the house. But they agreed about its practicality in anticipation of visiting in-laws and other guests. Situated almost centrally and therefore catching both morning and evening light, it would have made a fine office, or even a boys room, where they could have placed a dark leather sofa, a shamefully tacky beer fridge, and installed one of those pull-down screens to play games or watch DVDs. Now he is thankful that they did not.
He has a case of delayed reaction, flinching every time she talks about the baby. His moves are discreet, whilst she is behind the toilet door, or as now, once she is tucked-up in bed with a kiss on the forehead. This is the first time she has allowed his lips to touch her. Even in the hospital at her most fearful, she was only comfortable with the firm grip of his hand crushing hers, as if the connection between them was no more tenuous than neighbour, work colleague, or passer-by. But safely away from her he flinches, unguarded, like the holder of a nervous tic. The certainty of her words seems to visibly play before him as he waits for the plumber’s website to open on his laptop. He tries hard to concentrate, thinking that whatever he orders now can be delivered, installed even, by the time he gets back, so long as he leaves the keys next door and is able to persuade Claud that a night spent over in Lewes is the best medicine. But everything is overshadowed by b-a-b-y.
Unlike her he has no clarifying definition for what they have lost. Something which is not yet a baby but more than a cluster of cells, a mere six weeks of growth, and is responsible for an unseen, immeasurable emptiness. They themselves have only known for sure these past three weeks, so how can so much hope grow in that time? How does the work of twenty-one days so effectively decimate all the hurdles that stand before their vulnerability?
A complete miscarriage, the doctor called it, pleased with its neatness and lack of invasive surgery required. A complete miscarriage, more common than realized in the early stages of the first trimester: as if that explained everything, closed the lid on their bewilderment. But concrete fact, the overbearing weight of statistics, is a poor cover for soft tissue. It holds no weight against the physical ache he sees in Claud as well as the tightness he tries to ignore in his own chest. How does ten centimetres of cell and pliable bone get to do that?
Though it is not yet midday he has a good swig from one of the bottles in the cupboard, white rum or a flavoured vodka, cloudy but citrusy sharp, before forcing himself to swallow the remainder of the salmon and fennel salad in the fridge. Crisp, peppery, and heavy with garlic, it obliterates all evidence of his alcohol-driven weakness.
He has never been a big drinker. It is one of the things Claud liked about him from the start.
‘I only want to get serious with a guy who isn’t going to blow his salary on buying rounds for the boys, under the pretext of entertaining clients. I’ve been with twits like that before.’
This is another thing to mull over at a later date, how easy it is to take comfort in drink. Tomorrow he can repent, today he needs haziness for the drive, a slight, numbing touch to ease the pressure of two hours on a cramped A-road. She needs him to protect her. He needs vodka to make that a possibility, if only he had the bottle to be that kind of man.
Claud is persuaded to take half a sleeping pill so she can sleep most of the way. The siesta time in the house has been a failure. There was no way she was going to relax once she got upset about the toilet. He hears her talking over the cricket, where the wiliness of the subcontinent’s bowling technique crushes the now pedestrian bulldog effort, in a swift display of shock and awe. In spite of the pleasure this gives him, thinking of the blow it must deliver to Sam’s spirit, he still wants England to win. Fuck the cricket test theories, England is his team, is all.
He hears her on the phone before they leave the house. Her voice is low but has lost the dead tone of before. Whoever is on the other end has dragged lightness out of her, something he has had over twenty-four hours to perfect and was unable to accomplish. When he walked down the church aisle three years ago, a newly baptized Christian – a page note to the cricket test, a secondary gesture to please Liz and Sam – he married not just her, but her girlfriends as well; those ready to jump in and complete all the things that he cannot do.
This is his turn to feel the b-a-b-y, a collection of cells ripped from him, no longer their precious secret, but a story to be gossiped about over sweetish cocktails and wine coolers. There was a bitter yet muddled sense of disloyalty after sharing it with Hari, but there is something more agonizing about the permanence of girl talk. With every detail spilled down the phone he feels their child slipping from an imaginary grasp, and disappearing like a dream.
‘I told Jen. She texted me and it all came out.’
‘It’s good that you’re talking about it,’ he says, angry with himself that he is unable to stop feeling betrayed. ‘Jen’s a good person to have around.’
‘I couldn’t stop talking once I started. Sorry.’
‘Nothing to apologize about. It helps to share it.’
‘You should talk to someone too. Ring Hari.’
So talking is advocated, championed, in fact, so long as they do not do it with each other. They sit side by side at the breakfast counter unable to look each other in the eye.
‘I don’t need to speak to anyone. I’m fine.’
Her passive aggression weighs heavily on his shoulders, creeping across his front in a choke-hold. He resists. All too often has she used the same tactic.
I’ve told Clare about the engagement. Do you want to tell someone? Hari? Mum wangled it out of me that we’re trying for a baby. You might as well tell your parents now so that we’re in sync. Or maybe Hari if you don’t want to tell them straight away. But you should tell someone.
It is the most comfortable, easy-reaching tool in her box of tricks, so he understands why she still clings on to it, the way the collection of cells should have stayed attached to her insides.
Her reliance on these things is admirable, how she expects him to call Hari right away, while she is still there, so that every nuance of the conversation can be analysed, then corrected. She was the same last week when he called the service people to get the digital TV box looked at. Bossiness has propelled her through higher education and a fast-track in her career. It gets results. Why should she be any different now? But it should be. Some things should be different between them. He sees how such a move can bang nails into a coffin further down the marriage. His parents. Liz and Sam.
She is crying again as he packs the car. He knows her tears come more from a frustrated place, because he ignored her attempts to call Hari, than anything to do with the lost collection of cells. Office cynicism does not stay in the office. It is a part of every aspect of their home. The muffled package of sniff and sob resonates as loudly as any wailing for the way it follows him outside, but he carries on with packing the car. He speaks quietly to the neighbour about the plumber, and goes about his business; not going to her, knowing she is still not ready to be touched.
Again there is nothing to listen to. She should not be woken on the journey, aside from a gentle tap on the shoulder when they wind up the drive in Lewes. Their story has been concocted. There is no reason to discuss it endlessly. They are making the most of a well-earned long weekend. She is pregnant. They are happy.
Driving through the country will hurt with its constant reminders of plant in bud. Everything has the ability to reproduce but them. He prefers it on the motorway where concrete has killed all life. Black
