With No Crying (4 page)

And in the midst of it all, decrepit and unloved, there lay in a dusty little heap the whole Mactaggerty family—Grandfather Mactaggerty, with his white beard come unglued and dangling round his left ear and his stick all out sideways … Grandmother Mactaggerty eternally smiling down—even now, with her legs in the air—at the knitting stitched permanently to her lap, Mummy
Mactaggerty, Daddy Mactaggerty and the three naughty little Mactaggerty children, Rosalinda, Rosamunda and (for some reason she could not recall) French, his perky, bell-bottomed trousers tattered and dusty now beyond all recognition.

How the baby was going to love them! Little though they knew it, their days of loveless retirement were coming to an end, and life would begin for them again. Soon, there would be new little fingers to set Grandfather’s beard straight for him again, and to send him—
hobb
ledy-hop,
hobb
ledy-hop—out shopping. Or to the office. Or up in an aeroplane. In a year—well, no, two years—the Mactaggerty’s would be on their feet again, having fun again, adventures again, and raisins, and crumbs of chocolate biscuit on the tiny plates….

That her baby would be a girl, Miranda had never doubted. Already she had decided to call her Caroline. Like “Caroline and her Seaside Friends”—and after Granny, too, of course. Granny would have been awfully pleased…

Would she, in view of all the circumstances? The wishes of the dead are, of course, difficult to ascertain, but it is surprising, in practice, how often their opinions turn out to be just what is maximally convenient for their survivors; and why should Miranda’s Granny be an exception to this rule?

Dusk was falling, the inside of the dolls’ house was thick with shadows. Reaching with her giant, overgrown fist into the dining room, Miranda gathered up the Mactaggertys in a single handful and carried them over to the desk to look at them properly under the reading lamp. To look at them, that is, through Caroline’s fresh, wondering eyes, already in the process of coming into being.

They were awful! Well, not
them,
not the Mactaggertys
themselves
, for they were indestructible—but their
clothes
!

Dirty, tattered, cobbled together with huge, uneven stitches, and not even hemmed, half of them—had she really been such a rotten needlewoman at the ripe age of nine? Or even ten, was it? She couldn’t possibly pass them on to Baby Caroline in such a state. It might well put her right off them, and would certainly spoil the magic moment of the presentation. Something would have to be done.

And this was why, an hour or two later, under the soft drawing room lights, “What
are
you making, dear?” Mummy had asked, peering, puzzled, at the tiny scrap of red-and-white check gingham at which Miranda was busily stitching.

“It’s Rosalinda’s new frock, Mummy,” Miranda explained, proudly and a little shyly, “You remember Rosalinda, don’t you—one of my dolls? I’m refurbishing the dolls’ house, you see, ready for Caroline—for the baby—that is…”

Her voice faltered into silence, for a most extraordinary thing was happening. So sympathetic, so almost preternaturally
understanding
Mummy had been until this moment—and now, suddenly her eyes were hard and angry, her voice shrill:

“Ridiculous! Throw it away at once! Really, I don’t know how you can be so childish! As if there were nothing more to worry about than…
Miranda
!
Did you hear me? I said,
Throw
it
away
! At once!” And Miranda, utterly taken aback, too startled to protest, obediently tossed the absurd little object into the
waste-paper
basket, and sat staring up at her mother, uncomprehending and speechless.

Later, Mummy was sorry. Really sorry.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, darling,” she pleaded, for the second time that day, “but you see”—here her voice quivered, almost as if she was on the verge of tears—“Oh, darling, I’m only trying to do my best for you! You know that, don’t you? I want to help you, sweetheart, in every way I possibly can. I’ll do anything…
anything
!
Surely you know that…?”

And Miranda did know it. Of course she did. They hugged one another, even wept a little, in sheer relief.

B
Y MID-
J
ULY,
Miranda was the heroine of the Fourth Year. Awed whispers, and envious or incredulous glances followed her wherever she went: her peregrinations between playground and classroom, between chemistry lab and music rooms, took on the nature of a royal progress, heads popping from windows all along the route, and furtive little crowds gathering to watch and whisper as she passed by.

Pregnant?
Miranda
Field?
You’ve got to be joking! No, but really, no kidding! She told Sharon herself, and Sharon told me! Or Angela told me … or Vanessa told me … or Judith … or Doreen … the qualified informants by now were legion.

It must be like this to be an astronaut, or a pop star. During those last days of the summer term, Miranda basked in such glory as she had never known, eclipsing effortlessly and completely the erstwhile radiance of those once-envied girls who had merely had
“It”
.

A
baby
!
Miranda Field going to have a
baby …
! The nine-days wonder of it seemed as if it would never end. In the slow, windless heat of late July, with exams over and with the school year grinding gently to its close, the Miranda Field drama expanded to fill the minds available for its contemplation.

“Tell us what it’s
like
!”
her wide-eyed audience would plead, in hushed tones, awed in the presence of such immensity of
experience
. Can you feel it moving yet? Is it like—well, like a sort of
lump
inside you? Well, what
is
it like, then? Do you feel sick at all? Not morning sickness or anything? Do you have weird cravings, like for raw parsnips and things? Or
coal
?
Someone’s sister—or was it—someone’s sister’s friend?—had had this awful craving for coal, great shiny lumps of it, she’d be 
scrunching
them up all evening, her saliva all black all the time, so that in the end her husband… Does it
show
at all, when you’ve got nothing on? Do you have to wear anything special—you know—underneath? Are you beginning to have peculiar dreams…?

Tell us! Tell us! The eternal cry of Life’s stay-at-homes to the voyager from far places—but how to answer it? How to convey to them—to anyone—the sense of holiness that enfolded her; the feeling of having been chosen, of moving like a priestess, robed in splendour, towards some shining altar on which the whole of the future lay curled and waiting? She, Miranda Field, was part of evolution now, a member of the evolutionary elite who have been selected-in, and whose genes are to pass into immortality…

“Miranda! Miranda Field! This is the
second
time I’ve had to speak to you this afternoon! Now, will you kindly answer my questions: When the Council of Fourteen finally resolved to put their case before the King, why was it that…”

The Council of Fourteen. Fourteen strong men, fully grown, and every one of them must have started with a missed period! Every one of them must have grown from tiny, tadpole-like beginnings in some long-dead womb, which had thrust them headlong into history, so that now here they were, four hundred years later, on an O-Level syllabus of which they could never have dreamed…

“Really, Miranda! You seem half asleep these days! You’ll have to do better than this next year, you know, if you’re to—Oh, all right, then, Julia,
you
tell us…”

Two and a half inches long now! Right here, under the
waistband
of her school skirt, and the fingers beginning to form, with tiny nails… The wonder of it swept over her like a great wind, her consciousness billowing out before it, and filling her with a sense of her own power, her own wisdom, her own unimaginable skills. Not so much as an eyelash would she know consciously how to create, and yet here was this body of hers—
her
own
body,
her very self—knowing—easily, effortlessly knowing—exactly how to make a whole new human being, perfect in every detail. No biologist in all the world, with all the techniques of all the research departments on the whole earth at his disposal, could do
what she could do. Hers was the secret of life; and here, at an ordinary desk, in a drowsy afternoon classroom with a boring history lesson going on, was its dwelling-place. Here, with Miss Fergusson’s voice droning in her ears, she sat among the immortals, carrying within her the answer to it all.

Tell us! … Tell us …! When the lesson was over, and the books being packed away, the questions once again rose
twittering
all around her, like flocks of small birds arising from
freshly-tilled
ploughland; and as always, she tried honestly to answer them.

But it was no use. The harder she tried, the more it sounded like one of those spirit messages that come through at a seance: It’s so beautiful … so wonderful … I can’t explain, but it’s all so beautiful … everyone’s so happy here…

“Sounds plain daft to me,” remarked Doreen Briggs, sturdy and down-to-earth, and not troubling to disguise the scorn in her voice, “I mean, what are you going to
do
with a baby, Miranda? At your age, I mean, and not married or anything! It’s daft! And what’s your Mum going to say?”

“My mother’s being marvellous about it,” retorted Miranda loftily. “And so is my father,” she added, as a dutiful afterthought, and probably with a substantial element of truth; after all, being marvellous is often a good deal less trouble than arguing. “I’ve told them everything,” she finished smugly, “and they’re going to help me with the baby every way they can.”

Doreen sniffed incredulously.

“Daft,” she repeated unrepentantly. “If they’ve any sense, they’ll make you get rid of it!”

And it was only three days later, over iced tea with slices of lemon in it on the sunny lawn, that she learned that this was exactly what her parents planned to do.

“So you
see,
darling,
all
we’re thinking of is what’ll be best for
you
,”
Mrs Field was desperately explaining, stabbing
nervously
at her words as she always did when limbering up for a major confrontation. “We’ve talked and
talked
about it, Daddy and I, we’ve gone over
every
possibility, and we’ve come to the conclusion that the
only
thing…”

“I won’t! I’m not going to! I’m not interested in your beastly, horrible conclusions, it’s nothing to
do
with you, or Daddy either! It’s
my
baby, and it’s
my
decision; and I’ve told you, I won’t! I just won’t! You can’t make me…”

Or could they? This was the tiny, agonising niggle of doubt gnawing away at the soft, quivering underside of Miranda’s brave words.
Was
it possible, if you were under-age, for your parents to drag you kicking and screaming to the hospital for what they considered to be a necessary operation? Had they the power, while nurses and orderlies held you down, to sign the necessary forms on your behalf? And would the surgeon, on their signed say-so, be entitled to wreak their parental will on your helpless, adolescent body regardless of your shrieks and pleadings? Would it be his right—his duty even—to commit this outrage at the behest of your legal guardians? But even if this was the case, would any surgeon, in practice, actually do it? Or would he—duty or no—refuse to operate in such circumstances? It wouldn’t be a pretty scene, with the patient fighting him every inch of the way, screaming and pleading for her baby’s life, twisting her head this way and that, holding her breath against the anaesthetic…

Would he? Could he? Were there some surgeons who would go ahead regardless … others who would refuse to do so? Were you thus completely at the mercy of their clinical whims? And if you
were, then what would be the best way to win them over to your side? Maybe screaming and fighting would, after all, be
counterproductive
, serving merely to convince them—exchanging
knowing
, adult glances above your frantic head—that you were indeed just as childish, hysterical, and unfit for the responsibilities of motherhood as your parents had claimed you were…?

What
were
your legal rights when you were only fifteen? You must have some—but how to discover them? And, above all, to discover them in time…

*

To do Mummy justice, she hadn’t for one moment threatened Miranda with her and Daddy’s legal powers—not so far, anyway. For the time being, sweet reason was Mrs Field’s preferred suit, and she was playing it for all it was worth.

A
baby
?
At
fifteen
? Surely Miranda could see for herself what a catastrophe it would be? How it would wreck her whole life at the very outset, all hopes of a proper education, a proper career, and a happy successful future at the end? There would be no hope any more of Miranda’s getting into University, which was what they’d always planned for her, bright, clever girl that she was; or of qualifying for an interesting, creative job commensurate with her talents. It would be wicked, it would be an outrage, to allow her to throw away all these chances right at the start, before she was old enough to know what she was doing! And her chances of a happy marriage one of these days—those, too, would go by the board: who did she suppose would want to marry a girl burdened with another man’s child before she’d even reached the age of consent?

And think, too (Norah Field’s voice began to take on an almost wheedling note)—think, too, of all the
fun
she’d be missing, the lovely carefree years of the late teens and early twenties which are every girl’s birthright! How did she think she’d feel in two or three years’ time, when all her friends were going out into the world, travelling, meeting new people, having adventures, falling in love—while she, Miranda was stuck at home night after night, year after year, serving her life sentence of baby-sitting?

It just didn’t bear thinking of! And all the time, the solution
was staring them in the face—just a quick and very nearly painless visit to the hospital—hardly anything more than a visit to the dentist—and back home in a day or so, right as rain.

“You don’t know how
lucky
you are, in your generation!” Mrs Field admonished, “having it all so easy and above board, and with no stigma attached! When
I
was your age, a nasty, dangerous back-street abortion would have been the only option … some awful old woman with a knitting-needle, most likely … and all the time terrified of being found out because you knew that what you were doing was illegal…”

“I’d
love
to have lived in those days!” burst out Miranda furiously. “If it was an awful old woman with a knitting-needle, then you couldn’t
make
me go to her, you’d be breaking the law, I could demand police protection, I could get you put in prison!”

The quarrel was beginning to escalate beyond either of their control; it was frightening, and yet there seemed nowhere to go but on.

“Miranda! What a terrible thing to say! And anyway, no one’s talking about
making
you do anything! I’m not for one moment trying to impose my will on you—it’s just that you surely must see for yourself…”

But Miranda didn’t see. Wouldn’t see. Couldn’t see. She was fighting for her baby’s life, and could see nothing beyond.

“I won’t,” she kept repeating doggedly. “I just won’t. I’m not going to. I’ve told you, I’m
not
going
to
.”

So far Mrs Field had been trying, with ever-increasing
desperation
, to keep the argument on an enlightened, rational plane, and encourage her daughter to come to her own decisions in a mature and rational way. But what can you do with a person who, instead of coming to mature and rational decisions, just keeps saying “I won’t!”? How can you maintain a permissive, non-judgemental, open-minded attitude towards people who just won’t see sense? After all, the Permissive Society can hardly be expected to cater for the sort of people who flatly refuse to do the things it permits.

“Really, Miranda! Do we
have
to go on and on like this, the same arguments over and over again, and never getting anywhere! It’s so
boring,
as well as stupid! And such a waste of time! And
time,
you know, dear, is something we just can’t
afford
to waste, not any longer. You see, it’s so
very
important—and if you don’t believe me, ask any doctor—so
very
important not to let it go beyond three months because by then it’ll be too big. You see, after that.

“She’s
not
‘it’!” Miranda choked out, tears of fury once again filling eyes worn red with the long afternoon’s weeping. “She’s
Caroline
! She—”

“Oh, but darling, that’s where you’re so
silly,
talking like that!” cried Mrs Field. “It’s ridiculous! ‘Caroline’ indeed—and you don’t even know yet if it’s a boy or a girl! And actually it isn’t either, not yet: it’s just a nothing … a blob of jelly…”

“She’s
not
!”
“I’m sorry, darling, but it
is,
and that’s a fact! Don’t you realise it’s still only…”

It isn’t! It is! It isn’t! Don’t shout at me like that! I’m
not
shouting
! You
are
shouting! I’m not…! you are …! I’m not! Darling—
please
—the
neighbours
!
The neighbours, the neighbours, that’s all you care about, you and Daddy, what the neighbours will think! And you supposed to be so Left-Wing, both of you … so modern and progressive … and now, when it comes to the crunch! … Hush, dear, oh
please
hush! Everyone all down the street…

The mother pleaded: the daughter grew ever more defiant. I won’t, she continued to assert, obstinately, sullenly, and
doggedly
. I won’t. I’m not going to. I don’t care what you do, you can tear me with wild horses, I’ll never give in!

In the event, wild horses proved to be unnecessary. The power of emotional blackmail should not, after all, be underestimated, nor the slow wearing down of the spirit over many days. On Tuesday, August 3rd, at 10.30 a.m., white and silent, eyes swollen with crying, but without protest, Miranda climbed obediently onto the surgeon’s couch and submitted herself to the operation.

Baby Caroline would never know, now, what it was like to be more than three inches long, this was as big as she would ever be. Those half-formed, bulbous eyes would never see, nor the ears hear. The sprouting fingers, with their tiny finger nails already
forming, would never now play the piano, whip up an omelette, or hold a pen. Like buds shrivelled by the frosts of a late, cold spring, their tiny day was over.