The Peacock Emporium(131)

Sometime later, she straightened up, let out a slow, shaky sigh, and muttered something under her breath. Then, she wheeled her pram slowly toward the door of the restaurant.

“Cheer up, love,” called a voice from above her, as she entered. “It might never happen.”

“Oh,” she murmured, not loud enough for anyone to hear, “that’s where you’re quite, quite wrong.”



* * *



—

The fat girl with the permanent wave had been rather difficult about taking temporary charge of the pram, huffing and puffing about restaurant policy, so Athene, using her most determinedly cut-glass accent, had been forced to tip her the cigarette money, and promise that she would be no longer than half an hour.

Athene had sat in the ladies’ room for almost ten minutes before she had control over her breath.

It had been fun at first. She had never lived like that, hand to mouth, unsure where she was going to sleep, even what town she was going to be in: it had been an adventure. And she, cocooned from the less pleasant bits—the crummy rooms, the appalling food—by the first flush of passion, had reveled in the sheer naughtiness of it all. She had laughed at the thought of her mother, trying desperately to explain her absence at her Wednesday bridge session; of her father, harrumphing over his newspaper as he considered her latest outrage; of sour-faced, disapproving Rosemary, who had always been so blatant in her judgment, who had told Athene with her first look that she knew quite what kind of a girl she was, even when Athene was trying hard not to be.

She had tried not to think about Douglas. She and Tony were like peas in a pod. She had known, from the moment he had stood at her door and smirked as she opened it, as if she should have known very well she was in the wrong place.

She finished her cigarette, and made her way slowly out of the ladies’ room and into the clamorous noise of the restaurant to where he sat, staring into his newspaper.

He had always looked handsome in a good suit, this one’s cut and color an uncomfortable echo of their wedding day. Now as he turned, she saw that new lines of experience had given his face a handsome maturity.

“Douglas?” she had said, and he had flinched, as if the very word wounded him.

They had stuttered into a dreadful dinner-party conversation. She winced at the pain in his voice. She was amazed that she could summon any words at all.

“Do you come up to London much?”

She wondered, distantly, whether he was mocking her. But, then, Douglas had never been smart like that. Not like Tony.

“Oh, you know me, Douglas. Theater, the odd nightclub. Can’t keep me away from the old Smoke.” Her head hurt. Her ears strained, as they had since she had sat down, for Suzanna’s cry, the signal that she had woken up.

He was trying to talk to her, but she was having trouble hearing what he said. She thought, briefly, watching his mouth move, that she didn’t have to go through with this. That she could simply sit down, eat a meal with Douglas, and travel home again. No one was forcing her to do anything. It would all work out in the end, wouldn’t it? Then she thought of the telephone conversation she had had with her parents earlier that week, the day before she had phoned him. “You’ve made your bed, Athene,” her mother had said. “You can jolly well lie in it.” She’d not get a penny out of them. Her father had been even less forgiving: she had disgraced the family, he had said, and she needn’t bother thinking she could return. As if he hadn’t, by his actions, done twice as much damage. She hadn’t bothered to tell them about the baby.

She thought about the bottom drawer of the rather horrid pine chest that Suzanna had as her cot, the drying nappies draped around their room, the landlady’s repeated threats of eviction. Of Tony’s despair at his inability to find another job.

It was better this way.

“Douglas, you wouldn’t be a darling and order me some more ciggies, would you?” she said, mustering a smile. “I seem to be out of change.”

When the waiter had returned with them, he had left Douglas’s change on the table, and she had stared at it, conscious that she could keep them fed with that money for several days. Or pay for a bath. A really hot bath, with a few bubbles thrown in. She stared at the money, thinking of a time, not so long ago, when she would not have noticed it, when that small amount would have been irrelevant. Just like her coat, her shoes, a new hat would have been irrelevant: easy come, easily replaceable. She stared at it, and then at Douglas, realizing that there was another answer to her problems, which she had not yet considered. He was a handsome man, after all. And it was obvious he still cared for her—even their short telephone conversation had told her that. Tony would survive without her. He would survive without anyone.

“Why did you call?”

“Aren’t I allowed to speak to you anymore?” she said gaily.

She had looked—really looked—at him then, at the hurt and desperation on his face. At the love. Even after everything she had done. And she knew why she could never do the thing that would solve everything at a stroke.

“Don’t ‘darling’ me, Athene. I can’t do this. I really can’t. I need to know why you’re here.”

He was angry now, his face coloring. She tried to focus on what he was saying, but she had become aware of a jangling vibration within her, tuned to some invisible maternal frequency. And she lost the thread of the conversation.