Georgy Girl

by Margaret Forster

  Jos took a deep breath. ‘George, there is no baby. Got that?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Meredith had her baby adopted two days ago. You couldn’t trace it now if you wanted to.’ He waited for the storm, but it didn’t come.

  ‘Why?’ said George.

  ‘She hated it. She wouldn’t feed or look at it from the very first day. She refused to have anything to do with it. She said it had all been a tactical error and that was that.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said George. ‘A tiny baby –’

  ‘Of course you believe it,’ said Jos, cruelly. ‘You know quite well that it’s just how one would expect a bitch like Meredith to behave. And before you start on me, I’d better tell you that I signed those adoption papers not just because Meredith insisted but because I thought it was the best thing to do. It will go to a good home to people who will love it. Our life would get an impossible start with someone else’s child round our necks.’

  ‘She isn’t someone else’s,’ said George, ‘she’s yours.’

  ‘And Meredith’s.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any difference. If Meredith rejects her, it’s up to you to love her all the more. If you don’t get her back, Jos, I’ll never speak to you again. I mean that. I couldn’t live for a moment with anyone who gave their child away because it must mean he lacked any love or real feeling and was utterly selfish.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean that at all,’ said Jos. ‘I love you and that’s why I did it.’

  ‘How can you blame me?’ said George, excitedly. ‘I would love to look after your baby and you know it.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jos, ‘it would always divide us. It would be my baby, not our baby.’

  ‘Stop calling her “it”,’ said George. ‘I don’t want to argue. If you don’t get your daughter back immediately, I’m leaving you.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Jos. ‘I signed the papers.’

  ‘Adoptions aren’t done so quickly,’ said George, sharply. ‘There’s a six week period during which you can change your mind. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You’re just being sentimental,’ said Jos. ‘I’m not a monster, George. I felt terrible signing it – her – away. I did really. I couldn’t sleep the night before for thinking about it.’

  ‘Oh, poor little boy, did he have to give away his toy car?’ said George, shaking with anger and contempt. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘George, please – we couldn’t have a happy marriage with that baby as a responsibility.’

  ‘Of course we could. Other marriages have begun with babies from a first marriage and been perfectly happy. I would love her like my own. She’s only two weeks old, Jos, she’s not a fully grown Meredith coming to live with us. She’ll grow up to be a person in her own right. We’ll have other children and we won’t even remember she’s any different.’

  ‘She’s got a deformed foot,’ said Jos, horrified at himself. He knew he was only saying it to make himself sound an even bigger bastard and to see how George would enjoy the revelation, how it would add such poignant depth to her pleading. He couldn’t resist piling it on.

  ‘Oh how awful,’ said George, ‘how terrible. Oh Jos, the poor little thing, imagine not being wanted and having a deformed foot.’

  ‘And it’s coloured. With one eye,’ said Jos, and burst out laughing at George’s fleeting expression of belief, horror, compassion. He stopped, with an effort. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Its foot’s not actually deformed, I’m afraid. It just got twisted inside Meredith. You can’t see anything, it just looks like an ordinary foot. The nurse said it just needed regular exercising and by the time it walked you wouldn’t notice the difference, it would be perfectly all right. Sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘What are you playing at?’ said George. She was sitting very stiff and erect, completely white-faced and still.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jos. He fiddled unhappily with the tablecloth.

  ‘How can you make fun of your baby’s deformity?’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ said Jos, getting up. ‘How can I this, how can I that. You’re so self-righteous it’s killing me. You sit there giving out your sanctimonious judgements as though everyone else was in the wrong and cared about nothing. It’s bloody sickening, I can tell you, and I’ve just about had enough of it.’

  He shouted the last sentence without realizing that he’d raised his voice so loud. George turned away. She didn’t want to reply or argue, but even stating her opinion in the most crystal-clear fashion ended in a row. She felt Jos knew she was immovable, that nothing could alter her determination both to have nothing to do with him if he really let his baby be adopted, and to meet Meredith, and face up to her, when she came out of hospital. But Jos wasn’t so emphatically sure about anything. She could feel his weakness even before he started shouting.

  ‘All right,’ said Jos, ‘let’s be reasonable.’

  ‘Willingly,’ said George.

  ‘Suppose,’ said Jos, ‘Meredith refuses to divorce me. What will you do?’

  ‘Let’s wait until it happens,’ said George.

  ‘No. You promised to be reasonable. It’s more than reasonable to assume that she will, and once you’re under her influence again you’re hardly capable of knowing your own mind. I want to know now, when everything’s cool and unemotional.’

  ‘If she really wanted the baby adopted, and you agreed we should take her, I’d go with you,’ said George.

  ‘And if I wouldn’t keep?’ said Jos.

  ‘I wouldn’t go with you. I told you.’

  ‘Who do you love?’ said Jos, ‘me, or this baby you’ve never seen?’

  ‘Both,’ said George, ‘they’re both the same thing.’

  ‘Suppose,’ said Jos, ‘and again this is absolutely reasonable, suppose this baby wasn’t mine? You know as well as I do that Meredith slept around. How does anyone know I’m definitely the father? I’d say the chance was 50–50.’

  ‘You’ve never mentioned that before,’ said George, ‘you’ve just thought it up now.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Jos, ‘I have. It never occurred to me before, yet it’s so very probable.’

  ‘I’d call it convenient,’ said George, ‘and I despise you for it.’

  ‘All the same, what if it isn’t?’ pressed Jos.

  George clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘It’s ridiculous to even think like that,’ she said, ‘and anyway it doesn’t make any difference.’

  ‘On the contrary, it makes all the difference if my parenthood is the big obstacle to our going off together.’

  ‘Shut up,’ yelled George. ‘I wish you’d bloody well stop trying to do a Socrates act and behave like a human being for a minute.’

  ‘We’re getting nowhere fast,’ said Jos after a short interval during which he reflected that he’d got George on the hop.

  ‘So let’s be quiet,’ said George sharply.

  ‘Meredith comes out tomorrow. Are you coming with me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I stay, will you tell her right away we want her to leave?’

  ‘No,’ said George. She had stopped thinking.

  ‘Remember there’s no baby coming with her,’ said Jos. ‘Are we three going to live indefinitely together?’

  George chewed the inside of her cheek with her molars. ‘It’s so stupid to make bargains,’ she said.

  ‘Why, were you thinking of one?’ said Jos.

  ‘I’ll agree to telling Meredith tomorrow if you will stop the adoption of the baby, or at least get it held up.’

  ‘Done,’ said Jos, quickly.

  ‘Then you do think she’s yours?’ said George, quickly.

  ‘No, though it probably is. I want you, on any terms.’

  ‘Don’t you want your daughter for her own sake?’ said George.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then there’s not much point in having her.’

  ‘None at all,’ said Jos, ‘except that it would salve our conscience
s.’

  ‘So you’ve got one?’ said George, bitterly.

  He let that one go. He didn’t dare ask if the bargain was still on, nor did he know whether she was going to stay, but he wouldn’t ask. The thing to do was to act normally, as though nothing had happened, and assume that when Meredith arrived she would let him tell her the truth, and then leave with him. It was as he imagined the eve of a great battle, so much in doubt because the strength but not the luck of the antagonist was known, nor exactly how he would strike. He felt rather grand, thinking this, and almost made his striking analogy to George, but decided she would not appreciate it.

  There was a routine to their evenings, even after ten days, which Jos cherished. They ate about seven, then washed up together, and then sat and read the Evening Standard for half an hour, lapsing into a semi-coma of pure indolence afterwards. As dusk came, they lay on the sofa with their feet up and talked until about ten, when they went for a walk round the square, and then straight to bed. They did nothing and went nowhere and saw no one, and wallowed in their smug content. There was nothing quite like being self-sufficient, or sufficient with one other person who was always there. It reduced onlookers to frenzied contempt, larded with unconcealed jealousy.

  The evening passed according to pattern. Jos wondered how George could contemplate giving all this up and George wondered what it was all worth anyway, why she should value what amounted to very little. She was doing nothing she didn’t do on her own, if you didn’t calculate the bed part, which wasn’t what made their evenings so happy anyway. Neither spoke, Jos because he was afraid to, and George because she had nothing to say.

  Meredith came home in a taxi at three o’clock the next afternoon. She yelled ‘George!’ at the top of her voice from the pavement outside the house, and when a flustered head was thrust out of the window she roared ‘Throw me down some money to pay the taxi.’ George retreated and to Jos’s disgust ran into the bedroom where she excitedly raked around for something solid enough to throw.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ said Jos irritably, ‘let her wait.’

  ‘Have you got any silver?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to go down with this ten shilling note.’ Calling ‘I’m coming’ she ran out of the flat and thundered down the stairs. Jos, watching from the window, saw her hurtle out of the front door to where Meredith was tapping her foot impatiently. She handed the note over. Meredith gave it to the taximan, who gave her some change, which she put in her pocket. The taxi drove off, and the two of them stood there for a minute. He drew his head in, and walked round the room waiting for them to come in. Somehow, the waiting by himself made it seem as though it was two against one.

  They were talking as they came in, George asking eager questions, Meredith slapping her down with her usual terse replies. Awkwardly, he grasped the back of a chair and leant on it as he said ‘Hello’. Meredith ignored him.

  ‘I expect you’re hungry,’ George said to her.

  ‘You bloody well bet I am,’ said Meredith.

  ‘I’ll go and make you something,’ said George.

  ‘No,’ said Jos, ‘you sit down. She’s not that starving. We’ve got things to say to her that can’t wait.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Meredith, staring.

  ‘Jos, please,’ said George, flushing an ugly red. ‘It can wait.’

  ‘It can’t,’ said Jos. He grasped George’s wrist firmly as she prepared to make off.

  ‘Watch it,’ said Meredith, ‘she’s stronger than you.’

  ‘George and I –’ began Jos.

  ‘You sound like the Queen – mae husband and I,’ said Meredith, giggling.

  ‘George and I are in love. We’ve been living together the last ten days. I want a divorce as quickly as possible,’ said Jos. George stopped struggling.’

  ‘Meredith, I didn’t mean this to happen,’ she began. Already she was crawling.

  ‘Do you think,’ said Meredith, ‘that you could let her go and make me something to eat now that you’ve got your pronouncement over? Or is there something else vital to say?’

  ‘We’ll adopt the baby,’ said Jos, poker-faced.

  Meredith laughed till she cried. They stood and watched her, foolishly beginning to smile themselves, the way people do caught up in someone else’s hysteria. Nothing more could be said until Meredith had stopped, so they stood waiting in front of her with Jos still holding George by the wrist.

  ‘Oh that’s bloody marvellous,’ said Meredith at last, ‘as if I cared who adopted the brat. I’ve forgotten about it already.’

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ said Jos.

  ‘Why tell me then?’ said Meredith. ‘You made it sound like a great bribe.’

  ‘We just thought you ought to know,’ said Jos.

  ‘Ta very much. I wish you luck. George will make a wonderful mother,’ said Meredith contemptuously. ‘It’s her natural role in life though I never thought she would find a willing father.’

  There was a pause, distinct and uncomfortable. Jos and George still waited, neither sitting down, while Meredith searched around for a cigarette. ‘You get on my nerves,’ she said, finding and lighting one. ‘For God’s sake sit down.’

  ‘We’d like to know,’ said Jos.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Whether you’ll consent to divorcing me as quickly as possible,’ said Jos. It was humiliating to have to repeat it.

  ‘Well, naturally,’ said Meredith, ‘I find the thought of this little love match revolting, but go ahead. I don’t know why I married you anyway.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Jos.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Meredith. ‘I have.’

  George wept openly with happiness and relief, which as Meredith said was very messy. Then she started telling Meredith how wonderful she was, and how she couldn’t have behaved like that, so selflessly, in such a spirit of real understanding and friendship. She said she would never forget it, and that she wanted Meredith to go on thinking of them as her closest friends, and anything they could do for her they would do, she only had to ask. Meredith promptly asked for something to eat and George leapt into the kitchen instantly.

  It was, Jos reflected, dangerously like old times. Meredith made herself at home, taking her shoes off and sprawling on the sofa where she read a magazine and smoked their cigarettes, while George cooked and presently waited upon her. There was a flatness about her amiable consent to their plans which left a disappointed tinge hanging in the air, yet it was typical. He’d expected violently selfish opposition, but he ought to have known the opposite was complete disinterest. He wanted her out of the flat, quickly.

  ‘When are you leaving?’ he said, before George came in.

  ‘That’s gratitude,’ said Meredith.

  ‘I’m not grateful. Why the hell should I be? Anyway, we won’t go into that. I want to know when you’re getting out – the sooner the better.’

  ‘You’ve a bloody cheek,’ said Meredith, and raising her voice said, ‘George, your darling lover wants to throw me out this minute. I can stay, can’t I?’

  George was in the room immediately. ‘Leave?’ she said, ‘but you’ve just come out of hospital. You’re not fit to go anywhere. You ought to go straight to bed.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Meredith triumphantly.

  ‘I just asked when you planned to go,’ said Jos.

  ‘I don’t plan to go anywhere at the moment,’ said Meredith. ‘Actually, I don’t really see why I should go at all, do you George? I didn’t mind George living here when we were married. Why should she mind me?’

  ‘It’s George’s flat,’ said Jos.

  ‘She wouldn’t turn me out, would you, George?’ said Meredith confidently.

  ‘No,’ said George, and turning to Jos, ‘I don’t think you realize what Meredith has been through or what we owe her,’ she said severely.

  Jos groaned and buried his face in his hands, which produced a sarcastic giggle from Mere
dith. He lay back in his chair and put a cushion over his face, hearing George telling Meredith not to take any notice of him. Through the shifting darkness he heard them chattering, and the clang of knives and forks as George laid the table. This would be the pattern of countless other days, and all he would have of the real George would be the nights in bed. Meredith would never leave and George would never stop debasing herself before her. He didn’t want any part of it.

  He half thought that he would be the one to end up on the divan in the sitting room that night, but Meredith took possession of it quite willingly, and peacefully, at about ten o’clock, which saved any argument. She said she’d lie and read for a bit, but she was tired, so George said quickly that she and Jos would go to bed too and give her a bit of peace. Meredith smiled mockingly as they went through into the bedroom and told them to enjoy themselves. George blushed.

  Once the bedroom door was closed, Jos felt better. He went over to George and tried to kiss her, but she shook him off.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said, ‘not so loud,’ and pointed to the wall between the two rooms.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Jos. ‘When we’re in the same room as her, we’re like strangers, and when we’re alone you act as though she was sitting looking at us with a pair of binoculars through the keyhole. That’s great.’

  ‘It’s just that you must have some tact and consideration,’ George said. ‘It must be awful for her.’

  ‘It’s awful for me,’ said Jos.

  ‘What have you got to moan about?’ said George, sharply.

  ‘Sharing you with that clever little bitch.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’re not sharing me at all.’

  ‘You’ve spent all evening talking to her.’

  ‘Well, if you will bury yourself under a cushion and sulk,’ said George, ‘what do you expect me to do? You were perfectly childish. Meredith is my friend and I’m not going to turn her out for no reason.’

  ‘So she’s going to live with us when we’re married?’ said Jos.

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘When is she going then? The day we get married?’

  ‘I don’t know. When she feels strong enough and has found somewhere else.’