‘Pearce,’ she answered, without thinking. ‘Vivien Pearce.’
‘And how far on was your baby, Mrs Pearce?’
But now she realised what she had done. She had said Vivien Pearce, when she should have said Margaret Harrison. She started looking about for Reggie again. The man touched her knee.
‘I’m sorry,’ he was saying. ‘It’s rotten luck. But for now, we must make you better. My friend Miss Carmichael and I are going to carry you downstairs.’
She was still looking for Reggie, and couldn’t concentrate on his words. She thought that when he said ‘Miss Carmichael’ he must mean the old lady. Then he and the boy said other things—spoke to each other, calling each other ‘Kay’ and ‘Mickey’—and she understood, with a rush of dismay, that they were not men at all, but simply short-haired women…All the confidence she’d had in them, the sense of care and safety, disappeared. She began to shake. They seemed to think that she was cold, and put a blanket around her. They had brought a folding canvas chair, into which they strapped her; and they began to manoeuvre her out of the bathroom and across the tiger-skin rug, through the sitting-room, past the bar and the pictures of Paris, and down the unlit stairs. She thought she would fall, at every turning. ‘I’m sorry,’ she kept saying weakly. ‘I’m sorry.’
They scolded her, in a playful way, for being worried.
‘If you could see some of the heavy great blokes we have to haul about!’ said the boyish one—Mickey—laughing. ‘We’re going into business, after this, as piano movers.’
The old lady went ahead of them, to tell them about awkward steps. She held the front door open for them, and then trotted down the path to do the same with the garden gate. The ambulance was parked just beyond it, the touches of white on its dull grey paintwork lit up by the moon and making it seem to float above the inky-black surface of the street. Kay and Mickey set Viv down, and opened up the doors.
‘We’re going to lay you flat,’ said Mickey. ‘We think that’ll help the bleeding. Here we go.’
They lifted her in, got her out of the chair and put her down on the bunk. She still shook as if cold, and the blood still seeped; now, too, she’d begun to labour after air, as if she’d run a race, something like that. She heard Kay speak, telling Mickey that Mickey could drive, while she stayed in the back; then the bunk tilted slightly as Kay climbed in. Viv looked up—looking for Reggie, wanting Kay to let him sit beside her and hold her hand. One of the ambulance doors was closed, and the old lady stood in the frame of the other: she was calling out, in her sloppy voice, that Viv wasn’t to be frightened now; that the doctors would have her right in no time…She stepped back. Mickey had hold of the open door and was closing it.
Viv struggled, and sat up. She said, ‘Wait. Where’s Reggie?’
‘Reggie?’ said Kay.
‘Her husband!’ said the old lady. ‘Lord, I clean forgot him. I saw him slip away and—’
‘Reggie!’ called Viv, growing frantic. There was a strap holding down her hips. She began to pluck at it. ‘Reggie!’
‘Is he there?’ asked Kay.
‘I don’t think so,’ answered Mickey. ‘Do you want me to go and have a look?’
Viv still struggled with the strap.
‘All right,’ said Kay. ‘But be quick!’
Mickey went off. When she came back, a minute or two later, she was panting. She put up the brim of her tin hat and leant into the van.
‘There’s no one there,’ she said. ‘I looked all over.’
Kay nodded. ‘Right, let’s go. He can find her at the hospital.’
‘But he was there,’ said Viv breathlessly. ‘You must have made a mistake—In the darkness—’
‘There’s no one,’ Mickey said again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Now, ain’t that a shame,’ said the old lady, with great feeling.
Viv fell back: weaker than ever, unable to protest. She was thinking of Reggie, on the edge of tears, saying, ‘A doctor will be able to tell, won’t he? A doctor will want our names, he’ll want to know everything about us.’ She was remembering him standing in the doorway to the bathroom, shaking his head, saying, ‘I’m sorry…’
She closed her eyes. The door was slammed and, after a moment, the ambulance started up and moved off. The engine was so loud, it felt as though she had her head against its engine. It was like being trapped in the hold of a ship. Kay’s voice came, close above her face. ‘All right, Mrs Pearce.’ She was doing something—filling in a label, fastening it to Viv’s collar. ‘Be brave, Mrs Pearce—’
Viv said, wretchedly, ‘Don’t call me Mrs. He’s not my husband, like the lady said. We had to make out, that’s all, for Mr Imrie—’
‘Never mind,’ said Kay.
‘We said Harrison, because that was Reggie’s mother’s name. You must say Harrison at the hospital. Will you? You must say I’m Mrs Harrison. Because even if they look, and can tell, it’s not so bad if a married lady does it, is it?’
‘Don’t worry.’ Kay was holding her wrist, feeling her pulse.
‘They don’t send for the police, do they, when it’s married ladies?’
‘You’re getting muddled. Send for the police? Why would they do that?’
‘It’s against the law, isn’t it?’ said Viv.
She saw Kay smile. ‘Being ill? Not yet.’
‘Getting rid of a baby, I mean.’
The van gave a series of bumps as it ran over the broken surface of the road. Kay said, ‘What?’
Viv wouldn’t answer. She could feel a little more blood being shaken out of her with every jolt. She closed her eyes again.
‘Vivien,’ said Kay. ‘What did you do?’
‘We went to a man,’ said Viv at last. She caught her breath. ‘A dentist.’
‘What did he do to you?’
‘He put me to sleep. It was all right, at first. But he put a dressing inside me, and the dressing came out, and that’s when it started bleeding. It was all right till then.’
Kay moved away and thumped on the wall of the cabin. ‘Mickey!’ The van slowed, then stopped; there was the ratcheting sound of the brake. Mickey’s face appeared at the sliding glass panel above Viv’s head.
‘Is she OK?’
‘It’s not,’ said Kay, ‘what we thought. She’s been to someone—a bloody dentist—he’s mucked about with the pregnancy.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mickey.
‘She’s bleeding, still. He might have—I don’t know. He might have punctured the wall of the womb.’
‘Right.’ Mickey turned. ‘I’ll go as quick as I can.’
‘Wait. Wait!’ Mickey turned back. ‘She’s afraid of the police.’
Viv was watching their faces. She’d raised herself up again. ‘There mustn’t be police!’ she said. ‘There mustn’t be police, or newspaper men. They can’t tell my father!’
‘Your father won’t mind,’ said Mickey, ‘when he knows how ill you are—’
‘She’s not married,’ said Kay.
Viv began to cry again. ‘Don’t tell,’ she said. ‘Oh, please don’t tell!’
She saw Mickey looking at Kay. ‘If there’s been a puncture, she might—Hell. There might be blood poisoning, mightn’t there?’
‘I don’t know. I think so.’
‘Please,’ said Viv. ‘Just tell them I’ve lost my baby.’
Mickey shook her head. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘Please. Don’t tell them anything. Say you found me in the street.’
‘They’ll know, anyway,’ said Mickey.
But Viv could see Kay thinking. ‘They might not.’
‘No,’ said Mickey. ‘We can’t chance it. For God’s sake, Kay! She might—’ She looked at Viv. ‘You might die,’ she said.
‘I don’t care!’
‘Kay,’ said Mickey; and when Kay didn’t answer, she turned away. The van jerked to life again and moved off, quicker than before.
Viv sank back. She couldn’t feel the jolts so muc
h, now. She felt suspended. She thought that, in losing so much blood, she must be beginning to float. She was vaguely aware of Kay adding something to the label fastened to her collar, then fumbling around with the pocket of her coat; then she felt her fingers held and squeezed. Kay had taken her hand. Her grip was sticky; Viv clutched harder, so as not to float away. She opened her eyes, and gazed into Kay’s face. She gazed into it as she had never gazed into any face before; as if gazing could keep her from floating away, too.
‘Just a little further, Vivien,’ Kay said, over and over, and, ‘Be very brave. That’s right. We’re almost there.’
And in another moment, the van made a turn and came to a stop. The doors were unfastened and thrown open. Mickey climbed in, and someone else appeared behind her: a nurse, with a white cap, bright and misshapen in the light of the moon.
‘You again, Langrish!’ said the nurse. ‘Well, and what have you brought us tonight?’
Kay looked at Mickey, but kept her fingers tight about Viv’s. And when Mickey opened her mouth to speak, she spoke instead.
‘Miscarriage,’ she said firmly. ‘Miscarriage, with complications. We think the lady, Mrs Harrison, has had a bad fall. She’s lost an awful lot of blood, and is pretty confused.’
The nurse gave a nod. ‘All right,’ she said. She moved away, and called to a porter. ‘You there! Yes, you! Fetch a trolley, and look smart about it!’
Mickey lowered her head and said nothing. She began, rather grimly, to unfasten the strap that held Viv to the bunk. ‘Come on, Vivien,’ Kay said, when she’d done it. ‘It’s all right.’
Viv still gripped her hand. ‘All right? Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ said Kay. ‘We have to move you, that’s all. But listen to me, just for a second.’ She was speaking, now, in a rushed sort of whisper. She glanced over her shoulder, then touched Viv’s face. ‘Are you listening? Look at me…Your card and your ration book, Vivien. I’ve made a tear in the lining of your coat. You can say you lost them when you fell. All right? Do you understand me, Vivien?’
Viv did understand; but her mind had drifted to something else that seemed more important. She’d felt her hand come unstuck from Kay’s, and her fingers had pins and needles in them. Their surface was sticky, but cold and bare—
‘The ring,’ she said. Now there seemed to be pins and needles in her lips. ‘I’ve lost the ring. I’ve lost—’ But she hadn’t lost it, she remembered now. She’d taken it off, to wash the blood from beneath it; and she’d left it in the fancy bathroom, on the basin, beside the tap.
She looked wildly at Kay. Kay said, ‘It doesn’t matter, Vivien. It’s not like the other things.’
‘Here’s the trolley coming,’ said Mickey sharply.
Viv tried to rise. ‘The ring,’ she said, growing breathless again. ‘Reggie got me a ring. We had it, so that Mr Imrie would think—’
‘Hush, Vivien!’ said Kay urgently. ‘Vivien, hush! The ring doesn’t matter.’
‘I’ve got to go back.’
‘You can’t,’ said Mickey. ‘Bloody hell, Kay!’
‘What’s the trouble?’ called the sister.
‘I’ve got to go back!’ said Viv, beginning to struggle. ‘Just let me go back and get my ring! It’s no good, without it—’
‘Here’s your ring!’ said Kay, suddenly. ‘Here’s your ring. Look.’
She had drawn away from Viv and put her own hands together; she worked them as if wringing them for a second, then produced a little circle of gold. She did it so swiftly and so subtly, it was like magic.
‘You had it, after all?’ asked Viv, in amazement and relief; and Kay nodded: ‘Yes.’ She lifted Viv’s hand, and slid the ring along her finger.
‘It feels different.’
‘That’s because you’re ill.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course. Now, don’t forget about the other things. Put your arm across my shoulders. Hold tight. Good girl.’
Viv felt herself being lifted. Soon she was moving through cold air…When Kay took her hand for the last time, she found that she could hardly return its pressure. She couldn’t speak, even to say thank you or goodbye. She closed her eyes. They were just taking her through into the hospital lobby when the Warning went.
Helen heard the sirens from Julia’s flat in Mecklenburgh Square. Almost at once there were crackles and thuds. She thought of Kay, and lifted her head.
‘Where’s that, do you think?’
Julia shrugged. She had got up to fetch a cigarette and was fishing about in a packet. She said, ‘Maybe Kilburn? It’s impossible to say. I heard a whopper come down last week and could have sworn it was the Euston Road. It turned out to be Kentish Town.’ She went to the window, drew back the curtain, and put her eye to one of the little chinks in the grey talc boards. ‘You should look at the moon,’ she said. ‘It’s extraordinary tonight.’
But Helen was still listening out for the bombs. ‘There’s another,’ she said, flinching. ‘Come away from the window, will you?’
‘There’s no glass in it.’
‘I know, but—’ She stretched out her arm. ‘Come back, anyway.’
Julia let the curtain fall. ‘Just a minute.’ She went to the fireplace, and held a spill of paper to the glowing coals in the grate, to light her cigarette. Then she straightened up, and drew in smoke—putting back her head, savouring the taste of the tobacco. She was quite naked, and stood with one hip raised: relaxed and unembarrassed in the firelight, as though at the edge of a pool of water in some lush Victorian painting of ancient Greece.
Helen lay still, to watch her. ‘You look like your name,’ she said softly.
‘My name?’
‘Julia, Standing. I always want to put a comma in it. Hasn’t anyone ever said it to you like that before? You look like your own portrait…Come back. You’ll get cold.’
The room was too well sealed to be really chill, however. Julia put her hand to her forehead to smooth away tangled hair, then came slowly to the couch and slid back beneath the blankets. She lay bare to the waist, with her hands behind her head, sharing the cigarette with Helen, letting Helen put it between her lips and take it away when she’d drawn on it. After it was smoked, she closed her eyes. Helen studied the rise and fall of her chest and stomach as she breathed; the flutter of a pulse at the base of her throat.
There was the hollow boom of another distant explosion, a burst of gunfire, possibly the noise of planes. In the flat above Julia’s the Polish man moved restlessly about: Helen could follow his passage across the floor, back and forth, by the creaks of its boards. In the room below, a wireless was playing; there was the echoey, rattling sound of somebody stirring up coke in a fireplace. The sounds were familiar to Helen now, just as the feel and sight of Julia’s blankets and pillows and mismatched furniture had grown familiar. She had lain here like this perhaps six or seven times in the past three weeks. And she said to herself, as she had before: Those people don’t know that Julia and I are together here, naked in one another’s arms…It seemed incredible. She herself felt exposed—deliciously exposed, as if the flesh above dormant nerves had been sloughed off, peeled back.
She would never again, she thought, cross a floor, never switch on a wireless, never put a poker to the fire—never do anything at all—without thinking of the lovers who might be embracing in rooms close by.
She moved her hand to Julia’s collarbone—not to the skin itself, but to a place in the air about an inch above it.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Julia, without opening her eyes.
‘I’m divining you,’ said Helen. ‘I can feel the heat of you, rising up. I can feel the life of you. I can tell where your skin is pale, and where it’s sallower. I can tell where it’s clear and where there are freckles.’
Julia caught hold of her fingers. ‘You’re unhinged,’ she said.
‘Unhinged,’ said Helen, ‘by love.’
‘That sounds like a book. One by Elinor Glyn or Ethel M. Dell.??
?
‘Don’t you feel a little crazy, Julia?’
Julia thought about it. ‘I feel shot at by an arrow,’ she said.
‘Only by an arrow? I feel harpooned. Or—no, a harpoon’s too brutal. I feel as if a small sort of hook had been plunged into my breast—’
‘A small sort of hook?’
‘A crochet hook, or something even finer.’
‘A button hook?’
‘A button hook, exactly.’ Helen laughed. For at Julia’s words a very clear image had sprung into her mind—something from her childhood, probably—a tarnished silver button hook with a slightly chipped mother-of-pearl handle. She put her hand across the place where she imagined her heart to sit. ‘I feel,’ she said, ‘exactly as though a button hook had been plunged into my breast, and my heart were being drawn from me, fibre by fibre.’
‘That sounds frightful,’ said Julia. ‘What a morbid girl you are.’ She took Helen’s fingers to her mouth and kissed them, then held them to examine their tips. ‘And what little nails you have,’ she said vaguely. ‘Little nails, and little teeth.’
Helen grew self-conscious, though the light was so dim. ‘Don’t look at me,’ she said, pulling her hand away.
‘Why not?’
‘I—I’m not worth it.’
Julia laughed. ‘You mutt,’ she said.
They closed their eyes, after that; and Helen, in time, must have fallen into a light sort of sleep. She was vaguely aware of Julia getting up again, putting on a dressing-gown and going down the hall to the lavatory; but she was in the midst of some absurd dream, and only came properly awake at the closing of the door, on Julia’s return.
‘What time is it?’ she asked. She picked up Julia’s alarm clock. ‘God, it’s quarter to one! I have to go.’ She rubbed her face, then lay back down.
‘Stay until one,’ said Julia.
‘Fifteen minutes. What’s the good of that?’
‘Let me come with you, then. I’ll walk you to the flat.’
Helen shook her head.
‘Let me,’ said Julia. ‘I’d rather walk than be left here, you know I would.’