With No Crying (18 page)

N
EARLY A YEAR
had passed, and it was summer again. Miranda had finished her O-levels, and though the results were not yet out, she felt pretty sure she’d done well. With the exams safely behind them, she and Sharon were busily preparing for the school trip to Greece; in the sunshine through her bedroom window, Miranda was sorting through the dresses, the tee shirts, the bikinis and the slacks that were to be packed or not packed for the trip; a hard decision, for they were all becoming, and most of them new.

For that happy, mother-and-daughter shopping expedition which Mrs Field had planned so disastrously a year ago, had, after all, taken place all these months later, exactly as she’d envisioned it, including the celebration Chinese lunch together after the main purchases had been successfully completed. It seemed almost impossible to believe, as they leaned towards each other, laughing and arguing over the elaborate menu, that that terrible period of misery, despair and estrangement had been barely a year ago.

A hard year it had been, for both of them, the hardest in either of their lives; and yet, in another way, the most rewarding. Bitter lessons had been learned, but marvellous ones, too, which neither of them would ever forget.

Such as, that no single loss or disappointment can ruin a person’s life for ever, or even for very long: that no single blazing row, over no matter how important an issue, can destroy for any length of time a deep-rooted, loving relationship: that hatred and fury, however savage, have, in fact, a built-in life span that is intrinsically brief—if only because of the sheer effort involved in sustaining such feelings through the continual this, that and the
other of everyday life, ceaselessly draining away the victim’s attention from the big, almighty grievance.

And, of course, in this case the big, almighty grievance had changed its nature almost beyond recognition during the days and weeks that followed the traumatic night when those baby clothes had come to light which Norah Field, in her role of “Miss X.” had buried in her own garden. She’d hidden them there rather than in the dustbin for fear that the police might have organised a check on local dustbins for just such incriminating evidence; and, of course, she hadn’t reckoned on someone like Iris noticing the disturbed soil, exploring it under cover of darkness, and jumping to the conclusion, on first glimpsing a baby garment, that the baby must be buried there, too. This conclusion of Iris’s was not, actually, a wholly unreasonable one, given the data available to her. She could not have known, at that stage, that the baby in question was alive and well, less than a hundred yards away, comfortable and thriving nicely, thank you, under the care of its frantic, worn-out foster mother.

Perhaps not every three-week-old baby would have taken kindly to this shuffling back and forth between mothers: but Dawn was a tough little creature, both physically and mentally, and well able to fulfil the first and most important duty of every baby that is born onto this earth; the duty, that is of learning to get along with whatever sort of mother figure it finds itself landed with.

And meanwhile, other lessons were being learned. During the weeks of Norah Field’s absence from home, recovering from what was called, for want of any better term, a “nervous breakdown”, Miranda had to face the realisation which all children and young people have to face in the end: that those unassailable pillars of strength called parents have, after all, a breaking-point; that the apparently helpless, put-upon child has it in his or her power to smash them into the ground; and easily. The first discovery of this power is terrifying, and takes some time to recover from.

*

The black-and-white ziz-zag striped bikini would be best, Miranda decided, and slipped it into her suitcase, complete with
plastic wrapping to preserve its pristine newness. The nearer this Greek trip approached, the more excited and happy she was feeling … and the more thoughtful, too.

Baby Caroline would have been five months old now. The miracle of pregnancy, the wonder and the glory of childbirth, would have been long over. By now, she, Miranda, would have been just one more Mum, plodding around with a pram, tied hand and foot day after day, week after week, until she was practically thirty. Right now, she’d be watching Sharon and her other friends setting off to Greece without her, not only leaving her out of the trip itself, but out of all the fun and excitement of the preparations. What would have been the point of including her in the laughter and the thrills of anticipation, when there was no way she could join them on the trip itself? By now, they’d have got used to leaving Miranda out of everything; what else could they do?

Would she
really
have been happy thus to have bartered away all the years of her youth in exchange for the joys of instant motherhood? Had it, indeed, been truly the joys of motherhood for which she’d yearned; or had it been, rather, the joys of fame, of showing off, of being one up on the other girls, of being a focus of wonder, awe and admiration? Had it, in short, not been a
baby
that the abortion had deprived her of, but rather the biggest ego-trip of all her young life…?

Miranda had long ago forgiven her mother for the awful trauma of the abortion; had come, painfully, to realise that the harsh and agonising decision really
had
hurt her mother very nearly as much as it had hurt herself, and had been prompted by the sincere belief that any other course would be the ruin of her daughter’s future happiness. For a long time now Miranda had accepted, absolutely, that her mother’s intentions had been of the best, and motivated solely by loving concern for Miranda herself; but only now, pressing down the lid of her shiny new suitcase to make it lock, did it suddenly cross her mind to wonder whether Mummy had not merely been well-intentioned, but might even, possibly, have been
right
…?

She shrank away from the thought. It was too new; she wasn’t
ready for it, somehow. And there was much too much else to think about, anyway, this evening.

Delphi! They were going to see Delphi! In less than a week from now, she, Miranda Field, would be standing at the ancient shrine of Apollo, where, all those centuries ago, men, women, and maybe girls no older than herself, had brought questions as intractable as her own, and had received answers from the god himself.

And yet, the answers hadn’t always been right, as Greek history, with all its inter-city defeats and victories, amply proved. And if Apollo himself hadn’t got all the answers, how could you expect Mummy to have them, either? Or Miranda herself, for that matter? What answers were there, anyway, that could be sure and certain? You just went forward, as best you could, in this direction or in that, and who could tell if the other, the different path would have proved better? Or proved worse…?

“Miranda! Miranda, darling! Sharon’s on the telephone, she wants to know if you’ve remembered about the guide-book to the Acropolis…”

How pleased and excited Mummy sounded, just as if
she
was the one to be going off on this marvellous trip, instead of being the one to be left at home coping with Daddy’s gloom about having lost the election! Well, naturally he’d lost it, without Mummy around during that crucial period of canvassing, he hadn’t a hope. Everything he’d ever done had depended, always, on Mummy doing it for him.

Well, no, that wasn’t
quite
true. And it had become even less true since those long weeks when Mummy had been away, and he’d
had
to cope with things. To telephone the plumber
himself
: to put his
own
arms round his daughter when he came upon her sobbing bitterly on the bottom step of the stairs. “Norah! Norah! Come quickly, that girl’s crying again!” was no longer a complete and sufficient response to the situation.

Sometimes Miranda felt that she would remember till her dying day that first time when, through a blur of tears, she’d seen Daddy’s tired, worried face staring at her in fear and bewilderment: and then how he’d slowly, uneasily taken off his gold-rimmed glasses in order to embrace her.

Having finished with the phone call from Sharon, complete with giggling and many a wild surmise about the days ahead, Miranda went back upstairs to complete her packing, and to check over what she might have forgotten.

Her address book, yes; there were lots of people she’d be wanting to send picture postcards to; she might even send one to the crowd at the Squat, just for the sake of keeping in touch, vaguely.

She’d imagined, when she first left the Squat in humiliation and headlong haste, that she’d never be able to face any of them again as long as she lived; but somehow, it hadn’t worked out like that. First, Belinda had phoned; and then Tim had turned up with a load of her belongings, and had even stayed, quite friendly and without undue embarrassment, for a cup of coffee.

“Let us know how you get on, won’t you, love?” he’d said, with a brotherly kiss, on parting; and after that it all began to seem not quite so absolutely frightful. She’d learned, in fact, one of the most important lessons in the whole of life; namely, that no one—no one at all—is one hundredth part as bothered about your humiliations as you are yourself. Within a week, whatever it is you’ve done, however shameful, no one—but
no
one
—will be talking about it any more. They’ll be talking about something else.

Some people take half a lifetime to learn this lesson; others never learn it at all; and so to have learned it by the age of fifteen is quite something.

Miranda paused, checking her address book. It was only barely worth while sending anything to the old address anyway, what with so many of them having left now: Alison back with her Mum and the Secretarial Course, and Iris having married a South American millionaire quite a bit older than herself, after what appeared like a whirlwind courtship.

“I’m damn well going to marry the very next man who asks me, I don’t care
who
he is!” she’d been heard to announce during one particularly fraught evening just after Miranda’s departure: and the fact that this randomly-acquired gentleman should turn out to be a millionaire seemed to be just sheer luck—though of course
with Iris you could never tell. No doubt she was in many ways just the right wife for a man trying to remain a millionaire during these devious and difficult financial days; and this, together with her decorative appearance, her efficiency, and her undisguised enthusiasm for providing him at top speed with an heir to the putative family millions, must have added up to a major attraction.

Anyway, marry him she did, and went off to South America. Tim, too, was gone, having taken up an appointment as a newly-qualified Junior Registrar in a distant hospital. Even Christine had once more departed, having gone back to Keith—this time, taking her shoes with her: a gesture just about as near to “For better, for worse” as you could hope to find within the confines of her chosen life-style.

So really, there was only Belinda left of the old crowd—except, of course, for—and here Miranda rummaged again through her address book. Yes, she really
must
send a postcard, if only to convey her congratulations.

Because while out on that shopping expedition with Mummy, they’d happened to pass a bookshop in the window of which was an eye-catching display of a new novel, flanked by ecstatic quotes from the reviews: “Gloriously understated mockery”, “The send-up to end all send-ups!” were only some of the extravagant plaudits lavished by the critics upon the much talked-of, best-selling satirical novel “HENRY”.