Frankie Styne & the Silver Man by Kathy Page Read Free Book Online

about thirty-five, with mousy hair cut fashionably short and her lips painted bold red. She had huge grey staring eyes that followed you around the room and rubbed up and down your face like a pair of cats that wanted feeding. Somehow Mrs Purvis seemed older than her appearance; it was, Liz thought, the way she fussed and the way that every remark she made included Liz’s name, as if she thought there were others present who might think her words were intended for them. If it wasn’t the first word of the sentence, a terrible kind of tension built up until it was uttered. It made Liz writhe like Chinese water torture, which she had seen once in a programme.
    â€˜What about the father, Liz? What about your family, Liz? Liz: why did you decide to leave home? Where did you get that ring you wear, Liz?’
    â€˜Mind your own,’ Liz had muttered, tucking her hands beneath the covers the way Grammy used to.
    Mrs Purvis had never grown angry. The ruder Liz was, the softer yet more insistent her voice became. She fiddled with her jewellery, then moved from her chair to the edge of Liz’s bed and sat there with her legs wound tightly around each other like barley sugar twists, her hands in her lap.
    â€˜Listen, Liz, I’ve got to be satisfied that you and the baby’ll be all right. Otherwise we’ll have to take him into care. So, Liz, okay, perhaps you don’t need to tell me about your family, but I do need to know your surname, otherwise how will you manage? How will we register the baby’s birth, Liz? How will you get somewhere to live and all the help you’ll need? Do you see my point, Liz?’ And that had been the last time, before this, that Liz had thought of Grammy. For an instant she’d actually seen her, sitting up straight in bed just as she herself was at the time, bolt upright with her thin jet black hair tied in a knot on top of her head. A prisoner, but hiding. Her eyes were canny, sly. Liz could tell she didn’t approve, but on the other hand, she had nothing helpful to say as to what to do in circumstances like these.
    â€˜Well, Liz?’ asked Mrs Purvis, making Grammy disappear. Under the sheet Liz had clenched her hands over her huge belly. The baby that was to be Jim kicked. Could YOU escape? In the TV programmes, of course, they did.
    â€˜Elizabeth Anne Meredith,’ she’d said. The truth. It couldn’t be unsaid. It had been, without doubt, a mistake.
    â€˜After that,’ Liz told Jim, as she sat on the toilet in Onley Street and smeared his buttocks and genitals generously with zinc cream, ‘I couldn’t shake her off . . . Came every bloody day. I’m surprised she didn’t sit and watch while I gave birth. “Push, Liz. Harder, Liz! That’s it, Liz . . .”’
    There had been three low lounge chairs arranged around a circular table. The doctor leaned back in his; Mrs Purvis sat straight up as if a string were attached to the top of her head and tied to a hook in the ceiling. They both had clipboards on their laps and there was a plastic cup of machine tea in front of Liz’s chair.
    Liz put her feet on the table, and then took them off. They’d said their bit and then waited for her to speak.
    â€˜Well,’ she’d said, examining her hands, now so peculiarly clean, then looking up. ‘I never wanted one at all. So I suppose it’s not so bad not having a proper one. Not so bad as it would be for someone else.’
    â€˜Proper?’ said Mrs Purvis. ‘Another way to look at it, Liz, is that he’s different. Special.’ Her voice was over-bright. Both she and the doctor were embarrassed. ‘There are just lots of different kinds of babies, Liz.’
    â€˜Mmm . . .’ said Liz. It seemed fair enough, but not the point. ‘What I mean is, so long as I just do the necessary things, as kindly as I can, that’s it, isn’t it? I