One Secret Too Many

by Vanessa Grant

  When she had offered the paper to him, he had had a moment of terrified panic, imagining her ill with some terrible disease. Like an unknowledgeable, panicky layman, he had thought instantly of cancer. Surely not Alex I She had been surging through and through with healthy young life, and he’d been suddenly terrified that she was going to be struck down, hurt and helpless.

  He had recognised the name of the clinic written in Roy’s ragged handwriting. The clinic was new to Vancouver. There had been a good deal of controversy over its establishment, but it provided a competent medical service, and if he had felt the need to refer a patient out of town for an abortion he would probably have made the same decision that Roy had.

  He felt as if someone had hit him in the stomach, hard. He stared at the paper, knowing that he must go to the waiting patient, trying to give his face time to grow a mask back. He remembered her white skin under his body, her fingers clenched in his hair, her eyes wide and vulnerable beneath him. A baby, growing inside her, his seed despite the precautions. Swelling the firm white abdomen, filling her face and her breasts and. . .

  He looked down at the paper in his hand. Next week. Wednesday. Medically it was perfectly safe. An early pregnancy. His mind made an automatic calculation. A little more than five weeks. He tried to adjust his mind to a clinical detachment but he felt nauseated, panicked as if something terrifying was about to happen. He didn’t understand the feelings surging up in him, but he knew that he would have to deal with them. Later.

  He pushed the paper into his pocket, opened the patient me in his other hand and glanced through it as he walked to the examining-room. It was a thick me. The man had recurring problems with arthritis, yet he couldn’t tolerate the anti-inflammatory drugs that had been prescribed.

  How would Alex explain another trip to the big city? Another college friend? Alex, touching him, that smile on her lips. Alex, her body soft and welcoming under his, then rigid and swept with passion as he took her, made her his as if it were for an eternity.

  Alex and her secrets. Now she had one secret more to keep. His baby growing inside her. He had never contemplated fathering a child. His child. It haunted him all day, and, when the office visits were over, he sat alone in his office for a long time before he went to the appointment book.

  It was there, written in under Roy’s three-thirty slot. Mary Houseman. He went to the card file, found the address, then went out and sat in his car for a long time before starting the engine.

  He found the house. It was rambling and attractive, but probably poorly insulated. He pulled up in the driveway, rapped on the heavy wooden door and heard the sound echoing. He wondered what he was going to say, and when she opened the door and stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes he still did not know what words to use.

  ‘Alex, I’ve got to talk to you.’ She swallowed, looking up at him. He was large and muscular and too close. She nodded, tried to smile. His hands hung by his sides and she could see the fingers curled into fists. The lines of his face were deep and harsh. She could feel the frigid outside air radiating from his jacket. He was still dressed like a doctor, formally. From the look of him, he’d come to add to her problems, not to solve them.

  ‘Sam, I—we can’t talk here. My father’s here.’

  Thank heaven her mother was out! Mother would be hovering, wanting to know everything about this man. He was cold and hard. Mary could not imagine how she could have lain intimately against his body, touching and making formless sounds as he caressed her.

  She glanced back at the living room. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Just get your damned coat and come with me!’ She stared at him, swallowed something hard and dry. He reached out an impatient hand, pulled down a white coat from the cupboard near the door.

  ‘No, that’s my mother’s. Sam, I—’ She met his angry eyes. ‘I’ll come.’ She bit her lip and pushed back her hair, but the soft tendrils promptly escaped again. She called into the living room, ‘Dad, I’m just going out for coffee with a friend. I’ll be back in about half an hour.’

  She left quickly, before her father could ask any questions. Sam’s car was parked behind her father’s Volkswagen. It was not locked. She opened the passenger door and got in, careful not to watch Sam as he slid into the driver’s seat beside her. He didn’t start the engine, just sat silently staring through the window at the back of her father’s car.

  ‘My mother will be home any minute.’ She chewed on her lip. ‘Could we drive somewhere? She has a station-wagon, and she’ll want to park here. She’ll want to know who you are and what you’re doing here with me.’

  He said slowly, ‘Good grief, anyone would think you were a fifteen-year-old girl. Asking permission and— Why do you put up with this? Why don’t you move out or—?’

  ‘They’re my family. I love them.’

  His shoulders jerked impatiently. ‘That doesn’t mean you have to live in their pocket for the rest of your life.’ She wanted to ask about his family, but his face was emotionless, rigid. On the beach, last month, she might have asked anyway. If she had, she thought he might have answered.

  ‘Alex, I can’t let you abort that baby.’ His voice was harsh.

  She stared at the house, at her father’s car. ‘Sam, what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Have the baby.’ Blunt, simple words. His face was in shadow. The dark rigidity of his form forbade any touch, any approach. There was only one way that she could possibly have a baby, one answer that everybody could accept, even Emily Derringer.

  ‘Are you saying you’ll marry me?’

  She felt his shock, then he said tonelessly, ‘I’ll help you, of course.’ She gulped, closed her eyes in a brief spasm of pain. So much for dreams.

  ‘Sam, you have no idea how impossible it is for me to have—’ She sucked in a painful breath. ‘The advance for the book—it’s not that much, and I don’t have a job. My family—oh, lord, Sam!’

  ‘I’ll give you money, of course, and—and whatever you might need.’ His hand reached out and she jerked away.

  ‘Sam,’ she whispered. She felt tears starting, over-flowing on to her cheeks. Her arm brushed against her abdomen, and she thought she could feel the fullness there. A life inside her, growing. She fumbled with the latch to the door.

  ‘Alex, listen-’

  ‘I can’t.’ The tears were making her voice quaver. ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t face it all. I’m afraid, and I—I can’t!’

  She let the door swing closed and stumbled away. She rubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. The rough corduroy cut into the tender redness around her eyes. Money, he’d offered, but only one thing could save her from what was ahead: marriage.

  She got inside and upstairs. Her privacy was purely temporary. Soon her mother would be home and there would be questions. About Sam. She ran a tub of hot water in the bathroom, the one place where she could lock the door and even her mother would not intrude. She sank down into the warm wetness and tried to let the water soothe her into a state of half-sleep.

  Later, clean and pink from the warm water, she dried herself and dressed in a soft track-suit, warmed by the luxurious green that was a little too elegant for jogging. It had been a gift from Aunt Lexie. She wished that Lexie were here to put the world in perspective.

  Lexie. Wild Lexie. Wild Toby.

  And now Mary?

  The doorbell echoed through the house as she brushed her hair. Footsteps. This old wooden house creaked whenever someone walked into the hallway or down the stairs. She heard the front door opening, heard the sound of her father’s voice. She could not hear the words, but the tone was questioning, formal, as if he was talking to a stranger.

  Sam’s voice. She stared at her hands, knew she must go down to reassure him. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she knew that she would not destroy the life growing inside. He must be upset about the abortion on moral or religious grounds. He rejected any thought of marriage or families, and if a man was tha
t wary of relationships, surely he would not want to become a father?

  ‘Mary!’ Her father’s voice from downstairs.

  Was this how the Christians had felt, walking out into the lion’s den? Her legs felt weak as she went down the stairs. One look at Sam’s face and she knew that her secret could explode at any minute. She curled her fingers around the banister as if it was something safe to cling to.

  Her father was standing beside Sam, but she could see only Sam’s eyes, black with what must have been fury, glaring up at her. She almost stumbled, because she couldn’t look down, couldn’t get free of his eyes, then she was standing on the hardwood floor at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Mary, do you know this man?’ Oliver Houseman sounded incredulous. He would be seeing not the expensive suit, but the angry eyes, the aggressive stance that seemed to threaten anyone who got in his way. A dangerous man.

  With a sense of inevitability she saw the door open behind Sam, saw her mother come in and stop short, eyes wide and curious. ‘Yes,’ she said dully. ‘This is Sam Dempsey.’

  Her mother gasped, ‘Why, Dr Dempsey! How nice of you to come to make yourself known to us!’ She moved in front of Sam and extended her hand, momentarily disconcerted when he ignored the gesture. Her voice took on a frosty note as she said, ‘I’ve been hearing about you. You’re setting the town on its ear by standing up for the boy who stole that car.’

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘Small town,’ Mary murmured, feeling reality slipping away. ‘I told you what it was like.’

  He said tightly, ‘Come out with me. We have to talk.’

  This scene was going to turn into a nightmare. Frances looked from Sam to Mary, startled, and her father said unnecessarily, ‘Darling, Dr Dempsey is here to talk to Mary.’

  Mary shook her head mutely. She wasn’t certain who she was saying no to, but Sam’s eyes flashed and she could feel the explosion coming before his voice broke the thick tension.

  Sam’s anger seemed to fill the small entranceway. He swallowed and for a moment she could see panic in his eyes, then he made a gesture that pushed away both her parents, and said abruptly, ‘All right, Alex! You win! We’ll get married.’

  Frances Houseman’s lips were silently forming the word ‘married,’ but Mary just stared at Sam, confused by the contradiction between his words and his voice.

  ‘That’s the price, isn’t it?’ he demanded harshly.

  She closed her eyes, shutting out Sam’s tense face, her father’s confused concern, her mother’s shocked gasp. She was far too frightened of what he might say next to appreciate her mother’s unusual silence. ‘Alexl’ he demanded, and she had to open her eyes and meet his. She stepped back, coming against the telephone table and stopping to keep from falling. Sam moved with her, holding her s,eye ignoring the panic in hers.

  She pressed her body back against the table, away from Sam. How many people had she seen in the parish, men and women tied together by an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, fighting each other over the years, tearing their children apart? She had always believed that forced marriages were punishment for the child, not security. If Sam had wanted her, had shared her fragile fantasy...

  ‘Alex, I won’t let you go to Vancouver next week.’ His words echoed.

  She whispered, ‘No,’ agreeing.

  Perhaps he had not heard her. His voice was hard. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’ She pushed a hand through her hair, her eyes moving desperately from Sam to her mother who was watching with predatory curiosity, and to her father who seemed to hover between worry and distress.

  ‘Mary, what—’ Her mother’s voice broke off in a sharp squeak. Mary wondered wildly if a screaming fit might get her out of this. Sam was going to tell her parents that she was pregnant and planning to have an abortion. Then he’d probably put the lid on it by telling them about her book, although that hardly seemed to matter at the moment.

  ‘Dr Dempsey, why are you calling my daughter Alex?’ Her father’s voice had the tones of a bewildered academician.

  ‘That’s how she introduced herself to me.’

  Her mother said sharply, ‘Why? When?’

  Mary pushed her hands through her hair frantically, stepped towards her mother with some vague hope of getting her out of the room, getting her away from Sam. Far away. But it was too late.

  ‘In Vancouver,’ Sam said, as if it didn’t matter. ‘Last month.’

  Her father asked distinctly, ‘Mary, exactly what is going on around here?’

  She didn’t know what to say, how to say it. She swung on Sam. ‘Why did you have to come here and make everything so damned difficult? Damn it, Sam!’ She could hear own voice raised in a scream, but could not seem to stop it. ‘You’ve got no right to come in here and mess up my life! Will you get out of here? Please!’

  ‘As far as making things difficult goes, I had help.’ He sounded coldly amused. She shuddered, knowing that she could not stop his words. He continued, ‘And there’s no point screaming, throwing blame. Neither one of us is to blame for—’ he shrugged ‘—for an equipment failure.’

  Equipment failure! Equipment! Her mother’s lips opened and Mary said rigidly, ‘I simply cannot handle this. I don’t know how to handle this!’ Sam was staring at her, waiting for something. She screamed, ‘Damn you, Sam!’

  He would seem relaxed to a casual observer, but she could see the rigid tension in him. His voice was hard. ‘Alex, I think it’s time you grew up nan faced the music. You—’

  ‘No! Sam! Don’t—’

  ‘You’ve gotten into a situation that you can’t hide from. This is one secret too many, Alex.’

  She shuddered, found herself screaming, ‘Sam! Go away! Get out! I’m not ready to face this!’

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. The scar stood out red and angry on his cheekbone. His brown eyes deepened almost to black. hiding his deepest thoughts from her. Then, abruptly, the tension seemed to flow out of him. He pulled a pen from his inside jacket pocket, stepped over to the telephone table and wrote briefly on a piece of paper. Everything was deathly silent as he placed the paper in her hand and closed her fingers on it.

  ‘When you’re ready to talk, come and see me. Or call.’ She swallowed, remembering the other paper with the address. He had never given it back to her. Now he said insistently, ‘Promise me that, Alex?’ She nodded, and he didn’t say goodbye to her, or her parents. He just left her alone, standing in the midst of a silence that didn’t last long enough, the sound of the door slamming behind him echoing through the old house.

  Her father began in his pastor’s voice, ‘Mary, I think—’

  Her mother overrode his quiet concern with, ‘Mary Alexandra, I think you’d better tell us what this is all about! This man— My goodness, Emily led me to believe he was a reasonable—a normal— Mary, what on earth do you have to do with him?’

  Mary felt numbed. What else could happen? Exhausted from the tension of waiting for Sam to expose her secret, she found herself blurting, ‘I’m pregnant.’ She felt a relief as the words came out, and added flatly, ‘He’s the father.’

  Her father swung around. His eyes went to Frances for guidance. Her mother’s mouth opened soundlessly. Her eyes were dark and shocked, then she managed a choked, ‘Oh, no, Oliver! Didn’t we go through enough with Toby?’ Mary heard the words and wondered where all her feelings were hiding. ‘A baby?’ Her mother’s words were tight and painful. ‘He—Dr Dempsey—?’ She heard her mother swallow. ‘He’s the father? He’s the man who—?’

  She didn’t answer. What could she say? She stared at the door and knew that she had to get away from this. Her mother took a deep breath, and licked her lips. ‘You’ve always had that streak in you,’ she said sadly. ‘Just like your brother. Just like Lexie, too. She was a wild girl, and she’s a wild woman. I’ve tried to make sure you didn’t grow up like them. I knew it was in your blood.’

  Frances reached a frantic hand up to her hair, but hesitated short of actually distur
bing the immaculate coiffure. ‘Don’t you realise what this means? Can you imagine how your father will face this? His daughter! We are the clergy, we set an example, show others how— Oh, my goodness! Mary, this is absolutely impossible!’

  Mary had never in her life walked away from Frances when she was throwing a tantrum, but she found that her legs would move. Frances screamed, ‘He asked you to marry him! I heard him! He—’

  That’s the price, isn’t it? His words echoed with all their anger. To him it was a trap, and she was not tempting bait. Her hands found the doorknob.

  ‘It’s dark! You can’t go out this time of—’

  She dodged her mother’s restraining hand, then the door was shut and she was outside. The darkness flowed over her like a concealing blanket. Her feet took her down the hill. It was easier than going up.

  She walked for a long time without was back at the house. She had come to the waterfront, walking down and down the hills like water seeking its level. There was no pavement here on the waterfront road, and from time to time the taxis roared past with their lights on high-beam and their wheels burning up the tarmac.

  She had nowhere to go, but could ton face going back to her parents. She had no idea what she could say to her mother, how she could face the words and the questions, much less the shock and recriminations. Once, when she was seventeen, she had gone out with a young man who had held her and had kissed her, and had somehow touched the needs inside her. He had wanted her, and she had felt desire, too. He had kissed her lipstick away, had touched her breasts with heated yet gentle hands, and had made her tremble with her own feelings, before her inhibitions had finally regained control and she had pushed him away. It was the closest she had ever come to a woman’s passion, until Sam.

  When she had arrived home that night, her mother had been waiting, and her eyes had fixed on Mary’s flushed young face, seeing too much in the wide eyes and the swollen lips. There had been questions and accusations, a long, painful scene in the living room while her father had slept upstairs. The ghost of Toby’s wildness, his suicide. The shadow of an irresponsible Aunt Lexie.