‘We could. Kit’s very fast asleep. Now look, I’ll just get my –’
That was when she discovered she had failed to pack her Dutch cap.
Saying no was unthinkable – she was drenched with desire. She cast a quick review of her cycle, decided she was at a point when conception was almost impossible, or so Jillie had told her, long ago, and went back to Tom.
It was glorious, a tangle of entirely new sensations, it seemed, created by the sun and the wind and the freedom from everyday anxieties, for Tom as much as for her.
‘Crikey,’ he said, when finally she came with a huge wild cry, ‘they’ll hear you on the Isle of Wight.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing. Except they’ll be jealous. Oh, Alice. I love you.’
‘And I love you. And I’m so happy.’
It happened, twice more that week, Alice continuing to put her faith in Jillie’s doctrine.
Jillie, it turned out, was wrong.
She had arranged for her mother to look after Kit so that she could go to the conference; and had been looking forward to it. Now it loomed over her, a horrible ordeal. She just couldn’t face it. As for Mrs Higgins’s breakfasts: the very thought made her heave.
In the event, Mrs Higgins, in whom she had confided about the pregnancy, said she knew exactly how Alice felt. ‘Morning sickness, poor wee girl, worst thing in the world, and you having to be all bright and chirpy and impress people. I’ll do you some nice toast, lass, and anything else you fancy, just let me know. For some reason it were brown sauce with me, I could eat anything so long as it had brown sauce on it, but I can see that doesn’t appeal.’
In fact, Alice did really fancy something, and that was smoked haddock; Mrs Higgins said she’d cook it for her every morning.
‘Oh, Mrs Higgins, you are so kind. And – you don’t have any Marmite, I suppose?’
‘I do, my lovely, I do. On your toast?’
And so, every morning Alice ate dry toast and Marmite-flavoured smoked haddock, and it got her through the day.
By the last morning, Tom still hadn’t been asked to speak; he was bitterly disappointed. Then suddenly someone dropped out of a debate on education and Tom was asked to take his place.
The Labour government had an inbuilt resistance to grammar schools; the new comprehensive ideal, of one school for all with no punishing examination at eleven and offering every kind of education, from the academic to the technical, seemed to them far fairer. There were a very few trial schools, but it was far too early to judge the system on its results.
The debate was a hot one; Tom could see the dangers of selection at eleven, it was potentially life-wrecking, but having benefited himself so enormously from the grammar system, and being a shining example of its virtues, he spoke passionately in its defence. He had made himself felt more strongly than any of his mentors or supporters had dared hope and on the train home the next evening, reading about himself as one of the stars of the previous day in Josh’s column in the Daily News, and featuring in a rather smaller way in a couple of reports in the nationals, Tom leaned across the compartment to Alice and said, ‘Thank you for coming and making such an effort for me. I know it wasn’t easy for you, feeling as lousy as you do, but it really did pay off in spades. I’m very lucky to have you.’
Alice was so surprised, she nearly fell out of her seat.
Jillie had returned to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the rather doubtful mercies of Miss Moran. She was working very hard, mostly to ease her new, loveless, single existence, and doing better than she ever had before. She found the practical work slowly less scary and, under Miss Moran’s fierce gaze, could now make an incision and even move into the organs beneath it without trembling with terror.
Her hurt and her humiliation were still intense; she remained withdrawn and for several months spent all her spare time in her room, or at Alice’s house. Her personal life felt very dead; she was numb to positive emotion, had been made a fool of, she felt. She was, she reflected one night as she got ready for bed, although not for sleep (that was a luxury only awarded her by the sleeping pills she removed from the pharmacy when nobody was looking), a spinster which was bad enough, and a virgin which was worse. She scarcely recognised herself from the radiant creature of the spring and summer. Although she was too level-headed to consider taking the whole bottle of pills, she often felt her life was pointless and not worth continuing. It was not a good state of mind.
Tom was making his name as a speaker, was asked to speak at appropriate local functions and debates, either linked in some way to health or education, in which he was also becoming something of an expert. Then he was summoned in the middle of January to Transport House, to a meeting with the national agent, who informed him that there was a by-election coming up. ‘Terence Bright, the present member for Purbridge, has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, poor chap,’ he added piously. ‘Now this is a marginal, and your main rival, given this is a Tory-held seat, is an old codger, James Harvey, classic Tory, ticks every bloody box and I wouldn’t think you’d have a chance if it wasn’t for a new industrial estate being developed in the area, bringing in lots of Labour voters, so you could just make it. We’d like you to go for selection at least; there are a couple of other contenders, but you made a pretty big mark at the conference with that speech of yours. What do you think?’
Tom managed to stammer out that he thought it sounded very good indeed.
‘Good man. Get down there as soon as you can, get to know the place and its people. The agent down there is very good, very experienced. Date’s not set yet, but you’ve got about a month. Go and see the PR people on your way out, but meanwhile –’ and he launched into a string of procedures.
Tom walked out of the building two hours later as if on air. Alice was less enthusiastic, sick and weary as she was, but took her cue from Laura and said it was wonderful. Laura haunted her increasingly now that the honeymoon period of their marriage was so well in the past, and particularly now, when she was sick and weary from her pregnancy. Whenever Tom was cross, or even thoughtless, she never reacted simply and honestly. She thought of Laura, what she would have done or said, and tried to do the same.