A Million Dreams

by Dani Atkins

  ‘People don’t understand, do they?’ he asked gently, as though testing my own grief for rawness. It was still an open wound, but one I was hoping to finally close with the baby. ‘They say “give it time”, as though the pain of losing the person you love most in the world has an expiry date.’ Liam took another mouthful of coffee, not quite managing to hide a wince at its sweetness. It made me smile. We were both quiet for several moments, and I honestly hadn’t known I was going to ask the question, until the words came tumbling out.

  ‘What happened to your wife? To Anna? Was she sick?’ To me, illness, or more specifically cancer, was the personal grim reaper who’d stalked Tim in the shadows for years before finally snatching him away from me.

  ‘Car accident,’ Liam said, his voice devoid of all emotion. To some, his terse explanation might have sounded brutal, even uncaring, but not to me. I knew from experience that would be the only way he’d ever be able to get the words out. ‘Some idiot driving a truck and texting at the same time, ploughed through a junction at speed. Anna’s car was in his path.’

  ‘Oh God, Liam. How awful,’ I said, and before I knew what I was doing my hand reached across the table and briefly squeezed his. For a moment his fingers froze under mine, before relaxing and returning the squeeze with one of his own.

  ‘I should have been with her. We always drove in together. But that morning I was waiting for an important call, so she left without me.’ He shook his head, and I thought I saw the diamond glint of tears in his eyes. ‘She died surrounded by strangers. I think that was one of the hardest things to accept.’

  I swallowed a lump the size of a golf ball back down my throat. Tim had died in my arms, in the quiet hours of the middle of the night, when so many brave fighters finally lose their battle. The last thing he saw was my face; the last words he heard were me telling him I loved him and that it was okay to go. It was an odd thing to be grateful for, but I really was.

  And of course there was something else I was grateful for. Because even though Tim was gone, a part of him still remained and soon – through the miracle of science – he would hopefully live on.

  ‘Do you have children?’ I blurted out, shocking myself yet again that my internal filter appeared to be totally AWOL today. That was quite a personal question to have asked. Fortunately, Liam didn’t appear offended by my blatant curiosity. ‘Not unless you count Sally.’

  ‘Sally?’

  In reply, he pulled out his phone, his long fingers sliding over the screen until he found an image, and then inverted the mobile to show me. The screen was filled with a photograph of a rather scruffy-looking terrier. I’ve always liked dogs, and was fairly sure I recognised the breed.

  ‘Jack Russell?’

  ‘Through and through,’ he said with a smile. ‘Funny thing is, I’ve never really been into dogs. But she was Anna’s pet before we were married. It really was a case of “love me, love my dog”.’

  ‘She looks cute,’ I said, passing him back his phone.

  Liam smiled and it elevated his face from merely good-looking to something that would make most women’s breath catch in their throat. Most women’s; not mine.

  ‘She’s actually a pain in the arse. She costs me a fortune each month at the vet, and she’s old and cranky. The postman’s terrified of her, and if I don’t let her out into the garden by six in the morning, she pees all over the kitchen floor.’

  I laughed, and it felt more natural and comfortable than it had done for a very long time. I hadn’t realised this whole baby plan thing was making me so uptight.

  Liam gave a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘Actually, I don’t know how I’d have got through these last eight years without her,’ he admitted, fiddling with the spoon sitting in the oversized saucer of his drink. ‘Sally knew what had happened to Anna. That day, when I finally got back from the hospital, the neighbours told me she’d been howling for hours. She’d started at about the time of the accident. She’d never done that before, or since.’

  The weirdest things can bring you to tears, and the thought of Anna’s dog crying in an empty house and somehow knowing that her owner had died was enough to do it for me. Liam looked up and silently slid a paper serviette across the tabletop towards me. It took two further serviettes plucked from a nearby table before I was done.

  ‘I’m not usually like this,’ I protested. From across the café I could see Rosemary eyeing me with concern. Just one nod of my head and she’d come over, I knew she would. I gave her a watery smile and shook my head, holding her at bay.

  ‘It’s just this… It’s just this baby business,’ I said, feeling embarrassed but knowing I owed him some sort of explanation. ‘It’s making me even more emotional than usual.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Liam interrupted, holding up a hand as though stopping traffic. ‘You were quite right in what you said at the cemetery. That’s very personal stuff, that I had no right overhearing.’

  This time we were arguing on opposite sides of the fence, which felt a little odd. ‘You did nothing wrong. I was hardly being discreet about it.’

  I looked up and saw he was once more watching me carefully, waiting for whatever it was I wanted to say, and also for the things that I did not.

  ‘I think, maybe, a part of me wanted someone else to know. Sometimes this whole decision feels too huge to keep to myself.’

  ‘So why are doing that? Do you have family? Friends?’

  I nodded, affirming I was well represented in both areas. Although even as I did so, I acknowledged that since Tim’s death I was guilty of keeping my friends at a distance, especially the couples. It hurt less that way.

  ‘But you’ve not said anything about this to any of them?’ There was a definite policeman’s probing in his intuitive observation.

  ‘No. Not a word. They think we used up all our chances when Tim was still alive. Nobody knows about the one last embryo.’

  ‘Because…?’

  I shook my head. ‘Because it’s so big, so important, that to share it might make it not happen. That I’ll somehow bring bad luck on myself.’

  His eyes warmed and this time he reached for my hand. I had almost forgotten the comfort of fingers entwined around mine in support. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. Perhaps what you really need to do is convince yourself you deserve some good luck now.’

  ‘We both do.’ And even though I hardly knew him at all, I really felt that to be the truth.

  ‘Then here’s to finding it,’ he said, lifting up his half-empty coffee cup and proposing a toast. I raised my own cup and we clinked the thick earthenware mugs so loudly that for a moment I thought we’d cracked them.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ I said, and I knew I didn’t need to explain exactly what I was thanking him for. He already knew it was for the coffee, the understanding and the unshakeable belief that somewhere out there we were both owed a better future. ‘I promise that the next time we meet I won’t burst into tears.’

  His eyes lightened interestingly whenever he was amused. ‘Good, because frankly I’ve been a little concerned about your reaction to me.’

  He paid the bill, even though I insisted I should pay half. When we got to our feet, I was surprised to discover I’d been away from the shop for over an hour. Liam Thomas was very easy and comfortable company.

  It was only as we said goodbye on the pavement outside the café that I realised I’d said ‘the next time we meet’, as though it was a foregone conclusion. Despite the pleasant hour we’d spent in each other’s company, neither of us had mentioned repeating the experience. He had his life, and I had mine. And mine was hopefully soon about to become even more busy. Perhaps he realised that.

  Still, my words had been a little presumptuous and I was still wearing the pink blush they had brought to my cheeks when I crossed the road and entered Crazy Daisy once more.

  *

  ‘There you are,’ exclaimed Natalie as the door clicked to a close behind me. ‘I was beginnin
g to think you’d been kidnapped by your mystery man.’

  I skirted around the edge of the counter, shrugging off my jacket as I went. ‘Nothing that dramatic, I’m afraid. I just lost track of time. And he’s not my mystery man – he’s just someone I bumped into recently. Were you busy?’ I asked, hoping to steer her interest away from my visitor.

  ‘I wasn’t, but your phone certainly was.’

  I looked at her blankly for a moment before patting the pocket of my jeans where my mobile should be. All I could feel was my hip bone. Natalie didn’t appear to notice that my face had grown pale. There was a weird taste in my mouth, which I couldn’t swallow away. Strange, I’d never realised that anxiety had its own peculiar flavour before.

  As though from a distance, I could hear Natalie’s voice. ‘You left your phone on the workbench and it’s been ringing almost constantly for the last hour or so. I guess someone wants to get hold of you really badly.’

  I squeezed past her, forcing myself to neither run nor pounce on the phone as though it was about to get away. It’s hard to appear nonchalant when your hand is trembling so much you can scarcely read the numbers on the screen. She was right; the same caller had tried to reach me six times and had left two voicemail messages. It was a number I recognised.

  ‘Anything urgent?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, lying instinctively.

  This was the call I’d been waiting two weeks for. It was the reason I showered with my phone resting on the bathroom shelf; why I cooked with it propped against the hob; and why I slept with it nestled on Tim’s pillow – for luck. Two weeks ago, I’d been for a preliminary scan at the fertility clinic. It was the first step on my long journey to becoming pregnant, and the results would inform the doctors whether they were able to go ahead with the IVF.

  This was the news I’d been waiting for and I didn’t want to hear it with anyone else around. It took a huge effort to lay my phone back down, as though it wasn’t a ticking bomb with the potential to explode my dreams into smithereens.

  ‘Why don’t you head off early today as we’re quiet?’ I suggested. Trying to sound casual and breezy made my voice taut, like the string of an instrument right before it snaps.

  ‘But we’ve still got—’ Natalie began in protest.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I interrupted, cursing myself for hiring someone so diligent. I picked up her handbag and rugby-ball-passed it into her arms, while steering her firmly towards the door. She was still looking suspiciously at me through the glass panel as I pulled it shut behind her. My smile was false, but I held it firmly in place until she gave a small shrug and finally turned to walk away. As soon as she’d disappeared from sight, I slid the bolt on the door and flipped over the ‘Closed’ sign.

  Unease followed me like a ghost as I walked on shaky legs back to the workroom. My worries hadn’t been unfounded because something must have shown up on the scans. Why else would the clinic be trying so hard to get hold of me? I could feel the dream of Tim’s baby disappearing like a mirage in the desert.

  The back room was full of lilies and jasmine, but all I could smell was the sickly waft of my own perspiration. I listened to the voicemail messages, but they told me nothing I hadn’t already worked out for myself. The clinic wanted to talk to me urgently and asked me to phone them as soon as I got the message. I glanced at the clock. It was almost five, and I had no idea if they’d still be there.

  The switchboard operator sounded like an android whose dial had been set to ‘maximum cheery’. ‘I think they’ve already left for the day,’ she said in a sing-song tone, when I asked to be connected to the doctor’s office.

  ‘Could you try anyway,’ I pleaded, anxiety making my voice as sharp as a knife slicing through her jolly veneer.

  ‘Of course. Please hold the line.’

  I leant back against the workbench as I heard the extension ringing plaintively in what I presumed was an empty office. Any moment now I would hear the irritating operator, inviting me to try again in the morning. But I was wrong, for after about the fifteenth ring, a slightly breathless voice came on the line.

  ‘Doctor Alistair’s office.’ The woman sounded like she’d been running.

  ‘Hello. My name’s Beth Brandon. I believe you’ve been trying to get hold of me.’

  The doctor’s secretary gave a small sound, difficult to decipher over the phone. ‘Oh, yes, Mrs Brandon. Hello. Thanks for getting back to us.’

  ‘Is something wrong? Has something shown up on my scans?’ I asked, unable to stifle the question.

  The woman paused for not just one beat, but two, before replying. ‘Erm, you’d need to speak to Doctor Alistair about that. He was wondering if you’d be able to come in to the clinic for a meeting.’

  ‘Right now? Today?’

  My suggestion left her wrong-footed. ‘Er, no. Everyone’s already left for the day.’ She sounded worried that I might ignore her words and turn up on their doorstep anyway. ‘In the morning,’ she said, wresting back control of the conversation. ‘Can you get here for ten o’clock?’ She sounded nervous, and with perfect clarity I realised this woman already knew why the doctor wanted to see me.

  We hung up, and I sensed her relief that our call was over. My own relief didn’t have any hope of kicking in until the same could be said for my meeting with the doctor. And maybe not even then.

  7

  Izzy

  We weren’t late. There was plenty of time before the show started, but Pete had insisted we leave the pub with an hour to spare. We were well ahead of the other parents, which allowed us to claim two front-row seats in the school hall. Pete settled himself happily on one of the slightly-too-small-for-adults chairs, and began checking the camera settings on his phone.

  The relief that our lunch had gone exactly the way he’d hoped it would was coming off him in palpable waves, while I was doing my best to conceal my own disappointment.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ Pete confided in a whisper, as he eyed the stage where Noah would soon perform, ‘but I’m feeling kind of jittery for him. Was he okay this morning?’

  ‘He wasn’t nervous at all.’ I smiled as my eyes found Noah’s name on the cast list that had been left on every chair. ‘It’s as if performing is second nature to him.’

  ‘Well, he definitely doesn’t get that from me,’ declared Pete. I bit my lip to stop the smile as the image of my husband singing lustily along to various karaoke machines filled my head.

  An hour later my cheeks were aching from smiling widely, and my palms felt sore from clapping. All the children had put on an incredible performance, but in my own – obviously unbiased – opinion, Noah had stolen the show. Although admittedly the seven-year-old Pink Lady who’d spent most of the performance dealing with a troublesome wedgie had come a close second.

  I was pretty sure I’d seen the sheen of proud tears in Pete’s eyes when the curtains had finally drawn to a close. Around us the applause was fading, but Pete was still clapping heartily. Any minute now he’s going to start whooping and calling for an encore, I thought, and Noah’s going to start wishing he had far less embarrassing parents.

  ‘When did he get to be that good?’ Pete asked, as though I’d somehow been keeping our son’s musical talents from him.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I answered honestly. ‘I knew he could sing well, but not that well.’

  ‘You should think about sending him to stage school,’ declared Samantha Coleman’s mother, whose own eight-year-old was enrolled in so many extracurricular activities, I’m surprised she had any energy left for school. Pete’s eyes met mine and we both subtly shook our heads. It was good to know that married or separated, we were still on the same page about that one. Noah had been through enough changes recently. Pulling him out of a school he loved just because he had musical ability wasn’t even a consideration.

  *

  The pizza restaurant was still fairly quiet when we arrived for Noah’s celebratory meal. It wasn’t yet six o�
�clock and apart from a handful of elderly diners enjoying the early-bird special, we had the place to ourselves. Several of them looked our way and smiled as we walked three abreast through the swing doors, laughing and talking animatedly about the show.

  A young waitress with dramatically pencilled eyebrows showed us to one of the booths usually reserved for larger groups after Pete whispered something in her heavily pierced ear. Whatever he’d said had softened the expression on her face and she’d smiled broadly at Noah and then brought him a free glass of Coke.

  ‘Told her you were famous,’ Pete confided with a wink, which made Noah splutter noisily into his drink. I smiled as I watched them, realising just how much I’d missed seeing how good they were together. Pete was a natural at parenthood; he always had been.

  We’d ordered our pizzas and were in the middle of toasting Noah’s success with fizzy drinks when the cutlery on the table performed a tuneful tinkling percussion as Pete’s phone vibrated against it. He went to switch it off and then stopped as he read the caller’s identity.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, getting to his feet and stepping out of the booth. ‘I need to take this.’

  A frisson of irritation ran through me. ‘Can’t it wait – our pizzas will be here in a minute?’

  Pete slipped on his sunglasses, making his eyes deliberately hard to read as he shook his head. ‘No. I have to take this now.’

  He strode away, already answering the call on his way to the exit, but he didn’t venture far from the doorway; I could still see him through the huge plate-glass window. He had his back to us, but there was something about the way he was standing and the set of his shoulders that bothered me.

  Noah was talking, but my attention was split. Who was the caller Pete felt he couldn’t put off? Maya’s name kept bobbing to the surface, like an unsinkable float. Of course, I had no reason to think it was her, but whoever it was, and whatever they were saying, was clearly affecting my husband. His arms were gesticulating with an emotion it was impossible to name: anger; passion, or something else entirely?