Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Do it on mine. Bit harder. That’s great! Now the other one. You’ve stirred them up. Go on—rub some lotion in. It’ll stop me getting stretch marks.’

  ‘You don’t get stretch marks on … boobs.’

  ‘Yes, you do. The doctor told me. Don’t just dab—rub hard.’

  Strange to touch another woman’s breasts. Pregnant breasts, taut and swollen as if they were already full of milk. Jennifer traced the tiny bluish veins throbbing under Susie’s skin. The nipples were hard and stiffening like her own. She was only excited because of Susie’s baby—the fact and closeness of it, the thought of the man who had put it there. One of three—that made it more exciting. She could see the three, throwing off their clothes—the schoolboy with his small shy hands, Sparrow under Niagara Falls shouting in the spray, the foreigner just passing through Susie’s body on his way back to his wife’s. She wanted all of them—Oz and Lyn as well—all shooting sperm inside her, giving her a baby.

  ‘Don’t stop, Jen. It’s fantastic.’

  She had to stop. Susie’s face was moving down towards her, trapping her in a tent of still damp hair. Susie’s lips were reaching for her own lips. Women didn’t kiss.

  The kiss felt strangely soft. No bristly chin like Oz’s, no two-day stubble like Lyn’s on a Sunday night. Jennifer sank back. She could smell strawberry-scented hair conditioner instead of after-shave, taste chewing-gum and brandy. Her mouth was opening as it had with Oz. Not so different, really. The same wet, seeking strangeness, tongues twined and probing. Minutes passed before she pulled away.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘N … nothing.’

  ‘You’re a great kisser, you know. Thought you said you’d never kissed a bird.’

  ‘I … haven’t.’

  ‘Don’t believe it. Kiss my breasts.’

  ‘N … no.’

  ‘Why not? What’s wrong with ’em?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s … me. I keep thinking we shouldn’t really be …’

  ‘Don’t think. Jo says you have to kick your mind out of the bedroom to stop it lousing up your body. Hey—look at your nipples! You’ve got one stiff and standing up and the other sort of squashed. That means half of you fancies it, and the other half doesn’t. Why don’t you relax, Jen? They were both stiff before. That’s how I knew you wanted it.’

  ‘I didn’t, Susie. I’ve never …’

  ‘Just lie back and enjoy it, can’t you?’

  Jennifer lay back. Simpler to obey. Susie was using the brush again, painting soft and shivery circles on her stomach, her other hand stroking across her breasts. She smoothed back Susie’s hair. Susie grinned. She traced the outline of the smile, touched the soft open lips with just one finger.

  The second kiss was longer. Susie’s lips moved from mouth to throat to breast. Jennifer felt her bloodstream change to brandy as Susie’s tongue flicked across her nipples. Oz had done the same last night, suckled her like a baby. They might have made a baby, if he hadn’t been so careful. She groped a hand out, touched the slight swollen curve of Susie’s stomach. That curve excited her. She longed to lay her cheek against it, feel the growing child.

  Susie’s hands were groping lower now, dawdling down Jennifer’s thighs—and up. She tensed. Dangerous ground again. Yet the stroking was so soothing, so hard to fight against. Her whole body was warm and sinking down, merging into Susie’s. The fingers kept pausing on the inside of her thigh, whispering and teasing. Jennifer tried to close her legs, but Susie’s finger had already slipped between them, coaxed them open again.

  ‘No, Susie. I’ve already said not there.’

  Susie’s hand was deaf. The tip of just one finger was probing in, in …

  ‘N … no,’ Jennifer said again, but it was almost indecipherable. Her body was contradicting her.

  Two fingers now, both pressing on that one tiny flashpoint her whole body was wired up to. It was like a switch which turned the shock-waves on.

  Susie was using her whole hand now, pummelling her, hurting her. ‘I’m not hurting, am I, Jen?’

  ‘Yes. No. Go on.’

  She was sore from Oz, wild from Oz, but she wanted to be more sore. She wasn’t a torpid rag-doll any more, but a living thrusting body. She had forgotten where Susie ended and she began. She was part of Susie, fused with her, joined by a clutch of fingers. Nothing left but fingers—fingers up to the hilt.

  ‘Susie, where are you? Susie!’ Someone calling, fainter than her own cries, doors slamming downstairs, feet pounding across the hall.

  She closed her ears, opened her legs still wider. ‘Go on, Susie, go on. It’s wonderful, it’s absolutely …’

  ‘Be quiet, you nut! The boys are back.’ Susie shocked and sitting up, fingers snatched away.

  Jennifer grabbed the hand, clamped it back between her legs again. ‘Don’t stop—please don’t stop. Oh, that’s fantastic, Susie. God! It’s …’

  Susie had suddenly swivelled round and was kneeling with her feet by Jennifer’s head. Her mouth had replaced the hand. Jennifer felt uneasy—but only for a second. It was impossible to think. The feelings were too total, Susie’s tongue too swift and skilful. It was pushing up, up, inside her, circling and insisting. Nothing else existed except that long, wild, clever, flicking tongue. Jennifer’s back was arched, legs tensed against the mattress. There weren’t any legs or back. Only the hot wet fevered bit between them. Susie’s mouth was trapped inside her—part of her—her own mouth shouting in response. ‘Oh, God! Oh, stop! That’s it. Oh, wonderful …’ She flopped back on the bed, silent now except for her gasping breaths. She could still hear shouting somewhere way beyond her—someone else’s yells.

  ‘Susie! Why can’t you answer? Robert’s grazed his knee again and he wants a …’

  Susie sprang up and off. ‘Quick! Hide yourself. They’re coming up and there’s no lock on this door.’

  ‘Oh, Susie, that was wonderful! I just can’t tell you. It felt absolutely …’

  ‘Shut up, you crazy woman! They’ll hear you.’ Susie was dragging on her dressing-gown, damp and creased since they had used it as a towel. ‘Quick! Get under the bed or something. They’re here.’ Voices right outside the door now, feet crashing up the last short flight of stairs.

  Jennifer struggled up. Too late. Susie shoved her down again, flung the duvet over her, squashed her face beneath a pile of pillows as Oliver bombarded through the door, the younger two behind him.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer, Susie? We’ve been yelling for you for hours and …’

  Jennifer was smothering. Susie had sprawled across the duvet to conceal her from the boys, pressing on her stomach, legs across her face.

  ‘There’s a terrible mess in the bathroom. And who’s nicked my Crazy Foam? And a brandy bottle’s broken and …’

  Jennifer tried to breathe. What in God’s name was she up to, lyingnaked and on heat beneath a heavy stifling Susie, when she should be looking after the boys? Anne and Matthew trusted her, had left her in charge.

  Susie’s foot was jabbing in her eye. She dared not shift it, dared not stir at all until the boys had gone. She lay and listened to Susie fob them off.

  ‘No, I didn’t nick it, Oliver. It was Auntie Jen. She was all grotty after her flight so …’

  ‘Auntie Jennifer wouldn’t make a mess like that.’

  ‘You mean she’s back?’ Hugh was cock-a-hoop and shouting.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Great! Where is she?’

  ‘In the … garden.’

  Six legs went crashing off again. Susie knelt up gingerly. ‘Hope I haven’t pulped you, but there was nothing else to do. You can come out now, but hurry.’

  Jennifer didn’t move. It was not just Susie who was crushing her. All the problems had returned and were pressing down like a second stone-filled duvet—Susie pregnant with no cash, Lyn moody and resentful, herself adulterous—and worse. She’d had whisky and sperm for supper, Susie cocktails for lunch—was stil
l panting like a steam-engine, leaking between the legs.

  Suddenly, she laughed. ‘Oh, Susie,’ she said. ‘I think I’m going to need another Double Devil if I’ve got to face the boys.’

  ‘Stuff the boys!’ said Susie. ‘Shove over and shut up. It’s my turn now!’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lyn stared at his drawing, the most complete he had done yet, and the most assured. The charcoal had streaked across the paper as if all the pent-up power within him had surged into his fingers, guided his hand. The drawing was good, damned good. There was depth in it, intensity, a firm structure and coherence beneath the bold and sweeping lines. He frowned critically at the bottom right-hand corner, smudged the outlines a little with a finger, re-drew the curve of a tree root so that its serpenting line repeated the curve of the hill itself.

  All the curves were linked, all caught and held by bold slashed lines of rough cross-hatching. He had made a cage and pattern out of landscape. He had seen the forest as a cage when he was locked in it two days ago—the steely strength of the bars and infinite space beyond them. He had transferred it all to paper, trapped its terror. He reached out and touched the page, felt like a god who had lifted his finger and added something to the world. Creator.

  He eased up from the ground, brushing his trousers free of leaves and twigs. This sweep of hill was his studio, the car his gallery. He opened the boot and laid the drawing with the rest—drawings done on scraps of waste-paper, broken-up cardboard boxes, paper bags, brown wrapping-paper—anything he could scrounge or steal. Two days ago, he had been too shocked and stupid even to hold a pencil. He had lain in the forest beside the grave, his mind slapping and rocking with problems. How could he return to Jennifer and tell her Hernhope was no longer theirs, accept that he was second son, disinherited son; Hester a mother he could no longer recognise?

  He spent all day in the forest, and all night, neither eating nor sleeping, lapping water out of puddles like an animal. Dawn came sullenly, the huge dark conifers holding up their arms to block out the light which only trickled through in mean and grudging driblets. He tried his legs. They were still leaden and unwilling, but he would have to leave. He pushed through scaly trunks, fought with rough and tangled undergrowth. Overhanging branches grabbed at his face and snagged it. At last, he reached the fence, squeezed through the wire, stood on the bare brow of the hill. The whole world was wrapped in grey, dense cloud rolling in from the horizon like a sea-swell drowning fern and heather. He used the cloud as his disguise, slinking back to the car in cloak and shroud.

  It felt strange to drive again. The gears seemed stiff, the steering wheel too large. Every loop and twist of the road exhausted him. He took it slowly, like an invalid, creeping along the hedges until, slowly, cloud cleared and knife-sharp swallows cut and re-cut the sky into jigsaw patterns gilded by the sun. He avoided the motorways, drove south along narrow empty roads half swamped in unscythed hedgerow, watching the countryside grow softer and less bleak. He hardly noticed the signposts, kept his map-book closed. When he stopped, it was only because he was too weary to go on. He sat slouched in the seat, trying to make plans. He must phone Jennifer to stop her worrying, tell her he was safe. Safe? He needed food and petrol. Money was short. He must decide what to do tomorrow and the next day and the …

  He did nothing. Just slumped there with his eyes closed. His mind was overshadowed by a tree, a Douglas fir marking out a grave. He could see its grainy bark, its thin tough trunk, the swags of foliage shutting out the sky. He fumbled in his pocket, found a worn-down length of pencil, sharpened it with his pocket-knife. No paper. He picked up his map-book, turned to the one blank page facing the list of contents, made a mark on it. He extended the mark into a line, two lines. Two lines became a trunk. He wasn’t really drawing, just distracting himself from the pain of elder brothers. The trunk grew branches, the branches twigs. The foliage on the twigs began to push against the margins. The page was too small for a two hundred-foot conifer. He started again on the inside back cover, drew across two pages. The tree became more detailed. He could see its structure, the whole shape and hang of it, the precise dovetailing where twig joined twig and trunk soared into branch.

  It startled him—the way the tree was somehow there on paper—its power, its hugeness. It wasn’t the Douglas fir which had marked out Edward’s grave, but a still taller tree from some prehistoric forest, older, far, than the one which shadowed Hernhope. It had seen death and death and death, and gone on living. It was living on his page now, in the bold sweep of the trunk, the rough corky bark with its creviced whorls and gashes, the sense of age, of menace. He hardly knew how he had done it. He was tired, confused. He should have been blabbing over Edward, not creating giants with an inch or two of pencil.

  He must try again, make sure it was not just a fluke, a one-off stroke of luck which could never be repeated. He drew a second fir—a lightning-blasted one he remembered from his boyhoood —limbs twisted, trunk split apart and gaping. It was harder to bring off. He stopped, re-started, stopped again, used his finger as an eraser, rubbed out half of what he had done. He sat staring at his messy page, scared to re-draw the lines, his hand refusing to respond to his eye, the bond between them broken. He abandoned the tree, drew a fir-cone instead—something smaller, more precise. The cone came quickly and in such minute and careful detail, it was as if he had simply picked one up from the forest and laid it on his page. He was surprised he could remember the exact and complex structure of a Douglas fir-cone—the triple-pointed bracts protruding from every scale, their pale and feathery tridents contrasting with the broader darker scales and breaking the smooth outlines of the oval.

  Reassured, he went back to his tree. He could see now how to tackle it. The perfect cone had seeded a perfect trunk. Once he had the outlines down, he struck with lightning, split the wood apart, distorted his careful structure. He was winning now. The tree was real and suffering. The wounds in the bark seemed to bleed and leer. The broken-off branches were both menacing and pitiful.

  He switched to pines—Lodgepole, Scots pine, Western White. There were no more blank pages in the map-book, so he drew across the maps themselves, afforesting new areas of England, conifers sprouting in Liverpool and Bournemouth, cones tumbling on the jammed and tarmac roads of central London. His fingers were cramped from the blunt and scratchy pencil, worn down to a stub, now, and almost too small to hold. He found a felt-tip in the glove-compartment. Still no paper. He started up the engine, drove back on to a main road until he reached a layby and a litter bin. He poked among the rubbish, extracted a Kentucky chicken carton, a battered cardboard box. It was like being a small boy again, with no money for artists’ materials, and not allowed them anyway, scribbling on scraps of greaseproof paper hoarded from Hester’s baking sessions, or on the backs of old envelopes and bills. He had even stolen paper—filched it from school or shops when nobody was looking. His drawings had a punch then—the strange distorting power of childhood. He could see it repeated in these sketches, but now channelled and controlled. He felt the same intense excitement as he had done as a ten-year-old, when his rough spontaneous daubings turned into forms and structures with a new life of their own. They had come from him, were part of him, yet were separate, stronger—made him stronger for having produced them in the first place. He thought he had lost those skills. His art had grown slick and flabby, commercial art, always tied to Matthew, drawings to sell books and keep four boys in shoes.

  He slit the paper bag to make it larger, smoothed it out and rested it on the cover of the map-book. He drew more boldly now, using the same swift catapulting lines he had dared as a boy when he was less tense and self-conscious about making marks on paper. He kept the sketches small. He had to—even the cardboard box was only one foot square—but they were soaring in his mind. He craved oils, canvas, a proper stool and easel. He stared at the latest sketches—still trees, still bloody good. Gaunt and dogged Lodgepole pines, ramrod sitka spruce. All the gnarled s
toicism of conifers caught in his strong black lines. He got out and stretched his legs. He had used up all his materials. Even the chicken carton had sprouted a vast cedar. The felt-tip had run dry.

  He drove to the nearest village, found only an ironmonger’s and a general store. They would have to do. He bought ten large sheets of plain brown wrapping-paper, a piece of hardboard to pin them to, a reel of masking-tape, a box of children’s chalks. He went into the food shop, picked up a crusty loaf—insisted they double-wrap it. Two extra sheets of drawing-paper. ‘Good day,’ he said. It was good.

  He drove even slower now, crawling along the roads, staring through gaps in the hedgerows. He knew what he was looking for, the right bones beneath the flesh of grass and soil, some unique configuration of cloud and contour. He stopped in a valley where a huge sky crouched over cornfields and one orphaned tree dissected the horizon. The land was made of patchwork—a golden square of high and burnished barley stitched beside a duller stubble square, then blocks of green, mustard, olive, ochre, green again.

  His chalks were pale things in comparison, but he would make them work for him. He roughed out the main lines in black, rubbed in yellow to get his ochre, scribbled in a green field beyond it, then swept in the broad curve of the sky with its choppy clouds. There was no noise, no tractor, no distracting voices or vulgar picnickers. Rooks spiralled up and down from trees, midges flitted round his head. He brushed them off. He needed all his concentration. He was drawing on a larger scale than he had done for years. The work he did for Matthew was always finicky and footling. Now he was trying to cram a chunk and slice of the world on to a single sheet of paper and not break it in the process.

  He stopped only to stretch his legs and rest his back, or tear hunks out of the loaf when he was hungry. The drawing wasn’t easy. It had somehow become too complex, the first spontaneous urgent lines swamped in shackling detail. He returned to his black chalk, switched from cloud to field, reworked the patchwork squares and made them simpler. The thing took off from there. Shapes gelled and soared, the whole structure stabilised. He knew he was drawing better than he had ever done before. Some new skill and virtuosity had been released in him. He dared not question it, dared not turn his mind to Wills again, to Hester. He must simply go on drawing while that extraordinary charge was there.