Read Online With No Crying by Celia Fremlin - Free Book Online

an abortion. Miranda Field got cold feet when it came to the crunch, just like we said she would…
    Unthinkable! Unendurable! She must never see them again, any of them, for as long as she lived! From now on, her existence must be among strangers, people who knew nothing of the girlshe had once been, and could pass no judgement on what she had become—had, indeed, not the smallest interest in doing so.
    Strangers! How tranquil is their company, how liberating to one whose own self has become a burden beyond enduring! Undemanding , unconcerned, empty of expectations, they take you at face value, looking no further than whatever image you choose, at that moment, to project.
    Already, before she had been riding on the bus for as long as five minutes, Miranda was aware of this lightening of burdens; aware too—intensely and comfortingly aware—of the interest and sympathy her existence was once more arousing. A white-haired old gentleman had already stepped aside to let her go in front, and when she’d boarded the bus the conductress had said “Careful, dear!” putting a hand solicitously under her elbow as she climbed on.
    She was special again. Glances of interest and sympathetic speculation were coming her way again, and the comfort of it was beyond belief.
    Spurious comfort, obviously. The whole thing was a pretence, nothing more than a silly daredevil charade, she kept dutifully reminding herself; but it was extraordinary, all the same, the way it soothed her wounded spirit and boosted her shattered ego. And indeed, there is no doubt that by projecting with sufficient energy an image in accordance with one’s heart’s desire, one can indeed infuse that image with a sort of spurious life of its own. Mirrored in the admiring eyes of others, the image acquires a kind of substance, generating feedback which truly feeds, providing genuine scraps of nourishment for such starving, desperate souls as come scavenging in these perilous waste spaces of the mind.
    The bus stop at the corner of Sharon’s road had long been left behind, but the conductress (no doubt in deference to Miranda’s awesome and interesting state) had done nothing about extracting from her any excess fare, and merely asked her if she was sure she was all right … was anyone meeting her … where would she like to be put down?
    “The terminus, please,” said Miranda, quite at random, and revelling in every small, unmerited mark of special attention.“Yes, I’ll be quite all right, thank you. I live just round the corner from there…”
    Was there a corner? Would she be caught out, making rash guesses like this out of the blue? For she had no idea at all what terminus they were heading for, or what it was like. It could be a station forecourt, or an amorphous expanse of concrete in the middle of nowhere, not at all the sort of place that anyone could live round the corner from.
    But it was all right.
    “O.K., love,” said the conductress, beginning to lose interest; and presently, with the bus gradually emptying as it neared the end of the route, she settled herself in a front seat, with her back to Miranda, to check her takings. And when the bus finally reached its destination, alongside a triangle of tattered grass overlooked by tall buildings, she was content to call out, “Good night, dear, watch how you go,” without looking up.
    It was as well, perhaps, that she was thus preoccupied, or her young passenger’s behaviour might have roused her suspicions. For Miranda was not behaving in the least like a person who lived “just round the corner”, wherever that might be. Instead of walking briskly and purposefully in some definite direction as might be expected of someone nearing home, she stood uncertainly on the grass verge, peering this way and that along the unfamiliar roadway, and clutching her carrier bag of hastily-assembled belongings in a state of absolute indecision and completely devoid of plans. She had not the faintest idea of