Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I do need you. We need each other. I’m going now. But when you get back—when is that, next weekend?” She nodded feebly. “I’ll be here for you. Don’t think I won’t; don’t think I’ll give up. I love you too much. Now go to bed and get some sleep, for God’s sake. Shall I stay? In here, I mean?” he added, with a faint touch of a smile.

  “No,” she said, “of course not. You must go. But thank you for the offer. You’re very kind, Ed. Very kind indeed.”

  “No,” he said, “not kind at all. I keep telling you. I love you.” And then he was gone. She was awake all night. She had set her alarm for five, but she watched the hours, the quarter hours; she felt appalling fear, her heart pounding, her stomach churning. She was sick again: more than once. She had never felt so alone: not even in that dreadful tiled room, in appalling pain, pushing her baby out in abject terror, looking at it.

  No, Martha, don’t think about that, that of all things, never, ever that. Don’t think about that face, that puckered anguished face, so peaceful when you left it, fast asleep. Don’t remember, don’t, don’t.

  When the alarm went off, finally, she was sitting on her bed, her head in her arms, trying not to remember. It was the first time her will had failed her. She couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk, even across the room. She shook in every part of her body, shook violently. She was first hot, then cold. Her head ached, she could hardly see. She lay down on the bed, pulled the sheet over her, closed her eyes. She would stay there, just for an hour. She didn’t have to go to the gym, she could get into the office at seven. Or even eight. Eight would be fine, everything was done.

  But at seven and at eight, she was still helpless, her body uselessly disobedient; it would not stand or sit, it would not even turn in bed. She managed to put an arm out to put the radio on, heard John Humphrys’s wonderful, reassuring voice, like a comforting presence in the room; and then fell suddenly asleep, drifting in and out of dreams, horrible stifling dreams, about obscene creatures behind half-open doors and hiding and falling and darkness and blood. And then woke, finally, to the sound of her daughter’s voice.

  Chapter 26

  Well, at least it was over. She had got through it somehow. It was true what everyone had said, Jenni Murray made them feel relaxed and at home, so much so that she had almost forgotten there were millions of people out there listening to them. Kate, of course, had been fine, chatting easily away, wonderfully composed. Where did that come from, Helen wondered wearily, lying back in the car the BBC had kindly provided, that self-confidence, that ability to deal with unfamiliar situations, and then thought, how absurd a question: from one of her parents, obviously.

  One of the worst things, she felt, was that she had become relegated to some kind of second division, no longer properly Kate’s mother, no longer in charge of her life. Kate no longer seemed her child, seemed not a child at all, indeed, but a newly created being, making her own decisions, constructing her own future.

  Tomorrow she was going out with Nat Tucker to a club in Brixton; she had said, perfectly politely but very firmly, that he had asked her and she would like to go. Given everything that was happening to her, it seemed a little absurd to try to stop her. They had compromised on a 2:00 a.m. latest return; Helen had hoped Nat would object to that, and the thing would be cancelled, but he had apparently said it was cool. Cool. Helen often thought she would scream if she heard that word once more.

  She had to admit she had been wrong about Nat; his manners were on the primitive side, but he always said hello to her when she answered the door, and asked her how she was doing, and ground out his cigarette butt on the path before coming into the house. And he was very sweet with Kate.

  He came round most days, but not until after tea; he seemed to have a great respect for Kate’s academic future.

  “I know she’s got her exams to do,” he’d say, as Helen apologised for her nonappearance.

  The fact that Kate was more likely to be applying a sixth coat of mascara than rehearsing her French verbs never seemed to occur to him.

  A nice researcher had come round and told them more or less how the interview on Woman’s Hour would go: “Just a few questions on the early days, Helen, how you came to adopt Kate, and then how the story came out. How you’re both feeling about it now. And how Kate sees her future, and what she feels about the woman who left her that day.”

  Which was how Martha came to hear her daughter’s voice for the first time. And to learn that she would like to meet her, “Very, very much.”

  That Friday morning, lying listlessly in bed, trying to summon the strength to get up and go to work—when had she last missed what was already most of a morning? she really couldn’t remember—she had woken to hear a light, pretty voice, saying, “I would like to meet my birth mother, yes, of course I would. Very, very much.”

  “And how do you think you might feel?” Jenni Murray sounded gently intrigued.

  “Well, I don’t know. Confused, I s’pose. And maybe angry. And really interested in what she was like. What sort of person she was.”

  “What would you say to her? Have you thought about that?”

  “I’d ask her why she did it. That’s the main thing I want to know.”

  “Of course. Well, Kate, Helen, you’ve been great. Thank you so much for talking to us. And I hope you do hear from your birth mother, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” said Kate very simply. “It really is.”

  Martha found that far more moving and disturbing than seeing her photograph in the newspapers.

  Beatrice also heard Woman’s Hour that morning for the first time for years: and also from a bed that never saw her after 7:00 a.m. even on Sundays. Thank God, just thank God, she wasn’t meant to be in court. But she was supposed to be in Chambers; they had clearly taken a rather dim view of her phone call with the news that she was ill. She wasn’t exactly ill: she had an appalling migraine, such as only hit her when life threatened to completely defeat her. It didn’t often defeat her, but the night before, her nanny had given in her notice and although she had said that she would work her three months out, Beatrice had found the news almost unbearable.

  Nothing can distress the working mother more, however brilliant, successful, and efficient she may be, than the loss of her nanny. On the strength of those hugely expensive, neatly dressed shoulders rests most of the superstructure of her life. Beatrice, deprived of even this comfort and support, felt totally bereft, and the very thought of the process of interviewing made her feel hysterical. She had several important cases coming up, not to mention Charlie and Harry’s joint birthday party, and even a holiday of her own, which she badly needed and which would now have to be sacrificed. Christine was paid extremely well, she had her own flat at the top of the house, she had full use of a car, and the girls were well past the most demanding age. But that, actually, had been the reason for Christine’s resignation; she liked looking after babies, she said, and much as she loved Charlie and Harry, they became more independent every day.

  As Beatrice tossed and turned miserably in her bed, her mobile rang. Checking it, she saw it was her mother. She decided to tell her her problems; her mother was rather brusquely unsympathetic.

  “Darling, you’ve got three months. Surely that’s enough. It’s not as if they were babies.”

  “It isn’t just that,” Beatrice said. “It’s having no support of any kind at home, with Josh gone.”

  “Now you know how I feel about that. You turned him out. It was your decision.”

  “Mother! He was having an affair.”

  “Beatrice, none of Josh’s little flings have been what I would call an affair. They were more or less one-night stands. They meant nothing. I sympathise with you, of course. But there was no emotion involved; Josh adores you, you know he does.”

  “He’s got a funny way of showing it,” said Beatrice bitterly.

  “Beatrice, he’s a man. It’s as simpl
e as that. They can’t resist sex if it’s offered them. It’s beyond them, any of them. And there are far worse things, to my mind, than that. Josh is a very good husband, in a lot of ways. He’s wonderful with the children; he pays all the bills, including the nanny, when many men would have seen that as your responsibility. He’s good-natured. And he’s always nice to me,” she added.

  “Yes, I know he is. I don’t think that’s absolutely relevant.”

  Her mother ignored this. “Does he want to come back?”

  “I…think so,” said Beatrice, recalling Josh’s endless pleas to be forgiven, his protestations of remorse, his complaints of loneliness.

  “You should consider it,” said her mother. “I’m thinking of you, darling, not Josh. You need a husband. It’s not as if he knocks you about or anything. And do you really believe it’s going to be of benefit to those girls, growing up without their father? Think about it, Beatrice. You’re being very stubborn, cutting off your nose to spite your face. Always have been. Now I must go…”

  Beatrice spent the next hour considering what her mother had said. And deciding that, to an extent at least, she was right. She did need a husband. Quite badly.

  Somehow Martha managed to get up and shower.

  It was one o’clock; her flight was at seven thirty. She called a cab, asked him to come up and get her bags. She wasn’t sure she could manage even wheeling them to the lift. Finishing her packing had been hard enough.

  She began to feel better as soon as the car pulled away from the building; it was as if she had left at least some of her traumatised self behind in it.

  By the time she was in the plane, she felt almost human. She settled into her seat, smiled gratefully at the hostess, took a glass of orange juice.

  “And here’s the menu, Miss Hartley.”

  “I won’t want dinner,” said Martha. “I’m awfully tired. What time do we get to Singapore?”

  “Local time, three p.m. Are you disembarking, or going through?”

  “Going straight through,” said Martha.

  She settled back, and almost as if watching a movie, allowed thoughts of sweeter, happier things to drift through her head: of Ed and how much he clearly loved her, and of her daughter with the lovely face and the pretty voice, who had said she wanted to meet her, and for the first time, wondered if it might, after all, be something she would enjoy, rather than endure. She felt changed about Kate: she was no longer something dark and dreadful, to be denied at all costs, rather the reverse, indeed, a source of possible happiness and pride. Even if they could never meet, never know each other; even if she could never explain and Kate never understand. She had been found, that dreadful day, cared for, and had grown up safely, into someone clearly confident and happy, and for that, Martha felt deeply grateful.

  There was nothing she could do about either of them, Kate or Ed, and neither of them could be allowed into her life; but for a brief time, they at least moved into an easier place for her.

  After a while, she took a sleeping pill and slept for over four hours. And dreamt: not frightening, dark dreams but oddly sweet ones, of sunlit beaches and calm blue sea. And after that, instead of working as she always did, she watched one of the appalling movies which are apparently only shown on long plane journeys, and woke up in Singapore feeling refreshed and almost happy.

  Helen looked rather nervously at Nat. She had asked him to Sunday lunch; Kate had been rushing off to meet him again, straight after breakfast, and Helen couldn’t bear it. Kate was clearly delighted, had thrown her arms round her and kissed her.

  “You’re ace, Mum!”

  “He might not want to come,” said Helen hopefully.

  “He’ll come,” said Kate. “Just don’t try and make him talk about politics or the news, Mum, yeah? He’s a bit shy.”

  And now here was Jim, stopping mid-carve, saying that these politicians were all the same, totally immoral, and he wouldn’t vote for any of them.

  “That Mrs. Thatcher, she was all right,” said Nat. The entire family stared at him; it was as if he had declared his intention to take up ballet.

  “Mrs. Thatcher?” said Kate incredulously. “I thought she was a real old bag.”

  “No way. She had the right ideas, my dad says, sorted the unions out and that. He says they needed their heads examined, kicking her out. She wouldn’t have let all these people in, neither.”

  “What people?” said Juliet.

  “These foreigners. Refugees and that. Taking over all our houses and hospitals and stuff. And Legoland,” he added as if this was the final felony, putting a large forkful of Yorkshire pudding into his mouth.

  “Legoland?” Helen and Kate spoke in unison.

  “Yeah. They sent a whole load of them there free last week. Said in the paper.”

  “Gracious,” said Helen. “I had no idea.”

  “She was good on the radio, wasn’t she?” said Nat after a long, chewy silence, pointing his fork at Kate. “I thought her mum might come on the programme, that she’d be, like, listening.”

  “It wasn’t a phone-in,” said Helen gently.

  There was a long silence; then: “Yeah? What’s the point in that, then?”

  Kate stared at him, then she said, “That’s a really good idea, Nat. I might ask Fergus about it.”

  Martha stepped out of the English luxury of the Observatory Hotel and into the Sydney sunshine. It was absolutely beautiful: a cool but brilliant day. She smiled up at the blue sky, and asked the doorman to get her a cab.

  She was going to the Rocks, to do some shopping, wander round Darling Harbour, go back for an early dinner, and then prepare for tomorrow’s meetings. How absurd that she had been worried about being here. About the ghosts. This lovely place was so far removed from the other Sydney, the Sydney where worry had turned to fear and fear to panic. This Sydney was smooth and luxurious and busy and beautiful. She looked down at this Sydney, at the legendary view, the white wings of the opera house carved into the blue sky, the flying sails of the yachts in the harbour, the great bridge arched over it all, and the ranks of dazzling new buildings, gleaming in the sun: and turned her back absolutely and resolutely on the other, the scruffy room, the endless smell of frying food, the relentless heat. It had been another Martha who had lived there, too, an uncertain, frightened, lonely Martha. The one standing here now, in her linen trousers, her silk sweater, with a dozen appointments in her diary, three people waiting to buy her dinner, she had nothing to do with that one, she was no more. Nobody knew about her; she was safe from her, she had escaped.

  “Where would you like to go then, on this beautiful day?”

  The cabdriver was friendly, good-natured, anxious to help; and of course she wanted to go down to the harbour, to buy T-shirts at Ken Done and to sit in the sun on the quay, drink lattes, maybe take a waterbus across the harbour, then back to the hotel to wait to be picked up for dinner, down on the Rocks. She did not even consider visiting the northern beaches of Collaroy and Mona Vale and Avalon, that was back, not forward, and forward was where she had to go, the only place indeed and—

  “Do you have plenty of time?” she said.

  “As much as you want,” he said with a dazzling smile—Australian teeth were as good as American ones, she thought irrelevantly.

  “Could we go up to Avalon, please?” she said.

  She got off the bus on the Barrenjoey Road, blinking in the fierce brilliance of the sun. She had seen the beaches, all along the road from Sydney, stuck sweatily to her seat, longing to be in the cool of the water. The two boys she was with were surf-struck, boasting of the waves they would catch, the boards they would ride; Martha listened to them, smiling to herself, wondering just how their English-school swimming would survive the reality of waves and rips.

  They had been directed to Avalon by a boy they met at the airport, who was doing the trip the other way round: “It’s the only real surfers’ hostel near Sydney, really great place.”

  And so they had
heaved their rucksacks onto the bus and sat there for more than two hours as it lurched through the suburbs of the city and out again the other side, riding the high bridges, gazing awestruck at the dazzling harbour below them, out through the smart suburbs of northern Sydney, of Mosman and Clontarf, and then along the endless, charmless highway, studded with car salerooms and cheap restaurants—and surf shops, always surf shops.

  She stood on the dizzily high cliffs of Avalon, looking down to the beach; and there it was, not just the sight but the sound of the sea, roaring and rolling in, and the smell of it too, fresh, salty, and altogether beautiful. She stood there for a long time, watching the surfies riding the waves, huge, rolling breakers, deceptively small from her viewpoint; and then she hoisted her rucksack on again, and walked down the steep hill and into Avalon, thinking how inappropriate was its name, so importantly a part of the English myth of Camelot, this infinitely Australian place.

  Avalon was built on a crossroads, little more than a village really, and the Avalon Beach Hostel was just along one of the roads forming the cross. It was quite large, sleeping ninety-six, and the first one of its kind in the Sydney area, the warden told her.

  Martha looked up at it rather nervously as she walked through the big gates and across the paved courtyard; she was easily intimidated in those days, and the sun-bleached boys sitting on the long veranda overlooking the courtyard, some lolling back with long brown legs propped on the rail, others leaning over it chatting and smoking, looked as settled as if it were home. Which it was to many of them; they stayed here for weeks, months even.

  She booked in, was given a room—or rather one-sixth of a room, a hard bunk fixed to the wall by ropes, and a locker. It was very primitive, the floor simply painted concrete, but it was clean and the girls’ bathroom, equally spartan and clean, was just opposite her door.