“Look, I’m pregnant Sam. I’m not going to any more stupid doctors. Dr. Chubby-Cheeks didn’t even know enough to do an internal examination. Thank God — those dirty fingers!”
“That was a futile experience, wasn’t it?” Sam said, and left her.
They didn’t see each other for several days. The next time Sam appeared at her house his tune had changed, he wasn’t bewildered any longer. He was purposeful and focused.
“You have to have an abortion, Madelyn.”
She looked at him in shock.
“It is unfortunate that this has happened. You know we cannot get married. I will take care of everything, you mustn’t worry about a thing.”
A cold fist closed around Madelyn’s heart. “No. I don’t want to.”
“Madelyn, you have to think about this logically. What options do we have?”
“We could get married, like normal people do.”
“We have discussed marriage before, and the same obstacles exist. They haven’t gone away, just because you’re pregnant.”
Madelyn’s voice quavered with tears. “Because you’re Jewish? What type of reason is that? I gave myself to you!”
“I hope you didn’t give yourself because you hoped for this result.”
“How dare you!” Madelyn threw the nearest thing, which happened to be the ashtray. It whizzed by Sam’s head, and some of the ash settled on his hair.
“Madelyn, be reasonable. If we didn’t plan to get married before this, why should a resolvable predicament change anything?”
“It’s a baby!”
“Do you have a moral issue with abortions? Because that is a different matter.”
Madelyn wondered whether she should lie, and decided against it. “No.”
“What then?”
She couldn’t go on about marriage again. “It just seems such a traumatic decision. Physically as well.”
“I cannot take the physical part of it away from you, but the rest of the burden is mine. I take full responsibility. You have nothing to worry about.”
“It is illegal.”
“Well, we’ll try a few things ourselves. But if we do need a doctor I will take care of it, the cost, everything. I will take care of you while you recover. They’ll put you to sleep, and when you wake up it will be over.”
“I just feel unhappy.”
“Well, you might decide not to abort.”
Madelyn looked at him in anticipation.
“I cannot marry you, but I will support you and the child if you decide to have it.”
Madelyn got up angrily and looked out the window. “You don’t love me,” she said, without turning around.
“I love you as much as ever. And I will love you if you decide to have the baby, though you will be forcing me to fork out large sums of money my whole life for a child I didn’t want in the first place.”
“And of course you’ll have to tell your Jewish wife that you already have a child,” Madelyn said bitterly. “I hope she will be understanding.”
Sam got up to leave. “Think about it, Madelyn.”
“Oh, I don’t have to think about it. A baby out of wedlock would ruin my life.”
“Well then, try not to worry. I will take care of everything.”
He began taking care of it that evening. There was a nice bottle of gin waiting for Madelyn in his rooms, and he served glassful after glassful, neat, with a sliver of lemon and an ice cube.
They became merry, and Madelyn began to think that getting rid of the baby might be more fun than creating it in the first place. “I’m not sure this will work, Sam — it’s not very professional!” she laughed.
“We can but try.”
Later they went out for a walk, and Sam made her climb on and jump off every bench they passed.
“Let’s go to that big hill round the back of that pub with the brilliant Guinness — what’s it called? We could jump off there.”
Madelyn giggled. “How does one jump off a hill? I’ll end up rolling down it.”
“Well, try to roll as roughly as possible.”
They found the hill and started to toil up its steep sides.
“How are you going to take care of it, Sam?” Madelyn asked, stopping for breath.
“My mother will pay for it. I have relations who are doctors. They know people who know people. You can do anything if you have the money.”
“So your mother knows?”
“Yes, I had to tell her. I didn’t know what to do.” He didn’t tell Madelyn about his growing disappointment as his mother stated her solution to the problem with absolute conviction. He didn’t tell her how his mother had asked question after question about her, which Sam had answered, to be shocked by the stream of venomous interpretation his mother spat into the receiver before hanging up, not least of which was the dim view she took of his own stupidity and gullibility.
They reached the top of the hill. “Should I push you?” Sam asked.
“Certainly not!” Madelyn replied, darting out of his range. For an instant she felt dread of him, as though he might kill her in order to get rid of the complications she represented in his life. Then she looked at his red, shiny face, shot through with gin and good humour, and realized he just wanted to help.
She took a running jump and pounded down the hill, executing tremendous leaps in the air at intervals, enjoying the wind in her face and the exhilaration of the movement. She could hear Sam behind her, shouting something about the need to fall on her stomach at the end of each jump, but she ignored him and ran faster, trying to get away.
Towards the end of the hill the ground became uneven, and in one of her spiraling jumps Madelyn did indeed crash to the ground. She lay there winded, with her eyes closed, feeling nauseous. Sam lumbered up and knelt down by her, breathing heavily. She winced as the fumes of his ginny breath hit her face.
“Are you all right?”
She did not open her eyes or answer him, overwhelmed with the greatest contempt and dislike. ‘Am I all right?’ she thought to herself, ‘the whole purpose of this outing is to harm me enough to get to my well-protected fetus.’
But it was not in Madelyn’s nature to hate for long, especially when her companion was so solicitous.
By the time they returned to his rooms they were linked arm and arm singing ‘Rule Brittania,’ with the greatest fervour.
I veer between exhilaration and despair like a school girl. It must be my hormones. I give myself up to the exhilaration in relief, without analyzing it. Maybe it’s the gin, and the running, and all the silly things Sam is trying to do to dislodge the fetus. So long as they are fun, who cares how effective they are? I have given the problem over to him, and shan’t worry about it anymore. Live in the present. The baby is growing every day. Perhaps it will grow so big we cannot dislodge it, and perhaps Sam will change his mind about marriage. And the despair? I don’t know whether it’s because I want Sam to marry me or because I want the baby. I only know I don’t want the baby without the husband. Nobody would marry me if I had a child!
Madelyn began to tell Sam about her midwifery experiences, concentrating on births that were particularly touching.
“I delivered Mrs. Sopa last night. Do you remember me telling you about Mrs. Sopa?”
Sam grunted. He suspected these baby stories were a subtle form of coercion and remained on guard at all times.
“It was her tenth baby. She’s had girl/boy/girl/boy religiously since the first pregnancy, so they knew this would be a boy. All the children were in an enjoining room, and they kept trotting through, on the pretext of going to the bathroom. They’d beam at me on their way back, and say ‘Johnny’s coming!’”
There was a pause in the conversation.
“Don’t you think that’s beautiful?”
“Very beautiful. Now
have another glass of gin.”
Sam scheduled the whole thing for the week following the final day of my obstetrics training. There are no parties this time, even though I am now a qualified midwife. Sam left for London a couple of days before me, in order to diffuse suspicion. Nobody suspects, of course. Everyone is far too immersed in their own lives. I wanted Louise to know, I willed her to guess when I told her I was going up to London for a few days, but she just placed the red sweater on my bed with a wry look, as though I cared what I look like now. They don’t know that I might never come back.
I was up at 7:30 a.m. and sat there, opening and reopening my bag in a manic way to check everything was there: money, ticket, clothes. Sam had given me the ticket and quite a bit of money for food on the train, which would have made me happy if I didn’t know that it was from his mother. A sort of bribe, or reward for my cooperation. I didn’t have much choice, did I?
What relief when I left Cambridge — farewells are always clumsy and my morale is low right now. Sam met the train, and I had a chicken sandwich and a glass of cider. Then we came to Ilford, and Sam took me to a hotel called the Valentine, which is supposed to be the best. My spirits lifted as I spread the contents of my bag around the room. It was luxurious and if Sam’s mother felt it necessary to bully Sam into this and coerce me into complying, at least her atrocious will is implemented in style. It seems so absurd, for a grown man to be manipulated by his mother like that. But how can I judge him, I who allow him to do the same to me?
My pleasure at my surroundings didn’t last long. The treatment began with a large dose of castor oil. We then went for a walk in a nearby park and I felt sick and vomited — it was most shameful to see my chicken sandwich reappear. After this episode we went back to the hotel and I had an injection, followed by a glass of orange juice. This I also vomited (onto the nice flower border of the poshest hotel in Ilford) and then went to bed. The hotel staff woke me up with a cup of tea, which was nice, and breakfast — cornflakes, bacon and poached egg, toast and marmalade. I ate ravenously to make up for the day before. Then there were more injections and we walked again; fortunately Ilford abounds in parks. In the afternoon we began a concentrated dose of quinine sulphate — nothing happened, apart from the fact that I felt dizzy and sick. I thought of all the things I was doing to dislodge this fetus, from quaffing huge amounts of gin and jumping off mountains, to imbibing castor oil and bombarding it with injections, and I felt the first twinge of pride in its determination to resist its fate. An image popped into my head of a little human-like creature, clinging with two tiny hands to the wall of my womb. Ridiculous, I know.
I had my last dose at 6 p.m., and Sam rang for his doctor cousin who is neck deep in our illegal plan. I wonder if I could get any of these people thrown in prison?
He came and examined me in an embarrassed way (though I was the one lying spread-eagled and exposed on the bed), asking the usual futile questions. Of course I looked too well and he was unable to send me into hospital as we had hoped. He told me to go out and jog around, so I did, and felt awful, but still no pains! Sam made me run up and down the steps and leapfrog over him and God knows what until I was nearly dead. Had some supper but vomited. Hot bath and bed. Pain during the night but no discharge. Felt ghastly this morning. Sick and faint. I am losing my grip and smile a dead smile and pray ‘O God, don’t let it be too bad.’
O Day of Wrath, oh Day of Mourning. Continual buzzing in my ears but my bed is comfortable (praise be). We had an appointment for that evening, with instructions to find Room 161 without making inquiries. We did find it, and a dark foreign woman took me into a little room and examined and probed. Having satisfied herself that I was indeed pregnant, she tried to raise the price to 75 pounds, but I told her we knew it was 60 and that’s what we had. I felt annoyed with this haggling, imagining the desperate women forced to find the extra cash to get rid of their shame. Afterwards my own feelings of outrage amused me — whose money was I trying to save? I should have said to her, let’s make it 400 pounds on condition that you don’t try this trick with other poor women. That would show nasty Mrs. Golden, who cares a good deal about money.
The foreign woman told me to wait with Sam at the Odeon Café Cinema in High Kensington the next afternoon. When we saw her walking past, I was to follow without speaking, leaving Sam behind. I can’t help but feel amused by all this secrecy. If we were hauled up on charges, how blameless I would be. ‘She forced me to do it,’ I would say, pointing a finger at the hook-nosed old hag I imagine Sam’s mother to be. If that didn’t work, I would weep and describe my image of the little, helpless fetus grasping the sides of my womb in desperation to hold onto life. I weep just to think of it.
Sam and I sat in the café, drinking tea and nibbling on chips and fried eggs. My spirits more or less held until I realized how much time was passing. The thing about an arrangement of this clandestine, peculiar nature is the constant anxiety that something will go wrong — perhaps the wretched woman had already gone by and we missed her. There were so many people. She was an hour late; the café closed before she turned up and we paced the cold streets until she appeared, making some excuse. Away she walked at a rapid pace and I followed on the other side, feeling like Sherlock Holmes. One woman caught my eye and held it until she passed and I felt that she knew, and the world was pointing an accusing finger at me.
We entered a luxurious block of flats and the foreign woman was waiting on the second floor; the door opened and I was inside. The curtains were drawn and the wireless playing, a white table with straps in the middle of the room, bucket, syringe, hot instruments. I stripped and lay on the table and she strapped my legs up. Then the doctor (masked and gowned to the last degree) examined me again and said it must be a difficult time for me. I wondered if that was a common thing to say before murdering something. Were the words, “This must be a difficult time for you,” whispered into the ears of Marie Antionette, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard?
The doctor scraped and gouged and sloshed. My legs ached and trembled and cramps writhed through my stomach. Bing Crosby sang in my ear and the clock ticked and the doctor apologized for taking so long but he wanted to make no mistake. At last my legs were lowered and he showed me the little red bits of jelly lying beside his instruments and the blood in the bucket and somehow I didn’t care — my only feeling was relief that the unpleasantness was over. Besides, it didn’t look like something that could cling to the sides of my womb in desperation.
I dressed and paid and the woman kept telling me to ‘forget this place.’ She gave me pills and a glass of water and my hand shook so I couldn’t hold it. Then she rushed out and I followed her down the stairs and around the corridors, past the doorman and into the garden. It seemed to me that people stared at her as she passed and then turned to stare at me. At last she whispered goodbye and pushed me onto a bus.
At the other end Sam was waiting for me. We caught a taxi back and I got into bed while Sam went out and bought some fish and chips and I ate them and took some tablets and slept. My God how I slept. All next day I lay in bed and Sam kept bringing me pie and chicken and books.
Tomorrow I am going home to mother at last. Feeling so heavy. I pretend that I am weeping because I am leaving Sam, and yet I know I am not desolate because of a person but because listlessness has crept into my life. I am twenty-two, and I have hurt everything. Cambridge, my beloved, is finished and scarcely a friend left behind. I thought I had so many, but now I know. Only Louise is my friend. Not Philip. Where is Philip now?
On the train I cheered up; I had plenty of room and comfort. Everyone in the carriage nibbled furtively at little sandwiches and I felt rather ashamed as I pulled out the immense leg of chicken Sam had furnished me with. However it was most enjoyable, and the boiled eggs and fresh rolls and butter.
Within a week, Madelyn felt as if she had been at home forever. Mary was proud she had finished her midwifery training and was
content to let her have a few weeks’ holiday. Madelyn settled into the old comfortable routine with her parents: waking up late, eating a massive breakfast of bacon and eggs, then taking Pippa for a walk and throwing stones for her to chase. Pippa maintained an air of decorum within the house, but once outside she threw dignity to the winds and rushed after stones with great abandon. After the walk Madelyn would come home and potter about the house, listening to the wireless for hours and playing music on the gramophone.
She phoned up all her old friends and visited familiar haunts in the evenings, smoking and drinking in an attempt to pretend everything was the same. But it wasn’t. She felt down and furious with herself for feeling that way. Surrounded by old friends calling her by the old name, she yearned after Madelyn. Anne no longer existed.
‘I won’t think of Sam,’ she resolved, ‘and I won’t think of Cambridge. I miss Cambridge just as much. Such a wonderful period in my life is over. That’s always difficult.’
She decided to get a job as soon as she could and began to work the night shift at a small local hospital. This exhausted her, and she found it harder and harder to bear the routine of her days. She thought maybe it was the guilt associated with her secret and unburdened her soul to an old school friend called Cathie, in the hopes that it would improve her general feeling of gloominess.
They sat side by side in a bar, and Madelyn downed pints of draft cider. Even that didn’t produce the beneficial effects it once had.
“I suppose I’m conventional. I didn’t intend to get pregnant, but I assumed he would marry me if I did. Of course I don’t believe it’s murder or anything silly like that, but I feel as though something has been torn from me. That’s the source of my sadness and physical exhaustion. Maybe it is natural for a body to react this way when we do unnatural things to it.”
Turn Us Again Page 15