of him seeing this. As if I might be someone who was surprising to him. A woman who lay on his lawn and looked up to the sun – burning her face today for a tan tomorrow.
I stowed the remaining cigarette in an empty crisp packet, pushed it to the back of the glove compartment and drove home.
Saturday afternoon on Camden High Street and a sea of shoppers crossed, idly, in front of the car. There was power in their purpose and in their numbers because they kept on walking – line after linked-line of shopper – all assuming that I wouldn’t drive on. But what if I put my foot on the accelerator – defied expectations, overturned their assumptions, drove over their skinny jeans and satchel bags?
‘Bloody, touristy bloody Camden,’ grumbled Dave.
I waited for a break in the flow then accelerated sharply, gripping the top of the steering wheel like a naval captain steadying the boat in a storm. The heat of the day made the skin beneath my nylon dress itch with salted sweat. I hated the heat as much as I hated the bitter chill of winter. I craved average – a temperature without remark, a family without remark.
A woman ran in front of us, arms flapping in the sleeves of a scarlet kaftan. She cleared us, easily, but Dave pushed back into his seat as if the brake pedal was beneath his foot. ‘Should have got the tube.’
Words of blame and disappointment, his first of the day. Reckless was the last thing he’d said to me the moment I stepped back into the house from Richard’s. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes before he handed over Mia, as if she had only been on loan to him for the few hours I was gone.
He’d given me the silent treatment all through breakfast even when I’d made him coffee and suggested a trip to the zoo that morning. A family trip. I even invited Caroline and the boys. You’ve been wanting me to see my sister for ages. Come on, let’s go. Why not? It’s on one of your lists. Our List, actually. He washed up his cup and silently helped me pack Mia’s nappy bag.
‘Our List’ wasn’t the same as a shopping list or a DIY tasks list or even the inventory list Dave had pinned inside the linen cupboard to keep track of the sheets (cot, single, double, dust). Those lists were instigated and executed by one person, usually the one who thought them most necessary. Usually Dave. It’s not that I didn’t shop or clean or tidy – I did all those things – but I didn’t have the same need to document them in linear order.
Until the day I’d had an extra scan at six months pregnant.
Only then did the need to document overwhelm me. Like a tide I’d been holding back.
After the scan – Looking great, the radiologist had said, absolutely viable now, even if she makes an early appearance! – we went to a nautical-themed café with painted ash floors and a table by the window where we could watch the snow fall and blunt the corners on everything.
We smiled at each other, a lot, over hot chocolate and a plate of scones to celebrate. But that sense of things looking great hadn’t lasted long as one set of anxieties was replaced by another, as I said something like:
‘Now the life inside me is looking like it might well, live, shouldn’t we make a list?’ The café felt too hot, the chatter around us too sharp and loud but the way his eyes lit up like he’d won the lottery – lovely, really – I thought, Maybe this will be all right? ‘We should list the places we could go together as a family, like the Natural History Museum?’
He laughed, loudly, as if I’d told a joke. ‘But she won’t be old enough to understand what a T-rex is!’
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