A Nice Cup of Tea

A Nice Cup of Tea

Maeve is going to have a baby. A baby she doesn’t want. And now here, on this train, seated across from her closest friend, she feels she is on the brink of something terrible. Something she has no control over.

Lucy reaches across the table for Maeve’s hand, but Maeve pulls back. She is about to tell Lucy something she knows Lucy will never forgive her for, but they are conveniently interrupted by a conductor who has come to verify their tickets. Immediately afterwards, an attendant appears with refreshments.

“A nice cuppa tea on a rainy day,” the cheery attendant says, fussing around and making small talk for what seems like an eternity. Maeve is ready to explode by the time he leaves. She has no appetite for tea or anything else even though Lucy has generously purchased first class tickets and the amenities at any other time would have been welcomed. Today, however, the constant attention in first class is annoying and intrusive.

 “You’re worried about Billy’s plans being ruined? What about mine?”

Lucy gives her a gentle look. Lucy looks just like Audrey Hepburn with her big brown eyes and pixie haircut, but right now Maeve can barely stand to look at her.

“You know he’s had his heart set on university—”

“And do you know what I’ve had mine set on?” Maeve is infuriated. If Lucy wasn’t so old, Maeve would think she wanted Billy all to herself.

Maeve is sixteen and Lucy is twenty-five but somehow, they have become close, like the sister Maeve always wanted. But Lucy is unmarried and highly religious and therefore her opinions on relationships do not hold much weight for Maeve, a starry-eyed teenager who believes in soul mates and love at first sight.  What could Lucy ever know about that? She’s practically a spinster. She works full time as the village librarian and between that and her church activities, she has no time for men. At least this is what she tells Maeve, but Maeve suspects she is sweet on the vicar, who happens to be Billy’s father.

 “You need to tell your mum, lovey, and you need to tell Billy. The nuns will take care of you, make sure your baby goes to a nice family.”

“I can’t tell them!”

“Shhh,” says Lucy, holding a finger to her lips and looking around at the other passengers. “Mind your voice. There’s a whole lot of people here who’d love to hear the juicy gossip. Maeve, for pity’s sake, just tell your mother at least.”

Maeve turns away and stares out the window. The train is just pulling out of the station which means she’ll be forced to endure Lucy’s company for at least another forty-five minutes. She should never have asked Lucy to accompany her today, but she needed the moral support.

She closes her eyes. Less than an hour ago, her whole world came crashing down.

“Young lady, I believe you’re expecting a baby,” the doctor had told her. “I’m not sure how a nice lass like you got herself into this… predicament, but you need to tell your parents immediately.”

Maeve clasped her ice-cold hands together and stared at the doctor in shock. A baby?

Before she could comprehend this, there was a sharp rap at the door and nurse appeared. She was blonde and beautiful, like Grace Kelly. She belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine, not stuck in a dreary office dealing with unwed teenage mothers.

“Shall I call Sister Mary Agnes?” she said with what Maeve was sure was a smirk. She’d been brusque and aloof during the humiliating physical examination and could not have made Maeve feel worse if she tried.

The doctor nodded and the nurse left. Maeve could hear a telephone being dialed, and then the nurse’s voice as she greeted someone warmly on the other end.

The doctor picked up a pen, scribbled some notes in Maeve’s chart, then peered at her over the top of his glasses. He had a bulbous nose covered in red veins, a drinker’s nose, Maeve’s granny would have said.  A medical degree from Oxford hung on the wall behind him along with various photos of himself shaking hands with distinguished looking men.

“He’s very important,” Lucy had whispered when they were sitting in the waiting room. “One of the best. It wasn’t easy getting an appointment, but I convinced them it was urgent.”

 The doctor said nothing, had just kept scribbling notes in the chart. Tears welled in her eyes. “But I can’t be having a baby. I’m not married,” she said,   

The doctor sighed and set his pen down. “What is it with you girls? Do your mothers do not teach you about the birds and the bees?” He picked up a small desktop calendar. “When was your last period?”

Maeve blushed. “Uh...I’m not sure. I can’t remember.”

 “Then when did you last have relations?”

“Have what?” asked Maeve. She was finding it hard to think. A baby.

The doctor sighed again. “Young lady, you can’t possibly be as naïve as you are leading me to believe.” He leaned back on his chair and Maeve found herself wishing he would topple over and knock himself out. “Does the father know about this?”

“My father?” she asked, still bewildered. “He’s--

“The baby’s father,” he snapped. “The boy that you let…do this to you.”

 “He doesn’t know,” Maeve said, because it was true.

He set his chair back down. “Young lady, you need to listen very carefully. I believe you are close to four months pregnant. Your delivery date is approximately…" He consulted the calendar again. “Approximately February 1st. Next year. Nineteen sixty,” he added, as if Maeve did not have the mental capacity to understand what year they were currently in.

 “I can’t tell my parents! My mum would kill me and my dad…he doesn’t live with us. He’s in London. My parents are…divorced.”

 Such an ugly word. One that never failed to get a reaction.  

The doctor nodded his head knowingly as though this all made sense: having divorced parents was synonymous with promiscuity.  “Girls from broken homes like yours have a tendency to get themselves into trouble like this.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “You’re not the first and sadly you won’t be the last. Well, you have no choice then, young lady. You’ll need to tell your mother. There are arrangements to be made. And you’ll need to tell the…father of the child. He has a duty now.” He walked to the door, opened it and stood waiting for her to leave. “You most likely put the boy in deep trouble with his own parents, assuming he is of your age.” He shook his head sadly as if Maeve’s questionable behavior was causing him physical agony.

The nurse returned holding a small piece of paper. “This is the telephone number of the home. Have your mother call and ask for Sister Mary Agnes. She’ll be expecting a call today.”

Maeve ignored the nurse’s outstretched hand and grabbed her coat and handbag.

“Young lady, you’ll be showing before long,” the doctor warned as she pushed rudely past him. “Arrangements must be made before your reputation is in tatters. Be grateful the nuns are willing to take you. They run a strict home but that’s what you girls need. Your morals have been…compromised and it’s their God-given duty to restore them.” 

Maeve had run out of the office, ignoring Lucy who called out to her from the waiting room.

 “What am I going to do?” sobbed Maeve when Lucy joined her out on the street. “Whatever will I do?”

And now they are sitting on the train while Maeve cries with devastation and Lucy bemoans the fact that Billy’s life will be ruined by all of this.

Except it wasn’t--

 “You must tell your mum.” Lucy glances around nervously after she says this, as if Maeve’s mother might suddenly spring up from one of the seats.  “Or your dad. Can you ring him? Maybe you can go stay with him and his wife in London until this passes.”

Until this passes. As though Maeve is suffering from annoying cold symptoms. “Why are you so concerned about Billy anyway? What about me?”

“Maeve, please…keep your voice down. The vicar is a good and fair man. He’ll be disappointed, to be sure, but you know he’ll never allow Billy to be married at this age. I’m not sure your mum would allow it either.”

 “It wasn’t Billy,” Maeve says quietly.

There was a pause. “What did you say?”

Maeve doesn’t answer. The train has picked up speed and soon they’re passing rolling hills and meadows filled with grazing sheep. It has begun to rain, and the droplets create small rivers that run down the glass, blurring the outside world.

Lucy’s mouth opens and closes like a cartoon fish.  “What do you mean it wasn’t Billy? Oh my gosh, Maeve, what are you saying?” She scans Maeve’s face as though desperately searching for any semblance of purity.

Maeve trails her finger down the window, tracing the rivulets of rain. Lucy reaches over, grabs her arm, forces Maeve to look at her.

 “Was it the boy I told you to stay away from?”

 “Lucy, I --”

Lucy’s face darkens. “Did he force himself on you?”

The attendant is back with a fresh pot. Maeve watches as Lucy pours tea into her cup and adds generous amounts of cream and sugar.  Maeve’s tea sits untouched.

“He forced himself on you, didn’t he?” Lucy asks again.  “Well then, this is not your fault. You’re just an innocent lass who’s been taken advantage of.”

Maeve throws her hands up in frustration.  “No! He…he didn’t…force himself.” She was no innocent; she had wanted it as much as he did, but she wasn’t about to tell Lucy that. “I love him, Lucy. I—”

“No! You don’t. You love Billy and he loves you. Don’t talk like that!”

A few heads turn their way and Lucy flushes. Maeve has never seen her angry before. She wonders if Lucy is even her friend. Because if she was, she wouldn’t be speaking this way.

They sit in silence for the rest of the trip. Maeve stares dully out at the scenery that whizzes by and prays for the trip to end. Lucy pretends to read a magazine.  The Yorkshire sky is gray and swollen with rainclouds and matches the heaviness inside her heart.

She sits this way until red-brick houses and thatched cottages begin to appear on the landscape. It won’t be long now, maybe another ten minutes and she can be free from Lucy’s oppressive existence.

 People begin to pack up their belongings. They are nearing their station, but Lucy keeps her eyes firmly on the pages of the magazine.  

Maeve is four months pregnant and in love with a boy who has disappeared. She has betrayed another boy who cares deeply for her. Lucy has all but deserted her. Her parents will disown her. And if she goes to the nuns’ home, well, she’s heard about what they’ll do to her.

She thinks about ways she might rid herself of this baby. She’s overheard her mother whispering with another woman about a young girl who shoved a knitting needle up herself and then bled to death.

She doesn’t want to do that, but she is on a high-speed train. She could throw herself onto the tracks.

Lucy does not look up as Maeve stands. She doesn’t want to end her life over this baby, but her mother will throw her out of the house. Her father hasn’t spoken to her in months, not since he got remarried. There is no one to help her.

Maeve walks to the back of the car on wobbly legs and fights the sway of the train which almost throws her onto the lap of a businessman.  She staggers past mothers with whining children, past girls her own age who are laughing and giggling like normal teenagers. She should be one of them, but any chance of a life resembling theirs has now been smashed to pieces by a few moments of passion and a complete lapse in judgement.

His name was Ben, and he had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Beware of boys with eyes of blue, they’ll kiss you once and ask for two, her granny used to say.

Ben had asked for way more than two kisses.

Maeve wishes she hadn’t been swept away by Ben’s promises, hadn’t been so quick to believe him when he promised to love her forever. After that day in the forest, when she’d finally relented and let him have his way, he was never to be seen again.

Her feelings for Billy, the boy she is officially dating, are of no comparison. Except for a few kisses and occasional handholding, there is no desire, no hunger, nothing like what she’d experienced with Ben.

There is no other option.

She opens the door to the connecting car. It is late autumn and the wind rushing in is cold. She can smell the rain, feel it sting her face.

“Maeve.”

Lucy is standing behind her, a horrified expression on her face. “What are you doing?”

Tears slide down Maeve’s cheeks.  “I—"

 “I’ll never let you bear this alone,” Lucy said, her brown eyes misting over.  “Come back to your seat, lovey. We’ll have a nice cup of tea when we get to the station. Everything is better with a cup of tea, isn’t it?”

A cup of tea won’t take the baby away. But Lucy is standing here, brandishing her olive branch and looking at Maeve with the love and closeness they’d always had for each other.

They embrace and stand that way until the train rolls into the station.