I sat paralysed and stared at Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz as if I’d never seen her before.

When I got my breath back I embarked on a last-ditch stand, said I could afford to support Pappy. But what, she asked, would my husband have to say about that when I got married? And so on.

“All right,” I said, beaten. “I’ll leave the decisions to Pappy. Except that I know she’d keep the baby if she could only wait long enough to regain her senses. At almost twenty weeks, she can’t, of course. But who would do such a late abortion?”

“Ask your Dr. Forsythe,” she said.

I can’t write any more, I’m stonkered. How many shocks can a person sustain in one day without going mad? I feel as if the whole world has shifted under my feet so mightily that I’m standing in an alien land, lost and alone. But if that’s how I feel, how must poor Pappy feel? And that giant upstairs with the little kernel growing inside her brain?

Tuesday,

September 13th, 1960

Duncan and I have arranged a system whereby I can let him know if I need to see him urgently, and he can let me know on his side. So he picked me up at the Cleveland Street lights shortly after eight, and drove me home passing the time in idle chat. I like that about him. He’s so unruffled, so considerate, so aware what are the right circumstances and time for serious talk.

Poor chap, I hit him squarely in the solar plexus with it by asking as soon as we got inside, “Duncan, do you know anyone who would be willing to perform an abortion at about twenty weeks?”

“Why?” he asked, calmly but warily.

“For Pappy,” I said.

“I take it that the po-faced Prof has done a bunk?” he asked, going to the cupboard where the brandy lives.

The rest of my story came out in a rush, including the bit about Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz and her brain tumour.

“I am very sorry for Pappy,” he said, giving me a full glass. “Hasn’t she thought about having the baby and then giving it up for adoption? That’s the usual solution.”

“She flew at me like a harpy when I suggested that.”

He took a mouthful of his own brandy and shuddered. “I think I must be getting used to this cat-pee. Speaking of cats, where is the magnificent Marceline?”

For several minutes he occupied himself making love to her—she’s putty in his hands, the trollop. Then he said, “If the late Gilbert Phillips diagnosed a brain tumour, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz must have one. He must have found an unambiguous calcification on a plain X-ray of the skull.”

My teeth chattered against the rim of the glass. “Oh, Duncan, what would happen to Flo if she—if she did die? The ruin of The House. I can’t bear the thought.”

He put Marceline down and sat on the arm of my chair. “That is for the future, Harriet, and the presence of a tumour doesn’t say she won’t live out her threescore years and ten, maybe more. Our present problem is Pappy, not Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz. Would Pappy consider having the baby and keeping it?”

“I think she’d love to, but she can’t afford to. If she can’t work, she can’t eat or pay rent. Dammit, Duncan, why does this Fallen Woman myth persist into the last half of the twentieth century? Are we never going to be rational? God made pregnancy, not marriage! Marriage was invented to help men ensure that their offspring are theirs—it makes women second-class citizens!”

“Stop sounding like the po-faced Prof, Harriet. Let’s talk brutal reality,” he said, looking into my face sternly.

“She wants an abortion, and I can’t talk her out of it.”

“And you want me to refer her to an appropriate person,” he said, very seriously. “Do you understand that you’re asking me to break the law?”

I snorted. “Don’t be silly, Duncan! I’m not asking you to do it yourself, I just want to know someone who will. Give me a name, just give me a name! I’ll do the rest.”

“I doubt the Ethics Committee or the Disciplinary Board are so inclined to split hairs, Harriet. The moment I give you a name, I’m culpable too.”

Yes, of course he is! “But what else can I do?” I demanded. “The alternative is someone in a back alley with a knitting needle—if they’d touch someone so far gone. I suppose I could ask one of the Mesdames next door, but I imagine any little mistakes that happen there are dealt with at six weeks by ergotamine.”

“It’s all right, my darling,” he said, kissing me. “I’ve got you where I want you at last. Every gift I’ve offered you since we’ve been together has been rejected. Now I can finally give you something you’ll accept. There’s a very nice and secluded sanatorium in the country which specialises in cases like Pappy’s. The surgery is first class, so are the medicine and the nursing. I’ll give the man a ring on your phone and arrange for her to be admitted first thing in the morning.” He got to his feet. “But first, I want to talk to Pappy myself, on our own.”

“How much will it cost?” I asked, enormously grateful. “I have a thousand pounds in my bank book.”

“Professional favours don’t cost anything, Harriet.”

He was with Pappy for over half an hour, returned looking very sad. “May I use your phone to ring the man?” he asked.

I followed him into the bedroom, took off my clothes and crawled into bed, which startled him. I don’t think he had expected me to offer him physical consolation on this terrible evening, but I like to pay my debts. Odd, I thought, watching him undress—we’re usually throwing our clothes away together, so I never have a chance to look at him properly. For forty-two, he’s an asset to his tailor, not a liability.

“You have an absolutely beautiful body,” I said to him.

That floored him. He caught his breath and stood immobile. Do women never pay a man compliments? Obviously his wife didn’t, and I knew enough now to know that when he married her, his sexual experience consisted of a few drunken encounters half-remembered.

Wednesday,

September 14th, 1960

I was woken at six o’clock by someone pounding on my door in a way that suggested it wasn’t going to stop until I answered.

Toby pushed inside and stood looking at me grimly. “Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz sent me down,” he said. “I wanted to know about Pappy, but she wouldn’t tell me, and Pappy’s not home.”

I went to make coffee, scowling at him.

“Here, let me do it,” he said, shoving me out of the way. “I want to know what’s the matter with Pappy, you concentrate on that.”

So I told him. He listened painfully, grinding his teeth and beating his fist on the counter.

“I’m going to find that bastard and wallop him to death!”

“Before you do, you’d better listen to Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz on the subject,” I said, hiding my face in my mug. “Pappy doesn’t want a single hair on Ezra’s head harmed, she’s determined to protect him at all costs, including her baby. She refuses to sue him for child support, or inform his wife—anything that might upset the Marsupial apple cart! And Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz will rub salt into that wound by telling you that you’re not Pappy’s husband, father, brother, uncle or cousin, so you have absolutely no right to say or do a thing.”

“Isn’t love a good enough excuse?” he asked. “Pappy has no one of her own blood left. If we don’t look after her, who will?”

“We are looking after her, Toby, in the way she wants us to,” I said quietly. “The damage is done, and thank God for Duncan Forsythe. If she’s not next door, then she’s already gone to the sanatorium—and no, I don’t know its name or where it is, because Duncan wouldn’t tell me. Nor can you breathe a word about this to anyone, so mind your temper! And if you yap to Harold Warner as you meet on the way in—even thinking to throw dust in his eyes—I swear, Toby Evans, that I’ll castrate you! That evil little man is nobody’s fool, and he’s dangerous.”