by Ray Connolly
So November ran along smoothly into December. I was very busy, getting more done than ever, and Clare was quickly learning how to become another pretty face with fair hair in Kensington High Street, how to behave in the Aretusa, the Daisy and the Eye, how to tint her hair where she thought it should be fairer, I’m sure, how to fib a little about who she’d seen for lunch or who had tried to chat her up.
Tibby was a constant visitor, but I never objected. She was pretty, and bright, and good company for everyone, and although sometimes I sneakingly wished that Clare had found someone a little less worldly-wise to be her friend, I never actually said so, but let Tibby continue her enthusiastic process of educating Clare to the facts of life facing a young girl in London. Often they would sit and talk for hours about things and people I neither knew about nor cared about, jabbering away in the living room, until in desperation, and feeling my years, I would retreat to my study upstairs to work.
One Sunday lunchtime I stayed to listen, expecting to be entertained. Tibby was usually entertaining. But not today. She arrived just after twelve, as white as a sheet, and timidly polite about calling unexpectedly, which was strange because she was always unexpected, but never apologetic.
‘We’re pleased to see you.’ I tried to be reassuring, because quite honestly I was glad to see her. Clare had done one of her vanishing tricks and stayed in her room all morning and, though lonely, I was afraid to disturb her. Just then Clare appeared at the turn of the stairs.
‘Hello,’ she said, and ran down the steps.
‘Can I have a drink?’ asked Tibby.
Now there’s melodrama for you, I thought, gnashing my teeth at the cliché. Lines like that were supposed to have gone out with Bette Davis.
‘What would you like?’
‘Something strong.’
‘Whisky, all right? It’s all we’ve got that’s strong.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Tibby, what’s the matter?’ Clare was coming the fellow-female-concerned-bit.
Tibby sat down on the settee and very slowly began to cry. It seemed to me that perhaps I’d better have a quick drink, too, before I heard whatever dreadful news Tibby had brought with her, so I tried a mouthful of whisky, which tasted like acid. Clare put an arm around Tibby and we all waited while Tibby’s story came out in great sobs, and trumpeting noises.
‘Have you ever seen a foetus?’
Clare and I looked at each other. Neither answering.
‘Well, Jill, this girl in my flat… well, she had an abortion. But it wasn’t a proper one. She was too far gone for a National Health thing, so yesterday she went off to someone she’d been told about in Fulham.’ More sobbing.
‘None of us knew anything about it. I mean she didn’t tell either me or Jane she was even pregnant, until last night. And when I got in she was lying there on the bathroom floor having a miscarriage. Oh God…’
I filled her glass. Clare looked impassive.
‘There was blood everywhere. I thought she was dying. I didn’t know what to do. All I could think was that she’d had some kind of haemorrhage, and that I must call the doctor. But she wouldn’t let me. I was mad with worry. Eventually Jane came home. And she got it out of her. She, Jill, I mean, was almost hysterical by this time. And then it came all over the bathroom rug. It was terrible. Jane had gone to phone a friend of hers who’s a doctor. I think he’s perhaps a bit suspect, but he knows about these things, and between all three of us we got her through it, and into bed. But it was still lying there on the floor. And as soon as he’d done all he could and given her something Jane’s doctor friend was off. He didn’t want anything to do with it. I think he was scared stiff of having got involved at all. So Jane and I just tried to clean up and mop around. And I kept being sick. We didn’t know what to do with it. I mean, you could see that it already had a human shape, just a very tiny baby thing with this enormous head, and tiny little things where its hands and feet would be. Oh Jesus.’
Clare and I were silent.
‘It was too big to go down the lavatory. And we were terrified that if we tried it might block up the pipe and the plumber would come and find it, so in the end we scraped it up off the floor with the kitchen shovel, and dropped it into one of the Pyrex sandwich boxes that Jill used to have when she was at secretarial college. You know, those things you can see through. And then we left it, with a rubber band around the box. Until this morning, when I couldn’t stand it being in the house a second longer and I drove to Chelsea Bridge and threw it over…’
By now Tibby was getting hysterical, Clare sitting on one side of her and me on the other.
‘… I was terrified that someone would come and see me and ask what I was throwing into the river. But there was no one about. You could make out a face, you know. It really was a tiny human being. Oh Christ, that bastard in Fulham… I went home, and Jill was lying there half-dopey with the drugs that Jane’s doctor friend had given her the night before, and we had to change her, there was still blood coming out. Jane had been to Boots in Piccadilly Circus and came back with a big pile of sanitary napkins to absorb the mess while I’d been out. And … Jill, she didn’t seem to know… what was going on…’
Tibby hid her head in Clare’s sweater again. And they cuddled close together, while I walked to the other end of the room and sat in my throne chair by the window. Eventually the sniffling went quiet and Clare went down to make a cup of tea for us all, while Tibby blew her nose a few times and then joined me by the window.
‘What’s happening now, Tibby?’
‘She’s asleep. Jane’s with her. Her doctor friend said he’d call in later.’
‘Any proper doctor would have insisted that she went straight to hospital.’
‘No proper doctor would have got involved. She’s terrified of being found out. I don’t know why she didn’t ask one of us. We could have helped her get into a nursing home. It’s so easy these days. She must be crackers. It could all have been so much simpler, and, well… cleaner.’
‘I don’t think abortion can ever be a clean matter, do you, Tibby?’
‘Well, you know what I mean.’
Yes, I know what she means. But there’s a contradiction here that troubles me and my Catholic confusion.
‘Didn’t you feel guilty about polluting the Thames with a plastic sandwich box, and a dead foetus, Tibby?’
‘Oh God. Benedict. You’re sick sometimes. You really are.’
‘Do you think so… ?’
Chapter Twelve
In so many ways Clare was the ideal lodger, and I rather think that may have been how she liked to consider herself. True, we were living together in a sexual sense, but although we spent virtually all of our play-time together she made sure there were certain quite distinct limits to our relationship. She never asked me where I’d been, and by her reluctance to answer questions I was given to understand that she didn’t necessarily always want to tell me where she’d been, who she’d seen, or where she was going. Not that I ever went anywhere very interesting without her, and I was pretty sure that she never went anywhere of any great moment without me—if only through lack of opportunity. But all the same, some days when she was late home from work and then arrived carrying stacks of shopping, she would never like me to ask too many questions. In a lot of ways I was sometimes rather amused by the ambiguity of her attitude towards the position she found herself in, half of her in love with the idea of being a single girl, and the other half apparently content to play, if not the housewife, then perhaps the lady of the house.
For me it was the happiest time I could remember, not least from the basic domestic point of view. From the day she moved in I was never expected to lift a hand in the kitchen, other than to help with the washing up, and she immediately took upon herself the organisation of meals and shopping. She wasn’t much for cleaning and polishing, but that was just as well, since Mrs Pollock considered this most definitely her province, but after a couple of weeks she did talk m
e into buying a washing machine, pointing out how I’d save a fortune in laundry bills. She was, as usual, quite right, and having bought one I wondered how I’d ever managed before she came into my life and dashed me away with her little portable smoothing iron. I’d never known what it was like to have so many clean shirts and underpants all at once.
After we’d been together for two weeks the results of my barium enema arrived one morning at breakfast time.
‘Looks like you’ve got your call-up papers from St Jude’s,’ said Clare, dropping the envelope into my dish of corn flakes just as I was about to add my milk. ‘Since I left, the place has gone to the dogs. They’re drafting anyone now. Fancy yourself as a male nurse?’
‘Hush,’ I said, slitting the manilla envelope with a knife, half afraid of what I might find inside. Since meeting Clare I’d felt absolutely on top of the world, apart from the occasional day or two of physical exhaustion following some particularly strenuous tournament, but letters from hospitals always gave me a slight moment of concern. I mean, there are so many things that can go wrong with you, no matter how well you feel … and, you never know…
Clare watched me as I read the brief note: ‘What kind of flowers would you like, then? How long have you got left?’
‘I’m a hundred per cent well, you little bugger.’ I was pretending to be smug, but I must admit I was just a bit relieved. ‘They recommend that I get in touch with the psychiatric department again if I’m feeling no better.’
‘Trust me to get off with some hypochondriacal nut. Anyway, I must go to work, or Paul will be getting his knickers in a twist. See you tonight, love.’
And brighter than a button, she ruffled my hair and trotted away up the stairs to get her coat. She was amazing in the morning. So bright and cheerful. She even smelt nice, not a bit like some ladies I’d known, and she never had the awful withdrawal problems I’ve always known on first waking. She was an early bird, no matter how late she’d been in getting to bed the night before.
During those first few weeks she was like a whirlwind in my life, and though I got busily on with my work, it was only so that I could enjoy to the fullest extent all our moments together. Somehow she seemed to be in a race against the clock, I used to think, because she wanted to pack as much into her weeks as possible. Everything and everywhere was new to her, and she was sometimes virtually giddy with the excitement of it all.
One night at a pop concert she suddenly became aware of an unfamiliar smell while we were waiting in the bar for our drinks. I watched as she sniffed repeatedly, looking around to see where it was coming from.
‘It’s pot, Clare. Haven’t you ever smelt it before?’ I cut in, in a semi-whisper so as not to risk her embarrassing both of us by making a full-throated inquiry.
She shook her head, still sniffing: ‘Smells nice, doesn’t it?’
Yes, I said, and leaning across the bar, paid for the drinks, and led her away through the crowd. For a few minutes she sipped at her Coke, while I waited for what I knew to be the inevitable question. At last it came: ‘Why don’t we ever have any, Benedict?’
‘Have you really never smoked a joint?’ I asked, knowing full well that she hadn’t.
‘No. Of course not. How could I?’ For a second she sounded peeved at my patronising attitude, which I’d instantly regretted. I hoped she wasn’t going to cross-question me on my own experiences with pot, because truthfully they were too limited to withstand more than the minimal investigation. Maybe I’d been born a year or two too early, at the tail-end of the alcohol generation, or perhaps it was just another symptom of my innate conservatism, but the truth was that I could probably have counted the number of joints I’d smoked on one hand, and had never even seen a tab of acid, let alone tripped out. At parties I’d nearly always managed to avoid the joint-passing chain with the excuse that I didn’t smoke anything, ever, although I resented the fact that I was almost socially compelled to explain why I didn’t want to get high, and in my mind I would rationalise and equate my abstention from soft drugs with my aversion to alcohol other than table wines.
Clare was very thoughtful as she finished off her drink: ‘Can you get us some?’ she asked at last.
‘Of course,’ I said, and giving her a quick one-two into the ribs put my arm around her shoulders and guided her back to the auditorium.
The next day was Sunday and at lunchtime I nipped out to see a friend who worked for a record company and who I knew was never short of a joint or two. Can you roll it for me, please, I’d asked, explaining that I was clumsy, and anyway didn’t have any joint papers, and he’d smiled at what I knew he thought naïvete, and produced a perfect little Union Jack joint, a very patriotic way to get high.
Clare was very serious about the whole thing: ‘I think we should save it for tonight,’ she said, when I got home. I wondered was she beginning to feel a bit naughty, and have second thoughts.
‘Okay. We’ll smoke it during the Morecambe and Wise Show,’ I said. And she agreed. Morecambe and Wise were our television apex of the week.
The show was good, but I don’t think Clare’s wicked little adventure quite lived up to her expectations. ‘Nothing’s happening,’ she kept complaining, puffing away like a little train, though she had a beatific smile on her face. ‘I’m not feeling anything at all, Benedict. Is this all it is?’
‘Takes practice,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to inhale,’ and affected what I hoped looked like a very practised long drawn out inhalation from our little cigarette. ‘You enjoy it more the more you get used to it.’
But she never did get used to it. And after that night she never mentioned it again. She wasn’t interested, and neither was I, and I often wondered whether she’d seen through my little deception. If she did, and she was usually very sharp to notice whenever I was trying to put any kind of inflated image of myself over on her, she didn’t say anything. Which may well have been out of kindness to me, I suppose.
Very quickly she became an avid little socialiser, getting me to take her to all kinds of places that I might normally have skipped. She had a great abundance of energy, and a craving desire to have a good time. And if she was having a good time that meant that I was usually having a great time.
After her first few days as a shop assistant she quickly lost interest, but she needed the money to buy all the things she considered necessary accessories for the London girl of the seventies, and though I told her that she ought to look for a more worthwhile job she was content for the moment to let things take their course.
One afternoon, feeling a bit bored with the piece I was writing, I wandered round to see what she looked like as a shop girl. I’d never been in any of Paul’s shops before and I was surprised to see how shoddy and pricy was the stuff he sold. The whole place was very dusty, which straight away explained why Clare had started going to work in her oldest jeans, and though there was a contrived olde worldeness about the place, which was very badly lit owing to the daintiness of the silly little antique windows, there was also something rather brash and nasty. The name over the door—Paul’s Artique— hardly helped.
Clare was sitting on a leather couch, lost in a back issue of Nova, as the door bell clanged announcing my entry. For some moments she didn’t move, or even look up to see who had come in, but went on reading, unperturbed by my presence.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said at last, finally finding her way round the cover of the magazine. ‘I was just finishing a paragraph.’
‘Oh, don’t mind me, miss. I’ll just have a browse around if I may. One never knows what little gems one may come across in emporia such as this.’
‘Please go right ahead, sir. Browse away. As you say, one never knows what one will find. And it’s your lucky day because the proprietor himself is in the back room today, just checking over some priceless additions to our astonishingly splendid stock.’
‘How fortunate,’ I said, and carefully observed a pine bench, stacked with oddments of china, Queen Victori
a diamond jubilee mugs and a jar of multi-coloured ostrich feathers. ‘Well … I never. Yes, I do believe it is … yes, Fm certain. What a find! What a find!’
‘What find would that be, sir?’ Clare coming round, joining in the game.
‘Anobium punctatum, no less, my dear.’
‘Anobium punctatum? Well it is your lucky day, isn’t it, sir? Ah, and more luck, here comes the proprietor himself.’
Paul coming through the doorway from the back room, carrying a gramophone with a large bronze horn-shaped speaker: ‘Hello, love. Shopping or just keeping your beady little eye on Clare. Tibby’s off today so Fve got her to myself, ha ha.’
‘Lucky you.’
Clare breaking in, still keeping up the game: ‘This gentleman has just made a most amazing discovery, haven’t you, sir?’
‘Ah yes. That’s right. Anobium punctatum. Who would have thought I’d have found that in Kensington Church Street.’
‘What’s that, love?’ Paul looking warily for the trap. ‘What have you found?’
‘Bloody woodworm, that’s what. In that pine bench there. The whole thing’s infested with it. You should be ashamed of yourself, flogging such shoddy stuff, and using this innocent child as a front for your sordid little dealings.’
Clare giggled, and went into the back room to make us all a cup of tea, and Paul sat down on the couch. ‘Christ, I’m jiggered,’ he said.
‘How’s business?’
‘Terrible. It’s getting harder and harder all the time to make an honest penny, Benedict. Trouble is, the market is getting saturated. I’m beginning to wonder if the great antique boom isn’t over. Maybe I should close a couple of my artiques and go in for something else. Diversification, that’s the answer, you know. God knows how I ever came to miss the hamburger-bar boom, with all those little darlings running about in hot pants showing half their bums. Would have just suited your Clare that. Hogging antiques is too slow for her.’