To Have and to Hold (33 page)

They talked on the page, they led him on, they were his. Did a woman feel like this with a baby growing inside her? They filled him. When he walked to the supermarket he became Al, his hero, threading his way like a fox through the cars. Al had gingery hair and a watchful, weak face and problems with his wife. In the gauzy November rain Ollie walked round Hyde Park; passing the leafless shrubs he saw them with Tilly's eyes; he himself became Al's estranged wife, with her long legs and vague, distracted beauty. Nobody could possess them because they lay within himself; he had them safe.

On the Thursday evening he had a record amount of wrong numbers – his phone was only one digit different from that of a wine bar called Jingles. Exasperated, he finally took the phone off the hook.

Viv said: ‘I thought something had happened to you.'

‘Sorry,' said Ollie, ‘I'm still here.'

He let her in; she looked at the phone. ‘Ah.'

‘I left it off the hook. My public keeps pestering me.'

Viv sat down heavily on the sofa. She was wearing her big mock-leopardskin coat, which he hadn't seen since last winter. It was nearly midnight. She looked pale and huge.

‘Coffee?' he asked.

She shook her head. ‘We must sort things out. Where's the service guarantee for the boiler, what shall I tell your parents who keep phoning, what are we going to
do
?' She paused. ‘What's happening?'

He replied: ‘I don't know.'

‘Do you want to come home?'

He didn't reply.

She repeated: ‘Do you?' She gestured around. ‘None of this is real.'

He said: ‘I can't come back until . . .'

He meant: until the baby is born. She understood; she had always understood him, that was the trouble. The room felt airless.

She said: ‘What then?'

He said: ‘Let's have another baby.'

She stared at him. He meant it; he had only just thought of it, but it suddenly seemed a solution.

He said: ‘You and me, let's –'

‘Let's pretend this never happened? Let's cancel it out?' Above the furry blobs of her coat her eyes were wide. ‘It's real, for Christ's sake. It's happening.'

‘Stop talking like a teacher.'

She paused. ‘Think I've got it sorted out? Look, I'm in a mess too. I distrust my motives. I've mucked about with Ken's feelings, and yours. And Ann's. And mine. I still don't know if I can bear to give this baby up.' She stopped, breathing heavily. The Anglepoise over the table cast a pool of light; otherwise the room was dark. But when she lifted her head, her eyes were glittering. ‘God knows how I'll feel if I do,' she said. ‘I'll probably make your lives hell. I may never be able to see Ann again, I may never be able to bear the sight of her holding it in her own house.' She paused. ‘But it's happening. We can't close our eyes. It's real. It's not a character in your bloody book.'

She got up, laboriously, and took his hand. For a moment he thought she was going to lead him away, but she was putting his hand inside the folds of her coat. She pressed it against her belly. The bulge was hard, as if, beneath the wool of her dress, her body was carved. His reluctant fingers felt the lump of her navel.

They stood there for a moment, locked. Then she left him.

In the doorway she said: ‘I only wanted to see if you were all right.'

AT NIGHT OLLIE
escaped into his story – no, he went there willingly, sitting in his pool of light. But Viv could not escape her dreams. They stirred and disturbed her.

The week ended with storms. On the Saturday night, the eve of the CND march, she tossed and turned, while outside the house loose slates rattled and way down the road a dustbin lid rolled. When was that storm – months ago? – when Rosie had been scared by the noise and had climbed into her bed. She herself had dreamed about the trench in her allotment and an ominous sky. The whole house had been shaken, the windows shuddering, Rosie holding her tightly. The next day Ann had lost her baby.

She shifted awkwardly, the great rock of her belly obstructing her. Her mouth felt sour and dry. She slid in and out of her nightmares, as if sinking into a deep and sluggish river. She dreamed she was lost in a crowd of people, they were suffocating her and she couldn't get out. She needed to escape because when the crowd thinned she would be alone and she would have to stand on a platform and tell them something and she couldn't remember what lines she should have learnt. Of course, now she looked down, she saw she was naked. Her stomach hurt and Ollie was in the crowd, jabbering at her and pointing. The sky was thundery and she knew she shouldn't be there. She was frightened. She told herself it was the bombers coming, plane after plane against the black sky, but why then was there such a sharp pain inside her?

On Sunday morning it was still blustery. During the night a section of trellis in Ann's garden had blown down; she was attempting to nail it up again. Ken was out, playing rugger. Despite her protestations, Viv had gone on the ban-the-bomb march, taking the girls with her.

Ann's hands were mauve with cold as she fumbled with the nails. She felt unsettled. Next door the curtains were closed; Mrs Maguire's mother was dying and the family had gone to Ireland. The silence was unnatural.

A flurry of rain pattered against the glass door of the extension. Ridiculously, she felt lonely; but she could not go round to Viv's, of course, because that house too would be empty.

Ollie jogged towards the pitch with the other players. Diz pointed to the windswept spaces.

‘Our usual audience,' he said, ‘two stray dogs and a misdirected Japanese tourist.'

Once Viv had stood there, shivering in her long-ago blue coat. Today he felt both sluggish and nervous. He had not slept well; the storm had kept him awake and he had missed her, achingly. Tonight he would go round and see her, for simple mutual comfort. If anything could be simple with Viv.

Way beyond the park a police siren sounded. The wind chilled him. In position, he jumped up and down, slapping his arms against himself, trying to get into the mood. One of the dogs barked.

Irene had a headache. Usually she relished her Sunday lay-in but this morning she felt restless. Her flat felt overheated, but when she opened the window it was too cold. She had glanced at her Sunday paper but she didn't want to know any more about Joan Collins.

Beyond the flats opposite she could see the North Circular; as usual it was busy with traffic. Where was everybody going, what were they doing in their cars at eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning?

She knew most of the people in this block of flats, she had lived here for years, but on Sunday morning their doors were closed. She missed Frank, who usually spent Sundays cosily with her, but he had had to go up north to visit his mother. She wondered: when I'm eighty, will my daughters ever visit me?

She was worried about Viv. If she herself were a good mother,
deserving to be visited at eighty, she would be round there now, sweeping the floor and entertaining the girls. That's what you did when your daughter was just about to have a baby and her husband had buggered off. Though the whole world knew he would be back, those two couldn't live without each other.

One small advantage of this was that she could phone Viv and not feel she was intruding. She would invite herself over and they'd have a good natter; she hadn't seen her for weeks, not since Guy Fawkes.

A gust of rain blew against the window. She shivered, though it made the room no colder; she lifted up the receiver and dialled Viv's number.

But there was no reply. She must be out.

Crises dislocate everybody's plans, wiping out the hours that preceded them. But often the moment just before the violent, rupturing act remains crystal-clear long after the event. What were you doing, people ask, and themselves vividly remember, when you heard that Kennedy was shot?

Ann remembered the split-second before the phone rang. She was climbing down from the step-ladder. Just as the phone started ringing, her shakily fixed trellis clattered down behind her.

It was only later that Ollie, who at the time was being jostled in the scrum, remembered that in fact he had noticed a faintly unusual sight: a taxi arriving and parking beside the changing-rooms. Ordinary cars were parked there, but why should a taxi arrive? He had no time even to think of this question, what with mud-spattered legs ramming him. He was unfit, and had forgotten what a brutish game this was.

Moments later he noticed a woman running through the rain towards the pitch. He himself was running down the field, sweaty and breathless, and only had time to presume it was somebody chasing her dog.

It was Ann. Slipping in the mud, she was trying to make her
way through the players. Ken had already seen her and had veered away from the others to meet her.

Ollie trotted up to her. He hadn't realized it was raining until he saw her wet hair. But it was her face he stared at.

He couldn't hear at first; the wind whipped away her words. She was mouthing at him, her coat undone.

He heard
hospital
.

‘What?' he yelled.

‘She's gone to hospital,' shouted Ann. ‘Hurry!'

THE WATERS HAD
broken while Viv was in the coach on the way to the demonstration. Suzi, who had phoned, was looking after the girls. Then there had been the pips and the phone had gone dead. That was all Ann could tell them.

Nobody, for what seemed an age, told them anything else. The three of them sat in the waiting room, which was stiflingly hot and smelt of disinfectant and past cigarettes. Ollie had found the sister, who had said that Mrs Meadows was in the delivery room, that it was all fine, but that he couldn't go in.

‘Why?' he demanded. ‘She wants me in there.'

‘Not just now, Mr Meadows.'

‘What's happening?'

‘Please stay in the waiting room,' she said.

‘I've always been with her,' his voice rose. ‘It's all arranged!'

‘We have to wait for Dr Khan.' She was short and severe; she looked him up and down – his muddy boots, his rugger shorts. ‘Please, Mr Meadows.'

In the waiting room Ken was lighting a cigarette.

Ann pointed to his leg. ‘You're bleeding.'

Ken looked down. There was a cut on his shin.

‘Here.' She gave him her handkerchief.

‘It's fine,' he said.

Ollie moved restlessly around the room. The only other occupant was a young black boy, who looked no more than a teenager. He was sitting there gazing at his hands.

Ann said at last: ‘I should've stopped her going.'

‘It's not your fault,' said Ollie.

‘I'll never forgive myself,' she said.

‘Ann!' Ken stood up and went to the door. He looked at his watch. Then he turned back to Ollie. ‘Twenty minutes. Can't we go and ask them?'

Ollie replied: ‘They told us to wait here.'

Ken opened the door. ‘I'm going.'

‘You stay here!' said Ollie, so loudly that the black boy looked up.

On the hour, Ken's watch bleeped. They all jumped. Ollie looked at his own watch and left the room.

Ken lit another cigarette and turned to Ann. ‘Will she be all right?'

‘How can I tell?' she replied.

‘It's so early,' he said. ‘There must be something wrong.'

‘Do shut up,' she said.

He walked over to the window and spoke to the glass. ‘I hate these places.'

She thought of a different waiting room, in a different hospital. How long ago? Nearly a year. And those other times, long before. She had never asked Ken what he did then; they had never spoken of it.

She got up to comfort him. But he started moving towards the door.

‘Stay here,' she said, putting her hand on his arm. He flinched away. ‘Leave it to him,' she said.

A moment later Ollie came back in.

‘What's happening?' Ann and Ken asked, both at once.

‘Can't find anyone,' said Ollie. ‘These bloody places.'

He went back to his seat. Ann noticed, fleetingly, that though there were eight chairs in the room, they always went back to the same ones.

She said: ‘Everything's going wrong.'

Ollie looked at her. ‘For you?' he asked acidly.

‘Ollie!' she said.

He came over and sat down next to her. ‘Sorry.'

‘It's Viv we're worried about,' she said.

He picked at the drying mud on his knee. Flecks fell to the carpet. ‘We made it up, you know. Well, nearly. She came round and . . .' He stopped.

She said: ‘I know.' They both looked at the carpet, lightly powdered with earth.

He said: ‘I can't bear her being alone.'

Ann nodded. She looked up and said to Ken, sharply: ‘Do go and wash your leg!'

‘Got a fag, mate?'

Ken jumped. It was the black boy. ‘Of course.' He passed him the packet.

‘Thanks,' said the boy, taking it.

Ken looked at the packet; that was the last cigarette. He put the packet into his pocket discreetly, so the boy wouldn't see.

Five minutes later a rattle approached and the door swung open. It was an orderly pushing a tea trolley. Passing through the room he paused and grinned. ‘Where's the scrum?'

Ollie and Ken, startled, looked down at their rugger shorts.

More minutes ticked by. It was so quiet. Hospitals were usually busy; what was wrong?

Ann tried to reassemble her morning, to remember it. She had been in the garden, with next door silent, her own house hushed. She herself jumpy, moving from kitchen to garden, fidgeting. The bare earth in Ken's tubs; behind one of them, the small heap of daffodil bulbs she had forgotten to plant. The wind blowing. Unusually for her, she hadn't been able to think of anything to do.