John Irving - The Cider House Rules

Thus Wilbur Larch was more prepared for how a war could change important plans than Olive Worthington was prepared for it. The other and more probable cause for a change in the wedding plans of her son and Candy {190} Kendall-another way in which the young lovers' plans could be changed- had been foreseen by Olive. It was an unwanted pregnancy. A pity that it was not foreseen by either Candy or Wally.

Thus, when Candy got pregnant (she'd been a virgin, naturally), she and Wally were much distressed, but they were also surprised. Olive would have been distressed (had she known), but she wouldn't have been surprised. Getting pregnant would never have surprised Wilbur Larch, who knew that it happened, and happened by accident, all the time. But Candy Kendall and Wally Worthington, so full of beauty and of the moment and of their own Tightness for each other, simply couldn't believe it. They were not the sort of people who would have been ashamed or unable to tell their parents; they were simply stunned at the prospect of having to derail their perfect plans-of having to get married ahead of schedule.

Did Wally Worthington need a college degree to inherit his parents' apple orchard? Of course not. Did Candy Kendall need to go to college at all? She didn't. Wouldn't she refine herself, and educate herself, if left to her own means? Of course she would! And Wally wasn't much of a student, anyway, was he? Of course he wasn't. He was a botany major, but only at the insistence of his mother-Olive thought that the study of plants might stimulate her son to become more excited and more knowledgeable about apple-growing.

'It's just that we're not ready,' Candy said to Wally. 'I mean, we aren't, are we? Do you feel ready?'

'I love you,' Wally said. He was a brave boy, and true, and Candy-who had not cried a single tear at the surprising discovery that she was with child-loved him, too.

'But it's just not the right time for us, is it, Wally?' Candy asked him.

'I want to marry you, anytime,' he said truthfully, but he added something that she hadn't thought of. He had {191} thought of the war in Europe, even if his mother had missed it. He said, 'What if there's a war-I mean, what if we get involved in it?'

'What if what?' said Candy, truly shocked.

'I mean, if we were at war, I'd go-I'd have to, I'd want to,' Wally said. 'Only, if there was a child, it wouldn't feel right-going to a war.'

'When would it feel right to go to a. war, Wally?' Candy asked him.

'Well, I mean, I'd just have to, that's all-if we had one,' he said. 'I mean, it's our country, and bes:ides, for the experience-I couldn't miss it.'

She slapped his face, she started to cry-in a ra.ge. 'For the experience! You'd want to go to war for the experience!'

'Well, not if we had a child-that's when it wouldn't feel right,' Wally said. 'Would it?' He was about as innocent as rain, and about as thoughtless.

'What about me? ' Candy asked, still shocked-and shocked, further, that she had slapped him. She put her hand very softly where his cheek was so red. 'With or without a child, what would it be like for me if you went to a war?'

'Well, it's all “What if,” isn't it?' Wally asked. 'It's just something to think about,' he added. 'About the business of the child, especially-I think. If you see what i mean,' he said.

'I think we should try not to have the baby, Candy told him.

'I won't have you going to one of those places where there's no real doctor,' Wally said.

'Of course not,' she agreed. 'But aren't there any real doctors who do it?'

'It's not what I've heard,' Wally admitted. He was too much of a gentleman to tell her what he'd heard: that there was a butcher in Cape Kenneth who did you for five hundred dollars. You went to a parking lot and put a blindfold around yourself and waited; you went alone. {192} Someone picked you up and took you to the butcher; you were brought back when the butcher was through- you were blindfolded throughout. And what was worse, you had to appear absolutely hysterical in front of some fairly dignified and local doctor before the doctor would even tell you where the parking lot was and how you got in contact with the butcher. If you didn't act upset enough, if you weren't completely crazy, the doctor wouldn't put you in touch with the butcher.

That was the story Wally had heard, and he wanted no part of any of it for Candy. He doubted if Candy could act upset enough, anyway. Wally would have the baby instead of any of that; he'd marry Candy and be happy about it, too; it was what he wanted, one day, anyway.

The story Wally had heard was partially true. You did have to go to the fairly dignified and local doctor, and you did have to work yourself up into a frenzy, and if the doctor thought you were ready to drown yourself, only then would he tell you the location of the parking lot and how to approach the butcher. What Wally didn't know was the more human part of the story. If you were calm and collected and well-spoken and obviously sane, the doctor would skip the whole story about the parking lot and the butcher; if you looked like a reasonable woman -someone who wouldn't turn him in, later-the doctor would simply give you an abortion, right there in his office, for five hundred dollars. And if you acted like a nut, he also gave you an abortion-right there in his office-for five hundred dollars. The only difference was that you had to stand around blindfolded in a parking lot and think that you were being operated on by a butcher; that's what acting crazy got you. What was decidedly unjust, in either case, was that the doctor charged five hundred dollars.

But Wally Worthington was not seeking the correct information about that doctor, or that so-called butcher. He hoped to get advice about another abortionist, somewhere, and he had a vague plan concerning the people {193} he'd ask. There was little point in seeking the advice of the members of the Haven Club; he'd been told t hat one member had actually taken a cruise to Sweden for an abortion, but that was out of the question for Candy.

Wally knew the orchardmen at Ocean View were the sort of men who might have need of a less extravagant remedy; he also knew that they liked him and that, with few exceptions, they could be trusted to keep what Wally thought was a reliable, manly confidence about the matter. He went first to the only bachelor on the orchard crew, supposing that bachelors (and this one was also a notorious ladies' man) might have more use for abortionists than married men. Wally approached a member of the apple crew named Herb Fowler, a man only a few years older than Wally-he was good-looking in a toothin, top-cruel kind of way, with a too-thin moustache on his dark lip.

Herb Fowler's present girlfriend worked in the packinghouse during harvest; during the times of the year when the apple mart was open, she worked with the other mart women. She was younger than Herb, just a local girl, about Candy's age-her name was Louise Tobey, and the men called her Squeeze Louise, which was apparently okay with Herb. He was rumored to have other girlfriends, and he had the appalling habit of carrying lots of prophylactics on him-at all times of the day and night-and when anyone said anything at all about sex, Herb Fowler would reach into his pocket for a rubber and flip it at the speaker (all rolled up in its wrapper, of course). He'd just flip a prophylactic and say, 'See these? They keep a fella free.'

Wally had already had several rubbers flipped at him, and he was tired of the joke, and he was not in the best humor to have the joke played on him again in his present situation-but he imagined that Herb Fowler was the right sort of man to ask, that, despite the rubbers, Herb Fowler was always getting girls in trouble. One way or another, Herb looked like trouble for every girl alive. {194}