Sheer Abandon (48 page)

“Nothing’s happened,” she said, and she was quite frightened now, he looked so desperate.

“Martha,” he said very quietly, “I love you. I know you really rather well. I know every inch of you. Literally. I know how you are when you’re happy and when you’re upset and when you’re stressed and when you want sex, and I know when you want to talk and when you want to be quiet and when you’re feeling rotten and tired and mean. And I know something’s happened to you—I
know
it. This is not about you being busy. It’s about you being scared. What are you scared of, Martha? You’ve got to tell me. What have you done? Nothing you did could shock me, or upset me, unless it was falling in love with someone else. I’d have to get over that, but at least I’d know. Is that it, is there somebody else?”

“No,” she said, very quietly, “there’s no one else.”

“So what is it?”

She was silent.

“Martha, look at me. Tell me what’s fucking happened.”

And for a moment she wanted to tell him. Just to get it over, to know that someone else knew, it wasn’t locked away, struggling to escape, this awful, dreadful shocking thing that she had denied for so long, managed to contain, this fearful obscene monster. Just to be able to say to someone what should I do, where can I go, where shall I start? Instead of crushing it, endlessly, pulping it to—

But she couldn’t.

“Nothing’s happened,” she said finally and then: “You must excuse me, I don’t feel very well.”

And she rushed into her bathroom, slammed the door, and was violently sick, over and over again, and then sat on the lavatory, shivering and shaking, awful pain driving through her stomach, wondering how she could ever go out of the room again.

She heard him knocking on the door, very gently, calling through it; and she made a supreme effort, washed her face and cleaned her teeth and walked out, facing him, trying to smile into his concern.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

And that was when he had said it: the worst thing he could possibly have said.

“Martha, you’re not pregnant, are you?”

She started to laugh; weak hysterical laughter that turned, in time, to tears, shaking her head from side to side, avoiding his eyes. He helped her into the sitting room, sat her down on the sofa, watching her as she wept and wailed and keened, like some wild, primitive woman; and then finally as she quietened, he came to sit next to her and put his arms round her, drew her head onto his shoulder. She sat there, briefly sweetly at peace, where she wanted to be, and she picked up his hand and intertwined it with her own, then raised it to her lips and kissed it.

“Thank you,” she said, “thank you so much. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Martha,” he said, kissing her hand in return, “I wish you could trust me. Whatever it is you’ve done, I would understand and I would forgive you. And I shall find out, you know. I’ll find out somehow. I won’t leave you alone until I do, and I won’t leave you alone, even then. I think you need me.”

“No,” she said, summoning up all her will, releasing his hand, moving slightly from him, “no, I don’t. I don’t need you, Ed. And you certainly don’t need me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I do need you. We need each other. I’m going now. But when you get back—when is that, next weekend?” She nodded feebly. “I’ll be here for you. Don’t think I won’t; don’t think I’ll give up. I love you too much. Now go to bed and get some sleep, for God’s sake. Shall I stay? In here, I mean?” he added, with a faint touch of a smile.

“No,” she said, “of course not. You must go. But thank you for the offer. You’re very kind, Ed. Very kind indeed.”

“No,” he said, “not kind at all. I keep telling you. I love you.” And then he was gone. She was awake all night. She had set her alarm for five, but she watched the hours, the quarter hours; she felt appalling fear, her heart pounding, her stomach churning. She was sick again: more than once. She had never felt so alone: not even in that dreadful tiled room, in appalling pain, pushing her baby out in abject terror, looking at it.

No, Martha, don’t think about that, that of all things, never, ever that. Don’t think about that face, that puckered anguished face, so peaceful when you left it, fast asleep. Don’t remember, don’t, don’t.

When the alarm went off, finally, she was sitting on her bed, her head in her arms, trying not to remember. It was the first time her will had failed her. She couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk, even across the room. She shook in every part of her body, shook violently. She was first hot, then cold. Her head ached, she could hardly see. She lay down on the bed, pulled the sheet over her, closed her eyes. She would stay there, just for an hour. She didn’t have to go to the gym, she could get into the office at seven. Or even eight. Eight would be fine, everything was done.

But at seven and at eight, she was still helpless, her body uselessly disobedient; it would not stand or sit, it would not even turn in bed. She managed to put an arm out to put the radio on, heard John Humphrys’s wonderful, reassuring voice, like a comforting presence in the room; and then fell suddenly asleep, drifting in and out of dreams, horrible stifling dreams, about obscene creatures behind half-open doors and hiding and falling and darkness and blood. And then woke, finally, to the sound of her daughter’s voice.

Chapter 26

         Well, at least it was over. She had got through it somehow. It was true what everyone had said, Jenni Murray made them feel relaxed and at home, so much so that she had almost forgotten there were millions of people out there listening to them. Kate, of course, had been fine, chatting easily away, wonderfully composed. Where did that come from, Helen wondered wearily, lying back in the car the BBC had kindly provided, that self-confidence, that ability to deal with unfamiliar situations, and then thought, how absurd a question: from one of her parents, obviously.

One of the worst things, she felt, was that she had become relegated to some kind of second division, no longer properly Kate’s mother, no longer in charge of her life. Kate no longer seemed her child, seemed not a child at all, indeed, but a newly created being, making her own decisions, constructing her own future.

Tomorrow she was going out with Nat Tucker to a club in Brixton; she had said, perfectly politely but very firmly, that he had asked her and she would like to go. Given everything that was happening to her, it seemed a little absurd to try to stop her. They had compromised on a 2:00 a.m. latest return; Helen had hoped Nat would object to that, and the thing would be cancelled, but he had apparently said it was cool. Cool. Helen often thought she would scream if she heard that word once more.

She had to admit she had been wrong about Nat; his manners were on the primitive side, but he always said hello to her when she answered the door, and asked her how she was doing, and ground out his cigarette butt on the path before coming into the house. And he was very sweet with Kate.

He came round most days, but not until after tea; he seemed to have a great respect for Kate’s academic future.

“I know she’s got her exams to do,” he’d say, as Helen apologised for her nonappearance.

The fact that Kate was more likely to be applying a sixth coat of mascara than rehearsing her French verbs never seemed to occur to him.

A nice researcher had come round and told them more or less how the interview on
Woman’s Hour
would go: “Just a few questions on the early days, Helen, how you came to adopt Kate, and then how the story came out. How you’re both feeling about it now. And how Kate sees her future, and what she feels about the woman who left her that day.”

Which was how Martha came to hear her daughter’s voice for the first time. And to learn that she would like to meet her, “Very, very much.”

That Friday morning, lying listlessly in bed, trying to summon the strength to get up and go to work—when had she last missed what was already most of a morning? she really couldn’t remember—she had woken to hear a light, pretty voice, saying, “I would like to meet my birth mother, yes, of course I would. Very, very much.”

“And how do you think you might feel?” Jenni Murray sounded gently intrigued.

“Well, I don’t know. Confused, I s’pose. And maybe angry. And really interested in what she was like. What sort of person she was.”

“What would you say to her? Have you thought about that?”

“I’d ask her why she did it. That’s the main thing I want to know.”

“Of course. Well, Kate, Helen, you’ve been great. Thank you so much for talking to us. And I hope you do hear from your birth mother, if that’s what you want.”

“It is,” said Kate very simply. “It really is.”

Martha found that far more moving and disturbing than seeing her photograph in the newspapers.

Beatrice also heard
Woman’s Hour
that morning for the first time for years: and also from a bed that never saw her after 7:00 a.m. even on Sundays. Thank God, just thank God, she wasn’t meant to be in court. But she was supposed to be in Chambers; they had clearly taken a rather dim view of her phone call with the news that she was ill. She wasn’t exactly ill: she had an appalling migraine, such as only hit her when life threatened to completely defeat her. It didn’t often defeat her, but the night before, her nanny had given in her notice and although she had said that she would work her three months out, Beatrice had found the news almost unbearable.

Nothing can distress the working mother more, however brilliant, successful, and efficient she may be, than the loss of her nanny. On the strength of those hugely expensive, neatly dressed shoulders rests most of the superstructure of her life. Beatrice, deprived of even this comfort and support, felt totally bereft, and the very thought of the process of interviewing made her feel hysterical. She had several important cases coming up, not to mention Charlie and Harry’s joint birthday party, and even a holiday of her own, which she badly needed and which would now have to be sacrificed. Christine was paid extremely well, she had her own flat at the top of the house, she had full use of a car, and the girls were well past the most demanding age. But that, actually, had been the reason for Christine’s resignation; she liked looking after babies, she said, and much as she loved Charlie and Harry, they became more independent every day.

As Beatrice tossed and turned miserably in her bed, her mobile rang. Checking it, she saw it was her mother. She decided to tell her her problems; her mother was rather brusquely unsympathetic.

“Darling, you’ve got three months. Surely that’s enough. It’s not as if they were babies.”

“It isn’t just that,” Beatrice said. “It’s having no support of any kind at home, with Josh gone.”

“Now you know how I feel about that. You turned him out. It was your decision.”

“Mother! He was having an affair.”

“Beatrice, none of Josh’s little flings have been what I would call an affair. They were more or less one-night stands. They meant nothing. I sympathise with you, of course. But there was no emotion involved; Josh adores you, you know he does.”

“He’s got a funny way of showing it,” said Beatrice bitterly.

“Beatrice, he’s a man. It’s as simple as that. They can’t resist sex if it’s offered them. It’s beyond them, any of them. And there are far worse things, to my mind, than that. Josh is a very good husband, in a lot of ways. He’s wonderful with the children; he pays all the bills, including the nanny, when many men would have seen that as your responsibility. He’s good-natured. And he’s always nice to me,” she added.

“Yes, I know he is. I don’t think that’s absolutely relevant.”

Her mother ignored this. “Does he want to come back?”

“I…think so,” said Beatrice, recalling Josh’s endless pleas to be forgiven, his protestations of remorse, his complaints of loneliness.

“You should consider it,” said her mother. “I’m thinking of you, darling, not Josh. You need a husband. It’s not as if he knocks you about or anything. And do you really believe it’s going to be of benefit to those girls, growing up without their father? Think about it, Beatrice. You’re being very stubborn, cutting off your nose to spite your face. Always have been. Now I must go…”

Beatrice spent the next hour considering what her mother had said. And deciding that, to an extent at least, she was right. She did need a husband. Quite badly.

Somehow Martha managed to get up and shower.

It was one o’clock; her flight was at seven thirty. She called a cab, asked him to come up and get her bags. She wasn’t sure she could manage even wheeling them to the lift. Finishing her packing had been hard enough.

She began to feel better as soon as the car pulled away from the building; it was as if she had left at least some of her traumatised self behind in it.

By the time she was in the plane, she felt almost human. She settled into her seat, smiled gratefully at the hostess, took a glass of orange juice.

“And here’s the menu, Miss Hartley.”

“I won’t want dinner,” said Martha. “I’m awfully tired. What time do we get to Singapore?”

“Local time, three p.m. Are you disembarking, or going through?”

“Going straight through,” said Martha.

She settled back, and almost as if watching a movie, allowed thoughts of sweeter, happier things to drift through her head: of Ed and how much he clearly loved her, and of her daughter with the lovely face and the pretty voice, who had said she wanted to meet her, and for the first time, wondered if it might, after all, be something she would enjoy, rather than endure. She felt changed about Kate: she was no longer something dark and dreadful, to be denied at all costs, rather the reverse, indeed, a source of possible happiness and pride. Even if they could never meet, never know each other; even if she could never explain and Kate never understand. She had been found, that dreadful day, cared for, and had grown up safely, into someone clearly confident and happy, and for that, Martha felt deeply grateful.

There was nothing she could do about either of them, Kate or Ed, and neither of them could be allowed into her life; but for a brief time, they at least moved into an easier place for her.

After a while, she took a sleeping pill and slept for over four hours. And dreamt: not frightening, dark dreams but oddly sweet ones, of sunlit beaches and calm blue sea. And after that, instead of working as she always did, she watched one of the appalling movies which are apparently only shown on long plane journeys, and woke up in Singapore feeling refreshed and almost happy.