October #3
‘Cathy, I’m sorry,’ she said, when we were alone in the hallway, a jumble of adults’ and children’s coats and shoes.
‘I was going to tell you, I just wanted to make sure it was the right time.’ She shook her head and looked down at her empty hands, muttering something that included the words ‘fucking’ and ‘Maz’.
‘Hey,’ I said, taking a breath, holding my hands to her cheeks, and lifting her face back up until her eyes met mine. ‘I’m happy for you.’
‘You are?’
I craned my neck as my eyes started to well and said they were tears of joy. ‘Of course I am,’ I said, smiling. ‘You’re my best friend, and you’re expecting a baby!’
Her own eyes started to glisten. ‘I want this to happen for you, you know, if that’s what you decide you want.’
I was laughing and crying now, and she was too. ‘I know that.’
‘So, you’re OK?’
‘More than. Please don’t worry about me.’
We wiped our eyes and laughed some more, then we hugged, and we were still hugging when we heard a shout from the living room.
Neither of us saw what happened, but Noah would fill me in later.
Apparently, one child had started throwing plastic balls at another, gently to begin with, then harder, and not just in the stomach but also the face.
The parent of the pummelled child had grabbed the other by the wrist and yanked him up and out of the pit.
At this point, Noah said, dramatically, everything went dark, and chaos descended.
‘Get your hands off my kid!’
‘What?’ Anna whipped around and so did I. ‘What’s going on?’
A child was crying and being scooped up by his father, who was shoving another man in the chest. I didn’t recognise either of them, but I had previously seen the woman who came to the affronted man’s defence, a little wobbly on her feet, empty champagne flute in hand.
‘Hey, cool it, guys, there are kids all around you.’ Caleb was by their sides in an instant and ushering them both towards the door. ‘I’m sure it was an accident.’
‘Caleb, mate, he shook him!’
‘I didn’t shake him ; I was just trying to stop him from hurting anyone.’
‘Well, why the fuck is he crying?’
Anna followed the three of them down the hall and into the kitchen, and I went to find Noah, who was hastily finishing his beer. ‘Time to go, perhaps?’ he suggested, placing the bottle on the side.
I glanced in Theo’s direction and saw that he was happily playing with Maz, who, like the other adults in the room, was trying to keep calm for the children while also peeping nervously at the door. The boy with the curly hair was back by the bowl of Hula Hoops, reloading his fingers.
‘Time to go,’ I said, deciding to message Anna a belated goodbye and thank you later. I felt myself relax as Noah put his arm around me and, together, we found our coats, opened the door and headed back down the stone steps.
We walked to the overground in silence, a comfortable silence, the kind you don’t feel the need to fill or pierce.
I thought of our flat and the quiet that awaited us there, too – the evening ahead of us, just us two.
A warmth spread through me and then it settled, in the way it does after a long, hot bath.
I looked out at the rooftops, red and grey against the dusky blue sky, and decided it was relief I was feeling.
No, more than relief – contentment. We’d left the party because we could.
In fact, we didn’t make it back to the flat until later that night. We left the party around six o’clock, and Noah told me we had a reservation in an hour.
‘Where?’ I asked, trying not to smile. I had a hunch, but I didn’t want to say in case I was wrong.
He wrapped his arm back around my shoulder, an extra layer, and whispered in my ear, his breath tickly and warm, ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
We got off the overground a few stops early, which threw me, but as we made our way through residential streets in the general direction of the restaurant we’d eaten at on our wedding day I felt my feet glide faster over the pavement.
Noah steadied the pace and started asking me to pick out the house I would like to live in one day, a game we used to play when we first started dating.
I waited until we hit the quiet road that swept gently uphill between two busier roads and pointed out my favourite not only in the neighbourhood but in the whole of London : a home in the city that looks like it belongs in the countryside, set back behind a well-tended hedge, with a berry-coloured door framed by potted plants.
I couldn’t help but smile when we reached the stretch between the town hall and the restaurant.
He clumsily cleared his throat, trying not to smile himself. ‘So, any ideas?’
‘No, none.’ I looked up at him and felt my face crease.
He started to tap his fingers on my shoulder, a drumroll, as we approached. When we got to the door, he turned to me and asked, sincerely, ‘Are you happy with this, really?’
I leant in and up and kissed him. ‘I couldn’t be happier.’ I meant it, I felt it.
He held the door ajar, and the red-headed woman who’d worked on front of house since the restaurant first opened greeted us warmly. ‘Well, you two certainly have a lot in common, don’t you?’
Noah turned to me again, this time with one eyebrow raised in question.
‘Shall I tell him, or do you want to?’ she asked me, noticing my smile.
I paused, wanting the moment to last, then I said to Noah, ‘I also booked us a table.’
I’d started running again when Noah went away, and as soon as I had I’d remembered all the reasons why I liked it.
It made me feel like life was moving forward – as my feet pounded the pavement, I could trick myself into believing that I was progressing.
Of course, all I was really doing was jogging in a vague loop, along the canal and back again, which was neither progression nor regression, but simply a sort of stasis.
The morning after our anniversary dinner, I caught the eye of another woman jogging in the opposite direction, and the two of us exchanged sympathetic smiles. Perhaps she felt it, too.
I expected Noah to still be in bed when I got back to the flat, and I decided to bring him a mug of coffee made with the cafetière, just as he liked it – one heaped tablespoon and a half.
As I waited for the kettle to boil, I received a text from Robyn saying she’d just received her results and this time they’d retrieved even fewer eggs.
I reread the message and with every word felt the wind getting knocked out of me.
I started typing, then deleting, typing, deleting.
Eventually, ineloquently : Robyn, I’m sorry. Do you want to talk? I can call xx
I could see that she’d read my message, and yet, at first, she didn’t reply.
The kettle clicked, steam billowing from its spout.
As the seconds turned to minutes, I began to wonder why I thought she would want to be comforted by me – the hesitant woman with the husband and the eggs.
I was casting around for something to say that would let her know I understood, that would save her from spelling it out, when my phone began to vibrate in my hand.
‘Robyn, hi.’
‘Hey.’ The word was accompanied by an exhalation.
‘I didn’t think,’ I said, watching the steam dissolve into the air. ‘Talking is probably the last thing you want to do.’ I didn’t say ‘talking to me’.
‘No, this is good.’ It sounded like she was shifting position, sitting up in bed maybe. ‘I haven’t spoken to anyone since I heard.’
I pictured her alone, under a duvet, with only her thoughts. ‘What did Doctor Day say?’
She emitted a sad sort of ‘ha’. ‘He said I could try doing one more round. And I would, of course – I would do anything. Everything. But how?’
I paused, caught between encouraging and cautioning her, and ran my thumb across the droplets of condensation that had formed on the base of the cupboard above the kettle.
‘I’ve already emptied my savings, and even if I could cobble enough together for another round, I’ll never be able to afford IVF – who am I kidding?’
‘What are you going to do?’
With audible effort, she said, ‘I’ll meet someone, hopefully.’
After we said our goodbyes, I brushed the back of my hand against the cooling kettle and left Noah’s mug on the side, vacant.
When I tiptoed into our room, I found him showered and dressed and packing his bag. For a few seconds I stood there, the words stuck like Velcro in my throat. I could feel that my face was still red from running, and the sweat on my chest and back was turning cold.
Eventually, he looked up and asked me if I’d had a good run.
In response, I laughed.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘You’re packing.’
He left the bag alone and held out his hands as he moved towards me. ‘Classes start up again tomorrow.’
I sat on the edge of the bed, my limbs suddenly sluggish, seizing up perhaps because I hadn’t taken the time to properly warm down and stretch.
I thought you weren’t going back, that you’d told them you couldn’t finish the term.
I spoke the words in my head, but not out loud.
Did I really believe that? Noah would never leave his students ; I’d been the one to remind him that he couldn’t let them down in the first place.
He came and sat beside me. When I said I was sweaty, he told me he didn’t mind.
‘So, how much longer?’
‘I’ll have another break over Thanksgiving, next month, then I’ll be home properly in December.’
I felt my eyelids closing, the energy I’d experienced first thing diluted almost to the point of disappearing. Again, I pictured Robyn alone, under the duvet. Or was it me?
‘Hey,’ he said, turning towards me.
I reopened my eyes.
‘Can you wait?’
Those past few days, things had almost returned to the way they were before – before I’d started to feel like I was running out of time and had to take some sort of action. Really, though, when I considered what had changed, the answer was simple, staring me in the face : nothing.
‘Cathy?’