April #3
He waved with his twigs.
After we’d walked to Parliament Hill and looked out over the London skyline, the buildings sprouting from the streets like bulbs in earthy beds, we headed back to my bike.
I wheeled it along the side of the road while Anna pushed Theo beside me on the pavement, and we soon found a café, its window still decorated with blown eggs painted in pastel shades of rose and mint.
Inside, we took turns eyeing up the freshly baked goods lining the wooden counter, then both ordered the carrot cake.
As two generous slices arrived at our table, along with a murky juice for Anna and a cappuccino for me, I don’t know why, but I blurted out what had happened at dinner with Daniel and Griz.
As I laughingly told her about my meltdown, she eyed me suspiciously over her glass of what looked like pond water.
‘Does that mean you do want kids?’ she asked, fishing a cheese sandwich out of her bag and unpeeling the cling film.
It was already cut in half, but she broke each piece in half again, then passed a quarter to Theo, who gripped it and turned around to face a small dog whose owner was waiting for a coffee to go. ‘Cathy?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it obviously upset you, Noah saying kids still weren’t on the cards.’
I stabbed a hunk of sponge with my fork and shoved it into my mouth, wishing I hadn’t brought it up and hoping that chewing would save me from having to answer.
I pointed to my mouth and smiled, chewing slower, slower, slower …
until I had to swallow. It’s not like we hadn’t spoken about this before.
When Noah told Anna he didn’t want children.
When he told me the same thing shortly after we started dating.
Anna and I had talked at length about what it would mean for me to commit to never becoming a mother.
She’d urged me to consider it properly before agreeing to anything, and I’d reminded her that there was no contract involved and laughed as I’d used the words ‘legally binding’.
But that was years earlier. The subject hadn’t come up since our marriage – presumably because she’d accepted as given that we wouldn’t have children.
I looked up and saw that she was watching me.
‘Oh, it caught me off guard, that’s all. ’
She didn’t look away.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe you should talk to him, tell him how you’re feeling. Just because he wasn’t interested then—’
‘It’s not him,’ I said, bristling at the fact that she assumed it was Noah who steered our relationship. That I must be squashing my maternal wants and needs to keep him happy. The man of the house. ‘I mean, it is. But it’s me, too. Really, we’re fine.’
‘OK—’
‘We’re happy.’
‘If you’re sure.’
Sensing a lump form in my throat, I brought another forkful of sponge to my lips.
As I swallowed it down and licked at the icing sticking to the sides of my mouth, I tried to cling onto the feeling of fullness I’d had in Florence.
The feeling of us being complete. The feeling I’d had until my almost-missed period.
‘I’m sure,’ I said, smiling, though my mouth felt strange now, numb maybe, the way it does after the dentist has pumped it full of novocaine.
Thankful, at least, that I wasn’t drooling, I tried to change the subject : ‘Quite warm now, isn’t it? ’
Anna put her head in her hands.
‘What?’
‘Just tell me it’s not because of the pissing planet.’
When a mutual friend had got pregnant with her fourth child, I’d made a throwaway comment about the fact that she clearly wasn’t considering carbon emissions.
‘It’s not because of the planet,’ I said, laughing. ‘But really, would that be the worst reason? You know one child contributes sixty thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?’
‘Did you hear that, Theo?’
The first quarter of his sandwich had gone, I suspect to the small dog, which was wagging its stumpy tail, and now he was busy pulling the sliced cheese from the second quarter.
‘You better hold your breath, mister.’
‘Anna, that’s not what I mean!’
‘Quick, Theo, one final gulp!’
‘Anna!’
We both laughed.
‘I know that’s not it,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘Besides, I know you still get your takeaway coffee in a paper cup.’
‘Guilty.’
‘As long as you’re happy, that this is still what you want?’
I went to fill my mouth with cake again, but the plate was empty. When I reached for my cappuccino, she slid my mug away from me.
‘You know you’re allowed to change your mind, Cathy,’ she said. ‘We’re not getting any younger.’
This time I rolled my eyes like my teenage self would have done.
‘It’s true! I wish it wasn’t, trust me, but it is. You have to think about these things.’ She put her hand on mine and looked me in the eye. When I didn’t respond, she started telling me about a single friend of hers who had frozen her eggs just last week.
I wanted to slip my hand out from under hers and back onto my knee, or at least I thought I did. It didn’t budge. ‘But I’m not single,’ I said, quietly.
‘Well, maybe that’s even more of a reason. Just think about it, OK?’
I didn’t nod, exactly, but there was some sort of head movement.
‘Men can afford to hang around,’ she said. ‘We can’t.’
‘Gone!’ Theo held up two pieces of bread, robbed of their filling.
Noah was horizontal on the sofa when I got back to the flat.
He had his laptop balanced on his chest and was catching up on the football.
He calls himself a Tottenham fan, but I think his compulsion to watch every game is less about Spurs and more about his dad.
When Noah and Daniel were kids, he took them to the stadium twice a month to soak up the atmosphere of a live match.
When we met, Noah had all but stopped following it, then his dad died, and he started talking about his love of the game as if it had always been there.
‘Hello, you,’ he said, as I leant forward over the end of the sofa to give him an upside-down kiss. ‘Did you two have fun?’
‘Three.’
‘What?’
‘Us three,’ I said, smiling. ‘Theo was there.’
‘Of course, how could I forget the little man.’
‘Actually, I suppose it’s four – us four – with the baby.’
‘OK, let’s rewind.’ He rolled his shoulders back, wincing when one of them clicked. ‘Did you four have fun?’
‘Watch it, we don’t want you putting your back out now, do we?’ I laughed and so did he. ‘We did, thanks.’
I sat down in one of the two armchairs opposite and told him about the Heath, how beautiful and fresh it was looking.
He suggested we go back the following weekend if I didn’t mind a repeat visit.
Maybe Sunday afternoon? I said I would love to.
I told him about the coffee shop and how Anna was finding pregnancy harder the second time around.
‘I guess it’s worth it.’
Slowly, I felt the emotions I’d managed to quell since saying goodbye to Anna and Theo ripple inside me. ‘You think so?’
He laughed. ‘Of course.’
Before I had time to think, I’d asked, ‘So, having children is a good thing?’
‘What do you mean?’ The tone of my voice must have changed because, although he was still smiling, he was no longer laughing. This time, when he spoke, his eyes locked with mine, rather than flickering between them and his screen. ‘Cathy?’
I turned towards the window, trying to get a hold of myself, but it was too late, the emotions swelling.
‘I don’t know, what about us?’ When I turned back around, I noticed he’d stopped smiling now, too.
I kept talking. Uncontrollably. Like I’d pulled a plug out of a bath.
I tried to smile through it, to keep it light-hearted, even as I said, too soon, without considering whether it was what I really wanted, ‘What if we had a baby?’
Slowly, he moved his laptop from his chest to the coffee table, home to a tidy scattering of books. Then he swung his feet around and onto the floor. ‘Cathy—’
‘You love hanging out with Theo, and Lizzie and Nick and Allie.’ The words kept coming, tripping over one another in their haste, even as I tried to make them stop.
He stood up and walked towards me, reaching for my hand.
‘Why not, Noah?’ Without warning, my eyes had pooled with tears. ‘I’m sorry, I know why, I’m not even sure that I … I just …’
‘Hey.’ He wrapped his arms around me, firm and steady like the roots of a tree, and held me. For a minute or two, neither of us spoke. Then he asked : ‘How long have you been feeling like this?’
I felt a tear spill over a lower lid and dribble down my cheek. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m feeling.’
‘Is it because of Anna?’
I closed my eyes and breathed in his woody scent. I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t think it was, to tell him about the feelings and the memories that had resurfaced since my period was late. But something was holding me back, physically, pulling tight around my waist.
‘Cathy?’
I stopped struggling. ‘Maybe.’
He stroked my hair and kissed my lips.
‘I just wish people would stop asking us about it,’ I said, quietly, a ribbon of guilt twisting inside me. It wasn’t fair of me to put this on Caleb and Griz, on him.
‘I know,’ he said, still stroking. ‘I’m sorry.’
The ribbon twisted a little tighter. ‘Please don’t be sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘I know it’s not the same, me saying I don’t want children and you saying you don’t want children. It should be, but it’s not. And for that I’m sorry.’
He was right, of course. If a man doesn’t have a child, people don’t think of his life as incomplete. They don’t assume he’s harbouring some innate longing or talk of regret and back-up plans and a lack of meaning. His happiness isn’t bound up in family. There’s no social obligation.
‘Do you ever have moments of doubt?’ I asked, my breathing steady again. ‘Moments when you’re with Daniel and Griz and you wonder, even just for a moment, what it would feel like to be a parent?’
‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly.’
‘I don’t, Cathy. You’re all I need.’