July
Noah was locking the door when my phone started vibrating and the number of the clinic flashed up on the screen.
‘A bit late, isn’t it?’ he asked, when I told him who it was. ‘Why don’t you ring back in the morning when it’s more convenient.’
‘No, I should take it.’
‘We haven’t got long as it is,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘They have to be at the restaurant in forty-five minutes.’
‘You go ahead,’ I said, nodding in encouragement as I fished my own set of keys out of my pocket and fumbled with the lock. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
‘OK, but—’
‘Hello, Doctor Day?’
I turned around to mouth an apology to Noah, but he was walking away.
Doctor Day said that, since my fertility was as expected for a woman of my age, I should be able to get away with just the one cycle of egg freezing.
I stiffened at his choice of ‘get away with’, as though I’d lucked out in this certain situation.
He told me I would need to drop by the clinic to pick up some more paperwork and the injection packs, and after some to-ing and fro-ing we settled on first thing the following Wednesday.
After I hung up, I sat on the stairs and added the appointment to my calendar, with a notification set for an hour before.
Then I switched to Safari and started skipping through my open tabs, searching for something I’d read about whether you should try to avoid consuming alcohol beforehand.
When I couldn’t find it, I started googling, my heart rate quickening, and before I knew it, I was poring over an endless stream of posts in an unregulated fertility forum.
There was advice on what to do, and what not to do.
Herbal tea suggestions. Supplements. Intimate images.
The telephone numbers of acupuncturists and masseuses.
I’m not sure how it happened – it felt like no time at all had passed – but the next thing I heard was a key turning in the lock.
‘Cathy?’
Noah’s voice reached me before he did.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, shutting off my phone and coming to stand.
‘What happened?’
‘I wanted to check if it was OK for me to drink in the run-up – it turns out it is, which is good – but I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole before I found the answer.’ I tried to make light of the situation, adding, with a smile, ‘Now I know why people recommend avoiding these crazy online message boards.’
His own mouth was fixed in a straight line. ‘Is this how it’s going to be from now on?’
I felt my smile slip and made a concerted effort to keep hold of it. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You do your thing, I do mine?’
‘That’s not fair.’
He dragged a palm wearily across his face.
‘I said I was sorry, Noah.’
‘I know you did.’
‘So, what else is there to say?’
He took a moment, and then he asked, ‘Is this you checking out?’
‘Of course not.’ I reached for his hand, and he let me.
‘We want different things, Cathy.’
‘No, we don’t – that’s not what’s happening.’ I wanted to be firm, but my voice was wavering.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘We’ve talked about this. We’re going to be OK.’
He shook his head and smiled, a sad smile. ‘How can we be, when we’re aware that, whichever way this goes, one of us will have to take something away from the other?’
I didn’t answer – I couldn’t – and I forgot we were still holding hands until he gave mine a squeeze and let go. He walked past me and up the stairs. I stayed where I was, my ears ringing in the silence.
After a few minutes, there was a rustle of papers. I, too, went upstairs and found him at his desk doing some marking. I propped up my pillows, sat on the bed and caught up on my emails. Because what else?
There was one from my mother, sharing the latest news about the offshore windfarm – to her dismay, it had all gone quiet since the proposal – and mentioning the hotel that Noah and I had bought her the voucher for. She suggested some dates for our mother-daughter night away.
I looked on the website and saw that it was already fully booked over the summer.
There was, however, a double room available at the weekend, and a last-minute deal.
I hadn’t seen her since her birthday, and I wasn’t sure how I would feel when I started injecting.
I looked up at Noah, sitting very upright, red pen poised.
‘Would you be OK with me and Mum doing the hotel thing this Saturday?’
I could sense him closing his eyes, taking a breath. With his shoulders raised, he said, ‘I think that’s a good idea.’
The following morning, on the towpath, my legs were moving more quickly than usual.
It was light out, the sky tinted yellow and blue.
The overhead lights in the offices of start-ups and tech companies that should know better had been left on overnight.
As lamps on bedside tables began to flicker on in flats, I caught glimpses of human silhouettes lumbering from bedrooms to bathrooms – full bladders, furry breath.
I ran my tongue over my teeth, which I would brush after showering.
I tried to focus on my feet : left, right, left, right.
I curved around the bend and continued beneath the bridge, its dark and abrasive stone softened by brightly coloured bubble writing and other more graphic graffiti.
When I emerged, one foot – I don’t know which one – slipped.
In a moment I was a child again, falling over in the school playground.
Stinging palms as my hands went splat on the rough concrete, a bloody patch on each knee.
Another runner passed by without offering to help, glancing at his watch, evidently intent on keeping up the pace.
I came to standing, shakily, and tried to keep going.
That’s when my ankle started throbbing. Sluggishly, I hobbled home.
When I eventually arrived, I noticed that Noah’s keys were missing from the small brass hook by the door.
He’d either skipped breakfast or eaten without me.
The throbbing had morphed into a slight ache by the time I got off the train at Bury St Edmunds.
It was bright out, and I brought my hand to my forehead as I scanned the car park.
I quickly spotted my parents’ old Volvo, straddling one-and-a-bit spaces.
As I walked towards it, I tried to smooth down the back of my dress, which had stuck to my bare legs in the stuffy and surprisingly crowded carriage.
Before I’d even reached the door, I could hear the dulcet tones of Radio 4.
I didn’t want to make my mother jump, so rather than opening it or even tapping on the window, I walked around the bonnet and waved at her through the windscreen.
To no avail. Her eyes were closed, her mouth hanging open like it had got caught on the end of a fishing line.
She used to arrive at least half an hour early to collect me whenever I took the train home from university, and on the rare occasions that I’d been abroad with friends, she would get to the airport even earlier, repeating her refrain about how you could never trust the traffic.
I smiled. She clearly hadn’t kicked the habit.
When the sun started to beat down on my forehead, I resorted to letting myself in. Unlike me, my mother is a heavy sleeper, and it wasn’t until I nudged her shoulder that she slowly blinked her eyes open.
‘Darling, you’re here.’
‘I am, and so are you.’
We hugged – somewhat awkwardly, since she was safely buckled in.
‘Did you have an OK drive?’ I asked.
‘I did, thank you. Was everything all right with the train?’
‘Yes,’ I told her, passing my weekend bag between us and onto the back seat, ‘everything was fine.’
The radio was still on, and I asked if she would mind if I turned it down a bit.
‘Oh, now you’re here we can switch it off.’ She pressed the power button as I slipped on my own seatbelt. ‘So,’ she said, ‘do you know where we’re going?’
‘I do,’ I replied, bringing up the directions on my phone. ‘It’s just a fifteen-minute drive from here.’
‘Lovely,’ she said, turning on the engine and moving her hands to the correct position on the wheel. She looked at me expectantly.
‘So, Mum, first we need to leave the car park.’
She rolled her eyes with such gusto that I couldn’t help but laugh, and as she took the handbrake off, she started laughing too.
I’d warned my mother that we would be sharing a bed beforehand, but still she seemed surprised when we walked into our room and were faced with a double.
‘At least it’s a big double,’ I said, cheerily, ‘a king, I’m sure.’ I dropped my bag on the floor and hopped on, demonstrating to her how little space I would take up, and adding that we could even build a display-cushion wall if that was what she wanted.
‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic,’ she said, as I got to work on construction.
She walked towards the tray of teas and coffees and lifted the lid of a small silver tin, gasping with delight at the freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies inside.
Offering one to me and then, when I declined, shrugging her shoulders and taking a bite out of it herself, she settled into one of two low-slung armchairs and put her feet up on a leather pouffe. ‘Aren’t we lucky?’ she asked, nibbling.
The room was light and airy, with a pitched ceiling and exposed wooden beams. The headboard of the bed was upholstered in green velvet, and the wall behind was covered with wallpaper in a botanical print.
The other walls were white and hung with abstract art.
On each bedside table was an olive-green Anglepoise, hunched over like it had been tapping at a laptop too long.
I slipped off the bed and inspected the bathroom, which centred on a free-standing tub and had a little basket of mini shampoos, conditioners and body lotions that we would squirrel away into our washbags before leaving.
Above the sink was a big mirror in a gold frame.