The Sisterhood (13 page)

Dad stood up from the sofa, which was a perfectly normal blue one covered by a star-spangled purple throw. As he hugged me, slightly awkwardly as ever, a wave of exhaustion broke over me. It always did after work, particularly on a Friday. I was interested, when I could be detached about it, in the way I ricocheted between extremes. Suddenly, I could barely stay on my feet. I sat down quickly on the sofa, leaned back on a blissfully soft cushion, and closed my eyes. Then I opened them again, certain that I really would fall asleep if I carried on. Dad and Sue were both looking at me. I saw the concern in their eyes.

'It's OK,' I told them. 'Really. But there is something ...' I stopped myself. 'Where's Roberto?' I asked, politely.

Sue beamed. Over the years, she had managed to convince herself that Roberto and I were special friends.

'They've gone to the deli,' she said. 'To get special provisions for the weekend. They were going to go this morning but, somehow, they didn't seem to make it. They were doing ... other things. I don't know exactly what. We're not privy to all their doings, are we, darling?'

My dad nodded, then shook his head. I caught his eye, and our old, unspoken understanding passed between us.

Dad looked old, though he was only sixty-two. He had been entirely grey for years, and now he seemed to have lost more of his hair every time I saw him.

Dad had accepted Roberto into our lives years and years ago, without ever saying anything about becoming a step-father. This was in contrast to Sue, who had worked incessantly on her relationship with me: she took me clothes shopping, taught me to enjoy coffee, and showed me that, contrary to my expectations, sage tea really did cure a sore throat. I was surprised, when I met Sue, to discover that there was someone in the world who thought I was interesting enough for all that.

Meanwhile, Dad and Roberto more or less ignored each other. As far as I could tell, they still did.

Dad had never said anything much about my mother, either. Years ago, he gave me the precious photograph, and that was it. I knew that he still thought about her, that he still missed her, but he seemed to have shut all of that away, and nobody would ever have guessed it.

I knew that he had an opinion about his freeloading stepson moving in as frequently as he did. I had caught him looking extremely happy, the previous summer, when Roberto and Julie set off to start their new lives in Milan, home to Roberto's father. They went in a flurry of excitement and fantasy, even though neither of them spoke Italian.

'Anyway,' Sue continued. 'How about a drink while we wait for them? Liz? G&T? Glass of wine?'

This, I knew, was my moment.

'Actually ...' I said. 'I
won't
have a drink,
because
...' My heart started pounding, and I was wide awake. It was about to become real, and official.

A key turned in the lock, Sue rushed away to open the door, and the moment was lost.

Roberto was in front of me, tall and stocky with a noticeable belly. His hair was in a ponytail, and I noticed for the first time that it was thinning. Julie hovered behind him, mousy blonde and slight. The deli snacks were unveiled, and suddenly Roberto was putting a glass of champagne into my hand.

'What's the occasion?' I asked weakly. 'Are you getting married?'

Julie looked at me. 'Not likely,' she said quietly. 'I'm still married to the one before.'

Roberto frowned at her and shushed her with a look. He cleared his throat.

'This
is the occasion.' He looked around, making sure he had everyone's attention. 'I'm really glad you're here, Lizzy, because Julie and I have an announcement to make.'

Julie was looking at the floor, her cheeks pink, smiling her wishy-washy smile.

I longed for it to be something else. I knew it wasn't.

'We were going to wait,' he said, with a smile playing around his mouth, 'but we can't, so here it is: we're having a baby!'

Ten minutes later, I put my champagne down, untouched. I was about to make the most unwanted and superfluous announcement anyone had ever heard.

'Actually,' I said, loudly. 'Actually, I've come here for a reason. Because I need to make an announcement as well.' And I told them.

Nobody knew what to say. Julie glared at me. I glared back. Apart from everything else, I knew that she had stolen my free childcare.

I slipped out of the room. I would get on Dad's computer, and arrange to meet Helen. Suddenly, she seemed to be one of the few people I could rely on, and I hadn't even met her.

1969

Mary was sodding miserable. She had been miserable for months. In fact, she could pinpoint the beginning of it to the day.

On 17 April, she went to work as normal, ignoring the niggle at the back of her mind. Her job was dull — she was a member of the typing pool — but she enjoyed it. She liked the girls she worked with, and she was always aware of how lucky she was to be alive in the modern age. She lived in a tiny bedsit carved out of a big stucco-fronted house in Hove, and shared a kitchen and bathroom with five other girls. All six of them went to work. She listened to music, and she cooked whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. One day, when she could save up enough money, she was going to go travelling. She would go to Kathmandu and Afghanistan, romantic, exciting places that were far, far away from everything she had ever known. She was desperate for adventure. She was twenty. In her parents' generation, any woman of twenty who worked, and who, therefore, was unmarried, would have been getting close to being on the shelf. Not Mary. She thought she might like to get married one day, but it was not going to be any time soon, and in the meantime she was having plenty of fun.

On 17 April 1969, her boyfriend was Billy Greene. She'd met him at a party and had lusted after him at first sight. He was smoking hashish when she first set eyes on him, and he was wearing a psychedelic shirt with a long pointed collar. He was tall, with a fine, sculpted face, and he looked glorious. They had been hanging out together for a few months now. She was even considering going on the Pill. Mary knew that Billy was not The One, because he was dull underneath the clothes and the music and the drugs. He surprised her, when she got to know him, by being conventional.

'We should go on one of those buses,' she told him, leaning against his shoulder in a room full of people, breathing in a haze of smoke. 'Like Rose's brother did. He went to Kathmandu.' She loved the sound of the word. Sometimes, at work, she would whisper it to herself, again and again. Kathmandu.

Billy pulled away from her with a frown.

'Kathmandu?' he repeated, incredulous. 'Whatever for?'

Still, the fact that she had a boyfriend who would never be her husband made her feel deliciously modern and rather naughty. Billy would do for the moment. She was saving for her bus ticket.

That was how she felt on the morning of 17 April. At lunchtime, she went for a quick walk around Brighton to do some shopping. The sun was shining and the sea air was fresh and cold. It blew the cobwebs away, and at some point during the walk, she began to admit a few things. At the greengrocer's, she thought about the Tampax that she'd been carrying around in her capacious handbag since ... well, for a long time. As she walked through the Lanes, gazing unseeingly into shop windows, she realised that she'd been expecting the curse last weekend, and that she'd missed it the month before as well. She hadn't had it since January. She hadn't noticed, because she hadn't wanted to. If anything, it had been mildly convenient.

By the time she got back to the office, Mary was trembling.

'This can't be happening,' she muttered. 'It isn't happening. It isn't.'

'Everything all right, dear?' asked Miss Manning.

'Yes,' Mary lied. 'Of course. Fine. I'm just ... feeling a little bit unwell.'

Miss Manning was generally kind, and she liked Mary. 'You don't look well, dear,' she said, sympathetically. I'll tell you what. Finish that letter, and then why don't you go home early? Go on. Off with you.'

Mary looked at her gratefully. She dashed through a letter demanding final payment from a client, handed the letter and carbon copy to Miss Manning, and fled. Various girls looked up as she dashed past, but for once, Mary avoided their eyes. She normally liked the social aspect of her job, but today she wanted to be alone.

She knew it. She supposed one went to the doctor and so on at this point, but she didn't need to, because she knew it for certain. And there were two extremely stark options that had opened up before her.
Am I brave enough?
she asked herself. And:
which is more frightening?

Thus, six months later, she was sodding fed up. Everything had been snatched away. She should have tried her luck with a termination, but, when it came to it, she hadn't dared. Her parents were old-fashioned and very religious. She had always heard that abortion was evil, that it was murder. She simply had not been able to go through with it. She'd been stupid. In fact, she had fucked things up for good. What would a couple of hours of discomfort, a bit of bleeding, and, possibly, the odd twinge of guilt have been, compared with this?

Instead, she had told Billy. She watched him closely, knowing that his reaction would show her what her real options were. To her horror, a slow smile spread across his face. Billy, it transpired, was actually
pleased.
Now that she'd had time to think about it, she supposed he could afford to be. Nobody was going to make him give up his job. He wasn't going to have to stay at home with a squalling infant. He would not abruptly find himself metamorphosed into a housewife, his dreams, ambitions, plans and hopes all turned to dust. Billy could have it all, because Billy was a man.

They got married as quickly as they could. It was a small ceremony in a registry office. By then Mary was four months gone, and she had to clutch her bouquet of lilies strategically to disguise her growing stomach. Their families had been there, and a couple of friends each (hers: Cilia from the house, and Rose from work. His: Paul from the office and his best friend Martin). She chose orange lilies, after studying a book of flower symbolism, because they symbolised hatred and disdain. She dressed in a cheap pink dress that clashed with her flowers, with an ugly, big-buttoned jacket, a pair of round-toed shoes, and nylon stockings. She'd toyed with the idea of bare feet, flowers in her hair, and a short beaded dress, but that would have implied happiness, and she wanted to project her mood. Despite her efforts, everyone said she looked lovely, because nobody could ever say anything else to a bride.

As soon as she was Mrs Greene, she had to give up work because of the baby. She'd told all the girls that it was a shotgun wedding, and her predicament was met with a mixture of horror and envy.

'Come back and see us,' said Rose, and she promised she would, while knowing that she wouldn't. Her bedsit was immediately re-let to a girl who called herself Primrose, who was doing a secretarial course. Primrose was seventeen, with long, blond hair, and plenty of jewellery, and the one time they met, Mary hated her. She hated the fact that Primrose had the world at her feet, and she had nothing.

She and Billy bought a little house, in the centre of Brighton, with some help from his parents. Billy worked for a small firm of solicitors nearby, and he instantly assumed that Mary was his chattel. She had known he would. She was expected to keep the house spotless, to cook his breakfast, lunch and dinner, to wash and iron his work clothes. He came home, if he didn't go to the pub after work, and sat down with his newspaper. He was a stranger to Mary, and it took her no time at all to begin to hate him.

Now the baby was due. Mary cried all day, every day. She was dreading the arrival of her wretched unwanted child. Every kick made her angry. Her dreams of seeing the Himalayan mountains were dust. All she had was an old copy of
National Geographic
with pages of Nepal in it, and she spent her days staring at it, willing herself into the pictures, into the temples and the markets and the clean, snowy mountains so far from everyone and everything she knew.

She still had her savings, and they were carefully hidden from Billy, just in case.

She sat in her little sitting room, both hands on her swollen belly. Her feet were resting on the small table, for the swelling, as instructed by the doctor. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she barely noticed them any more. Mary knew a few women with children, but she didn't like any of them. She hated the way their lives were dedicated to the service of others, as if the women themselves were the least important people. Hadn't they heard of women's lib? And now look at her.

She should have got rid of it, for all their sakes. She had tried, throughout the pregnancy, with gin and hot baths and staircases, but nothing worked. Still, she could have taken the plunge and dropped out entirely. She could have had a bastard child, looked after it herself. Got a job as a waitress or something, and taken it travelling. Yet she hadn't; she had caved in. She had done what her parents' generation would have done. She was furious with herself.

She didn't want the baby, but she hoped it would be a boy. If it was a boy, at least it would have opportunities. If it was a girl it might just end up with an unwanted pregnancy, a brick wall. Like mother, like daughter.

She'd been having tightenings for a week or so now. Without even realising it, she was clasping her belly with each one, and they were getting stronger. Mary swallowed. This might be it. A wave of nausea broke over her, and she was barely on her feet before she was sick all over the leather sofa, part of the suite that her parents had given them as a wedding present. The sickness, she knew, was dread. These were contractions. The baby was on its way

Mary opened her mouth and screamed. Nobody had even hinted that it might be this way. The fact that it was called 'labour' was the closest she had come to a warning. The doctor had talked of tightenings, contractions, and discomfort, and she hadn't given the process much more thought than that. He made it sound like a minor inconvenience. It did, she supposed, make sense that a big object coming through what had been a small gap would cause pain, but this was not pain. This was tearing, unremitting agony of a kind that Mary had never suspected was possible. This was payback for all the bad thoughts, for all the gin and the knitting needles. This was celestial condemnation. Someone up there hated her as much as she hated him. She was going to die. She begged for it to come soon.