To Have and to Hold (7 page)

‘Primitive enough for you?' asked Ollie at last.

‘Ollie. I've got something to tell you.'

‘Oh no, you
were
buttering me up.' He gestured at the clothes.

‘No. I just feel . . . so excited. Shall I tell it to you straight?'

‘Go on. Get it over with.'

She laid her head on his chest. Her cheek felt his thumping heart. She said: ‘I want to have a baby for Ann.'

‘
What
?'

She lifted her head. ‘It suddenly seemed so obvious. It'd be like having a baby for ourselves.' She paused and then spoke, her voice low. ‘I could do it, Ollie. We could do it.'

‘You want to what?'

‘Have a baby for her. We've worked it out. I could take a couple of months off work, then breastfeed it for six weeks and –'

‘We? Who?'

‘Me and Ann. We had lunch today.'

‘You can't be serious.'

‘I am. I've never been so serious in my life.'

He moved her back and stared at her. At last he said: ‘What?'

She took a breath. ‘It's possible, Ollie. I know I could do it. What do you think it must be like for her? The finality? The hopelessness?' She spoke slowly. She had rehearsed this scene all day, but now she couldn't remember how she was going to put it. ‘She thinks she's going mad.'

‘It's you who's going mad.'

‘Just when she thought that this time, at last, it would be all right.' She sat up, beside him. She looked at his watchful face, his brown, messy hair. ‘What do you think it must be like, seeing our children grow up? Everybody's children?'

They sat there. A car passed in the street; the hamster scraped.

‘Ollie, it's actually possible to help her, to change somebody's life. Don't you see?'

He didn't reply.

She spoke in a rush. ‘You and me, we're always talking. Words, words, that's all anybody does. Well, at last we can actually
do
something.' She lifted her hand and turned his face towards her. ‘Don't you see how lucky we are, how unfair it is? Don't you see we can do something about it, just because I'm a woman?'

‘You can't.'

‘Just because I'm a woman,' she said again. ‘I can choose to. There's a marvellous freedom about it.'

‘Free? Being pregnant?'

She nodded. Her whole body concentrated – every fibre, every nerve. ‘Listen, Ollie.' She cupped his face in her hands but he jerked away. ‘It can be done.' She spoke urgently. ‘It can.' She searched his face; she could tell nothing from it.

‘Think I'll put on my underpants.' He moved aside, reached down and pulled them on. It sealed him away and made her more naked. He sat down again on the other end of the sofa.

She looked at the floor and thought: which way will he turn? At this particular moment she had no idea. It was as if she had met him ten minutes ago. It shocked her, that he could be so unfamiliar, when for fourteen years he had been her best friend.

‘You are an extraordinary woman,' he said at last. ‘And I thought I knew you.'

She fumbled amongst the clothes for her cigarettes and lit one. She blew out the smoke. ‘You do.'

‘You want us to have a baby, and then just give it to Ann and Ken?'

Suddenly she grabbed his hand. ‘Isn't it a wonderful idea? Isn't it exciting?' His hand didn't move. ‘We're always going on about – oh, how we should break down the old systems, nuclear families, how we should be experimental –'

‘Ah, so this is an experiment.'

‘No!' she shouted. ‘It's real!' She stopped, and adjusted her voice lower. ‘It could be,' she said softly. ‘If we let it.'

He shook his head. ‘Extraordinary woman.' He was half smiling, but that made her uneasy. ‘Why don't we save the bother and just give them Daisy?' He raised his eyebrows, his voice jauntier. ‘And throw in a set of placemats and some Green Shield stamps? And come to think of it, the milkman looks a lonely sort of chap, we could give him Rosie – no –' he held up his hand, his voice rising – ‘no, we'll hold an auction for her, plenty more where she came from –'

‘Ollie!'

‘We'll put ourselves in the Yellow Pages and say we'll deliver anywhere in the London area.'

‘Ollie.'

He stopped, breathing heavily. Then he started to laugh. Warily, she smiled. He leaned forward, shaking, and put his head in his hands. She gazed at the bumps of his backbone, at his long lean thighs. He could be sobbing or he could be laughing. It unnerved her that she couldn't guess which.

‘Ollie,' she said gently. ‘Talk to me. Tell me what you think.'

He stayed sitting there, his head buried. Finally he looked up. His face had changed; as if it had collapsed and been reassembled.

‘Know something, Viv? I haven't dared tell you, all these years.'

‘What?'

He stayed gazing at her. Finally she dropped her eyes. He said: ‘You frighten me.'

Ken stood on a step-ladder in the hall, fiddling with the fuse box. Ann held up the candle.

‘Blasted bloody thing,' he muttered. ‘Just one of those days.'

‘Poor Ken.'

‘Screwdriver please.'

She passed it to him.

‘My godfathers, what a day. First Bob prangs the van, then there's a gas leak at that place in Willesden. Panic stations. Then – wait for it – but who gets a flat tyre?'

‘Oh no.'

‘Muggins here.'

The lights came on. She sighed and blew out the candle. How could she talk to him now?

‘Sorry.' He climbed down from the ladder. ‘Ruined that lovely meal.'

‘It's not ruined,' she lied.

She told him in the darkness, in bed. She prayed into the blackness that he would listen, that he would simply let her finish speaking. She pushed her feet round and round the cool
edges of the sheets; the electric blanket was on and she was hot. She thought: how can I think about being hot at a time like this? She thought how in the past she had bargained with God under the sheets, long ago now, and how Ken's body had moved into hers – oh, how many hundreds of times?
With my body I thee worship
. Under this sheet they had pressed their warm limbs together. Mouth to mouth, life had begun.

She began.

‘Ken.'

‘Mmm . . .' He shifted drowsily.

‘Ken, I must talk to you.'

‘Now?'

‘There never seems to be the right moment.'

He turned over. ‘What is it?'

‘It's about this baby business.'

He paused. ‘I'm sorry, Ann. I just can't do it.'

‘It's too late anyway. I rang an adoption society.'

‘What? When?'

‘Yesterday,' she said. ‘The latest age for a woman is thirty-five. That gives us less than a year.'

‘You sure about this?'

‘Yes.'

‘Can't be. I'll phone them up.'

She said, ‘It's too late.'

‘It can't be!'

‘You refused anyway.'

‘But . . . oh Annie.'

‘It doesn't matter,' she said.

‘It does!'

‘It's too late, it doesn't matter.' She took a breath. ‘At least, it needn't matter.'

‘What?'

By now her eyes had become used to the darkness and she could make out his shape beside her. But she kept her gaze on the ceiling. ‘Would it seem like adoption if Viv had the baby for us?'

She turned to look at him. Beyond his head she could see the
green numbers pulse on their digital clock. 11.51 changed to 11.52.

He said: ‘You're joking.'

‘I'm not. Nor is she.'

She felt his hand move to her forehead. He stroked her. ‘Annie darling, just get some sleep.'

‘She means it.'

Suddenly he sat up and switched on the light. She blinked. His face stared down at her.

‘What's she on about?'

‘She means –'

‘She been up to her tricks?'

‘What?'

‘Putting ideas into your head?'

‘No. She's thought it out.'

‘Oh yes?' His voice rose squeakily. ‘Funny sort of thinking. Still, I wouldn't put anything past her.'

‘Ken –'

‘You're far too sensible to listen to her.'

‘But we've talked! She's offered to. She'll have it, and breastfeed it –'

‘That's enough!'

‘But –'

‘Let's not hear the sordid details.'

‘Don't get angry. I'm just . . .' She looked at his reddened face.

‘You two, sometimes . . .' He paused. ‘What've you girls been up to?'

‘Don't call us girls.'

‘What the hell's she playing at?'

‘I'll explain –'

‘Explain tomorrow.'

‘But –'

‘Not now. Please.' He put his arms around her. His voice softened. ‘Look, I didn't mean to shout, but I just don't like to see you upset. It's you I'm worried about, darling.'

He stroked her arm, pushing up the sleeve of her nightie. She flinched, but lay still. He went on stroking; he shook his head,
smiling faintly. She wished he would stop looking at her like that. But she must not move.

‘You've been through so much,' he said. ‘Let's forget your sister for a bit, put it all out of our minds.' He kissed her cheek. ‘You're the one I love, remember.'

She willed herself to put her arms around him. For the first time in their marriage, as his hand slid down her breast, she felt like a whore.

She leaned over him and put out the light.

Babies are crawling over each other, piles of babies. They are whimpering softly. Chubby, bendy limbs and bright eyes. The room is as high and blue as the sky. Won't they get chilly? Viv searches through the babies, panic-stricken. They are naked and they all look alike. On each arm – oh how soft those arms are – on each there is a tattoo, and she must learn how to read them, because one baby is hers. But when she looks closely, the tattoos are just squiggles, meaningless. She knows that somewhere she must find her own name. That baby will be hers, but time is running short and she must get it out of here. She must get it home.

She woke abruptly. She was damp with sweat. The house was silent and she knew her girls were gone. She pushed Ollie but he stayed asleep. She shook his shoulder.

‘Ollie! Where are the girls?'

He turned over. ‘At Julie's, remember?' He sat up and put on the light. ‘Got to get them before breakfast.'

They looked at the clock. It was half past four. He turned off the light and lay back.

A moment later she thought he had gone back to sleep. But she was wrong; the duvet dragged as he turned over, away from her. He spoke with his back to her, his voice surprisingly clear.

‘Viv.'

‘What?'

‘Don't you see?'

The duvet shifted as he turned his head and then moved round again to face her. His knee knocked against hers.

‘Sorry,' she said. It was too dark to see him clearly; as the girls were away they had turned off the landing light.

‘One fact, in all this, seems to have escaped your notice,' he said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘You know perfectly well that . . .' He stopped, sighed, and spoke again. ‘That once you had a baby,
if
you had one . . .'

A silence. ‘What?' she said.

‘You'd never bear to give it up.'

There was another silence.

‘You know that,' he said. ‘Don't you?'

ALL OVER LONDON
people were going to work. It was a damp, mild winter morning. Girls gazed out of the windows of buses; they rubbed their hands on the misted glass. Cars revved up in traffic jams; from them came the mixed chatter of their radios. The city's heart beat, quickening. It knew nothing of Ollie's head, which ached from the previous night's cheap wine and disorientating talk. He was swallowed up as he descended into the Underground. The man standing on the escalator in front of him knew nothing; how surprising that it was all the same. Ollie gazed at the uncomprehending back of the man's neck and turned to look at the advertisements for bulging underpants and American musicals –
Fourth Great Year
– and then a photo of a woman's face and the words
Pregnant and Worried About It
?

Ken entered his office, a Portakabin in the works yard. Archie was already there, sifting through the mail.

‘What a day,' said Archie. ‘What a bummer that was. I go home and I wouldn't have been surprised if my old lady told me she's expecting quads.'

‘Quads?' asked Ken, hanging up his coat.

‘If she is, she's keeping it dark.'

Ahead of Ken lay a day of banter, and four site visits, and orders from the depot. How could it sound so normal?

Viv sat beside Yvonne, whose essay she was reading. Yvonne smelt of eau-de-Cologne and cigarettes; it made Viv queasy.

Mr Rochester is macho,
she read,
like a volcano which is about to explode.
She pointed to the page. ‘Shouldn't that be “erupt”?'

Yvonne shrugged. By turning her wrist unobtrusively, Viv could see her watch. Ten minutes before the end of the lesson. Then she could phone Ann and find out how Ken had reacted. Did he erupt or explode? Dare she phone at all?

Ann tried to phone Viv, but the first time there was no reply in the staffroom and the second time someone told her that Viv was still teaching. Ann tried to concentrate on her work.

The next time she looked up, there was her father. He was standing at one of the customer windows. She jumped up and hurried over.

‘Dad!' She smiled through the glass. ‘This is a nice surprise.'

‘Just thought, well, I'd pop round.'

She stared at him. For one moment she thought that he must know and that he had come here to talk about it. But that was surely impossible. She hurried round to the interconnecting door and unlocked it.