Tim Parks - Goodness

‘Please, George,’ she said. ‘Please.’

Fresh, or rather stale, from coach and tube, still struggling a little to reaccustom myself to the prayer-meeting rhetoric, I pointed out that Peggy could hardly want the money for an abortion, since abortions, like it or not, were now free on the health service. Mother stopped. She was breathing quickly: ‘Oh, of course. Of course. How stupid of me. How stupid!’ And she asked: ‘Is there any chance she doesn’t know?’

Peggy apparently was out the back soaking up the year’s first sunshine. I said I would go and talk to her, get to the bottom of it at once. ‘Please,’ Mother said again. ‘Okay,’ I said.

So far we had talked in undertones amidst the pungent shoe and old geranium smells of the porch, but now, crossing living room and kitchen to reach the back, I was struck as never before by the dinginess of my old home. The wallpaper was a glazed yellow brown, the carpet threadbare — a rug aslant, itself badly worn, rather obviously covering the hole by the passage door. Sofa and armchair with their washed out once elastic covers were more than ever tattered and shapeless.

I looked, and found it desperately poignant to think of my dear mother wasted in that unpromising environment. I felt a surge of moral energy. I was the success of the house. I was about to graduate. These people needed help and it was up to me to give it to them. Rather than staying away, I should be making regular visits to check the situation out, see what ought to be done.

I opened the back door. Outside was a twice folded handkerchief of lawn surrounded by rosebushes and other, for me nameless, flowers which my mother somehow found time to cultivate and water and worry about. They about half-hid the black creosoted fence that sagged behind. I stepped out, ducked under a line straining with damp washing, and found Peggy sprawled on a patch of dandelions in bra and pants, exposing her chunky pale body to sunshine that seemed barely warm. A scruffy little dog nobody had told me about was idly licking her ribs.

‘Peggy.’

She sat up and broadly smiled surprise. ‘You too!’ she said. ‘Quite a reunion. How nice.’ Falling forward as her body came up, her breasts were plump. She stroked the little dog. ‘Do you like Theo? He waylaid me on the Heath and refuses to go away.’

I pushed aside a damp green nylon sheet and squatted down. I paused. I said: ‘Mother tells me you’re pregnant.’

She was squinting still to adjust her eyes. ‘Oh you’ve grown a moustache.’ She burst out into one of her laughs. ‘Makes you look a bit AC/DC.’

In a low voice, I explained that Mother had telegrammed for me to come down to persuade her not to have an abortion, but that in fact I was entirely on her side. Entirely. So not to worry. Of course she should have an abortion. The feminists were perfectly right. It was her body to do what she wanted with. It was her decision. If she went and had a baby now what kind of career could she ever expect to have? Not to mention the poor child growing up in these slummy surroundings, with not even much prospect of work at the end of the day, and then the present international climate, the threat of nuclear war and so on. Was it a world to bring kids into? I’d support her one hundred per cent if Mother started putting on any pressure, in fact I felt just about ready for a showdown, let her know what I thought about her repressive religious ideas, though seeing as it was really none of her business the best thing would be simply not to say anything and then to present her with a fait accompli. If she. .

‘But I don’t want to have an abortion,’ Peggy blinked.

I was taken aback. She leaned over and ruffled my hair. She kissed my cheek, playing older sister. ‘Don’t worry your little head about it, Georgie, you’re so worked up, cool it, take it easy, I’ll sort it all out myself, it’s no problem.’

She smiled. Then she said: ‘So poor Mum thought I was planning an abortion?’ and she got up and ran into the house to tell Mother she had never had any intention of getting an abortion. Never. How on earth had she got that idea into her head? Oh, when she’d asked for money it was because she and some other friends were clubbing together to put up bail for one of the guys in the squat who’d been arrested. Completely trumped up drugs charges. The police should be ashamed of themselves. From the garden I could hear Mother weeping for joy, fierce hiccups of emotion, promising what funds she had.

Later, over tea and buns, which she insisted on baking and even icing as a sort of celebration, Mother asked: ‘Not the father, I hope?’

‘You what?’ Peggy was licking her finger to pick up crumbs from her plate. Mavis fed herself vacantly.

‘This fellow who’s been arrested. He’s not the father?’

‘Oh no,’ Peggy laughed.

I couldn’t help feeling as we munched away that I was the only one there actually concerned about the practical implications of this development. I said: ‘So maybe you wouldn’t mind telling Mum who the father is, since she’s probably going to have to look after the poor child.’

Peggy turned to me in surprise. ‘Oh my, aren’t we a sour puss!’

Mother said: ‘George’s only trying to help, dear. It was so nice of him to come down. Now do tell us about the chappie.’

‘His name’s Dave,’ Peggy said. ‘He’s an actor, a wonderful man. We’re going to get married as soon as we can. And we shall be looking after the child ourselves, thank you very much. Why ever shouldn’t we?’

‘Don’t look at me,’ Mavis came out in an inexplicable huff.

‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that getting married was one of the few things you could do from one moment to the next if you really wanted to.’

‘If you must know, brother dear,’ Peggy said with condescending sweetness, ‘we’ve got to wait until his divorce comes through.’

Typically my mother said nothing. She passed round the buns again, merely remarking that they hadn’t risen as much as they might and she hadn’t been able to fill them with buttercream as she usually did because there was only marge in the house these days and without running out to the shops. . The fact that Peggy was plunging into the most precarious of situations (with an actor!), as a result of which Mother herself would suffer, certainly financially if in no other way, did not appear to worry her at all. She herself had refused to marry a perfectly decent and quite wealthy man ostensibly because he had divorced nearly a decade before, and now her daughter was having another man divorce to marry her and she didn’t say anything about it, when some serious comment might just have made her see sense. As a result of which, I was being forced into a position where I had to be unpleasant simply to express the only sensible opinion possible.

‘Seems to me,’ I began, ‘you’re hardly. .’ But Mother caught the sound of the rotary sprinkler in the next garden and rushed out to pull in the washing. She preferred this to inviting our new neighbour, a vanguard of gentrification, to adjust the thing. No sooner was she out than Peggy leaned across the table towards me, her breasts swinging heavily: ‘What’s got into you, George?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For heaven’s sake! You seem to be doing your best to ruin a happy situation and start an argument. Relax. Please.’ She was wearing earrings the size of saucers, punk dark lipstick.

I said: ‘I’m sorry, Peggy, but I thought I was trying to prevent an unhappy situation from developing.’

And when Mother came back in I told her I was off. I’d take the coach back to Leicester that night. I had a lot of studying to do. At the door she thanked me, as if it had been me had worked the miracle. She embraced me and kissed me. In the background Grandfather was complaining to the TV about the influx of Kenyan Asians.