by Adle Geras
*
Coppélia opened in Cardiff in the third week in April. Until Hester saw Dinah after the show, she’d forgotten just how very much she’d been missing her. She came to see the ballet and took Hester out to dinner afterwards, and they arranged to meet for coffee the following morning before class. As Hester waited for her friend, it occurred to her that she must have eaten too much the previous evening. Suddenly, she felt very sick indeed. She took a deep breath and the nausea passed, but when Dinah arrived, she took one look at Hester and said, ‘Are you feeling okay? You look quite green, you know.’
‘Fine, really,’ Hester answered. ‘I ate too much last night, that’s all. I’m not used to it. Are you having coffee?’
‘Yes. I’ll just go and fetch it.’
Once they were sitting down facing one another across the table, Dinah said, ‘Hester, please don’t be cross but I think … well, you’re never ill. Not in all the time I’ve known you. Could you possibly be pregnant?’
Hester laughed. ‘No, Dinah, I’m sure I’m not. Just because last night’s fish and chips didn’t agree with me, you shouldn’t leap to conclusions.’
‘Hmm. Fine. I won’t pry. It’s none of my business. But I’m going to give you something. Just in case.’
She opened her own handbag and produced a notebook and a biro. She wrote something on it and tore out the page. ‘If you ever do find yourself pregnant, this is a name and address which might be useful. Don’t say a word to anyone, but keep it by you for emergencies.’
Hester took the piece of paper and folded it up. She held it a little away from her as though it were contaminated. ‘I’m lying. I am a little worried. I’ve missed a period, or at least, it’s very late. But this person is an abortionist, is he?’
‘That sounds so ghastly. Like “butcher” or “murderer”. He’s a doctor, that’s all. He’s helped out a great many people in the company over the years. And he’s not too expensive. What if you are pregnant? You can’t afford to have a baby now, Hester. Think of your career. You’re going to be a star. A world class star and you can’t ignore that. You have a duty to your art.’ Dinah laughed. ‘Listen to me! I sound worse than Piers, but you know what I mean. You really don’t want to mess up your life with a baby.’
Hester frowned. ‘I hate the thought of abortion. I think it’s … it’s hideous. Just the thought of it … a baby.’
‘It’s not a baby, Hester, not right at the start of things. Not really. You shouldn’t think of it like that.’
Hester stirred the remains of the coffee in her cup, making a figure-of-eight pattern in the dregs. ‘If I am pregnant,’ she said, avoiding Dinah’s gaze, ‘I wouldn’t be the only person involved. The father …’ she couldn’t bring herself to say Adam’s name. She took a deep breath. ‘The father would have some say in the child’s future, don’t you think?’
Dinah took her hand. ‘You’re in love, Hester. You’re not seeing clearly. I promise you that if you did get pregnant, the person who’d be keenest for you to visit the address I’ve given you is Adam.’
Suddenly Hester was furious. ‘You’ve no right to say such things. You’ve no idea, Dinah. He loves me. He really, truly does. He’d never …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know how it looks to outsiders. I know he said ages ago that he’d leave his wife and he hasn’t yet, but he will. I’m as sure of that as I am of anything.’
‘Then I won’t say another word. I refuse to fall out with you over a man. Just keep that bit of paper safe. Now, let’s get you to class or Piers will be having kittens.’
After that day in Cardiff, Hester was sick every morning, and she began to acknowledge that her missed period, together with the nausea meant that she was pregnant. Dinah thought she was. But she’d never once had to miss class, so perhaps this wasn’t the proper morning sickness that came with pregnancy. No one she knew had ever been pregnant, so there was no one she could ask about this. How was that possible? She’d lived since she was fourteen with ballet dancers, that was how. Since she’d been in the company, only about three people had left to get married; had given up dancing. She wondered if Dinah herself had used the address she’d given to Hester. No, that can’t be, she told herself. I’d know about it if she had. She wouldn’t have kept it from me.
Hester lay in bed, suddenly terrified. What was going to happen to her body? Perhaps the changes had begun already. There might be something growing and growing, secretly, there in the silent darkness within her, and she wouldn’t know about it for ages. She longed for Grand-mère, who would have comforted her and looked after her and told her what she needed to know. She would have brought Hester a tisane in one of the yellow cups that she remembered from her earliest childhood. She would have made her feel better. Dinah was in Cardiff and Edmund, who would have listened to her and soothed her fears and cheered her up, was in America overseeing the music for a production of Red Riding Hood in Chicago and wouldn’t be back for months. Hester sometimes felt as though she were quite alone in the world – apart from Adam. But she was terrified of what his reaction might be to the news. What would he say?
Every evening, as she danced Swanhilde in one theatre after another, she was aware of changes in her own feelings. Part of her, most of her, shrank from the idea of a baby. Dinah was right about the dancing. How would she go on performing? What would become of her career if she had a child? She didn’t think she was brave enough to face the shame of being an unmarried mother. The very words sounded disgraceful to her ears. Piers would sack her, that much was certain. Was there another ballet company in the world that would employ her once the newspapers had spread the story? But the most important question of all was, could Dinah possibly be right about what Adam would say? It occurred to Hester that on the contrary, perhaps this, pregnancy, might be the very thing to give him the courage to confront Virginia with the truth that he was intending to leave her.
She went over it often in her mind. He’d been promising her for months and months that he’d speak to Virginia. He kept on telling Hester that he was going to – really, truly – and yet he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he? She tried not to ask herself this question, because she didn’t like any of the possible answers. He was cowardly. He was lazy. He was undecided. He didn’t really want to spend the rest of his life with Hester. That was the worst answer of all.
But a child. Surely that would make a difference? Wouldn’t he love her even more if she was expecting his baby? The fact that Virginia had not succeeded in her wish to become pregnant, Hester regarded as both a good omen and also an indication that Adam made love to his wife very rarely. Just thinking about them together still had the power to fill her with a kind of anguished rage.
By the time the company was ready to leave Edinburgh, she’d missed a second period. I’ll find a doctor in London, she told herself, and then I’ll know for certain. Then, she lost herself in dreams of Adam saying I’ll take care of you now. You must see my doctor. It’s my child you’re carrying.
The letters flying between them grew more and more passionate the closer they were to seeing one another again. In the latest, Adam proposed a special celebratory dinner in a quiet restaurant, just the two of them, on the Sunday after she got back to London. This was to be followed by a night, a whole night together, in the flat.
*
As Hester dressed for dinner with Adam, she made a face in the mirror. She was trying to put up her hair and acknowledging for the thousandth time how much she missed Dinah. Her friend would have helped her. She poked in a couple of pins and sighed.
‘I can’t seem to do it on my own,’ she said aloud.
She giggled. Talking to yourself was a sign of madness, wasn’t it? Well then, Hester thought, I’m crazy. She no longer knew what she thought. There were times when she was so happy that she felt as though her whole body was full of champagne and might begin to fizz and explode. At other times, she was lost in a fog of despair and misery. She was quite sure now that she was pregnant and she knew e
xactly when the baby had been conceived: on the last Sunday before the tour, over eight weeks ago. Since then, Adam’s letters were the only thing that gave her the strength to endure not seeing him for so long. She had no idea what she felt about the pregnancy, about having Adam’s baby, but she knew she’d have to tell him as soon as they met, and she found herself dreading it. What did that say about her own feelings?
Hester looked in the mirror and told herself that what she saw would have to do. She picked up a scarf and went to the front door of 24 Moscow Road to keep watch for the black car.
The car was there when she opened the door. She could see Adam’s face through the window, his nose and his chin and the dark hair falling over his forehead as he turned his head to look for her. She opened the door and slid into the seat beside him and for a few moments they clung to one another, unable to speak.
‘Hester, darling darling …’ Adam nuzzled her neck and she found she was almost crying as she ran her hands through his soft hair, smelling his smell which she’d thought she’d remembered and now realised that she’d forgotten completely.
He pulled away from her and smiled. ‘Let’s go, Hester. I’ll get carried away if we sit here any longer. Food, to calm us down a bit, right?’
Hester nodded. She couldn’t find the right words. Adam was here. There was nothing to be afraid of. They’d live happily ever after. It would be all right. Everything would be all right. The baby … she nearly blurted out the news right there in the car, but managed to restrain herself.
The restaurant was dark and lit with lamps on every table, even on a May evening. Adam and Hester sat right at the back of the room. A velvet curtain hung down behind her chair and it occurred to her that Adam had specially asked to sit there because she could duck behind it if anyone he knew appeared suddenly. He was ashamed of her. Was that true? She was being over-sensitive, but on a beautiful early summer night, they could have gone to a place with a garden, or sat at one of the tables near the window. Adam didn’t want anyone to see them together. That was how it struck her, and she chided herself for being unkind. In all probability, he’d chosen this place as a treat because the food was wonderful and also extremely expensive. She’d known him long enough to realise that he liked to show off his – Virginia’s – wealth.
‘You can’t imagine how I’ve missed you, Hester,’ Adam said, holding her hand as they finished their coffee. ‘Are you ready to go now? It’s been so long.’
‘Yes,’ she said. The meal had gone by and they’d chatted all through it without Hester really knowing what she was talking about. They didn’t say anything important. Nothing private, either, although Adam didn’t take his eyes from her face and towards the end of the meal, stretched his hand out under the tablecloth and ran a finger down her thigh till she thought she might faint from the bliss of it.
But being pregnant had changed her. Before she’d left on tour, she’d have been the one wanting so desperately to make love to Adam that she could scarcely swallow her food. Now, perversely, even though she felt the clothes on her body only as irritating things that got in the way of them touching one another, the fact that he was so obviously longing to take her to bed made it seem to Hester as though that was all he was interested in: sex. He doesn’t want to talk, she thought, conscious that she was feeling sulky for no good reason. It’s my hormones, she told herself as they walked together to the car. Once we’re alone, once we’ve made love, it will be easier to speak. I’ll tell him then.
The flat was full of flowers. He’d bought dozens of cream roses and placed them in vases everywhere. He carried Hester to the bedroom, over the threshold like a bride. Like his bride, Hester thought, as the fragrance of more roses overpowered her.
She closed her eyes as she lay back on the bed and let Adam unbutton her blouse.
She’d expected him to tear at the fabric in his eagerness, but he went slowly, kissing her breasts as he undressed her and Hester cried out with longing for him. She could feel the satin counterpane sliding and smooth against her skin as they made love and afterwards she felt heavy in all her limbs as she curled herself round Adam’s body.
‘Adam,’ she whispered. ‘I want to tell you something.’
‘Mmm,’ he answered, half asleep.
Hester was breathless. The words were simple, but suddenly they seemed like stones stuck in her throat. The silence between them swelled and grew and she thought she could almost see it, hovering over the bed. She closed her eyes and let the sounds come out. ‘I’m pregnant, Adam. I’m going to have a baby at Christmas.’
He sat up at once and swung his legs down on to the carpet beside the bed. Then he covered his face with both hands and shook his head. Hester was sitting up on one elbow, and she saw him, saw his reaction, and knew in that second that everything – all their love and passion and dreams and fantasies – was about to collapse around her, and that nothing either of them could say from that moment on would alter anything.
She was sitting upright and staring at the wall when he turned to face her. He took her left hand in both of his.
‘Darling, forgive me. A bit of a shock, that’s all. I don’t know what to say. Are you sure?’
Hester nodded. Adam sighed and looked at the ceiling, then at the floor and then at her.
‘I thought you’d be pleased. I thought—’
‘I know, I know, but you must see that …’
‘What?’
‘I can’t tell you what to do, of course, but I can’t—’
‘Can’t what?’
He was twisting the sheet in his fingers. ‘It’s hard to say this, Hester. I love you so much. You must know that. But I can’t leave Virginia. There. I should have told you months ago, but I always put it off because I couldn’t bear the possibility that you might leave me.’
She felt icy cold. ‘Why can’t you leave her?’ To herself, she sounded petulant and sulky, like a spoiled child.
‘I can’t. It’s not that I don’t love you, Hester, you know I do, but I’ve been married to Virginia for years and there’s a history and a past that I can’t just … well, I can’t abandon her. She had a miscarriage. Two weeks ago. It’s the latest in a series that’s gone on for years and years and now there’s no more hope. She can’t have children, and she’s, well, she’s bereft. How could I leave her now? You must see that I can’t. Imagine what her feelings would be if I married you and in six months’ time, a baby appeared. It would kill her. She’s not … well, there’s a possibility that she might try to kill herself. I can’t do that, Hester. I’m sorry.’
Frozen, Hester thought. I wish I could be frozen and never come to life again.
‘Of course I’ll help you in any way I possibly can,’ Adam went on. ‘Financially and so forth. If you decide to keep the baby. Or if you decide not to …’
Hester sprang out of bed. ‘It’s none of your damned business whether I keep the baby or not. I’ll make up my mind without telling you. I’m never going to see you again. I can’t believe what you’re saying. Financially and so forth as though I were some business person you’d only just met. You’re a bastard, Adam, and there’s nothing else to say. You’ve never, ever had the slightest intention of leaving Virginia. You’ve lied to me from beginning to end. You never loved me, you just wanted to fuck me.’ She was shrieking so loudly that her throat hurt. She never said such things. The obscenity tore at her, made her feel dirty and disgusting. ‘I’m a doll. That’s all I am. I’ve had practice now at being that. I know all the moves a mechanical doll has to make. Like this, like this.’
She began to dance, to go through the steps she knew by heart from Coppélia: the little dance Swanhilde did when she was pretending to be nothing more than an automaton. She moved about jerkily on the bedroom floor, stark naked, and Adam stood up to stop her, to take her in his arms.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Hester screamed at him. ‘Don’t dare to touch me. That’s what you want me for, to be your fantasy doll, to do everything you
want in bed. Things I bet Virginia won’t do, am I right? I, on the other hand, know how to make all the right moves. You’re no better than Doctor Coppélius. You’re sick. And you’ve been sleeping with her the whole time we’ve been together. It’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.’
Adam spoke calmly. ‘She’d have guessed I was seeing you if I hadn’t made love to her. Can’t you understand how difficult this is for me?’
‘Difficult for you? I can’t believe what you’re saying. No, I don’t understand that. Not at all,’ she shouted. She began dressing, pulling her clothes on frantically with no care or thought. ‘I don’t give a damn about you any longer. I’ve wasted these months. I’ve probably ruined my whole life. It might be that I’ll never dance again.’
‘No, surely—’
‘What do you know about it? Nothing! I’ll get fat and slow and no one will want to employ me.’
‘You don’t need to have this child,’ Adam said, in a voice so soft that she could barely hear it. ‘I know a doctor—’
‘Abortion? You’d kill the only child you’re ever likely to have? Are you that wicked? I didn’t think you’d be capable of such cruelty.’
‘It’s not a baby, Hester. Not yet. Not to me.’
‘Well, it bloody well is to me.’ She sat down on the end of the bed and began to cry. ‘Or it was, till I told you. Now it’s a part of you and I don’t know whether I want to have it anywhere in my body. At this very moment I wish I could tear it out with my own hands and flush it down a drain. I wish I could have a miscarriage. I wish I’d never seen you. I wish I could die.’
‘Stop, Hester, stop. You’ll be all right. I’ll look after you.’