Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  Matthew lay back on the one thin City of Westminster pillow, closed his eyes. Hester’s apron flared into a maternity-smock, her tight-coiled bun into swinging schoolgirl pigtails. Hester young, shameless, pregnant at eighteen. Impossible! He had come here partly to recover from the shock. He drew his wallet from his pocket, unfolded the torn-out diary page, read it for the tenth time. ‘22/2, 1919. St Saviour’s Hostel, Southwark. Today my son was born …’ That one short line had thrown him into confusion, sent his mind and emotions spinning again, when he had spent all last night imposing tight controls. He had done his best to conceal his shock from Jennifer. She had seemed upset enough herself and had only shown him the page with extreme misgivings.

  He had driven down to Cobham that afternoon, stood puzzled in the overgrown front garden. Why had no one let him in, when he could hear a radio caterwauling? He tried the door. It wasn’t locked. It was his house, anyway, so why not just walk in? He found Jennifer alone upstairs in the small and poky bedroom, lying in bed looking pale until she blushed. She was trying to cover her thin transparent nightie with the sheet.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear, I should have brought you grapes or flowers. I didn’t realise you were so ill you couldn’t even answer the door.’

  She blushed still harder. ‘It’s … er … not that, Matthew. It’s just that I’ve … Look, do sit down.’

  There was nowhere much to sit except the bed. He had avoided that, perched himself on the window-sill between two wilting potted plants. The window was open, but it was still stifling in the room, a sultry summer’s day with no stir of breeze. He ran a finger along his constricting collar, envying Jennifer her naked neck and shoulders.

  ‘Take your tie off, Matthew, if you’re hot. Lyn’s at the launderette. He’ll make us a pot of tea when he gets back.’

  It was more than tea he wanted. He used Lyn’s absence to start on his campaign. He had rehearsed his arguments all the way down in the car—the importance of the diaries to history and posterity, and Lyn’s selfishness in trying to keep their discovery to himself; his ‘tribute to Hester’ theme—a book of exceptional quality and beauty to be published as a memorial to Lyn’s mother and a living monument to Hernhope; Jennifer’s own contribution and fulfilment as a second Hester carrying on the traditions of the first. So far so good. He had thus established the solemnity and challenge of the project, its intellectual calibre, its historical importance. Only then had he moved on to matters of hard cash, hinting at insolvency if they impeded publication. A few hard allusions to the rising cost of living, the soaring cost of properties, the unfortunate necessity of selling the Cobham house, his firm’s new money problems and urgent need for a really big success, its uncertain future without one, Lyn’s uncertain future …

  Jennifer was looking more and more upset. He had slipped down from his window-seat, perched on the very edge of the bed. ‘Look, my dear, I don’t want to worry you, but there’s simply not enough work for my designers at the moment, not without the Hernhope book. That would solve everything, of course, but if Lyn refuses to let me publish, then … You see, he’s just not earning his salary at the moment. First he disappears for three months and now he’s playing nursemaid here and …’

  Jennifer struggled up from the pillows. He tried not to notice the way her nipples showed through the thin blue nylon nightie. She had nicer breasts than Anne. Anne had worn hers out by suckling four sons in succession.

  ‘Matthew, listen—I know you think I’m just … what’s that word?—malingering. But I’m not, I promise you. If I had ’flu or something, of course Lyn would go to work, but you see, I’m … not allowed up at all, not even to the bathroom.’ She stared down, embarrassed, at her hands, then suddenly blurted out. ‘I’m … pregnant, Matthew, and I’ve started to haemorrhage, and the doctor says if I want to save the baby, then I’ve got to lie absolutely still. Now do you understand?’

  He had muttered a jumbled mixture of congratulations and condolences. His mind was reeling. He felt pleased for Jennifer, worried for her, but how would this latest news affect his project? He had been planning to use her to help sell and publicise the book. By the time it was published, her baby would be born, so long as all went well. A baby could be an extra selling-point. Babies had been used successfully to market everything from life insurance to face-cream. Jennifer would fit her nurturing role still better with an enchanting little infant in her arms, and radiant with new contented motherhood. He could even use the child, plug it as Hester’s first grandchild and the new heir to Hernhope.

  He took her hand. ‘I’m thrilled, my dear. And so will Anne be when she hears. You should have told her yourself, you know. You’re getting as secretive as Lyn is.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. Lyn’s a bit … well … worried about it all and he … thought it best to …’ Her voice had petered out. He noticed the nervous way her hands were picking at the fringes of the bedspread. There had been problems, obviously. He was well aware that Lyn had never showed much enthusiasm for the ties and responsibility of a family. Maybe he could exploit that when he tackled Lyn himself. The expense of babies, their need for a solid future and a settled home, how a family man could never afford to turn down any chance to improve his circumstances or benefit his child.

  It hadn’t worked like that. Lyn hadn’t even listened. When he returned with the laundry and the shopping he had been brusque and unco-operative, annoyed that Matthew was there at all, resentful that Jennifer had told him she was pregnant. He finally slammed out again, leaving Jennifer in tears and all the groceries littered round her bed.

  It was then she mentioned the diary page. She had been almost incoherent, sobbing about Lyn’s moodiness and how he mustn’t receive another shock since he was upset enough about her own condition, and if she showed it to him, would Matthew make a solemn promise that he would never, ever pass it on to Lyn nor include it in the published work, and if he was aware of what the page contained already, then please, oh please, would he …

  Matthew rubbed his eyes. He felt drained by all the uproar. She had even asked him to unearth the page himself, extract it from a Tampax box, of all things! She wasn’t allowed to move, not even as far as her own chest of drawers, where she had concealed the box by wrapping it in a pair of Aertex knickers, then stuffing it at the very bottom of the bottom drawer and piling clothes on top. It was all so cloak-and-dagger, so unnecessarily dramatic. That was why he had come here—driven straight to the Turkish Baths from Cobham, bypassing home and dinner. He needed time to recover, time to think.

  He switched off the light in his tiny cell, lay in gloom except for the thin ribbon of light which crept between the curtains. Outside, two raucous clients were laughing and joking as they got undressed. Matthew frowned. The notices said SILENCE, yet were all too often ignored. He longed to close his eyes and just shut off. The diaries had taken their toll.

  ‘Mr Winterton, your tea, sir.’

  Matthew jumped. The attendant had slipped between the curtains with the tea-tray, placed it on the bedside table. He glanced at the thick white china (school china), the strong stewed tea-bag tea, the two uneven scoops of pink icecream, the cellophane-wrapped biscuits (McVitie’s digestive sweetmeal). All comfortingly familiar. He never touched sweet things at home, drank only weak Earl Grey, but here in his secret hideaway he could become a child again. They had had pink icecream at school every Monday evening. It was Monday evening now. There was still some order in the world.

  Or was there? Hester had dropped a bombshell through it. He had problems enough in deciding how to present the book at all, without this new perplexing issue of the baby. Should he include the mysterious pregnancy, or ignore it? It would certainly make a dramatic story, provide a whiff of scandal for the prurient, a tale of loss and heartbreak for the sentimental, plus an almost Dickensian element of mystery and drama in the unknown parentage of a missing child. All things which would push his sales. Yet it was the mystery which worried him. If he introduc
ed the baby, his readers would expect to see its picture, know its fate, and that fate might besmirch the Hester he had decided to present as a blameless model of old-fashioned womanhood.

  Somehow, he wished to see her that way himself. It was a slur on his own family to think that Hester had come to Hernhope with some dubious past behind her which she had concealed from her employer, and then to have married that employer under what were strictly false pretences, since she had led him to believe that she had neither man nor past nor child. All those stern morals had been covering something else. The woman who had slapped him down if he ever touched himself, had lain trembling and panting under a rutting man, maybe even encouraged her seducer. Matthew let the last spoonful of icecream slide slowly down his throat. He had to admit there was something intriguing about that seduction, even provocative. He could see Hester rolling down her stockings, pushing up her skirts …

  He snapped the light back on, forced his mind back to the issue of the baby. Probably best to kill it off, abort it before it ever saw the light of day on the printed page. He would reach a wider market if his book received a ‘U’ certificate, as wholesome all-round family entertainment with nothing to slur its country-fresh appeal or his own upstanding family. There was also his promise to Jennifer. Promises could be broken, of course, if a Higher Good demanded it, but he needed Jennifer ‘s goodwill and cooperation if he were to use her in the project. She was right about her husband—Lyn would be shocked and confounded by the news of Hester’s past. And he was relying on Lyn to do all the main design work on the book. No one else could touch him for skill and originality, no one else provide that all-important selling-point of being Hernhope’s heir and Hester’s son. It would be madness to upset him once he’d been persuaded to embark on the project and relinquish his rights to the material—and that was proving hard enough, for God’s sake. Not only was he jibbing at the whole idea of publication, he also flatly refused to get himself appointed as administrator. Maybe that was just as well, since the whole situation was now dangerously complicated. They would have to swear in front of lawyers that Lyn was Hester’s only child, and though Lyn himself might escape the charge of perjury since he knew nothing of an elder son, what about his own case? Was he obliged to inform his brother of the changed situation before making any deal with him, and if he failed to do so, was he then guilty by default?

  Yet how could he break the news—risk upsetting Lyn so gravely that the downgraded second son might refuse to make a deal with him at all? Anyway, he was as wary now of lawyers as Lyn himself. They could waste months of precious time searching for an heir he was almost sure had died in infancy. There had never been the slightest hint or rumour in his boyhood of Hester having any living son—no mention of it in the diaries beyond those two brief lines. Until Lyn was born, years later, Hester’s only child and interest had been himself.

  He would check of course—double, triple check—search the records at Somerset House, snoop around that Southwark hostel, make a few discreet enquiries both at Mepperton and Fernfield. But he was almost sure he would draw a blank. So why allow solicitors to poke their expensive noses into private family matters he could settle on his own in quarter the time?

  Best to bar the lawyers altogether. Nothing should go wrong if he were to make a private agreement with his brother, without letters of administration, once he had satisfied himself that the elder son was dead and Lyn still the only living offspring. All right, it wouldn’t be quite as watertight as a formal legal contract drawn up with Lyn as administrator, but there were advantages, nonetheless. He might get a better deal that way, fob Lyn off with less, and it would certainly be less risky than raising the spectre of a rival heir. That mysterious nine-pound baby must return to the darkness where it had lain for sixty years, and neither his readers nor his brother must ever know it had seen the light at all.

  Matthew eased himself off the bed, unbuckled his belt, untied his shoes. He had made his main decisions, and though Lyn still had to be persuaded to make any deal at all, he was confident he could change his brother’s mind. He’d return to Cobham, intensify the pressures—but that could wait till morning. It was getting late now, and he’d better go down to the baths, before they closed. He removed his shirt and trousers, leaving his clothes folded neatly on the chair, remembering wryly that it was Hester who had taught him his neatness and efficiency. Strange how much he owed her, really. Gratitude was still mixed with resentment, excitement with distaste. He would make his book a tribute to her.

  He walked down the steps into the hot and steamy basement, glanced at his body as he stood under the shower. Thank God he hadn’t run to fat. He loathed obesity, worked at his figure with the same vigour and single-mindedness he brought to his business or his tax affairs. Endless self-control and a master plan. If he indulged in strawberry ice-cream once or twice a month, then he had it instead of dinner, not as well as. A small slice of toast for breakfast—nothing else—sugarless tea and coffee, using his legs instead of lazy elevators.

  The water was gushing warm across his shoulders. He turned the dial to cold. It was a school shower now with its old-fashioned metal taps, its complaining whine and gurgle, its ice-cold water punishing the flesh. He cocooned himself in his towels and walked briskly to the steam-room, recoiling from the naked bodies all around him, with their slack distended stomachs, their flaccid folds of flesh. He closed his eyes, tried to plan his overseas campaign.…

  All the different countries were running into each other, melting in the heat. He could feel his mind shutting off, his limbs relaxing, as heat engulfed him like a woman’s body. Water was running down the walls, dripping off the pipes, plopping in warm droplets from the ceiling, mixing with his own sweat. Normally, he never perspired. He was a cold man, a controlled one, always buttoned up. It was a relief to be naked now, to feel his own dampness seeping into the towel, to taste biscuit crumbs still sweet and forbidden in his mouth.

  The eighteen-year-old Hester was suddenly on the bench beside him, her shameful flaunting belly pressed against his own, her breasts leaking strawberry flavoured milk as he tongued and muzzled them. He tried to push her off. She herself had taught him to fear and discipline the flesh. Now he understood why. It was all too easy to sin, to fall. He had never allowed his own sons to indulge in ‘dirty talk’ or bring dubious comics home. Sex with Anne was quick and clinical. He had always preferred it when he was trying to make her pregnant, transforming that flat chest and girlish waist into the fruitful curves he craved. There was some god-like power in creating living sons from sperm and slime. Some men disliked the idea of sex with lumberingly pregnant wives, but the more Anne swelled, the more he had desired her. She had been working for him then, not just in his office but in some more basic and important way, carrying on his genes, his looks, his line, proving his fertility and his manhood. He had made her swell like that, changed her shape, endowed her with that seductive combination of hallowedness and vulnerability. He could see her now, nine months gone with Charles, her small face and narrow frame contradicted by that awesome bulge.

  He groped out his hand towards her, touched only hard wet wood, forced his mind back to plans and timetable. He must produce his book as soon as possible, before any further crises could affect it—aim for a summery publication date such as middle May or June. If he started design in mid-August and production in October, he would have more or less nine months. That would be his own pregnancy—nine month’ labour before he delivered his fine and bouncing offspring to the world, his profits running over, his coffers swollen with cash.

  The problem was, could he deliver it on time? He really needed the gestation period of an elephant or a giraffe—but he couldn’t wait that long to make some money. It was already early July and he hadn’t won Lyn round yet, nor confirmed the death or disappearance of that irksome elder son. He would then need a breathing-space to study all the materials, decide on his plan and presentation, produce a dummy and sell it to a publisher. Even wi
thout wasting time on lawyers, it would still be an infernal rush. Yet he had to keep his cool, especially with all the worry of his tax affairs. One false step and …

  He mopped his streaming forehead with his towel. It was difficult to concentrate. Someone had turned the dials up and the whole room was writhing with clouds of steam, swirling in his eyes, his mind. He groped through the warm wet fog to the hottest of the hot rooms—dry heat there—no vapour. He could almost see the heat, stretched like a shimmering gauze across the room, scalding the delicate membranes of his nose and throat. He could hardly breathe. The bench scorched his buttocks, the floor was too hot to step on. He lay back, smelling heat, tasting it on his dry and burning lips. It was too extreme for any woman, yet they had followed him even here. Anne gloriously pregnant with Hugh now, the teenage Hester still sprawling on her back, pigtails unplaited and tumbling round her shoulders. Now Jennifer had joined them, in her thin blue nylon nightdress, pulling down the ruching, letting her breasts spill over in his hands. Pregnant breasts again, full and firm. The room was packed with females—all young, pregnant, taunting. He stretched out a dozen mouths, a score of hands …

  ‘Mr Winterton, sir, I believe you booked a body scrub. I’m ready for you now.’

  Matthew opened his eyes. A brawny attendant dressed in gym shoes and a rubber apron was standing over him.

  ‘Er … yes, Len. I … hadn’t forgotten.’

  He followed the attendant to the shower-room, stretched himself out on the cold white marble slab, wincing as it shocked his still hot and sluggish body. Len filled a metal bowl with icy water, flung it over Matthew’s lower half. Thoughts of Hester drained away. A second bowlful, aimed at his chest and shoulders, sent Anne and Jennifer gasping down the sluice.