Her Living Image

by Jane Rogers

  Halfway through writing she turned with her pen in her hand. “What about your Mum?”

  Carolyn stared at her dumbly.

  “You’ll have to tell her.”

  Carolyn nodded.

  “OK?”

  Clare was staring at her worriedly. With a great effort Carolyn smiled. “Yes. It’s OK. Bye-bye.”

  Alan came home the following weekend. After the pub on Friday night they stopped his father’s car in a lane. Carolyn got out of the passenger seat and stood shivering in the dark while he spread the blanket over the back seat. He was always rather embarrassed to do this, and turned around with a foolish laugh saying, “Well –” He put out his arms to her. She had spent the evening in a glaze, because she was trapped (trapped, yes, she remembered Libby saying that Jenny was only a year old when she caught with the next one and thinking what a funny word, caught, did she catch it like a disease or does she mean she was caught in a trap? Now she knew) and had no choice but to tell him. But the inevitable moment which after all had to come at some point in the next nine months wasn’t presenting itself from minute to minute. She couldn’t really concentrate on anything else for fear of it springing up on her and her not being ready. He clasped her cold hands and pulled her to him. Lightly, he kissed her face, just brushing her skin with his lips. Tell him now. I can’t. Say it now. The little brushing kisses were as irritating as a moth that flaps about in your face when you turn the light out. She would burst if she didn’t tell him. It was unbearable. The moth kisses moved brushing lightly down her neck. She shivered. Please stop. Tell him. I can’t. Please. All her tension was in her skin, and he was irritating her, tickling her, making her want to scream. Her body was seized by rage. “Stop it. Kiss me.” Turning her mouth abruptly up to his she met his lips hard, butted against his gentleness and bit at his mouth. He half drew his head back in surprise. “Come on,” she said, and climbed quickly into the back seat. It was warm and dark in there, she didn’t want to see his face or his surprise. She didn’t want him to see her. She was full of harsh energy. Too bad. It was too bad. She didn’t care what he thought of her, as she normally did, waiting and wondering (what’s he doing, shall I touch him where shall I? What does he expect me to do, is that right or does it hurt when he sighs like that?). She was so angry and tightly coiled that it didn’t matter. She wanted to grip him hard and hurt him.

  For the first time, she made love to him, blindly, fighting him, as if driven by a rage that had to burst out of her body somewhere; using him to find relief.

  Afterwards they lay silent, uncomfortably cramped and sealed together with sweat, both shocked by the force of what had happened. At last Alan wriggled and shifted slightly. “There’s somethig biting into my bum. A zip, I think,” and Carolyn raised herself up from him and began the furtive scramble for clothes. Not until they were fully dressed and sitting in the front seats again did they look at one another properly, for a moment with absolute curiosity, as if at strangers. Then Alan smiled at her broadly, and Carolyn felt her surprised face grinning back. Their grins widened into giggles, and then into open-mouthed laughter, as if some huge joke had suddenly been revealed to both. It was minutes before Alan leaned forward and started the car.

  On Saturday Alan borrowed his father’s car to go on a day trip, and they made love all afternoon, drugged with it, unable to stop. In the evening they drove to a pub for food and drink, and as she tidied herself in the Ladies and distantly admired the way her skin was glowing and her eyes sparkling, and thought that everyone who saw them would be sure to know what they’d been doing, Carolyn suddenly remembered she was pregnant. It was an extraordinary thing. But it wouldn’t matter. She could tell him easily now. As she slid into her seat next to him and picked up her half of lager she said quietly, “I think I’m pregnant.”

  He looked at her and laughed.

  “No. I mean I am. From before.”

  Alan hesitated, and put his glass down. “You are or you think you are?”

  “I am.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I’m sick every morning.”

  “And how late?”

  She shrugged. “They’re never very regular, but usually five to six weeks. Now it’s been eight.”

  “Eight weeks?”

  “Since my last period.”

  Alan scratched his face. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  She was remembering how she’d felt, now. In fact she felt like it again. Completely. Pregnant? Not me. It was impossible and awful. She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I don’t know. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “You knew yesterday?” he said, and then, flatly, “– last night. Today.”

  She nodded.

  “That’s why it was different.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I forgot it. I don’t know.”

  “Why do you think it was?”

  “We just – I wasn’t afraid any more – and – we – fitted together –” Talking about it made her terrified and doubt it, that it had been so much. Talking might reveal it not to have been, or to be just something you can talk about. He bent his head over the table, staring at the wood grain. There was a very long silence. She watched the barman reading the evening paper at the quiet bar, holding each page half open as he read it, tilting his head to scan the columns. Perhaps he was reading the advertisements. Looking for a used car or a lawnmower. Perhaps he had a wife and children and didn’t have to worry, perhaps if she stared hard enough she could turn herself into him and be standing there peacefully propped against the bar, half-open paper lying there, pint of bitter in arm’s reach and the pub cat rubbing warm against her leg.

  Alan moved. He raised his head and said, “Well.”

  “Well,” she said.

  “What d’you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He put his arm around her awkwardly, making her want to flinch away and snap despite herself, “I’m not ill.”

  “No.” Humbly he took his arm away, and then said grudgingly, picking at the edge of the table, “I love you, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” she said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh fuck off!” He jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving her open-mouthed and horrified.

  Pretending for the barman’s sake that nothing had happened, she sipped her drink slowly, anxiously replaying the conversation in her mind’s ear and unable to make any sense of his reaction. Would he leave her here? Was that it? How would she get home? Did he hate her? She felt she had not understood anything, ever, that had happened between them. Last night – Misunderstood everything, taken bad for good, no for yes, not understood, got it all wrong like someone speaking another language got it wrong.

  With icy dignity at last she took her empty glass to the bar, put on her jacket and went out. The car was in the car park. As she walked towards it she realized Alan was slumped over the steering wheel, and that he was crying.

  He drove her home in complete silence, drawing up outside her house and sitting still, the engine racing, eyes staring ahead through the windscreen. She got out without saying anything and he drove away before she had got her key out.

  Next day it made a great pressure in Carolyn’s head, thinking about not going home, and about going home. She didn’t want to. She felt as if she’d never believed that she would. It all seemed impossible – going home with her Mum to her room, and all the things she kept asking her to do and the way her Mum looked at her and was upset. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t. The only way she could stand to be was if they left her alone, gave her some space. Then things would come right. Life would begin again. She needed the space. She allowed the difficulty to mushroom in her head till its physical pressure made her nauseous. All the time she knew, though. I’m not going home. OK. Not going home.

  Gradually it subsided. The decision had made itself. Things began to change in the hospital. The physiotherapist came and gave her leg a
nd foot exercises. She had a walking frame, then crutches. She put on real clothes and sat in the day room. She could walk to the window and look out at the little toy cars and houses. No sounds of outside came through the thick glass. Finally they told her she could go home next week. She was miles away from them; calm, polite, with a little smile on her face she nodded as her Mum talked, God’s Gift talked, Vile Chops and Martinet came and went: far, far away, like the Snow Queen with the ice splinter in her eye, deep frozen in her own winter.

  When at last she walked down the ward without a stick, walking slowly and holding herself very erect, her whole body was glassy ice, brittle and thin so she must not jolt or bump or stumble, she must move as smoothly as if she was on wheels.

  Then it was going to be tomorrow – tomorrow – and her Mum brought her a suitcase to clear out her locker into and her anorak to keep out the cold. She looked down without interest or pity on this confusion. Her Mum brought her a new jumper to go home in. Harebell blue with a flower in little pearls stitched above the chest. It was the sort of jumper they have in expensive shop windows, but Meg had made it. “They’re machine-washable!” she exclaimed, brushing the pearls reverently with her fingertips. “Jean put some round the neck of Lizzie’s cardigan and she just pops it in the wash. They come up lovely, every time. I was afraid they might chip or flake – hmmn?”

  “It’s very nice,” said Carolyn. “Thankyou.”

  “Aren’t you going to try it on?”

  Carolyn tried it on, pulling it down over her dressing gown. It was very tight.

  “You should have taken that off first – you’re going to ruin the shape – Carolyn! What are you doing?”

  Carolyn took it off, and undid her dressing gown. She put the jumper on again and Meg stood back to admire her.

  “It’s lovely. It really suits you, that colour, it’s lovely and dainty – it really is. Oh love, you look like a different girl!”

  Carolyn smiled and nodded. Looking down she saw a woolly blue torso with two small pointed breasts and a sprinkling of pearls resting above them, like a first layer of snow. She thought, it must be funny to look like that.

  She took off the jumper again, her Mum told her what they were having for tea tomorrow, and asked her what she’d had for lunch today. At last her Mum went away. Carolyn went to the phone and telephoned Clare. When she came back she picked up the jumper again from her locker, and spread it on her knees. It was not her jumper. She did not look like that. She took the letter she had been writing and rewriting all week, and propped it up on top of her locker. It was addressed to Meg Tanner.

  Dear Mum,

  Please don’t be upset. As you know I’m feeling a bit mixed up at the moment. I need some time on my own to think things over. So I am going to stay with a friend for a bit. It’s Clare, the girl from the next bed. She’s said I can stay in their spare room. She shares a nice house with two other girls so don’t worry. I hope you and Dad don’t mind. I think I’ll be better at deciding what to do, on my own. So don’t worry about me, and I’ll come and see you soon. Thank you for visiting me every day and for everything.

  Lots of love,

  Carolyn xxxxxxxxxxxx

  Meg was given the letter by Martinet when she arrived at two o’clock to take Carolyn home. She had taken the afternoon off work. But Clare had been and collected Carolyn that morning.

  Part Two

  Chapter 7

  Clare had led Carolyn along endless humming corridors, whose walls were punctuated by closed doors. Fluorescent lights shone down on dull red rubbery floors, making a pinkish reflection on the walls, and at intervals the passages were interrupted by semitransparent plastic flapping doors, like valves in a vein. At last they emerged into a wide entrance hall, where a porter was loading a trolley, and two receptionists sat like bottled specimens in glass cages by the wall. On the opposite side, daylight shone through glass doors. Clare, who was carrying Carolyn’s suitcase, leaned against a door to hold it open for her. Carolyn rushed out, almost falling down a flight of stone steps.

  The sharpness of the cold made her cough and brought tears to her eyes. It took a long time to focus and get rid of the swimming water. The light. It was so bright and sharp. It was spiky as spilt pins. And the cold air – like getting a different substance into your lungs, water or another element. She could feel it, thick and cold in her chest, like something she’d swallowed; as if before she hadn’t been breathing air at all. The atmosphere was still and very quiet. Sounds from specific distances moved across the silence, footsteps in the gravel, voices, traffic. But the clog of sound she had never noticed in hospital was removed, as if a plug of cotton wool had been taken out; that constant humming buzz of the working building like a machine or a living body around her. Now she was outside.

  Clare was staring at her. She propelled her to a low wall and sat her down beside her suitcase.

  “I’m going to get a taxi. You don’t look fit to walk. Wait here. OK? Just sit here till I come back.”

  Crunch crunch Clare walked quickly over the gravel. Carolyn stirred it with her foot. She could feel the separate movements of hundreds of small pointed stones through the sole of her shoe. Now the patch she had stirred was darker grey. The gravel was damp underneath. Beneath her bottom the brick wall was hard and penetratingly cold, with a sharp edge that cut into her thighs. On the other side of the path stood a sapling. It was bare, its straight grey branches raised like arms to the cloudy heavens. It was as simple as a naked body. Above the tree, about a quarter of the way up the sky, the sun was an opaque light behind layers of grey cloud, eye-wateringly white.

  She stood up carefully, feeling the cold air move across her exposed face and hands, and turned around. Behind her, beyond a patch of raw dug earth, was a car park full of brilliantly coloured cars, red yellow and blue. Their shapes seemed as dear and familiar as friends’ faces, she wanted to pat their cold metal bonnets.

  Then Clare took her by the elbow and led her along the path which suddenly went through a gate and stopped. There was a lot of noise. The road. Clare helped her into a black car that stood by the kerb with its door open.

  Meg returned to the hospital early next morning. It had been Arthur’s brainwave in the night; they must know Clare’s second name, and address. Meg went up to the familiar ward hoping against hope to find Carolyn back in her bed again. She walked past the nurses’ cubicle unchecked. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. It wasn’t visiting time. She walked in and around the corner, and her heart leapt to see someone in Carolyn’s bed. But it wasn’t her, she realized, as she stepped nearer and faltered. It was a little grey-haired old lady, propped up on cushions and staring intently at something Meg couldn’t see. Meg hesitated and turned round, searching for a nurse. She spotted one just going into the cubicle.

  “It isn’t visiting time, you know,” she told Meg as Meg knocked on the open door.

  “No, I’m sorry, I just wanted to see a nurse. I’m Mrs Tanner, Carolyn’s mother.”

  “Oh yes Mrs Tanner. How is she? Getting along all right now?”

  “I – I don’t know. I need – she went – another girl took her home. Called Clare. She was in the bed next to her. Can you tell me, what’s her address? I don’t know where she’s taken Carolyn.”

  The nurse made a funny sucking noise with her lips and stared at Meg. “Um, I don’t think I can, really. I mean, a patient’s address is confidential.”

  “But –” Meg was speechless.

  The nurse continued to stare disapprovingly.

  “But my daughter’s gone. I don’t know where she is. She could have been kidnapped for all I know. She didn’t even tell me herself – just left a note – anything could’ve happened to her.”

  “I’m sorry Mrs Tanner. I don’t know what to do. We’re not supposed to give patients’ addresses. It’s confidential – I mean, you wouldn’t like it if we gave out your address would you?”

  “But it’s my daughter – !”

&nb
sp; “Yes, I know. Look, let me ask Sister. Can you wait here? No, sorry, you’d better wait outside.” She took Meg out into the ward, and to Meg’s humiliation locked the little cubicle before disappearing.

  The bossy sister confirmed that it wasn’t possible to give an address. Meg realized she’d been a complete fool. She could have said it differently. If she’d said Carolyn had borrowed a book from Clare and wanted to return it, they’d have given her the address. It was only because they saw how much she wanted it that they weren’t telling her. It had been the hope which had kept her going through the dawn and early morning. Falling heavily into the one chair in the cubicle she began to cry hopelessly.

  The sister watched her for a while, then sent the nurse on an errand.

  “Mrs Tanner – Mrs Tanner, please –” Sister crouched beside her. “We really can’t give you her address. But I’ll tell you what I could do, if you like.”

  Meg paused in her sobbing.

  “If you wanted to write a letter to your daughter and give it to me, I could address it to Miss – to Clare for you. How would that be?”

  Meg nodded. She couldn’t stop crying now to save her life. It had been like this last night. She thought she’d cried herself out. It was the sense of dread, the awful dropping away with fear of her stomach, that was worst. It had happened, something terrible. After all her vigilance, all her care, still, it had happened. “I was always meant to lose her,” she had sobbed to Arthur, who tried to comfort her with cups of tea and brief, common-sense reassurances. The chink in the sister’s armour now made her cry the more.

  Half an hour later the sister had her organized at a table in the day room, with writing paper and pen and a cup of sugary tea. Meg sat over her letter for nearly an hour, crossing out line after line, and neatly copying her final version like a schoolchild. The sister wasn’t in her office when she went back, so she left it in the middle of the desk: “Miss Carolyn Tanner, care of Clare”. I won’t hear from her until the day after tomorrow, she told herself. Even if she is all right. She doubted her own ability to survive that long.