The Pillow Friend (40 page)

On Saturday they went to a friend's barbecue. It had rained off and on for most of the week, but that day the weather was kind. People sat in the long, narrow strip of back garden on folding chairs or rugs, getting sunburned despite straw hats and sunglasses, drinking beer or a triple-X fruit punch. Even Gray was drinking, although, for the sake of the baby, Agnes stuck to fruit juice and soda. She didn't realize quite how much he'd had to drink until they were walking home from the station in the soft, light, late evening and he reached over to fondle her bottom.

She stiffened, startled, and he put his arm around her and pulled her close. She made herself relax against him. He hadn't touched her sexually in weeks—not at all except for that one, middle-of-the-night encounter, since before she'd gone to Texas.

At home, he detained her in the hall, a hand on her breast, and kissed her. This was not one of his usual dry, tentative-seeming kisses, but a real down-the-throat job. He kissed her like a desperately lustful stranger, without finesse, kneading her breast with a clumsiness that was almost painful. He tasted of cigarettes and beer and he felt like a stranger. She didn't understand where this sudden, transforming lust had come from. All she could feel in herself was discomfort and embarrassment for him.

All at once he broke off the kiss and pushed her away. He made a strange sound. It took her a moment to realize, in the darkness of the hall, that he was crying.

“Gray, what's wrong?”

“Don't touch me, oh, God, don't touch me!” He drew a deep, sobbing breath and then exhaled. She waited until his breathing sounded calmer and then said uncertainly, “Should we talk?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Oh, yes. Yes, we must talk.”

She followed him into the lounge. “Do you want some coffee? Shall I make coffee?”

“Yes, please. It was that punch of Roy's. It doesn't taste as alcoholic as it is; it tastes quite nice, actually, so you have a second glass, and then another, and before you know it you're pissed as a newt.” He was seeming more like himself again. He went off to the bathroom while she went to the kitchen to put the kettle on for instant coffee. When they met up in the lounge to take their usual positions, he had a well-scrubbed look about him. He was wearing a clean shirt and his hair was damp.

“We have to be honest with each other,” he said. “Utterly honest; ruthlessly. There's no other way.”

Her stomach clenched, anticipating pain, and she watched him roll a cigarette. She picked up her cup but the coffee was too hot to drink so she set it down again.

“You must realize it's over.”

Her heart lifted. “You and Alice?”

He blinked and gave his head a shake; lit up, took a drag. “Didn't you feel it then, in the hall? I know you did. Nothing. Worse than nothing. It felt wrong.”

She said cautiously, “I haven't really been feeling very interested in sex lately; it's not you—”

“But it is you. It's you with me, me with you. Don't take that the wrong way. I don't mean it's your fault. I mean whatever it is that draws people together, whatever physical, chemical, hormonal thing makes sex possible, is no longer there between us. Our bodies—don't fit.”

“Alice turns you on and I don't.”

“No. No. No. Well, yes. But that's not it. Forget Alice.” He leaned forward and took her hand; his fingers were very cold. “I still love you; I'll always love you, but I no longer feel sexual toward you. I don't know why it is, and I hate it, but when I think of making love to you I feel sexually dead. I tried to force myself tonight, but it was no good. It's been like that since you came back from Texas. I know you didn't change, but to me it felt as if you had. Physically, chemically changed. So that we can't fit together anymore.”

She knew the truth of what he was saying and it made her sick. He'd smelled the pillow friend on her; she'd had the creature's penis inside her and now she was carrying its child. She fought against her own despair.

“But we did—we did make love—”

“Yes, of course. It was fine, it was all right. It was never the major thing in our relationship, but we were fine together. Christ, do you think I would have married you if we hadn't been? Would you have married me? It was all right once upon a time, but then something happened.”

“Yeah, you fell in love with Alice.”

He let go her hand, throwing himself back in his seat. “Alice is nothing to do with it! Alice was coincidence. Look, this isn't one-sided. . . . Our sexual relationship is dead, and you know it as well as I do.”

She shrugged helplessly. She didn't know what he felt when he touched her; she'd never known. “Just then in the hall it wasn't right, but that's—there are reasons—” She paused to take a sip of her coffee and then shuddered at the sour taste. She kept forgetting there were things she no longer liked. “It's like this coffee. . . .”

“What?”

Of course what she was saying made no sense to him; he didn't know she was pregnant. She wished she had told him sooner. Now, in the middle of what seemed to be a memorial service for their marriage, was not the time she would have chosen, but it was now or never.

“The last time we made love it was all right, wasn't it? Really, better than just all right.”

He was giving her a look that might have been sympathetic or pitying. “Probably . . . I'm sorry, I don't remember. But that was then, before you went away, before Alice—all right, I'll admit that—”

“It was only a few weeks ago.”

“No.”

“June the fourth.”

“I don't remember the date, but we haven't had sex since you came back.”

She leaned forward, fists clenched, quivering. “I can't believe you're saying that! I can't believe you don't remember—you woke me up! It was the middle of the night. I'd been hoping we would make love when we went to bed, because we hadn't done it since I'd gotten back, but you didn't seem interested, and I went to sleep and the next thing I knew you were kissing my breasts.”

“You were dreaming.”

“I was not dreaming. You fucked me. We both came. I didn't dream that; I didn't dream the smell of your sperm on me the next morning.”

“Keep your voice down!”

“I'm not shouting. I'm just saying the truth.”

“There is no truth in it. We have not made love since April. It's not something I'm likely to be mistaken about.”

“Or me. It happened; I know it happened; I have proof.” She stopped herself. “Maybe you were dreaming, and that's why you don't remember. I thought it wasn't your usual style. You weren't very energetic. Maybe you were asleep, maybe you were dreaming I was Alice.”

“If I had to be asleep and dreaming you were Alice in order to fuck you that's a pretty grim comment on our sexual relationship. I don't know why you'd want to believe something like that.”

“It's not something I want to believe. It happened; we had sex that night. I don't know why you don't remember.”

“Well, I don't. What does it matter, anyway, whether we had one final meaningless sexual encounter last month.”

“Not meaningless.” She held herself where she thought the baby was.

The corners of his mouth turned down and he shook his head very slightly at her. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm pregnant.”

“Don't give me that.”

“It's true. I should have told you earlier, but I was afraid, and I wanted to be sure.”

“I'd thought better of you.”

“For Christ's sake, Gray, you know I'm not a liar! I may misunderstand or get things wrong, but I don't lie. And it would be a pretty stupid lie to tell somebody who has no intention of ever sleeping with me again!”

She had reached him; she felt as if he was really seeing her for the first time that day. “What makes you think you're pregnant?”

“I did one of those home pregnancy tests.”

“Oh, those bloody things. They can be wrong.”

“They can be wrong on the negatives, not on the positive.”

“You haven't been to the quack?”

“Not yet.”

“So you're not sure.”

“I
am
sure. I was going to call for an appointment next week. I know I'm pregnant, I can feel it. Things taste different, I get tired more easily, my libido is completely flat, and of course I haven't had a period. . . .”

“When was your last period?” His gaze sharpened. “You haven't had one since you've been back. When—wait, I remember. You'd just come on before you left. I remember we stopped at the chemist's so you could get a box of Tampax. So that was . . .”

With a feeling of dread she watched him making the same calculations she'd made earlier. He came to the same conclusion.

“So you should have come on again the week you got back, or a few days later. And you didn't. Which means you were pregnant when you got back, but not when you went away.” His eyes were very very cold. “And there you sit, trying to convince me that I've fucked you when I haven't. And no wonder I haven't wanted to, no wonder you seem so strange. There you sit, in my house, with another man's sprog in your belly, and you have the nerve to complain about
me
!”

It was the end of their marriage. Gray announced that he was going up to Scotland for a week of solitude and writing, and then he was going to Greece with Alice. He'd be away for just over three weeks, which should be time enough for her to get herself sorted, he said. He gave her £500, enough to cover the costs of an abortion and her return to Houston, although he didn't say that was what it was for. He didn't have to.

If it was the pillow friend's penis she carried, she didn't know what might happen, but was certain that the outcome would be horrific. It might grow larger and larger until it split her open, or maybe it would never come out at all, but grow into her, transforming her into something else. Or she might give birth to a shapeless mass of flesh, or to him, the pillow friend, an anonymous male creature.

But maybe Graham was wrong and it was his child. She'd read that former Pill users didn't always have regular cycles—it could take months for the body to recover and resume its natural functions. What if her first ovulation had been on or around the fourth of June? Maybe it was Graham's child, a normal baby, that she carried. She had to find out before she could decide what to do.

She made an appointment with Graham's GP, whom she'd never met. To her surprise, he did not examine her—he scarcely looked at her, preferring to refer to his calendar blotter to count the weeks before telling her that he would refer her to the ante-natal clinic at the nearest hospital—unless she had some other preference?—and they'd soon be in touch with her.

Now sixteen weeks from her LMP, as the medical records put it, she sat in the hospital's ante-natal clinic, waiting to be summoned to meet the consultant. She'd already had her history taken by a midwife, been weighed, her blood pressure taken, and delivered a urine sample. It was becoming more real by the minute. Before she left the hospital today they would want to make a tentative booking for a bed to be reserved for her at the time of her expected delivery.

Her name was called and she went into a small office where a good-looking, youngish man behind a desk looked up long enough to give her a quick smile before turning his attention to her file on the desk before him. He asked her a few questions, the same ones she'd had from the GP and the midwife, responding to her answers in a tone at once distracted and cheery, “Fine, fine!”

After less than five minutes he stood up to say good-bye. “Nurse will take you—”

“Aren't you going to examine me?”

“Why? Is there some problem?” He began to look at her file again, as if the answer would be found there.

She had grown up seeing films and reading and hearing about women who went to their doctors in all innocence, sometimes thinking they were ill, and emerged from their offices glowing upon hearing the magic words, “You're going to have a baby!” She said slowly, “I guess I just wanted to hear somebody tell me that I really am pregnant, some proof that I am going to have a baby. And—well, that it's all right. I'm not really sure about the date of conception, you see. I was on the Pill, and then I stopped taking it, and—”

“You're down for an ultrasound scan today,” he said. “We usually do one at about sixteen weeks. We'll be able to tell how developed the fetus is and have a better idea of when conception was, and also make sure that all the bits and pieces are there, developing normally. You'll be able to see for yourself.”

She would be able to see the baby. She hadn't thought of that, hadn't realized that scans were routine. She'd imagined the horror reflected on the face of someone else, a doctor or nurse, as they discovered the shapeless mass growing inside her—but she would see it for herself.

The nurse led her through corridors, took her up in a lift, and through more corridors to some distant part of the hospital. It was much quieter there, practically deserted.

“I think they're having a tea break; they'll be back soon,” said the nurse. “You sit here and I'll bring you some water.”

Agnes sat down on a straight-backed chair. On the opposite wall, next to a closed brown door, was a small black and white sign that read ULTRASOUND B303. Next to it a hand-written notice was taped to the wall: DO NOT ENTER UNTIL YOUR NAME IS CALLED.