A Ripple from the Storm

‘You’ll need money,’ he said on a tentative note.

‘I’ll go to Joburg,’ she said. ‘I know a girl who went. It cost her seventy pounds. Fifty for the operation and twenty for the travelling. If you could lend the money, I’m sure Binkie would give it back to you when he comes home.’

‘Tell me, what do you get as widow of your two husbands?’

The dislike on her face was now so strong that he began to feel apologetic and to be angry because he saw no necessity for apology.

‘I refused the allowance when my second husband was killed because he had a widow for a mother and she got it. And I didn’t get money from my first husband because I didn’t like the way his mum and dad behaved after I married him.’

Mr Maynard thought: It’s easy to check on the first marriage. I know the parents. This idea expressed itself in a furtive set of his facial muscles, and she saw it, saying hotly: There’s no need to make inquiries because what I say is true. And it’s nothing to do with you either,’ she added.

Now they stood opposite each other, antagonists, the bicycle standing between them under the thick green layers of shade.

He said: ‘If I make it £150, will that do?’

‘But I said an abortion would cost £70.’

‘Look here, let’s call it £150 and make it quits. But I must have any letters Binkie wrote you, and you must undertake not to make trouble.’

The scarlet flamed up again, over her fair exposed neck, her angry face which was bright against the pale glistening tendrils of hair. Even her arms were red. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said. ‘What’s the £150 in aid of? I said £70. That’s what it costs. And I don’t see why you are making such a thing about it. If I wrote to Binkie he’d send it to me. He’s fair. He sees things fair, the way I do. But the posts take so long with the war, and I don’t want to wire to get him into trouble.’

His eyes moved fast over her, resting for a full glance on her stomach. Now she smiled sarcastically. ‘What are you thinking? You think I’m trying to put something over on you? Well, I’m not. And I’ll tell you something else. You needn’t think that I don’t know why you asked me not to marry Binkie on his leave. You think I’m not good enough. Well, what I think is, if I married Binkie I’d be stuck with you for in-laws, and I wouldn’t like it. I don’t like the way you think. You’ve got dirty minds. I like Binkie well enough, he’s a fine kid, but you’re too much for me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s off for always. You can choose him a wife with your ideas, haggling over money when a girl’s in trouble. And you can keep your bloody seventy pounds. I’ll borrow it somewhere else.’ She got on to her bicycle and went off down the avenue, cycling erratically beside a stream of early-morning office-bound cars.

Mr Maynard was left under the jacaranda tree, all his susceptibilities in flux. He thought: Well, she’s not much of a hand at blackmail. Then a nerve of justice twitched in him, and he thought: At least the marriage is off, I suppose that’s something.

But he was depressed, and frowned and grunted as he walked under the thick trees towards the Courts. All the same, it seems she is pregnant after all. I was wrong. She’s got my grandchild inside of her. This hit him hard. He had not put it like that to himself before. Perhaps if I saw her again … But he knew it would be useless approaching her again. No good now to offer to bring Binkie down for a wedding, which of course it would be perfectly easy to arrange. No good at all. He’d muffed it. Perhaps his wife would have done better? The conviction that she would not comforted him. Now his mind was filled with the idea that he might have had a grand-daughter and there would be no grand-daughter.

Maisie was several blocks in front of him, knowing that he followed, watching her. She saw trees, buildings, people through blobs of tears. She turned past a statue of Cecil Rhodes side by side with another bicycle. On the bicycle was Martha Knowell, who smiled at her, but in such a way it was easy to do no more than smile back. Maisie suddenly remembered that Martha was a Red, and that the Reds believed in free love.

‘Hey, Matty,’ she said, ‘can you spare a moment?’

Martha came to a stop, resting her foot on the kerb, and Maisie arrived beside her.

‘Matty, I hope you don’t mind my asking you some advice, but I’ve got some trouble.’ Martha smiled; Maisie, comparing the smile with others in her memory, said: ‘What’s up with you? You sick?’

‘I’ve been sick. My first day up.’

‘Too bad. We all have our troubles.’

‘What’s yours?’

‘Well, Matty, it’s like this. I’m preggy.’ She anxiously examined Martha’s face for signs of disapproval. There were none, so she continued: ‘Hell, man, I wish I could die, I do really, because I didn’t marry Binkie, his parents asked us not to until the next leave. So now I want to have the kid and I can’t, because it would seem Binkie couldn’t get compassionate leave.’

Martha frowned and remarked that it was disgraceful that women couldn’t have babies if they wanted to, even if they didn’t have husbands.

Maisie said reproachfully: ‘Hell, man, Matty, but I know a girl who had a baby without a husband and everyone treated her like dirt.’

‘I know,’ said Martha, ‘that’s what I mean.’ At this point Maisie’s distressed face brought her out of the region of principle, and she said: ‘Well, you can’t have an illegitimate baby in this dump, but don’t you go to those wise women, they mess you up.’

‘But that means Joburg.’

‘Haven’t you any money?’

‘I can get some from my mum.’

‘Will she mind?’

‘My mum’ll always stand by me,’ said Maisie warmly. ‘The reason I don’t like to tell her is it’s because she’s not too rich herself. No, I’ll get it from somewhere. But the thing is, I’ve not got the address of that place in Joburg, and my friend that knows, she’s away. So do you know?’

‘I don’t, but surely we can find out?’

‘I do so hate this business, Matty. It makes me feel sick. I say to myself: Well, you’re a woman and you’re going to have a baby, that’s all. But already I feel dirty, if you know what I mean. And where’s the sense? I mean, there’s something funny about it – I have had two husbands, and Binkie, and here I stand, not knowing where to turn.’ Tears splashed from Maisie’s cheeks into the dust.

Martha said: ‘Oh hell, Maisie, don’t cry. Why don’t you send a wire to Binkie? He’ll fix something. These men always fix things up somehow.’

‘But I can’t send him a telegram saying what is the truth, because someone might read it and he’d be in trouble. And I asked Mr Maynard but he’s very strange, isn’t he?’

‘He’s a damned old reactionary.’

Maisie frowned, waited for Martha to use a word that she could feel with, and when Martha did not, went on: ‘I don’t understand anything he was getting at except he thought I was trying to put something over on him, and I don’t want to have anything to do with people like that. It makes me feel badly about Binkie too. I don’t want to marry Binkie if I’ve got to have types like that in my life. So what shall I do?’

‘I’ll see if I can get the address of that place in Joburg.’

‘I’d like to have the baby, Matty. I’ve had the three boys – my two husbands, and Binkie, and I wish I could have a baby to myself.’

Martha, seeing that this was a crisis not to be solved by addresses in Johannesburg, said: ‘Look, Maisie, you’d better come to see me, and we’ll talk it all over.’

‘Thanks, Matty, when can I come?’

This was a real problem. Martha, out of bed that morning, had no evenings free as far ahead as she could see. She said: ‘Tomorrow evening there’s a Progressive Club meeting. I’ll meet you and we’ll talk. By then I’ll have asked my friends about it.’

‘But, Matty, I don’t want people talking about me.’

‘But how can I find out?’

Heavy footsteps sounded beside them. Mr Maynard passed with a stiff nod and a measured smile and a sharp, penetrating prolonged stare at Maisie.

Maisie said, again crying: ‘Hell, Matty, these people get me down. My first man’s parents were the same, they think in a bad way, they think about life as if it’s all money.’

‘Come tomorrow and we’ll fix something.’

‘Well, thanks, Matty, and you’re a real pal.’

They cycled off side by side, once again passing Mr Maynard, but without looking at him.

Mr Maynard, now that the image of a grand-daughter possessed him, ached with elderly loss, and he gazed fixedly at the fair plump body moving lazily past on the machine, a body which he saw simply as the casket which housed the heir of his flesh. He thought: She shouldn’t be cycling if she’s pregnant. He thought: Martha told me she didn’t see Maisie these days. Why did she tell me a lie? He was possessed by an irritable anger. I suppose she’s behind it … this thought switched into: Some communist trick, I suppose. Normally such an idea would not lodge in his critical mind for longer than a second, but now he did not resist it. His mind fumed with all kinds of suspicions: Maisie was one of the Reds, and in some way the appeal for money had a link with communism.