Chapter 29
The following day, a guide turned up to take them on their trip. Many of Sam’s contemporaries were taking time off, since it was a national holiday, and they were all going on one-to-one guided tours. It sounded so luxurious, but Nancy soon found that despite the individual attention, the word ‘luxury’ had different connotations in Vietnam.
And thank goodness it did! She hadn’t wanted a five-star trip, Nancy thought, as the guide drove them to a small port where they were helped on to a boat with rickety cane seats for four people. She wanted to see the country as it really was, and this was exactly what they were doing.
‘Look!’ Sam pointed to another boat going past with a group of Vietnamese waving and smiling. ‘They’re coming back from the paddy fields after starting work at 3 a.m. And over there is a floating market.’
She gazed riveted at these boats, one of which actually had a television on board and a line of washing. The guide explained that the market was for local people rather than tourists. The floating shops sold essentials such as washing powder and oil.
‘Tonight,’ the guide announced, ‘we go to homestay.’
This, Sam explained, was a bed and breakfast run by a Vietnamese family from their house on the river. Nancy gasped when they arrived and clambered from the boat on to their landing stage. The house, painted a faded turquoise, was charmingly quaint, with a wooden verandah at the front and miniature wooden doves. A smiling Vietnamese woman met them, bowing and ushering them into a room with a row of beds like a dormitory, each one with a blue mosquito net.
‘Are we staying with other people?’ Nancy asked, and the guide laughed. ‘No, this is just for you. When you are ready, we eat.’
They dined on a sort of wooden deck, overlooking the river.
‘Look,’ instructed the guide excitedly, and suddenly the tree outside lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘Fireflies,’ he explained and sure enough, Nancy could see lots of little lights hovering and moving around.
Dinner was a stuffed fish standing upright, with carrots coming out of its mouth. Nancy didn’t feel keen, but took a mouthful so as not to offend their hosts. Delicious! Afterwards, they swayed in hammocks on the verandah. So strange, thought Nancy, before dropping off into a postprandial stupor. She missed Danny, yet because there wasn’t any mobile-phone reception she had stopped worrying so much about him, because there was nothing she could do if something had gone wrong.
Besides, she had a feeling that nothing would. The girls had been right when they’d said she needed to get away for a break. It put everything in perspective, somehow. And hadn’t they both promised to call in on her mother-in-law to check everything was all right? That night, after using the outdoor loo and shower, Nancy was astonished to find that her body did things with her husband that it hadn’t done since they had first met. She knew it sounded crazy, but her new hairdo had given her a confidence that she hadn’t had for years, if ever. Maybe, like her parenting psychology magazine said on its Relationships page, if you feel attractive, your partner will think so too.
‘That was amazing,’ gasped Sam. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
She waited for her heart to stop its post-coital thudding before replying. ‘And have you missed Danny too?’
There. She had said it. ‘Of course I have.’
His tone was hurt, reproachful. Suddenly all the warmth from their lovemaking drained away. But the new Nancy, with the hairstyle that made men turn their heads in the street – Sam had noticed that too – felt stronger and more certain of herself. She could hold her own in this conversation.
‘Then why don’t you talk about him?’
‘Why don’t you ?’
Their words were like bullets of anger under the blue mosquito net.
‘Because I was waiting for you to start, Sam.’
‘I didn’t mention him in case it upset you. I knew it took a lot to leave him.’
She was silent for a minute. ‘We’ve changed since we had Danny.’
In the half-light streaming through the shutters from the moon outside, she could see him nodding. ‘I know.’
‘You didn’t want a child. You said that at the beginning.’
He turned away from her. ‘What are you trying to say, Nancy?’
‘I feel that you put up with me and Danny and that you don’t love us any more, if indeed you ever really did. It’s not as though we had much time together before I got pregnant. My mother was right. It was too much, too soon.’
‘That’s not true,’ he said quietly, ‘but I did tell you right at the beginning that I didn’t want children. My parents split up, as you know.’ His voice faltered. ‘My mother once told me that if it hadn’t been for me, they might have been all right.’
She hadn’t known that before. ‘But that’s awful.’
‘Awful perhaps, but maybe also true.’
‘Danny and I need you.’ She was crying now. ‘Have you thought about the family who live here? They lead a simple life, but they’re happy. Everywhere, on the walls, are pictures of their children. The mother looks after her niece’s baby. They make the family work. They aren’t selfish.’
‘Selfish? Who’s being selfish?’
‘You are,’ she cried. ‘You just think about yourself all the time. You don’t get up in the night when our son wakes, although now he’s at pre-school he doesn’t do that any more. And you don’t understand that parenthood frightens me.’ She tried to control her sobs. ‘It scares me because, unlike my work, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m worried that if I do something wrong, Danny will get hurt. In fact one of the reasons I came out here is that I didn’t feel I was doing him any good by being there for him because I’m so neurotic.’
‘Ssh.’ Sam was soothing her. ‘You’re not neurotic. You just worry, that’s all. But neither of us is perfect.’ He hesitated fractionally. ‘Maybe I’ve been selfish, both as a father and a husband. But being out here has made me realise how much I love and miss you, Nancy. And Danny too, of course. Do you know why I asked you to come here?’
He paused, and Nancy’s heart beat so loudly she could almost hear it in her ears. Not an affair, she begged silently. Please, not an affair.
‘It was a test.’ He had turned back to face her now. ‘I’m not proud of myself but that’s how I saw it. I thought that if you really loved me, you would leave Danny just for a few days and spend some time with me instead.’
Her heart plummeted. Back home she had wondered if Sam had been using this trip as a test of her feelings for him, and now she knew it was true, she felt deeply disappointed.
‘How very childish of you,’ she said coolly.
‘I can see that now.’ Sam looked away. ‘But I can also see that you were much braver than I gave you credit for. Not every woman would come out here on her own and get down to basics, like this.’ He waved his hand round the room – it was still possible in the moonlight to see the small black insects crawling up the wooden walls. ‘It’s no five-star hotel, is it?’
That wasn’t the point. ‘It’s a family home, Sam. And that’s what makes it special. It’s full of love, with a husband and a wife working together instead of against each other, or setting silly tests. And have you seen how the father here spends so much time with his children?’
He had the grace to sound ashamed. ‘When we get back, I promise I’ll be more involved. It will be different.’ He stroked her arm.
‘Honestly?’ Should she now mention something else that had been on her mind? Not the thing about the girl in the photograph in his study, because, after all, the past was the past, and Sam had made it clear that he loved her. But the other thing. ‘Do you think … I mean … is there any chance of us having another child?’
She felt his stroking stop. ‘I’m not sure, Nancy. I wish I could say I’m ready, but I’m not. Can’t we just sort out this stage of our lives and enjoy the rest of this trip?’ It was a deal. The following few days were, thought Nancy, more like the honeymoon they’d never had. After going down the river, they ended up in a beautiful hotel bungalow overlooking the beach on an island. The first thing Nancy did was to make a call home from the hotel room, but the lines were down, the reception told her, due to a storm last week.
A few weeks ago, this would have sent her into a panic attack, but she was amazed to find herself receiving the news quite calmly. If something had happened, surely someone would have found a way to have got hold of her?
By the time it came to flying back from the island to Ho Chi Minh on the tiny sixteen-seater plane, she felt totally and utterly relaxed. Just as important, she and Sam had never felt closer.
‘Do you think he’ll like this?’ asked Sam, holding out a small football which he’d bought. Nancy nodded. ‘Definitely, although what he’d really like is you to play with him instead of putting up with me kicking a ball around the park.’
She gave him a tough look; a look which she wouldn’t have been strong enough to have given before. Sam smiled. ‘Point taken. I will spend more time with him, even if it means having extra time off work.’ He reached out for her hand. ‘I can’t wait to see him again and talk to him.’
She felt a tingle of anticipation. Soon they would be back in a city and communication would finally be possible. She couldn’t wait to hear her son’s voice, either.
Her mobile finally swung into action when they got off the plane at Ho Chi Minh, planning to get a taxi back to their apartment. Sam asked if he could speak first. It was a good sign.
Smiling, Nancy watched his face. ‘Mum, it’s me. Yes I know, our phones didn’t work but we’ve had a great time. How about … what?’
He turned to look at her with an expression that she’d never seen before. And as Nancy gazed at her husband’s stricken face, she realised that all her worst fears had finally come true.