The Better Woman (5 page)

‘Sarah?' he asked in question. They had never gone this far before.

‘Yes.'

‘Are you sure?' he checked again.

She loved him even more for that.

‘What about contraception?' he asked.

‘It's a safe time of the month.'

She guided him inside her. It didn't hurt. In fact, it was surprisingly easy, as if she was made for him.

‘I love you,' she heard him murmur.

‘I love you too,' she whispered in return.

And she did. With all her heart.

When it was all over she held him tightly and tried not to think that it was only a matter of weeks before he would be leaving for Paris.

Ten weeks later

Peggy turned around from the stove to greet Sarah as she came in the kitchen door. ‘You look pale, girl.'

Sarah replied with the first excuse that came into her head. ‘I've got a touch of the flu.'

She unwrapped her scarf and tried not to inhale the salty smell that was emanating from the pots on the stove.

‘Do you have a temperature?'

‘No. Just aches and pains.'

‘Don't bother with the shop, then. I'll cover tonight.'

Sarah realised that she had made a tactical error. Now the old woman would be watching her like a hawk. The last thing she needed.

‘I'll be fine, Nan. And you want to go to the church, don't you?'

All Souls' Day held special significance for Peggy, her husband, son and daughter-in-law all needing her prayers.

‘Yes. But are you sure?'

‘I'm not that bad, really.'

‘Do you have much homework to do?'

Sarah had explained several times that students were given assignments, not homework. This time she let it pass without correction.

‘No.'

Peggy finished at the stove and turned around with a plateful of steaming food.

‘Here's your dinner. A good feed will make you feel better.'

The sight of the jacket potatoes, cabbage and ham was enough to make Sarah want to throw up. The bell sounded from the shop. A customer.

‘I'll get it.'

She darted away from the kitchen, its smells, and her grandmother's sharp eyes.

The shop was quiet; most of the villagers were at the vigil mass. Sarah opened her Economics book and tried to study. The words made no sense. How could she possibly concentrate when she had so much else on her mind?

The door opened.

‘Good evening, Mrs Delaney.'

‘Sarah.'

Over the years John's mother had perfected the disapproving tone she used when speaking to Sarah. She had her suspicions that the girl was more than just her son's friend. Friend or girlfriend, she used every opportunity to make it clear that Sarah didn't meet the standard. One day John would play to audiences all over the world. Beautiful women from privileged families
would be wooed by his genius and charisma. It would be a travesty if he was tied down to the girl next door.

‘Do you have any meat left?'

‘Plenty – have a look in the fridge.'

Mrs Delaney, her lips pursed together, assessed the contents of the fridge. Her thin face, under a head of roller curls, wore a perpetual look of dissatisfaction.

‘Are you sure it's fresh?'

‘Like it's just off the farm,' Sarah answered airily.

With a reluctance that suggested she had no alternative, Mrs Delaney selected some chicken breast. She picked up a packet of cream biscuits on the way to the counter and Sarah entered the items on the cash register.

‘Is that everything?'

Mrs Delaney nodded. Then, with calculated nonchalance, she announced, ‘I believe John has found himself a nice French girlfriend.'

Sarah felt the nausea that she had been holding down all day rise in her throat.

‘I got a letter from him today. Vanessa is her name.'

Sarah pressed down hard on the TOTAL button and the cash drawer came flying out.

‘I'll put it on your account,' she mumbled and rose from her stool. ‘Excuse me.'

Somehow she made it through the shop and into the kitchen. She hurled herself over the sink and heaved thick yellow bile over the shiny stainless steel. She wanted to die.

Peggy shuffled into Sarah's bedroom. ‘Here's a cup of hot lemon for you.'

‘Thanks, Nan.'

Peggy studied her granddaughter closely. Too closely.

‘You look very peaky. Will I call Dr O'Mahony?'

‘No,' Sarah said in as firm a voice as she could manage. ‘There's nothing he can give me for the flu. I just have to sweat it out.'

‘I suppose you're right,' Peggy conceded. ‘Any road, let's see how you're feeling in the morning. Goodnight, love.'

‘Night, Nan.'

Peggy closed the door softly behind her. Sarah, ignoring the cup of hot lemon on the bedside, propped herself up against the pillows. She hugged her arms around her knees.

‘John and Vanessa,' she said, trying to make herself believe it.

‘John and Vanessa,' she repeated, louder.

He had every right to see someone else, didn't he? Hadn't he said that they were too young to tie each other down, that they should use the time apart to spread their wings, see what life was about? Sarah had agreed at the time. It had sounded like a worldly approach. But she hadn't known then that in a matter of weeks he would meet a girl worthy of mentioning in a letter to his mother. And of course she'd absolutely no idea that as they hugged goodbye she was already two weeks pregnant with his baby.

‘You are so stupid, Sarah Ryan. So stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
.'

Yes, it had been a ‘safe time of the month' when she and John had first made love. Their downfall was that they had done it again the following week, when it was not safe. After that they'd used condoms, blissfully unaware that it was already too late.

She'd played with fire. And got burned. Now, as far as she could see, she had two choices. Tell John. He would come back, robbed of his scholarship and the chance to spread his wings. Don't tell John. Wipe out the mistake. Start a new, wiser, page.

Sarah's hand touched her stomach, slightly rounded, its usual shape. The baby was nothing more than a tiny jelly bean. It wouldn't know.

Nuala was the kind of girl who thrived on a crisis.

‘There's a place in town that will tell you where to go in England,' she said knowledgeably.

Sarah nodded, relieved that her friend knew what to do.

‘I'll go with you to the appointment,' Nuala offered. ‘In Cork, I mean – I wouldn't have the money to go to England.'

‘How much will it cost?' Sarah asked, not having thought of the financial implications until now.

‘About a thousand pounds – or so I've heard. Where will you get it?'

Sarah sighed raggedly. ‘I suppose I'll have to tell Nan that I need extra money for tuition fees.'

Nuala shook her head slowly. ‘Jesus, I never thought that someone like you would get into this situation. You're usually so sensible . . .'

‘I wasn't thinking straight,' Sarah explained in a faraway voice. ‘He was going away . . . and I loved him so much . . . I kind of lost my head for a while . . .'

Nuala nodded, though it was very clear that she didn't really understand.

The clinic was located in one of the side streets off the Grand Parade. Nuala looked surreptitiously over both shoulders before she pulled Sarah into the doorway.

‘Okay?' she asked, giving her a last-minute chance to change her mind.

Sarah nodded and Nuala pushed the solid varnished door
inwards. A narrow hallway stretched in front of them, a glass-panelled reception on the left-hand side.

‘Sarah Ryan,' Nuala announced.

A bespectacled woman with a kind face looked up from her paperwork.

‘Which one of you is Sarah?' she asked.

Sarah stepped forward. ‘Me.'

‘We're running a little behind this morning, Sarah. Fifteen minutes or so. The waiting room is through there.' She pointed to the door at the end of the hallway. ‘The doctor will call you when she's ready.'

Sarah and Nuala sat down on wooden chairs in the small rectangular waiting room. There were two other girls there, but nobody spoke or made eye contact. Sarah wondered how she could get through fifteen more minutes of waiting. How she could last until it was time to go to England. How long things would take once she got there. She desperately wanted it all to be over.

Dr Lenihan was surprisingly young. Her fair hair was tied back in a neat ponytail; she wore no make-up and looked the part in a pristine white coat.

‘Well, Sarah. How can I help you?'

‘I'm pregnant,' Sarah blurted in response.

Dr Lenihan rummaged in her desk and took out a plastic container.

‘Let's confirm our facts before we go any further. The toilet is outside, first right.'

Sarah, feeling a faint surge of hope that it was all a false alarm, followed the doctor's directions. She had based her conclusion solely on the fact that she'd missed her last two periods. There could be another reason that she hadn't bled. What sort of reason, she didn't know, but maybe there was something.

Back in the room, the doctor tested the sample.

‘Positive,' she declared before throwing the testing stick into the bin.

Sarah felt the hope drain out of her. She was pregnant. It was confirmed. Funny how she had a baby in her tummy, yet she'd never felt so empty.

‘How do you feel about having a baby?' asked the doctor.

‘I don't want it.'

‘Does your family know?'

‘No – only my friend, Nuala – she's waiting outside.'

‘Nuala is welcome to come in while we talk,' the doctor suggested. ‘To give you support while we go through your options. Would you like me to call her?'

Sarah shook her head. There was only one option as far as she could see and she didn't need Nuala to hear all the graphic details. ‘No, thanks.'

The doctor nodded and clasped her hands on her lap. ‘How about the baby's father? Does he know you're pregnant?'

Sarah examined her fingernails. ‘No.'

‘How do you think he'd feel about it if he knew?'

‘Resentful,' she answered in a small voice. ‘But he'd come back and do the right thing by me.'

‘Come back from where?'

‘Paris.' Sarah looked up from her hands. ‘He's studying music there. Have you heard of Cécile Marcel?'

The doctor shook her head.

‘She's very famous,' Sarah told her. ‘She's tutoring John – this is the opportunity of a lifetime for him.'

‘Don't you want to give him the chance to decide for himself?' the doctor asked gently.

Sarah almost broke down, almost cried out,
He's with Vanessa
now. I'd be forcing him away from his new girlfriend as well as the scholarship.

‘No,' she said out loud, just about holding it together.

‘Okay. Enough questions for now.' Dr Lenihan seemed to understand how painful it was to talk about John. ‘Let me do the talking for a little while. I'm going to tell you about your first option: being a single parent. It's a big undertaking: the twenty-four-hour care of your baby, the feeding, the nurturing, the financial needs . . . Are you ready for that? Will you be able to do it alone if there is nobody to help? Will you be able to have the life you want for yourself?'

No, No, No
.

‘Your second option, Sarah, is adoption. You could give the child to parents who want it and would care for it. You would give the baby up after nine months of carrying it, giving birth to it . . .'

No, No, No
.

The doctor paused. It was obvious that she thought adoption was the best option.

‘I can't carry this baby for nine months,' Sarah stated, panic threading her voice. ‘I come from a small village . . .'

‘There are places you can go, nobody needs to know.'

The idea of there being options was an illusion. This doctor, with her white coat and kind eyes, was part of that illusion.

Quite suddenly, Sarah felt angry. ‘You don't understand. I can't just disappear for a few months, my grandmother needs me. Adoption is just not an option.'

Time stood still.

The doctor sought Sarah's gaze.

‘I'm here to support you, no matter what your decision.'

Sarah drew on the last of her strength. ‘My decision is to
have an abortion. Give me the information on how to go about it – please.'

Whether it was seasickness or morning sickness, Sarah didn't know. Either way, she spent the four-hour ferry ride to Pembroke in the toilet, the heaving so violent that she wondered whether the baby would survive.

After a series of complex lies to her grandmother about why she was going to England for the weekend, the tense bus trip from Cork to Rosslare, and now this ferry ride from hell, Sarah was at the very end of her endurance. All she could think about was getting off the ferry and putting her feet on dry land. She couldn't contemplate that another long bus ride, to London, was ahead.

A middle-aged woman tried to strike up conversation at the basins.

‘You're looking a little under the weather, love.'

‘Why are you off to England?'

‘Any friends over there to meet you?'

‘Will you be staying long?'

Sarah's answers were weak, unconvincing.

The woman stuffed a leaflet into her hand. It read,
Pro Life
.

‘Please don't do it,' she whispered in an imploring voice.

Sarah realised that the woman was a regular on the boat, on the watch for pale worried young women, with small talk targeted to establish the purpose of their trip, all in the hope of saving unborn babies.

‘It's none of your business,' she muttered and threw the leaflet in the bin.