They had their cases, and then tea, sent to the room. Emma sat on the bed. ‘I’m not unhappy. Don’t think that. I just don’t care. It’s wonderful. I’ve always wanted not to care, and to have something to care about that I won’t care about, and now I don’t!’
Clara passed the plate of cucumber sandwiches, glad to see her eat. She could hardly do anything else. ‘But I care for you. I sometimes think I’ve never cared about anyone else.’ It was true that she hadn’t, but Emma seemed to be in some strange land of her own, so it was no use pushing the point. She looked older than she need have, with shadows under the eyes, and even powder and rouge couldn’t hide the fact that her skin had gone past its first bloom without either of them noticing. Her eyes were large and feverish, as if straining to see more than would ever be possible.
Beauty had gone to her body. The slope from full breasts expanded over her belly when she stood by the bathroom mirror, and faced Clara who was unable to resist spreading her fingers over the warm navel. ‘Has it moved yet?’
‘Last night it did. I thought it was a squirrel. Or a hedgehog. Then I woke up and remembered I was pregnant. I was glad.’
Clara put the plug in and opened both taps, thinking: If only she would miscarry, and things could go on as before. But the notion showed such horror on her face that Emma gripped her arm. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the matter?’
‘Damn! It must be indigestion from those candlefat cakes. I had a pain right here, and it was no baby moving, let me tell you. Maybe I’ll go for a walk while you have a nap. Shall you be all right?’
Emma got into the bath, and tapped her stomach. ‘I can’t run very far with this.’
Clara laughed, and agreed. ‘Wash your back?’
She sat on the stool and rubbed the sponge up and down, thinking how normal she looked from behind.
‘I can tell what you’re thinking,’ Emma said, ‘when you do it like that. It’s too regular. Go round and round a bit. Are you thinking how wicked and stupid I am?’
She had been. ‘Nothing of the kind. It’s just so steamy in here. Perhaps I need a nap as well. Who wants to walk in the pouring rain?’
‘You know what I was thinking?’
‘How could I?’
Emma turned. ‘I was thinking that sex is awful. I wouldn’t care if I never saw another man, and I certainly can’t imagine ever going to bed with one, even when I feel passionate. Does that mean I’m going to have a boy?’
‘You’re going to have something.’ Clara held the large bath towel for her to step against. ‘Let’s have you out. It’s nap time for you. You look a bit worn out.’
She stood. ‘You are funny when you nanny me!’
Clara disliked such flippancy. ‘I’m certainly not funny to myself.’
‘Who do you think I take after?’ Emma asked.
She was wary. ‘How do you mean?’
The dressing-gown made her seem less overwhelming. ‘Favour. Am I like mother, or father?’
They went into the bedroom. Clara passed a hairbrush. ‘You feature mother, I suppose.’
‘And you have father’s looks, mostly.’ Emma lay back on the bed. ‘John was a mixture of both.’
Clara moved bottles and tubs of make-up around the dressing-table as if playing a game of chess. ‘Why did you ask?’
‘Because mother is Jewish.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘So am I – that’s what.’
‘She’s my mother as well, but I’m not Jewish.’
‘Jewish mothers have Jewish children, but if you don’t think you are, then I suppose you aren’t.’
Clara lit a cigarette. ‘John didn’t think he was.’
‘Maybe he did. But he is now, though, because mother made him be.’
‘He didn’t have any say in the matter. Why do you have to be anything?’
Emma stroked her stomach. ‘This one will have to be, I’m sure.’
‘What makes you think so?’
She lay on her side and stared at the wall. ‘Whenever I’ve been at a party and there have been Jewish people who haven’t known who I was they all assumed I was Jewish. I didn’t mind, of course. I even felt flattered. One or two who thought I was Jewish imagined I didn’t care to say so for very mean or frightened reasons. They were wrong, of course. I was too uncertain. I’d never actually been told – except by the rabbi, when mother went to see him about John’s grave.’ She turned to Clara: ‘You’re Jewish too, but it wouldn’t happen to you.’
Clara grunted. ‘I’d clout anyone who assumed I was anything. It’s none of their damned business, whoever they are.’
‘So if people,’ said Emma, ‘especially if they aren’t Jewish, are going to assume the same thing about my son – if it is a son – I shall want him to know what he is.’
‘You have been thinking,’ Clara said lightly.
‘I have to, because I’m afraid. The older I get the more frightened I become, I don’t know why. It’s worse now that I’m pregnant.’
‘You’re supposed to go all calm, so I hear.’
‘It’s not happened to me,’ Emma said, as if she hoped it never would. ‘Maybe it’s too early, and I won’t turn into a vegetable till later. Don’t think it wouldn’t have been the same though if I’d had a man fussing all over me, because it would.’
Clara slumped in the easy chair, as if to escape from the rays of her sister’s anger. Emma’s moods came from a defensiveness which threatened to crush everything else in her. There was no call for it, but then, there was no need of anything that spoiled the trust between people. The last twenty-four hours had worn Clara out, while Emma seemed far from devastated by her trouble, though she went so up and down that it was hard to say what was happening to her. ‘I wish you hadn’t told that lie about friends in Cambridge. I could have thought of better places to hole up in than this pile of rain washed scholarship.’
She leaned on one elbow. ‘I did know someone, but when I got here I realized they wouldn’t do at all.’
‘Who is it?’ Clara asked.
‘Do you remember Jane Gusie and her husband Frank? We used to call them The Geese because they honked and quacked instead of talked.’
Clara sat upright to stop her laughter. ‘No! Not the Honks! Of course I remember them. Perhaps we will call. They might know of furnished rooms we could take for a few months.’
‘A day at a time is all I can accept,’ Emma said. ‘If I start thinking about the future I get the willies.’
Clara threw her lit cigarette into the lavatory pan, then knelt by the bed and held Emma’s hand. ‘I’ll take care of you. You have nothing to worry about.’ Each sobbing lurch of her shoulders brought out more tears.
‘Don’t cry,’ Emma felt as if she would weep too. ‘I hate it when you cry. Stop it, please.’ But she laughed instead. ‘Or you’ll sink the room!’
7
The place was cluttered. Such rubbish, Clara said, taking as much as possible to the attics before having their trunks brought from the station. They put the painted gnomes and well-ironed doilies into cardboard boxes, together with seaside knick-knacks, pot dogs, horse brasses and toby jugs from stands, shelves and whatnots. ‘I’m bound to knock them flying if they stay where they are,’ Clara added. ‘A lot of such priceless gewgaw stuff has often gone down under an absent-minded wave of my clumsy arm!’