‘I say,’ said the girl, ‘are you all right? Gibson sent me to find you. What’s up? You look rotten.’
Viv wiped her face, gingerly, on an edge of roller-towel. ‘I’m OK.’
‘You don’t look it, honestly. Do you want me to go with you to the nurse?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Viv. ‘Just—just a hangover.’
Caroline heard that, and her manner changed. She leant her hip comfortably against one of the basins, and got out a stick of chewing-gum. ‘Oh,’ she said, folding the stick into her mouth, ‘I know all about those. And crikey, it must have been bad if you’re still throwing up at this hour! I hope the chap was worth it. It’s not so rotten, I always think, if you’ve had a really good time. The worst is, when the boy’s a dud, and you sort of drink just in the hope that it’ll start to make him look better. You want to eat a raw egg or something.’
Viv felt her stomach quiver again. She moved away from the sight of the tumbling grey gum in Caroline’s mouth. ‘I don’t think I could.’ She glanced into the mirror. ‘God, look at the state of me! Have you got any powder on you?’
‘Here,’ said Caroline. She got out a compact and handed it over; and when Viv had used it she took it back and used it herself. Then she stood at the mirror, recurling her hair, the chewing-gum still for a moment; the tip of her tongue showing pinkly between her painted lips, her face smooth and plump with health and youth and the absence of worry: so that Viv looked at her and thought miserably, How bloody mean and unfair life is! I wish I was you.
Caroline caught her gaze. ‘You do look rotten,’ she said, beginning to chew again. ‘Why don’t you stay longer? It’s no skin off my nose. We’ve only got another half-hour, anyway. I could tell Gibson I looked and couldn’t find you. You could say you were collared by Mr Brightman, something like that. He’s always sending girls out for soda-mints.’
‘Thanks,’ said Viv, ‘but I’ll be OK.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
But she’d lowered her head to straighten the waistband of her skirt; and now, in looking up too quickly, she grew queasy again. She put her hand out to one of the basins and closed her eyes—swallowing, swallowing, feeling the gathering of sickness in her stomach and fighting to keep it from rushing up…All at once, it surged. She darted back into the lavatory cubicle and retched drily into the bowl. In that narrow space, the sounds she made seemed dreadful. She tugged on the chain to try and disguise them. When she went back out to the basins, Caroline looked anxious.
‘I think you ought to let me take you to the nurse, Viv.’
‘I can’t go to the nurse with a hangover.’
‘You ought to do something. You look terrible.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ said Viv, ‘in a minute.’
Then she thought of the little journey she’d have to make back up to the typing room: the hard flights of stairs, the corridors. She imagined being sick on one of the polished marble floors. She pictured the typing room itself: the chairs and tables all crowded together, the black-outs up, making everything stuffy, the smells of ink and hair and make-up worse than ever.
‘I wish I could just go home,’ she said miserably.
‘Well, why don’t you? There’s only twenty minutes now.’
‘Shall I? What about Gibson?’
‘I’ll tell her you’re poorly. It’s the truth, isn’t it? Look here, though, what about getting home? Suppose you faint on the way or something?’
‘I don’t think I’ll faint,’ said Viv. But didn’t women faint, when they were—? God! She turned away. She was suddenly afraid that Caroline, in looking at her, would see what the real matter was. She looked at her watch and said, with an effort at calmness, at brightness, ‘Will you do me a favour? I think I’ll wait for Betty Lawrence and walk home with her. Will you tell her, after you’ve told Gibson? Will you say I’ll meet her here?’
‘Of course,’ said Caroline, straightening up, getting ready to go. ‘And don’t forget, about that raw egg. I know it sounds like an awful waste of the ration, but I had a colossal hangover once, on some filthy cocktails a boy mixed up for me at a party; the egg did the trick like you wouldn’t believe. I think Minty Brewster’s got her hands on a couple of eggs; ask her.’
‘I will,’ said Viv, trying to smile. ‘Thanks, Caroline. Oh, and if Gibson asks what the matter is, don’t tell her I’ve been sick, will you? She’s bound to guess—about the hangover, I mean.’
Caroline laughed. She blew out a little grey chewing-gum bubble, and burst it with a pop. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be frightfully female and mysterious, and she’ll think it’s the curse. Will that do?’
Viv nodded, laughing too.
The moment Caroline went out, her laughter died. She felt the flesh on her face sink, grow heavy. The cloakroom had hot pipes running through it, and the air was dry; it felt under pressure, like a room in a submarine. Viv wanted more than anything to be able to open the window and put her face in a breeze. But the lights were on, and the curtain was already drawn: all she could do was go to the side of it and pull the dusty, scratchy cloth around her head like a sort of hood, and get what she could of the chill evening air that was seeping in through gaps in the window-frame.
The window opened on to a courtyard. She could hear typing, the ring of telephones, from rooms on the floors above. If she listened carefully, too, she could just make out, beyond those sounds, the ordinary sounds of Wigmore Street and Portman Square: cars and taxis, and men and women going shopping, going out, going home from work. They were the sort of sounds, Viv thought, that you heard a thousand, thousand times, and never noticed—just as, when you were well, you never thought about being well, you could only really feel what it was like to be healthy for about a minute, when you stopped being sick. But when you were sick, it made you into a stranger, a foreigner in your own land. Everything that was simple and ordinary to everyone else became like an enemy to you. Your own body became like an enemy to you, plotting and scheming against you and setting traps…
She stood at the window, thinking all this, until, at just before seven, the sound of typing faded and was replaced, across the building, by the scrape of wooden chairs on bare floors. A minute after that, the first of the women appeared: they came bowling into the cloakroom to visit the lavatory and get their coats. Viv went out to her locker and, very slowly, put on her own coat, her hat and gloves. She moved between the women like some sort of phantom, gazing at the dullest of them, the plainest of them, the plump and bespectacled, with a mad sort of ravening envy; feeling herself impossibly separated from them and alone. She listened to their clear, confident voices and thought, This is what happens to people like me. I’m just like Duncan, after all. We try to make something of ourselves and life won’t let us, we get tripped up—
Betty appeared. She came in frowning, turning her head. When she saw Viv, she came straight over.
She said, ‘What’s up? Caroline Graham said you couldn’t make it back upstairs. She laid it on as thick as anything for Gibson—said you’d been taken by surprise by something. Now word’s gone round you’ve got the squits.’ She looked Viv over. ‘Hey, you do look bad.’
Viv tried to move away from her gaze as, earlier, she’d tried to move from Caroline’s. She said, ‘I just felt a bit sick.’
‘Poor kid. You need bucking up. I’ve got just the thing for that, too. Jean, from Shipping, has been spreading the word about an MOI party. One of their boys got his divorce papers through today, and they say they need girls. They’ve been hoarding for weeks by the sound of it, so it should be a pretty good blow. We’ve just got time to change; come on.’
Viv looked at her, appalled. ‘You’re joking,’ she said. ‘I can’t manage that. I look like a wreck!’
‘Oh, throw on a bit of Max Factor,’ said Betty as she shrugged on her coat, ‘and the Ministry boys won’t notice.’
She took Viv’s arm and led her out of the room, and they began the journey up
to the lobby. Climbing the stairs, Viv found, was awful, like being at sea; but there was a comfort to be had from the feel of Betty’s arm in hers, from being helped and guided. They got to the desk and signed themselves out. The street was not quite dark enough for them to have to switch on their torches. But the evening was cold. Betty stopped for a moment to get out a pair of gloves.
She caught sight of another girl, and lifted one of the gloves and waved it.
‘Jean! Jean, come over here! Tell Viv about this do tonight, will you? She needs persuading.’
The girl called Jean started to walk with them. ‘It should be terrific, Viv,’ she said. ‘They told me to bring as many pals as I could get hold of.’
Viv shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Jean. I can’t, tonight.’
‘Oh, but Viv!’
‘Don’t listen to her, Jean,’ said Betty. ‘She’s not herself.’
‘I’ll say she’s not herself! Viv, they’ve been hoarding for absolute weeks—’
‘I told her that.’
‘I can’t,’ said Viv again. ‘Honestly, I don’t feel up to it.’
‘What’s there to be up to? All those boys are after is a few swell-looking girls in tight sweaters.’
‘No, really.’
‘It isn’t every day a chap gets his divorce through, after all.’
‘No, honestly,’ said Viv, her voice beginning to break, ‘I can’t. I can’t! I—’
She stopped walking, put her hand across her eyes; and there, in the middle of Wigmore Street, she began to cry.
There was a moment’s silence. Then Betty said, ‘Uh-oh. Sorry, Jean. Looks like the party’ll have to do without us after all.’
‘Well, it’s hard luck on those fellows. They’ll be awfully disappointed.’
‘Look at it this way: there’ll be more for you.’
Jean said, ‘That’s a thought, I suppose.’ She touched Viv’s arm. ‘Cheer up, Viv. He must be a rotter, you know, if he makes you feel like this. I’m going to fly back to Johnnie Adam House, girls! If you change your minds, you know where to find me!’ She went off, almost running.
Viv took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. She raised her head, and saw people watching her, mildly curious, as they passed by.
‘I feel such a fool.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Betty gently. ‘We all cry, sometimes. Come on, kid.’ She drew Viv’s arm through hers again, and squeezed her hand. ‘Let’s get you home. What you need’s a nice hot-water bottle, and a gin with a couple of aspirin in it. Come to think of it, that’s what I need, too.’
They began to walk again, more slowly. Viv’s limbs seemed to tingle, almost to buzz, with tiredness. The thought of going back to John Adam House at this time of night, when the place would be in chaos, with chairs being dragged across the dining-room floor, the lights blazing, the wireless blasting out dance-music, girls running up and down the stairs in their underwear, ripping curlers from their hair, calling to one another at the top of their voices—the thought exhausted her.
She pulled at Betty’s arm. ‘I can’t face going back just yet. Let’s go somewhere else, somewhere quiet. Can we?’
‘Well,’ said Betty, doubtfully, ‘we could go to a café, something like that.’
‘I can’t face a café, either,’ said Viv. ‘Can we just sit down somewhere? Just for five minutes?’ Her voice was rising, threatening to break again.
‘All right,’ said Betty, leading her off.
They found themselves, after a short walk, in one of the area’s residential squares, and went into the garden. It was the sort of place that would have been locked to them in the years before the war; now, of course, the railings had gone and they went straight in. They found a bench away from the thickest bushes, on the quietest side of the square. It was not quite dark, but getting darker all the time, and Betty, looking around, said, ‘Well, we’ll either get raped, or someone’ll think we’re a couple of good-time girls and offer us money. I don’t know about you, but if the price was right I might be tempted to take it.’ She still had hold of Viv’s arm. ‘All right, kid,’ she said, as they sat and drew close their coats. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. And remember: I’ve given up the chance of getting groped by an MOI divorcé for this, so it had better be good.’
Viv smiled. But the smile grew almost painful, almost at once. She felt the rising of tears in her throat just as, before, she’d felt the rushing up of sickness. She said, ‘Oh, Betty—’ and her voice dissolved. She put a hand across her mouth, and shook her head. After a second she said in a whisper, ‘I’ll cry, if I say it.’
‘Well,’ said Betty, ‘I’ll cry if you don’t!’ Then, more kindly: ‘All right, I’m not stupid. I’ve a pretty good idea what this is about. Or who, I should say…What’s he done now? Come on, there’s a limit to the kind of thing a man can do to a girl to make her cry. They just don’t have the imagination. He either stands her up, or chucks her over, or knocks her down.’ She snorted. ‘Or knocks her up.’
She said it jokingly, beginning to laugh. Then she met Viv’s gaze through the gathering darkness, and her laughter faded.
‘Oh, Viv,’ she said quietly.
‘I know,’ said Viv.
‘Oh, Viv! When did you find out?’
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘A couple of weeks? That’s not so much. Are you sure it’s not just—you know, just a bit late? With all these raids—’
‘No,’ said Viv. She wiped her face. ‘I thought that, at first. But it’s not just that. I know it’s happened. I just know. Look at the state of me…I’ve been sick.’
‘You’ve been sick?’ said Betty, impressed. ‘In the mornings?’
‘Not in the mornings. In the afternoons and at night. My sister was like that. All her friends were sick first thing, but she was sick nearly every night, for three months.’
‘Three months!’ said Betty.
Viv glanced around. ‘Shush, will you?’
‘Sorry. But crikey, kid. What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you told Reggie?’
Viv looked away. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Why not? It’s his fault, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not his fault,’ said Viv, looking back. ‘I mean, it’s my fault as much as his.’
‘Your fault?’ said Betty. ‘How’s that? For giving him’—she lowered her voice even further—‘permission to come aboard? That’s all very well, but he should, you know, have worn his raincoat.’
Viv shook her head. ‘It’s been all right, until now. We never use those. He can’t stand them.’
They sat in silence for a second. Then, ‘I think you should tell him,’ said Betty.
‘No,’ said Viv firmly. ‘I’m not telling anyone except you. Don’t you tell anyone, either! God!’ The idea was awful. ‘Suppose Gibson finds out? Remember Felicity Withers?’
Felicity Withers was a Ministry of Works girl who’d got herself pregnant by a Free French airman the year before. She’d thrown herself down the stairs at John Adam House; there’d been the most awful row about it. She’d been dismissed from the Ministry, sent home, back to her parents—a vicar and his wife—in Birmingham.
‘We all said what a nit she was,’ said Viv. ‘God, I wish she was here now! She got—’ She looked around, and spoke in a murmur. ‘She got some pills, didn’t she? From a chemist’s?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Betty.
‘She did,’ said Viv. ‘I’m sure she did.’
‘You could take Epsom salts.’
‘I’ve done that. It didn’t work.’
‘You could try a red-hot bath, and gin.’
Viv almost laughed. ‘At John Adam House? I’d never get the water hot enough. And then, imagine if someone saw, or smelt the gin…I couldn’t do it at my father’s, either.’ She shuddered, just thinking about it. ‘Isn’t there anything else? There must be other things.’
Betty thought it over. ‘Yo
u could squirt yourself with soapy water. That’s supposed to work. You have to hit the right spot, though. Or you could use—you know—a knitting needle—’
‘God!’ said Viv, growing sick again. ‘I don’t think I could bear to. Could you, if you were me?’
‘I don’t know. I might, if I were worried enough…Can’t you just—lift weights?’
‘What weights?’ said Viv.
‘Sandbags, things like that? Can’t you jump up and down on the spot?’
Viv thought of the various uncomfortable ordinary journeys she’d had to make in the past two weeks: the bumping about on trains and buses, the flights of stairs she’d climbed at work. ‘That kind of thing won’t do it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t want to come out like that, I know it doesn’t.’
‘You could soak pennies in drinking-water.’
‘That’s just an old wives’ tale, isn’t it?’
‘Well, don’t old wives know a thing or two? That’s why they’re old wives, after all, and not—’
‘And not old you-know-whats, like me?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
Viv looked away. It was quite dark now. From the pavements beyond the garden there was the occasional blur of shaded torchlight, the shrinking and spreading and darting about of beams. But the tall, flat houses that edged the square were perfectly still. She felt Betty shiver, and shivered herself. But they didn’t get up. Betty drew in her collar and folded her arms. She said, again, ‘You could talk to Reggie.’
‘No,’ said Viv. ‘I’m not going to tell him.’
‘Why not? It’s his, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is!’
‘Well, I’m only asking.’
‘What a thing to say!’
‘You ought to tell him, though. I’m not being funny, Viv, but the fact is, well, him being a married man…He ought to have an idea of what you could do.’