The Killing Doll (14 page)

“A what?” said Myra but by that time she had unwrapped and exposed the long cardboard box labeled “Higginson’s Syringe.” “What does he want that for?”

“He’s got this patient swears it’s her teeth and George says it’s not, it’s her ears, so he’s going to syringe her ears out.”

“I could have popped out and got that,” said Myra. “Want a coffee now you’re here?”

“I’d love some coffee. You are kind, Myra. I’m afraid I’m just an awful nuisance, aren’t I?” Yvonne said this with the air of one who is accustomed to being told she is tiresome and her jewel-like greeny-blue eyes sparkled as if tears always hung suspended in them. “You look a bit pale. Are you all right?”

Myra thought how nice Yvonne was. Why couldn’t Doreen be like that, friendly and down-to-earth and meeting you halfway? After all, if there was anyone with a reason for putting on airs, it was Yvonne, and yet here she was as natural as a child. For a moment she thought of confiding in Yvonne but she dismissed the idea. It was more than possible that Yvonne actually wanted a child and would have scant sympathy for a woman with an undesired pregnancy. So she only smiled and said she was a bit tired and they chatted about clothes for a while over their coffee and Yvonne told Myra how she had been all the way to Florence specially to buy her boots and handbag and belt and Myra didn’t think she was too awful, did she?

Half an hour after she stopped work for the day Myra had an appointment with her GP. She had brought a specimen of urine with her but she knew it was too late to bother about that. She knew she was pregnant, eight or nine weeks pregnant, and it was not confirmation she needed. She needed advice, consent or maybe, hopefully, only the making of arrangements.

Walking up the windy hill to Camden Town station, Myra thought about the married man. She had been thinking about him a lot lately. It was in autumn that he and she had met and in autumn that they had parted. Myra thought of how she had stood in the bay window of her furnished room, watching for his car to come and for him to step out of it and slam the door and walk towards the house, walking with that supple grace of his, his head held high. He had stayed slim, never put on an ounce of weight, and the frosting of gray in his hair only made him look more distinguished. Every Wednesday and every Friday and most Monday evenings for year after year he had come and then one day he had told her there was no way he could desert his wife and she had rejoined that she had had a better offer anyway. Did he know where she was now? Did he ever think of her?

In spite of the appointment, she had to wait nearly half an hour to see her doctor. He examined her and confirmed the pregnancy. He began scolding her for not having come before, at her age early attention was vital, an amniocentesis would have to be carried out. Myra interrupted him. She didn’t want a baby, she wanted an abortion. The doctor looked rather severe and Myra, made defiant, angry, and unhappy too because fearful doubt is not at all the same thing as certainty, said aggressively that she thought any woman in England had the right to an abortion just by asking for it.

“Before we take any steps,” the doctor said, “I should like to talk to you and your husband together.”

From that, in spite of her pleas of it being her baby, her body and her business, Myra could not move him. He would do nothing for her until he had spoken to Harold as well. Myra had never discussed with Harold the possibility of having children. It had no more occurred to her than it would to discuss men with Dolly or clothes with the perpetually sweatered and trousered Eileen Ridge. But now that she thought about it, she was not at all sure that Harold would be as dismayed at the prospect of a child as she was. Lazy, slow, apathetic people often liked children. Harold, in a half-hearted way, seemed to like the children he already had. Suppose, when she told him, he were to react with thrilled excitement? Suppose he were to be, in one of his own phrases, tickled to death? Suddenly Myra knew beyond a doubt that this was how it would be—Harold thrilled, Harold flattered at this proof of his virility, Harold adamant when it came to discussing with any doctor the termination of the pregnancy.

Myra walked home up Crouch Hill. She reflected dismally that, no matter how frightened and fed up a woman might be, she still had to think about what to have for supper. She went into the shop that was part butcher, part delicatessen, and the Irishman with the peculiar eyes and the rubbery face served her with two pork chops. He never smiled, he never said much, he always seemed to be listening. Next door was a newsagent. Myra bought an evening paper. She was in search of an advertisement she had seen before, directed at women requiring abortions, and there it was, a box among the small ads.

She rang the number when she got home. The woman she spoke to was friendly and forthcoming and she said she must warn Myra that, on admission to the nursing home, before anything was done, a fee of 500 pounds would be required from her. It was only fair to tell her this from the start. Myra put the phone down. There was 20 pounds in her current account and this amounted to all her resources. The letters of administration had not yet come, might not come for weeks, and until they did, though she might drop in next door picking up unconsidered trifles, there was no way she could get her hands on her mother’s money. These things always took ages. It was over two months already. Myra could remember precisely when her mother had died, for the date of that death was the day before the conception of this hated, unwanted child.

Pup had plans for the expansion of Yearman and Hodge. As soon as he had passed his driving test, they were going to buy a van. He had started going out servicing typewriters but it would be better when they had the van. These new electronic machines were the thing, Pup said to his father, big and efficient but light as a feather with all the works a mere microchip. They could still do well and make a profit if they took twenty-five percent off for cash.

“You’ve got drive,” said Harold in the sort of tone one might use to inform someone he had a nasty cold.

“We’ll have to think about photocopiers for the future,” said Pup. “Photocopiers are the coming thing.”

He walked up to Queen’s Avenue in Muswell Hill, though it wasn’t a very nice day but wet and windy. When he got home, he resolved, he would do some magic for Dolly. To make her happy. Like in the old days, he would perform one of the great rituals with incense and wine and roses. He owed that to Dolly.

The girl who opened the door to him said she typed theses for people. She was in the middle of doing this philosophy thesis for someone seeking a Ph.D. and the typewriter was sticking on the
g.
Well, the carriage return was sticking too. She had had it three years and it had never had a real service.

Pup set to work on it. It was an Adler and he knew all about Adlers. The girl watched him. She was rather a plain girl with a long face and a big nose but she had waist-length blonde hair and a very good figure. The figure was shown off to the best advantage in Lycra stretch jeans and a red T-shirt. Both looked brand new and Pup wondered if she had put them on because he was coming. They had met once before in the shop.

After a while she produced a bottle of Asti Cinzano. “But perhaps you don’t drink on duty?”

“I’m not a policeman,” said Pup.

“It’s a well-known female fantasy,” the girl said, “sort of daydreaming what it would be like with the man who comes to mend the TV.”

“Or the Adler Gabrielle Five Thousand.”

“Well, if you say so.” She poured generous fizzy pink drinks. “What’s your name? I mean I know it’s Yearman but what’s your first name?”

“Peter. What’s yours?”

“Philippa. How much longer is that going to take you?”

“About five minutes, Philippa.”

“Do you know, I suddenly got scared your father might come instead. I mean, I couldn’t have fantasies about him, could I? Can I refill your glass?”

“Not if you don’t want me to spoil this very nice expensive typewriter for good and all.” While he still had his chastity, Pup thought, he had been able to handle this sort of thing. It had sometimes happened and he had pretended not to understand. Ah, those were the days! Or were they? “There you are, I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble with that
g.
Are you registered for the Value Added Tax?”

“What, me?”

“One mustn’t take anything for granted,” said Pup, very close to her now. He lifted some soft locks of fair hair that clung to the front of the T-shirt. In spite of Suzanne he felt less than fully confident, so he used the ploy that had succeeded so well with her. “For instance, you’re probably acting in the belief that I’m an experienced man while the fact is I’m still a virgin.”

“That’s unbelievable!”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Philippa, than are dreamt of in all the philosophy you type on that machine.”

“Well,” said Philippa, “you don’t want to go on being one, do you? I mean you’d like to sort of put an end to it?”

“I should love to,” said Pup with fervor.

He felt a bit tired at the end of the day. Walking slowly homewards, he turned over in his mind the plans he had made to keep Dolly happy and give him a measure of freedom. Tomorrow night he had a date with Philippa and he meant to spend all day Saturday with Suzanne. Dolly, alerted by Myra, would never be made to believe he was spending all that time, half the day and half the night, with Chris Theofanou. He was generally free from vindictive feelings, but these days he felt quite savagely towards his father’s wife. Pup had a special dislike of wanton malice.

An evening class or a club, or better still, a combination of both were what was needed. And a club-cum-class that would seem to benefit him in the one pursuit of his that interested Dolly. Pup had no qualms about telling quite ferocious lies in a good cause. He was pleased with his plan, it seemed to him foolproof.

Dolly began grumbling as soon as he got in. “I hate being forced to live up here. I hate this poky room and having to go down all those stairs every time I want to use the bathroom. It’s so unfair! People won’t climb up here and it’s not worth my while making their clothes if I’ve got to spend pounds on bus fares.”

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Pup said.

She had been putting food on the table in front of him, cold sausages, potato salad, a bowl of tomatoes, but she stopped, holding the bowl, the gesture arrested in mid-air.

“It’s not about that girl, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t. Have you ever heard of the magical Order of the Golden Dawn?”

She nodded, relieved. “I read about it in one of your books.”

“Well, I’ve joined it. The Highgate branch. I thought I should. There’ll be a lot to do, meetings and seminars and special courses, quite a few evenings every week, I expect, and sometimes weekends. But if I want to succeed as a geomancer I don’t really have an alternative.”

In the relevant book, Pup recalled, it also said that the Order of the Golden Dawn, founded by Eliphas Levi, Crowley, Yeats and other like-minded dabblers in the occult in 1888, had under its later title of the Stella Matutina collapsed in the 1930s. He thought it unlikely that Dolly would wade through the innumerable dull passages in the book before this fact was reached. If she did, he could always say the Stella Matutina had been revived a few years ago.

Dolly’s face was ardent. “I think it’s wonderful, I’m so glad. Did they ask you to join them?”

“Well …” said Pup, not exactly committing himself.

“They must have done. It’ll be a help to you in your career, won’t it? It’ll put you on the road to success.”

As far as Pup thought about having a career, it was as one of the directors of an expanding business machines company. He started to eat his sausages. Like a woman conditioned by a patriarchal society—in fact, very much like Dilip Raj’s mother—she never ate with him but waited on him and watched.

“I’m going to be formally admitted as a member,” said Pup, beginning as he meant to go on, “tomorrow night.”

After supper, remembering his resolution, he went into the temple and beckoned to her to follow him. She came joyfully, lit the candles and then sat on the cushion under the fire
tattwa,
gazing at him. Pup stood by the altar looking at his elemental weapons and felt like groaning, the whole thing was such a bore. Why had he ever begun on it? Why hadn’t he gone in for football or Tai Chi or stamp collecting?

“Well, then, what shall I do?”

“You’re asking
me?”

“I mean is there anything special you’re embarking on? Any piece of work? Or anything particular that’s bothering you? D’you want something invoked? I haven’t got any holy water but I could make some.”

She hesitated. “One day,” she said, “you’ll be a master, won’t you? You’ll be able to do anything, miracles?”

Her hand had not gone up to her cheek but he knew her meaning and he was aghast. A kind of panic rose in him, impatience with her and the whole business, self-disgust. Better to have told her it was finished, better to have destroyed the temple and thrown away the robe. But only let him think of something before she put that monstrous question directly to him …

“I know,” he said. “We’ll clobber the wicked stepmother!”

She was immediately diverted. She was surprised, presumably because he had shown such distaste before. As if it mattered, he thought, white magic, black magic, all quackery, all rubbish. Pup pulled the robe over his head and thrust his arms into the wide sleeves. The night was dark and moonless and the wind which had been blowing all day had sprung into a gale, whipping tree branches and driving clouds in black flocks across a sky lit red by the lights of London. It was nearly 9:00 and he was weary but Dolly was not. She went into the other room and came back with the Myra doll in one hand and a tumbler of red wine in the other. Pup very nearly laughed. He thought how shocked he would once have been at the idea of profaning temple and rituals with any alcohol except that used strictly in the ceremonies.

He drew the curtain. The temple was now lit to a suitable cabalistic flickering dimness by the flames of four candles. The whole thing was going to be a bore and to satisfy Dolly he would have to go on for at least an hour. His father and Myra had already gone to bed, or at least his father had. He had heard the click of a light switch below him and the bathroom window had shed a rectangle of yellow light on the dark wet grass. Pup drew a circle in chalk on the floor and inside it he drew a pentagram. Something that would make this business less tedious was that he was no longer trammeled by rules and instructions. He could do what he liked, say what he liked, jumble it all up.