An East End Girl

by Maggie Ford

  ‘You remember I had some news to tell you?’ she asked, after Ginger had gone back to his own apartment having popped in to borrow a spot of jam for the croissants he and Pamela were having for breakfast.

  Langley, still in his dressing gown, stopped drinking his coffee to look at her. ‘You did mention wanting to tell me something yesterday.’

  ‘I know. And it’s the most wonderful news. I’m pregnant, Langley.’ His eyes had become fixed on hers. The light in them seemed to flicker. ‘You’re going to be a father,’ she hurried on.

  His gaze hadn’t changed. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I bet you’re not!’ She laughed gaily. ‘I’m going to have a baby – your baby. Isn’t it wonderful, darling?’

  Langley looked at her a while longer, then dropped his gaze to put his cup gently back on its saucer. ‘You can’t be pregnant.’

  ‘I am.’ Men never understood how things like this happened; were always amazed when they were told, as if it had nothing to do with making love but more with some great miracle beyond their abilities.

  ‘I am, Langley,’ she persisted.

  He was still contemplating his coffee cup as though it held the answer. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You know how regular I am. You could set your watch by me. Well, last month I missed, and I’ve missed again this month. Besides, I feel somehow different. And yesterday morning I was sick. Quite suddenly and for no reason.’

  She knew about that from her mother having been pregnant with Harry – remembered her running to the sink shutting the kitchen door behind her so no one would come in, and the sound of retching, and then her mother emerging, looking relieved and saying how she hated the sick end of pregnancy. That’s how she knew. She had been thirteen then, old enough to take note. Dad had looked at Mum when she told him just as Langley was looking at her now – somewhat mystified, shocked, even dismayed. But he’d been pleased after he’d got over the surprise. And so would Langley.

  ‘I’m definitely pregnant,’ she said happily, new confidence coming upon her as she’d never had before. She laughed gaily. ‘Well, say something!’

  ‘You’ll have to get rid of it,’ he said quietly.

  Cissy stared at him, not comprehending, the remnants of laughter frozen on her lips; still fixed there as she asked, ‘Langley, what do you mean?’

  ‘I mean get rid of it.’

  ‘But I’m pregnant. Don’t you…?’

  ‘Exactly. That’s the last thing we wanted to happen.’

  ‘How can you say that? I thought you’d want us to…How can you say that? Langley, look at me!’

  She watched him comply and wished he hadn’t. The look in his eyes was enough to stop the blood in her veins. Now he rose, throwing his napkin down on the little round marble-topped table they always breakfasted on.

  ‘How could you let yourself get pregnant?’

  ‘How could….? Langley, you were there too. You knew the risks we were taking when we…You didn’t seem to mind. I thought you hoped that at some time…Oh, God, darling, I thought you’d be so pleased.’

  ‘Pleased! I’m devastated. What’ll my people say?’

  ‘We could get married before anyone suspects. I’m only a couple of months, and no one would ever know.’

  ‘I’ve never mentioned marriage to you.’

  ‘I know, darling, but I thought…’

  ‘Then you thought wrong, didn’t you, darling.’ It wasn’t the way he would normally call her that. There was no tenderness in it, only fear and sarcasm and – dear God, was it loathing?

  ‘You said you loved me!’

  ‘I’ve said I love you to lots of girls. Oh, you’re the first I’ve been with for so long. And I do love you. But marriage…Christ! Haven’t you realised that when I finally settle down, it will have to be with someone of my own class? How could I take you home to meet my people? They’d wipe their hands of me. They’d cut off my allowance until I got rid of you.’ He grew suddenly tender, relaxing, came round the table towards her. ‘I thought you understood that, Cissy. I thought you always understood. Now come here, you silly little thing, and we’ll discuss this like sensible…’

  ‘No!’ Hastily she backed away, making him halt where she had been a moment before. ‘No, I don’t want you to cuddle me. You’ve just told me to get rid of my baby…our baby.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ His eyes had again grown hard. ‘If you want me to put it bluntly, if you want us to carry on together, you’ve got to get rid of that thing inside you. Otherwise…’

  ‘Otherwise – what?’

  ‘Otherwise, we must call it a day. I’ll pay for the abortion. But if you really intend to go through with this – stupidity – I’ll pay your fare home. Back to England.’

  ‘No, you don’t mean that. Where would I go?’

  ‘Home to your people, I suppose.’

  ‘I can’t go back to them!’ Her voice was a wail for pity, for his understanding, but his expression hadn’t changed.

  ‘Then you’ll have to do what you like. But we can’t stay together – not now, not unless you get yourself seen to. Honestly, darling, God knows where you got the idea of marriage.’

  He stalked past her. ‘I’m going out for a while, Cissy. Think about what I’ve said. And when I come back and you feel more rational, we’ll talk.’

  She stood listening to him in the bathroom, following his movements as he washed, shaved, combed and smoothed his dark hair with expensive brilliantine; her mind following him into the bedroom where he took off his dressing gown to put on his clothes. She was still standing where he’d left her as he came out of the bedroom, neatly dressed in dark trousers, shirt and tie, light sports jacket and holding a straw boater.

  He paused, gently regarding her. ‘I know it’s a bit of a shock for you, Cissy, my darling – as it was for me. I didn’t think you’d be so silly as to let yourself get in that state. But now you have, you do need some time to think – to see my side of it. Once this business is out of the way, we can go on as before. We’ve been happy together and there’s no reason why we can’t go on being happy. Good job you told me when you did. And don’t be frightened, Cissy, my sweet thing. It’ll be easy to get rid of it, being so early. It’s nothing. Just a small snip or something and you’ll be your old self again. This happened to me once before, and she was as right as rain a few days afterwards. And we’ll get the best person we can find. As you know from what I’ve paid for you so far, money’s no object. You’ll be quite safe.’

  Paid for her? She felt, suddenly, like a prostitute. She didn’t move as he came over to peck her cheek; didn’t move as he went out the door cheerfully telling her to be good, he already over the shock, the problem for him solved. In fact she could feel nothing, think of nothing except that she had been paid for.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the lovely carpeted oatmeal and fawn salon of her fine apartments, Daisy stalked about, stopping occasionally to regard Cissy with pity and shake her head angrily as Cissy unfolded her tale.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  It had been all so awful. A nightmare, and like a nightmare, even now, unreal. Yet it had been real. She had sat waiting for Langley’s return, unable to believe what he’d said, all the while trying to convince herself that it had all been a mistake, that when he came back everything would be all right – that it had been the shock that had made him act so.

  When he did return, she actually did think nothing had changed. He had been nice, no doubt sure that she would bow to his wishes, saying he was ready to discuss it rationally. But she hadn’t been able to discuss anything rationally – not the way he referred to the operation as if what she carried was a piece of butcher’s meat. As she dissolved into tears by the table, he’d lost his temper; had pulled some money from his wallet, throwing it down in front of her saying she could do what she liked with it – take herself back home or get an abortion – but that either way,
he was returning to England, with Margo.

  All the time she had been waiting for him to come back, praying everything would reconcile itself, he’d been in Margo’s apartment, in her bed making love to her, already divorcing himself of Cissy and the problem she had presented him with.

  Devastated, half-suffocated by weeping, and unable to think, she’d watched him scribble an address which he said tersely was the name of an expensive and highly recommended clinic – he didn’t want any back-street damage on his conscience, he added – and dropped it fluttering on top of the wad of notes.

  For a while he’d stood looking at her, his expression softening with something like nostalgia or regret, but when she continued her unabated weeping, the expression had hardened again and he had turned abruptly and stalked out, leaving her alone to pack and leave as he had asked.

  After that, everything had been a blur. She hadn’t been at all sure where she had gone or what she had done until she had got herself here to Daisy’s home.

  All this she explained between fresh bouts of gulping sobs while Daisy listened, growing more livid as the tale unfolded. Now she stood in front of Cissy, her oval face tight with anger for her friend.

  ‘Show me the address of this clinic.’

  Cissy looked up, alarmed. ‘Not you too, Daisy? Do you really think I should get rid of it?’

  Daisy sat down on the sofa beside her. ‘Surely you can’t want it, Cissy? Not after the way he’s behaved? He’s been a beast, but for your own sake, you’re going to have to do something.’

  ‘I loved him, Daisy. I did love him. I still do.’

  Daisy’s hand was smoothing hers. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I wouldn’t feel like this if I didn’t. I don’t know what to do. It was what he did. The way he put the money down on the table as if…as if I was a common prostitute he’d picked up off the streets. I never once dreamt that was all I was to him. But that’s all I am really.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Daisy put an arm around her. ‘Don’t let him get you thinking things like that. You were genuinely in love. It’s he who’s been shameful, leading you on because it suited him, even though he bought you this and that. But then he’s got money to throw around, I expect, coming from Daddy, never having to work for it. Now my Teddy had to work to get where he is. He’s a genuinely wonderful man…’

  But Cissy wasn’t listening. ‘I couldn’t believe he’d be like that. When he came back and asked me if I’d thought things over, he was so calm and I thought it was just one of those tiffs we’ve had before, and everything was all right again. But when he started saying that we couldn’t carry on, because I was unreliable, I knew…I knew then…’

  Overcome by the distress of those last few hours, she broke into a fresh spasm of weeping. It had all been so sordid. The way he’d said he didn’t care if she had the baby or not, or what she did with the money, so long as she was out of his life. He’d brought up Margo and said that unlike little fools from the slums who knew no better than to get pregnant, thinking they could trap a man in to marrying them, Margo knew the rules and understood that going to bed a few times with a fellow did not automatically guarantee marriage which, in the best circles, was properly arranged, certainly not with Cissy’s sort; that sowing wild oats was something understood by everyone who is anyone.

  ‘Well, I don’t understand it,’ she told Daisy between strangled sobs. ‘And I don’t want to. Us, Daisy, we may come from poor families, but they’re good people. They’re not hypocrites like those with so much money they don’t know what to do with it, except throw it about on high living and drink, smoking hashish and marijuana and having sex with each other at the drop of a hat, and leading people like me on.’

  ‘But you knew the sort of life you were getting into when you left home. You knew you would be sharing his bed and that eventually an accident could happen. You couldn’t not have realised what sort of capers those sort of people get up to. Everyone knows what they’re like.’

  ‘But I thought…I thought it was different with me and Langley. He always made it seem different, always so considerate, talking about our life together.’

  ‘Until it came to facing the music.’

  ‘I know I’ve been stupid. I really thought he loved me. I really thought…’

  Breaking into sobs again, it was some time before she could go on.

  ‘I made a fool of myself, pleading with him. I knew I was degrading myself, but I couldn’t help it. He said I was behaving like a cheap little slut and it nauseated him. That’s when he started to count out the money and write that name on a piece of paper and said he never wanted to see me again. I couldn’t believe he could be so hard and unfeeling. He’d always been so sweet and so caring, and we’d had such wonderful times together.’

  ‘What did you do with the money?’ Daisy asked, practical in the face of Cissy’s tears.

  ‘I left it where it was on the table.’

  ‘You did what?’ Daisy leaned away from her in astonishment.

  ‘I couldn’t touch it. When he told me to pack my things and said that everything he’d given me was mine to keep, I picked up the money and threw it at him and told him he could keep his stinking money.’ Another sob broke from her. ‘He laughed, Daisy. He laughed. He just laughed, and then he gave me a strange look and walked out, leaving it all on the floor. He said that he didn’t want to see me there when he got back and if I had any sense in my head I would pick it all up, because he would burn it if I didn’t.’

  ‘And you left it all on the floor? Oh, Cissy, you idiot!’

  ‘I was going to. Then I thought I’d burn it for him instead, and then take lots of aspirins and kill myself.’

  Daisy’s arm tightened about her. ‘But you didn’t. And you didn’t burn the money either, did you? Say you didn’t burn it, Cissy.’

  ‘I meant to. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I just picked it all up and went and packed up all my things and left. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I know I wandered around for hours until I got tired. I kept looking at the address of the clinic he’d given me. I think I nearly went there, but somehow, I – I couldn’t. I don’t know why. I don’t want the baby. How would I ever cope? Yet I couldn’t do what he asked. I remember thinking that I’d be grovelling like a little slave doing what he wanted me to do. I’ve been doing that all along, Daisy – all these months. That’s all I’ve been – his slave and plaything. And it hurts, Daisy. It hurts so much. And to think I gave up everything for him. Eddie, my family, my life back home, and for what? For nothing. Now I can’t even go back home, to Eddie or my family. What am I going to do, Daisy? I’d be better off dead.’

  Daisy held her as she wept into her shoulder. ‘How much did he give you, Cissy?’

  Stemming her tears, dragging the sleeve of her fine angora coat across her tear-laden eyes, Cissy fished into her handbag and brought out a thick wad of crumpled notes, handing it to Daisy without looking at it. The very sight of it would have started her off weeping again.

  Her head bent low, hands screwed into loose fists against her face, she didn’t look as Daisy began counting. Only when she heard her gasp did she look up. The money lay in two piles on the low onyx coffee table in front of them, in five-hundred and one-thousand franc notes.

  ‘Cissy! There must be…’ she made a second hasty calculation. ‘In English money there must be nearly eight hundred pounds. Good Lord! What sort of clinic did he have in mind? You could go ten times over!’

  Despite herself, Cissy smiled through her tears at the way Daisy was wont to overemphasise. She hadn’t changed. But the idea of going even once made the marrow in her bones freeze, the humiliation of creeping into the place, being stared at, looked over, examined, her knowledge of French limited as she submitted herself to some po-faced French doctor’s probing, the pitiful results of all that probing being taken away in a bedpan by an equally po-faced French nurse. No, she couldn’t face that, couldn’t face the thought of
seeing herself a murderer, the bloody remains of her stupidity born away like so much offal.

  ‘I can’t…I can’t go through that.’ She was in Daisy’s arms, her words pouring out almost inarticulate. ‘So much money to do that – it makes doing it even more wicked. I’m taking his money just to kill…It’s wrong when it’s my fault. Poor little thing didn’t ask for…’

  Daisy’s hand was soothing her back. ‘There, there. It’s all right. You don’t have to get rid of it, you know.’

  ‘And if I don’t? How can I bring up a child all on my own in a foreign country? I can’t even speak French enough to…’

  Daisy held her a little way away, gazing into her wretched tear-stained face. ‘I know you feel you can’t go home. But I think you should.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ The tears were drying. She sniffed back the remnants of her weakness, a determination she wouldn’t have believed she possessed beginning to take its place. ‘I couldn’t face them, not now. I’ve been a fool, thoughtless and selfish.’ The tears had dispersed, leaving her quite cold and immune to all that her future might hold. ‘I’m not going back to have the door slammed in my face. I’m not going to give anyone that satisfaction. I’ve decided, Daisy. I’m going to keep this baby. I think I’ll open up a shop somewhere and keep us both.’

  ‘A shop?’

  ‘Something. I don’t know.’

  ‘But a shop? A business? What do you know about business?’

  The question sobered her. Yes, what did she know? No one in her family had ever had a business. She hadn’t the faintest knowledge of business. Yet she must do something. She straightened up.

  ‘I don’t know yet. I don’t know how I’ll manage on my own. But I will. I will, somehow.’

  Daisy seemed to be lost in thought. ‘You don’t have to be on your own. You’ve got me, Cissy. What’re friends for, if not to help?’