Wicked Pleasures (36 page)

‘Don’t you? Don’t you really?’

‘No. I really don’t.’

‘Oh Daddy. I mean obviously I take after my mother. Sleeping with everyone. Don’t forget I have no idea who my –’

Alexander raised his hand and struck her hard across the face. ‘Don’t ever, ever let me hear you saying that about your mother again.’

‘Why not? It’s true isn’t it?’

‘It is not true. And I will not have you saying it.’

‘Oh.’ She was silent for a while, holding her face, staring at him, wondering at the same time how he could be so loyal and how she could be behaving like this, hurting him, the person she loved best in the world. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I’m very impressed you can be so loyal to her. Very. I won’t say it again. But I’m afraid I can’t help thinking it.’

There was a long silence; Alexander sat looking down at the house, his face very old suddenly, an expression of utter despair on it. Then he turned to her and took her in his arms.

‘Georgina, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I hit you, I cannot imagine – oh God, what can I say – do you want to talk about it all –’

‘Daddy, please please don’t …’ She hugged him back and stayed there very still for a while, then sat back and looked at him, and her bravado was suddenly gone, she looked smaller and vulnerable and very near to tears. ‘ I deserved to be slapped, I’m sure. And no, I don’t want to talk about it, I hate it all so much. Please. I’m trying to handle it and it’s very difficult. But I don’t want to talk about it. With you of all people. I feel so sorry for you, and I’m terribly sorry to have been expelled, sorry I’ve disgraced you. But please don’t make me talk about Mummy and please even more don’t try and make me think well of her. OK? Now can we go home, please? I’m awfully tired.’

‘Yes of course.’ He started the car again. As he drove down the Great Drive she looked at him cautiously. The overriding expression on his face was interesting. It was one of relief.

They ate supper alone in the kitchen. It was surprisingly relaxed.

‘I can’t imagine where you can go to school next,’ Alexander said quite cheerfully. ‘It’s not easy, after an expulsion.’

‘I don’t want to go to any school.’

‘Well of course you must go to school. You’re only halfway through your A-level course.’

‘I know. But I told you I didn’t want to do them. Not these, anyway. I want to go to a sixth-form college and do architecture. I can go to the one in Swindon, can’t I? They’d be pleased to have me, I’d have thought.’

‘I have no idea. They might not welcome you either. I don’t imagine they will fall gratefully upon you, simply because of who you are.’

‘Oh, Daddy. Don’t be silly. That wasn’t what I meant. And anyway –’

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, nothing. I meant because my O levels were quite good and right for the course, and because I know so exactly what I want to do.’

‘Well perhaps. We shall have to write to them. In any case I would imagine you’d have to go back and start again, do two full years there. It’s May now, you’ll never catch up.’

‘Well I wouldn’t mind that. Anything to get away from Ancient Civilization and Latin.’

‘Yes, well I can’t imagine why you took those particular options in the first place.’

‘Just to be awkward, I expect,’ said Georgina, with a slightly weak grin.

The sixth-form college at Swindon couldn’t take her, but Cirencester said they would give her a place: on the condition that she agreed to repeat her first year. Georgina was suddenly much happier. She still felt lost, but life seemed to be making a little more sense. She went round Hartest singing, helped Mrs Tallow with the cooking, helped on the farm with the haymaking, and generally was a great deal more agreeable than she had been for some time. Charlotte arrived home early in June, flushed with triumph at getting a First in her First Part Tripos, and left almost immediately again with a party of friends travelling round Europe; she agreed to meet everyone on Nantucket in August.

Then towards the end of June Georgina began to feel unwell. It started with a general lassitude, and then she became nauseated; within a week she was being sick at least three or four times every day. Nothing seemed to help. She couldn’t keep anything down, and she grew alarmingly thin very fast.

Old Dr Summerfield had a look at her, diagnosed delayed shock, and told her to rest, take plenty of glucose and eat small, regular meals. The small regular meals went the same way as the large irregular ones. Another week went by.

It was Nanny who realized what the matter was. Nanny who sat her down in her room and looked at her steadily and asked her when she had had her last period. Georgina tried to remember, realized exactly what Nanny was actually saying, and felt shaky and breathless suddenly and as if she was falling very fast into a long dark hole.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘oh my God.’

‘We’d better go and see someone,’ was all Nanny said.

They went together to Swindon (telling Alexander they were seeing a specialist Dr Summerfield had suggested, relying on his busyness and general distract
edness to prevent him from ringing Dr Summerfield himself to discuss who the specialist was and what he specialized in), visiting Virginia’s own gynaecologist, Lydia Paget, who had listened to Nanny’s slightly coded telephone message and agreed to see Georgina immediately.

The journey was a nightmare; they had to stop the car three times for Georgina to be sick, and when they got to the hospital she had to bolt into the loo twice while she waited to go in. It was a shaky, white, hollow-eyed creature who finally sank into the chair in Mrs Paget’s consulting room. ‘I may have to run,’ she said, with a ghost of a smile, ‘I warn you.’

Lydia Paget smiled at her encouragingly. ‘Of course. There’s a loo through there.’ She gestured at a door behind her desk. Georgina sat and tried to think what to say.

‘Well now,’ said Lydia, ‘you don’t look very well. Are you always so thin?’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina. ‘Always.’

‘Well there’s nothing wrong with being thin. It’s healthier than being fat. So what do you think the trouble is?’

She smiled encouragingly at Georgina. Georgina relaxed suddenly and smiled back. She looked remarkably cheerful.

‘Well I suppose I’m pregnant,’ she said, ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I was really stupid.’

‘Well – maybe. When was your last period?’

‘April twenty-fifth.’

‘Right. And it’s now June twenty-ninth. That is quite a long time. How is your cycle normally?’

‘Oh,’ said Georgina matter-of-factly, ‘four weeks dead regular. Always.’

‘Well – it certainly sounds like circumstantial evidence. And when did the sickness start?’

‘About three weeks ago. Only a week before that I just felt terribly tired.’

‘And it didn’t occur to you before that you might be pregnant?’

‘No. I know it sounds dumb. But I’d had lots of upsets, you know.’

‘Of course,’ said Lydia quietly. ‘You must miss your mother so much. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, well thank you,’ said Georgina, briskly brief. She saw Lydia look at her sharply and she rushed the conversation on, anxious to get away from the quagmire of her feelings about her mother. ‘But actually I didn’t mean that. I’d been expelled from school –’

‘For?’

‘For getting caught in bed with a boy.’

‘Ah. Well that does sound a bit dumb. Not to have thought that you might be pregnant, I mean.’

‘I know. It was Nanny who made the suggestion. Well, asked me when I last had a period.’

‘Well good for Nanny. It’s the same one, I suppose. Wonderful old lady.’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina, ‘yes, she’s here with me now.’ The thought of Nanny sitting outside waiting for her, fiercely anxious, made her eyes fill with tears as the thought of her mother had not done. She looked down at her lap.

‘Well now,’ said Lydia Paget carefully, standing up, smiling at her gently, ‘let’s have a look at you. We may all be wrong.’

They weren’t all wrong. She pronounced Georgina about seven or eight weeks pregnant. ‘Of course we’ll do a test to make absolutely sure. But your breasts are swollen as well, and there are various other changes in your body. I don’t really think there’s any doubt. Now then, do you want to discuss practicalities with me?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Georgina, ‘I mean what kind of practicalities?’

‘Well,’ said Lydia, ‘I’m very happy to help. With any arrangements and so on. I imagine you’ll want to think about everything a bit. But if you want a termination, we don’t have very long. And of course you’ll have to tell your father. Or does he know?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Georgina.

‘Well – what about the father? Of your baby I mean. Do you want to tell him?’

‘I can’t, said Georgina.

‘Fine. Any particular reason why not?’

‘I don’t actually know who it is.’

Lydia Paget was trained to be emotionless. Never had her disciplines been more strained.

‘I see. Well, in that case, I think I would urge you very strongly to consider a termination. But of course it’s up to you. And I’m here any time, any time at all, if you want to talk to me. I expect you must feel very alone. I’m sorry.’

‘Well – just a bit,’ said Georgina. She realized she was suddenly feeling rather cheerful. ‘But I think I’ll be all right. I’ve got Nanny of course. But thank you anyway.’

‘That’s quite all right. Now if you go and see my nurse she will sort out the test for you. I’ll phone you later today.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much, Mrs Paget. You’ve been terribly kind.’ She smiled radiantly at her. ‘I really do feel much better now. In every way.’ She hesitated and heard herself saying, almost to her own surprise, ‘Oh, and I think I probably should tell you, I’m certain I won’t want to have atermination.’

Lydia was looking down at the note she was writing for her nurse; she stopped for a second, and looked up at Georgina plainly startled. Then she carried on.

‘Fine. It’s up to you, of course. But do think about it all, won’t you? All the implications. Very carefully. And come and see me again in a few days. Whatever you decide, you need help to sort you out physically. You can’t go on like this.’

‘No. No, I can’t. In fact –’ she stood up suddenly –‘excuse me, I need that loo of yours now.’

She didn’t say anything to Nanny until they were back at Hartest, beyond nodding and saying ‘Looks like yes’ as she came out into the waiting room.

Once home she said, ‘Can I come and see you? In your room?’

‘Of course you can. I’ll put my kettle on.’

‘Lovely. Very weak tea, I just might be able to keep that down.’

‘Well now,’ she said, sinking into Nanny’s rocking chair, her hands clasped happily over her stomach, ‘I am pregnant.’ She felt filled with joy; she smiled at Nanny, enjoying the sensation of happiness.

‘Well,’ said Nanny, ‘there’s no going back now.’

‘No,’ said Georgina. ‘No, and I wouldn’t want to. Thank you for sorting me out, Nanny. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Given birth at Grandma’s on Christmas Day, I should think.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Nanny, ‘you never were very sensible.’

‘I know. But isn’t it lovely?’

‘No,’ said Nanny, ‘I don’t think I’d say that.’

‘Oh but it is. I’m just so pleased, I can’t tell you.’

‘Georgina,’ said Nanny, and the shock pushed her into an absolutely standard reaction for once, ‘you are talking nonsense. Of course you can’t be pleased. How can you possibly be pleased? You must be more sensible. What are you going to do?’

‘Have it, of course,’ said Georgina, ‘I can’t tell you how good it makes me feel, Nanny. Even though I do feel so awful. I’m just terribly terribly happy.’

‘Georgina, you can’t have that baby,’ said Nanny, ‘you can’t. It will break your father’s heart.’

‘Yes well,’ said Georgina, ‘I just have the feeling it will help to heal mine.’

She looked at Nanny. ‘Look, I don’t want to talk about it too much, I hate talking about it, any of it, but it might help you understand. How I feel. It’s about – about Mummy. You see, we – that is Daddy – oh dear, this is going to be horrible for you –’

Nanny looked at her and there were suddenly no secrets between her and Georgina whatsoever.

‘Georgina,’ she said simply, ‘I know.’

Georgina felt as if someone had told her the world was rotating the other way round. She said nothing at all, just stared at Nanny for a long time. ‘How do you know?’ she said finally.

‘I know a lot of things,’ said Nanny.

‘Well – but –’ Georgina spread her hands out in a gesture of disbelief. Of all the people in the world she might have suspected of knowing, Nanny, with her strong disapproval, her immense moral sense, her devotion to Virginia, was the last. ‘But Nanny, you were so fond of Mummy. You wouldn’t ever hear a word against her.’

‘Of course not,’ said Nanny. She had picked up her knitting and started doing it very fast. She didn’t look at Georgina. ‘I was your mother’s friend. She was very lonely.’

‘But Nanny, you used to look after Daddy, you surely loved him.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny. ‘Yes, I loved him. I loved them both.’

‘But Nanny –’ A new thought struck her, a blinding shot of relief. ‘If you know, you can explain perhaps. We don’t know, Charlotte and me, how, why – Daddy won’t talk about it –’