“Stop yelling, and go look at yourself in a mirror,” he said. “That
ought to stop you quicker than anything.”
I did go look at myself. I looked horrible, red-faced and distorted, and
about thirty-five years old. And I hated Peter, as I had never hated
anyone. I forgot all about how we had got to this place; I only knew
that he was a person who said dreadful things in a disgusting calm
voice; and that he had turned me into a person who looked like a hag,
and that I hated him, hated him.
“Well, you are an attractive object to have about, aren’t you?” he said,
behind me. I turned. My voice had got quite steady.
“All right, we’ll let ‘by whom this time’ ride,” I said. “Now would you
be interested in knowing what I’m going to do about it?”
“Yes indeed. The workings of your mind are always entertaining.”
He lighted a pipe, watching me over it. I stood there and said words
very slowly. My throat hurt so.
“I’m writing to your father and mother tonight telling them we’re having
another baby, and that I’m giving up my job instantly, of course. I’m
writing Hilda the same thing. She’s so ‘good’ I’ll give her something to
be good about. Then we’ll have the baby, and you’ll take care of me and
it. That’ll be all about Hilda.”
He got up, slowly. He put his pipe down. He stared at me. I was afraid.
He said, “Will you get out of this room this minute, before I kill you?
If I have to look at you ten seconds longer, I’ll strangle you.” Then he
came close, suddenly, and put his hands around my throat.
But I hated him more than I was afraid of him. I said: “You won’t kill
me. You’ll just do as I say, from now on.”
He did not kill me. He just picked me up and threw me through the glass
door of the breakfast room. Then he went out.
I lay on the breakfast room floor, and thought vaguely that things like
this did not happen. I seem to have spent a good deal of time, off and
on, thinking that.
Then I noticed that my left arm was bleeding. I got up, and went into
the bath, slowly. The whole left arm of my dress was in shreds, where
glass had cut it. Apparently I had put my arm in front of my face,
instinctively. My face was not cut. I felt a little faint, but not very.
I took off the dress. My left arm had seven cuts on it, but all but one
were just scratches. I bathed the arm carefully. One cut was deep and I
could not stop the bleeding. So I bandaged it as tightly as possible,
and put on a sleeveless dress, and changed my slippers to match the
dress.
I knew Pete had a flask of Scotch in his dresser, and hunted around for
it, and poured myself a drink. In a detached sort of way, I wondered if
he would strangle me when he found out I had taken some of his Scotch.
But I did not hate him any more, or love him, or feel anything about him
at all. I felt tired. There was not the slightest chance that I would
attempt to hold him, by going through with having the baby. It would not
work. And anyway it was just too much trouble.
My arm kept on bleeding. I remembered that next day I had to do the
Sunday Times’ ad on Paris imports. So I thought I had better go to a
doctor and have my arm fixed.
I knew a doctor who lived on Waverly Place. I had been to him for colds
and tonsilitis and things like that.
When I went out to find a taxi, the cold air was amazingly pleasant. It
was nine o’clock and the doctor’s office hour was almost over. I did not
have to wait long.
He was a polite blond young man, very dependable-looking. When he asked
me what had happened to me, I told him calmly that my husband had thrown
me through a glass door. I could not think of anything else to say. He
gasped, but did not make any further inquiries.
He had to take one stitch in my arm. When he was through, he said I had
better sit down and have a cigarette, and he mixed me some spirits of
ammonia. He asked me about my work—he remembered I did advertising.
I interrupted him. “By the way,” I said, “I have to have an abortion.
Will you do it for me? And how much does it cost?”
He did not look shocked. “Better finish that spirits of ammonia. And
would you mind telling me why you must have an abortion, if you actually
are pregnant?”
That was easy. “Because my husband’s leaving me any day now, and I have
no money, and must keep my job.”
“But—I don’t want to ask you about your private affairs—having a child
has been known to bring husbands and wives together, you know.”
I laughed and laughed. I just sat there and laughed. “Pete was so
pleased when the baby we had died, Doctor.”
“Steady,” he said.
There was a pause. I caught myself on the verge of telling him, as a
fact of extreme significance, that the baby Patrick . . . dead more than
a year, now . . . had the longest eyelashes I ever saw.
He said, “I’m sorry for you. But I can’t perform an operation of that
sort. Never, in the six years that I have practised . . . the ethics of
the profession do demand—”
I stopped him. I knew all about the ethics of the medical profession. My
father was a doctor.
“All right. You won’t do it. Tell me someone who will. I have
acquaintances who would give me some physicians’ telephone numbers, but
I don’t know how good they would be. And dying by an ‘operation of that
sort,’ as you describe it, seems so messy.”
He said, again, “Steady.”