The Bench

by Saskia Sarginson

  I feel my cheeks redden, and glance around. Nobody is looking in my direction. I begin to read, racing through the copy, gobbling it down before I’m called in. Sam talks about looking forward to taking a step away from what he calls ‘the rock circus’. He says that he has exciting plans for a new solo album. The writer asks him if he’ll be keeping the name Sam Sage or reverting to his real name. I stop, and reread the line, feeling dizzy. His real name? And then the facts come tumbling at me: Jack Winterson changed his name to Sam Sage after a rift with his family. His father and mother still live in his childhood home, a six-bedroom house in Berkshire. The drummer in the band is his long-lost half-brother.

  ‘Catrin Dunn?’ A nurse is standing at the front of the waiting room.

  I give a guilty start and close the magazine, tossing it onto the table. I follow the nurse into a small room, where a male consultant gestures for me to sit down. The look on his face is grave. I am trying to get over the shock of Sam’s lies. But seeing my consultant’s expression, a beat of fear has started in my belly, drowning everything else. My mouth is dry; I wait for him to speak.

  ‘Isn’t your husband here, Mrs Dunn?’ he asks.

  I shake my head, wishing that Leo had come.

  ‘It’s your fallopian tubes, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘I’ll show you on the scan images in a moment, but suffice to say, they are blocked.’

  ‘Oh.’ I have a moment of dizzying relief. Nothing life-threatening. Surely this can be fixed? ‘Can’t you unblock them?’

  ‘It’s not that simple. There are operations,’ he says slowly, ‘but they’re not always successful for tubes as badly damaged as yours. And …’ he pauses, ‘there would be a risk of an ectopic pregnancy.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ I frown. ‘Why are they this badly damaged?’

  ‘There are various reasons for blocked tubes, and, as was your own experience, usually no symptoms. In your case, we think it was the ruptured appendix you suffered as a child. The damage was done then.’

  ‘My appendix?’ I’m startled, my hand moving to the scar hidden under my clothes. ‘So all this time … I couldn’t have got pregnant …’ I swallow. ‘Isn’t there anything else we can do?’

  He taps his pen on the blotter. ‘There is the possibility of IVF, as that bypasses the fallopian tubes. But that’s a discussion to have at a later date …’ He pauses and looks at me over his glasses. ‘And one you will no doubt want to involve your husband in.’

  As I walk towards the Underground station, my head is muddled with new information. The idea of an operation scares me, and I don’t like the idea of IVF either, guessing it will entail more poking and prodding, and sex itself becoming redundant. There is already a new tension between me and Leo, a sense, however faint, of a kind of failure on our part to produce a child together. I hazily imagine that IVF will involve Leo having to lock himself in a room with porn magazines and tissues, and passion will be put on hold while we become a science experiment.

  I ride the Tube home. The darkened mirror of the train window reflects my pale face. Sentences from the magazine article reel through my mind, and an anger fills me, an anger that wipes away my thoughts about my damaged insides and the puzzle of what happens next for me and Leo and our baby plan. No lies, Sam promised me in that hotel room in Atlantic City. I told him everything about my childhood: my dad, Frank. He chose not to confide in me, and instead to lie. He’s come back into my life years later, risking the happiness I’ve worked hard to build, and all the time, he knew he’d been dishonest from the get-go.

  Shock and anger curdle in my guts, making me queasy. I’m not sure how I’ll eat any supper, how I’m going to talk to Leo about the results of the test, keep a clear head to discuss the possibilities of operations and IVF, when there’s this secret fury burning inside me.

  I need to see him again. I was wrong about that. I’m going to send a second note cancelling my other message, naming a time for us to meet. I want to be looking into his face when I ask him why he lied to me.

  At home, Leo’s mad that I went to my appointment alone. He wants to know every detail of what the consultant said, but it takes me a while to get my words out, my mind still spinning with the shock of Sam’s lies and the shock of the news about my damaged reproductive organs.

  Leo rubs his chin and says that IVF is the obvious course of action. ‘How do you feel about the idea?’ he asks.

  Right at this moment, I’m feeling a little bit like one of his patients, so I reach for his hand. ‘I need to find out about the drugs I’d have to take,’ I tell him. ‘What side effects they’d have.’

  He lets go of my fingers. ‘The process is all very straightforward nowadays,’ he says. ‘No side effects worth worrying about.’ He stands up, nodding. ‘I’ll make some calls in the morning,’ he says. ‘Find out who we should be seeing. The best man.’

  ‘Or woman,’ I say. But he doesn’t hear.

  I can’t sleep for worrying about the process Leo and I are about to embark on, and when I shut my eyes, sentences from the magazine flash up, Sam’s lies repeating again and again.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Sam, October 1990

  Her first note is a shock.

  Sorry, this isn’t going to work. We can’t be friends. It’s best if we don’t see each other again.

  He reads and rereads the words, hoping that they’ll magically metamorphose into something different. What made her change her mind? He spends the next day wondering what he can write back to make her reconsider. And then it occurs to him that the reason she’s backing out must be because she still has feelings. So when the second note arrives saying she’s changed her mind again, telling him to come to the bench, his thoughts scatter and swirl like leaves, catching on possibilities, trembling for a second before being torn away.

  The UK tour was a strain; carrying on with the same old set list when he knew the Lambs were over. He got back to London a week late, because at the last minute he had to fly to Rome to do a photo shoot for a men’s magazine. The date Cat’s suggesting in her second note means he’s had to cancel an interview, rearrange an appointment. He remembers her plan of meeting on the beach in Atlantic City after she’d finished work, how vague it seemed, how unlikely. He’d been convinced she wasn’t going to show, but she did. They found each other on that wide slice of sand, the ocean beating against the shore.

  He walks uphill, pulling his coat tightly across his chest, leaning into the wind. The Heath is a patchwork of gold and russet, the grass a haze of yellow in the dull light. Cat is already waiting for him on the bench, a silhouette against the hawthorn. It makes his throat dry, seeing her, his heart bumping against his ribs as he hurries up the steep slope towards her.

  She doesn’t smile. He’s sweating beneath his thick coat. He’d like to take her in his arms, but she keeps her hands in her pockets, her shoulders stiff.

  He sits next to her. ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  He notices her mouth tighten. ‘Why did you lie to me?’ Her yellow-blue eyes are fixed on his.

  His body is rigid. ‘What?’ He swallows.

  ‘I read an article in a magazine,’ she says. ‘Your parents aren’t dead. And your real name …’ she balls her fingers into fists, resting them on her knees, ‘is Jack.’ She sounds the word as if it tastes bad. ‘Jack Winterson.’

  He feels winded. He can hardly catch his breath. ‘I should have told you,’ he manages. He has to try and explain. ‘I was an idiot not to. Only I’d just discovered my dad had been keeping another family.’ His chin trembles. ‘It was a shock to realise my life was built on a pretence … the whole of my childhood. That’s why I was in the States. I needed time to think. I’d decided to change my name.’

  ‘The first thing I did when I got here,’ she says quietly, not looking at him, ‘was to go through the phone book.’ She snaps her head round to stare at him. ‘I tried to find you. I rang every Sage. But I didn’t have a hope, did I?’

/>   His eyes sting with the pain of understanding. ‘Do you remember that I said I wanted to tell you something?’ he asks. ‘When you came to the airport. It was this. I was going to explain before I went back to London.’

  She stares at him.

  ‘And the letters,’ he says. ‘When I couldn’t tell you in person, I explained it all in writing. I thought that was why you didn’t reply. I thought you were angry. I wrote again. I apologised. I sent you a song.’

  Her face crumples. ‘Oh God.’

  He puts out his hand to cover one of hers, but she pulls away. ‘Don’t,’ she whispers.

  ‘There’s something else,’ he forces himself to admit. ‘I had a girlfriend when I met you. We’d grown apart, and I was going to end it anyway, even if I hadn’t met you. But I should have told you.’

  Cat doesn’t say anything.

  He scratches a fingernail over the grainy wood of the bench.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She makes a sound in her throat. ‘It all happened a long time ago.’ She gets up from the bench and walks a couple of paces away. ‘I meant what I wrote in my first note. We can’t meet again.’

  She stands on the lip of the hill with her back hunched, her arms wrapped around herself. Her hair is tugged by the wind, the yellow and brown strands wild and tangled.

  He stands and walks towards her, uncertain of what he can do or say to make this better. He has no words, so he does what he’s been wanting to do since he first saw her: he puts his hands on her shoulders and turns her to face him, holding her close, breathing in the scent of her unruly hair. He expected resistance, fury even. But she goes limp, her body collapsing against him.

  ‘My love,’ he murmurs.

  She pulls away and wipes her nose on a tissue she finds in her pocket. She steps further back, putting distance between them, her breath appearing and disappearing in the chill air.

  ‘I wish …’ he says. ‘I wish we could turn the clock—’

  ‘But we can’t,’ she interrupts. She holds herself tall. ‘We messed up. And we can’t put it right.’

  ‘Can’t we?’

  ‘No.’ She glances down. ‘No.’

  He goes back to the bench and sits, elbows on knees, head in his hands. He feels as though he’s fallen out of time, out of his life; he’s rooted to the bench, unable to move, while his life – the wrong life – is carrying on without him. His mind goes blank. He senses her presence, knows she’s sitting next to him. She puts her hand on his. Her fingers are gentle.

  He sits up and looks at her. ‘What are we going to do?’

  She gives a small, bleak smile. ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Carry on with our lives. Our separate lives.’

  Sam thinks his chest is going to explode with pain. The thump of it is too huge for his heart to manage. The thought of walking away from the bench and never seeing her again is impossible.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she says, glancing at her watch.

  ‘Already?’ Panic seethes, making him feel sick. ‘Can I see you one more time?’ he asks.

  She shakes her head. ‘I’m married.’

  ‘You’re talking about duty—’

  ‘Call it what you want,’ she interrupts. ‘All it means is doing the right thing.’

  ‘But I’m not asking you to do anything wrong,’ he argues. ‘Meet me here tomorrow, please? To say goodbye properly?’

  Her expression wavers and he glimpses her doubt. ‘Cat?’ he says quickly. ‘We’ve hardly had any time. Let’s have a couple of hours together, without being angry or afraid.’ His mouth is parched. He’s more nervous than when he’s standing in front of thousands of people. ‘We’ve got all the explanations out of the way now. The hard part’s over. So we can just … be us for a little while. Be friends, I mean. Because I thought we were. I’d like to catch up.’

  She makes a noise, a kind of groan, and sits with her arms tightly folded, and he knows enough to say nothing. Then she lets her arms fall and bows her head. ‘All right. Tomorrow. Here.’

  He nods.

  ‘But that will be the last time.’ She stands up, and she’s careful not to touch him. She shivers. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  They are awkward as teenagers. He watches her walk away, and as she disappears behind the hawthorn leaves, he collapses back onto the wooden slats. He stares out at the shimmer of the city without seeing it, the pain in his chest subsiding to an ache, strength returning to his limbs. He thinks of the possibility of just remaining here, waiting all night for the next day to come, for the appointed hour. But he’s already getting cold, and his dried sweat is itchy. He lumbers to his feet, and his fingers touch the back of the bench for a second, tapping it lightly. He’s humming a tune. A fragment of an idea. He’s impatient to pick up his guitar, get it down before it’s lost.

  It’s her. Cat. She does this to him, pulls him deep into himself. She always has. It’s where all the best music lives: right at the core. He still has tomorrow, he reassures himself, hurrying towards the path. One more time to see her and hold her, and convince her to change her mind. Because they belong together. It’s just the way it is.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Cat, October 1990

  Lying next to my husband’s dreaming body, his skin scorching me, I want to turn and kick out at the sheets, get some air. The marriage vows we made to each other thread in and out of my mind, the memory of my fingers grasping my bouquet too tightly, and then in the taxi, the way he picked confetti out of my hair. You are happy, aren’t you, darling?

  We’re a team, Leo and me. And now our relationship’s going to be tested just trying to get pregnant. I shouldn’t see Sam again. But it’s only a couple of hours, in daylight, sitting on a bench on the Heath.

  I wake to the alarm, my heart racing at the clanging interruption, the scattering of another world.

  Leo’s empty cereal bowl is on the table. The cat jumps up, hopeful for milk. I shoo it away. ‘There you are,’ my husband says, looking up from his newspaper and kissing my cheek carefully. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ I remind him as I pour kibble into the cat’s bowl.

  ‘I know that,’ he says gently, taking his jacket from the back of a chair. ‘But it must have been a shock to find out about the damage your ruptured appendix caused. These things take time to sink in.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’ I put a hand on my forehead. ‘I just feel a bit … touchy, I guess.’

  ‘Understandable. Look, I have to run. See you tonight, darling. I’ll call you later with the details of our first hospital appointment.’ He drops a kiss on my cheek. ‘Exciting!’

  Grace comes into the kitchen in her school uniform, backpack slung from her shoulder. ‘What’s exciting? What hospital appointment?’ she asks, as Leo leaves.

  ‘It seems I have a problem with getting pregnant. So your dad and I are going to talk about maybe having IVF.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A very clever way that doctors can give people a chance of getting pregnant by fertilising an egg outside the body and then putting it back in.’ I wipe the drops of spilt milk from the table.

  She frowns, biting her lip. ‘Will it be painful?’

  ‘Maybe. Not much.’

  ‘I want a baby sister,’ she says slowly. ‘But not if it’s going to hurt you.’

  ‘No,’ I tell her quickly. ‘It’s fine. We’ll give it a go. But it may not work – I don’t want you to be disappointed.’

  ‘I won’t be,’ she says in a quiet voice, and bends to give Fat Mog a stroke.

  It’s then that I see a small red slash on the inside of her wrist. ‘Ouch! Did you hurt yourself?’

  She straightens up, and turns away, pulling her cuff down. ‘Oh, this? It’s nothing. Mog scratched me by mistake.’

  ‘Did you put antiseptic on it?’

  ‘Mmm. See you after school,’ she murmurs over her shoulder.

  ‘Grace?’

  She’s gone. I stand alone in the kitchen and
put my hands on my belly. Something that was supposed to be simple has turned into something complicated. And now there’s Sam, twisting the complication into a tangled knot. I have a flash of memory back to the ball of wool I untangled for Grace, standing in that rainy graveyard.

  I look round at the soggy cereal and dirty cups, the dishwasher blinking under the counter, needing emptying. I feel disengaged from it all, as if I’m looking at a film. I put the dishrag on the side of the sink and wipe my hands on my dressing gown. I’m seeing Sam today. It’s strange to hold that fact inside me, here in the heart of my home. Everything else falls away. I don’t want to think about hospital appointments, or what to cook for dinner tonight; I only want to be with him one last time. I look at the clock on the wall and count the hours before I can start to walk towards the Heath, towards our bench.

  He jumps up when I push past the hawthorn leaves. ‘Got here ridiculously early,’ he says sheepishly.

  We smile at each other, suddenly shy. We sit on the bench and look at the view. It’s brighter today, the low sun warm on my face. ‘How are we going to do this?’ I ask.

  He raises his palms. ‘Let’s just be ourselves. No pressure.’

  I give a short laugh. ‘Easy to say.’

  ‘I know,’ he says quietly. ‘But we can try.’ He takes a deep breath and I sense his shoulders relaxing. ‘I started a new song yesterday. After we met.’

  I turn towards him. ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘It’s you, Cat,’ he says. ‘You inspire me. What we have together inspires me. Always has.’ He rubs a thumb over a mark on his jeans. ‘Did you like the song I wrote – the one about us in Atlantic City?’ He hums the tune, singing a few bars. ‘Our first hit. It was the start of it all.’ He smiles. ‘At the time, I thought you might hear it and … understand.’