28. THE FRUITS OF LOVE

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

It's one thing after another1

“Wallace,” said Maureen quietly, “I’ve got something to tell you, something you ought to know…”

They were at the swimming baths. Wallace had almost conquered a life-long fear of drowning and managed to swim a width and a bit, had dried off and dressed in jeans and a sweater, it being late autumn and the cold of winter already putting in an appearance.

He looked at her, nodded and guessed what she was about to tell him. Back in the spring he and she had ventured into the carnal world of adult love, and since then it had happened several times as, to him, the tw of them seemed to grow closer, their friendship becoming an overpowering thing that amounted to an obsession.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered, “and I wish I wasn’t.”

“I thought you were going to say that,” he replied seriously, “and although it might seem a bad thing, it isn’t really.”

“My step-dad will throw me out. I know he will,” she shivered, “he’s that kind of man, very sure of his own righteousness.”

“That’s a bit old-fashioned,” suggested Wallace.

“You’ve met him, darling. You know what kind of man he is. He has beliefs that are so inflexible it’s a wonder he can make sense of life. Remember the summer, when it was so hot the pavements were melting? When most men thought a loose shirt was too much to wear? Well, when we went to the seaside he wore his suit, jacket and tie and all, and if he’d had a waistcoat he’d have worn that as well. And he did that because he thought it quite improper for a man to appear in public where there are women present if he’s not fully dressed. Well, a man with that kind of attitude isn’t going to take lightly to an unmarried pregnant step-daughter!”

“I see,” he murmured quietly, “then there’s only one solution that I can see: we’ll have to get married!”

“Can we?” Her eyes were wide open as the implication of his words sunk in. For all his life, since that very first day when Helen had held him, she had told herself that she loved him, as a babe in arms, as a toddler, as a schoolboy and more recently as someone she had been separated from too often by work and the passing of too many weeks away from him. True, she’d had boyfriends in that period, only one serious one, but they’d all petered out because not one of them had got anywhere near here feelings for Wallace.

“Of course we can. I’ve always thought we would, one day,” he told her.

“But can we?” she asked, “aren’t we cousins?”

“Cousins can marry, I think,” replied Wallace, frowning, “come on, let’s go home, to my home that is, and I’ll explain how we’re not even cousins so it doesn’t enter into the equation anyway. You do remember that my mum, Helen, might be your mum’s sister, but she’s not my real mum, don’t you?”

“I’ll never forget it!” said Maureen, “it came as a shock to me though I should have wondered on your very first day of being alive why the mum holding the baby wasn’t the woman lying in bed! But I was only five back then.”

“If the lady I call mum number one was my real mother, then we’d be cousins because she’s your mum’s sister, but she isn’t, and my real dad was the brother of my adoptive dad, so that doesn’t enter into it at all. So we’re not related at all, which makes what I’m going to do with you later on perfectly all right from the relations point of view, though there are quite a lot of people who believe it should never be done by normal unmarried couples. But we’re not normal at all, are we?”

“Of course we’re not,” laughed Maureen, “but what about me being pregnant? We did it together, Wallace, you and me, when nobody was looking and so far as I’m concerned whenever we could! I knew there was a chance...”

“So did I,” Wallace told her, “remember that time you told me the facts of life? How ignorant I was but how I picked it up in no time at all? I’ve known what happens if you do the things that we’ve done as often as we can, and, you know, darling, I’ve never cared. You’ll be all right, I’ll see to that, we’ll find somewhere to call home and you’ll have our baby there. Nothing will go wrong, nothing at all, and the future, if the bomb doesn’t fall on us, will be an exciting book filled with love and hopes and dreams… I love you, Maureen.”

“And we’re going to get married? Really married, like loving people do?”

“Yes we are, and not just because you’re having my … I mean our ... baby but because when a man feels like I do about a woman, and that woman feels the same about him, then it’s the only right thing to do.”

“And we’ll find a home?”

“Yes we will, and somewhere better than the witch’s cottage in Swanspottle Woods!”

“Where people get accidentally murdered? I’d hope it would be a lot better than that!”

When they arrived at the home Wallace had lived in since his adoptive father had died and they’d had to vacate the vicarage, it was to discover that the expected peace and calm and harmony was nothing of the sort.

Helen had a friend, a boyfriend called Richie, and he was cursing and swearing and using the kind of language best suited to the gutter, and Helen was in tears, real tears.

“Call her mother!” Richie stormed at Wallace when he saw him, “she’s not fit to be anyone’s mother, the w***e, the slag, the tart! You, kid, you know what your fancy mother’s gone and done, eh? Ask her, then, just you ask her, and she’ll tell you! She’s going to have a baby, that’s what she’s going to do, and she told me she couldn’t! “

“I didn’t know,” wept Helen, “I thought, I believed...”

“And you know what belief does!” raged Richie.

“I was sure I’d reached the change,” sobbed Helen, “My curse dried up, it never came, and I felt sick and uncomfortable. I was sure it was safe to do … you know what … and that’s what I told to this man here because I believed he loved me, and he took advantage of me… but if he thought anything of me at all he wouldn’t call me the names he has, would he?”

“No, mum, he wouldn’t,” said Wallace firmly, and to everyone’s astonishment he grabbed hold of the still cursing Richie and marched him out of the house.

“And don’t come back,” he hissed, “unless it is to beg a good woman’s forgiveness on your knees!”