just another pregnant woman, shopping for her baby gear on a Saturday afternoon.
She slipped in to the shop, instantly assaulted by the day-glo colours, glaring lights, by the babies, babies, babies, all around her – pictures of them on the walls, glossy posters six feet high; rag-dolls modelling baby clothes; real ones grizzling from their prams. She turned her back on the gaudy pinks and yellows, veered towards the section labelled ‘Newborn’, where the gowns and shawls and bootees were all in restful white. The clothes seemed quite ridiculously large, even those in starter sizes, but a small baby would grow into them. She could see him growing as she moved to the next rack, hunted through the pram-suits marked ‘Age One’. She wanted something dignified, not splashed with frogs and bunnies, or plastered with cutesy slogans, which turned babies into jokes. She chose a simple blue suit, then progressed to toddler sizes, found a pair of denim jeans identical to Michael’s Levis, but made in miniature.
Another mother was sorting through the school clothes – smart grey trousers, pleated navy skirts. Tessa watched her silently. Michael’s child would be top of any class. She had sometimes pictured him at school, winning all the prizes, going on to Oxford (though torn between Balliol and Christ Church). And he would probably be athletic – a rugby blue, a cricketer. She selected some school shorts, age four, and a couple of white shirts, then picked him out a football jersey and a pair of low-cut swimming-trunks to match his sporty father’s. She peered at the price on a pair of shiny wellingtons, so small they looked like toys. Those would keep his feet dry, and they were brilliant singing red – Michael’s red …
‘Are you okay?’ a saleswoman was asking, a grey-haired dumpy matron who’d been filling shelves just opposite.
Tessa nodded, fumbled for her handkerchief. She cried several times each day now, but the tears meant nothing much – just her hormones playing up, the staff-nurse had explained.
‘And don’t you want a basket, dear?’
Tessa took the one she offered, piled all the garments into it, then left it on the floor. She wouldn’t need them yet.
She drifted back to the ‘Newborn’ racks, passing a poster of a craggy dark-eyed father bathing his small son. Both of them were smiling, the baby’s hand stretched out to the man’s huge soapy one; dark hairs on the father’s thumbs; longer, coarser chest-hair showing at his open neck, running down to his navel, further down to …
‘Excuse me,’ someone snapped. ‘I’m trying to get by.’
Tessa squeezed herself against the wall, to make room for the pushchair – a twin one, with two boys in. Michael. Michael. She looked up at the advertisement above a rail of broderie-anglaise gowns, trimmed with lace and ribbon. ‘Get Yourself Another Little Treasure,’ said the words.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. The other Michael’s left me.’
She unhooked the smallest gown, took it to
the till; stood behind a couple who were queuing arm in arm, the woman’s head tipped towards her partner’s, their fingers clasped and locked. Tessa turned away, and was immediately accosted by another pregnant woman in the queue – a petulant-looking girl, evidently keen to share her gripes. The shops were all so crowded, the clothes overpriced and shoddy, and as for her bad back, it was playing up even more than when she’d had her first baby.
‘Is it your first?’ she enquired, raking through her shopping-bag for a shabby plastic purse.
Tessa nodded, kept her eyes down.
‘And when’s it due?’
‘The second day of February.’ Tessa could suddenly see the trees outside being stripped of all their leaves – their autumn bronze and russet replaced by naked grey. She could sense snow in the air, the sky pregnant with it, lowering; the ruthless February wind blowing helpless birds off course, snapping brittle trunks. Her fingers were so cold now she could no longer hold the nightgown, let it fall as she blundered from the till. The baby-posters on the walls seemed to be swelling as she lurched towards them, every pore and wisp of hair magnified to threatening size. The violent blues and purples of the playsuits had been transformed into fierce strobe-lamps, flashing on and off; colours from some freaked-out manic rock band, resounding through the shop. And all the time the noise was getting wilder – frantic scarlet baby-screams stabbing through her skull – dying infants accusing her of murder.
She bolted from the shop; stood outside, breathless, shaky, battling for control; eyes fixed on the pavement – its stains, its snaking cracks. When, at last, she dared look up, she was surprised to find the trees still gold, the sky a hazy blue; relieved to see no half-formed bloody foetuses. She had come out to buy her Oxford stuff – folders, binders, file-paper – things for the new term. She must fight the choking panic, return to Smith’s, and work strictly through her list. They had warned her at the hospital she might feel strange at times – not just tearful, but moody, out of sorts. ‘Keep busy,’ they’d suggested, which is why she’d come out shopping in the first place.
She struggled down the crowded street, dodging prams again. Four hundred thousand babies were born every single day, in all the different countries of the world. Tristram had tossed out that statistic once, and the figure had lodged firmly in her mind, but now she could actually see them in the flesh – dusky ones and dark ones, jostling on all sides; some with oriental eyes, or frizzy Afro hair, but still none deformed, none handicapped. Mr Lawson-Scott had asked her, with his well-bred smile, if she was worried about the future, about the chance of giving birth to a second abnormal child. She had produced the child already – a whole brood of freaks and monsters, who were delivered in her nightmares; some with faceless faces, some with double heads.
She stumbled into Smith’s, picked out her pads and folders, and a birthday card for Liz. She would see her in three days, when she returned to the house in Juxon Street in time for the new academic year. She had already phoned her friends, told Vicky, Liz and Alex the same brief and simple story. She had suffered a miscarriage after tripping down some steps. No – she wasn’t hurt; yes, she’d more or less recovered from the shock, and planned to take them out for a pizza and a pint her first night back in Oxford, to thank them for their support. That meal would be a turning point, her symbolical new start. She must keep away from babies – both the subject and the reality – erase the past five months, and look only to the future: her second year at Oxford, with loyal and generous friends, and her own new first-class status. She might even be awarded a scholarship, or so Alex kept insisting. They were very often given to those who got a First in Mods, though the idea seemed far-fetched to her, the sort of thing that happened to the ex-Marlborough types, the thoroughbreds.
But if it actually materialized, it would mean she’d be entitled to buy a scholar’s gown, and she had to admit that prospect did appeal. Gowns were very rarely worn, in fact, especially not at Balliol, which was notoriously anti-traditionalist – but it would still be a mark of privilege, a tangible proof (to herself as much as anyone) that she couldn’t be so clueless after all.
Her new tutor, Robin Bowden, might also treat her with slightly more respect. He was an authority on Gladstone (who’d published seven books and countless highbrow articles in the English Historical Review), and he’d already told her at the end of last term that he intended to teach her on her own, without a partner. The thought had quite unnerved her, but if she looked at it more positively, she could turn it to her own advantage. No Charlotte overshadowing her, hogging all the limelight, maybe telling tales about that bonehead Tessa, who’d needed constant nannying to achieve a First at all.
She chose another card – an arty one for Charlotte, which might help to heal the breach – then found some fancy writing-paper marked down to half-price. All she needed now was a cheap jotter for her lecture-notes. She traipsed back to the school section, and came face to face with Michael. He was grinning from a showcard, tripping down the street in his shiny scarlet boots, with his cap askew and his satchel on his back. And there was his proud father waving from the garden gate – tall and dark and hunky, of course – with a smiling wife beside him. Tessa slammed her basket down, raised her fist to the man’s handsome smirking profile. ‘Look, you’ve left me, Michael – right? Left me for that woman. And I refuse to let you wreck my life any more than you’ve done already. So get off my back, for God’s sake!’
She turned into her narrow treeless street, scrabbling in her handbag for her key, then pausing for a moment to wince at the front door, which was painted in canary-yellow and had a doormat saying ‘OH NO, NOT YOU AGAIN!’ – her mother’s little joke. Before she’d gone to Balliol, she’d scarcely thought about her house. It was merely home – the place she’d always lived in – overstuffed with April’s clutter, and often smelling of the lodgers: their pipes, or socks, or suppers. Neither of the present two smoked pipes, but Eric liked his kippers, and liked them almost charred. Frank was less ambitious, lived on Pot-O-Noodles, but he burned joss sticks (rather than fish), and sometimes the combined aroma of sickly musk and scorching kipper pervaded the whole house. In the past she’d tended to shrug it off, but this last year she had found it really rankled, because she was seeing it through Charlotte’s eyes, or Ruth Sylvester’s, or, latterly, through Michael’s. She could just imagine Michael’s place, that mansion in the Quantocks, where his ex-fashion-model mother lived. She had always hoped to meet the stunning Zoe, whom Michael had sometimes mentioned with a mixture of affection and respect, but now those hopes were dashed. Instead, Zoe would be entertaining her brilliant son’s fiancée, delighted at his choice of such a charming creature; a highly suitable daughter-in-law for a woman of her standing.
Tessa inserted her key, tried to close the door on Zoe, Michael, Michael’s wife, so they wouldn’t see the cramped dark hall, or notice that the front room was strung with Eric’s washing, rather than housing a chiffonnier, or a Bechstein baby grand.
‘Hello, love,’ the lodger called, emerging from his room with a load of dirty underpants. Saturday was washing-day for Eric, party-day for Frank. ‘How’s tricks?’ he asked, x-raying her parcels with his sharp, miss-nothing eyes, which matched his wiry greyhound body, his beaky nose, thin face.
‘Okay.’
‘Been spendin’ all your cash, I see.’
‘Yes.’ She shrugged. ‘Plus some I haven’t got.’
‘Mind if I monopolize the sink?’
‘Go ahead. I shan’t be using the kitchen for half an hour, at least. I’ve got to sort out all my Oxford gear.’
‘Your mother said you was goin’ up together, on the gad.’
‘Yes – Tuesday morning, early. She’s taken the whole day off, and I’ve promised to show her round the colleges – those she hasn’t seen already – and maybe we’ll go punting again and …’
‘Well, don’t you overdo it, love. You still look like death warmed up.’
‘I won’t.’ Tessa esca
ped into her room, the largest in the poky house, the so-called master bedroom. Typical of April to take the tiny box-room for herself, give her daughter all the space, while Frank cooked and snored and clattered in between them. He was out today, thank God, or he’d be doing his cross-questioning bit again. Eric was single, Frank divorced, and neither had enough to keep him busy. Both regarded April as a substitute wife and mother, so she herself was ‘family’ and expected to keep them up to date with all her news. Her pregnancy had stunned them, sent a frisson through the house, but her subsequent ‘miscarriage’ had clearly lacked conviction. That was probably April’s fault, since she was the world’s worst liar, who believed that even white lies would be punished with a thunderbolt.
Tessa switched her thoughts from Frank and Eric to considering what she’d need to pack, and how much she could lug with her on the coach. Half her gear was still in Oxford, but even so, her wardrobe seemed cram-full. Her clothes were in a mess. She’d lost all interest recently in ironing ruffled blouses or revamping junk-shop skirts. She made a washing pile, an ironing pile, then began to sort her books. Her copy of the Letters of Abelard and Heloïse was lying on the chest of drawers, still not packed away. She was hardly going to need it once she was immersed in the high politics of nineteenth-century England, and focusing on Robin Bowden’s Gladstone. All the same, she was unwilling to discard it when she’d thumbed its pages so frequently, marked so many passages, and when Heloïse herself had become so much a part of her life. She’d been thinking of her recently with a new understanding, empathy. Each of them had lost her lover, then been parted from her child; forced to renounce their babies at such an early stage that there was no chance of being a proper mother, or watching them grow up. Yet, in her letters, Heloïse was silent on the subject of her son, as if the absence of his father was by far the crueller loss.
Tessa leaned against the wardrobe door, opened the book at random.
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