Turn Us Again (19 page)

FIFTEEN

L
ondon is the most wonderful city in the world, and midwifery is the most wonderful profession, Madelyn thought, as she held the hand of the labouring woman in the narrow room up the stairs from the pub. Sounds of merriment drifted up through the floor. The publican was already buying everyone drinks and toasting his soon-to-be fatherhood. It was their first baby, and the woman lay calmly in her bed, ignoring her mother's annoying, unhelpful monologue. Madelyn had no idea if the old woman was rabbiting on out of habit, or because she was one of those women who must talk when ‘company' was present, even when circumstances rendered it superfluous.

“I had ten babies, each one more painful than the others. I thought I was going to be ripped apart more than once. What a curse women have to put up with!”

‘Shut up,' screamed Madelyn internally.

“They say the pressure stretches you so that everything is numbed and you can't feel. But I felt the skin tearing exactly as if I took the corner of your mouth right now and ripped it apart. Often I used to tell my husband that, so he'd understand. Course he's passed on now.”

Madelyn wiped the thin sheen of sweat off the labouring woman's face, debating whether to point out how unhelpful such horror stories were in the present situation. She decided against it, since the daughter's face looked so calm, concentrating on the events within as though her mother didn't exist.

The husband knocked diffidently at the door, and popped his head around to ask if anybody would like a gin.

“A strong one, please,” the old woman croaked, as though she had been working hard and needed urgent relief.

‘That might shut the old cow up,' thought Madelyn, as she shook her head. The husband gestured towards the bed, anxious to help in any way he could, fearful of glimpsing blood or other nasty things lurking in the vicinity of his wife. Madelyn shook her head again. It was a pity alcohol didn't reduce the pain of labour, instead of making one thirsty.

The young woman rolled on her side and grappled at the small of her back. Madelyn lent over and pressed to relieve the pain. Hopefully the baby wasn't posterior. The old mother concentrated on her gin, silent at last. Madelyn repressed a sudden desire to start blabbing herself, about the gun she had found that morning.

During the past four months Sam had tried to be very kind and gentle. This idyllic state of mutual love was facilitated by the fact that they were both working hard and didn't see a lot of each other. Sam was completing the last few months of articling at a respectable law firm. They recognized his potential and had already offered him a full-time job when he was called to the bar. He complained about the nature of law in general and fretted whether his high moral principles would be compromised by such a profession. Would he have to rub shoulders with the rich for the rest of his life? Madelyn assured him that his principles would dictate the decisions he made and protect him from any shady wheelings and dealings. However, other friends floating through the flat advised him otherwise. A young fellow called Jimmy, in particular, drove Madelyn mad by insisting that anyone spending the majority of their days in an office doing unfulfilling work was compromising their entire lives, let alone their principles. Madelyn couldn't believe that Sam was unaware of the slimy quality of this friend. She tried to broach the subject of her dislike several times, but Sam distrusted her motives and did not listen to her. The remembrance of episodes in the past where he had distrusted her, sometimes with reason, embarrassed her to such an extent that she began to doubt her own motives (did she want a successful lawyer for a husband for selfish reasons?), and she stopped trying to influence him.

The flat was dirty, since neither Madelyn nor Sam cared about cleanliness, but it always felt even more disgusting after one of Jimmy's sojourns.

That morning when they woke up he was gone, and Madelyn gaily made toast and boiled eggs for the two of them, envisioning a cozy breakfast. She sat down opposite Sam, who picked up the paper and began to peruse it.

“Did you sleep well?” she chirped.

He grunted. She playfully tapped the paper with her spoon and repeated her question. He pulled the paper away with an aggressive motion. “Could you be quiet? I'm trying to read.”

There was something about the latent aggression in his voice that intimidated her. She recoiled against such a feeling and pouted at him to cover it. “I want to talk.”

“I talk all fucking day. I need some peace and quiet in the mornings.” The way he said the word ‘fucking' was most unpleasant. Madelyn got up in a huff, determined to maintain a wounded silence for the rest of the day, or maybe the entire week. She went to scrape her egg shells into the garbage bag and found it overflowing, Jimmy's cigarette butts spilling out onto the floor. This was disgusting, even for Madelyn's relaxed housekeeping standards, and she distastefully picked the cigarettes up and began to close the mouth of the plastic bag.

“Don't touch that!” barked Sam.

“I'm taking it outside. It's foul,” she retorted in a self-righteous tone.

He leapt up and wrested the garbage from her hand. “There's a gun in it.”

She stepped back in horror, clamping her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, don't be so melodramatic, it's just a gun. Jimmy's, as it happens.”

This was the man who had dared to talk to Sam about principles. Madelyn did not often see her way clear to the truth, but this seemed pretty black and white.

“Sometimes you're so gullible and innocent. Jimmy can do his shady business elsewhere, I refuse to have him in our house.”

“It's my house,” Sam replied, but the sheepish quality of his look encouraged her.

“While I'm living here it's my house too, and I object to his presence. Now go and get ready, you'll be late for work. If Jimmy shows up during the day I'll tell him to clean up his garbage and get out. You will do the same if he shows up tonight while I'm at work.”

Sam went meekly to don his tie and shirt, and Madelyn forced the muscles in her neck to relax. She knew she had disposed of Jimmy, but toughness wasn't always so successful. Often it incensed him.

The young woman started to strain, the tendons in her neck bulging. Madelyn supported her in a sitting position and murmured encouragement. As the baby's head began to crown, she kneeled at the side of the bed, placing one of the woman's legs over her shoulder and massaging oil into the perineum, which stretched to ripping point every time the baby's head bulged out.

“Oh, oh, oh,” groaned the old woman, drunkenly rocking back and forth in sympathy.

Then it came sliding out, head first, followed by the shoulders and body in one huge push. A fine baby boy weighing seven pounds, three ounces.

When Madelyn had finished cleaning up, she picked her way down the rickety steps to the pub, where the publican husband was splashing gin into glasses in an ecstasy of joy.

“You must have one!” he smiled at Madelyn, and she accepted a large gin and tonic.

“Is he one of the finest boys you've ever seen?” he shouted at her, gesturing to others in the pub to listen to her answer.

“The very finest. A strong, handsome fellow.”

Then later, leaning close to her and pouring more gin, “Honestly now. Is he not very fine?”

“He is. He was regarding his new world with alert intelligence, within minutes of his birth.”

The publican's eyes filled with tears, and he nodded vigourously. “Good lass. Thank you. Good lass.”

It all seemed so beautiful, Madelyn's own eyes filled with tears.

Madelyn never saw Jimmy again, though at a party with some mutual friends she overheard that he'd shot a police dog (considered to be a very serious offence). The police began to trail him relentlessly, in the end tracking him down when he pawned his gun.

Sam declined to join the heated discussion about how important a police dog's life should be. However, a few months later Madelyn found a present under her pillow — a small silver box. She remembered seeing it in Jimmy's possession, which meant it was probably stolen, though Sam had no doubt paid through the nose for it.

Inside he had written, “Can all my love be contained in this small box?”

She tried to feel magnanimous.

Inevitably, Madelyn became pregnant again. She went out for a drink alone, to calm her nerves and gather the requisite energies to impart the news to Sam. She allowed herself to be cautiously jubilant on two counts.

First, her reproductive organs were still functioning. She had not realized the extent of her fears about possible damage until she got pregnant again. The relief in discovering there would be no physical punishment for the termination of life. Second, she rationalized, ‘if we belong together, and it is the honourable thing, as Sam said, then soon I will be married.' The excitement of such a prospect quite overwhelmed the difficulties of living together, revealed in drips and drabs on a daily basis. Sam was difficult, often controlling and unpleasant. He advised her on what her behaviour should be, the ideals she should strive towards. This could be agreeable, when they were lying peaceably together in bed and discussing what books she might read to broaden her mind. However, in the aftermath of a fight (when Madelyn never seemed to get a chance to voice her own perspective), it was less acceptable. ‘You shouldn't have said this and you shouldn't have done that, you were childish/spiteful/stupid. Try not to be like that in the future.' Adapting herself to his needs and modelling her behaviour on his vision was portrayed as the best way to a successful cohabitation. Any criticism of Sam went down badly. “You are always attacking me and putting me down,” he would shout, a tic beating in his temple. This was so outrageous it silenced her.

Yet, he had a brilliant mind. His university marks were high, his professors commended him and his bosses at the law firm wooed him like a lover. “Golden will do great things,” they had predicted one day when she was meeting Sam for lunch. Geniuses were susceptible to sensitivities; maybe it was more incumbent on her to cater to his needs and strive to behave the way he wanted than to demand understanding from him. And who said that living with somebody else would be any better? ‘I am a silly little thing,' Madelyn reflected, ‘and maybe I have the choice between marrying a simple man who accepts me as I am, or a brilliant man who needs extra care and devotion.' Yet Madelyn did not think she was a silly little thing inside. Often, she was convinced that she was the ‘sensitive soul' in need of special care and attention and knew that she would never receive it at the hands of Sam.

Still, to be married!

She told Sam casually, choosing an appropriate moment when they were ensconced on the sofa in the evening, after a few nice, relaxing drinks.

“Well then, we will have to get married as soon as possible.”

She felt instant relief, despite her genuine trust in Sam's principles and honour. She put her head on his shoulder and hugged him.

“Of course I can't tell my family. It might kill my mother. I think we should have a quiet wedding, maybe a friend or two.”

“What about my family?”

“I don't think it's fair that your family should be present when mine can't be, do you?”

Madelyn just wanted to be happy right now, and she knew that any disagreement, any at all, could lead to unpleasantness in ways that were inexplicable to her. So she said nothing, even though she knew her family would be hurt by a hole-and-corner wedding, especially since the baby would arrive before a decent nine months had passed. How could she explain it? Sorry, his family won't come because they don't think that I'm good enough… no. Sorry, his family is barmy so you can't come to my wedding either?

Sam continued without waiting for an answer, as though assuming his decision would not be challenged. “I have some news for you too. I'm leaving the law, but I've already got another job! It is in Scotland, but just for a few months. I didn't know you were pregnant.”

He sounded defensive already.

“You have a few months left before becoming a qualified barrister. It's ridiculous to leave now.”

“I have told you many times that I'm not comfortable in this profession. I have no vocation for the work of assisting rich people to become richer.”

“You might change your mind in a few years. It's just a few more months…”

“I shall never change to such an extent that I will regret this decision. And if I am to evolve into such a lamentable personality, I am glad to thwart the future me by forcing him to start at the beginning if he wants to article as a barrister.”

Madelyn tried to breathe deeply and quenched the desire to remove her head from his shoulder. “What is your new job?”

“Forestry. I'll be planting little trees, hobnobbing with the salt of the earth instead of these money-grubbing lawyer people.”

“Forestry!” Madelyn spat the word out in utter contempt, jerking herself to an upright position to face him. “How are you going to support a wife and child on that?”

“Many people manage it. You might love a simple life, generous neighbours. Unless, of course, you wanted to nab a rich lawyer.”