Part 8 (2/2)

'That this is our problem. Our huge problem, and we're stuck with it. There is no imaginable help that could really amount to anything or significantly change our lives.'

'Well, obviously it's useful for the less well-off,' Charles says, faintly offended by my lack of interest, 'which is why the government's no doubt trying to cut it.'

'But we're not less well off, we're rich. I'm on forty-plus grand. If I don't pick it up there'll be more for someone else.'

'No, if people don't pick it up, the government'll say they don't need it and remove it all together.'

Looking away from me to inspect a ladder on dark tights, s.h.i.+rley says: 'George is just lamenting the absence of state a.s.sisted abortion post birth.' She looks up with her little smile. 'N'est-ce-pas?'

I shrug my shoulders. We're old campaigners now. I don't think either of us is capable of shocking the other any more. 'Abortion certainly solves a problem in a way a few quid for nappies doesn't.'

Then before Charles can stop her, Peggy says simply: 'I'm going to have to have an abortion. Next week.' And very matter of fact, she explains that she is pregnant by Charles (he fidgets fiercely, pushes thumb and forefinger around his teeth), but that he doesn't want the child. Anyway, she already has Freddy and that's quite enough for anyone the way men come and go. She doesn't seem to be saying this as an attack on Charles, or even as an expression of reproach.

Why am I so stunned? It is the ease with which my sister handles these decisions, the lack of any hint of guilt.

'She insisted,' Charles says, 'on using the Okino Knauss method.'

Peggy laughs: 'Rhythm and blues! In that order. Still, I just can't afford another.'

Later, when they have gone, I watch s.h.i.+rley liquidising meat to store away in little tubs in the freezer for all Hilary's meals for the week to come. She follows an intense routine now of keeping house and feeding Hilary. She is always doing something, locked into some procedure.

'What do you make of that?'

She shrugs her shoulders. 'Probably they're afraid it'll be like Hilary.'

'But we asked, on her behalf, don't you remember. It was one of the first things I did. And the specialist said how unlikely it was and that anyway they can test for it now they know it's a possibility.'

s.h.i.+rley doesn't seem interested.

'The child is probably perfectly healthy,' I insist.

'So maybe it is.'

Obliquely I say: 'Soon they'll be able to keep foetuses alive as soon as the cells meet. Will they still let people abort them?'

As if she were another part of my own mind, she says: 'No, at that point, they'll tell you you can kill anybody who's helpless and inconvenient.'

'But why didn't she use contraceptives, for heaven's sake?'

s.h.i.+rley's working fast, slicing some stewing meat into manageable chunks. Her once finely tapered pale fingers are growing rough and red, like Mother's.

'We all have our fixations. She's into Buddhism, natural foods, natural body functions, no contraceptives. Charles is into politics, his career, he doesn't want a kid he would have to feel responsible for. Probably he's quite right.'

'And you?' I ask with the husky tenderness that will sometimes spring up unexpected as a wild flower on the roughest terrain. 'Don't you think life should have a certain grace, s.h.i.+rley?'

'Leave be, George,' she says. 'Please, please, please leave be.'

Foul Medicine I'm not a pig. In an attempt to recapture something of my relations.h.i.+p with s.h.i.+rley I decide on a vasectomy, let's see if we can't get back to lovemaking. She says: 'I'll have forgotten how to do it. I can't quite see why we ever bothered, it's so much more hygienic without it.' Though a week or so before the op she hugs me from behind, squeezes my crotch, and murmurs: 'I can't wait, if you knew how much I want you and want you.'

Since I'm determined no one at the office should know about the whole thing, I take a fortnight's holiday during which time I arrange for the operation to be done privately in the London Clinic in Harley Street. Typically, s.h.i.+rley informs my mother without first conferring with me, hence the day after the op, there she is at my bedside in her ancient black coat with the fake once-white fur inside the collar. The strap of her blue handbag, doubtless full of used paper handkerchiefs, is held on by a heavy duty safety pin.

My mother. She sold Gorst Road to the first buyer and then instead of getting a smaller place for herself and keeping the remaining cash for Grandfather's expenses, she went and put the whole lot in Barclays for him with a standing order to pay the home ('it's his money, love,'), renting herself the most miserable terraced house in derelict black Irish Cricklewood. Apparently through friends! It was a show of independence that took me by surprise, since I'd imagined she'd leave the whole property side of things to me. As it was she didn't even ask my advice. We have scarcely seen each other since s.h.i.+rley's 'conversion'.

s.h.i.+rley said: 'Why didn't she stay in Park Royal. She's been there all her life. She'll be lost in a new neighbourhood at her age.' But although she knew no one in Cricklewood on arrival, Mother very quickly gathered the regular army of walking wounded about her. Indeed her 'ministry' is obviously flouris.h.i.+ng now Grandfather is at last out of the way. People don't have to pa.s.s his scornful cerberian gaze to reach the prayerfulness of her bedroom. So perhaps all things do work together for good for those that love G.o.d: my beating him up promoted her ministry, saved souls even.

She stands over my hospital bed the morning after my vasectomy, plastic shopping bag under her arm. We are embarra.s.sed, but she tries to jolly her way over this.

'How are you, love? Everything all right?'

Actually I've got quite a lot of pain. It was a more serious business than I expected.

She has brought grapes. Her face, though s.h.i.+ny and lumpy, radiates unshakeable kindness. We chat. She has been up to see s.h.i.+rley. In my absence obviously. Over sixty now, she travels free on the buses. It's quite a boon. She feels free to travel in a way she didn't just a year ago. And isn't Hilary coming on, certainly sitting up a lot straighter.

I say: 'You don't notice when you're with her all the time.'

I ask her if she knew about Peggy. And immediately regret it. But I don't want to be the only one who's let her down.

'She told me.'

Peggy would of course. Without thinking probably.

For a moment we are both silent in this tiny private bedroom I have paid through the nose for. The fittings don't look much better than National Health frankly.

Why did I bother trying to hurt her? Surely some resolution, some accommodation can be reached at some point.

She must be thinking the same thing, because she suddenly says, lower lip trembling like a child's: 'Can't we put all that nasty business behind us, George? Can't we?'

The direct appeal catches me by surprise.

She says: 'It was unfortunate s.h.i.+rley confessed to me of all people, and in front of you, but I could hardly refuse to hear her, poor girl, could I, the state she was in.'

How clever my mother is. She has brought me to tears. We are embracing.

'At least we can be good friends,' she murmurs, with a catch in her voice.

Then she sits down and tells me how awkward Grandfather's being, refusing to obey any of the rules in the home and even biting one of the nurses. It's his ninetieth birthday next week. The inmates will be having a little party. Perhaps I'd like to come. And then the Lord has been so good to her because her next door neighbour but one commutes regularly to Kilburn where the home is and so frequently gives her a lift back in the evening. Also there is a delightful girl from the church who may be going to rent her spare bedroom, which would be so nice.

There is always that faint persuasion in her voice, she can never let go, pleading with her son to believe that the Lord has indeed been involved in the daily itinerary of her neighbour, the housing needs of the Methodist girl; pleading with me to accept my martyrdom and join her on the way to heaven.

Shortly after she goes, Marilyn phones. 'Can't wait to have you without your sou'wester on,' she says.

But I know I won't be going to see Marilyn again. My strategy is complete at last. I was always a monogamist at heart.

For the second week of my fortnight's break we've lined up a cottage in Suffolk, for holiday and, hopefully, celebratory hanky panky, if not actually lovemaking. Our first real holiday, as it happens, since Hilary's conception nearly six years (centuries?) before. But when I come out of hospital, feeling pretty d.a.m.n cool and relaxed actually, after four whole days on my back, the child has fallen ill again.

She has an acute kidney infection (perhaps like the George of Three Men in a Boat, the only thing she'll never have is housemaid's knee). And of course she always suffers severe side effects from whatever drug we give her. s.h.i.+rley meets me sleepless and speechless at our rather fine old wistaria-framed door as I return in a cab. The doctor wanted to put the girl in hospital, but s.h.i.+rley has refused. I know there is no point in commenting on this, just as there is no point in remarking on the fact that we could easily afford to have a nurse in to do a few nights. s.h.i.+rley must look after the girl herself. Because I think in a curious way she is embarra.s.sed for Hilary with strangers. She doesn't want to sense other people's objective eyes coldly weighing up the truth of the situation. On her own she can nurse her illusions or perhaps that is ungenerous, perhaps what I should say is, the choices she has made. She doesn't want to hear them challenged by some kind, efficient girl. For my own part, of course, there is nothing more frustrating than having so much money at last after years of work and not being allowed to buy a little pleasure with it.

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