Where There's Smoke

Kate’s mother had insisted that the best cuts of meat for her father’s tea, and for Sunday lunch the next day (another ritual, equally sacred), would have gone by the time the film was over. So Kate had trailed around after her, agonising over each minute spent in the butcher’s and greengrocer’s as her mother intently considered each item before she either bought it or moved on to another. By the time they arrived at the cinema the feature had already started, and Kate’s mother refused to pay for something they wouldn’t see all of. The ticket clerk suggested coming back for the later showing, but her mother was already drifting out, the attempt made, duty done. They had gone home, where her mother had continued with the business of fretting over her father’s tea. Kate watched as she chopped vegetables and carefully cut off every scrap of fat from the meat, so that her husband wouldn’t have to face that chore himself when he ate it. Kate had waited until her mother was completely engrossed, and then quietly set off for the bus stop. The ticket clerk, a florid woman with badly permed hair, had recognised her when she slid the money she had taken from her piggy bank through the hole in the glass screen. “Let you come on your own, has she?” the woman asked, mouth tightening in disapproval. Kate let her silence answer. The woman pushed her ticket through the slot. “Don’t deserve kids, some people,” Kate heard her mutter, as she went inside. It was early evening when she arrived back home. Her parents were furious. Looking back, Kate supposed they must have been worried, but that didn’t come through at the time. Only the anger. Her father had hit her and sent her to bed without anything to eat. Her mother, bewildered at her daughter’s wilfulness, followed his example, as she always did. “Your father’s tea was ruined! Ruined! You bad girl!” she had hissed before closing the bedroom door. Kate cried herself to sleep, hungry and with her father’s handprint livid on the skin of her leg. But she had still seen the film. As she had grown older, the incident had passed into family lore, diluted and joked about, but never forgotten. “Just took herself off, without a word to anyone,” her mother would say at family gatherings. “Typical Kate. Even then she was always a stubborn little thing. Determined to do what she wanted.”

And, accepting the polite laughter, Kate would look at her mother and still see the perplexity in her eyes behind the social smile. She wondered what her parents would say if they had been alive to see what she was doing now. She told the taxi driver to stop as soon as she saw the gas tank she’d been given as a landmark. She knew it was irrational, but she didn’t want him to know where she was going. The driver, a middle-aged Indian man, spoke to her over his shoulder through the glass partition as she handed him the fare. “Do you want a receipt?”

It was her suit, Kate thought, that and the leather briefcase, marking her as a businesswoman. She had worn them as camouflage, she saw now, a pretence that her visit was official, not personal. “No, thanks.” She wanted only to be away from the taxi, with its musty odour of cigarettes and worn leather. She climbed out quickly onto the pavement, delaying over putting away her wallet and smoothing her skirt until the taxi pulled away with a rattle of blue exhaust. The fumes trailed in the still, warm air, dissipating slowly. Squinting in the harsh sunlight, Kate looked around to get her bearings. The street was deserted. Nearby a newsagent’s shop stood with a curtain of multi-coloured plastic strips hanging in its open doorway, swaying slightly. Further along was a garage, wooden doors pulled back to reveal a shadowed interior. The tinny echo of a radio came from inside, but there was no other sign of life. The sun bore down on her shoulders. Its dry heat was hot on the back of her neck, contradicting the spring chill in the air. She could feel it pressing against her through the lightweight jacket as she began walking. The empty street made her feel as self-conscious as if she were on display. The clinic was on the opposite side of the road to the gas tank. It was set slightly back from the pavement, with spaces for car parking in front. Flat-roofed and brick, it was as unprepossessing as a warehouse. Kate felt a flutter of nerves as she approached. A single step led to glass-panelled double doors. On the wall at one side of them was a small white plastic sign. In plain black lettering it said, “Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology”.