A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy

by Charlotte Greig

  She was right, I knew. It would all be a terrible mess. But it might be one that I had to make.

  “The thing is, Fiona,” I said, after a long silence. “This has happened now.” I touched my belly through my layers of clothing. “I think I'm going to have to go through with it.”

  “But that's the whole point,” Fiona said, turning back to me in exasperation. “You don't have to go through with it. Don't be so bloody passive. For the first time in history, women are in control of their fertility. We've got the pill, and legalized abortion now, everything we've fought for. We're the first generation of women who can take advantage of that. Our mothers, and our grandmothers, didn't have that choice. They didn't have careers, they were tied to domestic drudgery, dependent on men, all their lives. They never got a chance to find out who they were, what they could do in the world, and look how frustrated and miserable they all are. We don't have to be like that. We're not determined by our biology any more. We can choose to have children when we want to, or not to have children at all. We can do anything we want to. We're free. Don't you see?”

  Fiona had given me this lecture many times before, but I'd never listened up till now.

  “Yes, of course I do,” I said. “But I don't think it's as simple as that. We can't just shrug off our femininity, our bodies, in that way. Germaine Greer's got it wrong.”

  I pictured the cover of The Female Eunuch. It was a woman's body shaped like a swimming costume, with handles on the hips, hanging up on a line. The image had impressed me more than the book, which seemed more like tabloid journalism than serious writing to me. She'd announced at one point that if you hadn't tasted your menstrual blood you weren't a proper woman, so I'd tried it, just to show willing. I'd somehow expected it to be a significant experience, but it wasn't; the blood had tasted a bit metallic, like blood from a cut on your finger or anywhere else on your body. The whole book seemed to be like that: designed to shock but a bit of a letdown in the end.

  “The thing is,” I said, “we can take the pill and have abortions as much as we like. But we're still women. We're still going to want to have babies.”

  “Yes, but we're no longer just baby-making machines. That's the difference. That's what Greer is saying.”

  The rain was beginning to pelt down now, and the wind was blowing it off the sea into the shelter. I started to shiver, but I still didn't move.

  “And the other thing is,” I said, raising my voice to make myself heard above the wind, “I think you're wrong about this abortion. It's not just like having a tooth out. It's not just a bunch of cells. It's a potential human being.”

  “Yes, but it's still very undeveloped,” Fiona shouted back.

  “Maybe. But it's a living being. I don't know if I can kill it.”

  The wind started howling round the shelter. We were yelling at each other now.

  “You can. You must.”

  “Why must I?”

  “Because you're not in a position to look after it properly, Susannah. You know that.”

  She had a point.

  “It's not fair to bring a child into the world under these circumstances.”

  Now I wasn't so sure. She'd said that before, when I'd first told her I was pregnant, and it didn't ring true, then or now. I couldn't say why, but it sounded wrong. I needed to get home, on my own, and read Kierkegaard, and think about it.

  The wind got so loud we couldn't hear ourselves, so we got up and walked back down the pier in the pouring rain, heads down into the wind, holding onto each other to stop ourselves being blown away. When we got to the end, we were soaking wet. We took a bus up to the station, the windows so fogged with steam that you couldn't see out. Then we waited for Fiona's train on the London platform. She didn't mention the abortion again, and neither did I.

  “Thanks,” I said, when the train came in. “It was nice.”

  She smiled. Her dark hair was all wet and her face was flushed. She looked pretty.

  “Yes, it was,” she said. “I'm glad I came down.”

  “Lovely fresh air,” I said.

  She laughed.

  “I'll phone you,” I said.

  “OK,” she said. “Make sure you do.”

  “Bye, then.”

  “Bye. And good luck.”

  She turned and got onto the train. I didn't wait for it to pull out of the station. I had a train to catch too, on a different platform.

  When I got back to the hall of residence, I found someone waiting outside the door of my room. I saw him from the end of the corridor. He was wearing a black fedora and a long black coat. It was Bear. It couldn't have been anyone else.

  My heart started beating fast and for a moment I felt like turning round and running away. But I made myself walk up to him.

  “Bloody hell,” I said when I got there. “What are you doing here?”

  I hadn't meant to sound rude, but it came out a bit blunt.

  Bear laughed. “Hello, old girl,” he said, pecking me on the cheek. “How's it going?”

  I fumbled for my key and opened the door of the room. “Fine,” I said. My voice sounded nervous.

  “Gosh,” he said when we got into the room. “You've been busy.”

  There were piles of books all over the floor with little bits of squared paper sticking out of them, that I'd used as markers, and the desk was covered with neatly handwritten sheets of lined paper.

  I moved some of the books and cleared some of the papers away so that he could sit down. I offered him the only chair in the room, at the desk, and sat down on the bed myself.

  Bear took off his hat and coat, hung them carefully on the back of the door, and went over to the desk to sit down. Under the coat, he was wearing a sort of brocade jacket with wide shoulders and lapels, and underneath that a black shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and baggy, high-waisted 1940s-style black trousers. He looked so completely out of place sitting at my desk in my student room that I almost burst out laughing.

  “Susannah, you're soaking,” he said. “What on earth have you been up to?”

  “Oh, just getting some fresh air on Brighton pier,” I said.

  “Hadn't you better get out of those wet clothes?” he said.

  “Yes, I suppose so. Are you planning to stay long?”

  Bear laughed again. “No, not really, but listen, why don't I go and make us some tea or something while you change?”

  “OK.” In the past, I'd have worried about what he might think of the kitchen, or what the other students might think of him, but right now, I couldn't care less. I wanted some tea, and I wanted to get warm and dry. “It's just down the corridor. My cupboard's the one on the left by the sink. You'll find everything you need in there.”

  “Right oh. I'll be back in a jiffy.”

  While he was out, I peeled off my wet boots and socks, changed into my other pair of jeans, and put on a clean T-shirt. The only warm sweater I could find was one that Auntie Luned had knitted me for Christmas, in a pretty but old-fashioned shade of china blue. I didn't have time to look for anything else, so I put it on. I toweled my hair dry quickly and then combed it out in front of the mirror.

  Not long after, there was a knock on the door and Bear came back in with the tea. He handed me one of the mugs. He'd remembered how I liked it, white with two and a half sugars.

  He sat down at the desk, blowing on his tea, and I sat on the bed, blowing on mine.

  “Nice sweater, Susannah,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Auntie's Christmas present.”

  “Well, it suits you. English rose, I mean, Welsh rose, and all that.”

  “Thanks. You're looking pretty cool yourself. Kind of man about town.”

  “Oh yeah, that's me, all right.”

  We both laughed.

  “So how have you been?” I asked. “How's … things?”

  “Well, not great. But not terrible. What about you?”

  I thought about it. “Everything's still a bit up in the air,” I said
eventually.

  “Are you still …?” Bear's voice trailed off.

  “Yes, I am. But I'm booked in for … I'm going to have an …”

  I couldn't say it.

  Bear tried to help me along. “Oh, so you're going to have an … you've decided not to have the baby.”

  “Well, I'm booked in for the … But I'm not sure. I haven't canceled it.”

  “Right.” Bear looked confused.

  “To be honest, I still haven't made up my mind. And it's the day after tomorrow.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence while Bear tried to think of something to say.

  Then I broke the silence. “Why are you here, Bear?”

  Bear took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out. “Well, under the circumstances … I don't know, Susannah, I don't want to put my foot in it …”

  “Oh, go on,” I said. “Put your foot in it. You can't make things any worse than they are.”

  Bear grinned wryly. “OK,” he said. “I will.”

  He reached into the pocket of the brocade jacket and brought out a small black bag.

  “Here we are,” he said, loosening the strings at the top and pulling out a small ebony box with some white stones set into the top of it.

  I recognized it immediately. It was the milk-teeth box.

  He held it out in the palm of his hand and I saw the curly writing on the lid: dents de lait.

  “This is for you,” he said, passing it over to me. “For the … the baby. If you have it.”

  I took it and looked at it.

  “Oh fucking hell, Bear,” I said, and began to cry.

  Bear came over and sat by me on the bed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to … I told you …”

  He put his arm round me.

  I sniveled into his brocade jacket for a bit and then pulled myself together.

  “I don't want it,” I said, wiping my eyes. “You can tell Jason I'm not interested.”

  Bear went over to the sink and found a towel. He handed it over to me and sat down at the desk again.

  “This is nothing to do with Jason,” he said. “It's a present from me.”

  “But I thought it was Jason's,” I said, wiping my face with the towel. I blew my nose on it too, which I normally wouldn't have done, but I couldn't be bothered to find a tissue. “I thought …”

  “Jason virtually nicked it from my parents,” Bear said. “He thought it was worth a fortune and he paid them a pittance for it. I was livid when I found out, so I took it back from him. I returned it to my mother and she said I could have it if I liked it. For my children.” He paused. “And as I'm not likely to have any, I'm giving it to you.”

  “But does Jason know?”

  “No. And I'm not going to tell him. It's mine to do what I like with. It's nothing to do with him.”

  “But it's worth a lot of money, isn't it?”

  “Well, not really, as it turns out. Theoretically, it should be, but Jason's dealer, Dalton, wasn't prepared to buy it in the end. He said he couldn't be sure if it was given to Princess Charlotte Augusta by King George or the Prince Regent, and that if it wasn't the Prince Regent he didn't want to know. Jason kept trying to find a specialist who would persuade Dalton that it was a Regency piece, but he couldn't, and in the end Dalton decided not to take the risk. Without a buyer, it's worth about five hundred quid at the most.”

  “Well, you should keep it then, shouldn't you?”

  “No, I want you to have it. I feel pretty bad about the way Jason treated you, slinging you out of the house like that. When you were … are … you know. This is the least I can do to make up for it.”

  “Thanks, Bear,” I said. “But I still can't take it. I might not have the baby. As I told you, I might be having an … abortion.”

  I'd said it.

  Bear wasn't fazed. “Makes no difference. If you need the cash, you'll always have it to sell. Or if you want, you can keep it for the next one.”

  “What do you mean, the next one?”

  “Well, you're bound to have a baby at some time in the future, aren't you? Most women do.”

  The thought had never occurred to me. But now that he pointed it out, I realized that this wasn't the only baby I'd ever be able to have. This wasn't my last chance. At a better time, in a better place, I could do this again. Properly.

  There was a pause, and then I said, “So you really want me to have this? No strings attached?”

  “Absolutely none. Though if you do ever have children, you'll have to make me a godfather.”

  I laughed. “OK then. Thanks. You've got the outfit for it, anyway.”

  “I'm making you an offer you can't refuse,” Bear said, muttering through his teeth like Marlon Brando, and we both laughed.

  Then I changed the subject.

  “Are you and Jason still … friends?” I said.

  “Yes,” Bear hesitated.

  “Are you …?”

  “Well, yes. Yes, we are. We always have been. But he won't admit it.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Well, you know what he's like. He doesn't want to admit he's gay.”

  I'd heard the term “gay” before. It was the new word for homosexual. Bear said it lightly, and I resolved to do the same in the future. Gay. Not poof. Or queer.

  “He doesn't see our relationship as the real thing,” Bear went on. “To him, it's just a hangover from adolescence, from boarding school, when there were no women around. He keeps thinking he'll grow out of it. But I know he won't.”

  I thought back over my time with Jason. So that was what it had all been about. No wonder I hadn't been able to get close to him. All that time, he'd been sleeping with Bear as well as me. I suppose he'd been trying to find a way to escape from what he was, and I'd been looking for someone to take control of my life. No wonder it hadn't worked in the end.

  “So what are you going to do, then?” I said.

  “Stick it out, I suppose,” Bear replied. “I love him, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said.

  We looked at each other, and I remembered the way we'd sat in the Madagascar that evening just a couple of months ago, watching Jason and his sister holding court. We'd both been in love with him then, I realized. That had been the unspoken bond between us. Everything was so different now, for me, anyway. Jason hadn't crossed my mind for weeks. Now I came to think of it, the way he'd chucked me out had actually been a liberation for me. He'd done me a favor. I was free of him at last. Then I remembered I might be carrying his child, and I realized I wasn't, and possibly never would be.

  “Well, I'd better get going,” Bear said, finishing his tea and getting up.

  He went over to get his coat.

  “Let me know what happens,” he said, putting it on. “I'm at Jason's now. You know the number.”

  “Oh, you're living down here now, are you?” I said.

  “For the moment,” he said.

  “OK,” I said. “I'll give you a ring.”

  Bear paused. “And Jason will want to know too if … well, he'll want to know, obviously.”

  “Don't worry,” I said. But the thought of what Jason would do if I had the baby and it was his did worry me. And I could see it worried Bear as well. “I'll be in touch.”

  “Good luck, old stick,” said Bear. He gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Whatever happens.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I'll need it.”

  He put on his fedora. I opened the door and stood there watching him as he walked off down the corridor, his black coat flying out behind him. Something about his demeanor seemed to have changed since I'd last seen him, I thought. He seemed older, more confident than I'd remembered him. Although we'd laughed about it, I realized he did look like a man about town now. From a distance, anyway.

  chapter 24

  He knows it is beautiful to be born as the particular with the universal as his home, his friendly abode, which receives him straight away with open arms when he w
ishes to stay there. But he also knows that higher up there winds a lonely path, narrow and steep; he knows it is terrible to be born in solitude outside the universal, to walk without meeting a single traveler.

  I was walking on the hills with Søren Kierkegaard. It was summer, and around us were rolling green hills. Far below us were meadows full of flowers and cows with clanking bells. As we walked, the mooing of the cows and the clanking of the bells grew more and more distant. Up ahead of us towered a snow-capped mountain. Our path was taking us towards it. I could just make out the shape of the path as it wound up the craggy sides of the mountain. It looked dizzying and dangerous. I hoped I wouldn't have to go up there, that I could turn back when we got to the bottom of the mountain; or that if I did have to press on, Søren would come with me.

  “So what do you think of Fiona's argument?” I asked him.

  Søren was a slight man, not much taller than me, with a peculiar limp that made him walk in a jerky way, but other than that he was quite attractive. He was dressed in a tight black suit, with a flowing white shirt underneath. He had a lot of wavy brown hair and a pale scholar's face with large, intelligent eyes. He looked a bit like Belham, though not as swarthy.

  “Have you read Hegel?” he said.

  “Sort of,” I said. I had, but most of it had gone above my head.

  “For Hegel, there is a hierarchy of thought, of spirit,” he said. “At the top is the universal: philosophy. Below that is religion. And below that is the ethical realm. That is what Fiona is talking about.”

  “So do you think her ethics add up?” I asked.

  “If you take the Hegelian view, that everything is subsumed under the universal, perhaps,” he said. “If you take my view, that beyond the universal is the particular, then no.”

  “Right,” I said. There was a silence as we both tramped on. The path was becoming steeper and we were both beginning to breathe harder.

  “I don't quite see what you mean, actually,” I added.

  “Well,” Søren continued, “for Hegel, everything in the world is beautifully ordered: the lowly individual—the particular—through the study of ethics and religion, can develop a higher and higher consciousness, traveling towards universal mind or spirit. In my world, that is not so. My world is one of conflict: in it, the individual travels through the universal, the social realm, where actions can be explained in terms of ethics, until he reaches the realm of the particular. At that point he must leave the social realm behind and travel on alone. At that point he becomes a knight of faith.”