Harley12

‘Keep an eye out for Uncle Paki.’ Mary scanned the traffic as if he was going to pop out of any one of the buses, cars or motorbikes. ‘That shouldn’t be too hard for you. You used to have a wee fancy for him, didn’t you?’

‘Not really.’ Fiona picked up her bags, which contained what was left of the money, as a taxi pulled up. ‘I thought he was handsome, like an American, with his shiny suits and greased back hair, a bit like Elvis, only with a much bigger nose, and a funny ear, but then I started going out with Findlay. And he kept going on at me and told me what he was really like.’

Mary bumped Fiona along the seat inside the cab and told the driver to go to Harley Street. ‘And what about Findlay, did he tell you what he was like himself?’

‘No. I found out for myself.’ The taxi driver sneaked a look in his rear-view window as Fiona blew out her thin cheeks in a parody of enormousness and held her belly as if she was carrying triplets and cackled like a mini- witch.

‘Maybe we should get somewhere to stay first, before we go there.’ She sneaked a look at Mary.

Mary spoke with classroom voiced authority, to reassure Fiona and herself that she knew what she was talking about. ‘We’ll probably not get an appointment for two or three days, so it makes sense to go there first.’

The taxi shuggled them about in their seats; turning and slowing, picking up pace, darting between cars and buses, one way or another, as they left all hope of going home to Glendevon behind, slowing almost immediately to walking pace at Oxford Street. Fiona consoled herself with the thought that they’d soon be there and then it will be all over and done with and then she might see her mummy and she might see Findlay, although probably wouldn’t, because it was all his fault.

The taxi parked outside a three storey Georgian building from a different era whose sepulchre white stones were too refined to scream of accumulated wealth. Compared to the more anaemic surrounding city streets the road and pavements seemed of continental proportions. And somehow, it seemed to the girls, they needed to mind their ps and qs and speak in the funeral language of respectable whispers.

‘We’re here.’ The cloth capped taxi driver nodded towards the meter apologetically. ‘Do you want me to wait?’ his voice barely registered above the tick of the engine.

‘Yes,’ Fiona held out a fiver and feeling sorry for the old man added, ‘keep the change.’

‘No,’ said Mary at almost the same time, throwing in a smile, ‘but keep the change anyway.’

The driver looked from one girl to the other, and then nodded as he made his mind up. Mary had hardly put her bags down on the pavement before the taxi did a U turn and sped away.

‘Which one is it?’ Fiona looked up and down the street, not quite sure what she was looking for.

‘I don’t know! What do you expect? Some kind of neon signs sparkling with enough light to start off an epileptic fit, saying “get your abortions here,” with a massive arrow slicing through a foetus.’ Mary took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked at Fiona and knew, even for her, she’d gone too far. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve not been sleeping much.’ She tugged childishly at Fiona’s coat, pulling her round to face her and ignored the side-long glances of well-heeled pedestrians too well mannered to stare. Flinging all ideas of respectability aside, she put her arms around Fiona and cuddled her thin frame until she felt a reciprocal pat on the back. ‘We’ll just need to ask someone.’

They both looked at the imposing building in front of them. The brass plate, held a gold engraved litany of moneyed monikers of the medical professions -Newton (psychiatrist), Walker and Braisby- (gynaecology and paediatrics) and Bouch (cosmetic surgeon), and etched slightly apart from the others, a Mister King (osteopath) with a different cut and in black banding.

‘Let’s try the Jeckyll and Hydes, the Walker and Braisby’s of this world, unless, of course, you want your head examined.’ Mary marched resolutely up the stone stairs. She pushed through the double doors into the foyer. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, her feet padding soundlessly into the rich swirl of the blue- grey carpet, ‘just bat those big golden brown eyes at them and they’ll probably send you straight to Battersea.’

‘What’s Battersea?’ whispered Fiona.

‘It’s a cat and dog home.’ Mary stopped a moment to reconsider and to get her bearings. ‘I don’t know if they’ve got cats there. I might be confusing it with the cat and dog home at Milton.’

The women behind the walnut coloured desk looked up at them briefly, as if weighing up their worth and then looked away again. She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone to answer, and with one look silenced them both. They stood in the same kind of limbo of countless school interviews between the desk and the front door. Her white coat had a nametag on it. ‘Catherine Reynolds: Receptionist’. Even with the information at eyelevel it still took Mary and Fiona time to register that with her no nonsense curls, radio voice BBC accent and porcelain white teeth that the woman on the phone wasn’t actually one of the surgeons, or doctors, on the gold lettered nameplate.

‘We’re really sorry to bother you.’ Fiona half turned ready to leave.

Mary put her bag on the carpet, the pile being thick enough to cover her banging it down. Another phone directly across from the receptionist’s desk rung and she picked it up, juggling with one mouthpiece and writing in a large black diary with the other.

‘Sorry about that.’ The receptionist’s face bloomed into a smile until the phone rang again. She looked at them and then at the phone, before picking it up. The other phone, on the desk, rang seconds later. ‘I’m sorry. There’s somebody on the other line. Can I put you on hold Mr Aitken.’ She did the same with the other phone, cupping both to her chest.

‘Can I help you young ladies?’ The poised way she stood, the tone of her voice, the way she looked them over, all suggested that there was really nothing that could be done for them.

Fiona’s hair covered her red face as she looked down at the carpet. ‘emm No.’

‘I’m dreadfully sorry. It is not usually like this. Well. It is, but there’s usually two of us on and…’ She smiled as she spoke into the phone. ‘…Yes. Yes,’ she flipped open and marked something down on a black desk diary. ‘…There’s a waiting room through there…’ She took a deep breath, ‘…I’m sure that will be fine: 2.15.’ ‘…The agency girl hasn’t turned up…’ She raised her plucked eyebrows to the heavens, or the equivalent osteopath on the second floor, and vaguely nodded with her head the direction they should go, before the phone rang again.

The receptionist motioned for Mary to hand her a pen, which was on the side of the desk nearest to her. She motioned with her head and the hint of a smile to a diary sitting next to the electric typewriter. Mary expertly flicked it open in front of her-right-day; right-date- like a suitor. The receptionist, all business, hung up and made an entry in the diary.

‘Thank you- ever so much.’ The receptionist rewarded Mary with a full-beamed smile.

‘It was nothing,’ said Mary, but she was pleased. ‘And all those empty Diary spaces. You’re not as busy as all that.’

‘Smart too.’ Ms Reynolds quipped, as if they were part of a double-act.

She lightly touched Mary on the arm and directed her and Fiona into the spacious waiting room. Wee Fiona sat apart from them on the edge of a couch, her body tucked in tight as a bubble. All the tension was in her knuckles as if had she let go of the grip of the armrest, her body would drift up, like a balloon Botticelli, to the vaulted ceiling. She bounced up almost as soon as they sat down. And stood up. And sat down again.

‘I’m sorry is there a toilet.’

‘There’s a lady’s cloakroom through there.’ Ms Reynolds waved her fingers in a general direction and Fiona scurried towards it.

Ms Reynolds yawned, ‘long day,’ she apologised easing her back into the couch and leaning over taking a cigarette out of a onyx coloured case on the table. She nudged it towards Mary.

‘Why are you here exactly?’ The pall of smoke seemed to settle around them and Ms Reynolds seemed in no particular hurry to find out.

‘We want an abortion. Well my friend…’ Fiona came back and studiously ignoring the banks of other seats sat down touch-tight beside Mary on the same couch, ‘…needs an abortion.’

‘Ah, I thought so. You both seem fit and healthy and although one can never be sure the other services usually involve older women or men.’

‘She means we're not daft.’ Mary pushed wee Fiona on the arm, trying to get her to smile.

‘The thing is an abortion requires the signature of two doctors and it is by no means guaranteed that that the young lady will fit any of the categorisations.’ Ms Reynolds leaned and her voice grew lower, as if she were divulging some great secret, ‘and this is rather delicate so I’ll just come right out and say it. It involves quite a bit of money and you are, how, shall I put it?’

‘Skint.’ Wee Fiona pushed against Mary on the couch and laughed.

‘Well, I wouldn’t quite have used that description, but yes.’ Ms Reynolds stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray and pressing down the top it disappeared into the like base of the vase like structure. Her practised smile indicated that the interview was over and she was waiting for wee Fiona and Mary to disappear just as quickly.

Wee Fiona started piling large denomination notes on the smooth surface of the rosewood table one after the other until they sat in an untidy heap.

‘We could perhaps arrange a consultation on Thursday morning with Dr Newton and have the procedure done on Friday afternoon, if that is ok.’ Ms Reynolds looked over wee Fiona. She paused as the phone rang.

‘Do you think I can get that?’ Ms Reynolds looked towards Fiona and then sprung up from the couch and was soon flicking through the diaries on the receptionist’s desk.

Mary and wee Fiona were laughing and smoking together when she returned to the waiting room. Fiona lit a cigarette off the end of the one she was smoking and held it out, ‘Miss Reynolds,’ she said, very formally.

‘Catherine, please call me Catherine.’

Ms Reynolds put the cigarette between her rouge red lipsticked lips, smudging them slightly. Without saying another words she disappeared into another room, when she came back she was no longer wearing the receptionists white coat, and was balancing a tray with tea cups on it.

‘Shall I be mum?’ She looked at them, pouring tea into cups and searching for the right kind of smile.

‘Two sugars,’ said Fiona.

‘One,’ said Mary.

Catherine lit another cigarette, ‘I couldn’t help overhearing…’ She handed a cup to Fiona and then Mary. ‘…that you girls might be looking for accommodation. It may surprise you to know that my job is not particularly well paid.’

It was obvious from the way Fiona and Mary looked at each other that they hadn’t given much, if any, thought.

‘…the other receptionist I shared with. You may have heard me talking about her.’

Catherine looked at them hopefully, but they showed no sign of recognition.

‘…the thing is I’m allowed to lease some rooms to help make up my income.’

‘Perfect.’ Mary stubbed out her fag. She was beginning to feel a little bit sorry for Catherine. ‘You want to let us your pal’s room that’s left? Where do you stay?’

Catherine sounded slightly perplexed. ‘Why, here, of course.’

Mary and Fiona looked around them before Fiona asked: ‘So where would we stay?’

‘Here.’ Catherine hit a silver teaspoon off her China cup and her short laugh had the same ring to it. ‘I’d be your landlady, of course.’ She raised one eyebrow and invited them to join her in mocking such a notion. ‘I’d have to inform the partners of course, but it suits them someone staying here as some of the painting and furniture is worth rather a lot. And there would have to be a police check.’ She settled back into the plush cushions and sipped at her tea.

‘So, we’ll stay with you?’ Fiona couldn’t help frowning whilst she thought about it.

‘A police check!’ The words had jumped right out of Mary’s mouth and she covered it with her hand.

‘Yes.’

Catherine found it quite amusing, how in awe of the place they both were. She’d been much the same. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. And I don’t mean right this minute. It’s not as if you can get up to much in “Bonny Scotland”. Catherine laughed at her own rendition of the Scottish accent, ‘apart from the obvious’. She smiled and giggled at Fiona that made her seem the same age as the girls. ‘And its not as if you’ve robbed a bank.’ She looked from one face to another and hooted with laughter.

They were such terribly sweet girls. Saying nothing.

‘Let’s get you settled downstairs and then I’ll introduce you to the partners.’