London Transports (2 page)

“Do I owe you anything?” May asked, putting on her coat.

“No, my dear, nothing.” He smiled and showed her to the door.

“It feels wrong. I’m used to paying a doctor at home or they send bills,” she said.

“Send me a picture postcard of your nice country sometime,” he said. “When my wife was alive she and I spent several happy holidays there before all this business started.” He waved a hand to take in the course of Anglo-Irish politics and difficulties over the last ten years.

May blinked a bit hard and thanked him. She took a taxi which was passing his door and went to Oxford Street. She wanted to see what was in the shops because she was going to pretend that she had spent £200 on clothes and then they had all been lost or stolen. She hadn’t yet worked out the details of this deception, which seemed unimportant compared to all the rest that had to be gone through. But she would need to know what was in the shops so that she could say what she was meant to have bought.

Imagining that she had this kind of money to spend, she examined jackets, skirts, sweaters, and the loveliest boots she had ever seen. If only she didn’t have to throw this money away, she could have these things. It was her savings over ten months, she put by £30 a month with difficulty. Would Andy have liked her in the boots? She didn’t know. He never said much about the way she looked. He saw her mostly in uniform when she could steal time to go to the flat he had for himself in the hotel. On the evenings when he was meant to be working late, and she was in fact cooking for him, she usually wore a dressing gown, a long velvet one. Perhaps she might have bought a dressing gown. She examined some, beautiful Indian silks, and a Japanese satin one in pink covered with little black butterflies. Yes, she would tell him she had bought that, he would like the sound of it, and be sorry it had been stolen.

She had a cup of coffee in one of the big shops and watched the other shoppers resting between bouts of buying. She wondered, did any of them look at her, and if so, would they know in a million years that her shopping money would remain in her purse until it was handed over to a Mr. White so that he could abort Andy’s baby? Why did she use words like that, why did she say things to hurt herself, she must have a very deep-seated sense of guilt. Perhaps, she thought to herself with a bit of humour, she should save another couple of hundred pounds and come over for a few sessions with a Harley Street shrink. That should set her right.

It wasn’t a long walk to Mr. White’s rooms, it wasn’t a pleasant welcome. A kind of girl that May had before only seen in the pages of fashion magazines, bored, disdainful, elegant, reluctantly admitted her.

“Oh yes, Dr. Harris’s patient,” she said, as if May should have come in some tradesman’s entrance. She felt furious, and inferior, and sat with her hands in small tight balls, and her eyes unseeing in the waiting room.

Mr. White looked like a caricature of a diplomat. He had elegant grey hair, elegant manicured hands. He moved very gracefully, he talked in practised, concerned clichés, he knew how to put people at their ease, and despite herself, and while still disliking him, May felt safe.

Another examination, another confirmation, more checking of dates. Good, good, she had come in plenty of time, sensible girl. No reasons she would like to discuss about whether this was the right course of action? No? Oh well, grown-up lady, must make up her own mind. Absolutely certain then? Fine, fine. A look at a big leather-bound book on his desk, a look at a small notebook. Leather-bound for the tax people, small notebook for himself, thought May viciously. Splendid, splendid. Tomorrow morning then, not a problem in the world, once she was sure, then he knew this was the best, and wisest, thing. Very sad the people who dithered.

May could never imagine this man having dithered in his life. She was asked to see Vanessa on the way out. She knew that the girl would be called something like Vanessa.

Vanessa yawned and took £194 from her. She seemed to have difficulty in finding the six pounds in change. May wondered wildly whether this was meant to be a tip. If so, she would wait for a year until Vanessa found the change. With the note came a discreet printed card advertising a nursing home on the other side of London.

“Before nine, fasting, just the usual overnight things,” said Vanessa helpfully.

“Tomorrow morning?” checked May.

“Well yes, naturally. You’ll be out at eight the following morning. They’ll arrange everything like taxis. They have super food,” she added as an afterthought.

“They’d need to have for this money,” said May spiritedly.

“You’re not just paying for the food,” said Vanessa wisely.

It was still raining. She rang Celia from a public phone box. Everything was organized, she told her. Would Celia like to come and have a meal somewhere, and maybe they could go on to a theatre?

Celia was sorry, she had to work late, and she had already bought liver and bacon for supper. Could she meet May at home around nine? There was a great quiz show on telly, it would be a shame to miss it.

May went to a hairdresser and spent four times what she would have spent at home on a hairdo.

She went to a cinema and saw a film which looked as if it were going to be about a lot of sophisticated witty French people on a yacht and turned out to be about a sophisticated witty French girl who fell in love with the deckhand on the yacht and when she purposely got pregnant, in order that he would marry her, he laughed at her and the witty sophisticated girl threw herself overboard. Great choice that, May said glumly, as she dived into the underground to go back to the smell of liver frying.

Celia asked little about the arrangements for the morning, only practical things like the address so that she could work out how long it would take to get there.

“Would you like me to come and see you?” she asked. “I expect when it’s all over, all finished you know, they’d let you have visitors. I could come after work.”

She emphasized the word “could” very slightly. May immediately felt mutinous. She would love Celia to come, but not if it was going to be a duty, something she felt she had to do, against her principles, her inclinations.

“No, don’t do that,” she said in a falsely bright voice. “They have telly in the rooms apparently, and anyway, it’s not as if I were going to be there for more than twenty-four hours.”

Celia looked relieved. She worked out taxi times and locations and turned on the quiz show.

In the half-light May looked at her. She was unbending, Celia was. She would survive everything, even the fact that Martin would never marry her. Christ, the whole thing was a mess. Why did people start life with such hopes, and as early as their mid-twenties become beaten and accepting of things. Was the rest of life going to be like this?

She didn’t sleep so well, and it was a relief when Celia shouted that it was seven o’clock.

Wednesday. An ordinary Wednesday for the taxi driver, who shouted some kind of amiable conversation at her. She missed most of it, because of the noise of the engine, and didn’t bother to answer him half the time except with a grunt.

The place had creeper on the walls. It was a big house, with a small garden, and an attractive brass handle on the door. The nurse who opened it was Irish. She checked May’s name on a list. Thank God it was O’Connor, there were a million O’Connors. Suppose she had had an unusual name, she’d have been found out immediately.

The bedroom was big and bright. Two beds, flowery covers, nice furniture. A magazine rack, a book-shelf. A television, a bathroom.

The Irish nurse offered her a hanger from the wardrobe for her coat as if this were a pleasant family hotel of great class and comfort. May felt frightened for the first time. She longed to sit down on one of the beds and cry, and for the nurse to put her arm around her and give her a cigarette and say that it would be all right. She hated being so alone.

The nurse was distant.

“The other lady will be in shortly. Her name is Miss Adams. She just went downstairs to say good-bye to her friend. If there’s anything you’d like, please ring.”

She was gone, and May paced the room like a captured animal. Was she to undress? It was ridiculous to go to bed. You only went to bed in the daytime if you were ill. She was well, perfectly well.

Miss Adams burst in the door. She was a chubby, pretty girl about twenty-three. She was Australian, and her name was Hell, short for Helen.

“Come on, bedtime,” she said, and they both put on their nightdresses and got into beds facing each other. May had never felt so silly in her whole life.

“Are you sure we’re meant to do this?” she asked.

“Positive,” Helen announced. “I was here last year. They’ll be in with the screens for modesty, the examination, and the premed. They go mad if you’re not in bed. Of course that stupid Paddy of a nurse didn’t tell you, they expect you to be inspired.”

Hell was right. In five minutes, the nurse and Mr. White came in. A younger nurse carried a screen. Hell was examined first, then May, for blood pressure and temperature, and that kind of thing. Mr. White was charming. He called her Miss O’Connor, as if he had known her all his life.

He patted her shoulder and told her she didn’t have anything to worry about. The Irish nurse gave her an unsmiling injection which was going to make her drowsy. It didn’t immediately.

Hell was doing her nails.

“You were really here last year?” asked May in disbelief.

“Yeah, there’s nothing to it. I’ll be back at work tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you take the Pill?” May asked.

“Why didn’t you?” countered Hell.

“Well, I did for a bit, but I thought it was making me fat, and then anyway, you know, I thought I’d escaped for so long before I started the Pill that it would be all right. I was wrong.”

“I know.” Hell was sympathetic. “I can’t take it. I’ve got varicose veins already and I don’t really understand all those things they give you in the family planning clinics, jellies, and rubber things, and diaphragms. It’s worse than working out income tax. Anyway, you never have time to set up a scene like that before going to bed with someone, do you? It’s like preparing for a battle.”

May laughed.

“It’s going to be fine, love,” said Hell. “Look, I know, I’ve been here before. Some of my friends have had it done four or five times. I promise you, it’s only the people who don’t know who worry. This afternoon you’ll wonder what you were thinking about to look so white. Now if it had been terrible, would I be here again?”

“But your varicose veins?” said May, feeling a little sleepy.

“Go to sleep, kid,” said Hell. “We’ll have a chat when it’s all over.”

Then she was getting onto a trolley, half asleep, and going down corridors with lovely prints on the walls to a room with a lot of light, and transferring onto another table. She felt as if she could sleep forever and she hadn’t even had the anaesthetic yet. Mr. White stood there in a coat brighter than his name. Someone was dressing him up the way they do in films.

She thought about Andy. “I love you,” she said suddenly.

“Of course you do,” said Mr. White, coming over and patting her kindly without a trace of embarrassment.

Then she was being moved again, she thought they hadn’t got her right on the operating table, but it wasn’t that, it was back into her own bed and more sleep.

There was a tinkle of china. Hell called over from the window.

“Come on, they’ve brought us some nice soup. Broth they call it.”

May blinked.

“Come on, May. I was done after you and I’m wide awake. Now didn’t I tell you there was nothing to it?”

May sat up. No pain, no tearing feeling in her insides. No sickness.

“Are you sure they did me?” she asked.

They both laughed.

They had what the nursing-home called a light lunch. Then they got a menu so that they could choose dinner.

“There are some things that England does really well, and this is one of them,” Hell said approvingly, trying to decide between the delights that were offered. “They even give us a small carafe of wine. If you want more you have to pay for it. But they kind of disapprove of us getting pissed.”

Hell’s friend Charlie was coming in at six when he finished work. Would May be having a friend, too, she wondered? No. Celia wouldn’t come.

“I don’t mean Celia,” said Hell. “I mean the bloke.”

“He doesn’t know, he’s in Dublin, and he’s married,” said May.

“Well, Charlie’s married, but he bloody knows, and he’d know if he were on the moon.”

“It’s different.”

“No, it’s not different. It’s the same for everyone, there are rules, you’re a fool to break them. Didn’t he pay for it either, this guy?”

“No. I told you he doesn’t know.”

“Aren’t you noble,” said Hell scornfully. “Aren’t you a real Lady Galahad. Just visiting London for a day or two, darling, just going to see a few friends, see you soon. Love you, darling. Is that it?”

“We don’t go in for so many darlings as that in Dublin,” said May.

“You don’t go in for much common sense either. What will you gain, what will he gain, what will anyone gain? You come home penniless, a bit lonely. He doesn’t know what the hell you’ve been doing, he isn’t extrasensitive and loving and grateful because he doesn’t have anything to be grateful about as far as he’s concerned.”

“I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t ask him for £200 and say what it was for. That wasn’t in the bargain, that was never part of the deal.”

May was almost tearful, mainly from jealousy she thought. She couldn’t bear Hell’s Charlie to come in, while her Andy was going home to his wife because there would be nobody to cook him something exciting and go to bed with him in his little manager’s flat.

“When you go back, tell him. That’s my advice,” said Hell. “Tell him you didn’t want to worry him, you did it all on your own because the responsibility was yours since you didn’t take the Pill. That’s unless you think he’d have wanted it?”

“No, he wouldn’t have wanted it.”

“Well then, that’s what you do. Don’t ask him for the money straight out, just let him know you’re broke. He’ll react some way then. It’s silly not to tell them at all. My sister did that with her bloke back in Melbourne. She never told him at all, and she got upset because he didn’t know the sacrifice she had made, and every time she bought a drink or paid for a cinema ticket she got resentful of him. All for no reason, because he didn’t bloody know.”