You Must Be Sisters (30 page)

‘They seemed to be getting along fine, anyway,’ said Laura. ‘All that talk about what stereo to buy and what wine to lay down.’

‘Oh dear, it sounds awfully boring.’

‘Count your blessings, my girl. It’s good that they talked at all. Nobody except you and Holly can ever think of anything to say to Mac. Not that he helps much.’

Laura relapsed into silence. A silence thinking of Mac or one thinking of Geoff? Or a silence comparing them both? Claire waited, then gave up and started explaining into the blackness: ‘The thing about Geoff is that he’s adult. Capable, you know, not like most of the people I’ve met. You know, narrow-shouldered youths you have to mother –’ She stopped. Narrow-shouldered youths sounded just like Mac. ‘Er, you know, hopeless ones like that flapping overcoat one in Bristol. Not nice ones like Mac.’ She thought for a moment. Shame having to choose one’s words with a
sister
, of all people. ‘Or else unhappy existential ones you have to be careful with, ones who keep you awake all night while they chain smoke and talk about their complexes, and analyse just what you said to them all day and did you really mean it – you know, sensitive ones who’re not really sensitive, just touchy.’ She stirred her toes clockwise round the cool tucked corners of the sheets, searching for words. ‘Or else sad middle-aged schoolmasters who live in bedsits and somehow missed out on a wife. You see, Laura, I’m not beautiful like you, or even amazingly intelligent –’

‘Don’t be stupid! Honestly, don’t feel you have to explain Geoff or apologize for him. I think he’s very nice. He’s the sort of person who gets things done. I saw that at the Zoo.’

Oh dear. Claire stared into the dark. It was as she dreaded; Laura was choosing her words. Mac and Geoff had entered this room now and altered everything. There they lay, two sisters in their parallel beds, miles apart.

A long silence. Staring into their separate darknesses they lay there. Behind them stretched the past, the shared midnight murmurings, the electric crackle and cling of the winceyette nighties as they squirmed with muffled laughter, the secret words whose meaning was known only to themselves, the wickedly late chime from the clock downstairs, the mystery of their parents’ closed bedroom door and what went on behind it – all that was over. It had become the Past and now they lay in limbo, for what was to replace it? A far horizon faced Claire, a misty landscape of marriage whose actual stones and grass her feet had not yet felt. Soon they would be stepping there.

And Laura? Claire tried a question. ‘By the way, how come you had no wine? Or cigarettes? Do tell me, please.’ She slid her toes about, blushing into the blackness. ‘Are you by any chance pregnant?’

A quick laugh. ‘Oh heavens no! ’Course not! I’m just being healthy, aren’t I, cutting down the booze, saving money on fags …’

‘Thank goodness! I thought, just for a moment, at dinner …’

‘No no.’

‘That’s all right then.’

Laura relaxed. That was over. No, she would tell her fears to nobody, not even her darling sister who just lately seemed so far away.

Downstairs there was a familiar whirr and ting as the clock struck one; outside the door there was a scrape and a sigh as Badger, who had moved upstairs to guard his girls, shifted himself in his sleep.

‘Night-night, Laura.’

‘Night-night.’

Laura stayed awake the longest.

THE DOCTOR TOOK
off his spectacles and by the way he did it, rather carefully, Laura knew it was all over.

‘Do sit down, Miss Jenkins.’

The large expanse of leather-topped desk and the framed diplomas on the wall reinforced his authority and gave the words she knew he was going to say, when he said them, a weightier significance – as if they needed any more of it.

‘Yes, your test was positive, I’m afraid.’

Funnily enough this didn’t flood her with realization and emotion. Perhaps it was that the whole room spoke of this little scene endlessly repeated; a past procession of girls like herself creeping here to be confronted by the same calm words, the same routine with the spectacles. He was polishing them now. The hygienic surroundings emphasized that she was a statistic, though a regrettable one.

‘Goodness,’ she said, and closed her mouth again. That was all she could think of saying. It did sound polite and extraordinarily feeble, but still. The rubber domes on the tray looked smug. Bad luck, they said. Too late, weren’t you? Should have
used
us from the beginning, shouldn’t you?

The doctor, being kind, put on his spectacles, shuffled some papers and gave her no lecture. Probably he was tired of giving lectures. He did ask what she intended doing and he gave her an address in London, but as she had never been absolutely sure, she had thought out nothing. He did mention that by her calculations she must be nearly three months pregnant and therefore any, ah,
decisions
, should be made swiftly. No mention was made of the young man, for which she was thankful. Mac’s face in the midst of it all could only confuse her.

She went out. Faced with a streetful of shoppers, she felt suddenly transparent, as if not only the embryo inside her but all her emotions just beginning to cluster round it were visible. She paused a moment outside a shop and tried to arrange her face. Behind the glass rose tier upon tier of shoes, single shoes, shiny and virginal. She gazed at them, each one new, each one as yet un-mated, and so hopefully displayed. Through them, spectral, her reflection faced her.

She turned off the main road and started climbing the hill towards Clifton. The summer holidays had begun; there were few students about and the streets were empty. Tall and noble houses stared down at her. What,
what
shall I do? How on earth am I going to tell my parents? How am I going to tell
him
? Will I want to marry him? Christ.

She turned the corner into Jacob’s Crescent, her thoughts reeling. What should she do? At the word abortion, black wings flapped in her head.

Just then the sun came out and swept down the street, stunning her with its brilliance and lighting up the pitted old brickwork. The long slender windows of the houses winked down at her, suddenly confidential. In an instant all was radiance.

She stopped and leant against a lamp post, for now she thought of it this way she felt heavily ripe, a pregnant woman in need of rest. It was the fact that her body actually worked. It had changed. It felt different. No longer was it that well-inspected shape she saw in the mirror, nor that warm bearer of pleasure, nor that web of veins she felt at the blood clinic or the prickling, aching skin she felt in illness. None of these. Now, suddenly, she felt its central reason.

Ah, that was very fine, but across the road stood number 18 and what was she doing to do? Mac was in there. Didn’t she know
in
her heart what should be done? Despite leaning like this against the lamp post, glamorous with fertility. Wasn’t the decision made? All she had to do was to tell him; hadn’t she?

‘Stop! Stop! No entry.’

Mac flexed himself in the doorway; he was gripping the lintel, the lighted room behind him. She hesitated and peered through the angle of his limbs barring her; she could see nothing but the unmade bed.

‘What on earth is it?’ God, everything was unreal today. Wasn’t he going to ask where she’d been all afternoon?

‘Close your eyes,’ he said. ‘Go on. No cheating, my sonner.’

She closed her eyes.

‘Now I’ll lead you in. Promise not to look. You must see him from the right angle.’

Cringing behind him, she let him lead her into the room.

‘It’s a surprise, you see,’ he explained. She felt his hands on her shoulders as he stopped her, then a dramatic pause. ‘You can open them now, my sonner.’

He had actually lit the fire. The flames cast a flickering light on to the place where the hearthrug would have been if they’d ever bothered to get one. Also on to a large cardboard box that stood there.

‘Go on. Don’t be shy.’

She hesitated. To add yet another shock to the day suddenly seemed too much of an effort. By now, had she any reactions left?

‘Go on. Open it.’ Mac was watching her expectantly, so she knelt down and pulled open the flaps of the box. Her heart turned over.

Crouched down in the box, it stared up at her with bulging eyes. Horror (what were they going to do with it?) fought with a surge of love. Her very own rabbit! And a black and white one, too. She hadn’t had one since she was a child.

She picked it out of the box; it was deliciously heavy. Her heart melted as she felt the softness of its belly and the fragile elbows of its front legs. It didn’t struggle but allowed itself to be held in her arms, simply.

She lowered it on to the ground where it sat for a moment, quite calm, sniffing the floor and then lifting its head with its beautiful enquiring ears; the firelight glowed through them and she could see their tracery of veins, the miracle of them. Round its
face
sparkled its busy whiskers.

‘How about him, Laura?’ Mac was watching her nervously. ‘Like him?’

‘I think he’s the most beautiful rabbit I’ve ever seen,’ she said truthfully. ‘When did you buy him?’

‘After – sort of lunchtime today. I had a drink with – you know – some of the lads, and when we came out we were going past this, like, petshop, and I started talking about you liking animals and all, you know. Especially rabbits, I said. So they said let’s just look at them inside, and we saw him and they said why not buy him; for you. As a nice surprise, like.’

Mac, mellow, a few pints inside him, blinking in the sunlight as he shambled out of the pub. A bit maudlin, boasting about her to his mates as they wandered down the street trying to focus on the shop windows that kept dancing before their eyes. Straining with vague good intentions towards her; also a bit soppy about a nice rabbit sitting all lonely in its cage. She could just imagine it. Booze, or dope, or even neither of them; he need be under no influence but his own. How infuriating, how endearing, how
typical
!

‘So I thought, why not?’ he said. ‘We can take him for walks. I can fix up a cage. Just like a baby, he is, without the hassles.’

She froze. Just for a moment she’d forgotten about that. How could she possibly tell him now, while he was watching the rabbit as a fond parent would, a pretend parent, as it lolloped round the floor exploring the place with bright eyes and busy whiskers? Damn and blast, why did he always have to do such nice things at the wrong time. Such very nice things; and yet such hopeless ones.

She sat down weakly. Claire. Yes, Claire was the one. Claire could help her; she would go there, for how she needed her!

A few minutes later Mac went out. He was going to Hal and Min’s old house to get some wood for a cage. As soon as the door closed behind him, Laura darted to the chest of drawers and filled a case with clothes. She rummaged in her bag; £3. Hardly enough even to get to London, but somehow she felt hesitant, even repelled, by the thought of using her cheque book, for wasn’t it her father’s money that she would be drawing? Today for once she felt compelled to act independently. She would hitch.

The rabbit had been put back and she heard rustling noises in the cardboard box. The softest of noses, black and whiskery,
poked
out between the cardboard flaps. Amongst the fur she saw its nostrils breathing. She didn’t like to look at that soft face, nor those nostrils, for she was leaving and she would be having an abortion.

Yes, she was sure of it. Despite the ache for Mac that, now she knew she was going, tore her insides, pulled at them as if a strong hand was inside twisting and tugging. She went into the bathroom to fetch her things. She looked at the bath which she and Mac had often shared, natural as children; oddly sexless they’d been, scrubbing each other with scarcely a linger. She gathered up her things and picked up her copy of ‘Sons and Lovers’ that Mac had pinched to read on the lavatory. He’d got to page 23. She closed it; she felt a pang that he couldn’t finish it; silly, but she did.

Back in the room the fire had died down. She snapped her case shut. The rabbit was restless, she could hear it moving about in its box, bulkily turning in the small space; she didn’t look, though, in case she saw that nose. Nor did she look at the room. Nor did she even write a note, for how could she explain it in a note? She just picked up her stuff and left.

The university clock chimed five as she hurried down the hill. It must have been nearer six before she had walked through the centre and had seen, between the buildings, the big blue signs for the motorway. It was a long walk, and past her, blowing fumes and dust into her face, swept the cars of the rush hour commuters. Her suitcase weighed her down and as she walked she kept her eyes on the piece of ground the next step ahead. Sometimes it was pavement, sometimes sooty grass, damaged grass littered with rubbish.

As she drew nearer the motorway it reduced in width, edging her further and further into the road. This was not a place where people walked; the rubbish was the sort that is thrown from passing cars. The edge narrowed down until finally it was just a rim of concrete lining the motorway approach road. A stretch of non-space between town and motorway, a no-man’s-land where no human foot is presumed to tread. A windy frightening place. Ahead, separated from her by a flyover and glinting traffic, she could see the blue sign for EASTBOUND: M4 LONDON. But how could she get to it?

She trudged along the verge, her case – oh so heavy! – bumping
against
the steel barrier at every step. The cars were crowding her; the verge was too narrow. It was difficult to keep her balance.

‘
Coo-ee!
’ She jumped. A belch of exhaust fumes. ‘
Fancy a bung-up, then?
’

A car swept by, blowing her skirt up. She choked in its dust. The words drowned in the roar of the traffic. Waving arms, staring eyes; she could see the people turning round and laughing at her; then the car was swallowed up into the mass of others.

She felt trapped on her concrete strip. Sliding streams of cars … how could she possibly get on the right bit of road for London? Some of the cars slowed down and she could feel people staring at her, but she kept her eyes on the ground. She felt sick, as she felt every evening now that she was pregnant, and the exhaust fumes nauseated her. Those slowing-down cars – she felt humiliated by them and knew they were inspecting her laddered tights and her thighs that kept being revealed as her dress blew about in the wind. Especially they were inspecting her thighs. She couldn’t hold her dress down; the wind from the cars kept blowing it up again. She could conceal nothing. Oh her little room, her rabbit, her Mac!