The Reading Group Part 9

I'm pregnant, Joe, about four months. You don't know the father, I promise you don't. I don't know if that helps. I was seeing him last term, while you were at Warwick. That's why I didn't come up and visit you. I shouldn't have done it, not behind your back, and I won't blame you if you never want to talk to me again. I suppose I thought you might finish with me, once you got there and met a whole new crowd. That would have been easier, in a way. I'll always be ashamed for having done this to you I hope it's not like me, but I suppose it must be. I think I love him, the father. I did love you, I loved you for years, since we were kids. But maybe that's the whole point maybe what we had was never meant to be a grown-up thing. I'll always love you, although I know that's a trite thing to say and you probably think it's b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. But I will. You made being a teenager great for me. This probably sounds awful, but I'm glad we never had s.e.x. What we had was brilliant without that. Do you know what I mean? Look, I don't know what's going to happen with this guy. I just do know that I can't get rid of the baby, or give it away or anything. I'm going to have it, and look after it. I don't expect you to care, and that's fair enough.

And I don't blame you for whatever horrible things you think or say about me. I just wanted to tell you myself. And I just want you to be okay. I'm sorry, Joe, about everything.

Maybe I'll see you again some time, when you're home. I hope so, but I understand if you don't want to.

Lots of love.

Cressida.

xx.

Joe shoved the letter into his coat pocket. He berated himself for opening it in the porter's lodge. He ought to have known it was a dear-John, after the Christmas thing, although he could never have guessed how devastating its contents would be. It was just that he'd seen the envelope, and her handwriting, in that silly jade green ink she insisted on using, and he'd been so pleased.

b.l.o.o.d.y, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. It was so enormous he didn't know which bit of the news to grab on to first. She'd been seeing someone else. She'd been sleeping with him. That hurt more than Joe had ever been hurt. He had always thought that that would be him, that they would do that together. Hours and hours they'd spent kissing, clothing askew, on each other's sofas, on park benches, at the cinema, stopping short, although it had half killed them both. Cressida always said she wanted it to be special and deliberate, not clandestine and furtive. In a bed, she said: 'In a bed we're allowed to be in, in a place we choose to be, when it's right.' And he'd respected that. He'd waited. There were boys, he knew loads of them, who wouldn't have bothered. Joe could have had s.e.x with someone else. But he never had. He wanted to make love with Cressida. And he could wait. It caused him acute pain to realise that someone else must have been more special to her. Someone else had been right and she had chosen his bed. He closed his eyes against the image of her, naked, her skin against that of a faceless man, who wasn't him, but he couldn't make it go away.

And pregnant. Oh, my G.o.d. That he could not grasp. Two minutes ago Cressida had been a virgin. Now she was going to have a baby. Someone else's baby. It was too big for his head to hold.

Christ, don't let me cry here. A few yards away the rugby team were tossing a ball around. In front of him a couple of pretty second-year girls were chatting. Not in front of everyone. Joe hauled on his backpack and dug his fingers, white-knuckled, in his palms. Let me get back to my room first, he pleaded with himself. Across here, in this door, up here. Why was he so shocked? He had known things weren't going well he had even begun to consider what it would be like not to be with her and with someone else someone here. He had imagined having a girlfriend he could see every day, in Grumpy John's at the union, at lectures. He took the stairs two at a time, head down, not stopping until he got to the third floor. Nearly there. People had propped open their doors with chairs, and someone had a radio on. A couple of the girls he shared the kitchen with were dancing in front of the toaster when he went past. One was Issie. 'Hiya, Joe. Want some toast?'

'I'm fine.'

She came up to him, looked at him hard. 'You're not, though, are you?' She put her hand on his arm. That felt better than being alone in his room.

He could talk to Issie. He wanted to talk to her. Out here, he only trusted himself to shake his head.

'Here.' She steered him through her door, and shut it behind them.

Margaret and Alice The brochures for The Cedars were on the coffee table. Susan had been showing them to her sister, telling her about the other homes she had seen and what she'd liked about this one. She was putting a brave face on it. It had big rooms and high ceilings, she said, a gorgeous view across open fields, and Alice had a room that got the sun most of the day. She hadn't told Margaret how she had cried in the car after she'd visited it. How she had wondered whether it would be kinder to go home and put a pillow over Alice's face than leave her in there. How tiny Alice had looked the day she had moved in, confused and disoriented. And how Susan had come home and sobbed for ages on Roger's chest, blurting that she was a rotten daughter, that she should keep Alice at home.

Roger, always kind, sad, too, for Alice, kept telling her, 'You can't. However much you want to, you can't give her the care she needs now. And they can. Please, my love, believe me. This is the only thing you can do for Alice now.' She didn't tell Margaret that, either.

'I'll go tomorrow,' Margaret said. 'That's what I came for, after all.'

'Fine. I'm not too busy at work just now so I'll come with you.'

'I'd rather go by myself, thanks. Roger said I could borrow the car, didn't he?'

'Yes, of course, but-'

'No buts, Susan. Look, you took the decision to do this to Mum. The least you can do is let me form my own opinion of the place.'

That was it. Susan had had enough. She let her sister have it weeks and weeks' worth of emotion. 'I've had just about enough of this.'

Margaret seemed momentarily shocked into submission by Susan's demeanour. 'How dare you swan in here and start accusing me? I haven't done anything to Mum except the only thing I could do. I can't look after her at home, Maggie. I have Roger and the boys and the business. I have a whole life. Just like you. Mum is sick, Maggie. The old mum you remember is gone. And that hurts and I miss her and I wish she was still here. But I've had to get used to it, and so will you.'

Margaret was quiet, and Susan realised she hadn't seen her sister like this before. When she had gone to Australia Susan had been the pa.s.sive, quiet one, but motherhood, work and life had made her tougher. Getting used to what had happened to Alice had made her stronger still until Margaret had hurled these allegations at her.

She tried to calm herself, to explain it the way Roger had to her. 'Look, Maggie, the first couple of strokes changed her. Her memory started to go and she did things like forget she'd put the gas-ring on, go out without her coat things like that. We could cope with that. I've always loved having Mum around, and that stuff wasn't a big deal. Although keeping an eye on her all the time was hard work. But I did it. The big stroke, the one she had the day I called you, when we weren't sure that she'd live, changed everything. She's like a baby. What memory she does have is all warped and out of sync. Sometimes it's the 1940s, sometimes I'm her mum, sometimes she doesn't know Roger. She needs help to feed herself, wash, use the loo. I can't do it, Maggie, and I won't.'

'It's what she did for us, isn't it?'

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake, don't be so b.l.o.o.d.y pious. You think you're immune to all this, don't you? That you can just fly in, tell me what a mess I'm making of it all, then go back to your perfect husband and your perfect life. It doesn't work that way, Maggie. Sorry.'

Margaret stood up, signalling an end to the conversation. Susan wanted to hit her. 'I'll go tomorrow.' Christ, she was infuriating.

At the door, she turned round. 'And just for the record, Susan, Greg and I split up ten years ago. He left me for one of my best friends. They'd been having an affair for seven years before that. You don't know as much about my "perfect life" as you think you do.' Then she was gone.

And whose fault is that? Susan thought, as she lay back against the sofa cus.h.i.+on.

The room Margaret was shown in to, by the vast, bustling care a.s.sistant, was big, with high ceilings and sash windows. It needed repainting and the furniture didn't go with it cheap pine stuff made for box houses on estates: the top of the wardrobe was some inches below the picture rail and the matching dressing-table and two chests-of-drawers were similarly out of proportion. The room looked vaguely absurd, like children's furniture in an adult room. Only the bed was big, wide and high, white metal, with rails and a red call b.u.t.ton twined round the head. Alice had her own bathroom, with a white rail next to the toilet, and along the bath. There was a big cork noticeboard, on which Susan had pinned smiling pictures of her and Roger, the boys, one of Margaret and Greg on the farm. Margaret was struck by how young she looked in it. There were more pictures on the chest-of-drawers: Susan in her wedding dress, the boys on child-sized tractors, taken at a long-ago county fair. Above Alice's bed was a picture taken of her and Dad, their fortieth wedding anniversary, his arm proudly round her shoulders. Margaret didn't like pictures of dead people, but she supposed Alice wanted it there. She didn't like the smell either the watery-cabbage smell of school dinners, and the sharp odour of urine. The whole place filled her with disgust. The patronising staff, speaking in absurdly loud, slow sentences, made her bristle. And as for the lounge she had pa.s.sed, well! Each high-backed velour armchair held a tiny ancient person, staring through milky eyes at some inane daytime gardening programme on the vast television, probably sitting in their own excrement, waiting... G.o.d knows what for. There had been a grandchild, or great-grandchild in the lounge when she pa.s.sed, screaming to be picked up, terrified, almost certainly, of the old women with paper-thin skin, curled, gnarled fingers, and contorted, toothless smiles.

Here, now, in the relative normality of Alice's room, Margaret fought for control of her revulsion, and her urge to bolt. Thank Christ she had insisted on coming alone. For just a second she felt something like pity for Susan she had been facing this almost daily. Just as quickly, it was quashed. It was Susan who had put their mother in here.

'Here we are now, Alice, a surprise for you. It's your daughter, come all the way from Australia. What do you think about that, then?'

Shut up, shut up, Margaret thought. She sounds like a children's librarian reading a fairy story to toddlers.

And there was Alice. And Margaret was looking at her for the first time in maybe ten years.

What she saw shocked her. Alice was an old lady. She seemed inches shorter. Her shoulders were rounded, and she had an osteoporotic hump at the base of her neck. Her hair was thinner and messy, parted on a different side from the one she had always chosen, and through it Margaret could see pink scalp. She couldn't remember seeing her mother without lipstick before the same Rimmel shade throughout her life but now her lips were thin, pale and dry. Her cardigan was b.u.t.toned up wrongly and there were crumbs on it.

'Susan?'

'No, Alice. Remember we told you? Not Susan, it's Margaret, come from Australia.'

Margaret couldn't take that voice any more. 'Thanks. Look, I've got it from here. Perhaps I will have that cup of tea your colleague offered me, after all.' Anything to get her out of here.

But as she moved forward to take her mother's arm, Alice looked longingly at the lumpen girl, alarmed.

'It's okay, Mum. I've got you.'

Still, Alice seemed confused.

'It's Margaret, Mum. I've flown over from Sydney. Remember?'

The girl was going now. She whispered over Alice's head, 'She might not we're having a bit of trouble with her today.' Like a puppy they were trying to housetrain.

Margaret nodded, tight-lipped, and the girl was gone. She pulled Alice forward into the room and settled her in her armchair, pus.h.i.+ng the wheeling table aside. She took the photograph of her and Greg off the noticeboard, and held it out to Alice. 'You know, Mum Margaret. I married Greg and we went back to Australia, where he was from, more than twenty years ago, now.'

'Twenty years?' Alice looked up. 'Margaret, yes.' She said the name slowly, deliberately.

'That's right. Margaret. How are you, Mum?' She put an arm round Alice, disturbed that her mother didn't smell familiar. Was that just the pa.s.sage of time?

'Margaret,' Alice repeated. 'Come back to us at last. All the way from Australia. Your dad will be so pleased to see you. When he gets back from playing golf.'

'Golf?'

'Oh, yes, dear. It's all he does since he retired, you know. Eighteen holes, most days. I'm a gra.s.s widow, you know.' And she chuckled quietly.

Margaret felt ill equipped to deal with this. She almost wanted the lumpen girl to come back. 'Mum? Dad's dead. He died eight years ago. I'm so sorry, Mum.'

'Dead, you say? Dad? Oh, no!' And Alice was crying, real tears of loss.

Susan had said that Mum's short-term memory couldn't cope with that news any more. Every time she heard it, it was new and he had just died. 'I don't tell her any more, Maggie,' she had said. 'What's the point of putting her through it every time? Let her believe he's out there playing golf.'

'That's ridiculous,' Margaret had said. 'You can't treat her that way.' But as she sat holding Alice's small hand, she wished she had listened.

Cressida She'd never been here before. Never wanted to had not wanted to admit she was curious. But now here she was. And, like most things lately, she wasn't reacting like she thought she would.

He'd been quiet after he'd picked her up, and he'd driven with her hand under his on the gearstick. She hadn't wanted to ask why they had come here. Sometimes he was quiet like this, and she had learnt, even in the short time they had been seeing each other, that what he wanted from her was comfort, not questions, touching, not talking. At these times she felt as if it was she who was the older one he could be almost childlike in the simplicity of his needs. And afterwards, after she had held him, made love to him, he was different happy and calm. Funny, too, and interesting.

He'd opened the door with the key in the wrong hand, fumbling, muttering swear words under his breath, against her neck, as he held her tightly with the other. He was always pa.s.sionate, always made her feel that he wanted her, but there was a real urgency in him tonight. He seemed almost desperate.

He had made love to her in the living room, on the sofa, on the floor, in the dark only an orange glow from the street lighting them through the voile curtains. He told her she looked beautiful in that light, perfect and glowing. He traced her mouth with one finger. He moved body, arms, legs, turning them and watching them as they caught the light, following his stare with fingers, lips, as if her body was a thing of wonder to him. He had more time to watch her now, and he luxuriated in it. His lovemaking was extravagant, somehow, and indulgent. He was making her feel like a G.o.ddess, like a precious thing. She had loved s.e.x with him before, but this felt like they had moved on to a different level. Like he knew.

What fears Cressida might have had about telling him seemed silly now. He felt tuned in, as if his body knew what she was going to tell him before she had got the words out. At once it felt like a gift.

When they had finished, and their breathing had steadied, and he had pulled a blanket round them where they lay together on the floor, and he had spread his palm, fingers wide, on her smooth, naked belly, she told him: 'Elliot, I'm pregnant.'

They had met on her first day at college. It hadn't begun with violin solos and electricity, but with a random act of kindness. Cressida was lost and late. Elliot was pa.s.sing and showed her where to go. That afternoon, once again in the right place at the right time, he held open the door as she laboured through it with a big art folder, a rucksack and a couple of hefty library books. 'How did it go?'

Cressida was startled by his familiar tone that morning she had been too nervous and anxious to take in his face or his voice.

'We met this morning,' he told her.

'Oh, yeah, sorry. I was a bit...'

'I know. I was, when I started.'

'But you're not...' Elliot didn't look like a student. He was older than her, ten years or so, she thought. And he wasn't dressed in the uniform of every other man within two hundred yards. He looked nice, though.

'Studying here? No, no. I wis.h.!.+ I work in administration. Been here about eight years now.'

'Right.'

'Right. Well, can you manage that lot from here?'

'Yeah, thanks. And thanks for this morning. I wasn't very organised, I'm afraid. Forgotten all that stuff over the summer. It would have been really embarra.s.sing to be any later than I already was.'

'You're welcome.'

''Bye.'

'Yeah, 'bye.'

Five minutes later, he pulled up alongside her in a small red Mazda, as she stopped for the second time to switch her possessions from one arm to the other in an effort to make the load more comfortable. 'Look I'm not being funny but it's going to take you for ever, and I can't bear to see you struggling while I sit here in isolated splendour. Can I give you a ride somewhere? I'm heading to the top end of town.'

His face was open and friendly. He didn't look like a weirdo and he worked at the college. And Cressida's arms were aching.

'That would be brilliant. I live on Rosedale Road. D'you know it?'

'Sure do. No problem.' And Elliot jumped out to open the pa.s.senger door, took her things and put them on the back seat. He seemed so pleased she had said yes. Before he closed the door for her, he said, 'I'm Elliot, by the way. Elliot Thomas.'

'Cressida Bradford.' And she had beamed at him.

And that was when Elliot had first felt it, suddenly and powerfully, as if he wanted always and only to be in the headlight-bright beam of this girl's carefree smile.

Of course for Cressida it had taken weeks longer. College was so different from the sixth form, full of new people, and the work was so much more interesting than A levels had been. She was horrified, when she stopped to think about it, which wasn't very often, by how little she missed Joe. But she told herself it must be the same for him more so, with living away from home as well.

She saw plenty of Elliot, chatting in the corridors, or out on the gra.s.s in the autumn suns.h.i.+ne. Several times he offered her a lift home, and once or twice, when she wasn't going to the pub with her new mates or meeting Polly, she accepted. One morning he had even picked her up at the bus stop.

She liked talking to him: he was funny, told irreverant stories about the lecturers and tutors. She had briefly wondered whether it was all right to spend time with him. But he wasn't a teacher and she wasn't a kid, so what harm could there be in it? But to Cressida, for the first few weeks, he was just one of the new faces in the new crowd. That was all.

She wasn't thinking anything when, one day, the traffic was awful, and he pulled into a pub car park. 'Sod that, if we're going to be late, we may as well get out, have a drink and get going again when it's a bit quieter. What do you reckon?'

Quite right. Pubs were a pivotal part of Cressida's college life. She had made almost all her new friends in smoky rooms that smelt of beer where you had to shout to make yourself heard over the trivia machine, the landlord's dodgy CD collection and whichever fight or football match was on the big TV screen.

They talked until the pub shut. Cressida felt herself sparkling. There was suddenly so much to say. They talked about films, the news, art, Cressida's dad and Elliot's parents, about perfect holidays, first records, fantasy dinner parties and... everything. They listened to each other, talked over each other, laughed at each other. Liked each other.

Later that night, when Elliot had dropped her off, and Cressida had let herself into the house, she had met Polly in the hall, on her way to bed with a mug of tea. Spontaneously she had given her mum a bear-hug. When Polly pulled away, laughing, she said, 'I can't tell you how nice it is to see you so happy, love. It's the best thing you've ever done, isn't it, this college course?'

'I think it is, Mum. You're right.'

Cressida had found it difficult to go to sleep that night.

She was half expecting to see him at the bus stop the next morning, and she was not disappointed. He leant over and opened the door from the inside.

'Hiya!' she said.

But his face was serious. 'What have you got on this morning? Fancy going somewhere first, for a coffee or breakfast or something? I want to talk to you.'

'Nothing until ten thirty, really I was going to do some reading in the library. Sure, why not?'

Over a toasted teacake and a huge mug of builder's tea, Elliot took a deep breath and began. 'Look, I had a really good time last night...'

Oh, G.o.d, Cressida thought, he's going to tell me that fraternisation between staff and students isn't allowed. We've been breaking the rules.

'I loved being with you. Last night, you know, in the pub. I want to see you more,' he said.

Cressida waited for the 'but'. It came.

'But there's something I need to tell you first. And you probably won't want to see me when I've told you.'

Now he was scaring her. 'What?'

'I'm married.'

'You're what?' No ring. No mention. No photograph on his desk.