Chapter Three #3
She’d missed him.
Missed them.
Oh, Houston, Rachel thought, we have a problem!
* * *
Rachel let herself into her flat and with a sigh of relief closed the door on a wretched day.
Gordon had texted to say he’d be late and it had come as a relief.
Should she tell him that Dominic was working at The Primary?
Of course she should.
It was no big deal.
She took off her coat and kicked off her shoes, but instead of putting them away, instead of flicking on the kettle or turning her mind to dinner, she padded through to the bedroom and closed the curtains. Half an hour of sleep might get rid of the headache that had been building all day.
Or rather, the heartache. The ache of the scar tissue wrapped around a heart that had had to learn to beat again.
She had deeply mourned both the end of her marriage and the death of their son, and for a long time her grief had felt insurmountable.
And now, on this particular evening, Rachel stared at the wall and watched her own private screening of the best and worst times in her life.
There she was at the start of their short marriage, standing on the gorgeous staircase in Sheffield Town Hall, so happy to be Dominic’s wife.
So very, incredibly happy.
She’d worn an ochre dress, and there had been just the hint of her bump, but it was her smile that stood out, and it had been captured in a photo.
But then she’d turned to her new husband and seen his smile, and she had known he was faking it—or at the very least not as delirious with joy as she was on their wedding day.
Of course they’d made love on their wedding night. After all, they were very good at that. But despite the ring on her finger, despite the baby inside her and despite the passion between them, for Rachel there had been something missing.
She’d waited for those words as she’d lain there in the dark, needing to be told by her husband that he loved her.
Those words had never come.
It hadn’t been her imagination, and it hadn’t been her making a big deal of things. She’d known that Dominic didn’t love her the way she loved him.
But love would grow, she had told herself.
Once the baby had arrived, once they’d got on top of things, his feelings would deepen and change.
And so, knowing that he didn’t quite love her, Rachel had chosen not to tell him that she loved him.
Ever so, ever so much.
As their school pals had all headed off to university, or for a gap year trekking in Nepal or building houses in Africa, Dominic had taken the job in her father’s removals business and together the two of them had attempted to make a home in a flat above a shop.
Rachel had got a job in a hairdresser’s, washing hair, sweeping, tidying and making drinks, and Dominic had taken an extra job in a local bar in the evenings.
They had lived for a while in that little idyll, working hard, saving hard for the baby.
And, as Dominic had often said, sex didn’t cost a thing...
Until one sleepy morning, a couple of weeks before her due date, his hand had come to rest on her stomach, waiting for a little kick before he headed to work.
Waiting...
‘He’s still asleep,’ Dominic had said.
They’d already found out they were having a boy.
‘Did he kick last night?’ Rachel had turned and rolled onto her back. ‘Dominic, I can’t remember if he kicked.’
‘Of course he did,’ Dominic had soothed.
She’d moved her hand to her stomach and pushed her fingers down...waiting.
Waiting...
Forever waiting...
The labour had been horrific.
Even now, thirteen years on, Rachel was unable to relive it. So she pressed fast forward on that part—and fast forward on the funeral as well—to the time they had gone back to their little flat.
Except they hadn’t known how to be with each other—how to touch, how to sit, how to sleep, how to speak after all that.
To be fair, Dominic had tried.
‘If you want me to stay home I can ask your dad if I can take a few more days,’ he had said, when his alarm clock had gone off two weeks after their loss.
A few more days?
The little Moses basket had been returned, as well as all the baby clothes, and the bags of nappies had been donated, but she’d kept a little pair of socks.
Her dad had paid for the funeral, but Dominic had insisted it was a loan. He’d loathed—loathed—the fact that he hadn’t had the money to bury his son, and he wanted to work to pay every penny of it back.
‘Go to work,’ she’d mumbled, and turned away from him.
Go to work so I can close my eyes on this nightmare, she’d been thinking.
But Dominic had wanted to talk.
‘A book I was reading last night says that you’ll want to speak about him...that we should talk about the baby—’
‘His name’s Christopher!’ she’d snapped, and looked into bemused brown eyes that were looking at her as if she were a stranger.
‘Talk to me,’ Dominic had said. ‘Tell me how you’re feeling.’
As if everyone I love leaves. My mum. My baby.
And soon you will leave me too, and I can’t bear it.
I cannot bear the thought of it all being over.
I know you were only with me because of the baby.
Christopher. If he’d lived... But I can’t go there, because he didn’t.
I lost our baby and now I’m going to lose you.
I’m losing you already, and we both know it. ..
She’d felt as if her grief were too big to traverse, and she had not known how to share her pain nor voice her fears. She’d been told so many times that her tears and her drama only made things worse.
‘Go to work,’ she’d said again, and rolled away from him.
And so life had hurtled on, when she’d wished it might stop for a while and let her grieve for her terrible loss.
‘Come on now, lass,’ her dad had said when he’d come to visit them in their little flat and Rachel hadn’t been able to face getting out of bed.
‘I know it’s difficult, but lying in bed and mooching around the flat is getting you nowhere.
When your mum died I had to get back to work, and to tell the truth, it helped. ’
Instead of sympathy cards thudding through the door, it had soon been bills, and even Dominic, with his mathematical brain, had struggled to make sense of them.
Water bills.
Gas bills.
Final reminder notices.
At the six-week follow-up appointment with her obstetrician, Rachel had been told there was nothing she could have done differently to change the outcome.
‘Can we try again?’ she had asked the doctor, because her arms had ached for her baby. Ached to hold her tiny boy, with his little pinched face and slender hands.
She’d turned when she’d heard Dominic’s sharp intake of breath and had seen his eyes shutter in his shell-shocked face as the doctor had told them that while there was nothing to suggest it would happen again, she would be monitored very closely next time.
They had walked past the other mothers at their postnatal check-ups, with their carry slings and prams and the wah-wah-wah noise of newborns crying, and Rachel and Dominic had each been in separate versions of silence.
Rachel, bereft.
Dominic, stunned.
It had been Dominic who had broken the silence as they’d walked through the park. ‘What did you mean, try again?’
She hadn’t been able to answer, so Dominic had answered for her.
‘Rachel, we are not trying for another baby. I’m going to university next year.’
She had heard the determination in his voice, as if there was no other option to consider.
He was already thinking of the future.
One she didn’t want to see.
‘In London?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Dominic said calmly.
‘We can’t afford London—we’re barely getting by here.’
‘I’ve already got a place.’
‘So I’ve got to follow you wherever you go?’
‘Not if you don’t want to,’ Dominic had said. Then, ‘Jesus, Rachel, that pregnancy just about finished you, and seeing you—’ Dominic had halted. ‘Seeing him...’ His lips had turned white and he’d swallowed hard.
It had incensed her that he still couldn’t bring himself to say their son’s name. ‘His name’s Christopher!’
‘I know his name, Rachel!’
For the first time ever Dominic had shouted, but then he’d reined it in and taken her cold hands in his.
‘I know I should have taken better care... I should never have got you pregnant. Look, I’ve done everything I can to make it right, but.
..’ He’d shaken his head. ‘I’m never putting you through that again.
I’m never putting myself through that again.
There isn’t going to be another baby.’ He’d paused and shaken his head again. ‘Ever.’
Back at their little flat, Rachel had gone to bed.
Lying on her side in the darkened room, she’d pretended to be asleep when he’d come to check on her.
And there she had lain, hearing the doorbell and then the arrival—for the first time—of his parents at their flat, as well as the conversation that had ensued.
‘You can put all this behind you,’ Professor Hadley had said.
‘Can you please keep your voice down?’ Dominic had asked. ‘Rachel’s asleep.’
‘Is she still not working?’
‘She’s just lost a baby!’
There had been more muffled words and then his dad’s voice had cut through the gloom.
‘You used to have a future. As far as I can see, the only thing she’s doing is bringing you down. It’s time to put this mess behind you and pick up your life where you left off.’
As harsh as Professor Hadley’s words were, it had been nothing Rachel hadn’t been thinking herself. Dominic seemed fine, while her whole world had crumbled.
They’d limped on for a couple more months, until finally Dominic had sat down on the edge of the bed she’d barely got out of in those days.
‘Listen,’ he’d said, and taken her hand. ‘What if I ask your dad if we can move in with him for a few months? I can work like crazy and we can get ahead—and you can take some time and focus on retaking your exams.’
She’d looked up at him, up to the dark of his eyes, and then down to the mouth that had never once said the words she’d needed to hear.
‘Or I could move in with my dad.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Dominic, why did you marry me?’
‘Rachel—’
‘Why?’
The silence was endless. ‘What do you want me to say here, Rachel? I’m trying to do the best I can.’
‘But why did you marry me?’
‘Because you were pregnant—because it was the right thing to do...’
She’d known all along that Dominic had only married her because of the baby. And now that there wasn’t one...
Rachel had removed her hand from his and then she had removed herself from his life.
Mourning both her marriage and her baby had been a mountain it had taken years to climb. Her long-time dream of being a midwife had evaporated, and she’d simply not known who she was any more.
She’d moved back to her dad’s, returned to work at the hairdresser’s—this time as an apprentice.
There she’d made friends, and later she’d moved out of her dad’s. She had finally rediscovered what it meant to have dreams, to want something in the future. But she no longer wanted to be a midwife, so she had applied to study nursing and had fallen in love with Emergency.
It had taken years, but piece by piece she had built a new life.
A good life.
A nice life.
And yet it didn’t hold a candle to the bliss she had once known.
The good times with Dominic had been the very best of times, Rachel thought now, as she lay there, recalling the utter joy of lying in his arms, the sheer heady pleasure of their lovemaking. But it hadn’t all been sex.
She had never been happier than when they’d scored a lunch break together and would sit in a café or bar, holding hands.
Or when they sat at their little kitchen table and he tested her for when she’d retake her exams. When she’d cut his hair.
When they’d stood in their little living room, Dominic tall, her massive with her baby bump, and danced and laughed and danced. ..
She’d never been so happy in all her life.
And later, as she scraped the remains of her lunch from the sandwich box into the little compost bin that they kept under the sink, Rachel herself loathed the analogy, even if it smacked of the truth:
She and Gordon were frittata.