‘You don’t live with me,’ said Viv. ‘I wish you did.’
Ann stood up. ‘Look, shall we –’
‘No,’ said Ollie. ‘Stay and watch the real fireworks.’
‘You’re drunk,’ said Viv.
He looked at the garden. ‘At least I can make a bonfire. Fireworks without a bonfire’s pathetic.’ He moved swiftly, and grabbed a cardboard file from the shelves.
‘Ollie!’ Viv climbered to her feet.
‘Marx and Personal Responsibility,’ he read. ‘What a little wimp I was.’ He pulled the papers out, screwed them up and flung them into the fireplace. They flared.
‘That’s your thesis!’ Viv said.
He grabbed some more appers.
‘It’s your essays!’ she cried.
‘Remember us? Campus lovebirds? Arm in arm through the concrete wonderland of Keele University.’
He stopped suddenly. His arms hung foolishly at his sides. They were all staring at him. In the street there was a battery of bangs, like gunfire.
It was Irene who spoke. ‘Daft buggers, the lot of you.’ She pointed to Viv. ‘Starting another life, and hark at the mess you’re making of your own. All this hoo-ha because of a bit of sex.’ The fire spat an ember on to the hearthrug. She ground it out with her pointed black boot. ‘I should know. Look what a mess I got into with you.’ She turned to Ann. ‘Couldn’t trace Archie, could you?’
‘No,’ said Ann.
‘It’s all past, all gone. Nothing to make a song and dance about. Look at me and Frank, happy as sandboys and know why? Because we’re friends, that’s why. All this equal stuff you go on about, it’s all twaddle. Comes the crunch and you’re back in the Dark Ages.’ Frank raised his eyebrows admiringly and lit a panatella. Ken cleared his throat. Ollie, standing at the bookshelves, laid his head against his Penguin Modern Classics. ‘I hardly dare come here any more, and God knows what it’s doing to the kids. And them having to keep it a secret.’
‘Actually, they’re enjoying that,’ said Viv.
‘All potty, the whole idea,’ went on Irene. She turned to Viv. ‘Told you, didn’t I? And there’s worse to come.’ She paused. In the distance the dog was still barking. She looked at Viv. ‘The minute you see that baby –’
‘No!’ said Viv.
‘I know you, I’m your mother; I’ve seen you with your kids. The minute you hold that baby in your arms, you won’t be able to let it go.’
‘I will!’ cried Viv.
Irene turned to Ann, who had not moved. ‘You take my advice. Don’t give in your notice till that baby’s back home with you. Got a lovely job, shame to lose everything all over again.’
Ann spoke to the hearthrug. ‘I trust her.’
‘I’m off,’ said Ollie abruptly. Before anyone could speak he had left the house. The front door banged.
There was a silence. Frank looked at his watch.
Viv got up and went to the garden door. ‘Better get the kids to bed.’
Ann stood up. ‘I’ll get them.’
‘No, I –’
‘Let me!’ Ann spoke so sharply that everybody stared. She went into the garden.
Viv, attempting to smile, turned to Ken. ‘Told you we have some good blazes here.’
_____Twenty_____
HER TIME IS nearly come. There is something awe-struck in the way people speak of a woman who is soon to pass out of their reach, into that closed and dangerous room, and give birth. Ollie called Viv public property, and in a sense that is true of all pregnant women – people touch them and gather round them, knowing they are doubly alive, made powerful with another being inside them. On the other hand they are also deeply private, more so as the weeks draw on and as they retreat from the world, rounded and dignified; the world keeps its distance because it is only the one woman, when her time comes, who will know what it is like to suffer.
Perhaps they were chastened by this. Whatever the reason, during the next two weeks both Ollie and Ken found themselves making peace, of a kind. It was Ken who plucked up the courage to visit. Stuck halfway along Park Lane in a traffic jam, he nearly turned back. Outside the Dorchester Hotel, two veiled women were being escorted into a Daimler. As he sat in the car, his palms damp, the world seemed moneyed and alien. What on earth could he say?
He said it was very nice, as he looked around the living room – piano, glass-fronted bookcase, V & A poster for a porcelain exhibition.
‘You must be a closet Sloane,’ replied Ollie. He looked both belligerent and surprised to see him.
‘How is your sister?’ asked Ken. ‘Still seeing that banker chap?’
‘Ken, he’s married!’ Ollie looked at him in mock-horror. ‘Still, when does that make a difference?’ There was a pause. Ollie asked: ‘Like a drink?’
‘Fine,’ nodded Ken. ‘Sure.’ He glanced around again. The place was a mess. Ollie had propped up two school photos of his daughters – the sort in oval frames. Ken had never seen their hair so tidy. He looked away and tried to sound conversational. ‘So what are the neighbours like?’
Ollie reappeared from the kitchen, holding two cans and two glasses. ‘I’ve moved from one multi-racial area to another, except here nobody speaks to anyone else. Don’t you want to sit down?’
Ken stayed standing. He cleared his throat. ‘Er, there’s something we’ve got to settle.’ He rummaged in his pocket. ‘I’ve been carrying this around for weeks, but it never seems to be the right moment.’ He took out the cheque. ‘Don’t know if it’ll do any good . . .’
Ollie took the cheque and stared at it.
‘Please,’ said Ken. ‘At least it’ll make me feel better. It’s no compensation, but –’
‘I don’t want your money!’
‘Please –’
‘You trying to pay me off?’ demanded Ollie.
‘No, I –’
‘You must be even thicker than I thought.’ Ollie let out an ugly yelp of laughter. ‘Christ, you really know how to rub my nose in it.’
‘But –’
‘Paying me for shagging my wife!’
‘No!’
‘How many hundreds is this per bang? Was she worth it?’
‘No!’ shouted Ken.
‘Thanks a bunch.’
‘I don’t mean that!’
Ollie let out the ugly, shrill laugh again. ‘Or is it the baby you’re buying? Trying to put us all behind bars?’
‘No! I just – oh God.’ Ken shifted over, and sat down on the sofa. It had gone entirely wrong. He should have turned back in Park Lane. He said: ‘I was only asking for some . . .’ He searched for the word. ‘Dignity.’
‘Sorry, old cock. Haven’t got any left to spare.’ Ollie screwed the cheque into a ball and threw it into the overflowing wastepaper bin. ‘Think money’ll solve it? Money won’t solve anything.’
Ken replied: ‘That’s because you’ve always had it.’
‘What?’
He gestured around the room. ‘You can take it for granted,’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s easy for you to say money won’t solve anything. You can even afford to have a shabby house.’
Ollie didn’t reply. He sat down on the armchair, suddenly limp.
Ken lit a cigarette. ‘And you call me proud.’
Ollie looked at him curiously. ‘You’re being very up-front. You sound just like me. What’s been happening?’
Ken didn’t speak. He looked at the papers spilling from the bin, like frozen boiling milk. Was that a contradiction? A tiny part of him wished that Ollie had actually torn up the cheque, but he despised himself for even noticing. Ollie was hardly going to smooth the cheque out later. Ken thought: I am boring, thinking of that at a time like this.
Ollie said: ‘What’s been happening? Could it be love?’
There was a silence.
‘Could it?’ asked Ollie.
Ken took a breath. ‘If it was,’ he said carefully, ‘It’s over now.’
‘Really?’
Ken didn’t
reply. The room was so quiet that he was aware, for the first time, of a faint hum. It was the electric typewriter sitting on the table nearby. He looked up. Ollie held his gaze.
At last – it seemed a long time – Ollie asked: ‘Want another?’ He lifted the can.
‘No thanks.’ Ken paused. ‘Yes please.’
Ollie moved towards the kitchen. At the doorway he stopped. Ken waited, alert. But Ollie’s face had relaxed for the first time. He looked down at the two empty cans in his hand, and then looked across at Ken. ‘At school,’ he said, ‘women were either tarts or other chaps’ sisters. It took me years to learn how to treat a woman as an equal. And a lot of help from Viv, I’ll give her that.’ He sighed. Ken waited, next to the humming typewriter. ‘And when the crunch comes, know what?’
‘What?’
‘It’s back to square one. I’m just as bad as my father, and you know what he’s like.’
Ken nodded.
Ollie smiled ruefully. ‘If I’d had a son, I could’ve taught him how to behave. It’s easier to show other people, isn’t it. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes my parents did.’
‘All parents make mistakes,’ said Ken.
Ollie looked at him. ‘Will you?’ he asked, and went into the kitchen.
With things eased a little between Ken and Ollie, they arranged to play rugger the next Sunday. Meanwhile, the two sisters had to get through the midwife’s visit, which they had both been dreading. There would be plenty of official difficulties, and evasions, to come; this was just the first. But there was something glinty about Mrs Archer, the midwife, despite her ample figure. As she bound Viv’s arm to take her blood pressure, her eyes wandered around the room. Surely Viv’s scattered newspapers and struggling plants could give nothing away?
Viv had by now left school. Ann, who had taken the morning off work for moral support, busied herself making coffee. The plan was for Viv to have the baby at home, but already things were going wrong. Spooning out the Nescafé, Ann paused to listen.
‘Mrs Meadows, I told you. So did Dr Stern. Home births are now actively discouraged,’ said the midwife.
Viv said: ‘Only because they’re more of a hassle for you.’ Ann, pouring out the hot water, tensed.
‘No,’ said Mrs Archer. ‘They’re more risky. If there are complications . . .’
Ann stopped stirring.
‘Yes yes,’ said Viv impatiently, ‘I know.’
‘Look,’ said Mrs Archer. ‘We’ve had more problems with this pregnancy, haven’t we? High blood pressure, fatigue –’
‘But I sailed through the other ones!’
‘That’s no reason. We’re – let’s look – seven years older now and that means –’
‘I’m perfectly healthy,’ said Viv.
Ann looked at the milk bottle. She didn’t dare join in.
‘I don’t see why you’re so set on it,’ said Mrs Archer. ‘You had your little girls in hospital.’
‘It’s my own body,’ said Viv, in the clipped feminist voice Ann had always disliked. ‘I’m not going to be manipulated by hospital policy designed for the convenience of the male medical profession.’
‘You say it’s your body, Mrs Meadows, but have you been acting responsibly? No. You’ve been a naughty girl. You haven’t attended the clinic –’
Ann couldn’t help it. She turned. ‘Viv, you should’ve –’
Viv glared at her. Ann turned back, facing the draining board. What could she do? How could she afford to quarrel with her sister? She picked up the milk bottle and sniffed it. The milk was sour.
Mrs Archer was still speaking. ‘You haven’t let us book you into the hospital; at this rate we’ll have to take you in as an emergency.’ She paused. ‘On the evidence of this pregnancy I cannot guarantee you a straightforward delivery.’
Ann froze. She stared at the milk bottle.
‘Your neglect and carelessness hasn’t helped –’
‘I haven’t neglected –’
Mrs Archer interrupted her. ‘You’ve only yourself to blame.’ Her voice became clearer as she turned her head. ‘Perhaps you can make your sister see some sense.’
Ann paused and said to Viv: ‘She might be right.’
Viv spoke loudly: ‘This baby’s different.’
‘Viv!’ Ann stared.
Viv paused and simply said: ‘I want to have it at home.’
‘What you want is beside the point,’ said Mrs Archer. Want, want. Ann looked at the three mugs of black coffee, cooling now. All her life Viv had got what she wanted; with such ease, too, that it had never seemed like grabbing. Some people were like that. Life smiles on them, Douglas had said.
‘You have to put the baby first,’ said Mrs Archer. ‘I’m here to see you have a safe delivery, and what you need now is rest.’
When Mrs Archer had gone, Ann said: ‘If you go on like that they’ll get suspicious.’
Viv got up, with a grunt, from the sofa. ‘But hospital’s so official, so many people asking questions.’
‘We’ll manage. Look. You have it and come back here for ten days, like normal, till the midwife’s visits end, and then . . .’ She paused. ‘Then we’ll take it to my house.’ She had never put these words so plainly. Her legs felt boneless.
‘It’s ridiculous. People’ve been giving away babies for centuries.’
‘It’s the word. Surrogacy.’
‘But there’s no money involved. Nobody knows I haven’t just had an affair with Ken.’
There was a pause. Viv’s hair, longer nowadays, was pulled back in a rubber band; Viv managed to make even this look fetching. She turned to gaze out of the front window, at the questions waiting for them all. Ann looked at her snub nose and the profile of her soft mouth.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said edgily. ‘But we must wait till it’s born, safely. Then tell them our version of the truth. And if it’s safer in hospital –’
The phone rang. Viv answered it.
‘Hi. Suzi. Yes, I’m still here, it’s not due for three weeks.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, course I’m coming. Which pick-up point?’ She nodded again. ‘Right. See you Sunday.’
She put the phone down. Ann stared at her. ‘You’re not going?’ She pointed to the Anti-Cruise poster which covered the pegboard. ‘I thought that was for our benefit.’
‘Course I’m marching,’ said Viv.
‘In your condition? But Mrs Archer said –’
‘My condition gets us photographed.’
For the past hour Ann had controlled her emotions. Now she shouted: ‘You can’t risk the baby for –’
‘Ann!’ Viv glared at her. ‘There won’t be a future for this baby unless –’
‘That’s your opinion!’
Viv nodded; her silly ponytail bobbed. ‘Until this baby’s born, it has to have my opinions too.’
All week Ollie worked furiously. He was on the downhill stretch, his story had by now taken on a momentum of its own. His characters, now he re-read them, had started breathing of their own free will and for the first time in his life he felt possessed by something so mysterious that he dared not pause to analyse it. Where, after all, had analysis got him in the past?
They talked on the page, they led him on, they were his. Did a woman feel like this with a baby growing inside her? They filled him. When he walked to the supermarket he became Al, his hero, threading his way like a fox through the cars. Al had gingery hair and a watchful, weak face and problems with his wife. In the gauzy November rain Ollie walked round Hyde Park; passing the leafless shrubs he saw them with Tilly’s eyes; he himself became Al’s estranged wife, with her long legs and vague, distracted beauty. Nobody could possess them because they lay within himself; he had them safe.
On the Thursday evening he had a record amount of wrong numbers – his phone was only one digit different from that of a wine bar called Jingles. Exasperated, he finally took the phone off the hook.
Viv said: ‘I thought something had happened to you.’
 
; ‘Sorry,’ said Ollie, ‘I’m still here.’
He let her in; she looked at the phone. ‘Ah.’
‘I left it off the hook. My public keeps pestering me.’
Viv sat down heavily on the sofa. She was wearing her big mock-leopardskin coat, which he hadn’t seen since last winter. It was nearly midnight. She looked pale and huge.
‘Coffee?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘We must sort things out. Where’s the service guarantee for the boiler, what shall I tell your parents who keep phoning, what are we going to do?’ She paused. ‘What’s happening?’
He replied: ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you want to come home?’
He didn’t reply.
She repeated: ‘Do you?’ She gestured around. ‘None of this is real.’
He said: ‘I can’t come back until . . .’
He meant: until the baby is born. She understood; she had always understood him, that was the trouble. The room felt airless.
She said: ‘What then?’
He said: ‘Let’s have another baby.’
She stared at him. He meant it; he had only just thought of it, but it suddenly seemed a solution.
He said: ‘You and me, let’s –’
‘Let’s pretend this never happened? Let’s cancel it out?’ Above the furry blobs of her coat her eyes were wide. ‘It’s real, for Christ’s sake. It’s happening.’
‘Stop talking like a teacher.’
She paused. ‘Think I’ve got it sorted out? Look, I’m in a mess too. I distrust my motives. I’ve mucked about with Ken’s feelings, and yours. And Ann’s. And mine. I still don’t know if I can bear to give this baby up.’ She stopped, breathing heavily. The Anglepoise over the table cast a pool of light; otherwise the room was dark. But when she lifted her head, her eyes were glittering. ‘God knows how I’ll feel if I do,’ she said. ‘I’ll probably make your lives hell. I may never be able to see Ann again, I may never be able to bear the sight of her holding it in her own house.’ She paused. ‘But it’s happening. We can’t close our eyes. It’s real. It’s not a character in your bloody book.’