Because her father was a man, even if an old one and her father, he recognized the power of sensuality in a female and was defeated, intimidated by its obstinacy. He couldn’t take the whole business up with her; her mother must do that. He quarrelled with his wife over it. So she confronted their daughter. Where will it end? Both she and the girl understood: he’ll go back where he comes from, and where’ll you be? He’ll drop you when he’s had enough of what he wanted from you.
Where would it end? Rad occasionally acknowledged her among his friends, now — it turned out he did have some friends, yes, young men like him, from his home. He and she encountered them on the street and instead of excusing himself and leaving her waiting obediently like one of those pet dogs tied up outside the supermarket, as he usually had done when he went over to speak to his friends, he took her with him and, as if remembering her presence after a minute or two of talk, interrupted himself: She’s Vera. Their greetings, the way they looked at her, made her feel that he had told them about her, after all, and she was happy. They made remarks in their own language she was sure referred to her. If she had moved on, from the pub, the disco, the parents, she was accepted, belonged somewhere else.
And then she found she was pregnant. She had no girlfriend to turn to who could be trusted not to say those things: he’ll go back where he comes from he’ll drop you when he’s had enough of what he wanted from you. After the second month she bought a kit from the pharmacy and tested her urine. Then she went to a doctor because that do-it-yourself thing might be mistaken.
— I thought you said you would be all right.—
That was all he said, after thinking for a moment, when she told him.
— Don’t worry, I’ll find something. I’ll do something about it. I’m sorry, Rad. Just forget it. — She was afraid he would stop loving her — her term for love-making.
When she went to him tentatively that night he caressed her more beautifully and earnestly than ever while possessing her.
She remembered reading in some women’s magazine that it was dangerous to do anything to get rid of ‘it’ (she gave her pregnancy no other identity) after three months. Through roundabout enquiries she found a doctor who did abortions, and booked an appointment, taking an advance on her holiday bonus to meet the fee asked.
— By the way, it’ll be all over next Saturday. I’ve found someone. — Timidly, that week, she brought up the subject she had avoided between them.
He looked at her as if thinking very carefully before he spoke, thinking apart from her, in his own language, as she was often sure he was doing. Perhaps he had forgotten — it was really her business, her fault, she knew. Then he pronounced what neither had — The baby?—
— Well… — She waited, granting this.
He did not take her in his arms, he did not touch her. — You will have the baby. We will marry.—
It flew from her awkward, unbelieving, aghast with joy — You want to marry me!—
— Yes, you’re going to be my wife.—
— Because of this? — a baby?—
He was gazing at her intensely, wandering over the sight of her. — Because I’ve chosen you.—
Of course, being a foreigner, he didn’t come out with things the way an English speaker would express them.
And I love you, she said, I love you, I love you — babbling through vows and tears. He put a hand on one of hers, as he had done in the kitchen of her mother’s house; once, and never since.
She saw a couple in a mini-series standing hand-in-hand, telling them; ‘We’re getting married’—hugs and laughter.
But she told her parents alone, without him there. It was safer that way, she thought, for him. And she phrased it in proof of his good intentions as a triumphant answer to her mother’s warnings, spoken and unspoken. — Rad’s going to marry me.—
— He wants to marry you? — Her mother corrected. The burst of a high-pitched cry. The father twitched an angry look at his wife.
Now it was time for the scene to conform to the TV family announcement. — We’re going to get married.—
Her father’s head flew up and sank slowly, he turned away.
— You want to be married to him? — Her mother’s palm spread on her breast to cover the blow.
The girl was brimming feeling, reaching for them.
Her father was shaking his head like a sick dog.
— And I’m pregnant and he’s glad.—
Her mother turned to her father but there was no help coming from him. She spoke impatiently flatly. — So that’s it.—
— No, that’s not it. It’s not it at all. — She would not say to them ‘I love him’, she would not let them spoil that by trying to make her feel ashamed. — It’s what I want.—
— It’s what she wants. — Her mother was addressing her father.
He had to speak. He gestured towards his daughter’s body, where there was no sign yet to show life growing there. — Nothing to be done then.—
When the girl had left the room he glared at his wife. — Bloody bastard.—
— Hush. Hush. — There was a baby to be born, poor innocent.
And it was, indeed, the new life the father had gestured at in Vera’s belly that changed everything. The foreigner, the lodger — had to think of him now as the future son-in-law, Vera’s intended — told Vera and her parents he was sending her to his home for his parents to meet her. — To your country?—
He answered with the gravity with which, they realized, marriage was regarded where he came from. — The bride must meet the parents. They must know her as I know hers.—
If anyone had doubted the seriousness of his intentions — well, they could be ashamed of those doubts, now; he was sending her home, openly and proudly, his foreigner, to be accepted by his parents. — But have you told them about the baby, Rad? — She didn’t express this embarrassment in front of her mother and father. — What do you think? That is why you are going. — He slowed, then spoke again. — It’s a child of our family.—
So she was going to travel at last! In addition to every other joy! In a state of continual excitement between desire for Rad — now openly sharing her room with her — and the pride of telling her work-mates why she was taking her annual leave just then, she went out of her way to encounter former friends whom she had avoided. To say she was travelling to meet her fiance’s family; she was getting married in a few months, she was having a baby — yes — proof of this now in the rounding under the flowered jumpsuit she wore to show it off. For her mother, too, a son-in-law who was not one of their kind became a distinction rather than a shame. — Our Vera’s a girl who’s always known her own mind. It’s a changing world, she’s not one just to go on repeating the same life as we’ve had. — The only thing that hadn’t changed in the world was joy over a little one coming. Vera was thrilled, they were all thrilled at the idea of a baby, a first grandchild. Oh that one was going to be spoilt all right! The prospective grandmother was knitting, although Vera laughed and said babies weren’t dressed in that sort of thing any more, hers was going to wear those little unisex frog suits in bright colours. There was a deposit down on a pram fit for an infant prince or princess.