Her Victory

by Alan Sillitoe

  Beauty had gone to her body. The slope from full breasts expanded over her belly when she stood by the bathroom mirror, and faced Clara who was unable to resist spreading her fingers over the warm navel. ‘Has it moved yet?’

  ‘Last night it did. I thought it was a squirrel. Or a hedgehog. Then I woke up and remembered I was pregnant. I was glad.’

  Clara put the plug in and opened both taps, thinking: If only she would miscarry, and things could go on as before. But the notion showed such horror on her face that Emma gripped her arm. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Damn! It must be indigestion from those candlefat cakes. I had a pain right here, and it was no baby moving, let me tell you. Maybe I’ll go for a walk while you have a nap. Shall you be all right?’

  Emma got into the bath, and tapped her stomach. ‘I can’t run very far with this.’

  Clara laughed, and agreed. ‘Wash your back?’

  She sat on the stool and rubbed the sponge up and down, thinking how normal she looked from behind.

  ‘I can tell what you’re thinking,’ Emma said, ‘when you do it like that. It’s too regular. Go round and round a bit. Are you thinking how wicked and stupid I am?’

  She had been. ‘Nothing of the kind. It’s just so steamy in here. Perhaps I need a nap as well. Who wants to walk in the pouring rain?’

  ‘You know what I was thinking?’

  ‘How could I?’

  Emma turned. ‘I was thinking that sex is awful. I wouldn’t care if I never saw another man, and I certainly can’t imagine ever going to bed with one, even when I feel passionate. Does that mean I’m going to have a boy?’

  ‘You’re going to have something.’ Clara held the large bath towel for her to step against. ‘Let’s have you out. It’s nap time for you. You look a bit worn out.’

  She stood. ‘You are funny when you nanny me!’

  Clara disliked such flippancy. ‘I’m certainly not funny to myself.’

  ‘Who do you think I take after?’ Emma asked.

  She was wary. ‘How do you mean?’

  The dressing-gown made her seem less overwhelming. ‘Favour. Am I like mother, or father?’

  They went into the bedroom. Clara passed a hairbrush. ‘You feature mother, I suppose.’

  ‘And you have father’s looks, mostly.’ Emma lay back on the bed. ‘John was a mixture of both.’

  Clara moved bottles and tubs of make-up around the dressing-table as if playing a game of chess. ‘Why did you ask?’

  ‘Because mother is Jewish.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘So am I – that’s what.’

  ‘She’s my mother as well, but I’m not Jewish.’

  ‘Jewish mothers have Jewish children, but if you don’t think you are, then I suppose you aren’t.’

  Clara lit a cigarette. ‘John didn’t think he was.’

  ‘Maybe he did. But he is now, though, because mother made him be.’

  ‘He didn’t have any say in the matter. Why do you have to be anything?’

  Emma stroked her stomach. ‘This one will have to be, I’m sure.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  She lay on her side and stared at the wall. ‘Whenever I’ve been at a party and there have been Jewish people who haven’t known who I was they all assumed I was Jewish. I didn’t mind, of course. I even felt flattered. One or two who thought I was Jewish imagined I didn’t care to say so for very mean or frightened reasons. They were wrong, of course. I was too uncertain. I’d never actually been told – except by the rabbi, when mother went to see him about John’s grave.’ She turned to Clara: ‘You’re Jewish too, but it wouldn’t happen to you.’

  Clara grunted. ‘I’d clout anyone who assumed I was anything. It’s none of their damned business, whoever they are.’

  ‘So if people,’ said Emma, ‘especially if they aren’t Jewish, are going to assume the same thing about my son – if it is a son – I shall want him to know what he is.’

  ‘You have been thinking,’ Clara said lightly.

  ‘I have to, because I’m afraid. The older I get the more frightened I become, I don’t know why. It’s worse now that I’m pregnant.’

  ‘You’re supposed to go all calm, so I hear.’

  ‘It’s not happened to me,’ Emma said, as if she hoped it never would. ‘Maybe it’s too early, and I won’t turn into a vegetable till later. Don’t think it wouldn’t have been the same though if I’d had a man fussing all over me, because it would.’

  Clara slumped in the easy chair, as if to escape from the rays of her sister’s anger. Emma’s moods came from a defensiveness which threatened to crush everything else in her. There was no call for it, but then, there was no need of anything that spoiled the trust between people. The last twenty-four hours had worn Clara out, while Emma seemed far from devastated by her trouble, though she went so up and down that it was hard to say what was happening to her. ‘I wish you hadn’t told that lie about friends in Cambridge. I could have thought of better places to hole up in than this pile of rain washed scholarship.’

  She leaned on one elbow. ‘I did know someone, but when I got here I realized they wouldn’t do at all.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Clara asked.

  ‘Do you remember Jane Gusie and her husband Frank? We used to call them The Geese because they honked and quacked instead of talked.’

  Clara sat upright to stop her laughter. ‘No! Not the Honks! Of course I remember them. Perhaps we will call. They might know of furnished rooms we could take for a few months.’

  ‘A day at a time is all I can accept,’ Emma said. ‘If I start thinking about the future I get the willies.’

  Clara threw her lit cigarette into the lavatory pan, then knelt by the bed and held Emma’s hand. ‘I’ll take care of you. You have nothing to worry about.’ Each sobbing lurch of her shoulders brought out more tears.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ Emma felt as if she would weep too. ‘I hate it when you cry. Stop it, please.’ But she laughed instead. ‘Or you’ll sink the room!’

  7

  The place was cluttered. Such rubbish, Clara said, taking as much as possible to the attics before having their trunks brought from the station. They put the painted gnomes and well-ironed doilies into cardboard boxes, together with seaside knick-knacks, pot dogs, horse brasses and toby jugs from stands, shelves and whatnots. ‘I’m bound to knock them flying if they stay where they are,’ Clara added. ‘A lot of such priceless gewgaw stuff has often gone down under an absent-minded wave of my clumsy arm!’

  The furnished house was in a street off Parkers Piece and cost five pounds a week. An elderly couple had gone to New Zealand for six months to stay with their sons – or perhaps for a year, the estate agent told Clara. ‘We’ll let you know in good time.’

  The aspidistras from front and rear windows went into the garden shed, and two oleographs of Admiral Beatty were wrapped in copies of the Daily Mail and pushed under a sofa. ‘I’d like to strip off that ghastly wallpaper and whitewash the place, but I don’t suppose they’d like it one bit. And we’d lose our twenty pounds deposit.’

  ‘We must get a maid as soon as we can,’ Emma said. ‘I hate making fires. And we ought to let mother know where we are. She’ll be shocked at what we’ve done, after thinking we were only here on visits.’

  Clara thought not. ‘She’s used to us. As long as we’re sound in wind and limb, she won’t mind.’

  ‘She will,’ Emma said.

  Rachel received their letter with the morning post. At three o’clock in the afternoon she knocked at the door. ‘You know, this is the first time you’ve left home, and you didn’t even tell anyone. Your father has to be in the City today, or he would have come with me. He isn’t pleased, and neither am I. You did all this in secret. Why didn’t you tell us? You can do as you wish, I know, but you might at least have told us, so that we could have talked about it.’

  ‘Your coat’s wet,’ said E
mma. ‘Let me hang it up, then you can sit down.’

  Clara, not knowing how they would tell Rachel their reason for being here, went into the kitchen to make tea. Their lives had changed utterly. A few months ago the rest of the world hadn’t existed except as a place in which to find entertainment, but now it was there only to threaten them. She could not understand why it must seem as if something dreadful had happened. They were young, comfortably off, and healthy. But Emma had struck a blow to change their lives, and Clara wondered why she had acted in such an unnecessarily perverse way. The wickedest thought, which said what a pity Emma couldn’t lose the baby so that they could go back to being their old carefree selves, had again to be pushed out of her mind.

  Emma rocked in a chair by the fire, and Rachel looked at her. ‘You’re pregnant.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew there was more to it than changing houses. Your father also said: “I wonder what it is? Something is surely wrong.”’

  ‘Why is it wrong, mother?’

  She sat on a straight-backed chair at the table, instead of comfortably by the fire, and lifted her hand as if to push the devil away. ‘Why is it wrong? she says. Why is it wrong?’ She turned as if semicircled by an audience, a hand to her heart. ‘Is it so hard to know what’s wrong and what’s right?’

  Clara came in with the tray. ‘I see she told you.’

  ‘Told me? She’s like a barrel – or will be soon. I knew as soon as I came in the door. She disguised it at home, but doesn’t care to here – though I had my suspicions. Why wasn’t I told weeks ago?’

  ‘We were afraid,’ Clara admitted.

  ‘Afraid? I hope you never have anything more to be afraid of than that.’ She was troubled, and angry. ‘There’s no telephone here. I must talk to your father, poor man. He’ll be worried till he hears from me, but I can’t think how upset he’ll be when he listens to what I have to say.’

  Clara set out cakes and poured tea. ‘The nearest telephone is at the station. But must you tell him?’

  ‘When did it happen? No, I don’t care to know. But who’s the father? Where is he, at least?’

  Emma was silent.

  ‘Well, he certainly isn’t here, and that’s not a good sign. It’s terrible to think about. We had great hopes for you two after dear John died – may he rest in peace. We thought you would find husbands who’d make you happy.’

  Clara was forced to say: ‘There aren’t so many men now, mother.’

  ‘There are for girls like you.’ Clara thought the tears on her cheeks came more at the mention of John than because of Emma. ‘You wouldn’t even have to try.’

  ‘Mother,’ Emma said, ‘please don’t go on like this. It’s my life. I don’t care what father says when he knows. I’m not dying, and he’s not going to be hurt. It isn’t the worst thing in the world.’

  Clara shovelled coal from the scuttle and slid it on to the fire. The fumes of soot were bad for her skin. At home they had central heating fuelled by coke from the cellar. She hoped Emma would say nothing, and let their mother talk, for there was little to be gained by making her more unhappy than she was, and perhaps reminding her of what she had been as a young woman. But Emma would not stop, and Clara was to see how those who were most alike knew best how to make each other suffer.

  ‘I fell in love. It sounds stupid, but what else can I say?’

  ‘And did he?’

  Emma smiled. ‘We enjoyed ourselves. It was as if we had only a week to live. If I spend the rest of my life paying for it, I won’t mind. He stayed every night in my cabin, after Clara and I had said goodnight.’

  Clara would have felt that she too had been betrayed, had she not considered Emma’s frankness as self-indulgent boasting designed to hurt herself more than anyone else. ‘What a swine he was for not taking care!’

  The same bright smile lit her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t let him. I wanted everything, and he did as I told him.’ She leaned forward. ‘It was beautiful.’

  The world could fall to pieces, and she wouldn’t care, adding what a pity it was that she had come away with Clara instead of by herself. She had her own money, and when the baby was born she would bring it up without anyone’s interference. Later she would get some kind of job, because she couldn’t be idle all her life. Alec had said everyone ought to work, whether or not they had money.

  Rachel straightened. ‘Alec?’

  ‘And do you know what he was? A pastrycook who did the fancy trimmings for our jaded tastebuds! If it’s of any interest he was also Jewish. Maybe that’s why I fell for him. He was very handsome, and kind, and we parted friends. But we agreed never to see each other again. He wanted to meet me, of course, but I insisted that we mustn’t. In any case, he was married and had children. It would have been too ugly and squalid. He took it very well, though not too well, thank goodness. Luckily I didn’t know how hard it would be, though I still wouldn’t have done it any other way.’

  The clatter of Rachel’s falling cup stopped her. Clara went to the kitchen for a cloth. ‘You make me so clumsy,’ Rachel said. Now that Emma had stopped telling her story there was a veil of childish misery on her face. Rachel looked at herself thirty-five years younger, and the reflection of the mirror shook as if Emma was going to cry at last. When she didn’t Rachel said: ‘We must find him.’

  ‘You want to make him pay?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ her mother shouted.

  ‘It’s no crime, so leave me alone. I know my mind, and that’s what I want. If it’s a boy, I shall have him circumcised.’

  ‘It’s the fashion nowadays,’ Rachel said sharply. ‘Ever since the Royal Family had it done, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll get a rabbi to do it.’

  ‘A schochan,’ she was informed.

  ‘Whoever it is. You never told me.’

  ‘You never asked,’ her mother said. ‘But what a shame. What a terrible shame it is.’

  She above all knew there was nothing to be done. The ticking of the clock told her. That’s what came of giving girls an income as soon as they were twenty-one, and letting them do whatever they wanted. The war had been a disaster in every way, because as well as getting killed and maimed, young people had learned to have their own way.

  Clara poked the fire, and a bank of hot coal dropped to a lower level, scattering ash into the grate. She believed that any situation, no matter how tragic, could be cleared up without fuss and bother if everyone had a mind to it. Yet she didn’t know what to do or say.

  Rachel reached for her gloves. ‘I must talk to your father.’

  ‘It’ll only upset him,’ Emma said. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘It upsets me even to think about it,’ Clara put in.

  ‘You’re soft,’ Rachel told her scornfully. ‘You always were.’

  Clara winced.

  ‘I discuss everything with your father.’

  ‘Whether he likes it or not, I suppose,’ said Clara.

  ‘I’m telling you not to tell him,’ Emma said.

  ‘You don’t tell me anything. When’s the baby expected?’

  ‘I don’t know! Oh, in four months, I think. I saw a doctor in South Kensington. He was tall, elderly and handsome. Ugh! Horrible! Shan’t see him again. I’d like not to see anybody, but I suppose I’ll have to. If only I were on an uninhabited island, and could have it all on my own. I’d feed him on coconut milk!’

  ‘You’ve been reading too many novels.’ Rachel stood, and sighed. ‘I must go. There’s a train in half an hour.’

  ‘It’s too wet to go out,’ Clara said. ‘Why don’t you stay tonight, and travel back in the morning?’

  ‘You think rain is a misfortune? I wish that was all I had to grieve about.’ She wouldn’t change her mind, so Clara helped her on with the unfashionable pre-war coat. ‘If you really must go, I’ll walk with you to the station.’

  ‘Stay and look after your sister. I know my way.’

  ‘No, I’ll come with you.’


  Rachel turned from the door. ‘Do as you are told.’

  Clara stepped back as if about to be hit, as if a cliff were behind her and she would fall into oblivion. She clutched the mantelshelf, knowing that her mother’s anger was only directed at her because she was afraid to tackle Emma – who hoped they would both go and leave her in peace.

  Clara sat down when the door closed. ‘Well, we’ve yet to hear father’s wrath on the matter.’

  ‘They can’t kill me. Nor this.’ She stood up to clear the tea things away. ‘They do want to kill me, I know, but I only need to get away from them.’

  ‘You’re certainly going the right way about it,’ Clara told her.

  8

  They bought material for a maternity dress. After lunch Emma spread it on the table, and as they were puzzling over the pattern the letterbox flap rattled.

  Clara came back. ‘It’s from father. I know his hand.’

  Emma told her to read it.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She glanced at the envelope. ‘It’s addressed to both of us: a pretty cheap trick.’

  ‘I know. But it begins: “Dear Emma”, so it’s only to you.’

  ‘Read it, though, because I shan’t.’

  ‘This is what it says, then. Oh dear! “Mother informed me of your disaster as soon as she arrived. It’s not for me to judge. There are too many judges in the world trying to take God’s place. What has happened is something nobody could have controlled, least of all you. Some things are sent to try us, while other events occur expressly to ruin our lives. You have despoiled your life, and I can only pity you, though I have more compassion for your mother because after John’s death this is the one thing she should have been spared. There is much in you that must have known exactly what you were doing, and I am sure you measured the consequences to such a nicety that any sympathy for your plight from me or anybody else would be totally misplaced. It is not in my heart to bear this, but neither is it in my mind to pronounce you dead. You are a fully grown woman, and must face the consequences, which in any case you are quite capable of doing. You have your own income and are provided for, and therefore I can only say without any feelings of regret or injustice that it would be best if we never met again.”’