Rosie Thomas 3-Book Collection

by Rosie Thomas

  Once in her room Chloe stripped off her clothes and bundled them away out of sight. Then she wrapped herself in the comforting brightness of her robe and went to take a shower.

  Under the scalding water she felt that it was more than just spilled champagne and the clammy coldness of Oliver which was being washed away. The loss of Stephen still hurt, and she knew that it would take a long time to stop missing him and wanting him. But it was as if the repetitive pattern that had drawn her to him was being washed away.

  So here I am, she thought. Just me. She smoothed expensive French soap over her arms and watched the spray carrying the lather away.

  I’ll work, Chloe thought. It’s what I came to Oxford for, and I’ll do it. I’ll get a wonderful, brilliant degree and then I’ll use it to go off and do something fascinating. Stephen won’t matter, and neither will Leo or anybody at all.

  The thought of her books spread open on her desk was calmly inviting.

  Chloe reached out and turned off the water with a decisive flick. The last of the soapy water gurgled away.

  Once the play was over, the end of the term was in sight.

  Oliver seemed to have recovered his own form of equilibrium. He flung himself back into the world in which Helen had first glimpsed him. By day, he rode or went beagling with red-faced, rowdy young men. In the evenings, he dressed up in the frogged velvet uniform of the dining club to which they all belonged and joined them in anachronistic sprees of drink and broken glasses. A succession of pretty girls passed through his rooms. If there was an air of desperation clinging about him, only Darcy and Helen sensed it and they knew that they could do nothing.

  Helen’s own sights were fixed on the final Schools in June. Her few hours of free time were spent peacefully with Darcy. Pansy and Stephen were living together, partly in his rooms and partly at Follies, and they seemed to need no other company. Tom was immersed in a workshop production of Ibsen. The darkness of the new play rubbed off on him and the few times Helen saw him she was with Darcy, and Tom seemed preoccupied and coolly unforthcoming. She had a faint sense of missing the closeness that they had shared during the difficult days of As You Like It.

  One morning in the last week of the term, Chloe woke up with a queasy start. Everything was as it always was in her room, but a black misery swooped down on her at once. For a second or two she lay tensely, then she swung herself out of bed and half ran down the gallery to the bathroom. Then she hung over the basin and vomited, a thin, sour trickle. Chloe groaned and rested her head against the cool porcelain. It wasn’t over yet. This was the fourth morning and she knew what to expect. After a moment she retched again and then sighed, her hair falling damply around her face. She felt too drained even to jump when someone put a cool hand around her forehead.

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Pansy. ‘Again?’

  Chloe leaned back exhausted.

  ‘No,’ she said weakly. ‘That’s it, I think.’

  ‘Go back to bed,’ Pansy ordered. ‘I’ll bring you something.’

  Chloe went shivering back to her room. Pansy reappeared with a mug of very weak milkless tea and a thin, dry piece of toast.

  ‘Thanks,’ Chloe said uncertainly. It was almost the first encounter they had had since the last night of the play.

  Chloe sipped the tea and felt warmer at once. The first mouthful of toast was a struggle, but the second tasted wonderful. Chloe found herself smiling at Pansy. The other girl was wearing a knobbly blue dressing gown with a tasselled tie-belt like a schoolboy’s. The cuffs of a homely, striped nightdress protruded from it.

  ‘D’you really go to bed with Stephen dressed like that?’

  The two women stared at each other. Then they dissolved into incredulous laughter.

  ‘Yes. Would it really get him going if I borrowed some of your Janet Reger?’ Chloe was laughing so much that she almost spilled her tea. She looked down at it, remembered herself, and the laugh faded into a groan.

  Pansy’s smile died too.

  ‘Chloe,’ she said gently. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

  Chloe nodded. ‘Yes. I’m pregnant. God, how wretched I feel.’

  Pansy looked down, crimping the bedcover between her fingers.

  ‘Will you tell Stephen?’ she asked.

  ‘Stephen?’ Chloe was bitter. ‘Pansy, this will make you laugh. It isn’t Stephen. It’s Oliver.’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Does it matter? As it happens, I have a cap. None of the other things works for me. After the last-night party I went home to bed with Oliver. I was drunk, and very miserable.’ Pansy’s face was tense as she listened. ‘I didn’t even think about it. I don’t think I cared what happened. And now …’ she counted off on her fingers and held them up. ‘Four weeks later. See?’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  Chloe turned violently away. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I know how you feel.’ Pansy was very gentle. ‘Because it happened to me. I was very young, and I felt so ill that I couldn’t do anything. Sick with myself, as well as just sick.’ Her face twisted in a little, wry smile. ‘In the end, Masefield fixed it. Of course.’

  She took Chloe’s hands in hers and squeezed them. ‘Whichever course you choose, you know, it isn’t exactly easy. Chloe … there’s no reason why you should like me enough to let me help you through, but I could if you would let me.’ As their eyes met, the slow flames of liking began to kindle in them again. ‘Masefield took me to a place in Harley Street. It was very, very good.’

  Chloe shuddered. ‘Aren’t there ordinary places, that everyone goes to? All those ads on the tube?’

  ‘I don’t know how easy that is,’ Pansy answered. Then, carefully, ‘Is it the money?’

  ‘No. It isn’t the money. Just that I haven’t thought, that’s all.’

  Chloe was restless now. She put down her empty mug and paced across to the window. In front of her was Christ Church, ribbed in golden stone. ‘I’ve got to tell Oliver, somehow,’ she said bleakly. ‘It does belong to him too, doesn’t it?’

  Pansy looked worried, but she said nothing.

  Chloe picked up her hairbrush and began to work rhythmically at her hair. ‘Well, it’s my problem. Thanks for the first aid. Same time, same place tomorrow?’

  With a rush of warmth, Pansy went across and hugged her. ‘Tea and sympathy always available,’ she told her cheerfully. ‘Think about Masefield’s place. I’ll come and hold your hand, if you need someone. And Chloe …’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘If you’re going to see Oliver, talk to Helen first. She seems to understand him better than anyone else.’

  Pansy was warning her, as subtly as she could, not to expect to find strength in Oliver.

  Helen’s first reaction when Chloe told her what had happened was stunned surprise. It was impossible that efficient and sophisticated Chloe could have made such an elementary mistake. She stared at her friend and saw that the tawny, tigerish confidence had deserted her. She was white-faced and shaky now.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Helen asked, and then frowned at her own stupidity.

  ‘Yes. I’m quite sure.’ Chloe wrapped her arms around herself as if she was trying to keep warm. ‘I feel invaded. Not in possession of myself any more. It’s ironic. At least I felt, before, that I had me. I keep going around and around in my head, trying to think what to do. Whether to … say the words, Chloe … keep the baby, or to have an abortion.’ Her words ended in a sob and she turned her face away from Helen. ‘I’m only sure of one thing. Before I decide, I have to tell Oliver. Not to ask anything of him, but just to let him know. That’s only fair, Helen.’

  Helen looked straight into Chloe’s eyes, neither encouraging nor dissuasive. ‘He’s in his rooms now.’

  Don’t wait any longer, she meant. Decide.

  Chloe picked up a scarlet jacket from where it hung over the back of a chair and pulled it on. With a lightness that she was far from feel
ing she waved to Helen and said, ‘Well. See you later, then.’

  As she walked up towards the tall finger of Tom Tower, hands in her pockets, no-one could see that her fists were clenched. She remembered Oliver lying asleep, the frown deep between his eyes, and how she had felt that she could shut the door on what had happened between them and walk casually away from it. A sudden wave of nausea threatened to overpower her. Vainly she tried the words out in her head.

  ‘Oliver, I want to tell you something …’

  ‘Oliver, do you remember the night of the party …?’

  ‘Oliver, I’m pregnant. The baby’s yours.’

  Chloe bit her lip and forced herself to keep walking.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Oliver’s voice came at once in response to her hesitant tap on his door. As soon as Chloe pushed it open a wall of noise hit her. Music was playing at full volume. Oliver was slouching in an armchair with a young, very thin girl leaning across him. Her hair was caught up at one side of her head in a sprouting blonde tuft. Oliver’s expression of moody boredom lightened a little when he saw Chloe.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’ve been meaning to come and see you, but somehow life slips by so amusingly. Have a drink. There’s wine or …’

  ‘Oliver, can we talk?’

  ‘Sure. Sylvie, will you turn it down?’

  Sylvie flounced across the room, her tiny flared skirt lifting as she went. Relieved of her embrace Oliver got up and stared blankly down into Canterbury Quad.

  ‘Bloody Oxford.’ He gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘Not that I should worry. My tutor’s threatening to get me sent down. Something to do with essays. Really, does he imagine that anyone gives a fuck about essays? Schools in June, people keep saying. Like a stuck record. Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m off on Saturday. Going ski-ing with some people. Not that I care all that much for snow and schnapps, but nothing can be any worse than staying here.’ Chloe heard a new, metallic note in his voice. The lines between his eyes had deepened and there were new ones showing at the sides of his mouth. She was trying to say in private, can we talk in private, when the door slammed open again. There were two young men in grimy white shirts with hair slicked back from pale, unhealthy faces.

  ‘Are you coming, Oliver,’ one of them asked, ‘or not?’

  Chloe shrank back. There was something threatening about Oliver’s visitors. ‘Yeah. Coming now. Going to London for a party, or something,’ he explained. ‘Sorry to have to go right away.’ Recollecting something, he rubbed his fingers into his eyes and then pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Shit, you wanted to talk. Is it something quick?’

  She looked from face to face, vacant Sylvie and the impatient, faintly hostile faces of Oliver’s odd friends. Oliver himself was hovering near the door, clearly anxious to be off.

  ‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘It’s nothing quick, this time. But it doesn’t matter. Enjoy the party, Oliver.’

  He frowned after her. ‘Look, I’ll be back in … oh well, a couple of days. Come to dinner.’

  But Chloe was already out of earshot, counting the steps down as she went and then out into Canterbury Quad. She walked quickly, as if she was hurrying to keep an appointment, but on Folly Bridge she stopped short. The big square house was rosy-red in the sunshine, with the light reflecting off the windows into her eyes. The sight of it suddenly brought back her early days in Oxford. Supposedly here to study in the warm glow from her desk lamp, meeting new challenges, making changes in herself.

  Liar.

  Nothing had changed. Chloe’s moment of self-appraisal was savage. You ran straight from Leo to another man, and you even had to choose one better at self-delusion than yourself. Everything else has just been a smokescreen for a man-hunt. And now look at yourself. Pregnant by a drunken boy you barely know and care less for. And still alone.

  Fool.

  A sudden wave of determination washed over Chloe. She squared her shoulders and ran down the steps to the island.

  When she found Pansy, Helen was with her. Evidently they had been talking about her. Helen was visibly unhappy, but Pansy looked businesslike.

  ‘Well,’ Chloe said flatly. ‘So much for that. What’s the telephone number, then?’

  A tiny silence enveloped the three women. Then Helen and Pansy were at her side. Chloe stiffened, then realised how grateful she felt for their arms around her.

  ‘What did he say?’ Pansy asked.

  ‘Nothing. He couldn’t have, because I didn’t tell him.’ Chloe made her voice artificially light, and Helen and Pansy exchanged a glance. ‘When I got there, it seemed a little inappropriate. I don’t even know what I was expecting. Hardly a wave of paternal delight and the family ring.’

  Pansy hugged her fiercely. ‘Oliver can’t even cope with himself. He’s not the person to turn to if you need support, or even a clear insight into anything.’

  ‘No. But he has done something for me. He’s made me want to face up to this, and to do it alone. So I’ll have your doctor’s telephone number, Pansy, please.’

  Pansy wrote the number down for her on a scrap of paper and Chloe crumpled it into her fist without looking at it.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Helen spoke for the first time, and her voice was hesitant.

  ‘Would you like one of us to come with you?’

  Chloe was certain. ‘No. I’ll go on my own.’ But suddenly their support seemed vitally important, and she added, ‘You do understand that I’ve got to do this? That there isn’t any other way?’

  Helen’s face flooded with sympathy. ‘Chloe, only you can know what to do. But if it was me, I’d do the same.’

  She said nothing of her anxiety for Oliver, or her growing fear that he was creating an impenetrable mess around himself. But she felt it, as keenly as she felt for Chloe.

  Pansy’s mouth was hard for a moment. ‘Yes. It’s not … very easy, afterwards. Helen and I will stick around here to look after you.’

  Chloe looked from one to the other, and they smiled at her.

  The address which the neutral-voiced receptionist had given her was off Harley Street. Chloe sat in the waiting room and looked around her. It might have been a room-set for a smart design magazine with its black Venetian blinds half closed against the London drizzle, glass and steel tables and black Italian leather sofa. There was not a hint of a white coat or a drawer-file, and the air was heavy with the scent of freesias. Chloe felt sick and cold, and forever afterwards associated the smell with the same sensations. The wait was mercifully short.

  Pansy’s doctor was middle-aged, prosperous and weary-looking. He never once looked into Chloe’s eyes.

  The examination was very brief and his matter-of-fact questions took scarcely any longer.

  ‘And you want a termination?’

  He was rotating a glass paperweight in his fingers and staring out at the curtain of rain.

  Termination. Termination. The word dinned in Chloe’s head, ugly and cumbersome and final.

  ‘Yes.’

  The doctor glanced down at a leather-bound diary, the only item on the desk apart from the paperweight.

  ‘I can offer you a twenty-four-hour bed at my London clinic on Thursday. My receptionist will give you the necessary details.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Chloe stood up, numb. The doctor opened a drawer and slid a discreet little card towards her.

  ‘You will want a private room? This is our … ah … scale of charges.’

  ‘I don’t care about that. I just want it to be quick.’

  The doctor glanced at her, not unkindly. ‘Yes. There we do have the advantage over the … ah … less expensive channels. Good morning, Miss … ah … Campbell.’ On her way out, Chloe consulted the receptionist. She learned that the clinic itself was close at hand, and that the hefty bill was to be settled in advance.

  Wanting nothing more than to be alone, Chloe stayed in London and waited for Thursday. At last the morning came and she checked in at the discreet double-fronted town house
in a quiet square. There were no white coats here either, just muffling carpets, bowls of waxy flowers and two or three white-faced girls who couldn’t look at one another.

  For Chloe, the worst of it was the very smoothness of the system as it processed her. She was stiflingly aware of being a number, sliding along an elegant conveyor belt towards the disposal of an unwanted burden.

  At the last moment as she lay waiting to be wheeled away for surgery, panic gripped her. She struggled to scream No. Wait. I want to … But the anaesthetic had already gagged her. Her eyes went blank and then fell shut, and she slid into blackness.

  On Friday morning, when she came out into daylight, the square looked exactly the same. There were even the same pigeons strutting on the grass. Twenty-four hours, she thought. Is that really all? She folded her hands across her stomach and then lifted them again, clenched. She felt empty, and as thin and dry as paper.

  When she hailed it, the taxi drew up with exactly the same rumble as the one that had deposited her on the same spot yesterday. Paddington Station was as grimy and cavernous as it had been days before. But Chloe was afraid that nothing would ever look the same again as she hunched over the black space inside her.

  At Follies, Pansy and Helen were waiting for her. Pansy took one look at her face and folded her cold hand in both her own.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘You won’t believe me now, but it goes away.’

  For the first time, tears stabbed behind Chloe’s eyes and she made no effort to dam them up.

  ‘That’s good,’ Pansy said. ‘It helps to cry.’

  ‘It doesn’t help the baby.’ Chloe wept as though she could never stop.

  They were black days for Chloe. She was oppressed by a sense of the selfishness of the years behind her, and the pointlessness of the years ahead. The time passed painfully slowly.

  Helen and Pansy stayed with her, trying by a mixture of sympathy and determined cheerfulness to bring her back to herself. Chloe was dimly aware that Pansy could have very little time to spare for Stephen.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked once, and smiled bleakly at Pansy’s anxious start. ‘Oh, don’t worry. It all seems a very long way off, now.’