Chapter 21
Rachel
‘I’m not being funny, but when did we start hanging out in churches?’
It’s a humid evening, a couple of nights after our birthday. When I left the office earlier, I saw my two best friends standing at the bottom of the steps outside.
‘We’re staging an intervention,’ Ingrid said.
‘Into what?’
She slipped an arm into mine. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Polly’s idea,’ Ingrid says now, tipping her head back against the pew we’re sitting in, seemingly to examine the stony skeleton of the ceiling.
‘Don’t knock it,’ Polly says. ‘Churches are usually empty, they’re always open, and there’s rarely a chance of anyone earwigging.’
‘Except God, obviously,’ says Ingrid, with mock solemnity.
Polly shrugs. ‘I come and sit in here sometimes, just to get five minutes to myself.’
‘To be fair, if nothing else, it’s free air-con.’ Ingrid sheds her jacket, lets out a serene breath.
‘Well, thanks for your concern, but it hasn’t come to this.’
She shoots me a look, slides a quarter-bottle of vodka from her pocket. ‘You sure about that?’
I stare at her. ‘Isn’t it illegal to drink in churches?’
‘No,’ Polly says mildly. ‘Just a tiny bit disrespectful.’
‘It’s been a long day,’ Ingrid says. ‘Plus, Polly diverted me en route to the pub.’
I hold out my hand. ‘Fine. Just say what you’ve brought me here to say.’
She passes me the bottle. ‘Actually, we brought you here so you could do the talking.’
By her side, Polly nods in agreement.
I told them straight away that Josh had taken the pill, mere hours after he confessed. I turned up on Ingrid’s doorstep and she knew without having to ask what he had done. And we’ve been muddling through the fallout together ever since.
I take a swig of vodka, enjoy the burn. ‘I feel stupid,’ I confess, after a moment or two. ‘Like, maybe it should have been obvious this whole time that Josh wasn’t really going to die, just because all his relatives did.’
‘That’s hindsight bias talking,’ says Ingrid.
‘Sorry?’
‘As in, you think now that you knew all along. But you’d only considered it. You didn’t actually know.’
‘We were staring at the clock for the whole of your birthday,’ Polly says. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.’
Somewhere inside, I feel a tiny clutch of vindication. But with it comes a fierce wash of sadness.
At the end of the nave, evening sunlight is streaming through stained glass, spilling rainbows over the stone.
‘I keep thinking. About being an old lady, and Josh still being in his twenties.’
Ingrid smiles faintly. ‘At least you’ll get kudos in the old people’s home.’
‘Go me.’ A beat. ‘Long-term . . . do you think we can really work?’
‘Anything can work, in theory. Look at Rupert Murdoch.’
‘What about him?’
Ingrid shrugs, takes a sip of vodka. ‘Doesn’t he have nearly forty years on his wife?’
I sling my head back and stare up at the arched ceiling, at the lines of medieval bosses marking the passing centuries. ‘Oh, you’re right. Well, I’ll just model myself on him, then, shall I?’
‘I mean, you’ll kind of have to,’ Polly says tenderly. ‘If you want to get past this.’
Later, back at Polly’s, I ask if I can go up and see the kids, who are all in bed.
Blake, Polly’s youngest, is sprawled across his mattress, limbs everywhere, mouth hanging open.
I wonder what he is dreaming about. On the balance of probability I’d guess Manchester United.
His nightlit room is a shrine to his favourite team, a scarlet blaze of posters and autographed photos, soft furnishings, scarves, signed shirts.
Blake adores Josh, confides in him about all sorts. They always have their heads together if they’re in the same room, and Blake will usually kick off whenever Josh has to leave.
I sit cross-legged on the carpet, draw a breath. My dad told me once that he used to do this, after my mother left – just sit on my bedroom floor and watch me sleeping.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Just to check you were still there,’ he said.
At my back, the floorboards creak. Polly squats down and envelops me in a hug. Warm and soft, a cloak of Chanel No. 5. Ingrid is right behind her.
‘I want all this so much,’ I whisper.
Polly rests her chin on my shoulder, hugs me harder. ‘You can still have it. Please don’t give up.’
‘But I can’t have kids with Josh unless I know the pill was a dud.’ And waiting to be certain will mean another whole decade, possibly longer, of living in limbo.
Perhaps, in itself, that isn’t insurmountable. But the part of me that’s begun to pull away from Josh – instinct, or is it something stronger? – feels as if it’s here to stay.
‘So you wait – what? – ten years,’ Polly suggests gently. ‘Plenty of people have kids in their forties.’
‘But it’s a massive gamble, to put it off that long. By the time we know for sure . . . it might be too late.’
‘You could do it alone,’ Ingrid says.
Polly and I turn to look at her.
She shrugs. ‘You don’t need an actual partner to have a baby, do you? I’ve been wanting to remind you of that for ages, but now I’m wondering if it might not actually have occurred to you.’
And maybe this is the moment when clarity finally blows through me, sharp as a winter wind.
I want more than anything to have a family, however that comes into being. But my vision of parenting with Josh has been irreversibly altered by what he did. Our future feels murky and messed-up, like smears across a still-wet painting, the picture confusing now, all its colours strange and wrong.
And I am starting to realise that the longer I leave it to make this call, the harder it will become.
I look round at my friends, and shake my head, just once.
They do not need to ask.
Polly gasps, covering her mouth with one hand. ‘Rach. Really?’
‘Shit,’ Ingrid breathes.