29
The following evening saw me sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through a copy of the Morning Star’s thick Sunday edition. Despite its length, there was little in it: a long article about one Louise Archer, the mother of six children who was being lionized by the state as our own Stakhanov, explaining how easy and pleasant she found it cooking for a family of eight; and below it a warning to expect the heaviest smog of the year. There was still no mention of Lorelei, and I supposed that there never would be now.
Nick had just returned from spending the day in Waltham Forest with Hazel. She was still crying from time to time, but it had been almost a week, so I thought and hoped that she was over the worst. During six years of war as a country, we had got used to swallowing down our grief, so, sad to say, Hazel’s experience was far from unusual. She had asked if I could come out with them, which was touching, and I wished I could, but I knew Nick wanted to be alone with her.
The telephone rang. When I went to answer it, however, a tinny voice was already speaking – Nick must have picked it up on the extension line in his study. The voice was too distant and hollowed out by the line for me to recognize it, and I was about to hang up when I caught a few words: ‘…and how is your wife?’ They made me pause.
‘She’s bearing up. Things have been… difficult for her,’ Nick replied. I lifted the receiver back to my ear, placing my palm across the mouthpiece to deaden it.
‘I’m sure they have.’
Who was this person, asking about me? I tried to work it out, but couldn’t even tell for sure if it was male or female. Probably male.
‘If she had started turning things upside down, it would have made it all ten times worse.’ Nick was keeping his voice down, but sounded disturbed. ‘She hasn’t mentioned anything so I won’t bring it up.’
‘That’s probably for the best. Do you think she knows?’
Nick sighed. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘But she might.’
‘Yes. She might. I’ll do my best to prevent that.’
‘This is all more dangerous now. I’m not sure we’re going about it the right way.’
‘Don’t worry. You’re always worrying,’ said Nick, with more than a hint of irritation in his voice.
‘Citizen Informants.’
‘Oh, don’t be bloody stupid.’ There was a pause.
‘Can you get more norethisterone?’ the voice asked.
‘Yes. I knew we would need more. That’s good. But I don’t want to talk about this on the telephone. Meet me there in an hour.’
‘All right.’
‘I could have put it to good use before, though,’ Nick added, thoughtfully.
‘How?’
‘If I had had it before, Lorelei wouldn’t have ended up like she did.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’ The line crackled. ‘Who do you think killed her?’
‘Who can say?’ He paused. ‘But we can’t let it distract us right now. The norethisterone. I found someone to test it.’
‘A patient?’ the voice asked.
‘A private patient.’
‘What was the outcome?’
‘It works as predicted. Now it’s time for them to start the course again.’
‘All right. Well, I’ll see you in an hour.’
‘Goodbye.’ Nick put the receiver down. I made to do the same. But, as I did so, I knocked the earpiece against the mirror on the wall. The glass rang and I gasped at the sound. My fingers wrapped so tightly around the telephone that all the blood drained from them and I held my breath, listening, praying that the person on the other end hadn’t heard. There was nothing, only my heart beating. It was all right. I began to put the handset down.
‘Is someone there?’ It rattled out of the earpiece. I waited, staring at the receiver. ‘Are you there?’ the voice repeated, slowly and cautiously. Then a click as they hung up. I breathed out.
30
I couldn’t stop thinking about that call even as I made Hazel breakfast the next morning. It had been – in part, at least – about me. Of course Nick would have occasion to talk about me sometimes, but this sounded very much like a conversation I was being deliberately kept from.
Hazel was wearing her navy-blue school uniform. I had worried that it was too soon for her to go back, but Nick thought it would be better for her to be with her friends than wandering about in our house with no one to talk to. Maybe he was right. ‘Are you sure you feel up to it?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ With Nick around, things between her and me were warming by the day. ‘What are you learning in English?’
She sighed. ‘How Dickens depicts class conflict in Oliver Twist.’
Burgess and his friends had been clever. They had used our national love for literature as a way to open up our nascent political consciousness. So Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists and Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier were required reading. And yet Lorelei had said Orwell had fallen foul of Burgess’s assistant, Ian Fellowman, and ended up in a re-education camp.
‘That sounds very interesting,’ I said. ‘I can help you with it if you want.’
‘Yes, please.’
I was happy about that. ‘It’s a wonderful book,’ I said.
‘I’m really glad you’re here,’ she blurted out.
I hugged her. ‘I’m glad I’m here too, Hazel. We’re going to be fine,’ I said.
After seeing her off, I took a tram heading south, watching the wrapped-up people and the bomb sites flit past. When I stepped down at the stop for the South London Hospital, a big black car slowed a little as it passed me. I briefly tried to stare into it before shaking my head and telling myself that I was seeing faces in clouds – that if they had wanted to remain hidden they would have done so, and if they had really wanted me to see they were there, they would have been a damn sight less subtle about it.
It was hard just getting to the hospital building. I had to push my way through a crowd milling outside the Irish Embassy, where at least a hundred people were clamouring for entry. I asked a young woman in a pinny what was going on and she said everyone in the scrum had an Irish parent so they were applying for Irish passports – apparently applications had just reopened after a couple of years, so there was a lot of pent-up demand. I wished her luck. I could understand their attempt, although anyone trying to get out of the country that way would have to endure months of harassment from the authorities. They would lose their job, and if they got another at all it would be the dirtiest in the city, kilometres from where they lived, just to teach them a lesson. After that, of course, the government might still refuse to grant an exit visa.
The scene at the hospital reception desk was almost identical to last time – a mass of people pushing and shoving, some demanding to be dealt with, some begging. Dr Clement was in his cubicle, writing on a card as he bid goodbye to a woman who was buttoning up her blouse. She left and he motioned me to a wooden chair opposite his that had been broken and shabbily bolted together again.
‘Hello, Mrs Cawson,’ he said. ‘I have read the results from your blood and urine tests.’ He rolled his lips over his teeth and bit down on them thoughtfully. ‘They were to check your hormone levels. The reproductive hormones that you produce.’
‘I see.’
‘Yes. There is one that we must talk about.’
‘All right.’
‘It is called oestradiol. It is one of a group we call oestrogens that are vital for pregnancy to occur.’
‘And?’
He cleared his throat. He seemed uncomfortable. ‘Please tell me: what first said to you that you were pregnant?’