Another Woman's Daughter (9 page)

1969

Miriam

One Tuesday morning as I finished my breakfast and contemplated the prospect of double algebra, I became aware of a strange, warm sensation between my legs. Thinking I'd spilled some porridge, I looked down and saw a bright red stain on my seat. I was bleeding.

“Reet!” I called out, dashing into the hallway. Rita was just leaving for work. “Reet, something's wrong! I'm bleeding.”

Already wrapped in her coat and scarf, she dropped her bag and, with a bemused expression, retraced her steps. I'd come to understand Rita didn't like surprises. Anything unexpected challenged the order and routine for which she perpetually strove. To Rita, life was either black
or
white; she detested the gray messiness of real living. Feelings frightened her. It was no wonder she and Michael clashed constantly. Dear, disheveled Michael. He embodied the very muddle of existence—the capriciousness
of emotion, the color of chaos. Michael was all heart and humanity; Rita, all reason and logic, her career at least offering a comfortable corner on the edge of the bedlam. The labeled laboratory slides, obedient corpses, and microscope magnifications were predictable, manageable, nonjudgmental.

“Must be
the curse
,” she said with a barking laugh. “No need for an ambulance, then.”

I swallowed. “The curse?”

“You know . . . a woman's curse. Your monthly.”

I knew a little about monthly periods, gleaned mostly from discarded snippets of schoolyard talk divulged in whispers and giggles. You could bleed to death if your period was heavy. If you kissed a boy while you were bleeding, you could have a baby. You could also get off PE if you brought a note from home.

“Hang on,” Rita said, ducking into her bedroom and reemerging moments later with an opened packet in her hand. “There you go,” she said, shoving it at me. “Now I'd better be on my way, or I'll be late. See you tonight.”

“Okay.”

I inspected the bulky parcel of maxi-sized sanitary pads. Inside were five rectangular wads of cotton wool with a loop at either end. A rip in the packet had obscured the diagram, but it appeared the pad attached to some sort of belt worn around the waist. I looked inside the packet. No belt.

The front door opened and Michael walked in with the newspaper. I shot into the bathroom and locked the door.

“Miriam, I'm just off now,” he called out, his bright voice pushing into my loneliness. “See you tonight.”

“See you,” I said, trying to sound normal.

I'm not sure how long I sat there in the long, narrow room, leaning against the cold green tiles. My bottom was numb and my legs clumsy with pins and needles by the time I finally got up and headed for the Patels', where Mrs Patel demystified menstruation for me over chapatis, sweet tea and tears, and a loaned sanitary belt.

“Wait,” she said after our long chat, disappearing into her bedroom. I half expected to see her emerge bearing a pack of pads. Instead, she was holding a small velvet box, which she put down on the table in front of me.

“This is for you, my dear, to celebrate your entrance into womanhood.”

I didn't know what to say. This whole womanhood thing didn't seem like something I wanted to celebrate.

“Open it,” she said encouragingly, pushing it closer. “It's a present.”

I picked it up. The box felt so light I thought it was empty, but as I turned it over, something inside clinked. I fingered the corners where the smooth navy velvet had been worn away to expose gray card, then I lifted the lid. Inside, lying within a nest of coils, was a rose-gold locket.

“Mrs Patel, it's beautiful!”

“It was my mother's,” she said, touching my arm. “She was a fine woman, just like you.”

It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given me.

“But—but it's yours,” I stuttered. “Your mother's. I can't keep it.”

Mrs Patel dispensed with my protestations with a wave of her hand.

I opened the locket. It unfolded into two perfect ovals.

“Maybe someday you'll put a photo inside of someone special,” she said, choking up with tears. Everything blurred. “Come now, aren't we a right pair!” she said, passing me a tissue. “No more tears. I want to see it around your lovely young neck.” She shot a dissatisfied glance in the mirror. “Not my old, crepey one.”

The locket was still warm from her touch as it settled in the gap between my collarbones.

“Thank you, Mrs Patel.”

“And, while we're immersed in women's business,” she said, “I think it's time we bought you your own bra, young lady. Definitely overdue.” And with that, we headed into town.

I didn't go to school after our shopping expedition. Instead, self-consciously wearing my first bra, I wandered down to the local library. It was still my favorite haunt whenever the real world came at me too fast. This time, though, instead of losing myself in the world of fiction, I sought out something different.

As I skimmed over the myriad titles, a brightly colored spine caught my eye. I eased the big book off the shelf and sat down with it at one of the desks. On the dust jacket was a striking photograph of a lone African hut, its clay walls painted in bold geometrical designs. Inside were many more photographs.

I flicked through the pages, bewitched by the landscape of wide-open spaces, vibrant color, and a rust-red earth. Toward the end of the book I came upon a chapter entitled “Initiation.” It was then I began to read. And soon I was standing on an open plain—a young African girl who had just begun to menstruate.

Her tribal initiation must occur before she has her first sexual encounter or she risks being shunned forever.

It is full moon. Under the watchful eye of her mother, the young girl's clothes are removed and all her body hair shaved—even her eyebrows. Only women surround her, all contact with men and boys forbidden. She and the other initiates and their mentors dance around a fire. Then the girl is led down to a stream to be cleansed, after which she is taken to a hut built especially for her. There she will spend up to three months isolated from the outside world. Her only contact will be with her mother and other senior women, who
will instruct her in tribal tradition and the skills required to become a proficient homemaker.

At the end of this time the mother gives her daughter a beautiful beaded apron she has made and a feast is held to celebrate the initiate's transition from girl to woman. During the festivities she is introduced to eligible young men sanctioned by the tribe. The clothes she has worn during the long period of guidance are now cast aside and burned, for she is leaving behind her childhood to embrace a new life as a woman.

I closed the book, my hands trembling, and carefully replaced it on the shelf, hiding it behind another big book; I needed to be able to find it again. Then I wandered out into the dreary English afternoon.

The next morning I spent in the school sick bay with period cramps. After lunch I managed to persuade the nurse to let me walk home. She wanted to ring my parents, but I was adamant it wasn't necessary; I was fifteen. Anyway, Michael was in Cambridge for the day and Rita didn't take kindly to being interrupted at work.

The day was a cheerless gray, the promise of winter seeping in around the edges. I stopped at Boots to buy some aspirin,
then meandered on home, taking a shortcut through the park. The playground was deserted except for an empty crisp packet that the wind was toying with, sweeping it up and then dragging it down. The seesaw, jungle gym, and patches of worn grass looked all the more wretched for the absence of children.

At home, I put my key in the lock, but it refused to turn. I fiddled with it, wriggled it, tried to force it . . . Still it wouldn't budge. Finally, in frustration I banged my fist against the door and, to my astonishment, the front door swung open. It had been unlocked all this time.

I had been the last one to leave home that morning. I knew Rita would be furious if she found out I'd left the house unlocked, especially since there'd been a recent spate of burglaries in the area. I looked around. Everything seemed in order, so I dropped my bags at the foot of the stairs and headed for the kitchen to make myself a warm drink.

As I grabbed the kettle to fill it up, scalding water splashed out of the spout onto my hand. I ran to the sink and shoved my smarting fingers under the tap, the cold water quickly soothing the pain. However, something was bothering me more than the discomfort I still felt. The kettle. It was hot.

I turned off the tap. That was when I heard voices, upstairs.

Tiptoeing to the phone, I lifted the receiver, then put it down again. If the police came, Rita would find out I'd been the one to leave the house open. Perhaps if I scared the intruders away . . .

Arming myself with a broom from the laundry cupboard, I crept cautiously up the stairs. The light was on in Rita's bedroom and the door ajar. From inside came the sound of groans.

“Reet? Reet, is that you?” I whispered.

Silence.

“Rita?”

I pushed tentatively on the door, my broomstick positioned like a javelin.

Rita was lying on the bed naked. A kaleidoscope of images flashed before me—purple disks of nipple, a mound of fuzzy pubic hair, a man's balding head, sagging buttocks astride . . .

Two heads turned, Rita's face red, and another—not Michael's.

“Get out!” Rita's words charged through my surprise.

I couldn't move, my limbs unhinged from my body.

“Now!” she shouted.

I strained to free myself. Then, like a robot suddenly switched on, I turned and broke into a shambling run. I careered into the corridor, down the stairs, and out the front door, running and running until my lungs threatened to explode. And by the time I burst into the Patels' kitchen, my legs, my chest, my heart—all were screaming in pain.

1971

Miriam

“Come on, babe. If you love me you'll do it.”

It was almost two years since my body had ushered me into womanhood; yet as I sat hunched up in the front seat of the dilapidated orange Ford Escort, I still felt very much a child. It was black outside and raining. The boy sitting next to me, in the driver's seat, was a pale and gangly guy with a bad case of acne and lank, brassy-yellow hair, which fell limply to his shoulders. One of his hands clasped my leg; the other stroked my neck with some urgency.

If you love me . . .
Love. So appealing. So elusive.

He'd left the engine running to keep the heater on, and the windscreen wipers swooshed from side to side, erasing the fine web of raindrops on the glass and lulling me into a sort of stupor. The car was parked absently across the entrance to a dark alleyway at the back of Woolworths, and a security light flicked
on and off in the unsettled weather, intermittently lighting up the inside of the car with unforgiving white light. At least it bleached my brown skin.

“Come on, sweetie,” he urged with more than a hint of impatience. “I'll love you even more. It's not good to keep a guy waiting . . .”

His hand pushed uninvited under my denim skirt, his skin dry and rough, his fingers hot against my coldness. There was a gap between my thin, boyish legs, making it easy for him to reach between my thighs.

I'd show them. I'd find my own love.

Right, left, right, left. The wipers continued, hypnotically.

The boy's fingers were forging a groove in my underwear. I started at his boldness, but made no protest as they slipped under the elastic of my panties and started probing, tentatively at first, then more brazenly. Black girl. White boy. See, I
was
somebody.

“You're one seriously hot chick,” he huffed, his breath hot and rancid. He pulled at my knickers.

Right, left, right, left. A leaf was trapped in the wipers' clutches.

His hands squeezed my breasts, then he was unhooking my bra. The smell of stale beer filled my nostrils. I couldn't make out the letters on the delivery truck parked in front.

“Let's get in the back. More room,” he gasped.

So we tumbled into the backseat, buttons tearing away, seat squealing, the boy grunting. My head was wedged up against the armrest as he clambered on top of me. I couldn't see the wipers any longer, just the torn mustard upholstery of the seat in front and the stained ceiling.

He pushed open my legs and shoved himself inside. The pain was like a razor blade tunneling its way to my throat. I cried out, but I was drowned out by the boy's moans. By now the windscreen wipers were screaming. It had stopped raining and the screen was dry, no longer lubricated by falling water.

“Shit, doll, you're one hot chocolate—and a virgin. Far out!”

He lay on top of me, heavy as a sack of coal. I thought I was going to suffocate. At last he slipped out of me and sat up. A strange smell of body, intermingled with beer and pie, filled the car. As he stumbled out to have a pee, cold wet air rushed in, diluting the musty baseness of what had just happened. I sat up and inhaled, hungry for its freshness.

We drove home in silence, the boy taking a long way around through his housing estate, past rows of rigid chimneys poking through semidetached brick boxes, past car wrecks and graffiti, burglar bars and vandalized bus stops, past a pack of kids slinking through the shadows. The boy was already looking for his next thrill; the night was still young.

It was wet and sticky between my legs.

He switched on the radio and “In the Summertime” crackled in the background. He fiddled with the dials as he tried unsuccessfully to get better reception, but even the static was better than the awkward silence.

The scenery changed abruptly as we pulled into my suburb, the battered orange Escort jarring with its new surrounds—stately chestnut trees and manicured hedgerows, bay windows and brass knockers, Volvos, Triumphs, and Rovers. This had been my haunt for so long, yet the familiar served only to heighten the alienation I now felt. Somehow the grunge of
council housing was more real, more honest. This affluence was a pretense of perfection. Hidden behind the plastered walls and sandstone pavers were pockets of rot and decay.

As we drew up outside my house, I looked up at Rita's window. Her light was still on.

“I'd better be going,” I said, my limbs suddenly heavy.

“Yeah. Hey, thanks, doll. You were great. I'll call ya.”

“Yeah.”

As I hurried up the path I turned to wave, but the orange Escort was already halfway up the road, disappearing into the wet night.

I slipped inside, closed the front door quietly behind me, and stood for a moment in the silence of the entrance hall, beside the cowhide drums grouped incongruously beneath Monet and Degas prints. The walls started to close in on me. Faces grimaced, beadwork distorted, and masks moved. The absurd mix of African and European art was mocking me, shouting out my own confusion.

I crept upstairs.

“Miriam, is that you?”

It was almost a relief to hear Rita's voice split the silence.

“Yes.”

“Come here,” she commanded.

I moved down the dark corridor toward the bright rectangle of light skewed across the passage wall. Rita was sitting up in bed surrounded by a pile of textbooks and hospital reports.

As I walked in, she peered over her half-moon glasses.

“Did we or did we not agree nine o'clock was your curfew during the week?”

I stared blankly ahead. “Forgot the time.”

“Well, that's not good enough.” Her voice started to rise. “I'm sick and tired of your disobedience. Your surly manner, your ingratitude, and your flagrant disregard for the rules of this house! Sometimes I—” She stopped in midsentence.

“Say it, then. Why don't you say it?” I shouted. “You wish you'd never adopted me! Well, I wish you hadn't either! I wish you'd left me in Africa where I belong, you cheating, unfaithful—”

Rita's eyes widened and her mouth opened.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and swung around. Michael's eyes and mine collided—his, sad and weary. “Come now, my girl. It's late and you have school in the morning. Off to bed.” And he ushered me from the room.

Later, in the empty hours of dawn, I stood under the shower as the warm water mixed with my tears. I scrubbed and scrubbed my thin, brown body, but I couldn't wash away my color, or the awful smell of the boy.

—

The waiting room was crowded and stuffy, and the windows had fogged up, clouding my view of the bleak afternoon outside. Despite the bright yellow No Smoking sign pinned to the door, the air was laced with old cigarette smoke, which had hitched a ride inside on coats, jumpers, and tepid breath.

The low background chatter was intermittently punctuated by the receptionist's efficient voice. “Family Planning. How may I help?”

My innards tensed, threatening to hurl what could only be bile; I hadn't eaten all day. I lowered my head between my knees, pretending to look at something on the sole of my shoe.

“Helen James?” A stocky, red-faced nurse with a warm voice put her head around the door and scanned the room.

A girl across from me stood up. She had Swedish-blond hair, which fell to a blunt end halfway down her back. Even in my bilious state I managed to envy her long, fair hair.

She was wearing faded black stovepipes, which accentuated her anorexic frame, and a loose black jumper with the words
Dream On
stitched across the front. Rings of kohl encircled her eyes and a row of silver studs marched up her right earlobe. Another girl with a nose piercing stood up too.

“Come through,” the nurse said, leading them both down a corridor.

I grabbed a crumpled magazine from the pile beside me and paged absently through it. It was out of date, with pages ripped out. The print started to flicker. I opened my eyes wider, trying to halt the swarm of black dots invading the page. Then the room started to list. I was going to be sick. I had to get out. I stood up, grabbing at the chair next to me. It wobbled and . . .

“Catch her,” I heard someone shout.

Then blackness.

“Ms. Steiner. Ms. Steiner?”

I struggled to focus, my mind searching for a mooring. There was a pendulum swinging in front of me—a red stethoscope dangling from a woman's pale, puffy neck.

Her face came into view, receded, then reappeared. Large maroon glasses dominated her face, which, aside from a smudge of bronze lipstick, was devoid of makeup.

“Where am I?” I asked, trying to sit up.

“Slowly, Ms. Steiner. You've just fainted.”

The mature face was reassuring.

“Rest there a while. You've got a lump the size of a golf ball on the back of your head.”

Immediately my head ached. I still couldn't work out where I was. Panic started to take hold as I floated outside any recognizable reality.

“You're at Family Planning. Remember?”

Oh.

Oh yes.

I preferred the oblivion.

“Here, sit up slowly and have a sip of sugar water.” It was the stocky nurse.

I swallowed a mouthful, my teeth aching at the icy shock.

She wrapped a cuff around my arm and inflated it. My fingers began to tingle, but just before real discomfort set in, she opened a valve and the air rushed out again. “Ninety-eight over fifty-six.”

“Thanks, Joan. I think we'll be fine from here.”

A different voice. I'd forgotten about the woman with glasses and a red stethoscope. She passed me an ice pack. “Hold this on that bump for as long as you can tolerate. It'll reduce the swelling,” she said, helping me to my feet and sitting me down beside a cluttered desk.

The room was vast and airy, with a generous bay window overlooking a small, treed courtyard. My throbbing thoughts seeped into this pleasant space.

“I'm Dr. Pepall.” The woman's voice was steady and kind. “You gave us quite a fright, collapsing like that. How are you feeling?”

I nodded sluggishly. “My head hurts.”

“Yes, you've got an impressive lump. Do you still feel up to a consultation today, or would you prefer to reschedule?”

“No, no, I'm fine.”

“Well, let's
take two
, then,” she said, settling back in her large leather armchair.

I shifted in my seat, looked out of the window, stared up at the ceiling, then down at my feet.

“How can I be of help, Ms. Steiner?” the doctor said, gently persistent.

Where would I begin? The fainting had only delayed things. A temporary escape. Now I was supposed to divulge my secret to a stranger. Tell her about the thing that consumed my every waking hour and fractured my long, sweat-drenched nights? This first meeting had begun on the floor. How could I regain my composure and say what I had to in the way I'd practiced in the mirror over and over again? I could feel tears gathering, my emotions enlisting the troops.

Then it all burst out. Everything. Rita cheating on Michael. She wasn't even my biological mother. My real mother had given me away. I couldn't really remember her. Not her face. The boy in the orange Escort said he loved me, but never called again. He was white. A
white
boy had asked
me
out on a date. White boy, black girl. Woohoo! I hated being black. I hated it. Black. Black. Black.

It all poured out . . . but only in tears. There were no words.

“What is it? Try to tell me, Ms. Steiner.”

That question again. Finally three words broke through and the whisper of them was more frightening than the noise they made inside my head.

“I'm pregnant.”

She nodded.

Had she heard what I'd just said?

“I'm pregnant,” I said, louder, “and I can't keep the baby.”

It was 4:30
P.M.
and already dark by the time I emerged from the consulting room with the bay window and cluttered desk. In my hand were several forms.

Dr. Pepall rested a warm hand on my arm. “I'll see you back at the clinic on Friday after the scan.”

I didn't want to leave this room and walk out into the cold, blustery world. I wanted more of the doctor's warmth. I wanted this kindly woman to tuck me up in bed, stroke my head, and read me a story. I wanted her to turn out the light.

“Susan Parker. Come through, please.”

The next patient was already making her way down the corridor.

—

I had owned my secret for eleven weeks when the doctors at the clinic relieved me of the burden of motherhood and scraped a baby from my womb.