by Ali Mercer
I’d said, ‘Something tells me you wouldn’t mind.’
‘You’re right,’ he’d said, nuzzling my neck. ‘I wouldn’t mind at all. It would be amazing. I can’t think of anything that would make me happier… except maybe for us to do what we just did all over again.’
And that settled it. We were in perfect agreement.
He wanted a baby, too. My baby. The baby he knew I could give him.
Four
Paula
Back in the days when I still thought of myself as happily married, I was never a particularly angry person. Or a bitter one. Live and let live, was my philosophy. I was easy-going; Mark wasn’t. I used to say (probably too often) that it was just as well I wasn’t fussy about details the way he was, that it would have been tricky for him to be married to someone who was equally particular. It was our little joke. It wasn’t especially funny, but it suggested that we were ideally suited – compatible – made for each other, and I found it comforting to repeat it.
What neither of us realised was that I was capable of a slow burn. Glacial, in fact. I guess we’re the ones you really have to watch out for: the ones who are most unpredictable when we finally blow.
All the years I was with Mark, I probably seemed like a bit of a pushover. A doormat. Not always, though. Even when I still thought myself in love with him, and imagined that we had a good marriage and a successful one, I had a mind of my own. I didn’t make all that much use of it, but it was there. And eventually, there came a time when I was ready to fight for something that I wanted.
* * *
Soon after the new millennium, our friends started dropping like flies. It wasn’t just the people we knew from university, but the people we worked with, too – the ones who were categorised as my friends or his, colleagues from our past or current jobs. It was like a thirtysomething plague, except they weren’t coming down with fevers and boils and coughs: they were coming down with babies.
We’d see them perhaps once or twice, notice the symptoms, get a breathless email with the news, be given a brief opportunity to greet the newborn… then nothing. They’d disappear.
That was when I started to think about it. Might I be able to persuade Mark to change his mind?
Did I really want to?
We’d met as students and married relatively young, and we’d had to grow up together. We’d survived a wobble, an awful time when I’d developed a painful crush on someone at work. I still felt guilty about that, not because I’d done anything about it – I hadn’t – but because I’d felt it, and I’d told Mark and I’d hurt him and he’d asked me to move out, and then he’d had that funeral to go to, the one we never spoke about, and I hadn’t been there for him.
But we’d got through it.
We’d always agreed that we weren’t bothered about having kids, that the really important thing was each other. So what if I wanted change and he didn’t? What then?
Things came to a head the day our new dining chairs were delivered. They were Mark’s choice: expensive designer things shaped like something from an aristocrat’s chateau in the years before the French Revolution, but made of moulded transparent plastic. I’d have been quite happy with regular wooden chairs that didn’t cost a small fortune, but I hadn’t said so. Mark chose most of our furniture, and this was one of the areas of our marriage where I’d long since learned that it was best to let him have his way.
Isn’t that what it takes, to keep a marriage going? You have to pick your battles. Let go of the things you don’t care about, save your energy for the things that are really worth fighting for. And what could be more worth fighting for than a child?
I was the one who waited in for the chairs to be delivered. Neither of us would have said so directly, or accused the other of thinking it, but when push came to shove, Mark was paid more and that meant his career was more important than mine. Besides, it was easier for me to arrange to work from home.
After the chairs arrived I checked them all over carefully before signing for them – it wouldn’t have done to let some flaw or scratch slip past unnoticed. I knew Mark would be pleased with them, and he was, which made for a good start to the evening. I cooked us a couple of steaks and we shared a bottle of good French red, and over coffee, which I’d made on the hob in the Continental-style pot just the way he liked it, I suggested that we should throw a dinner party. That way we could make use of all six of the new chairs, not just the two we were sitting on.
At first he liked the idea. Then we ran into difficulties with the guest list.
‘This is hopeless,’ Mark said eventually. ‘They’ll want to bring their babies with them. Or they’ll get a call from the babysitter before dessert and have to rush off. And the women either won’t be drinking or they’ll be off their faces after a couple of glasses, and all they’ll want to talk about is mastitis and nappies and stretch marks and…’ He pulled a face. ‘You know what I mean.’
And I did.
I looked at Mark, at the good shirt he was wearing and the glossy black top of the dining table he was leaning on and the outline of the transparent chair behind him, and suddenly I knew for certain that he wasn’t enough for me and never would be.
There was someone missing. I could almost see her, sitting in the chair next to me: a small child with the big presence that all small children have, soft-skinned and plump-cheeked and slippery-haired.
I said, ‘How would you feel if I stopped taking the Pill?’
He froze as if I’d just threatened him and he was working out how to hit back. But I wasn’t about to backtrack. That little girl, the child at the table, was too real for that. And this was the only way to conjure her into existence.
He said, ‘Have you stopped taking it?’
‘No. I would never do that without telling you.’
‘Do you want to?’
If he was to believe that we could do this and it could all turn out all right, I had to stay calm. I couldn’t allow it to turn into an argument. The minute you start arguing with your husband about having children, you’ve already lost.
I looked into his eyes. He was frightened, that was all. He needed reassurance. If I showed him I could cope with this, he’d relax and it would all be fine.
‘OK, I admit it,’ I said. ‘I want your babies.’ And then I lied: ‘But not if you don’t want them too.’ Then I reached for the coffee pot and said, ‘Would you like any more?’
He shook his head. I poured myself another half-cup, added milk, stirred. I didn’t look at him. I could sense him wavering between reluctance and resignation, about to come down on one side or the other.
Then he exhaled. ‘You’re not suddenly going to make me start wearing baggy boxers and eating oysters to improve my sperm count, are you?’
He was smiling. I smiled back. I’d done it! And it had been so easy. Why had I even been so worried about it? In the end, all I’d had to do was come out and say it.
‘I thought you like oysters,’ I said.
‘I do,’ he conceded. Then, almost plaintively: ‘I do love you, you know. I can’t think of anybody I would want to do this with, other than you.’
It occurred to me to say, I hope not – I’m your wife. But it was no time to be snide, and anyway, I knew what he was trying to say.
He was scared. I knew that. But he trusted me enough to do it anyway.
‘I love you too,’ I said.
A huge wave of relief washed over me. Relief and triumph. In the end I’d barely needed to persuade him. There’d certainly been no need to even think about the kind of trickery some women seemed to resort to, quietly stopping using contraception and then presenting their men with a fait accompli.
It was as if, through nothing more than force of will – through wanting her so badly –I’d rewritten our story already, and conjured that ghostly little girl at the table into the reality of our lives.
Five
Ellie
Mum’s phone rang while she was washing up
after dinner and she rushed to check who it was. That in itself was a dead giveaway: she really, really wanted it to be Mark.
She got calls and messages all the time from people wanting haircuts, and she’d got her phone set up so that calls from my school or Ava’s had a special ringtone, in case there was an emergency. But Ava and I were both safely home, and there was nobody else she’d hurry for. Especially not Dad.
Still, at least she hadn’t got to the stage of giving Mark his own special ringtone, too.
She took the phone into her bedroom and shut the door.
I tiptoed into the hallway so that I could listen. Ava was in the room we shared, as usual, doing whatever it was she did in there – homework, or so she claimed. I didn’t think it very likely that she’d come out and find me eavesdropping, but it was possible. Anyway, I decided to take the risk.
Mum said, ‘That’s what I told them.’
Them? She must mean me and Ava. But told us what?
‘Exactly. All in good time,’ Mum said. ‘I know.’
Then she dropped her voice so it was hard to make out the words. ‘Maybe, but I don’t think so, to be honest. She’s always been like that. It’s just the way she is.’
Was it Ava they were talking about? Or me?
Then Mum said, ‘No, she does have friends at school, but she’s never had a boyfriend. She’s pretty wary, to be honest. She tends to keep people at a bit of a distance. Even me and Ellie, sometimes. You really mustn’t take it personally. I did try talking to her about it, and she pretty much brushed me off. I think you’re right, actually. We need to give her time.’
Of course they weren’t talking about me. I was just the little one, the one it was easy to forget, and Mark wasn’t interested in me and Dad didn’t care either.
Tears came to my eyes, and I began to sniff. Maybe I should run away. But they probably wouldn’t even notice.
‘Ellie.’ It was Ava. She’d come out and caught me red-handed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I was just going to ask Mum something,’ I said, blinking very fast to make the tears go away.
‘Oh yeah? Like what?’
Mum wrenched her bedroom door open. She still had the phone in her hand. She said, ‘What’s going on? Were you listening to my private phone conversation?’
‘I just wanted to ask you to test me on my spellings,’ I said. ‘I didn’t dare ask you,’ I said to Ava, ‘because you’re always so grumpy.’
‘Well, you could have waited until after I’d finished,’ Mum said. ‘Come on then, let’s give these spellings a go.’
Ava gave me a look as if to say, A likely story, and went back into our bedroom and closed the door.
I got the spellings all right but Mum was so distracted she hardly remembered to praise me. Thinking about Ava, no doubt, and whatever Mark had said about her.
I hated Ava sometimes. Hated her more than I could ever have brought myself to hate anyone else.
It was just so unfair. No matter how hard I tried, and no matter how little she tried, people always noticed her. And they always would, even when she was an old, old woman, and well past being pretty any more. Even if it was only because she was cantankerous and disagreeable, she’d always be the one who came first.
And at the same time I loved her. After all, she was the one who’d had a go at Mark for not listening to me. She always looked out for me, and I knew she always would.
That was part of the problem. I owed her too much, and there was no way I could make it up to her. She was a great big walking reminder of just how small I was, and of all the ways in which I could never catch up.
* * *
A few days later Mark showed up at the flat when Mum wasn’t there.
She was out at work and Ava and I were both home, in our usual places – she was in our bedroom, which was somehow more hers than mine, and I was in the kitchen, writing a story about a future world that was dark all the time and filled with wolves. The story was going to end with the most dramatic thing I could think of, which was for the narrator to die an unpleasant death. I had a big A4 notepad to write in, which Mum had got me, and a specially nice pen. I would have preferred to type my stories up on the laptop, but Ava hogged that most of the time and Mum never gave a proper answer if I asked when I could have a laptop of my own.
I’d done about a page of the story, which was about as long as it usually took before I got bored and started moving things on so I could bump the narrator off and finish. Then the doorbell rang and I looked out of the window and there was Mark’s Jag, parked a little way down the street because the space directly in front of our building was taken. And there was Mark, walking from the car to our building with a great big pile of red hardback books in his arms.
He pressed the bell again. Impatient. But the books did look heavy. And they had to be a present for us. Why else would he have brought them?
Our buzzer still wasn’t working, so I grabbed my keys and ran downstairs and opened the door to the block. When he saw who it was he smiled as if I wasn’t quite the person he was looking for and said, ‘Hi, Ellie. Is your mum home?’
‘She’s working, but she shouldn’t be too much longer. Would you like to come in?’
Mark checked his watch. ‘I thought she was always home by five,’ he said. It was already quarter past.
I wondered what she’d been telling him. She was often back later than this, and it wasn’t unusual for Ava to emerge from our bedroom at some point in the evening and make us something to eat, leaving a plateful for Mum when she finally got home.
Maybe Mum wanted Mark to think that she was always here to cook dinner and look after us. Which would have been nice, if only because Ava did her best to ignore me most of the time. But we managed fine the way things were.
‘She’ll be home soon,’ I said. ‘Do you want to come on up? Those look heavy.’
‘Sure, if that’s OK,’ Mark said. ‘Is Ava in?’
‘Yeah, she’s in,’ I said.
How typical that he wanted to know if Ava was there. What a disappointment it would have been if it’d just been boring little me.
I showed him up to the flat, and he put the books down on the kitchen table with a sigh of relief.
There were perhaps six of them, beautifully bound, with gold on the edges of the pages and the titles printed on the covers in gold script. The one on the top was The Mayor of Casterbridge, which didn’t exactly sound exciting, but it looked so fancy it could have been the most boring book in the world and I’d still have wanted to try and read it. I don’t know why people say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Everyone does.
Ava came in. She was wearing an old hoodie and skinny jeans and she didn’t have any make-up on and she probably hadn’t brushed her hair since the morning, but she still looked good.
‘Hello, Mark.’ She didn’t exactly sound pleased to see him. ‘Mum’s not here.’
‘So I gather. It’s OK, I won’t wait for her. I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to drop these off for you.’
For Ava?
But I was the one who loved reading. He knew that.
Ava cast an eye over the books. The corners of her mouth turned down. She said, ‘Why?’
‘Because they’re classics,’ Mark explained patiently, ‘and if you haven’t read them, you should. As part of your general education.’ He glanced at me as if only just remembering I was there. ‘And you should too, Ellie. When you’re a bit older.’
I was speechless. What made him think I couldn’t read them right now if I chose? Any words I didn’t understand I could just look up in the dictionary. Did he think I was too stupid? Or did he think that I was too naïve, that there would be things in those books that were too adult and shocking for me? I didn’t need him to protect me, and the sooner he realised that the better. The world was the world, and nobody could shield you from seeing at least a little bit of how awful it could be. Not even Mum.
Ava reached out and brushed h
er fingertips across the cover of The Mayor of Casterbridge. I could tell she wanted to pick it up and have a good look at it, but she withdrew her hand as if it was too hot to touch and said, ‘These must have been expensive. I don’t think I should accept them.’
Mark looked just as wounded as I’d felt when he’d said at first that the books were for Ava. Give them to me, I screamed at him in my head. I’ll take them. She’s just proud and stiff-necked and ungrateful. But I’m not. I don’t care. I just want those beautiful books, and I would have told Mum you’re the best thing ever if only they had been for me.
He tried to make light of it. ‘You’d be doing me a favour. They were rather heavy, and I really don’t fancy carrying them back down those stairs.’
‘Then you should have thought of that before you brought them here,’ Ava said. ‘Did Mum know you were doing this?’
‘Probably I should have checked with her first. But I can’t see that she would object.’
Ava picked up the books. She had a strange expression on her face, like this was hurting her and was satisfying at the same time. ‘I’ll take them downstairs for you. Ellie, get the door.’
‘Put them back,’ I said.
Both of them turned to stare at me. They looked so shocked, you’d have thought I’d have suddenly spoken up in the voice of a demon. ‘I want them,’ I said. ‘You did say they were for me, too, Mark. And anyway, I’m much keener on reading than Ava is.’
‘That seems fair enough,’ Mark said to Ava. ‘Maybe Ellie will let you borrow them if you change your mind.’
Ava shot me an angry glance – how could you? – but she put the books back down on the table.
‘Whatever,’ she said. Then, to me: ‘You’re going to have to find space for them on your side of the room.’