The Tightrope Walkers, page 15
My dear Comfort and Anthony [she tactfully put Comfort’s name first, knowing that Anthony would understand],
Thank you for the ravishing mermaid. She looks very old. Where did you find her? She’s so beautiful that I doubt if I shall ever be able to take her off. It’s charming of you both to have thought of giving me anything, let alone something as wonderful as this pin.
I truly loved my time in your house and learned so much that I will never forget. I hope that the portrait is going well and that you are pleased with it. I can’t wait for the private view.
Love to you both, Amanda
It was not much for the first letter she had written to the man who had shown her the difference between love and sex, but it was all she could allow herself then. She thought of all the things she wanted to write to him and saved them up. Then she opened Andrew’s letter.
My darling Amanda,
Missing you is like having had part of me cut away. Forgive me for not making you happier. You sent me into heaven that night we made love, but I am beginning to realise that you might not have felt quite like that. I want to come storming the barricades of Norwich to whisk you away and find a way to let you say those things to me again and show you how much I love you.
I won’t quote what it was you said, but I think we both know that it was truer than the words you sent me to Paris with. I wish I had never taken those ones seriously enough to go off and sulk. Oh, Amanda, I do so much want to find the secrets of your real self, the hidden, frightened one, and make it less afraid, not least of me.
But you wouldn’t like that and I have schools this term.
Andrew
Amanda, who had been frowning at the presumption of much of what Andrew had written, smiled as she read the last line and wished that he could be as aware and amusing as his letters when they actually met. Skimming over the letter again, she found nothing that needed answering and put it away, deciding that she would wait for the next instalment before she wrote to him. Instead she turned to work.
That term they were to tackle Giotto and she collected all the relevant books from the library to give herself a useful advantage over her lazier colleagues.
She started to read the weightiest of the books and then, finding it unusually dull, switched to another and then another. Eventually she pushed them all to one side of her desk and retreated to bed with her writing paper so that she could write to her grandmother in Fiesole. That did nothing to drive away her dissatisfactions but she finished the letter and stuffed it into an airmail envelope ready for posting. Then she allowed herself to write to Anthony all the things she wanted him to know, aware with each stroke of her pen that she would destroy the letter as soon as it was finished.
Iris returned to Norwich just in time to stop Amanda from falling into a melancholy and the two of them poured out accounts of their vacations to each other. Amanda kept the existence of Anthony and her feelings for him in a separate compartment, which she did not even mention, but her experiences with Andrew became common currency between them.
‘So no foie gras to the sound of trumpets then?’ said Iris, sitting on the floor rolling a joint. ‘Want some?’
‘No thanks. I just don’t like it: makes me feel sick and I hate not being in control. No, there were no trumpets with Andrew.’ She could have added that there hadn’t been trumpets with Anthony either, just that staggering moment when she had found extraordinary pleasure in losing control and felt truly at home for the first time in her life. She had been at peace then, and in love at last.
There was a slight smile twitching at her lips and a distant, self-absorbed look in her dark eyes that made Iris privately amused. She was well aware that there was something she had not been told, but she did not press her friend. Instead she lay back, sucking the scented, delirious-making smoke deep into her lungs and letting the future and the past take care of themselves for once.
Amanda looked down at her, uncharacteristically annoyed with her, and then turned back to the desk where Andrew’s latest letter lay needing to be answered. The smoke from Iris’s joint was making her feel sick.
She ate no supper that night and was surprised to find herself still feeling nauseated the following morning. Flinging open the big, black-edged window and breathing great mouthfuls of damp fresh air, Amanda wondered if she was going to be ill. It was not for several hours that the most obvious – and most terrifying – explanation occurred to her.
When it did, she sat cross-legged on the floor of her room hugging herself and saying the word over and over again to make it seem less important: ‘Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.’
The mantra did nothing to take power from the word and she tried to cope with it by telling herself that there was no need to be afraid.
‘Everyone has abortions these days,’ she said aloud, thanking the Fates that at least she had plenty of money to pay for one and need not involve anyone else in her predicament. There was no need to feel like a Victorian kitchen maid whose only options were an unlikely forced marriage, prostitution, the workhouse or suicide.
If she were truly pregnant her condition need be no more than a mild inconvenience. There was no reason for the instinctive shame she felt. She knew perfectly well that she had done nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, she told herself illogically, no one need know anything about it.
None of her rationalisations could take away the sensation of dread. She felt ill and afraid, and all Andrew’s remarks about her hidden self came back to mock her. She did not blame him for her possible pregnancy, but she blamed him completely for her fears. It was almost as though it had been his impertinent invention of a frightened part of her that had led her into trouble.
Pushing away all the absurdities that kept rushing into her mind, Amanda decided that the first thing to do was to find out whether her condition was real. It would be too stupid to work herself into serious anxiety for nothing. After all there were plenty of comforting stories to suggest she might not be pregnant. Mary Tudor, for one, had frequently believed that she was with child, and everyone knew she had died infertile. Even so, Amanda felt utterly convinced that she was pregnant.
She was also completely certain that she did not want the university doctor involved in her life. He was said to be very relaxed about things like the Pill and probably completely reliable and discreet. Amanda had heard nothing to the contrary. But the memory of the tutor’s mockery was too strong for her to be able to bear the possibility that people like him might hear that she had been stupid enough to get herself pregnant.
Her parents’doctor would be no good either for the same sort of reason. The only solution seemed to be to go into Norwich, find a private doctor’s surgery in some unfrequented part of the city, give a false name and ask for a test for which she could pay cash so that no one need know anything about her.
She did it that afternoon and was surprised to find a young-looking woman in the surgery, who expressed neither surprise nor condemnation at Amanda’s stammered explanation of her presence. The doctor was quite matter of fact about her questions and her request for a urine sample. Embarrassed, despite the doctor’s attitude, Amanda did as she was told and submitted to a physical examination.
‘I can’t say for certain until we get the results of the test,’ said the doctor while Amanda was putting on her clothes. ‘If you come back in three days’time we’ll know. It is quite possible, though, that you will have your period by then.’
Amanda looked up, suddenly hopeful and then frowned.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’ll come back. At the same time?’
‘Yes, please. Try not to worry too much. You have more options now than you would have done a few years ago.’
‘I know. Thank you.’
Amanda left the surgery, nodded to the receptionist, who smiled pleasantly, and walked aimlessly about the streets. The weather had improved and there was enough warm sunlight to make even Norwich look quite attractive. As she walked down Elm Street, among the crowds of shoppers and tourists, she thought that she was divided from them all by some impervious membrane. The charming, dilapidated medieval and tudor houses still looked pretty, but they could have been part of a stage set for all they meant to her and the busy people could have been marionettes. She felt apart, no longer afraid but quite alone.
Three days later she was back in the surgery, listening with outward coolness to the doctor’s announcement of her forthcoming child.
‘I see.’ Amanda breathed deeply and deliberately relaxed her hands. She was not sure that she liked the sympathy on the doctor’s face. ‘Thank you for your time. Shall I pay you or the receptionist?’
‘There are things to arrange before you go,’ said the doctor mildly.
‘That’s perfectly all right. I shall make my own arrangements. I’m only a visitor to Norwich.’
‘You sound as though you’ve decided on a termination …’ Before the doctor could finish, Amanda had interrupted.
‘That’s my business.’
‘But as a doctor I have a responsibility to you. Please take time to think before you do anything irreparable. You’re very young.’
‘Thank you for your advice. Good-bye.’
The doctor sighed.
‘Please remember that I am here if you need anything – or if you just want to talk. I … It’s not a light matter, you know.’
Amanda, who had been calculating that she had until at least October before the twenty-eight-week limit for an abortion expired, managed to smile.
‘Thank you for your time,’ she said again. ‘I’ll certainly be in touch with you if I need anything.’
Iris Fowlins greeted Amanda on her return with the news that Comfort had telephoned and wanted Amanda to ring her back as soon as she could.
‘Oh thanks, Iris. I’ll do that in a minute.’
‘Are you all right?’ her friend asked, peering at her. There seemed to be no excitement – or even pleasure – in the news that one of the most celebrated painters of the day wanted to talk to her.
‘I’m fine.’ Amanda switched on the light. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Thanks.’ Iris, who was wearing a dreadful purple crocheted mini-dress over her tattered green bell-bottomed trousers, curled up on Amanda’s bed, crumpling the careful arrangement of different Indian cotton bedspreads she had recently bought to disguise its utilitarian lines. ‘I thought you always had milk in yours.’
‘Usually, but I’ve decided I prefer it black and sweet.’
‘You’re not pregnant are you?’ The question was asked in Iris’s usual teasing voice and was obviously not meant seriously, but Amanda found that for once she could not lie. She stared at Iris, trying to find the right words. Eventually she realised that her silence had already given Iris the true answer so that the actual words did not matter at all.
‘Actually, yes,’ she said quite easily. ‘But keep it under your hat. No one but you need ever know anything about it.’
‘God, Amanda, I’m sorry. I’d never have asked if … I’ve always assumed that you were far too sensible and controlled to let it happen to you. Sorry, I’m making things worse and worse. But why aren’t you on the Pill?’
Amanda shrugged.
‘I was at one stage in my first term, when I thought … But that folded rather soon and the pills made me so spotty and unhappy and I hadn’t liked sex anyway; there seemed no point going on.’
‘You should have tried a different sort. They all have different dosages and effects. And even spottiness would be better than a disaster like this.’
‘It’s not such a drama, you know. I can easily afford an abortion and I’ve got until at least the start of next term before I need have it done. No one need know anything,’ she said again, ‘unless you betray me.’ The upward intonation made her last statement into a question.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Iris, ‘you know I wouldn’t do that. Amanda …’
‘What? You look shocked. It happens to all sorts of people.’ She turned away so that she need not watch the unmistakable disapproval in Iris’s face. It was not an expression Amanda had ever seen there before and it upset her.
‘I know it happens and of course I’m not shocked that it’s happened to you. It’s just … Hell! This is difficult. It’s just that I don’t think you should charge in and have an abortion without thinking about it.’
Amanda, sipping her boiling tea, looked aghast.
‘I rather counted on you, you know,’ she said at last. ‘It never occurred to me that you’d turn moralistic on me. You haven’t suddenly become a Catholic, have you?’
Iris shook her head. ‘No, but there are reasons why I don’t think you should have a termination. It’s not quite as straightforward as “a woman’s right to choose”, whatever they say. At least it is, but I don’t think most of us know enough to make the right choice.’
‘You don’t have to worry about my not knowing. I’ve listened to and participated in more abortion debates at home than you’ve had hot dinners. My father was a firm supporter of David Steel’s bill and my mother disapproved of it. That’s one reason why I’ve got to get this sorted out quickly. I don’t want her getting wind of my state.’
She stared at Iris, who was looking remarkably uncomfortable.
‘I must say that I’d never have expected you to share her views. Why, Iris? I think you owe it to me to explain.’
‘I just think that it might … damage you,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t mean physically. Nowadays you can have a perfectly decent doctor instead of a back-street butcher, but I think it might hurt you badly in other ways.’ She looked completely serious and quite unlike herself.
‘I can’t think of anything that could damage me as much as giving birth to an illegitimate baby and struggling to bring it up as an unmarried mother,’ Amanda said tartly. ‘And if you’re about to suggest that I have it adopted at birth, I can’t think why that would be less hurtful – more, actually, since I’d have had all the bother of pregnancy and all the pain of delivery, not to speak of everyone’s knowing about it. Come on, Iris, it’s just not practical. Besides, women still die in childbirth.’
Iris drank her tea and sat with her hands wrapped round the mug, trying to speak.
‘What’s the matter with you? I’ve never seen you so suburban.’ It had always been their worst insult, but Iris did not rise to it.
‘Oh, God. I never meant to tell anyone this,’ she said with difficulty, ‘but I had an abortion last year.’
Amanda was surprised out of her self-absorption by the sight of tears gathering on Iris’s plump cheeks. She had never cried in public before.
‘I thought just like you that getting pregnant was a minor inconvenience. I never even told Ben about it. And ever since …’ Her voice broke completely. Amanda rootled in her top drawer for a clean handkerchief, which she handed to Iris, who scrubbed her eyes with it.
‘Ever since I had it done, I’ve regretted it. I’ve been through all the arguments about wasting my life on domesticity, ruining my chances of a good job by not finishing here and all the rest. But I can’t stop … mourning, I suppose.’
Amanda silently fetched Iris’s empty mug, washed it out under the tap and poured a stiff measure of whisky from the bottle she kept under the basin.
‘Have some of this,’ she said, hating to see her friend in such distress. ‘I didn’t mean to make you so sad. Perhaps it’s just the upset to your hormones: something like that must cause a pretty big upset. After all, think of all those women who have dreadful depression after they’ve had their babies. You’re probably just still going through that.’
Iris made an effort to control her voice.
‘I don’t think so. But it’s absurd for me to sob and lean on you when it’s you who have the problem now. I didn’t tell you for sympathy – I’ve never told anyone else – only because I care for you too much to let you go through it without a warning. I want you to promise me you’ll think before you do it. Nothing will show until well after the end of term and, as you said, you’ve months before the time limit is up.’
‘I can promise you I’ll think about it, but I’m not sure how long I’ll let it go. It’s so much better and less painful in every sense if it’s done quickly.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about it.’ Iris sipped some whisky, watching Amanda over the rim of the mug.
‘I told you, I listened to endless arguments when the bill was going through Parliament. I know all there is to know – including what it does to the women who have them,’ said Amanda obscurely. ‘Iris, I am sorry that it happened badly for you.’
‘What about Andrew? D’you think it’s fair to get rid of his child without even letting him know it exists?’
‘It doesn’t. It’s a few cells in my body. Why should he know? It’s nothing to do with him.’ Amanda’s voice shook slightly with anger.
Iris got of the bed and went to stand beside Amanda with an arm around her waist.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound disapproving. It’s none of my business …’
‘Quite.’
‘Except in so far as I’ve been where you are now and I made a mistake. I’d hate you to go through it without knowing how bad a mistake it was.’
Amanda let her head fall into her friend’s shoulder.
‘I feel so ill at the moment, it makes me ratty. Sorry, Iris.’
‘Come and sit down and drink your tea.’
‘But, Iris,’ Amanda protested as she obediently returned to her chair, ‘if I didn’t get rid of it, what on earth would I do with a baby?’
‘Well, either look after it like in The Millstone or have it adopted if you really can’t bear the thought of keeping it. But you must tell the child’s father. You must.’
