Her Victory (41 page)

Rachel straightened. ‘Alec?'

‘And do you know what he was? A pastrycook who did the fancy trimmings for our jaded tastebuds! If it's of any interest he was also Jewish. Maybe that's why I fell for him. He was very handsome, and kind, and we parted friends. But we agreed never to see each other again. He wanted to meet me, of course, but I insisted that we mustn't. In any case, he was married and had children. It would have been too ugly and squalid. He took it very well, though not too well, thank goodness. Luckily I didn't know how hard it would be, though I still wouldn't have done it any other way.'

The clatter of Rachel's falling cup stopped her. Clara went to the kitchen for a cloth. ‘You make me so clumsy,' Rachel said. Now that Emma had stopped telling her story there was a veil of childish misery on her face. Rachel looked at herself thirty-five years younger, and the reflection of the mirror shook as if Emma was going to cry at last. When she didn't Rachel said: ‘We must find him.'

‘You want to make him
pay
?'

‘Don't be silly,' her mother shouted.

‘It's no crime, so leave me alone. I know my mind, and that's what I want. If it's a boy, I shall have him circumcised.'

‘It's the fashion nowadays,' Rachel said sharply. ‘Ever since the Royal Family had it done, I suppose.'

‘I'll get a rabbi to do it.'

‘A
schochan
,' she was informed.

‘Whoever it is. You never told me.'

‘You never asked,' her mother said. ‘But what a shame. What a terrible shame it is.'

She above all knew there was nothing to be done. The ticking of the clock told her. That's what came of giving girls an income as soon as they were twenty-one, and letting them do whatever they wanted. The war had been a disaster in every way, because as well as getting killed and maimed, young people had learned to have their own way.

Clara poked the fire, and a bank of hot coal dropped to a lower level, scattering ash into the grate. She believed that any situation, no matter how tragic, could be cleared up without fuss and bother if everyone had a mind to it. Yet she didn't know what to do or say.

Rachel reached for her gloves. ‘I must talk to your father.'

‘It'll only upset him,' Emma said. ‘I'd rather you didn't.'

‘It upsets me even to think about it,' Clara put in.

‘You're soft,' Rachel told her scornfully. ‘You always were.'

Clara winced.

‘I discuss everything with your father.'

‘Whether he likes it or not, I suppose,' said Clara.

‘I'm telling you not to tell him,' Emma said.

‘You don't
tell
me anything. When's the baby expected?'

‘I don't know! Oh, in four months, I think. I saw a doctor in South Kensington. He was tall, elderly and handsome. Ugh! Horrible! Shan't see him again. I'd like not to see anybody, but I suppose I'll have to. If only I were on an uninhabited island, and could have it all on my own. I'd feed him on coconut milk!'

‘You've been reading too many novels.' Rachel stood, and sighed. ‘I must go. There's a train in half an hour.'

‘It's too wet to go out,' Clara said. ‘Why don't you stay tonight, and travel back in the morning?'

‘You think
rain
is a misfortune? I wish that was all I had to grieve about.' She wouldn't change her mind, so Clara helped her on with the unfashionable pre-war coat. ‘If you really must go, I'll walk with you to the station.'

‘Stay and look after your sister. I know my way.'

‘No, I'll come with you.'

Rachel turned from the door. ‘Do as you are told.'

Clara stepped back as if about to be hit, as if a cliff were behind her and she would fall into oblivion. She clutched the mantelshelf, knowing that her mother's anger was only directed at her because she was afraid to tackle Emma – who hoped they would both go and leave her in peace.

Clara sat down when the door closed. ‘Well, we've yet to hear father's wrath on the matter.'

‘They can't kill me. Nor
this
.' She stood up to clear the tea things away. ‘They do want to kill me, I know, but I only need to get away from them.'

‘You're certainly going the right way about it,' Clara told her.

8

They bought material for a maternity dress. After lunch Emma spread it on the table, and as they were puzzling over the pattern the letterbox flap rattled.

Clara came back. ‘It's from father. I know his hand.'

Emma told her to read it.

‘Are you sure?'

She glanced at the envelope. ‘It's addressed to both of us: a pretty cheap trick.'

‘I know. But it begins: “Dear Emma”, so it's only to you.'

‘Read it, though, because I shan't.'

‘This is what it says, then. Oh dear! “Mother informed me of your disaster as soon as she arrived. It's not for me to judge. There are too many judges in the world trying to take God's place. What has happened is something nobody could have controlled, least of all
you
. Some things are sent to try us, while other events occur expressly to ruin our lives. You have
despoiled your life
, and I can only pity you, though I have more compassion for your mother because after John's death this is the one thing she should have been spared. There is much in you that must have known exactly what you were doing, and I am sure you measured the consequences to such a nicety that any sympathy for your plight from me or anybody else would be totally misplaced. It is not in my heart to bear this, but neither is it in my mind to pronounce you dead. You are a fully grown woman, and must face the consequences, which in any case you are quite capable of doing. You have your own income and are provided for, and therefore I can only say without any feelings of regret or injustice that it would be best if we never met again.”'

Clara put the letter down.

‘Is that all?' Emma asked.

‘Isn't it enough?'

‘It's what I expected,' Emma sighed, ‘and half hoped for. I like his style, but not his awful cheek.'

‘Are you going to answer?'

‘Burn it – to ashes.'

‘I'd like to keep it.'

‘Do what the hell you like. As long as I never see it again, and you never mention it. Come on, let's get this bloody sugar-bag cut out. I might as well look the part of the fallen woman. There's really not much left to do but enjoy it.'

She had fallen, Clara realized, from such a height that she wasn't yet aware of having landed. She hadn't, and would she ever? Try as she might to get through to her, Emma stayed obstinately and resolutely alone. And the more Clara tried the more distance she felt between them. It was best to stay calm, not make the attempt, and help when the time came. Emma had to be guarded, rather than looked after. The thought haunted Clara that, coming back from shopping one day, she would find her gone. She would go into the living-room and not see her sitting at the table sewing or reading or staring at the wall. Only an echo would answer when she called her name. But Emma was always in some part of the house.

‘What are you thinking?' Clara asked after breakfast.

‘I don't think any more. Nothing so crude as that. Nothing so grand, either. I just sit and feel this tadpole kick and grow inside me. We're like husband and wife, contemplating the absolutely empty future together. I'm filled, among other things, with dread for this poor thing coming into the world. I keep seeing those thousands of graves we passed on our little trip of homage to visit dear John, and I think: “Will this bloke inside me, if it is a bloke, end up
known only unto God
?” Oh, I've got a lot to think about, if you can call it thinking. I think of mother's romantic beginning with father, and of how they must now see my escapade. It would have been bad enough if I'd done the same, but I've actually gone one better, so I can see how they must hate me. I really have spoiled their lives. But I don't think, exactly. Things only go through my mind in such a way as to reassure me that I still have one.'

Clara tried to be jovial. ‘He'll be all right. There'll be two of us to look after him. It'll be great fun.'

‘I hope so. But I wish I could get it over with.'

Clara heard a noise at the front door and went into the hall. After their father's letter she hadn't expected to see her mother again. Rachel shook her head at their surprise, and sat down with them at the table. ‘He has his opinions, and I have mine. Whenever I feel like coming to visit you, I'll catch the train. That's what they were invented for.'

‘We were just off to the picture palace,' Clara said. ‘Emma gets so bored.'

‘Don't let me prevent you. I'll be happy to sit on my own. I can read or sew. You should buy a gramophone and listen to music. The mood was so sudden to come and see you both that I didn't have time to send a telegram.'

They took off their coats.

‘I left two trunks at the station,' Rachel said, ‘not knowing whether you would be in. They're full of things which will be needed for the baby, if it's to be dressed in anything good.' She stood up to take off her hat by the mirror. ‘It's a pity you can't find a nice young man for a husband.'

‘I don't think there are many, even in Cambridge,' Emma said, ‘who would want to marry a woman in this all too obvious state, though I suppose I could go out on the street and try. “Excuse me, kind sir” – and I'd do a very nice curtsy – “I hope you don't mind my asking, but if you aren't poxed-up from the war, or have a false leg, or an eye missing, or a toe gone, I wonder if by any chance you can see your way to marrying me some time in the next few days? I have a thousand pounds a year at my disposal, so you shouldn't have too many regrets.”'

When they stopped laughing Rachel said: ‘You'll take life seriously one day, I promise. I don't know what we did to make you so foul-mouthed and wicked.'

‘You're not responsible,' Emma told her, ‘nor is father. I suppose I got into this mess because I didn't know anything about myself. At the moment I'm nothing. When I go for a walk I feel I'm like everybody I pass on the street, and can't wait to get back here so that I can be on my own, and feel like nothing and nobody, and then again like myself, whatever that is. Maybe I'll know a bit more when this thing comes out. Did you know yourself any better, mother, after you'd had three children?'

Clara was disturbed, and only doubted that Emma spoke such rigmarole when her mother replied: ‘It was
after
you were grown-up that I began to know who I was.'

‘The last few months must have taught you something,' Emma said. ‘It has me.'

‘I know,' Rachel retorted. ‘It's taught you how to quarrel. And how to insult your parents.'

By her silence Emma knew that she was pressing against all their wounds. ‘I'm sorry, mother.'

‘I think you should be.'

Clara felt pain for them both, and stood up, saying brightly to Emma: ‘Why don't you start keeping your journal again? It might help you to sort things out in your mind. I write mine, as and when I can. It keeps me in touch with myself – or what's left of me these days.'

‘I prefer to be on my own,' Emma said. ‘When people are with me, I'm even more alone, so I don't mind either of you being here. If I kept a journal I might get to think I was somebody else, and I should hate that, even though I don't know who I am most of the time. Only this in here knows who I am, but by the time he's old enough to tell me I won't be anywhere where I can hear what he's got to say. And he wouldn't know by then, in any case. One minute I feel I'm going to live a hundred years, and the next it seems I'll be lucky to get beyond this one. I don't care, really. During the war the world was crowded with happy people who only wanted a good time. Now, it's full of ghosts. Something happened, and I don't suppose any of us knows what it was. Perhaps even having a baby won't make much difference to me. If so I don't know what will happen.'

Rachel went home after three days because, she said, she needed a rest. Clara, left behind, was swept with anguish as she looked at her sister, and heard her, in an ordinary enough voice, say things which filled her with either sorrow or horror. Emma's lips were set firm when she stopped talking. The glow in her eyes, suggesting a far-seeing vision, was due only to short-sightedness.

9

Clara came back from the post office, took off her raincoat and galoshes in the hall, and coo-eed to let Emma know she had returned. With a fire burning, the parlour could not be cosier, but Emma was neither there nor in the kitchen. Clara shouted upstairs, and the maid told her she hadn't seen Emma for an hour.

She put her galoshes back on, and took a dry coat from the hall stand, but did not know which way to go. Sleet blew into her face, so she walked with its main force behind, to open ground beyond Park Side. Someone was cycling, but there were no pedestrians. Protected by houses from the worst of the weather, she made her way to Christ's Piece. They had often gone over Butts Green and Midsummer Common to the river, a pleasant stroll with the minimum of buildings hemming them in. But she kept as much towards houses as possible, and peered across spaces in case Emma was there.

It was muddy by the river and the boathouses. Her nose ran water and her neck was cold. Every step made her doubt that she was going in the right direction, but not to make for somewhere seemed too painful to be borne.

Her instinct was to get back into the warm house, but the knowledge that she must fight against it drove her on. You did what you had absolutely no wish to do far more easily than what you would quite enjoy doing – a reflection which made her momentarily stalwart against the elements, and would comfort her as long as the thought of Emma and her general predicament didn't force itself too close to her powers of strength and decision – thought the dreadful situation could only be absent for a few precious seconds at a time during her surge through the rain.