Ex-wifePart 5
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Part 5
After another month, and a few days of dizziness and headache in the mornings, I gathered that I was pregnant.
I refused to believe it for weeks. I thought, “It’s too awful and I can’t face this with everything else. Maybe if I just don’t think about it, it will turn out not to be so.”
After another month—of dragging days writing copy, and horrible quarrelling evenings with Pete, increasing headaches and dizziness, and comments from my friends and Pete on how badly I was looking, (Pete phrased it, “You look like hell nowadays; you aren’t even pretty any more”) I knew it was so, all right.
I remembered the first time it had happened, how shy I had been about telling Peter; and, although he thought then that the pregnancy was most unfortunate, how kind he had been to me, bringing me gay boxes of liqueur chocolates that I could not eat, and flowers and things. That was two years before, though.
This time, I said to him, “Would you mind stopping reading for a moment? I have something to tell you.”
He looked up: “Hurrah, you’ve got a new sweetie.”
“I’m ten or eleven weeks pregnant.”
He did not say anything for a minute. Then, “By whom this time, or do you know?” . . .
I got up and screamed at him, as if I were a washerwoman and he were a teamster. My voice sounded awful, even to myself.
I said, “By you, by you, damn you and you know it.”
“Stop yelling, and go look at yourself in a mirror,” he said. “That ought to stop you quicker than anything.”
I did go look at myself. I looked horrible, red-faced and distorted, and about thirty-five years old. And I hated Peter, as I had never hated anyone. I forgot all about how we had got to this place; I only knew that he was a person who said dreadful things in a disgusting calm voice; and that he had turned me into a person who looked like a hag, and that I hated him, hated him.
“Well, you are an attractive object to have about, aren’t you?” he said, behind me. I turned. My voice had got quite steady.
“All right, we’ll let ‘by whom this time’ ride,” I said. “Now would you be interested in knowing what I’m going to do about it?”
“Yes indeed. The workings of your mind are always entertaining.”
He lighted a pipe, watching me over it. I stood there and said words very slowly. My throat hurt so.
“I’m writing to your father and mother tonight telling them we’re having another baby, and that I’m giving up my job instantly, of course. I’m writing Hilda the same thing. She’s so ‘good’ I’ll give her something to be good about. Then we’ll have the baby, and you’ll take care of me and it. That’ll be all about Hilda.”
He got up, slowly. He put his pipe down. He stared at me. I was afraid.
He said, “Will you get out of this room this minute, before I kill you? If I have to look at you ten seconds longer, I’ll strangle you.” Then he came close, suddenly, and put his hands around my throat.
But I hated him more than I was afraid of him. I said: “You won’t kill me. You’ll just do as I say, from now on.”
He did not kill me. He just picked me up and threw me through the glass door of the breakfast room. Then he went out.
I lay on the breakfast room floor, and thought vaguely that things like this did not happen. I seem to have spent a good deal of time, off and on, thinking that.
Then I noticed that my left arm was bleeding. I got up, and went into the bath, slowly. The whole left arm of my dress was in shreds, where glass had cut it. Apparently I had put my arm in front of my face, instinctively. My face was not cut. I felt a little faint, but not very.
I took off the dress. My left arm had seven cuts on it, but all but one were just scratches. I bathed the arm carefully. One cut was deep and I could not stop the bleeding. So I bandaged it as tightly as possible, and put on a sleeveless dress, and changed my slippers to match the dress.
I knew Pete had a flask of Scotch in his dresser, and hunted around for it, and poured myself a drink. In a detached sort of way, I wondered if he would strangle me when he found out I had taken some of his Scotch.
But I did not hate him any more, or love him, or feel anything about him at all. I felt tired. There was not the slightest chance that I would attempt to hold him, by going through with having the baby. It would not work. And anyway it was just too much trouble.
My arm kept on bleeding. I remembered that next day I had to do the Sunday Times’ ad on Paris imports. So I thought I had better go to a doctor and have my arm fixed.
I knew a doctor who lived on Waverly Place. I had been to him for colds and tonsilitis and things like that.
When I went out to find a taxi, the cold air was amazingly pleasant. It was nine o’clock and the doctor’s office hour was almost over. I did not have to wait long.
He was a polite blond young man, very dependable-looking. When he asked me what had happened to me, I told him calmly that my husband had thrown me through a glass door. I could not think of anything else to say. He gasped, but did not make any further inquiries.
He had to take one stitch in my arm. When he was through, he said I had better sit down and have a cigarette, and he mixed me some spirits of ammonia. He asked me about my work—he remembered I did advertising.
I interrupted him. “By the way,” I said, “I have to have an abortion. Will you do it for me? And how much does it cost?”
He did not look shocked. “Better finish that spirits of ammonia. And would you mind telling me why you must have an abortion, if you actually are pregnant?”
That was easy. “Because my husband’s leaving me any day now, and I have no money, and must keep my job.”
“But—I don’t want to ask you about your private affairs—having a child has been known to bring husbands and wives together, you know.”
I laughed and laughed. I just sat there and laughed. “Pete was so pleased when the baby we had died, Doctor.”
“Steady,” he said.
There was a pause. I caught myself on the verge of telling him, as a fact of extreme significance, that the baby Patrick . . . dead more than a year, now . . . had the longest eyelashes I ever saw.
He said, “I’m sorry for you. But I can’t perform an operation of that sort. Never, in the six years that I have practised . . . the ethics of the profession do demand—”
I stopped him. I knew all about the ethics of the medical profession. My father was a doctor.
“All right. You won’t do it. Tell me someone who will. I have acquaintances who would give me some physicians’ telephone numbers, but I don’t know how good they would be. And dying by an ‘operation of that sort,’ as you describe it, seems so messy.”
He said, again, “Steady.”
I said, “You are a nice man.”
He said, “You aren’t likely to die. The dangers are only of infection; or if the physician is the sort who depends on that class of practice for his income, perhaps the night before he may have been drunk and his hand isn’t quite steady. . . . Well, there is no need of frightening you. How old are you, anyway?”
“Almost twenty-four.”
“You look nineteen.”
He hesitated. “Sometimes physicians of the type that perform this operation, say that it is necessary whether it really is or not. . . . If you would be willing to have me make an examination—”
Later: “You shouldn’t delay unduly. You seem to be nearly three months’ pregnant. There is a man whom I could recommend, who was in my class at medical school. I hear that he has a very scientific procedure. However, because he is compelled to deal with women who are frequently somewhat hysterical he is, a little—what you might call hard-boiled. I would go with you, if it would make it easier for you.”
“Well, Doctor, if you could make the appointment for Saturday morning, I could arrange to take the day off.”
“Would your husband go with you?”
“I think not.”
“Then you can depend on me. Telephone me tomorrow, and I shall have made the appointment.”
I felt very grateful to this capable young man.
Pete and I had no more conversation, between then and Saturday. I managed to get an advance on my salary, by a few engaging lies to my publicity director.
Saturday.
I dressed with extreme care, with the feeling that I might be turning up a corpse before sunset, and that did not matter very much; but I would prefer to be a well groomed one.
Bath salts were pleasant. Very beautifully tailored glove silk underthings were pleasant against the skin. Life had been full of rather nice sensations like that, once, and why not enjoy what remained of them? The Doctor was calling for me at ten o’clock. Peter had gone to work.
I had said to him, “I’m having an abortion this morning.”
He had said, “Your show. Hope it’s not too bad.”
I wonder if those are last words from Peter in this life.
Well—be a credit to that extremely kind young doctor. Cold cream, skin food, astringent, rouge, powder, lipstick. Enormous grey eyes I have, fringed with thick black lashes. And an awfully white skin, considering how black and straight my hair is.
Wonder if it is true that my great grandfather found romance with an Indian girl, and that that accounted for the straight, very black hair. Wonder if he was nice to her.
Black hair, black eyebrows, lovely shoulders, very white. And a lot they had got me, first and last. More than anything else had got me, though, at that.
“A woman five feet one, weighing a hundred nine pounds” . . . would I be a paragraph in various newspapers among the day’s casual deaths? Probably not.
Be a credit to that young doctor, who was taking a good deal of trouble on my account. Wear the Jane Regny original that the manufacturer sold me for a song and a couple of ads for Women’s Wear. Soft grey tweeds, a grey wolf collar and deep cuffs, a cream-coloured blouse. Its scarlet piping matches the close fitting hat, and the shining flat purse. Brilliant scarlet and blue scarf, grey mocha gloves that matched my stockings, precisely, and black lizard sports’ shoes. A small, slim, scared, extremely smart young figure.
“I may not be pure, but thank heaven I look immaculate.”
Five to ten. Find a handkerchief that exactly matches the blue in the scarf. Is that important? What is important? That dead baby Patrick, little and fragrant and toothless and rosy-lipped. To die when his mother had gone away and left him. Sentimentality, that. Well, this one would not live to die.
Put some perfume on handkerchief and hair. Just a little essence of gardenia, faint aroma for daytime.
Peter, Peter.
Doorbell ringing. The maid will answer. “The Doctor, ma’am.”
“Tell him I’ll be in in a minute, Nora.”
Purse, money, gloves.
“Good morning, Doctor.”
“You are looking very well. I hope you don’t feel nervous.”
(Hell. I just feel dead.)
“Not at all, Doctor, shall we start?”
In the taxi. “You are going to survive this, you know. You are the healthy, glandularly normal sort that can survive a great deal with no ill effects. I should be interested in seeing you do it. This may sound rather—unethical—but I do wish, if you and your husband separate, that you would let me know, from time to time, how you are getting along.
“You are very young, and life holds a great deal for you.”
(Isn’t he sententious?)
He went on: “I should appreciate the privilege of taking you to dinner sometime, when you’ve forgotten about this whole—unfortunate—affair. Do feel free to telephone me at any time, it would give me great pleasure.”
(A nice young man. Rather attractive. Peter, Peter, are you thinking about me at all? In the midst of re-writing City News copy, are you thinking about me—five minutes?)
“Doctor, do you mind if I ask—does this take very long?”
“At most—twenty minutes. I strongly advise against gas, if you think you can maintain your poise, at all. The heart—”
“Whatever you advise, Doctor.” (Did I want this baby? No sense to wonder about that now.)
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