Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  Chapter Twenty One

  ‘In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four, five … In, two, three …’

  Jennifer blew out the last dregs of air, inhaled again, fingers spread across her diaphragm, exhaled more deeply, consulted her breathing-chart. She was practising what the text-book called ‘conscious controlled breathing’. If she could master it herself, then it would be easier to help Susie through the birth. It was complicated—four different levels of breathing for the three different stages of labour, with additional techniques such as neuro-muscular disassociation and transition stage drill. It made childbirth sound anything but natural. She wondered how Hester had managed all those years ago. Had she been left on her own to scream and panic through it as best she could? Susie was still terrified; the classes seemed only to make her worse.

  Jennifer had just left her at a class, watched her enter the dingy scout-hut with a crowd of pregnant girls, lingered there a moment, envying their self-important bulges, feeling inferior, excluded. She had dawdled back to the bedsit, stared in the mirror at her own flat stomach and barren breasts. Yet she felt as if she were pregnant—almost at full term—bloated and lethargic, always tired, although she was doing less and less. She had started ignoring dust and dirty dishes, allowing Susie to talk her into chips and chocolate bars, instead of insisting on the healthy way of life she had learned from Hester and expounded in the book.

  She had even given up her job. The harmless little insurance office had become intolerable since the Edward Ainsley drama hit the headlines. She had been promoted from trainee cost clerk to chief butt and cabaret. In the end, she decided to resign—couldn’t face the jibes and jokes, the ceaseless questioning from all the gawping staff. Edward’s name had first appeared in Jasper Prince’s column the morning after he exploded into Matthew’s office just two weeks ago—then spread like fireweed to all the other newspapers. She still didn’t understand how Edward had been alerted in the first place, how one bastard baby, born more than sixty years ago, and pronounced dead by Matthew within days or weeks of birth, could now be stalking though the newspapers, screaming for his rights. Matthew had explained it only in bursts of outrage, rambling speculations, angry denunciations on the phone. She had done her best to keep away from Matthew. She had too much to hide herself, and was too alarmed that in all the present uproar, the spotlight would fall on her again, the press try and hound her out. The book was such Big News that any scandal connected with it would be squeezed for its last drop of sensation, its latest burst of sales.

  She slumped back on the scratchy Southwark carpet. She ought to be running through her exercises, practising her breathing. She snatched up the book with its diagrams and detailed explanations. The words were just a jumble. All she could see were those blurred accusing photographs of Edward in the newspapers, a man who never smiled. How could he be the Enemy when he was Hester’s son, Lyn’s own half-brother, even had their eyes? Lyn was just as much a problem. Every time she thought of him, it was his eyes she saw most clearly—dark, brilliant, feverish—as they had been in the Cobham barn an endless month ago; staring, burning down at her, her own dwarfed self reflected in their pupils. Now they reflected nothing. Their reunion had lasted only five short hours.

  She struggled to her feet, paced up and down the gloomy basement room. Susie should be back soon, although every hour lasted twice as long now as it had done in the summer. There was only one date in their strange and snail-paced life—January 23rd—the date of Susie’s confinement. She hardly dared look beyond it. She had resolved to postpone the problem of her marriage, the dark and clouded horizon of her future, until after the baby was born. Meanwhile, at least she had a goal, a purpose, something to cling on to, something to fill the void. Susie needed her, depended on her, hadn’t rejected her as Lyn had done.

  She picked up her sewing where she had left it on the table, forced herself to get on with it. She was making a patchwork pram-rug, a complicated one with a pattern and a border. Patchwork was good therapy, required total concentration. She threaded her needle, jabbed it through the fabric, imagining she was poking it into Jasper Prince’s eyes, sewing up the mouth of Rowan Childs. It was they who had caused this trouble, with their snooping and their …

  She jumped as footsteps echoed down the passage. Any noise alarmed her now. She was constantly poised for a crisis—some brash reporter bursting in and pinning her down with pen and pad and camera, or even Edward himself, come to repeat his angry scene with Matthew. But it was only Susie shivering into the room, banging the door behind her. She shed jacket, scarf and mittens, made straight for the gas-fire, blowing on her hands. ‘God! It’s perishing out there. Almost threatening to snow. D’you realise, Jen, it’s December 1st tomorrow? Merry Christmas!’

  Jennifer retrieved the jacket, hung it up ‘Don’t talk about tomorrow! I’ve got an appointment with Matthew in his office. Ten o’clock sharp, he said. I’ve tried everything I can to wriggle out of it, but he simply won’t listen to any more excuses. This Edward business has really cut him up. He’s so suspicious now—about me and Lyn, I mean—what we’re doing and where we’re living and … He’s even expecting Lyn tomorrow. I keep telling him he’s ill, but he said, ill or no ill, if he doesn’t show up this time, then …’

  Susie shrugged. ‘I shouldn’t worry. You’re getting quite a dab hand at the lies. He can’t be that suspicious, judging by the cheque he gave you last time. That’s the most he’s ever parted with. Lies pay off, you see. Just dream up another batch and sit back and wait for your reward.’

  ‘Oh, Susie, don’t. I loathe all that deceit. Anyway, it’s getting quite impossible. How can Lyn be there tomorrow when I haven’t heard a word from him for over five weeks?’

  ‘I’d tell Matthew your husband’s dead and buried, if I was you. He might as well be for all the … I’m sorry, Jen—don’t look like that. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It just pisses me off the way you let those two men walk all over you.’

  Jennifer filled the kettle, switched it on. She had to distract herself. ‘Matthew’s got a point, Susie. I mean, this Edward thing has made things very tricky. The whole of Fleet Street’s on Lyn’s trail as well now, and it does look odd if Matthew has to say he’s no idea where his own brother’s disappeared to. They simply don’t believe him. He’s in a dreadful state about it all. When I last phoned Putney, he sounded close to a breakdown.’

  ‘Serves him right, for treating you all so badly in the first place.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Susie. He told me himself the money side’s a nightmare.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? I wouldn’t mind a nightmare where I’m coining a cool few grand each week. In fact, I’d hope never to wake up.’

  ‘Yes, but half the money’s threatened now, and he never got that much in the first place.’

  ‘Pull the other one!’

  ‘He didn’t, Susie—he told me. He had enormous debts to start with, which had to be paid off first, and the firm itself needs vast amounts of capital, just to keep it going. He went on and on about it on the phone. And now with Edward making all these claims, he’s really in a spot. The money’s tied up, you see. He can’t just hand it over when it’s working capital. I think that’s the phrase he used. I must confess I couldn’t follow everything he said. He admitted himself some of it was too technical for him to even begin to explain it.’

  Susie snorted. ‘You’re too damned trusting, Jen. D’you know what the Daily Mirror called him?’

  ‘No, I don’t. And I’d rather not discuss it any more. I don’t think it’s fair. Just thank God you’re not involved yourself.’

  ‘But I am, mate. We all are—now Edward’s shown his ugly mug in London. If those nosy-parker reporters sniff you out of your hole and find me here as well, you can bet your life they’ll make a steamy story out of it.’

  Jennifer ripped the cellophane from a box of cut-price teabags. She no longer bothered with Hester’s herbal brews. Susie was right—the parallels betwee
n her pregnancy and Hester’s would make a very spicy item in the gossip columns—one she had always dreaded.

  Susie was grinning now. ‘Ah well, I suppose it could be worse. After all, I’ve always wanted fame. Cheer up, Jen—you’ve been moping round the place for days. Not that I blame you, mind, cooped up here without a job or a bloke or anything. If only you’d stop fretting over Lyn, you might meet someone else—someone nice and normal.’

  Jennifer said nothing. She hated Susie to keep harping back to Lyn. Just his name was enough to start the grief again—pile it on top of the worry over Edward. Even now, all the joy and anguish of that one snatched night in Cobham was re-running in her head like a film in black and white—the black and white of moonlight. An erotic film at first—their bodies clasped and thrusting on the straw, Lyn’s gasping cries of pleasure as he poured into her mouth, the slow groping back to earth.

  She had stood at the door of the barn, gazing at the stars, Lyn’s shadow just behind her, her heart still thumping in elation and excitement. Suddenly, Lyn had grabbed her by the wrists, pulled her back inside, startled her with a flood and frenzy of words, vomited out in bursts, with sudden ragged silences in between them. She had hardly understood him, except he kept returning to some wrong he had committed, and how he had to stay in hiding. She had tried to humour him, suggested they hide together, run away to Hernhope and resume their life up there.

  He had exploded then, half in anger, half in a sort of terror, crawling back to the damp and scratchy bed and crouching there like an injured animal. She had followed him, tried to reason with him, made him lie down beside her. When she touched his hand, it felt icy cold. He still couldn’t talk coherently, just went up and down the same confused and futile cul-de-sacs, until they finally fell asleep, exhausted, on the straw. It was still dark when she woke. She had clawed at the sacking, groped out her hand for Lyn. He wasn’t there.

  Jennifer took a gulp of almost scalding tea. Her hands were trembling on the mug. She tried to steady them, drag her thoughts away from late October in that Cobham barn, return to Susie and the bedsit. Susie looked solid enough, squatting in front of the biscuit tin, picking out the chocolate creams and dunking them in her tea, talking with her mouth full about other men and second marriages. Since Sparrow had showed up again, she seemed anxious to forget that she had ever found excitement in a woman’s body. Her new crusade was to persuade Jennifer into the arms and bed of what she called a normal healthy bloke.

  ‘You don’t understand, Susie …’ Jennifer broke off. Susie couldn’t understand. Susie had never felt for anyone what she felt for Lyn. Susie wanted freedom. Lyn was her liberation. She was only free when she was bound and bonded to him, only whole when he completed her. The film was running again—the first erotic part—Lyn’s mind and soul and body fused with hers, Hester’s moon above, the scratchy kiss of straw, the hosanna of wind and rain outside the barn. Susie called that screwing. She had better words. She picked up her patchwork again, moved over to the light.

  Susie drained her tea. ‘God! Isn’t that thing finished yet? You’ve been doing it for weeks. All that hassle just for a mingy pram-rug, when you could buy one in Mothercare for a couple of quid.’

  ‘Not like this, you couldn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, but a baby’s not going to know the difference. If you wrapped it in a dish-cloth, it would be just as happy. Anyway, the social worker told me not to bother with clothes and stuff. She said I don’t even need to see the kid—well, hardly. They can take it away the day I leave the hospital if that’s what I want. And I do want. It goes to foster-parents for the first few weeks, or straight to the adopting couple and they buy all the gear. You’re wasting our precious money, Jen, stocking up on all those baby things.’

  ‘It’s still best to be prepared. Something might go wrong. There might be a delay, or the adoptive parents may be poor or badly organised or …’

  Susie guffawed. ‘Hardly! You have to be a bloody saint before you’re allowed to adopt at all. That bod at the adoption agency told me there’s such a shortage of babies, Dr Spock himself would have to join the queue.’

  ‘You ought to be glad they’re so strict. They only do it for the baby’s sake.’

  ‘Poor little sod, living with a Super-Mum. It’ll probably grow up delinquent just to spite her.’

  Jennifer smiled. She, too, felt hostile towards the adoptive parents. They hadn’t even been chosen yet, but somewhere they were waiting—that young, fit, kind, reliable couple—ready to snatch the baby the minute it was born. It angered her that even had she been free to adopt the baby herself, it wouldn’t have been allowed. She had no proper home, no regular income, no husband living with her, no forms or references, no social worker’s stamp. Babies went to conventional couples with the sort of eager loving men who papered walls or pushed the trolley at Safeway’s, not tramps and nomads skulking round allotments to escape from imaginary crimes.

  She sorted through her box of hexagons. ‘Anyway, even a Super-Mum may not have bothered with patchwork. It’s special, in a way—a sort of labour of love. So if you go to all the trouble of making it for someone, it’s like—well—telling them they’re important, or …’

  Susie turned away.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh … nothing.’ Susie picked up a handful of pieces, crumpled them in her hands. ‘It’s just that … I’d like to be special for a change. You’re so batty about this kid, Jen, I sometimes feel I don’t count at all. I’m just the mug who’s having it, the bloody pea-pod. Would you make me a piece of patchwork? Just a little thing?’

  ‘Oh course I will. I’ll make you a whole bedspread, if you like.’

  ‘Would you, Jen? Honest? It’ll take you ages though, judging by the pram-rug.’

  ‘I’ve got ages.’ Jennifer broke off a length of thread. Once the baby was born and handed over, there might be years and years of emptiness—time to make a patchwork cover for the whole aching universe. How could things have changed so much—the Country Woman shut up in a basement without so much as a potted plant, the skilled and stylish super-cook heating baked beans on a gas-ring or sharing fish and chips with Susie out of a newspaper.

  Susie herself wouldn’t be there for ever. She only stayed now because she was pregnant and dependent and had nowhere else to go. Even Sparrow was proving difficult. He still hung around, hungry for his perks, but he was nervous of her bulge, angry about the baby, frightened she might change her mind and keep it. There were other men, too, prowling in the background. Even seven months pregnant, Susie attracted attention.

  Stupid to be self-pitying. A crush of crass admirers didn’t make for happiness. In fact, it was almost worse for Susie—having to endure all the ordeal of childbirth with no joy at the end of it. They needed a change, both of them, a treat to cheer them up. She couldn’t hide away for ever, simply because Edward Ainsley was roaring through the newspapers and she was frightened of being recognised. She must take a risk, face the world. It was hardly a risk, in any case. No one would equate her with that simpering painted woman who had once charmed all the media with her quaint old-fashioned clothes and her long hair piled on top. Her hair was shorter now, and straggly; she had put on weight from too much stodgy food, didn’t bother with make-up, wore Susie’s cast-off jeans. She picked up her sewing, stowed it in a drawer. ‘Susie …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Let’s go out.’

  ‘What, now? I’ve only just warmed up.’

  ‘No, Saturday. It’s my birthday, then, and I think we ought to celebrate. Let’s dress up and go somewhere really fancy.’

  ‘Like dinner at the Ritz, you mean?’

  Jennifer grimaced. ‘Not the Ritz.’ She could see Rowan Childs again, gold propelling pencil boring a secret tunnel to New Zealand. ‘Even with Matthew’s handouts, we can’t afford that. Not dinner, anyway. We could have tea there, I suppose.’ Cucumber sandwiches and waiters in black coats. No—she couldn’t face those waiters a second time. �
�Tell you what—let’s have tea at Harrods—a sort of birthday blow-out. They do a special Grand Buffet where you can eat as many cakes as you can cram on to your plate. One of the girls in the office took her mother there and told me all about it. She said it was fantastic. There’s even a pianist and …’

  Susie jumped up. ‘Great, Jen! I’d love that. D’you know, I’ve never been to Harrods, not once in my life. I’ll even bung on my maternity dress in honour of the place. Got to wear it once, I s’ pose.’

  Jennifer was also wearing a dress—in honour of Matthew’s office. It was six minutes past ten the following morning and she was still dithering outside his door like a small, scared schoolchild summoned by the headmaster to his study. The whole place made her nervous—the hundreds of glossy books, the impatient braying phones, the feeling of being a stranger and a bumpkin among those chic, clever, sophisticated highbrows, whom she imagined staring after her as she climbed the stairs to Matthew. She smoothed her hair, pulled her skirt straight, knocked.

  ‘Come in.’ The voice sounded tired and irritable, changed when Matthew looked up and forced a smile. ‘Ah, Jennifer, at last. Where’s Lyn?’

  ‘He’s … er … coming.’ Why in God’s name had she said that? She had meant to explain that Lyn was still unwell—seriously ill, confined to bed, unable to get up. Perhaps he was. She could see his face in front of her—gaunt, haunted, feverish—except it was Matthew’s face, and speaking to her.

  ‘What d’ you mean, he’s coming? I haven’t time to waste. I’m up to my eyes this morning.’

  ‘He’s . . er … on his way. He’ll be here in … half an hour.’ Jennifer was so shocked by Matthew’s appearance, she was talking gibberish. Her rehearsed and polished lies crumbled into dust as she stared across at him. His face was pinched and grey with tiredness, his suit seemed to sag across his chest, his mouth was one thin line.

  ‘Half an hour! What’s the matter with him? Why can’t you arrive together, for heaven’s sake? I warned you on the phone, Jennifer, if we don’t sit down and thrash this whole thing out, then …’ Matthew was pacing up and down, eyes burning in his haggard face. Despite his air of exhaustion, he seemed unable to keep still. Even when he slumped back in his chair again, his fingers were drumming on the desk-top and he kept darting anxious jumpy glances over his shoulder as if he were on the alert for an intruder.