The Prodigal Son (35 page)

“We’re not cooking anything,” Desdemona said to Millie, inserting her guest into the breakfast booth and pouring coffee. “Instead, I’m going to go through the various methods of
cooking with you — steaming, braising, stewing, roasting, boiling, frying — from a scientific point of view, so that you understand why bread or pastry or cakes rise, why you have to cook this slowly and that quickly, and so forth. I’m also going to strip some of the hierophantic mysteries away by teaching you to make a perfect soufflé entirely on a Mixmaster, and quenelles — oh, heaps and heaps of things.” She put down a plate of tiny pancakes lightly smeared in raspberry jam and topped with dollops of whipped cream. “These are pikelets with jam and cream — exactly right for putting on the dog at a morning tea.”

It was done so deftly that Millie had no idea Desdemona was easing her into the position of friend as well as pupil; they were not far apart in age, and, as the chatter went on, it became obvious to Millie that Desdemona too was a scientist whose career until she had become a rather late housewife had been a respected one. They had much in common.

The notebook was used, but not in a formal lesson, and about noon she told Desdemona her most treasured secret: she was going to have a baby, due some time in earlyish October, she thought.

“Oh, my dear, how wonderful!” Desdemona exclaimed warmly. “Are you sure of your dates? Who’s your gynecologist?”

“I don’t have one,” Millie said, a little blankly.

“Pregnancy is the most natural function in the world, Millie, but you must put yourself in the care of a gynecologist. It’s only since the advent of the National Health in Britain that women are ceasing to die in childbirth and the infant death rate has improved. Before National Health, the only help
available to poor women was a midwife on a bicycle who pedaled to the home and dealt with the birth there. Get a gynecologist, girl!”

“It never crossed my mind,” said Millie.

Which remark made Desdemona realize how strange Millie’s life had been from the beginning of her sixteenth year and her commitment to Jim Hunter. At an age when other girls were forging active interconnections and friendships, Millie had cleaved to Jim and no one else. Choosing to estrange herself from her parents, this brilliant, widely read and amazingly competent scientist had never even begun to develop a feminine network. The scientist knew she was pregnant; the woman had no idea what its practicalities entailed.

“If you’re due around the second week in October,” Desdemona said, “then at the moment you’re about eight or nine weeks gone. Any nausea, vomiting?”

“Not yet,” said Millie, recovering her equilibrium. “May I ask for the name of your gynecologist? Would he take me?”

“His name’s Ben Solomon, and like all gynecologists, he loves the obstetrical side of his profession. Shall I call him?”

Her face lit up. “Oh, would you? Thank you!”

So five minutes later Millie had an appointment for the morrow, and had written Dr. Ben Solomon’s name, address and phone number into her diary.

“Oh, Desdemona, can’t you see our children?” she asked, transfigured. “Not as light as me, not as dark as Jim, and eyes of all colors!”

“Yes, I can see them,” Desdemona said gently. “Have you told Jim yet?”

“Yes, last night. He was over the moon.”

“Your parents?”

She flinched. “Not yet. In a little while.”

Now what’s going on there? Desdemona wondered, having seen Millie off the premises and going to check on Julian and Alex. It hadn’t escaped her and Carmine that Patrick and Nessie had absented themselves from extended family doings thanks to that wretched sequestration, but why wasn’t Millie seeking her doctor father out about this pregnancy? No gynecologist! A woman of thirty-three she might be, but an abysmally ignorant one for all that. Incredible in this day and age, it truly was. Which led Desdemona to think more deeply and detachedly about Millie. Was she perhaps just the tiniest bit “not all there”? Total love was an entity, yes, but in Desdemona’s fairly wide experience it was always mixed with other emotions directed in other directions. I, thought Desdemona, love Carmine passionately, gratefully, with complete loyalty — he’s my shield companion. And I love my two little sons with a visceral urgency that has led me in the past to put my life on the line for them, especially Julian. I love my mother-in-law, Emilia, all my sisters-in-law … But it’s a tapestry that displays a rich picture, including the grim greys and blacks of post-partum depression. That’s what people are, complex tapestries. But not Millie. I wonder has anybody ever pondered on — no, not her state of mind, but the state of her mind? There’s
something missing, or else something so inflated that it blots out all sight of the rest …

Driving home in a dreamy daze of future culinary masterpieces that would keep her mind occupied through the coming months of her pregnancy, Millie suddenly felt something inside her shift. Why the sensation filled her with a blind panic she had no idea, but she left the car in the drive with the keys still in the ignition, desperate to get inside the house, examine herself, see what had happened.

Blood!
Nor had the bleeding stopped, though she wasn’t hemorrhaging.

Her diary! Where was her diary? Hands hardly able to get the little book out of her purse, she finally located Dr. Solomon’s phone number and called him.

“Don’t move around, just sit and wait for the ambulance,” he said. “I’d rather have you in the hospital, where I can do all the tests and investigate better.”

“Should I phone my husband?” she asked, face wet with tears. “Dr. James Hunter. I’ve miscarried, haven’t I?”

“Or spontaneously aborted, you’re so early. However, the fetus might still be hanging in there, Millie. Let’s see first, huh? Call your husband, but stay cheerful. Okay?”

Oh, it had been such a delightful morning! She was with child, she had made a good friend to whom she could relate, and she’d learned the scientific principles behind cooking. She had seemed to hover on two separate planes simultaneously,
one a place of food, the other filled with visions of a beautiful, warm brown child with weirdly colored eyes.

Now she felt as if she would never want to eat again, and the beautiful, warm brown child was no more.

That same morning had seen a conference between C.U.P. Head Scholar Geoffrey Chaucer Millstone, Dr. Jim Hunter, Max and Davina Tunbull, and the hired publicist, Pamela Devane.

“I suggest a really big university function on Pub Day,” said Pamela, leaning back in her chair and crossing a pair of splendid legs. “Is that possible, Chauce?” she asked the Head Scholar, whom she cowed effortlessly. Putty in her hands.

“A cocktail party, not a stuffy dinner,” she was saying, “a function hosted, if possible, by the President of Chubb himself. Mawson MacIntosh is always news. About a hundred-fifty people, in a room large enough to permit TV camera crews and journalists of all descriptions to roam about without crowding the venue or the guests. Any suggestions?”

The Head Scholar thought for a moment, then nodded. “I’d recommend the rare book museum,” he said. “It’s an architectural wonder of the world, inside even more than outside. With the glass stack rising through all that white marble floor, it’s spectacular. The floor is tiered, which should give the visual media a wonderful canvas, and we can confine it to as much or as little of the floor area as you want, Pamela. We use velvet ropes to fence portions off.”

“No chance of Ivy Hall?” she asked.

Dr. Millstone shuddered. “After the death of Head Scholar Tinkerman there, President MacIntosh would never agree.”

“Pity, but fair enough.” Pamela lit a cigarette in a long jade holder. “The rare book museum it is, then. May I see it?”

“Chauce and I will take you after the meeting,” Jim Hunter said. “It’s only a short walk away.”

“Good.” She emitted a noise that bore some resemblance to a purr, “
Publisher’s Weekly
is usually fairly kind, but the
Kirkus Review
is tougher, so rave reviews from both got
A Helical God
off to a flying start. Jim, the Smithsonian wants you to give an hour’s lecture to a selected audience during our time in Washington D.C.— a rare honor. The university radio stations — there are dozens and dozens of them — are agog, so are the TV breakfast shows.” She grimaced. “That means early starts in the morning, like five a.m. Before the hotels serve breakfast. You will have to eat whatever the station lays on, usually not much.”

“I don’t want to do this tour,” Jim muttered.

“It’s hell, but obligatory hell. At least you won’t be alone, you’ll have Millie and me,” said Pamela complacently.

“I can’t be sure Millie will come,” he said.

Miss Devane sat up straight. “What do you mean? She has to.”

“Why?” Jim asked, blankly.

“She’s of interest. You know black and white — prejudice — your experiences along the way. Yours is an extraordinary story, Jim, and Millie is amazing. She looks like a movie star.”

For once Davina listened without saying a word, astonished at the gall of this relative stranger — she actually tried to push Jim Hunter around! So far he was taking it, but for how long?

“There is another matter,” Pamela announced, discarding her cigarette. “The tetrodotoxin murders. You’ll be asked about them as well, Jim. So will Millie.”

“That’s easy,” he said through his teeth. “We will decline to comment about an ongoing police investigation. In fact, we can’t do anything else. The questions will soon stop.”

“Not bad,” she said, approving.

Jim wasn’t finished. “My wife’s health may not let her travel with me, but if she does, are you implying that some of the journalists will want to interview Millie and me together?”

“Bound to,” said Pamela. “You’re different, you’re glamorous you’re both scientifically brilliant. It’s not a marriage between some famous black man and a beautiful blonde idiot. It’s one doctor of biochemistry with another, intellectual and educational equals with a long history of social ostracism. Fascinating stuff.”

“I see,” said Jim. “Well, I’m sorry to upset the publicity applecart, but Millie has just learned she’s pregnant, and I can assure you that neither of us will consent to anything that might harm our child. Millie mightn’t be coming.”

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1969

B
y mid-afternoon Millie was thoroughly tired of the hospital, and feeling absolutely well. The worst of it had been the dissemination of the news that she had lost her baby; all of East Holloman seemed to know, from her grieving parents to Maria, Emilia, Desdemona, Carmine, the entire Cerutti connection as well as the O’Donnell. For Patrick and Nessie, a double shock, to be deprived of their grandchild before they had been told they would have one. Oh, the guilt! Why hadn’t she been able to confide in her own mother and father about
anything
? Tetrodotoxin, from fear …

This was her first time ever in a hospital, but Millie was too clever not to understand that her recovery was shadowed by more than half a lifetime shutting everyone from her childhood out; now these childhood people were duty-bound to visit with flowers or fruit or chocolates, then stand without a thing to say. And she couldn’t help them find words because she knew nothing about them.

Her disappointment was cruel, as her night-time pillows could have testified. To cap it, now she had no excuse for refusing to travel with Jim on this insane tour stapled together by that execrable woman, Pamela Devane. Nor had Dr. Benjamin Solomon yet told her when she could safely resume her efforts to conceive. The books and magazines palled, she dreaded the appearance of another face around the door of her private room — why
was
Dr. Solomon dodging her, what wasn’t he telling her? The fears rose up, chewing, gnawing, eating away at her.
Something
was wrong!

Her gynecologist came in, firmly closing the door in a way that told her the “No Visitors” sign was on its outside.

“Thank God you’ve come,” she said as she flopped back against her mound of pillows. “I was beginning to think that you were going to leave me here all weekend without news.”

Solomon was a tall, slender man with a bony, humorous face and warm dark eyes; today he wasn’t smiling. “Sorry, Millie,” he said, drawing up a chair. “I had to wait for some results to come back from Histology, and those guys won’t be hurried.”

“It’s bad news,” she said flatly.

“I’m afraid so, yes.” He looked uncomfortable, shifted awkwardly on the chair, didn’t seem to know how to start. Cancer leaped into Millie’s mind, but that didn’t seem to fit either — what didn’t he want to say? But now he did: now he said it. “How many abortions did you have when you were younger, Millie?”

Her jaw dropped, she gaped. “Abortions?” she faltered.

“Yes, abortions. The wrong kind. Couldn’t Jim have used a condom?” The words burst out of him, but her face remained blank, uncomprehending. “You know, a French letter? A rubber?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her face clearing. “Yes, but they tore — we were all thumbs, and Jim was in a hurry. He hated rubbers! I tried foams and jellies, but they let us down too. We would think ourselves safe, then I’d get pregnant again. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Doctor, honest.” The protest erupted as if she were a ten-year-old kid found at last.

He took her hands, held them strongly. “Millie, listen to me! That you ever conceived this child you’ve just lost was a miracle. You’re Gettysburg after the battle up there, the amount of scar tissue is horrendous. How many abortions did you have?”

She had stilled absolutely, sitting forward in the bed, and now turned her head away. “I never kept count,” she said dully. “Seven, nine — I don’t know. A lot, over a lot of years. We couldn’t
have
them!”

“Knitting needles, whisks, alkaline douches?” he asked very gently, rubbing her back as if to help her bring it forth. From what Desdemona had told him, they’d had no one to ask, no one to whom they felt they could turn. Huge brains, utter inexperience.

“Until I learned to make ergotamine and managed my own abortions. Once the Pill appeared we were safe, we didn’t have to worry any more. I was so fertile — Jim too, I guess.” She lifted her head, turned it to look at him through eyes that did
understand but hadn’t yet grasped the full enormity of his news. “We can afford a family now,” she said. “I can’t possibly be as bad as you say, Doctor.”