Chapter 4
4
Zoe Marshal glanced up over the top of her face mask at the Intensive Care Unit nurse who had just arrived at the patient’s bedside to take her place and allow her to go on a long-overdue break.
‘Sorry you’ve had to hang on… it’s been chaos all morning,’ her colleague apologised.
‘I know, not your fault,’ Zoe replied. ‘But, oh my God, I am prepared to literally kill and step over the bodies for coffee if I have to.’
The two colleagues spent several moments handing over and making sure the patient’s notes were right up to date, then Zoe got up and headed for the exit of the critical care ward. Out in the corridor, she lowered her mask, freed her hair from the surgical cap, untied her plastic apron and ran her hands over her tired face and her obvious pregnancy bump.
‘Hello, baby girl,’ she murmured as her hands went over the blue scrubs material at the side of her belly. ‘Let’s go and get ourselves some water, a sandwich and a big, milky cappuccino. Then let’s try and get Daddy on the phone, hmmm?’
After washing her hands and face, and re-tying her long, dark ponytail with the help of the bathroom mirror, Zoe made her way to one of the hospital’s cafés. Once her sandwich, banana and coffee had been purchased, she settled down at a table and prepared to call Rafi.
As he worked from his tiny flat as a cyber security expert, it was usually easy enough to get hold of him on her breaks, unless he was in a meeting or caught up with some particularly tricky task. She looked at her phone… nearly noon. She’d been sitting at Mr Williamson’s bedside monitoring his care for nearly five hours straight without a break. No wonder she felt tired.
Hitting Rafi’s number, she could feel the twinge of tension in her system. Surely by now, twelve o’clock, he would have done what he’d said he would?
She listened to the dial tone for just a few moments before she heard his voice.
‘Hey, Zoe, how are you doing?’
‘Hi, babe, not too bad,’ she replied. ‘Long morning, but that’s nothing new. We’re hanging in there.’
‘I hope you’re looking after yourself?—’
‘Of course I am,’ she assured him. ‘We’ll power on through the next few weeks and then I’ll be on a lovely, long leave. I’m so looking forward to it.’
‘Yeah.’
In just that one word, she heard the kindness, the warmth, in his voice and knew she loved him. It was so exciting to be planning a baby with him… and planning a new home together, the three of them. Please…
Pause.
She waited.
Maybe he could go first. Maybe he could tell her that he’d spoken to the estate agent this morning and the flat was going to be theirs. Maybe he’d even have a provisional moving-in date… Could it even possibly be before the baby’s due date?
She let the pause go on for as long as she could stand, then had to break it with a questioning: ‘So…?’
Silence.
‘So, have you been in touch with the estate agent?’ she asked. ‘Have you put our offer in?’
Zoe could feel herself holding her breath as she waited for Rafi’s answer. She pictured him sitting at his desk with those enormous screens in front of him, his huge headphones over his ears and those impossibly long eye lashes brushing against the deep olive skin of his face. She found herself thinking about how beautiful their daughter would be, raven-haired like both her parents with skin somewhere between Zoe’s light olive and Rafi’s much deeper tones. What colour would her eyes turn? Deepest brown like her father’s or with some of the mossy green flecks that Zoe saw in her own hazel irises?
‘Zoe…’ Rafi began. ‘I just… I realised that I don’t like it enough.’
Her heart dropped and she waited for the list of niggles to begin.
‘It’s a twenty-minute walk to the Tube,’ he went on, ‘and a thirty-minute walk to the park. The second bedroom is very small and I’m going to have to fit my desk and all my work stuff in there… and where will that go when our daughter needs her own room? The living room is open to the kitchen, so I can’t have my desk there. So, I just don’t think it’s right for us. We can’t rush into this. It’s a very big, very expensive decision.’
‘Jesus, Rafi…’ Zoe whispered. Her head was bent down low, so that no passing colleague could see that she was in danger of crying. Everyone at work knew her as strong, determined and completely capable. No one here needed to know that she couldn’t persuade her boyfriend to buy a home with her just three months from the imminent arrival of their baby.
‘This is the third time that you’ve changed your mind at the last minute,’ she rounded on him. ‘The third time! The first place was too close to the Tube station; the second place was too north-facing and gloomy. And I agree, yes, we ideally need three bedrooms, so you can have an office. But we can’t afford anything that isn’t in Outer Mongolia with three bedrooms, so we have to compromise.’ Angrily, she added, ‘My God, can’t you get that into your head?’
‘But we can’t be looking for another new place in two years’ time,’ he insisted. ‘There’s stamp duty, lawyer’s fees, moving costs – that would just be a huge amount of money wasted.’
‘Maybe you could go and work in your company’s office when our baby needs her own room,’ Zoe snapped. ‘Did you think of that?’
‘I work very long hours and so do you. Me doing a long commute to the office and back isn’t any help to us,’ he replied. ‘Working from home is the best option.’
Plus, she knew it was what he preferred. Rafi was quiet, happiest in his own space, and almost painfully shy. If they hadn’t been the first people on the scene when a cyclist was knocked from his bike two years ago, she had no idea how she might ever have met him. He rarely went out, had only a couple of close male friends, and few interests outside his work. But none of this detracted from him being the kindest, most interesting, most handsome man she’d ever met. She really did love him. Even if they were the proverbial opposites who attract. At work, she was surrounded by far too many of those arrogant, alpha-type pricks, and Rafi was the perfect, completely refreshing antidote to all that.
But they needed to move. There was a healthy deposit stacked in both their bank accounts, ready and waiting. There was a budding baby, who would be here by the end of August, and she had to have a home for their little family, or she was going to… explode!
She was desperate to be that heavily pregnant lady picking out paint colours, assembling a cot, buying her very own pots, pans and crockery. She’d spent almost ten years moving from student rentals to shabby flat shares, and she was done. She would honestly settle for somewhere in Outer Mongolia if that was what was required. Outer Mongolia was probably a lovely country, much maligned.
‘Are you sure it’s the flat?’ she asked him now. ‘Are you sure it’s because this flat isn’t right and the other ones weren’t right either?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘Well, here we are with you backing out at the last minute again. Maybe you don’t want to move. Maybe you don’t want to live with me and our daughter.’
She took a steadying breath in and out as she listened to him protest that this wasn’t the case at all.
As calmly as she could, she added, ‘If you don’t want to be a dad, if you’re thinking about breaking up with me and getting out of all this, I need to know now, OK? Not when our girl is one month old or six months old. You just tell me right now, so that I can buy my own place and get on with my life. OK?’
‘Zoe! Please don’t say that!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s not that. Of course it’s not that! I just don’t want to buy this flat. That’s all. I’ve been on the website and I’ve booked us a viewing for the weekend. It’s really promising, only ten minutes from the Tube…’
The Tube he didn’t even want to take to work. Why was this such a big deal for him? She wiped at the tear that had slipped down on to her cheek. She just didn’t want to do this any more, spend the weekends trudging through unfamiliar streets, peering at other people’s decorating mistakes and untidy belongings, and all the time wishing and wishing that housing in London was much cheaper and they could afford the place with three bedrooms and a garden that they really needed. The kind of home that you would want to bring a baby into. Instead, everything was a bloody compromise. That was the truth. And this flat had been fine, honestly, she would have made it lovely for them all. So why was he being so bloody stubborn and so bloody reluctant?
He doesn’t want to live with us… the voice in her head kept insisting. He’s thirty-four, he’s been on his own too long.
Even now, they planned their time together and apart every week, according to her work rota. Usually, she spent two or three nights in his cramped, one-bedroomed place and he only came to her busy flat-share for one night. Three nights a week, they were apart.
‘I’m working really late and you need your sleep,’ was his standard reason. But maybe he just couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t have his own space, and his own time to himself. What kind of father would that make him? Maybe you’re better off on your own… You could find someone else, in time, her inner voice suggested. But this just prompted further tears to slip down her face.
‘Rafi, living together is going to be fine,’ she said. ‘We’ll make it work. We’ll enjoy it.’
‘I know! Of course it is,’ he insisted. ‘But we need to find the right place – a good place.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Are you totally sure that’s what you want?’
‘Yes, Zoe, it is,’ he insisted.
But somehow, she just couldn’t trust herself to fully believe him right now. She was tired of looking. And she was so tired of men who told you one thing, what you wanted to hear, when all the time they meant something else quite different. Right up until today, she’d believed that Rafi was not one of those guys, but now she couldn’t be sure.
‘OK, OK,’ she conceded. ‘Send me the link to this place we’re going to visit. And I’ll look on the websites for anything else that looks promising. But, damn, Rafi, I really liked this flat. And next time, we have to go through with it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We will find somewhere just right.’
She gave a long, exasperated sigh.
‘And what about my dad’s wedding?’ she remembered. ‘I have to reply to them. The sixteenth of July, remember? Are you going to come? Have you booked the time off? I need to get our flights sorted.’
‘Um… yeah… thanks for the reminder. I’ll find out about time off…’
‘You’ll need to take the Thursday and the Friday before. Dad’s got some events and a big family dinner planned for Friday. He’s really looking forward to meeting you,’ Zoe added. ‘So, you are going to come?’ she asked again.
‘Yeah… of course, if I can get the time off.’
‘Can you let me know by the weekend?’
Rafi’s ‘Yeah… sure…’ in response to this was far too vague for her liking.
Once again, she wondered if he was just telling her what she wanted to hear.