The Private Parts of Women

by Lesley Glaister

  Trixie tips her kitchen compost tidy of tea-leaves, peelings, old lettuce into her compost bin and straightens up. She breathes in the musky scent of flowering currant, admires the pink clashing against the yellow forsythia. She can feel the sun on her back. Another spring has sprung and here she is yet.

  She heard Inis’s door banging shut some time ago. Soon she should be back with the money and shopping. She didn’t want to entrust Inis with her bank book. She contemplated going out herself. It’s not far. There’s no ice or slippery rain. But since her fall she can’t face going out. She can only be at home or in the garden. You’re closer to God in a garden, than anywhere else on earth. And there is God in the creamy primroses, in the pale pink flexing of an earthworm, in the clash of currant and forsythia.

  If only Inis would set to and sort her garden out. She’ll have to have a word. It’s nothing but an eyesore that Trixie has to turn her back on to enjoy her own. The mattress has grown dark speckled patches of mould and there are hairs where a cat settles itself down every night. Already the dandelions are pushing up their dark toothed leaves and before you know it the fluff will be in the air, getting its roots in her own fertile soil.

  Trixie agonised long and hard about whether to give Inis access to her bank book, but in the end there was no choice. That blasted Blowski hasn’t turned up again or she would have asked him – though she doesn’t ask him favours as a rule. And she’s out of money. She gets a hundred pounds out of the bank at a time and ekes it out on food and what-nots. Everything else is paid straight into and out of the bank, simplicity itself. She keeps the cash in the top of the piano, covered by the cloth and the fruit bowl and the photographs, quite secure.

  She put her finger in the Bible in the end, letting Jesus decide whether Inis was to be trusted. After an irrelevancy: They shall not drink wine with a song, her inspired finger alighted upon Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee. She took that as positive and, comforted, signed the authorisation slip and put the book and shopping-list through Inis’s letter-flap. But her heart sank as they hit the doormat. She could have taken it the wrong way. It could have been a warning that Inis devises evil against her. She wants to tick Jesus off for being so cryptic.

  She could have knocked and asked for the bank book back on some pretext or other. But what could she have said, all of a flutter as she was? And now it’s too late. The die is cast. Despite the sun, she shivers.

  FREEZER

  ‘I cannot have it,’ I said.

  I was surprised that he did not object. It was hardly spoken about, hardly acknowledged as real. He never mentioned that it was my fault, no contraception, what on earth had been going on in my stupid head, none of that and I was grateful. What had been going on in my head I couldn’t begin to contemplate. There was a week when I was sick in the mornings, as discreetly as possible. I felt awful, hateful, full of poison, leeched, parasitised. I never thought of it as a baby. It was an illness, something I wanted to recover from quickly. I did not want to have to think.

  Richard took me to a clinic to be counselled. In a small windowless room that stank of air-freshener, we sat side-by-side on plastic chairs, holding hands. The woman was very earnest. She wore a big purple sweater down to her knees and long Indian silver earrings. Her iron grey hair was cut very short. There were little broken veins in her cheeks that matched her sweater.

  ‘I can’t have it,’ I said.

  ‘Right.’ She leant towards me. ‘Would you like to tell me why?’ She squinted sympathetically.

  ‘I feel so sick … I’ve got two … I just can’t.’

  ‘What would happen if you did go ahead with the pregnancy?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I couldn’t. I can’t cope with anything else, any more …’ The woman blew her nose on a child’s handkerchief with a nursery rhyme on it. Suddenly I wanted to laugh. I looked hard at the hairy green carpet tiles.

  ‘My wife hasn’t recovered from our daughter’s birth,’ Richard said, ‘either physically or mentally.’ I shot him a look. ‘Sad as this is for us both, I really consider she’s not strong enough to proceed with the pregnancy.’

  The pregnancy, the pregnancy, like a sort of animal, children’s drawing, blob on legs, like the gonk I used to have, I’d forgotten about that gonk until then. He used to sit on my bookcase, a knitted gonk. Mr Humpty. I wonder who knitted him?

  ‘Right, fine.’ The woman was happy to transfer her attention to Richard, rational Richard, Dr Goodie Two-shoes who knew exactly what to say. ‘The usual procedure would be for me to explain the process of termination to the client, but I’m sure you …’

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ I said. ‘I just want it out. Like a tooth.’ I wanted to laugh again. This time Richard gave me a look.

  ‘If you wait in the waiting-room she can see the docs, make an appointment and Bob’s your uncle.’ She smiled warmly at Richard and her earrings tinkled.

  What I wanted was to be put to sleep then and not to have to wake up till it was all over. The examining doctor was black and cheery. He was kind, his fingers gentle. He kept his eyes on my face as he delved inside me, pressing down on my abdomen with his other hand and whistling ‘Waltzing Matilda’ through his teeth.

  ‘Seven weeks,’ he said. ‘I’d wait another week or two … can be dodgy so early on.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, as soon as possible.’

  There were two days to wait. In those two days I hardly spoke or even thought. I was like a robot woman, going through the motions of life with my mind frozen up. Richard tried to explain what they would do to me but I shut him up. He drove me through the snow to the clinic. Soft sticky flakes clung to the windscreen wipers. When we got out of the car I caught a flake on my tongue and felt it vanish.

  Richard looked sad but I felt quite cheerful now that at last it was happening. I was put in a room with three women all dressed in white gowns, long socks and their own colourful slippers. They were quiet for a moment when I came in, then two of them resumed their conversation. The third a very young and pretty girl never said a word. She stared blankly at the wall ahead of her. I thought I should try and talk to her, to comfort her. But the other two wouldn’t stop chattering, steering resolutely clear of the reason they were there. It was as if they were at a party, or in a departure lounge; trembling on the edge of something, furiously bright.

  ‘Are they Marks and Sparks?’ one said, nodding at the slippers of the other, and they were off into the subjects of shops and weather, holidays and horoscopes, talking and talking with never a gap, never a gap for the truth to get through. They even laughed, going on about some rubbish on television the night before. Rubbish that I’d watched too, filling my own head with it so I didn’t have to think.

  ‘I could have wet myself when the door opened …’

  ‘And there he was, with that look on his face …’

  ‘… and his bicycle clips on!’

  ‘Shut-up!’ I wanted to shout.

  A big tear rolled down the young girl’s cheek.

  One by one we were removed. My time was 10.30 but it was 11.15 before it was my turn to go. I was second. The young girl went first. There were a few moments of contemplative quiet while we listened to her slippers slapping away from us on the polished floor. Then the two started up again. I felt sicker than ever because my stomach was empty. I flicked through a Woman magazine, avoiding the pork recipes, the advertisements for food and nappies – it didn’t leave much.

  Then it was my turn. I did not think about what I was doing. The nurse was kind; the anaesthetist didn’t meet my eyes. ‘False teeth?’ he asked. ‘Crowns?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right then.’ He tapped the back of my wrist.

  ‘You’ll feel a little prick.’ The nurse looked at him and tittered. ‘Then count to ten.’

  It was all very brisk. I got to six and thought I wouldn’t go to sleep. I noticed a dead fly inside the flat white glass light fitting. I
woke to the sound of a voice.

  ‘Inis dear … wake up now … all over.’ For a minute I thought it was my mum. Once she came to the dentist with me when I had gas for an extraction and she was so kind. She drove me home, tucked me up on the sofa and we spent the afternoon eating strawberry ice-cream and watching a soppy film. But it was not Mum. I could not think who it was or where or what. Then I knew. For a second I felt violently relieved. It was over. I was wheeled back to my bed. The other beds were empty.

  ‘You sleep it off,’ the nurse said, ‘then we’ll find you a spot of lunch.’ I lay on my stomach with my face in the starchy pillow. Between my legs was a fat wad of sanitary towel, in my belly a dull, comforting pain. ‘All over, darling,’ said my mum’s voice, ‘all better now.’ And then I went to sleep.

  Lunch, powdery grey soup and fish-paste sandwiches, was a subdued occasion. The young girl was not there. Maybe she didn’t go through with it, I thought, found myself hoping. Changed her mind at the last minute, because you can do that, right up to the last second it is a matter of choice.

  After lunch it was time to return to the lounge and await our escorts home. Richard was the first to arrive. When he walked into the room, he did look dear to me, his curly hair wild around his head, his eyes anxiously seeking mine. I was proud that he belonged to me.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine.’ I stood up, my knees wobbly, and he helped me on with my coat.

  ‘Well, so long,’ I said to the others.

  ‘Good luck,’ they said.

  Outside it was not quite dark. I was surprised. It was like coming out of a dark cinema in the afternoon and being dazzled by daylight.

  Richard kissed me in the car and gave me a yellow pot chrysanthemum. ‘I love you,’ he said. I squeezed his hand. ‘Thank you.’ I held the plant to my nose to inhale its cold florist’s smell. ‘I love you too,’ I said and at that moment, I did.

  ‘Do you?’ He flicked me a look as he nosed the car out into the middle of the road. ‘Good. Now you just relax. Everything is going to be fine. You just see.’

  It was three weeks later that I started crying, three weeks later that I left them all behind. The night before I’d had a dream. I had had a little baby, a boy, just like a baby Robin. I had put him down to sleep in a room, in a strange house. It was like I imagine an army barracks to be, breeze-blocks, khaki paint on the doors. I heard him crying and I tried to go back to him, but I could not find the room. There were long branching corridors full of identical doors. I ran up and down trying door after door but either they were locked, or the rooms empty, or full of brushes and brooms. All the time I could hear my baby crying for me. Then I ran to find the caretaker, I went out of the building and into a town, a seaside town. Bonny was sitting on a corner with a collecting tin round her neck, collecting for widows and orphans. ‘Go back,’ she barked when she saw me. I ran back to the house – but it had gone. There was only the outline of where it had been on the grass and a big tree standing by. The crying had stopped. The baby had gone.

  I’d woken sweating and shouting. Richard held me. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘It’s only a dream.’ I let him hold me, my ear against his chest, listening to the thud, thud, thud of his sensible heart. But with an awful draining away of my spirits I recognised that it was not only a dream.

  I cannot believe Richard has not found me. I know he promised, when I rang him up, well I gave him no choice, but still he knows I am at my wits’ end. Who knows what I might not do? A woman who leaves her children could do anything. After that, anything is easy. Or perhaps I haven’t properly left. I sent them another card on Saturday, a Mondrian – whom I can’t stand but Richard likes. The cards I have sent will be postmarked Sheffield. He might have been to look for me, for all I know. I haven’t even changed my name. What kind of bid for freedom is that? He could at this very moment be cruising the streets of Sheffield peering at all the women with long brown hair. Ha!

  ‘It’s not a failure to accept that you need help,’ he’d said to me a few days before, when I thought I was all right, maybe a bit quiet, things were going on in my head but not so that he’d know. I kept the freezer filled so full you could hardly shut the door but I couldn’t use anything out of it. It had to be kept full. If a single fish-finger was used I would worry until I had bought a new sealed pack. I bought fresh food every day, better for you anyway. Richard was appreciative. He thought it was a sign of stability. But it was only that I could not bear the panicky gap in my mind that something missing from the freezer made. No doubt it’s half empty now, half packets of things, loose peas rattling round, empty frozen air. But that is no longer my concern. Here I have no freezer. I eat in cafés, or content myself with biscuits and toast. It is such a relief to have no dealing with food, with the planning of meals, the lurking doubts about nutrition, of finicky children, of varied diets. A relief to be free of food.

  And anyway I didn’t want help. Only space. He knows that. ‘Mummy needs space,’ he said to Robin once to explain my mood.

  ‘And I need a spaceship,’ Robin retorted, making me laugh. The last time I remember laughing.

  Richard’s given me space and time. Generous to a fault. Or maybe not. Pauline will be well settled in by now, in her absolute element. One hand in my freezer, the other clasping my children’s hearts. They will be well cared for, successfully lied to, no doubt. Mummy’s having a little holiday. They will be fine. If they never saw me again I think they would be fine. I am not indispensable. That should be a relief.

  I must go out. It is sunny today, like spring. The sun shines through the thick splashed dust of the kitchen window. I only have winter clothes with me, jeans, thick leggings, sweaters, boots. I can’t contemplate buying anything else. I must go out for some air and to fetch Trixie’s things. I feel terrible, a splitting headache and my nose all blocked. But I promised I’d go to the bank for her, and fetch some shopping. All I want to do is sleep. But I will go out first and get it done.

  CROESUS

  Does she think I was born yesterday? Face all pasty innocent. Bleach, bin-bags, tuna, cheese. How much can that come to? Of course, she’d conveniently lost the receipt, of course. I didn’t want to make a scene, not unless I was sure. I didn’t make a scene. But how much could that little lot come to? £2 top. And when I counted the money, there was £94.45. Which would make the shopping £5.55 which is simply not possible. She has robbed me. I have been robbed by my kindly smiling neighbour, robbed and swindled and taken for a fool.

  I knew, I knew. Somehow deep down I knew her for a cheat.

  I said nothing. I thanked her and counted the money out, slowly. Oh I saw the sliding of her eyes, panic that’s what it was, panic at having been rumbled. I could have faced her with it, I should have. Instead I said nothing. Turn the other cheek was in my head. Her eyes kept straying to the kitchen but if she thought I was going to make her a cup of tea she had another think coming.

  I counted out the money again, emphasising but not querying the total. And the cheek of the girl, oh it quite took my breath away.

  ‘Surprising how it adds up, isn’t it?’

  Ha! The brass-plated cheek.

  She hung around, though I gave her no encouragement.

  She blew her nose on a bit of lavatory paper. ‘I’ve got a stinking cold,’ she whined. I put the purchases away very pointedly but left the money on the table, plain as day, an accusation. Was she expecting me to let her see where I put it? That’s it. Now I’ve given her my bank book she’ll know I’m loaded. Rich as Croesus. Lucky she doesn’t know the half of it.

  ‘Can I help?’ she sniffed.

  Help yourself more like. She wandered round the room, peering about, fiddling with my things. Looking at the photographs on the piano, as if to say, I know this is where you keep it. Though how can she know? Nobody knows, not even Blowski whom I would trust with my life.

  ‘Is this you?’ she asked, indicating the picture of me as a child in my stretched
dress. Why? What’s it to you. I didn’t reply.

  ‘Well, I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Just put a note through when you want something next.’ And she was off leaving a sort of smell in the air of avarice.

  I made myself a cup of tea and tried to settle to the Good Morning programme. The couple on the sofa looked like puppets nodding and grimacing. Somehow I couldn’t take it in, not like I usually do, couldn’t get myself absorbed.

  You see I was quite devastated by her treachery. I’d rather a thug brandishing a poker made off with every penny. At least that’s honest, it’s what it is – robbery – not the insincerity of a swindler masquerading as a good neighbour. My ship’s come in, she will be thinking, loaded old woman on tap, candy off a baby, all that. Or maybe she thinks if she ingratiates herself successfully enough I’ll leave it to her. ‘Have you any family?’ she asked me, oh, early on, when I still took her at face value. Well I see the way the land lies now.

  Oh she generates unease. I’ve never felt it before, not so clearly. Why does she live all alone and why is she so quiet? What I would not give for a bit of normal noise, even something to complain about, a radio loud at night, a row with her boyfriend though there’s no such person on the scene, sometimes I wonder if she isn’t of the other persuasion – well she’s hardly feminine – but then I haven’t seen any women there either.

  It’s revenge that’s what it is. It came to me while I watched how to lengthen curtains by adding a strip of contrasting fabric above the hem. Rather attractive. I would have been good at being poor. Revenge. I would not let her take my photograph and now this! Oh I’ll never be able to settle, not enjoy my television, never settle, never sleep tonight.

  It’s not the money it’s the treachery. She is a viper, a vixen. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle I know, and yet, and yet, there’s Proverbs too … I cannot forget Proverbs … riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly as an eagle towards heaven. But it is not that, not that no. Personal gain is the last thing on my mind. I am not thinking of myself. I am thinking about the eventual destination of the money. I am thinking of the Salvation Army. She must have stolen a couple of pounds, at least. Not much, but it’s not the amount so much as the principle. Someone who would cheat an old lady of two pounds would cheat her of two hundred or two thousand or two million.