London Transports Read Free Page A

could go on to a theatre?
    Celia was sorry, she had to work late, and she had already bought liver and bacon for supper. Could she meet May at home around nine? There was a great quiz show on telly, it would be a shame to miss it.
    May went to a hairdresser and spent four times what she would have spent at home on a hairdo.
    She went to a cinema and saw a film which looked as if it were going to be about a lot of sophisticated witty French people on a yacht and turned out to be about a sophisticated witty French girl who fell in love with the deckhand on the yacht and when she purposely got pregnant, in order that he would marry her, he laughed at her and the witty sophisticated girl threw herself overboard. Great choice that, May said glumly, as she dived into the underground to go back to the smell of liver frying.
    Celia asked little about the arrangements for the morning, only practical things like the address so that she could work out how long it would take to get there.
    “Would you like me to come and see you?” she asked. “I expect when it’s all over, all finished you know, they’d let you have visitors. I could come after work.”
    She emphasized the word “could” very slightly. May immediately felt mutinous. She would love Celia to come, but not if it was going to be a duty, something she felt she had to do, against her principles, her inclinations.
    “No, don’t do that,” she said in a falsely bright voice. “They have telly in the rooms apparently, and anyway, it’s not as if I were going to be there for more than twenty-four hours.”
    Celia looked relieved. She worked out taxi times and locations and turned on the quiz show.
    In the half-light May looked at her. She was unbending, Celia was. She would survive everything, even the fact that Martin would never marry her. Christ, the whole thing was a mess. Why did people start life with such hopes, and as early as their mid-twenties become beaten and accepting of things. Was the rest of life going to be like this?
    She didn’t sleep so well, and it was a relief when Celia shouted that it was seven o’clock.
    Wednesday. An ordinary Wednesday for the taxi driver, who shouted some kind of amiable conversation at her. She missed most of it, because of the noise of the engine, and didn’t bother to answer him half the time except with a grunt.
    The place had creeper on the walls. It was a big house, with a small garden, and an attractive brass handle on the door. The nurse who opened it was Irish. She checked May’s name on a list. Thank God it was O’Connor, there were a million O’Connors. Suppose she had had an unusual name, she’d have been found out immediately.
    The bedroom was big and bright. Two beds, flowery covers, nice furniture. A magazine rack, a book-shelf. A television, a bathroom.
    The Irish nurse offered her a hanger from the wardrobe for her coat as if this were a pleasant family hotel of great class and comfort. May felt frightened for the first time. She longed to sit down on one of the beds and cry, and for the nurse to put her arm around her and give her a cigarette and say that it would be all right. She hated being so alone.
    The nurse was distant.
    “The other lady will be in shortly. Her name is Miss Adams. She just went downstairs to say good-bye to her friend. If there’s anything you’d like, please ring.”
    She was gone, and May paced the room like a captured animal. Was she to undress? It was ridiculous to go to bed. You only went to bed in the daytime if you were ill. She was well, perfectly well.
    Miss Adams burst in the door. She was a chubby, pretty girl about twenty-three. She was Australian, and her name was Hell, short for Helen.
    “Come on, bedtime,” she said, and they both put on their nightdresses and got into beds facing each other. May had never felt so silly in her whole life.
    “Are you sure we’re meant to do this?” she asked.
    “Positive,” Helen announced. “I was here last year.