Niamh had always known the summer was to be Erika’s way of making up for lost time, a way to try to stitch herself back together after losing Astrid. If only she hadn’t been so afraid of losing Erika, perhaps Niamh would have found the courage to tell her the truth. And now, because of her own insecurities, Niamh had lost her anyway.
The problem was, it wasn’t ever really about an internship; it was about Leo and how Niamh had chosen him instead of Erika, just like Astrid had done too.
Three sheets of folded paper filled with words that made no real sense were still stuffed into the bottom of her rucksack in the hope that she might be able to forget about what she had lost. Because it wasn’t just Erika she’d lost, but Duncan, and all the time she had spent with them, daring to believe that she’d found friends who would be there for her, no matter what.
Her brief return to Ireland, after a summer spent with Leo, was a veritable bolt to the brain. She and her parents had moved around one another with practised ease, barely exchanging a few words over breakfast before her father retreated to the safety of his shed. Niamh’s mother paid more attention to the television than her, and so she had done what she always did and spent each day either in her room, or drinking endless cups of tea in her local café.
To be back in Oxford, standing in a room imprinted with memories of all who had been there before, made her want to run. There was Blu-Tack on the walls where once somebody’s posters had been stuck, and there was a postcard from Budapest lying forgotten at the back of the desk drawer.
It all seemed to belong to someone else, someone who deserved to be there more than her. Because she no longer wanted to be there, but she had no idea where it was she would rather live. It made her wonder what her life would have been like had she chosen to study at any other university in the world. Or if she had been chosen by a different set of parents. Or, the one thing she turned over in her mind more than any other, if her mother had never given her away.
Leo would be there soon, and then everything would change. She knew that the day was one of those pivotal, life-changing events that people always talk about in retrospect. But what of the ones you instigate, the ones you choose to create? Because she still had a choice, she always had a choice, but until she saw him, she had no idea which path she would be forced to tread.
Niamh fingered the charm that always hung around her neck. She remembered Erika asking her about it the very first night they met. It was during the first term, when Niamh was spending most of her time either hiding in the library or her room. But she had been persuaded down to the bar one evening by someone on her course. As soon as she entered the dank, sweaty space, Niamh’s attention was drawn to a girl by the pool table who was dressed in a tutu and army boots, deliberately leaning across the surface and revealing as much of those legs as possible to her opponent.
‘My God, what is she wearing?’
Niamh had turned round to be rewarded with the sight of Octavia, lips pursed and eyes narrowed.
‘I think she’s a bit of a lash,’ Niamh said, at the same time as Erika turned around and flashed her a smile so much more welcoming than any she had encountered since arriving in Oxford.
‘I wasn’t actually talking to you,’ Octavia replied with a smirk, her eyes sweeping over Niamh in one dismissive movement. ‘Not that I understood a word of what you just said.’
‘That’s because you are both okunnig and bortskamd,’ Erika said as she came towards them, brandishing a cue. ‘Perhaps I should shove this up your nose and have a poke about to see if there are any brains in that thick head of yours?’
Octavia rolled her eyes and walked away with a backward toss of ‘bitch’, but Erika either didn’t hear or didn’t care, instead draping one arm over Niamh’s shoulder and steering her in the direction of the bar.
The conversation that followed was peppered with laughter as they tried to understand one another’s accents, along with countless shots of vodka. It was the vodka which meant that when Erika pointed at Niamh’s necklace and asked her where it was from, Niamh hadn’t shied away from telling her it once belonged to her mother. She hadn’t been able to tell her the whole story, not then, but the fact Erika hadn’t pushed for more of an answer made Niamh think that perhaps one day she could.
Everything came back to that day – to a chance meeting between strangers who turned into friends, back when Niamh didn’t think she would ever find anyone to share her life with. Now she was terrified of having made the wrong choice, because if Erika was right, if she and Leo didn’t have a future, then she would be worse off than ever before.
‘Hey,’ he said as he opened the gate and walked around the perimeter of the kitchen garden. She was sitting on a wooden bench next to a wall covered in clematis. The leaves were a mixture of green and red with a thin autumn carpet at her feet. She was dressed in leggings and an oversized jumper with holes in the cuffs, through which she had poked her thumbs.
She attempted a smile as he bent down to kiss her, but then turned her head away.
‘I got your message,’ Leo said as he sat down beside her and saw that she had been crying. ‘What’s going on?’
What she chose to say next would resonate in her mind for years to come. She knew that the words held such significance, but she had no idea where to begin.
‘It’s OK.’ Leo took hold of her hand. ‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.’
The only problem was, ‘whatever’ was such an all-encompassing word, meaning he really didn’t think he could cope with any of the scenarios that had been flashing through his mind ever since he picked up her voicemail less than half an hour ago.
‘I’m pregnant.’ She looked up at him, then pulled her hand from his.
‘Oh.’ Of all the things he had feared she might say, that one hadn’t even crossed his mind. Which was both ridiculous and naive, because why wouldn’t that be something she needed to tell him?
‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘No. I mean, I don’t know. What am I supposed to say?’
‘Nothing, I guess.’
‘I thought you were on the pill?’ Besides which, they hadn’t slept together since she had contracted food poisoning and couldn’t bear to be touched. Then she had gone home to get ready for her final year of study. It was a year he had been looking forward to, just as he couldn’t wait to get back to Oxford to see her again.
‘I was,’ Niamh said as she wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them tight. ‘But I guess being sick sort of nullified its effects. Plus, I forgot to take it for a few days. Anyway, makes no odds now.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ There had been endless conversations over the phone in the weeks when she was back in Cork. Along with letters and tokens of affection he kept sending her on a whim.
He had agreed to do some work for his father, a thank you of sorts for letting him have the rest of the summer off. The work was methodical and rather dull, and Leo had struggled to click with any of his co-workers. It wasn’t just about being the boss’s son, but rather his mind was distracted, because everything made him think of her. He’d taken to getting off the Tube early and walking up through Camden on his way home. It was in the market that he’d stumbled across an antiques shop, a veritable treasure trove of things that he knew Niamh would adore.
The next time he wrote to her, he sent her a music box that you had to wind with a silver key and had the twelve constellations painted on the underside of the lid. The time after that, it was a kaleidoscope made from a cat’s eye marble, which cast beautiful lines of light as it was turned. In return, she had sent him mix-tapes of all her favourite songs, and a packet of chocolate-covered honeycomb, because she knew how much of a sweet tooth he had.
She had ignored all the signs, because the idea of actually being pregnant was so ridiculously scary that she decided to treat it like a mosquito bite – if you resisted the urge to scratch it, it would eventually go away. Until it was obvious that it wasn’t something
she could push under the carpet and she had to figure out what to do next. Except walking into a pharmacy in Ireland and asking for a pregnancy test wasn’t the easiest of tasks. And she had absolutely no desire to go to her family doctor, because then someone would know and have an opinion about her future.
Instead, she had waited until she got back to Oxford and simply popped into Boots on her way up to Stavvers. The sales assistant had barely looked at her as she handed it across the counter. Niamh had stuffed it into her bag and done her very best to ignore it as she walked up Woodstock Road. But it was there, one corner of the box poking out and taunting her with the truth it would reveal. Once she’d dumped her belongings in her room and unpacked her records, she knew there was no point in delaying the inevitable.
Peeing on a stick to decide your future was such a weird concept. There was a tiny collection of cells inside her that were already having such a significant impact on her life, even if there were no obvious outward signs. Apart from swollen boobs and an inability to stop crying, and that was even before she looked down and saw those two lines of blue.
‘I didn’t realise,’ she said with an elongated sigh. ‘Or rather, I pretended it was unlikely because we haven’t actually had sex in a while.’
‘Shit,’ Leo said, staring out at nothing as the harshness of reality settled inside his mind.
‘Shit, indeed.’
‘Does anyone else know?’
‘Not at the moment. I wanted to tell you first.’
‘Right. I get that. But perhaps you should tell someone?’
‘Why? So you don’t have to make the decision for me?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ Or did he? Because he needed help, they both needed help, to try to figure out what the hell they were supposed to do next. Only he couldn’t think of a single person he could tell who wouldn’t either judge or try to steer them down a particular path.
‘Besides, who the fuck am I supposed to tell?’ She could feel the panic beginning to rise, just as it had ever since she had seen those two blue lines. It was a panic that was feeding off her fear, off her past and all the implications that had been running through her mind for weeks now.
‘What about your mum?’ Surely she could tell her mum? He would want to tell his mum, ask her advice and hopefully offload some of his own fear.
Niamh chewed on the inside of her cheek and rubbed the heel of her hand against her eyes.
‘Did I ever tell you why they adopted me so late?’
‘No.’ And the way she said it meant he didn’t want to know.
‘She kept miscarrying. I think she lost nine babies in total, one of which was stillborn.’ The words caught in her throat as she remembered her father explaining why her mum wouldn’t get out of bed for three days straight. It had been the tenth anniversary of the day her son was born, and a week before Niamh was supposed to start at senior school. She was still a child herself, but had been forced to grow up so much that day, to understand more about the cruelties of life than she had been ready to know.
‘When she turned forty-five, my dad convinced her to adopt, but I don’t think her heart was ever really in it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘As soon as I hit puberty she was constantly lecturing me about being responsible. She always said it was unfair that some women could have children, only to throw them away, when there were countless others who would love that little babby with all their hearts.’
‘But it wasn’t your fault.’
‘Maybe not. But I was a constant reminder of what she wanted, the baby she couldn’t have.’
Leo couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her, to go from a home where there were no parents, to one where the parents couldn’t show her any affection. His own family were an endless source of irritation and interference, but he had never been short of love.
‘Does this mean you don’t want to keep it?’
The look she shot him was enough to make him flinch. ‘Jesus, Leo, do you not remember what I told you about my mother? No matter how much it hurts that she abandoned me, she also let me live.’
‘OK, OK. Forget I said anything.’ He felt like a naughty schoolboy being reprimanded for breaking an unwritten rule.
For a while they just sat, both of them staring at the ground and trying to think of something to say. Niamh took out a cigarette and began to roll it between her fingers, then she brought it up to her nose and inhaled deeply.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, putting it back in her pocket. ‘I’m not actually going to smoke it.’
‘Then what are you going to do?’
‘We, Leo. What are we going to do?’
Leo scuffed his trainer on the ground over and over as if somehow the movement could help ease the mass of emotions swirling through him. He didn’t want to be a father. At least, not yet. He had so many plans for the two of them, none of which involved even thinking about kids until they’d travelled the world, crafted blisteringly exciting careers and exhausted one another both physically and mentally. And now it was all going to have to change, long before he was even close to being ready for the responsibility of being a grown-up.
‘We could get married?’ He dared a look at her, but couldn’t see her face behind that thick curtain of hair. He had wanted to ask her for months. He’d even gone so far as to buy an antique sapphire ring in Camden Market, which was currently in a drawer back in his student house, because he hadn’t expected to need it that afternoon.
If only he’d asked her at some point over the summer, or at least come prepared, because now she would think that the only reason he was asking was because of the baby.
Niamh sat back, brushing her hair from her face then letting her hand rest on her middle. She’d thought he might ask her, dared to imagine it. But on a hilltop in Santorini when they shared a bowl of chips and a bottle of Guinness, not because he felt that he had to. Even if he had intended to all along, now it would forever feel forced, tainted instead of beautiful.
‘I’d still be pregnant.’
‘But it would be better, in the eyes of God and all that.’
Niamh got to her feet and strolled across to where a few roses were still clinging to the last remnants of summer. She didn’t look back to see if Leo was following, but she felt the air shift behind her, and caught the faintest scent of basil that clung to his clothes.
‘That’s hardly the point,’ she said, reaching out a hand towards the rosebush and wishing she could prick her finger on a thorn and fall into a dreamless sleep.
‘Then what is?’
She turned around to look at him, searching his face for any sign of comprehension, but found nothing more than fear.
‘Are all men this idiotic, or is it just you?’
‘I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I am going to have a baby.’
‘I know.’
‘In roughly seven months’ time.’
‘I understand how pregnancy works, Niamh.’
‘What else is supposed to happen in seven months’ time, Leo?’
She waited. Watching as the cogs of his brain jumped forward to May and what it was that all final-year students would be completely immersed in at that time.
‘Fuck.’ This wasn’t just about a baby. This was about the rest of their lives changing from that very second. One tiny sperm and one tiny egg coming together at a precise moment in time had flipped both their futures up and around and sent them crashing back to earth without giving them the space to breathe, let alone think. The odds of Niamh getting pregnant were too complicated for him to try and get his head around, but he knew they weren’t as low as he’d stupidly thought.
‘And after that? Even if I did manage to prepare for and then sit my finals without going into labour, who the hell is going to give me a job?’
She could contact Charlie. Ask him to give her a second chance, let her apply for another internship next summer.
But would they consider hiring her with a baby on the way? Even if they did, who would look after it whilst she tried to clamber back on to the corporate ladder she had been so desperately trying to avoid?
‘But you wouldn’t have to go to work.’ Why did he keep speaking without thinking? He was trying to help, to placate her somehow, even if he had no clue what they were actually going to do.
‘That is so fucking misogynistic.’
‘We can figure it out.’ He had always been able to figure it out, but was it actually him, or the safety net that came with a stable family and money that meant his life had been pretty smooth sailing up to that point?
‘How?’ She was so angry at him for just assuming everything would be fine. Because he had no idea what it meant to fail, to screw up, to have anything ever go even the slightest bit wrong. The idea that perhaps he wouldn’t be able to help after all terrified her. It made her think that telling him wasn’t necessarily the best thing she could have done. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the explanation, the truth, that she realised he needed to hear.
‘Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that we did get married. We finish our finals, move to London and you start working at your father’s company. Do you really want to be the only twenty-something going home to nappies and puke?’
‘But we won’t be in London.’ He had no desire to work for his father, or any other law firm. She knew this; they had spoken at length about what else he wanted to do with his life, so why was she now trying to steer him down a path neither of them had any intention of following?
She knew what he was thinking, but he needed to understand that his choices had been drastically reduced the moment he had impregnated her.
‘We would need money, Leo. Babies are expensive and if I’m at home playing wifey, then you need to be at work, not chasing an impossible dream.’
‘Hang on a sec, we’re supposed to be moving to New York so I can enrol in film school. You were the one who said I should follow my dreams, not just do whatever my father wants me to do.’
The Love We Left Behind Page 22