“I know.” Steph sighed. “I’m just — disappointed, I suppose.”
“What, disappointed in me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, come on, Steph! You know me. You should have got over being disappointed in me years ago.”
“But this was different.”
“I know. But can we please put it behind us? I’ve paid a bigger price than you’ll ever know for what I did, believe me. I’ve been to hell and back recently. I never thought I had a breakable heart, but I have. And it’s unbearably painful. I need you, Steph. I really need you. Not to forgive me or condone what I’ve done. Just to be — well, my sister, I suppose. To be there.’ She paused. “I think you need me, too.”
“Well, you have been very supportive,” Steph admitted. “I don’t know how I’d have managed without you.”
“Well, then?”
“But there’s Clive.”
“Ah. Clive.”
Clive had been another bone of contention, for while Gabs continued to disapprove of him, he and Steph seemed to be getting on rather well, and while they certainly weren’t sleeping together (perish the thought), they appeared to be, if not an item, then something very like it.
“Okay. How about this? You try to forgive me for Father Augustine, and I’ll do my best to like Clive. How would that be?”
“It would be a start.”
After that, things began to improve. Gabs made a real effort with Clive (although for the life of her, she couldn’t see what Steph saw in him), and the subject of Father Augustine was finally dropped.
But Gabs continued to think about him, to dream about him, to long for him. Oddly, her longing was no longer physical; it was more a craving to be part of his life, to meet him, speak to him, even just look at him. Gabs’ view of men was on the whole a jaundiced one, for she often saw them at their most depraved. The men she met in the course of her work could be self-serving, disloyal, and greedy. Some were merely pathetic, but they rarely aroused her sympathy. But in Father Augustine she had seen, perhaps for the first time in her life, real integrity, and it had had an enormous effect on her. Here was a man who seemed able to put his own needs entirely to one side; to sacrifice what might have been for what he felt called to do, with no guarantees or even necessarily any expectation of happiness. His was a life of service and dedication, and this was something Gabs had never come across before.
Then there was the shame. Hitherto, Gabs had been quite comfortable in her own skin. She knew she had her failings — didn’t everyone? — but she also knew that she was intelligent and caring. She never deliberately harmed anyone, and she was a good and loyal friend. She even managed to justify her activities with her clients by reasoning that if it wasn’t her, it would be someone else, and she was providing a useful service. She knew for a fact that what she did helped to keep some marriages going, for if it were not for her, many of her clients would almost certainly have left their wives. She injected into their lives the spice their marriages lacked, leaving the wives (poor innocent cows) to have the babies, wash the socks, and put the meals on the table.
But her encounter with Father Augustine had changed the way she saw herself. What she had done had been little short of wicked, and his integrity had only served to show up her lack of it. For the first time in her life, Gabs didn’t like herself. Where before she had seen resourcefulness, now she saw only opportunism; what she had liked to think of as a spirit of adventure she now realised was selfish risk-taking. As for her entrepreneurial skills, they were no more than greed. Skill didn’t come into it.
But if Gabs was beginning to see herself in a different light, she wasn’t going to change overnight. This was partly due to apathy — she was just too miserable to care — and partly because it was hard to know where to start. When she confided this to her sister, Steph was surprisingly helpful.
“Why not start with little things?” she suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how about that difficult old woman you go on about? You could start by making an effort with her.”
“I do make an effort!”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, make a bigger effort.”
So the next time Gabs visited Miss Kershaw, she agreed to cut her toenails. This may not sound like a major breakthrough, but for Gabs it was, partly because she had a thing about feet and partly because she had an even greater thing about Miss Kershaw.
“Careful! Careful!” screeched her patient as Gabs hacked away at the horny misshapen extremities, which, she thought, would have been better served by a farrier.
“These — are — tough,” said Gabs between gritted teeth.
“That’s because they’ve been left too long,” said Miss Kershaw.
“And whose fault is that?”
“Not mine. I can’t be expected to reach all the way down there.”
“Well, it’s not mine either,” said Gabs, coming up for air.
“Yes, it is. I asked you last time.”
“What about the chiropodist?”
Miss Kershaw sniffed. “I don’t get on with her.”
“Is there anyone you do get on with?”
“What?” Fortunately Miss Kershaw was rather deaf.
“Nothing,” muttered Gabs, returning to her task. “There. All done.” She put down her scissors and got up from the floor.
“You’ve missed a bit.”
“No, I have not.”
“Yes, you have.”
“How about — how about I paint them for you?” Gabs asked. “I’ve got some nice polish in my bag.”
“But it’s November!”
“So?”
“So who’s going to see them?”
“You are,” said Gabs. “And I am. And anyone else who comes to see to you.”
Hearing no further objections from her client, Gabs set to and did a really nice job, transforming the unpleasant yellow talons that were Miss Kershaw’s toenails with a nice shade of cherry red.
“Isn’t that better?” she said when she had finished.
“Hmm.” Miss Kershaw removed her reading glasses and scrutinised her new red toes.
“Don’t like it,” she said. “Horrible colour. Makes me look like a tart.”
Gabs grinned. “Miss Kershaw, take it from me: you will never, ever look like a tart.”
“I still don’t like them. Clean it off again.”
“No time, I’m afraid,” Gabs said, biting her tongue. “You’ll just have to live with them.”
“Well! How dare you speak —”
But Gabs was already out of the door.
So much for good deeds, she thought sourly as she got into her car and started the engine. Perhaps she wasn’t quite ready for that new start after all. The little acts of kindness as recommended by Steph were of little value if they benefited neither the recipient nor herself.
Later that afternoon, she had an appointment with Gerald, and she had finally decided to tell him she was calling it a day. Since his unsuccessful proposal, Gerald had been difficult and demanding, as though determined to ensure that Gabs paid for her folly in refusing him, and Gabs had had enough.
“I don’t understand why you won’t marry me,” he kept saying. “I’m rich, we get on — what’s the problem?”
And try as she might, Gabs couldn’t convince him that she was never going to change her mind.
“I don’t want to get married,” she told him. “Not to you; not to anyone.”
“All girls want to get married,” Gerald told her.
“Not this one. Besides, there’s — there’s someone else.”
“You never told me that!”
“Well, it was none of your business, was it?”
“Are you going to marry him?” Gerald demanded.
“I’ve told you. I’m not going to marry anyone.”
“So, you’re still free!”
“Gerald, I am not free, as you put it,
and I don’t want to marry you. For the last time, I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
So Gerald had taken to a new and rather alarming police dog act, in which he chased Gabs round the room and tried to bite her ankles. It was amazing how quickly this rather plump little man could scurry along on his hands and knees, and he had surprisingly sharp-looking teeth.
“Police dogs don’t actually bite,” Gabs had objected last week, when he had very nearly caught her. “They just hang on to people’s clothing.”
So Gerald had torn her skirt, and Gabs had been very angry. This week, she was going to tell him that enough was enough. He would either have to hang up his collar and lead, or find someone else to play his silly games.
When she told him, to her distress, Gerald actually wept.
“What shall I do without you?” he said. “Our meetings are the high point of my week.”
“Ditch the dog thing, and I’ll keep on coming,” Gabs said. “I don’t mind the firing squad or the traffic warden, but the dog thing has to go.”
“But that’s my favourite,” Gerald said. “That’s why I need you. You do it so well.”
Gabs wrote a name and telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Try this girl,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll do it for you.”
“Is she — is she as pretty as you?” Gerald asked.
“Much prettier,” Gabs said. “And she loves dogs.”
“May I have a goodbye kiss? Just one?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“You’re a hard woman,” grumbled Gerald, putting on his Y-fronts.
“Good job you’re shot of me, then, isn’t it?”
Getting rid of Gerald was a weight off her mind. She would miss the money, and the lobsters and champagne, but otherwise she was very glad to see the back of him, dangling balls and all. Now she decided she would ditch the cabinet minister, who was about to write his memoirs (notwithstanding promises of anonymity, Gabs was wary of memoirs), and she would have reduced her client list and hence a little of the culpability attached to her occupation. Steph was desperate for her to give it up altogether, but Gabs reminded her that it was she herself who had suggested she improve her life in small stages.
“Besides,” she explained that evening over supper, “I need the money.”
“You don’t,” Steph said. “You’ve got all that money in the bank, and you’ve said yourself that you earn enough from the agency.”
Gabs told her about Mrs. Grant’s Australian niece, who had now arrived in England complete with work permit and was standing in the wings just waiting to step into Gabs’ shoes.
“If Miss Kershaw complains about her toenails, I’ve had it,” she said.
“What?”
“Oh, never mind.”
Fortunately Steph didn’t press the point, as she had preoccupations of her own. Over the past months, she had become transformed from horror-stricken hard-done-by virgin to obsessive mother-to-be. Some people are said to be all heart; at the moment, Steph was all womb, and her world currently centred round that wonderful organ and its (apparently) miraculous occupant. She had long since given up alcohol (she had never drunk much anyway), she would only eat organic food, and if anything came out of a tin or a packet, she would discard it at the whiff of an E-number. She and Clive went to antenatal classes, where she apparently learnt to breathe and Clive learnt to rub her back (Gabs thought the classes were a rip-off, and told her so), and the flat was filling up with baby magazines, baby clothes, and baby furniture.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Gabs said one evening when she came home to find the tiny hallway blocked by a large cot and a baby car seat. “Where are you going to put all this stuff?”
“I’ll put it all away,” Steph said, “when I’ve made space for it.”
“And doesn’t a car seat need a car?” Steph was neither a driver nor a car owner.
“Well, I thought…”
“No. Oh no. Not in my car. No baby seat in my car, Steph.”
“Why? Why not?”
“Bad for business.”
“You can always take it out.”
“So this is for occasional use only?”
“Of course. And look.” Steph produced a neat little set of wheels. “It converts into a pushchair. Isn’t that great?”
“Great.”
“And there’s this little cover you put over it when it rains. And you can also —”
“Steph, you’re becoming awfully boring. Can’t we talk about something else?”
“Well, you did ask.”
“So I did. What’s for supper?” (Having cut down her hours, Steph was now in charge of the housekeeping.)
“Actually, Clive’s here. He’s brought steaks.”
“Good for Clive!” The presence of Clive might just be outweighed by the prospect of steak.
“He only brought two,” said Steph, and blushed. “He wasn’t thinking,” she added.
“Now there’s a surprise,” said Gabs, who was tired and hungry.
“But he’s painting the box room,” Steph said.
“Well, fancy that.”
The box room was another cause of ill-feeling. Since the flat belonged equally to Gabs and Steph, having been bought with money left to them by their mother, the box room too belonged to them both. Given time, Gabs would probably have offered it to Steph as a bedroom for the baby without being asked, but Steph had, as it were, helped herself without consulting her sister, and was doing it up accordingly. It was already full of baby impedimenta, for Steph’s route to work led her past a new baby shop — a softly lit pastel cave, full of all the things a canny retailer knows a baby can’t possibly need but its mother will find irresistible. This week alone, Steph had bought a doll-size pair of soft leather booties, a tinkly mobile, and a handmade wooden rattle — all, as Gabs pointed out, priced in inverse relation to their usefulness.
“And what colour is he painting our box room?” Gabs enquired. “Let me guess. Yellow?”
“Well, yes. It’s a nice pale shade of lemon. You’ll like it, Gabs.”
“Does it matter what I like?”
“Of course it does.”
“Anyway, why the obsession with yellow? Wouldn’t it help if you found out the gender of this baby?” Gabs could imagine few things more infuriating than the hospital staff knowing something about her own unborn child that she did not. “Then at least you could colour code it accordingly. Actually, I can’t see the point of the whole pink and blue thing; after all, you wear blue, and Clive has at least one pink shirt. It isn’t as though people need to be reminded whether their baby’s a boy or a girl.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Well, what is the point?”
“You just can’t dress a baby boy in pink. It would look ridiculous. And as for its sex, we don’t want to know yet. That’s all. We want it to be a surprise.”
“How can it be a surprise? It will be either a boy or a girl. That’s hardly a surprise. Now, if you were to give birth to a badger cub, say, or a vampire, that would certainly be a surprise. But —”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Gabs! Will you just leave it? Clive and I want to find out when it’s born, and not before.” Steph hesitated. “You can have my steak if you like. I’ll have an omelette.”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Gabs. “You two just stay here and enjoy your steaks and do yellow things in the box room. I’m going to get a takeaway.”
She put her coat back on and slammed out of the flat. She had had enough of Steph, of babies, of miserable old people and difficult clients. For two pins, she would dig out her passport (presuming she could find it) and just take off. But of course, she couldn’t do that, because like everyone else, she had responsibilities.
Parked outside the Indian takeaway, she decided she wasn’t hungry after all, so she started up the engine again and drove off. She had no idea where she was going, but she needed to be on her own, and the car was the be
st (and safest) place. No one bothered her in the car, and since she had left her mobile at home, no one could reach her, either. This, she thought, as she narrowly avoided a motorbike, is rock bottom. She had felt low before, had even once or twice been depressed, and following the death of her mother, she had experienced real grief. But she was of a naturally happy disposition, and as a rule, things rarely got her down for long.
But since Father Augustine, everything had changed. Quite apart from her misery, she had started assessing her life, and had found it wanting in almost all departments. What had she achieved? Where was she going? Where would she be in, say, ten years’ time? She had no idea. She had money saved, but for what? She had never had ambitions or made plans; her relationships had been brief and unsatisfactory; she had no proper career and no prospects. She didn’t want to be like Steph — the two of them were far too different — but at least her sister had a career and now a baby to plan for. She had a future. Gabs couldn’t see that she had any future at all.
Outside it was bitterly cold — one of those dank, foggy, November nights that presage the miseries of the winter to come. Gabs pulled into a lay-by, leaving the engine running so that she could turn up the heating. She fumbled in the glove compartment for a cigarette, then switched on the radio. Someone was playing a sentimental song about love and loss, which, Gabs thought, just about summed up her own life at the moment. Whoever it was that said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all was talking bollocks. The pain simply wasn’t worth it.
After a while, she stubbed out her cigarette, wrapped her coat tightly around her, huddled down in her seat, and closed her eyes. Sleep. That was what she needed. Sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come, and besides, the car needed a new battery, and it was more than likely that the heating would go off. What would become of her then? If she were asleep, she would probably die of hypothermia. Gabs was certainly miserable, but she didn’t want to die. Not yet, anyway.
And if she did, would anybody care? Steph would, of course. Her sister might be angry with her, but she also needed her. Her friends might miss her. As for her father, he would certainly be surprised, but would he actually mind? Probably not. Come to think of it, since Gabs hadn’t made a will, he would most likely inherit her substantial savings. This would no doubt please him enormously (he was a feckless alcoholic), so this seemed a fairly good reason for not dying.
Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Page 28