At the time, I was too ashamed of what had happened to talk to anyone about it properly. Instead, I diverted my energies into producing circular, impenetrable “poems” which no one would ever read. But writing did not help me. It was like a feedback loop, repeatedly bolstering my own sense of bitterness and injustice.
We met as students, a few weeks after we had started university. It would be fair to say that I was not greatly experienced in relationships with the opposite sex. At school, things had never got much beyond a few snogs with girls at parties when I was drunk enough to have lost my inhibitions (and they were drunk enough not to know what they were doing either). I was normally too painfully self-conscious to ask any of them out afterwards – or if I did, I took elaborate precautions to conduct the liaison in conditions of utmost secrecy (which meant that the relationship didn’t usually last long). The problem was that I imagined that I could predict what people’s reactions would be if I asked a girl to go out with me – and I didn’t think I could cope with what I considered to be the inevitable teasing and gossip. In fact, most of my schoolmates were almost certainly far less interested in what I got up to than I liked to imagine. But at the time, I was absolutely sure that I would become an object of ridicule – unless I managed to go out with some girl who was so fabulously attractive that all my schoolmates would be stunned into an envious silence. And of course, most of the girls who fell into that category were either spoken for or were unlikely to fall for someone as average-looking as me.
I was confident that things would be different when I left for university. I told myself that I wouldn’t be able to second-guess what other people might think of my actions because I wouldn’t have met any of them before. They would simply be blank pages onto which I could project an image of the new me. It would be a fresh start which would finally allow me to break free of my inhibitions.
But university, when it came, seemed to be a re-run of school in that respect. I just didn’t have the confidence to go striding up to girls I fancied and seduce them with my less than sparkling wit. And I continued to feel inhibited, spending much time worrying furiously about what other people might think of me. The fact that no one knew each other only made it worse, because I sensed that people were making snap judgements about one another based on how they looked or how they spoke.
All this changed when I met Kay. She was – at least so far as I was concerned – in the “fabulously attractive” category. But apart from this, we seemed to have lots in common. She was very open about herself and I found her easy to talk to. And best of all, she laughed at my jokes. I was surprised that she paid me any attention when, as I saw it, she could have had any number of more desirable males. But for reasons which I never fully understood, she chose me. Although I have often wondered about the reasons since, this was not something I felt a need to examine in any detail at the time.
My sense that it was all slightly too good to be true was confirmed when I discovered that Kay already had a boyfriend at home – someone she had been going out with whilst in the sixth form at school. At first, I was dismayed. But Kay seemed to have no qualms about seeing me behind his back, so I concluded that I must be in the ascendant. And in my general delight at being the chosen one, I did not feel the need to enquire more deeply into the nature of this other relationship. In fact, I developed an almost superstitious aversion to thinking about why she might want to go out with me, as if thinking about it might make the process somehow reverse itself and she would go off me, maybe even end up hating me. In part, it was due to a desire to preserve the apparent spontaneity of it all for as long as possible. But it was mainly because I could scarcely believe my good fortune. I was afraid that if I probed further, the whole edifice might disintegrate under the pressure of close scrutiny. Instead, I convinced myself that our relationship required a leap of faith on my part. The important thing was to keep believing in it. If I stopped believing in it for even one moment, then it would all dissolve before my very eyes.
Things drifted blissfully along in this way until about the middle of the first term. We were in Kay’s room, sitting around after a meal. She had in fact just cooked me a three-course dinner – no mean feat given the culinary facilities available in her hall of residence. This had rather embarrassed me, as I was keen on being seen as a “new man” and wanted to demonstrate that I could do my fair share too. I had briefly wondered what the occasion was supposed to be. But I had not really suspected that anything was amiss. Kay just said that she liked cooking – and she was obviously pretty good at it. I had simply interpreted this as a further miraculous occurrence in what I viewed as my increasingly miraculous life. Suddenly Kay said, quite calmly: “What are your views on abortion?”
I cannot now recall exactly what we had been discussing. All I remember is that Kay’s question did not seem to follow at all, yet she posed it as if it was an entirely logical thing to say next. It was as if she had set herself a target of asking the question by a certain point of the evening, come what may.
“Um,” I said. Was this supposed to be a trick question? “Well, I think it’s sort of unfortunate when it happens – I mean, it’s not an ideal solution,” I blustered. “But in the end, I think, um, it’s a woman’s right to choose.” That was my honest opinion, as a liberal-thinking “new man”. “Um,” I added, as if this might clarify matters. I had no idea how to handle this. Why had she asked me? There was one obvious possibility, only I didn’t want it to be that. There had to be another explanation. “Um. Are you trying to tell me what I think you’re trying to tell me?” I asked, nervously.
She smiled – but it was a slightly pained smile. “Well, I’ve missed my period by over a week now and I’m usually pretty regular. It’s never been this late before.”
I stared down at my shoes. It seemed as if time had stopped. All the previous weeks of walking on cloud nine had suddenly caught up with me. I had known it was somehow too good to be true. But we had only slept together a couple of times. And it wasn’t as if we had leapt into bed at the first opportunity. Kay had insisted that we wait until we had been seeing each other for at least four weeks. Otherwise, she had said, it didn’t feel like a decent amount of time for us to get to know one another. I sat there wishing I could reverse time. I wished we could have waited longer. Most of all, I wished that I could rewind to the point where I had failed to put on one of the condoms I had bought several weeks earlier from Boots the Chemists in eager expectation of this moment. In the replay, I opened the small cupboard where I had hidden them (carefully positioned to be within easy reach of the bed) and slipped one on (expertly, as if I had done this many times before) – and the course of both our lives was completely altered.
Why hadn’t I done that? It wasn’t as if I had got carried away. I had actually thought about it at the time. I had been anxious to please. Somehow I had got the impression that she didn’t want me to wear one. “It’s OK,” she had said. “I won’t get pregnant.” I had taken this to mean that she must be using some sort of contraception herself. But it wasn’t as if I had just taken this at face value and carried on, unable to stop myself. It sounds almost ridiculous now – but I hesitated before carrying on. I had intended to use a condom. Now I needed to find lots of reasons to justify not using one. First of all, I told myself that if you couldn’t trust the person you were in a relationship with, then it couldn’t be worth much – and I desperately wanted this relationship to be worth something. So I had to take her at her word. And then, with flawless logic, I had concluded that whether or not she was using contraception, the charmed life I had led over the past few weeks would somehow carry me through. The logic involved went something like this: plenty of people must sleep together without using contraception, but how many unwanted pregnancies did you hear about? Not that many. Chances were, it would turn out alright. I had worked hard to get to university and I deserved a break. Life owed me one. Surely it would forgive me one night of passion? By this time, Kay had begun to suspect that something was amiss and asked me if I was alright, but I said yes, I’d never been more alright in my life. And with another impressive leap of faith, I dismissed all such worries from my mind and we carried on fumbling away in the dark.
As I replayed these thoughts in my head, I could scarcely believe my own stupidity. Everything had been going so well. And now I had ruined it. The fact that I had actually thought about it at the time and weighed up in my mind whether or not to go on made it even worse. It made me realise just how easily it could have turned out differently. There was no sense of inevitability about it at all. It was just sheer, blind stupidity. And yet it was quite irreversible. I could go over it as many times as I liked in my head, but there was no way of undoing it.
And then there was the embarrassment of it all. I was supposed to be an intelligent young man, aware of the biological processes which caused men and women to make babies. How was I going to explain it to my friends, my family? I could imagine them all shaking their heads in disappointment and disapproval, stunned by my stupidity. Finally, I thought of Kay, who was looking at me anxiously, waiting for a response.
“I’ve been really stupid,” I said, miserably.
“We both have,” she said. There was a long silence.
“How long have you suspected?” I asked, eventually.
“Since last week, when I didn’t have my period,” she replied.
“Why didn’t you say something before, if you were worried about it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I couldn’t be sure. There didn’t seem much point in both of us worrying about it. And I thought you’d be angry with me.”
“Why would I be angry? It’s as much my fault as it is yours.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I don’t know. I feel like it’s my fault, really. So I wouldn’t blame you if you just got up and walked out.”
“If I’m angry with anyone, I’m angry with myself for being so stupid,” I said, feeling that this wasn’t the moment to be apportioning blame.
But now that she had raised the issue of whose fault it was, I began to wonder where the blame really lay. After all, if she hadn’t said “It’s OK, I won’t get pregnant,” then in all probability we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. I wanted to ask her why she had said that. But it wouldn’t change anything – Kay would still be pregnant and my feelings towards her would still be the same. The only benefit would be to salve my own conscience. I told myself that it would be far nobler to simply let the subject drop.
As if Kay had guessed what I was thinking, she said:
“You don’t have to be this reasonable about it, you know. I meant it when I said I wouldn’t blame you if you just walked away.”
This put me on the spot. I repeated that I felt it was as much my fault as hers and that I didn’t believe in running away from my responsibilities.
“OK,” she said, “if that really is the way you feel. But if you want to take some time to think about it, that’s fine by me.”
Part of me was tempted to say, “Yes, let’s sleep on it and see how we feel about things tomorrow.” But in spite of everything, I knew that my feelings towards Kay hadn’t changed. “I don’t need to think about it,” I said. “It’s what I want.”
Kay nodded and took a deep breath. “OK. What are we going to do then?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. And after a pause : “What are your views on abortion?”
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