I said, faux-serious as we sat down. ‘Even for Copenhagen.’
But Luke wasn’t laughing. My stomach lurched.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ he said, playing with the packets of sugar.
Our order arrived.
I looked deep into the sludge of my drink as the milk darkened. I picked up my spoon to stir and saw my hands shaking. Had I done something? I tracked back desperately. It had been going so well, but evidently I had messed up. Idiot. I steeled myself.
‘Do you want children?’
First, the relief that it wasn’t something bad. But then, the question itself. I was young and I was in love with Luke and with my job. Did children sleep through pianos playing at midnight? If I had a child, would I have the energy to compose in the evenings, which was when I worked best? Working was what had made London feel doable. I was turning down job offers, gaining a strong reputation. I was working on more lucrative projects; being approached for big-name musicals.
Luke had complained about it, how ‘obsessed’ I was with my job these days, and I wondered sometimes if that was making him snappier. Maybe it was my fault and I was neglecting him. So I had agreed on this holiday to put an out of office on and ignore work calls, despite the short notice. But it was hard. It was a part of me and I was happy. I wasn’t sure about placing limitations on that.
I knew, too, that I was prone to depression. I knew that in life I wobbled and wasn’t sure I had the stability to hold up others.
But at that moment, holding onto Luke’s arm with one hand and drinking pure liquidised chocolate with the other, I felt like I was being shored up by love and sugar and as stable as I had ever been.
Perhaps, I would feel surer too, in us. I panicked, always, that Luke would leave me. I looked around in restaurants and saw that woman, that woman, all the other women who would be better suited to him. I glanced and saw him looking, too.
If Luke wanted children with someone like me then someone like me should be grateful. I should have all of the bloody children he wanted, grow them in my womb immediately. I should shut up, as he often told me, and stop thinking and agree.
‘Yes,’ I said tentatively, but he didn’t hear the hesitation.
Instead, he was immediately manic, gripping my hands and describing this huge family, four or five kids, all of us travelling together.
‘Imagine it!’ he grinned, that intense eye contact that people found so beguiling. That I had described to people when I first met him. That was one of the many things that made me feel so adored, at first, so important. ‘Swimming in the ocean and skiing down the slopes in this cute little line.’
This idea bedded into my mind until it became the clearest, most perfect thing I could imagine. This would make us whole; make us too busy for the bad times.
In October that year, with Luke in agreement, I took my last pill and we started trying for a baby.
I told my mom, surprising myself. But it had been so long since we had something to pull us close together. I longed for my parents, despite my attempts to block the feelings out. The idea of a grandchild, I thought. That might change things. Do something more tangible than an engagement. Reset mom’s thoughts on Luke and me. Glue my family and me back together again.
‘Luke and I have decided to try for a baby,’ I told her in one of what were now our very occasional phone calls.
‘Well that’s lovely,’ she said, but I heard the tone in her voice and regretted my words already. There was a long pause and I could hear her debating. Should she say it? Keep quiet? Was she pushing me away further, if she said what she really thought? ‘But I thought you were definite on not wanting them? Have you changed your mind?’
I stayed silent, furious, on the other end of the phone. Because I knew what she was getting at.
‘You mean that you think Luke pushed me into it, right?’ I hissed. ‘Why are you always, always having a go at Luke?’
She was silent then, for a second.
‘Because I don’t think he’s kind to you and I don’t think he’s right for you,’ she said gently.
I put the phone down on her then, not for the first time. After that, I began to ignore most of her calls.
Then Luke and I started trying for a baby here, in this flat, where I now live alone, next to a happy couple and their happy life. And what do you know? They are trying for a baby, too. They live my old life and I live my new one.
Before my flat was empty, it was full. Before it was lifeless, we lived life, planned life, hoped, here, to make life. We cooked joints of beef, sent scents out into the hallway that said ‘We are here, we are popular, we are rich and full and greedy.’ We chose colours together, put up pictures. We put plants on the windowsills that are dead now, withered.
Whatever our imperfections were, whatever anyone else would have judged them as, I could live with them. They were worth it for what was presented to the outside world. For my value, when I came in this package. Isn’t that what matters now, anyway? Behind closed doors can be flawed, as long as Facebook says joy.
Luke and I planned to turn one of the rooms in our flat into a nursery, as Lexie and Tom will soon. Luke presumed I would give up work and I presumed that I would do whatever he wanted, so we left it there, even though the thought of not composing made me feel nauseous and unanchored.
Sometimes I thought of how much our children would miss out on in grandparents and my heart hurt. Luke wasn’t close to his family and, I had to admit to myself now, neither was I any more to mine.
Luke had no interest in trying to have a better relationship with my family – even when I had spoken to them more regularly, he would leave the room when they popped up on FaceTime – and Luke was the focus, so I created more space between us.
I didn’t think it mattered, anyway. Until I took a wrong turn and became one, we were two, set to become three, four, five … I pictured that ski trip. I had all I needed.
After Luke’s proposal, my confidence surged. I stopped doubting my worthiness with Luke quite so much and work was soaring. I started speaking up. Questioning. The difference was noticeable. Luke started to comment on it, called me ‘arrogant’, ‘difficult’.
In December, we landed back from a trip to the German Christmas markets and headed straight out to West London for tapas with some friends of his. I complained. I was tired, cold, lugging a giant bag and I wanted it to just be us. Us was always enough for me. Simpler, easier, less likely to end in a row.
‘Why do we have to be with other people all the time?’ I sulked on the Stansted Express – exhausted enough not to edit my thoughts before they became words.
‘Because friends are important, Harriet,’ he said lightly, typing a long message that was hidden from my view. ‘One day you should get some and see.’
He spent the rest of the journey on his phone. I spent it staring at him, nervous. It’s just because we’re tired, I thought. Don’t panic.
I sat through dinner with one foot mentally wedged in the door of the train home. I smiled politely through a chorus of Happy Birthday.
