Her Living Image (6 page)

Her mother’s conversation became more and more surreal. She found it impossible not to listen to her. Everything that Meg said dropped in vivid disconnected pictures into
the blank space of her head. Purple was going to be in, this autumn, and they’d already sold a lot of that lovely heather-mix wool. She’d taken some steak back to the butcher’s
because it was so tough, and she’d paid nearly a pound a pound for it, they thought they could get away with murder. Next door had used some chemical weedkiller on the path, the idle devils,
and some of it had blown over on to the garden so Arthur thought, because there was a nasty yellow stripe right down their side of the front lawn. Some people had no respect for other
people’s property. Words and phrases rang in Carolyn’s ears when she had gone. “They think they can get away with murder.” What did it mean? The idle devils.
Id–dle–dev–vils. I–dledev–ils. She saw the letters which spelt the words, but little glowing devils too, with pronged forks and forked tails. A fork like that
isn’t that sort of fork though, she thought.

Clare came to visit. Although she had outdoor clothes on, her patchy hair and her scratched white face made her welcome and familiar to Carolyn. She came in the afternoon. “Hope you
don’t mind – but I can’t compete with your Mum. I told Martinet I work evenings.” She pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat down. “God you look awful,” she
said cheerfully. “I’ve brought you some dried apricots to chew.”

Carolyn laughed.

“When’re you going home?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to.” Carolyn was interested to hear herself say that.

“Don’t want to go home?”

“No. Not really.”

There was a pause. “Well don’t,” said Clare briskly. “We’ve got a spare room. Come and stay with us if you like.”

Carolyn stared at her.

“You can – if you want. That’s what you meant, isn’t it? Or d’you mean you like it so much here you want to stay for the rest of your life?”

Carolyn laughed weakly. “Could I?”

“Sure. No problem.”

With a great effort Carolyn visualized her room at home, with its new carpet and new bedspread. It belonged to a different life.

“Ring me, when they give you a date, and I’ll come and get you.”

As if there was nothing simpler or more ordinary, than that Carolyn should go and stay in their spare room. Carolyn stared at her.

“All right? It’s a nice room too, it’s got a sloping roof. On the top floor.”

“Good.”

“Well.” Clare looked round. “I can see it’s as jolly as ever in here. Have you read my books?”

“No. Some. No.” Carolyn admitted.

“You should try this,” said Clare, and pulled a paperback from the pile. “I’ve just reread it. It’s wonderful.”

The book looked boring. The cover was black, and the author’s name in big letters was
DORIS LESSING
. Carolyn was surprised that Clare read books by someone called
Doris. It sounded like the Archers. “OK.” She wanted Clare to go so she could think.

“Getting you down?” said Clare.

She nodded.

“Want me to go?”

In relief, Carolyn smiled.

“All right, I know when I’m not wanted. Look Caro, I’ll write my number in the front of this book. OK? Give me a ring when you know when they’ll let you out.”

Halfway through writing she turned with her pen in her hand. “What about your Mum?”

Carolyn stared at her dumbly.

“You’ll have to tell her.”

Carolyn nodded.

“OK?”

Clare was staring at her worriedly. With a great effort Carolyn smiled. “Yes. It’s OK. Bye-bye.”

Alan came home the following weekend. After the pub on Friday night they stopped his father’s car in a lane. Carolyn got out of the passenger seat and stood shivering
in the dark while he spread the blanket over the back seat. He was always rather embarrassed to do this, and turned around with a foolish laugh saying, “Well –” He put out his
arms to her. She had spent the evening in a glaze, because she was trapped (trapped, yes, she remembered Libby saying that Jenny was only a year old when she caught with the next one and thinking
what a funny word, caught, did she catch it like a disease or does she mean she was caught in a trap? Now she knew) and had no choice but to tell him. But the inevitable moment which after all had
to come at some point in the next nine months wasn’t presenting itself from minute to minute. She couldn’t really concentrate on anything else for fear of it springing up on her and her
not being ready. He clasped her cold hands and pulled her to him. Lightly, he kissed her face, just brushing her skin with his lips. Tell him now. I can’t. Say it now. The little brushing
kisses were as irritating as a moth that flaps about in your face when you turn the light out. She would burst if she didn’t tell him. It was unbearable. The moth kisses moved brushing
lightly down her neck. She shivered. Please stop. Tell him. I can’t. Please. All her tension was in her skin, and he was irritating her, tickling her, making her want to scream. Her body was
seized by rage. “Stop it. Kiss me.” Turning her mouth abruptly up to his she met his lips hard, butted against his gentleness and bit at his mouth. He half drew his head back in
surprise. “Come on,” she said, and climbed quickly into the back seat. It was warm and dark in there, she didn’t want to see his face or his surprise. She didn’t want him to
see her. She was full of harsh energy. Too bad. It was too bad. She didn’t care what he thought of her, as she normally did, waiting and wondering (what’s he doing, shall I touch him
where shall I? What does he expect me to do, is that right or does it hurt when he sighs like that?). She was so angry and tightly coiled that it didn’t matter. She wanted to grip him hard
and hurt him.

For the first time, she made love to him, blindly, fighting him, as if driven by a rage that had to burst out of her body somewhere; using him to find relief.

Afterwards they lay silent, uncomfortably cramped and sealed together with sweat, both shocked by the force of what had happened. At last Alan wriggled and shifted slightly.
“There’s somethig biting into my bum. A zip, I think,” and Carolyn raised herself up from him and began the furtive scramble for clothes. Not until they were fully dressed and
sitting in the front seats again did they look at one another properly, for a moment with absolute curiosity, as if at strangers. Then Alan smiled at her broadly, and Carolyn felt her surprised
face grinning back. Their grins widened into giggles, and then into open-mouthed laughter, as if some huge joke had suddenly been revealed to both. It was minutes before Alan leaned forward and
started the car.

On Saturday Alan borrowed his father’s car to go on a day trip, and they made love all afternoon, drugged with it, unable to stop. In the evening they drove to a pub for food and drink,
and as she tidied herself in the Ladies and distantly admired the way her skin was glowing and her eyes sparkling, and thought that everyone who saw them would be sure to know what they’d
been doing, Carolyn suddenly remembered she was pregnant. It was an extraordinary thing. But it wouldn’t matter. She could tell him easily now. As she slid into her seat next to him and
picked up her half of lager she said quietly, “I think I’m pregnant.”

He looked at her and laughed.

“No. I mean I am. From before.”

Alan hesitated, and put his glass down. “You are or you think you are?”

“I am.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“I’m sick every morning.”

“And how late?”

She shrugged. “They’re never very regular, but usually five to six weeks. Now it’s been eight.”

“Eight weeks?”

“Since my last period.”

Alan scratched his face. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

She was remembering how she’d felt, now. In fact she felt like it again. Completely. Pregnant? Not me. It was impossible and awful. She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I
don’t know. I couldn’t believe it.”

“You knew yesterday?” he said, and then, flatly, “– last night. Today.”

She nodded.

“That’s why it was different.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I forgot it. I don’t know.”

“Why do you think it was?”

“We just – I wasn’t afraid any more – and – we – fitted together –” Talking about it made her terrified and doubt it, that it had been so
much. Talking might reveal it not to have been, or to be just something you can talk about. He bent his head over the table, staring at the wood grain. There was a very long silence. She watched
the barman reading the evening paper at the quiet bar, holding each page half open as he read it, tilting his head to scan the columns. Perhaps he was reading the advertisements. Looking for a used
car or a lawnmower. Perhaps he had a wife and children and didn’t have to worry, perhaps if she stared hard enough she could turn herself into him and be standing there peacefully propped
against the bar, half-open paper lying there, pint of bitter in arm’s reach and the pub cat rubbing warm against her leg.

Alan moved. He raised his head and said, “Well.”

“Well,” she said.

“What d’you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

He put his arm around her awkwardly, making her want to flinch away and snap despite herself, “I’m not ill.”

“No.” Humbly he took his arm away, and then said grudgingly, picking at the edge of the table, “I love you, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” she said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh fuck off!” He jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving her open-mouthed and horrified.

Pretending for the barman’s sake that nothing had happened, she sipped her drink slowly, anxiously replaying the conversation in her mind’s ear and unable to make any sense of his
reaction. Would he leave her here? Was that it? How would she get home? Did he hate her? She felt she had not understood anything, ever, that had happened between them. Last night –
Misunderstood everything, taken bad for good, no for yes, not understood, got it all wrong like someone speaking another language got it wrong.

With icy dignity at last she took her empty glass to the bar, put on her jacket and went out. The car was in the car park. As she walked towards it she realized Alan was slumped over the
steering wheel, and that he was crying.

He drove her home in complete silence, drawing up outside her house and sitting still, the engine racing, eyes staring ahead through the windscreen. She got out without saying anything and he
drove away before she had got her key out.

Next day it made a great pressure in Carolyn’s head, thinking about not going home, and about going home. She didn’t want to. She felt as if she’d never
believed that she would. It all seemed impossible – going home with her Mum to her room, and all the things she kept asking her to do and the way her Mum looked at her and was upset. She
couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t. The only way she could stand to be was if they left her alone, gave her some space. Then things would come right. Life would begin again. She needed the
space. She allowed the difficulty to mushroom in her head till its physical pressure made her nauseous. All the time she knew, though. I’m not going home. OK. Not going home.

Gradually it subsided. The decision had made itself. Things began to change in the hospital. The physiotherapist came and gave her leg and foot exercises. She had a walking frame, then crutches.
She put on real clothes and sat in the day room. She could walk to the window and look out at the little toy cars and houses. No sounds of outside came through the thick glass. Finally they told
her she could go home next week. She was miles away from them; calm, polite, with a little smile on her face she nodded as her Mum talked, God’s Gift talked, Vile Chops and Martinet came and
went: far, far away, like the Snow Queen with the ice splinter in her eye, deep frozen in her own winter.

When at last she walked down the ward without a stick, walking slowly and holding herself very erect, her whole body was glassy ice, brittle and thin so she must not jolt or bump or stumble, she
must move as smoothly as if she was on wheels.

Then it was going to be tomorrow – tomorrow – and her Mum brought her a suitcase to clear out her locker into and her anorak to keep out the cold. She looked down without interest or
pity on this confusion. Her Mum brought her a new jumper to go home in. Harebell blue with a flower in little pearls stitched above the chest. It was the sort of jumper they have in expensive shop
windows, but Meg had made it. “They’re machine-washable!” she exclaimed, brushing the pearls reverently with her fingertips. “Jean put some round the neck of Lizzie’s
cardigan and she just pops it in the wash. They come up lovely, every time. I was afraid they might chip or flake – hmmn?”

“It’s very nice,” said Carolyn. “Thankyou.”

“Aren’t you going to try it on?”

Carolyn tried it on, pulling it down over her dressing gown. It was very tight.

“You should have taken that off first – you’re going to ruin the shape – Carolyn! What are you doing?”

Carolyn took it off, and undid her dressing gown. She put the jumper on again and Meg stood back to admire her.

“It’s lovely. It really suits you, that colour, it’s lovely and dainty – it really is. Oh love, you look like a different girl!”

Carolyn smiled and nodded. Looking down she saw a woolly blue torso with two small pointed breasts and a sprinkling of pearls resting above them, like a first layer of snow. She thought, it must
be funny to look like that.

She took off the jumper again, her Mum told her what they were having for tea tomorrow, and asked her what she’d had for lunch today. At last her Mum went away. Carolyn went to the phone
and telephoned Clare. When she came back she picked up the jumper again from her locker, and spread it on her knees. It was not her jumper. She did not look like that. She took the letter she had
been writing and rewriting all week, and propped it up on top of her locker. It was addressed to Meg Tanner.