Jean felt a pressure in her chest as though something heavy had been dropped on it from a height. Blood pounded in her ears.
“It’s easy to say you want to go back to the way things were. But it’s like unmaking a cake. Not everything done can be undone.”
“Or you could say it’s like mending a torn shirt—it might not be quite the same as before but it’s still a shirt.”
“If it’s against your nature to feel anything for men, how is that ever going to work—for either of you?”
Jean had to pick her words delicately, without betraying anything Howard had confided about his years of unhappy celibacy.
“I want to be a proper wife to him. For Margaret’s sake. I’ll do whatever is necessary. Isn’t that what you told me when you first came here to try to persuade me to come home? That the most important thing was Margaret? You did.”
“Yes . . .”
“We were happier than a lot of married couples. And we can be again. I’ll be a good wife, like I was at the beginning. If you could just tell him how miserable I am and that I ask for his forgiveness. I know he’d forgive me if he could see how sorry I am.”
“Possibly. But wouldn’t all this be better coming from you? I can’t act as your go-between.”
The idea that she should have to conspire in her own heartbreak struck Jean as the sort of prank invented by an especially twisted deity.
“No, of course I will say all this to his face, if he’ll let me. But I can’t just turn up if he’s going to close the door in my face. If you could tell him how desperately I am regretting leaving him and how unhappy I am without him, I’m sure he’ll agree to see me. He’s such a good man.”
Yes, he is, thought Jean. It took almost no effort to imagine the scene of reconciliation. The alternative—Howard coldly resistant to his wife’s sincere, weeping repentance—was much harder to picture. And weighing heavily in the balance, of course, was Margaret, whose happiness would be complete and wonderful to witness.
“All right.” Her voice sounded strangulated, even to herself. “Of course I’ll tell him. I can’t promise it will be today, or tomorrow. Work is very busy and . . . and my mother’s just come home from the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Your poor mother.” Having achieved her end, Gretchen was very ready to repay her sympathetic dues. “I do understand. I know it’s not always easy to get hold of Howard at the shop.”
“It’s not the sort of conversation I can have on the office phone. I’ll have to choose my moment.”
“Of course. Thank you so much. And if you do have any news, could you only ring on a Wednesday or a Friday?”
“While Martha’s at work.”
“Yes, please.”
In all this time Jean had hardly spared a thought for Martha, another casualty of the whole wretched business, whose feelings would also be trampled underfoot.
“Will you stay for lunch?” Gretchen asked as the clock in the hall struck one with a thud. “It’s only barley soup.”
Jean could tell that this was a piece of mere politeness, a suspicion confirmed by Gretchen’s evident relief at her refusal. Perhaps the soup was carefully rationed and any depletion would be noticed. In any case, it was no hardship to decline—even the Swinneys drew the line at barley.
“I must be getting back to work. I shall have to start thinking about how to write your story.”
Jean threw back the eiderdown and stood up, feeling the cold air licking at her legs.
“It’s funny,” said Gretchen. “It hardly seems important now. I went chasing after proof, when the only two people whose opinion really mattered—Mother and Howard—believed me all along anyway.” She gave a sorrowful laugh.
“I forgot to tell you—I had a letter from Brenda the other day,” Jean remembered at the door. “From South Africa. She sent you her best wishes.” She could not quite trust herself to mention Kitty.
Gretchen’s face brightened. “Dear Brenda. We were so mean to her. For no reason at all.” She caught sight of her reflection in the tarnished hall mirror, peering past the bald patches in the silvering, and winced. “I look awful. There’s been no hot water to wash my hair for days. I shall have to prettify myself before I go and see Howard or he’ll wonder what he ever saw in me.”
35
In an extraordinary case that has confounded scientists, a woman from Kent claims to have given birth to a baby in 1947 while still a virgin. Born in Switzerland, Gretchen Tilbury, twenty-nine, of Sidcup, was an inpatient at St. Cecilia’s Nursing and Convalescent Home in Broadstairs for four months between June and September 1946, during which time her daughter, Margaret, was conceived.