Red Joan (13 page)

Differences of ideology and political system, they say, ought not to and cannot stand in the way of the establishment and strengthening of good neighbourly relations between the Soviet Union and Germany.

 

Late August, and the newspapers are full of war and Chamberlain. Joan is waiting for Sonya in a café in town, having come up to Newnham early to catch up on some reading before term starts. Under more amenable circumstances, she would say that she loves this time of year: the silvery colours of the morning sky, the tracks of dew across the fields, the long, warm evenings with their trails of pink cloud. But this year is different. There are lines of men smoking cigarettes outside the café, and women pushing perambulators along the cobbles, everybody rushing, rushing, with the sense of something about to start.

Joan orders a coffee, and then wishes she had opted for a weak tea, but she does not really want anything. She knows she ought to eat something but the thought of food makes her whole body feel giddy and waterlogged. She can feel her brain swishing in her head, a light film of sweat clinging to her skin. The waitress is brisk and efficient, dressed all in black except for a mildly offensive bonnet on her head, white cotton edged with lace and tied under her chin. She looks young from a distance, but when she brings the coffee over to the table Joan can see the pores of her skin, an older lady's pores, and she feels sorry for her that she is forced to wear the bonnet. The air smells of bacon fat and warm milk, of grease-smudged aprons left in an old bucket to soak.

Oh God, she thinks, here it comes, a wave of it washing over her, pummelling her whole body with its force, and she has to run to the bathroom to avoid vomiting all over the linoleum floor.

Sonya arrives five minutes later. She is wearing a cape covered in a red tulip pattern, and she has coloured her hair with henna so that it is a deep, rich brown. Even the dullness of the café cannot dim the gleam of her as she comes in and throws herself down opposite Joan in the booth. ‘What's the matter with you?' she asks, before Joan can even say hello. ‘You look terrible.'

Joan manages a wry smile. ‘Thanks.'

Sonya looks at her, narrowing her eyes.

‘It's just a bug,' Joan says. ‘It'll pass.'

‘If you say so. What's this you're drinking then?' she asks. ‘Hot chocolate?'

‘Coffee,' Joan says, offering it to Sonya as she cannot stomach any more.

Sonya declines. ‘You can keep your bug to yourself. I'll get my own.'

She gestures to the waitress that she will have the same thing. There is a pause while the two women—yes, Joan supposes, we are no longer girls—look at each other.

‘Leo didn't show up at the meeting last night,' Sonya remarks.

‘Oh.' Joan glances at her. ‘Have you seen him? Has he said anything about me?'

Sonya slips her arms out of her cape and folds it next to her on the bench. ‘I take it he's still not talking to you then?'

Joan shakes her head. ‘I don't know why he's taking it so personally.'

‘He'll come round,' Sonya says, her voice sticky with sympathy. ‘It's obvious that it's just a tactical move by Stalin. Any fool can see Hitler's got his eye on Russia next, once Poland's submitted, and Britain and France haven't exactly been offering much in the way of support. He's just buying time.' She pauses. ‘And we need time.'

Joan lowers her head. It feels heavy and her eyes hurt. ‘Not
we
,' she whispers. ‘
They.
We're no longer on the same side.'

‘That sort of comment is exactly why Leo's cross with you.'

‘I know but he needs to understand that we're in Britain. I'm British. When I say “we”, I mean the British and their allies.'

‘But that's Leo's whole point. Nationhood is a false distinction.'

‘Evidently it's not to Stalin. He's put himself on Hitler's side. He's chosen.' Joan takes a sip of her coffee and immediately regrets it. The taste is nauseating. She pushes it away and breathes shallowly through her mouth, trying to control the retch which threatens to rise up from her stomach. ‘That's why Leo's cross. Not because of me. He's just taking it out on me because I'm here and Stalin's not.'

‘It's a huge shock for him.' Sonya takes out her silver cigarette case, not opening it but rotating it in her hands so that it reflects the velvety pink of her fingernails. ‘For us.' She glances at Joan. ‘Are you all right?'

A gulp of air. ‘I'm fine.'

Sonya observes her for a moment and then selects a cigarette. She lights it, sucks at it, and then exhales a small stream of smoke. ‘It was a horrible time, when Leo left us in Germany.'

‘I know.'

Sonya purses her lips. ‘But you don't know, do you? You don't understand.' Her tone is dismissive, patronising. ‘How could you?'

Joan leans back into her seat. She closes her eyes and wishes Sonya would stop being so aggressive, so competitive. Of course she doesn't know exactly, but she has tried to imagine it based on what Leo has told her. She knows they both think it is her lack of understanding that holds her back from joining officially. She brushes a strand of hair from her cheek.

‘It's not a bug, is it?' Sonya says suddenly. She is scrutinising Joan's stomach, watching how her hand rests delicately against it.

Joan drops her hand. ‘Oh Sonya,' she whispers. ‘I don't know. I haven't been to a doctor yet.'

‘Is there any need? How late are you?'

There are tears now, threatening to rise up. ‘Five weeks,' she whispers.

Sonya hesitates. ‘Leo?'

‘Yes.'

‘Have you told him?'

Joan shakes her head.

‘Good. That's a relief. You mustn't.'

‘Really? But I want to. I was just waiting until I was sure. And until he stopped being so angry with everything.'

Sonya laughs. ‘Jo-jo-jo-jo. What on earth is it you think he's going to say? Do you think he'll go all gooey over this and ask you to marry him?'

There is a silence. There is a certain quality Joan recognises in herself which makes her susceptible to these daydreams even though she professes not to want them. Weakness, she supposes Leo might call it, but she would not call it that. She is curious. She likes to imagine what might happen, how her life might change if she were to tell Leo, if they were to have this baby now, together. Although it would mean delaying her studies, which would displease her father and Miss Abbott, and she cannot even guess what her mother's reaction would be.

Sonya is looking at her and shaking her head. ‘Oh God, come on, Joan. Surely you don't really believe that. He's got a war to fight, in case you hadn't noticed.'

Joan frowns at her. ‘But we're not at war. Chamberlain said—'

‘Rot,' Sonya interrupts. ‘You will be soon, whatever anyone says. And anyway, I wasn't talking about Britain's war against Hitler. I'm talking about Leo's own war. The Struggle.' She opens her cigarette case again and tips out a pile of cigarettes, flicking one across the table to Joan and then taking a thin scrap of cigarette paper from the bottom of the tin. She writes something on the paper and then slides it across the table.

Joan takes it. ‘What's this?'

‘An address.'

‘I can see that.' Joan reads it again and then, quite suddenly, she breathes out. ‘Oh.' She feels another wave of nausea build and break inside her. She looks up at Sonya. ‘I can't do that. I couldn't. And anyway, it's illegal. I could go to prison for it.'

Sonya laughs. ‘Of course you wouldn't.' She adjusts the sleeves of her dress, absently rolling back the cuffs to display her delicate wrists, and then leans forward, cupping her hands around Joan's as she speaks. ‘Everybody does it,' she says gently. ‘They just don't talk about it.'

‘Really?' Joan hesitates over the next question, but then blurts it out: ‘Have you?'

Sonya looks at her. ‘No,' she says. ‘There are ways, you know. And I've been lucky so far.' She sits back and smiles at Joan, comforting, encouraging. ‘But I would if I had to.'

Joan cannot speak. She feels a strange sort of inertia invade her body, a heaviness that seems to float into every pore.

‘Of course,' Sonya is saying now, her voice seeming to come from a great distance, although she is only there, an arm's stretch away, ‘it's your decision.'

 

Sonya knows the way. Number 41, down here on the left. She walks faster than Joan, a few steps ahead. ‘You're doing the right thing,' Sonya tells her as they turn in through the front gate. ‘And Leo would be grateful if he knew. He'd respect you for it. Not,' she adds, ‘that I think you should tell him.'

The house is small and poky. It has a green-washed front wall and a brown door. The colour of vomit, Joan thinks. Sonya rings the bell and they are shown into a dark hallway. There is a crucifix on the wall and a portrait of the Virgin Mary. Joan looks away, staring down at the thin rug covering the uneven floorboards.

‘How many weeks is it?' a voice asks from the top of the stairs.

‘Five and a half weeks late,' Joan whispers, and Sonya has to repeat it for her because she cannot speak loudly enough for the woman to hear. She is so scared, so sick, so sorry. Her hand is on her stomach again.

‘Come on then. Up you come.' The woman holds the door of a room open at the top of the stairs. There is a bed covered in starched, white sheets, and the smell of disinfectant on the woman's hands is strong and causes Joan to retch.

The woman gestures towards a ceramic mixing bowl perched next to the bed. ‘If you're going to be sick I'd appreciate it if you could aim for that,' she says, not looking at Joan but taking a towel from the top of a pile in the corner of the room, and dunking it in a basin. Her manner is brisk, matter-of-fact. She has seen all this before. ‘Now take off your clothes and jump on the bed.'

Oh, it is cold in here. It is deathly, icily cold. Joan takes off her skirt and stockings, and then hesitates. She looks at Sonya, but Sonya is standing with her hands on her hips, observing the woman's preparations.

‘And your knickers,' the woman says, not looking at her but somehow knowing that Joan would have left them on. ‘No point being a prissy now.'

Joan takes them off. Every atom of her body is quivering with the desire to leap up and run back down those dark horrible stairs and out of the front door. How did she get here? She sits on the bed for a few seconds and then stands up again. The air is cold against her naked flesh.

‘Lie down.'

‘I can't,' she says in a whisper. Her limbs move awkwardly, as if she has lost her coordination along with her clothing.

The woman doesn't turn around but continues with her preparations.

‘There now,' Sonya says, her voice low and soothing as she steps a little closer to Joan. ‘You know you're doing the right thing.'

‘Am I?'

Sonya looks at her and nods, and her eyes are so desperate, so sad, that Joan could almost believe that Sonya is suffering more from this than she is. She sits back on the bed. Leo would be grateful if he knew. This is just the wrong time for him. And there are her studies to think of. Her whole body shakes as she lifts her legs up and lies down on her back, her forearms crossed over her lower body in a self-conscious attempt to cover herself up. There is no need for him to ever know. Things can just go back to the way they were.

The woman dries her hands on a towel, looking at the top of Joan's legs. ‘No, like this,' she says, adjusting Joan's shoulders and hips so that she is twisted on her side. Her fingers are icy against Joan's skin.

Joan feels Sonya's hand on her arm. She has a sudden, desperate need for something kind, something warm, but Sonya's hand is cool and clammy. She wants to cry out to Sonya to stop touching her, to make the woman stop, to take that tube away from her—what is she doing with that tube?—to stop, oh ow!—to leave her be. There is a terrible stabbing pain in her stomach, a snapping and cracking and sucking, and she wants to curl her body up into a ball. She can feel the woman's hair brushing her thighs, and Sonya's breath on her cheek as she whispers to her—‘there now, there now, nearly done'—and she has to push out every thought she has ever had so that she is thinking of nothing at all, not of Leo or her mother or anything else which might have once comforted her. She closes her eyes so that all she can see is blackness, because she does not want to see the bright red blood spreading so quickly on the sheets, nor does she want to remember the woman's hair, lank and greasy and sad to look at, or the crucifix nailed into the wall above the bed, or the smell of rubber and blood and the feel of half-dried towels itching against her skin. Her head is pushing against the wooden headboard and she is hot now, so hot that her whole body is shivering, her teeth chattering in her head, and still Sonya is holding her hand, squeezing, squeezing, until the pain in her knuckles threatens to distract from the other pain and tears are drumming against her eyelids, and she wants to cry out—stop touching me!—but she does not, cannot, and still Sonya does not let go.

J
oan rubs her eyes. It is early, not yet dawn, and it has been an uneasy night. A siege-like rattle of droplets slants against her bedroom window, trapping her, drowning her, keeping her from sleep. The electronic tag rubs against her ankle, too large for her thin bones. She reaches down to touch it, her fingers light against the mechanism. She could almost slip her foot out of it. What would they do, she wonders, if she made a break for it? Would they follow her, track her down? What has she told them in any case? Nothing really. Nothing relevant.

She could take the bus to the station and then the train to Dover. She could be there in time for the first ferry. It seems almost possible until she remembers that her bus pass and passport have been confiscated.