Soul

Dragging her eyes back from some distant place, Lavinia looked at him, and it was as if she was looking at him for the first time as an equal, in every way.

‘Aloysius, I have been naive.’ Her voice trailed away until only the steaming breath of the horses and the creaking of the wind through the branches could be heard.

Aloysius stood there, his arms turned to stone not able to take her as he wanted, but frozen like some huge clumsy giant, silently cursing this land and its people for the injustice and unnaturalness of it all. Then, to his great amazement, Lavinia stepped forward and rested her head against the front of his greatcoat. His heart fluttered like the wings of a trapped bird until she turned and walked into the mansion, leaving him standing in a maelstrom of his own bewildered emotions.

39

Los Angeles, 2002

THE RADIOLOGIST CAREFULLY MANIPULATED the probe while watching the ultrasound screen. Julia, looking up at the ceiling, tried to pretend she was somewhere far away, not with her heels hoisted up in stirrups and a mechanical device inside her vagina.

‘Of course, at your age a late miscarriage is always a risk,’ Dr Weinstein, the gynaecologist, said.

‘Doctor?’ The radiologist, an earnest Chinese–American woman, rested the probe against Julia’s left side. A faint throb began to punch back at the apparatus. The gynaecologist peered at the screen. A small whitish mark blocked the faint scan of a long serpent-like trail: Julia’s Fallopian tube and ovary.

‘How long since the miscarriage?’

‘Three months, doctor,’ the radiologist replied before Julia had a chance too.

‘Hmmm. Can we look closer at the other side?’

Again the probe circled—like a horrible mechanical pig hunting for truffles, Julia thought bleakly.

‘Are you still with us?’ Dr Weinstein, an amicable man in his fifties with a string of qualifications after his name and a reputation as one of the best at Cedars Sinai, touched her shoulder. He smiled but the concern slipped through his eyes anyhow.

‘I believe so.’

‘Good. Get dressed and see me in my surgery in ten minutes.’

The ceiling to floor windows in Dr Weinstein’s consulting room showed a panoramic view that stretched towards Miracle Mile and the poorer suburbs that made up East Los Angeles. He frowned at Julia.

‘Julia, you should have come in sooner, when you first felt pain.’

‘Sorry, I’ve been in such a mess I don’t even think I realised I was in physical pain. How bad is it?’

Dr Weinstein sighed. He’d been her gynaecologist for over fifteen years and behaved more like a surrogate father than a doctor.

‘I’m not going to lie to you—your womb has sustained some damage we didn’t initially pick up. The good news is that we can fix the infections with antibiotics. The bad news is that it has left scarring on both tubes.’

‘I won’t be able to have another pregnancy, right?’

Dr Weinstein looked down at his desk then absentmindedly spun a pencil.

‘Given your age and the damage the miscarriage has caused, pregnancy is no longer an option. I’m sorry, Julia.’

It was what she had suspected. But hearing the actual words in Dr Weinstein’s precise tone was far more distressing than she’d imagined. She focused on a photograph on the desk of the doctor at his son’s bar mitzvah. I mustn’t lose control, I mustn’t break down in public, she told herself. In the midst of her rising grief, she noticed absurdly that the doctor and his son had the same ears. A sharp pain shot through her vertically, but she knew it was emotional. What was left? Her career. Was that enough? It didn’t feel like it; not now. A great rage began its bitter wave through her body.

‘Listen, you’ve had a big shock,’ the gynaecologist elaborated. ‘But things will get better. They will. I know it’s a cliché, but time is a great healer.’

You bet it’s a cliché, Julia thought, hating him in that moment for his glibness and the conceit of a man who had a family.

Sensing her distress, he took her hand. ‘Julia, have you ever thought about turning to some kind of spirituality

? Faith can be a great comfort, especially at times like these.’

‘You know me—the last atheist in southern California,’ she joked, her cracking voice betraying her.

Outside, in the narrow corridor between the reception and the surgery, finally alone, Julia collapsed against the wall, holding her sorrow against her as privately as a lover.