Michael, Michael

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘It was lust, not affection, which bound you to me; crude desire, not love. So that as soon as your desires were extinguished, any show of feeling disappeared as well.’

  She sank down on the bed, jolted by the words. Was it a coincidence that the book should open at Heloïse’s first impassioned letter, and especially just that section where she was reeling off reproaches, accusing Abelard of using her, grabbing what he wanted, then callously losing interest? It was as if Heloïse had burst into the room and was dictating the exact reproof she should write herself, to Michael. She’d been shattered that he hadn’t got in touch with her, hadn’t penned the briefest line asking how she was. As a doctor, he must be well aware of all the pain and trauma of a late abortion, yet he’d totally ignored her, was probably far too busy advancing his career. Like Abelard, nothing seemed to concern him except his private worries and personal ambition, his achievements and his setbacks. His new world now excluded her, as Abelard’s had excluded both his wife and son. Yet every time she’d tried to express her bitterness and anger, hurl him words which scorched the page, her pen had stumbled to a halt, and she’d found herself still aching for him, pouring out a different sort of passion. Heloïse had felt the same, torn between recrimination and sheer tormented longing.

  Tessa leafed back through the letter, addressing every word to Michael, as Heloïse was urging her. ‘I have always loved you with a love which knows no bounds’ … ‘You, the sole cause of my sufferings, alone have power to bring me consolation. You only from whom all my sadness springs, can restore me to happiness, or at least afford me some relief.’

  She closed the book, let it slither from her lap on to the floor. There would be no relief from Michael, no comfort, consolation. She had vowed to forget him, and instead she was entreating him, as Heloïse had Abelard, for the favour of a letter, a few begrudged and lying words. If he couldn’t write spontaneously, and write with real concern, then she had best accept his silence, assume he had abandoned her. It was time she stopped her wavering, her living in the past; took to heart the hospital’s advice, and made a positive effort to keep busy. She could start by doing her washing – something practical and physical, which would distract her from her brooding introspection.

  She ran downstairs to boot Eric from the sink, but found the kitchen empty. Only his faint smell remained – sweaty socks, BO. She hunted through the cupboard for some Air-Fresh and some stain-remover. Her nightdress was still bloodstained – the one she’d worn in hospital – despite April’s vigorous attempts to get it white again. She had a go herself, but the brown mark wouldn’t budge, so she left it soaking while she made a cup of coffee. The break would do her good. She was feeling weak and empty, having eaten almost nothing since a slice of toast at breakfast. And supper would be late. Her mother was helping with a wedding reception, and not expected back till nine; had tottered out in her highest heels, with a showy white carnation in her hair.

  Tessa took her coffee through to the sitting-room, slumped down on the sofa. Even with her mother out, she was still surrounded by her – her poppies on the curtains, her roses on the chairs; her favourite ashtray in the shape of a coffin; her ‘Home Sweet Home’ tapestry framed in mahogany veneer – a special offer from the TV Times. The only reading matter was her pile of Woman’s Realms, and half a dozen lurid-covered paperbacks propping up the coffee table (which had lost a leg a year ago and never been repaired). Tessa crooked her knees, remembering how the sofa had once seemed huge – a playground – when she was a child of four or five. Now she had outgrown it, as she had outgrown her bed upstairs – everything too small. In just ten days, she’d be sitting in her new tutor’s room with its lofty ceiling, its expanse of Persian carpet, its impressive book-lined walls – learned tomes from floor to frieze. There’d be towering ancient trees outside the window, not wet sheets on a washing-line; a bronze bust on the mantelpiece, instead of a china pig-in-boots.

  She sipped her mug of Maxwell House, trying to transform it into the finest Tio Pepe, served from a decanter in silver and cut glass. She was suddenly impatient to be back, missing not the college sherry or the priceless Persian rugs, but her friends, her crowded timetable, her vital sense of purpose – following a structured course, striving for a goal. She’d been lonely in this house, with her mother always out working, and even as a child she’d had to get her own meals, or live on crisps and Mars bars. Her Oxford friends were blasé about meals in Hall, skipping them, disparaging them; unable to appreciate that for someone like herself it was a treat and not a bore to sit down at a regular hour with good company, three courses, even swarms of kitchen staff to do the washing-up. She must keep dwelling on her blessings, not her loss. If she’d been around in Heloïse’s time, she might well have died in labour. Thousands did, apparently – according to Sylvester – and about a third of all babies born then were either dead at birth, or succumbed to some infection in the first week or two of life. It was essential that she kept things in proportion, instead of drowning in self-pity and forgetting those who’d suffered more than her. There were no safe and sterile terminations on the twelfth-century National Health. Abortion was a sin and a crime, and if the process didn’t kill you, then you were severely punished afterwards with years of stringent fasting.

  She spooned half-melted sugar from the bottom of her mug. She too had been fasting for the last few days – not through any sense of penance, but because she couldn’t face the thought of food. That must change as well. She drifted back to the kitchen to find a biscuit or a hunk of cheese, to plug the hole till supper. First, she checked the nightdress, which was still brown-stained and murky, the cooling water flecked with scum. Impetuously, she hauled it from the sink, dumped it wet and slimy in the dustbin round the back, then rammed the lid back on. She would never wear it anyway: it was tainted and polluted, an immediate cruel reminder of the hospital. This was her symbolic break with doctors – with Lawson-Scott, the registrar, even useless Cunningham, who had blathered on about vitamins and good fresh air, then suggested that she bought a pet – a goldfish or a golden hamster to replace her precious child.

  She strode into the house again, reached up for her vitamin pills and slung them in the waste bin. She had decided to chuck everything connected with her pregnancy – the childbirth books, the larger bras, her hospital appointment card, the stupid droopy dress she had on now. It was ridiculous to wear a sack when she’d lost a stone in weight, and if her waist was still not back to normal, then a loose skirt would solve the problem.

  She went upstairs to change; scoured her room for anything which might still tie her to the baby; then moved on to her mother’s room, grimacing at the mess – the bed unmade and strewn with clothes; open drawers disgorging tarty underwear; make-up jars without their tops, and the carpet barely visible beneath a flotsam of discarded odds and ends. Her own face was staring back at her from half a dozen photo-frames – Tessa as a baby, Tessa as a toddler, Tessa fat and spotty in a cheapo grey school skirt. There was also a faded childish drawing tacked up on the wall, with ‘My Mummy’ scrawled below it in greasy limping crayon. ‘My Mummy’ was a giant, with primrose-yellow hair, joints of beef for hands, and one eye a good inch higher than the other. The giant seemed sad and haggard, as she’d been looking recently. Tessa touched the white-chalked face, the grimly down-turned mouth. It was too easy to forget that April had also lost a child – her first grandson, whom she’d championed, fighting for his right to life.

  She turned back to the dressing-table, picked up her mother’s knitting, which had been abandoned in mid-row – a tiny lacy baby-coat in what April called sky-blue, though few skies were quite so blinding. She yanked it off the needles, tugging at the stitches until every row unravelled, then consigned it to the dustbin with all the other relics. For her mother’s sake, as well as her own, she had to clear the house of every last reminder.

  She bolted the back door, to put a symbolic barrier between the contents of the dustbin and her new determined s
elf. She would hoover the whole house next, then prepare a proper meal – not boring eggs, or beans on toast, but a lavish three-course dinner, which she’d have waiting on the table for her mother. The fridge was pretty bare, so she’d have to go out shopping first, to stock up on the basics.

  She dragged upstairs – third time – to fetch her coat and bag; was beginning to feel weary, daunted by the steps. Suddenly, she doubled up, clutching at the banister as violent pains shuddered through her stomach. She could feel something hot and wet gushing down her legs. She bunched her skirt up, stared in horror at the spew of blood. It had already soaked her pants and tights, and was now seeping into the stair-carpet, overlaying the drab beige cord with a lurid blotch of crimson. She pressed both hands between her legs, trying desperately to staunch the flow, but it simply poured between her fingers, as she watched in mounting panic.

  ‘Eric!’ she shouted, collapsing where she was. ‘Help me! Help me, quick! Ring 999, for God’s sake, and call an ambulance.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tessa trudged from Chestnut Close to Beechwood Avenue. The street-names lied, as usual. No chestnut trees, nor beeches, only unkempt gardens. She stopped to look at one. A green-eyed gnome sat grinning on a rockery, his fishing-line dangling over hard-baked barren earth as he fished for stones and pebbles. The flower-beds were all empty, save for one clump of chrysanthemums – ragged flowers, fading from their former fiery bronze; their petals tipped with brown, as if they’d been singed. She walked on down the avenue, hands thrust in her pockets. She had come out without her gloves, forgetting how the weather had changed; how raw and cold the mornings were; a damp mist clinging to her hair, like the first sour breath of winter. April called it autumn still, but half the trees were bare, and the other half yellow-tinged and sickly. She had shuffled through a fall of leaves on her way up to the shops; envying the children who’d run laughing, crackling through them, kicking them waist-high. They’d been relishing the scrunching noise, snatching up the brightest ones, not brooding on the death of summer’s green. The streets were now deserted, the children all at school, the commuters in their offices, students in the lecture-halls, or – more likely – still in bed.

  ‘Michaelmas,’ she said out loud, stopping once again to touch the fading purple daisies which bore that loaded name, the same name as her stolen Oxford term. It had been stolen from her – by illness, Dr Cunningham, those poisonous pills he’d given her: anti-depressants which had made her more depressed. ‘Give them time,’ he’d wheedled. ‘They always take a while to work, and sometimes – yes – you do feel worse, but it’s worth it in the end.’ She had done as he’d advised, given them time, and lost Oxford in the process.

  She snapped a purple head off, crushed it in her hand. Three days ago had been official Michaelmas Day – the feast of St Michael and All Angels. She had celebrated privately, imagining both her Michaels were still with her, not torn away and lost – her lover in her arms, leaning down to kiss her swollen stomach, and so acknowledging his unborn child. The baby would be twenty-five weeks now, if they’d left him in the womb – growing eyebrows, toenails, kicking really vigorously, almost able to survive if he was born.

  ‘Tessa!’ called a cheery voice, breaking in on her thoughts. ‘How nice to see you, dear.’

  Tessa cursed silently as she watched the small brown figure bustling across the road – Mrs Hughes, the squat and shabby mother of her former schoolfriend, Pat. She was tempted to bolt for home. The wretched woman was bound to ask why she hadn’t kept in touch, hadn’t phoned or visited for what must seem an age.

  ‘Long time no see!’ Mrs Hughes’ clammy hand had snailed into her own. ‘Our Pat was talking about you just the other day. But I hear you’ve been in hospital?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tessa briefly, wondering who the hell had told her. One of April’s customers, most likely. Her mother had finally abandoned all pretence of any cover-up, and entrusted the whole story to Connie at the pub and Val at Hair Affair, so half the county was probably now aware of it.

  ‘So what exactly was the matter, dear?’

  Tessa glanced with veiled hostility at the pale pinched face closing in on hers. Mrs Hughes was nothing like her daughter – a mouse in size and colouring, whereas Pat was raven-haired with the dimensions of a drinking straw. Yet both were nosy parkers. Pat might have been her friend for seven years, but there was no denying the fact that she was a bit of a Paul Pry, and now her avid mother was pumping out the questions in the same insistent way, demanding every detail. Which hospital had it been, and how long had she stayed in, which doctor was she under, was she taking any tablets, and had she had to have an op?

  ‘I had a haemorrhage.’

  Mrs Hughes pounced. This promised more diversion than some routine tonsillectomy. Tessa filled her in. No point trying to hide the drama of the last few months, as she and April had originally agreed. Who cared anyway? If the Hugheses liked to tittle-tattle, well, at least her case would provide a bit of spice; contained all the key ingredients of scandal, shock and horror.

  ‘You see, I’d developed an infection,’ she concluded, ‘which suddenly flared up, so they gave me antibiotics and then a D and C. They discharged me after forty-eight hours, but I was still running a high temperature, so I stayed in bed at home. The doctor came in every day and …’

  ‘Dr Cunningham?’

  Tessa nodded; tugged her woolly scarf both ends, until it was sawing at her neck.

  ‘He’s a real love, isn’t he? Your mother recommended him to us.’

  Tessa didn’t answer. April’s matiness with Cunningham was beginning to get her down. All those earnest chats they’d had about the patient’s state of mind had left her anxious mother not less concerned, but more. Cunningham wasn’t a ‘real love’, but a misery, a creep, a bumbling old woman, due for pensioning off, and if she and April had both kept well away from him, she might be back in Oxford now, discussing life or literature over coffee with her friends, rather than wandering round these dreary streets alone.

  She backed away from Mrs Hughes, who had edged so close she could smell her frowsty breath; see the mouse-like whiskers on her chin. There was probably a mouse’s tail coiled beneath her corsets.

  ‘So when are you going back to college, dear?’

  ‘Next year.’ Every time she said it, Tessa felt the bitter sense of irony. She’d been utterly determined not to take a year off just because she was pregnant; to miss nothing but a scant few days while she actually gave birth; then to hand the baby over to her mother, while she herself continued with her history course. Yet here she was at home without any real excuse: no pregnancy, no baby, no reason save depression. The irony was double. The more she loafed around with no work or sense of purpose, the more depressed she became.

  ‘January, you mean?’

  ‘No, October,’ Tessa shrugged, mumbled some excuse about being late for an appointment, and walked abruptly off. She couldn’t face more questions – not about Balliol – Mrs Hughes prattling on about how she’d miss her friends, be obliged to start again with a group of total strangers, maybe lose her drive, her whole appetite for study. If only she could change her mind, but she’d told the college categorically that she simply couldn’t cope; rejected all their overtures. She’d had her chance and lost it – even lost her scholarship. Robin Bowden had phoned her at home to tell her she’d been awarded one; used it as a bauble, the bait to lure her back.

  ‘You don’t have to take a whole year off,’ he’d pointed out in his upbeat plummy voice. ‘Couldn’t you settle for two weeks or so, come back late and catch up on the work you’ve missed? I could always send you a reading-list, so you can make a start at home.’

  His breezy tone had riled her. He was talking as if she’d had a dose of flu, or had lost her voice, rather than a baby. Anyway, she felt far too weak and hopeless to tackle her degree work. Even the news of the scholarship had failed to lift her mood – only made things worse, in fact. They’d expect much more
of a scholar; would be pained and disappointed to see how changed she was; how her brain had all but addled under the onslaught of the pills. And Dr Cunningham had fuelled her fears by stressing how she’d suffered a severe shock to mind and body, and so mustn’t overtax herself. She needed proper rest, he said, and a chance to convalesce.

  She had informed the college that she was following his advice and departing for a restful month in Broadstairs. It was just a fabrication to get them off her back – neither she nor April had any cash for holidays. She had dished up the same story to Alexandra and Vicky when they’d offered to come down and visit her at home. It would be more than she could bear to have to listen to their thoughtless talk about essays and tutorials, parties, college plays. She had already lost her revamped room in Juxon Street – another girl had grabbed it, moved in all her gear. And her student grant would be on its way back to the authorities – her last links with Oxford severed for eleven months.

  She peered over her shoulder to check on Mrs Hughes. The mouse was still standing on the pavement, whiskers twitching, watching her, no doubt. She darted round the corner to evade her beady eyes, turning into Mount Street, which should have swapped its name with Chestnut Close, since there were conker trees in plenty here. Some were stripped and naked; others thick with leaves. Did the naked ones accept their lot, she wondered, not rail at fate, or envy the still-clothed ones, the Alexes and Vickys? And if they did protest, who would hear or care; who restore their foliage? She toiled on up the hill, beneath a heavy sky. The mist was clearing now, but had left a bleary greyness in the air, which seemed to seep into her body, remove the colour from her cheeks.

  ‘Penny for the guy,’ intoned a scruffy kid, squatting on the pavement beside the most rudimentary guy she’d ever seen: a lumpy half-stuffed faceless sack, with a hat stuck on its head. She tossed him 20p, panicked by the lightness of her purse. If only she felt well enough to begin to earn some money of her own. Cunningham had suggested that she apply for Income Support, but she hadn’t yet got round to it, loathed the thought of spending futile months addicted to anti-depressants and social security.