The Idea of You

by Amanda Prowse

  Slowly, without disturbing her husband, she stood and carried the knitted coat in her palms, up the stairs and into their bedroom. Reaching up to the top of the wardrobe, she pulled down the wicker and leather hamper. Carefully, she laid the coat on the bed and placed the hamper on the duvet next to it. She loosened and released the leather straps from their brass buckles and smiled as the lid opened with a creak. Inside she had taken the trouble of lining the base with crisp white tissue paper, which she now opened, and in the centre she gently laid the little knitted item, carefully covering it in an envelope of white tissue before fastening the leather hamper straps and reaching up to put the basket back on top of the wardrobe.

  She placed her hand on her stomach. Her body was having difficulty catching up with proceedings. She felt the shock wave of nausea as she stood up straight, and her boobs were still a little tender. She swallowed as she approached the bed and clicked on the bedside lamp. It was as she pulled back the duvet that her head spun, her legs buckled and her breath caught in her throat.

  There, in a large, butterfly-shaped stain, were the rusty remains of her loss.

  ‘Jonah!’ She screamed out his name. ‘Jonah!’ she cried again, louder this time, as she sank down on to the mattress, burying her face in her pillow as she howled. Her grief filled her up and took her over. Her body coiled against the once red mark, now brown and nothing more than a darkened crust against her skin as she wept.

  She heard his footsteps thunder up the stairs and then in an instant his arms were around her, holding her tightly as she wept.

  ‘I wanted my baby so badly!’ she cried. ‘I wanted her with me!’

  ‘I know. I know my love.’ He held her close to his body, rocking her, as if this might help.

  ‘I don’t know what I did wrong, Jonah.’ Her words came in short bursts, struggling to get out between her breaths, fractured with sobs. ‘I took my folic acid, I napped, I ate right, I did it all, I did everything it said in my book, but I lost her anyway. I’m sorry, Jonah . . .’ She sobbed until speech was impossible and all she could do was lean into him and close her eyes.

  ‘You don’t ever have to apologise. You did nothing wrong, my darling, nothing. And we will try again – when you are ready we will try again and the next time it will all be fine. We have to put it behind us and carry on. We’ve got each other and that’s all that matters right now. I love you, Lucy. I love you so much.’

  Lucy gripped his shirt with both hands, her fingers trembling, as if afraid to let go.

  Three days later they sat at the breakfast table in the kitchen, both dressed for work and munching on wholewheat toast, hers smeared with marmalade and his dripping with butter and jam, and both sipping tea. The rain lashed the French doors and a neighbour’s dog howled in protest at something or other.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Jonah asked again. ‘Because there is no rush. You must take the time you need.’

  ‘Yes! I shall be fine. I am fine. But I won’t be if you confine me to barracks for another day. I might possibly go nuts, so let me get back to work and carry on with my life. The sooner I can do that, the sooner I can get back to normal.’

  ‘You know, don’t you, that if you don’t feel up to it at work or you change your mind, you can just call me and—’

  ‘And you will come and rescue me. I know. You have already said.’ She bit her toast and blinked slowly.

  ‘I’m fussing,’ he admitted, as he placed his empty mug in the rattling dishwasher, ‘but that’s my job, to fuss over you, in case you had forgotten.’

  ‘I had not forgotten.’ She took a gulp of her tea. ‘And I love you for it.’

  He gave her a quick kiss before dashing to clean his teeth in the downstairs shower room that lurked under the stairs.

  Lucy laid the remainder of the toast on her plate and closed her eyes, leaning on the breakfast bar to stop the tremor in her hands, as she breathed deeply.

  You can do this, Lucy. You’ll be okay . . .

  Mercifully the rain had stopped by the time she hovered on the platform at the train station. Her eyes drifted to the billboard in front of her. It carried an advertisement for baby formula with a big blue-eyed baby staring down at her. She looked away and straight at the news stand, where every other magazine featured a young, beautifully coiffed celebrity beaming into the lens as they held up their precious bundle for the world to see. It might have been her imagination or a new sensitivity to the topic, but it sure felt as if every advertisement, every newspaper, every programme and every song featured babies. She saw an incredibly high percentage of pregnant women, and nearly every other person on the street seemed to be pushing a buggy. It was all she could do not to scream or turn on her heel and run back down Salusbury Road, all the way home.

  Tansy was her first visitor of the day. She walked into her office and closed the door behind her, launching without preamble into her line of questioning.

  ‘It’s not like you to have a couple of days off; in fact, in the six years that I have known you, I’ve never known you to have one day off. I told everyone it must be the bubonic plague or a lottery win. They are the only two things I could think of that would keep you off work.’

  ‘You got me!’ Lucy held her hands up in submission. ‘I got the bubonic plague and then with my lottery win used the money to fund a cure. Hence my two days out of circulation.’ She concentrated on opening her email, flinching at the hundreds of messages that had accumulated in her short absence and feeling a stab of guilt, wondering how this feeling might be magnified were she to be off on maternity leave.

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you back. Benedict said to me the other day how he would love to see his godparents, and I said, “What a coincidence! Because Daddy and I would like to see them too.” And so I figured you guys need to come over for supper and kill two birds with one stone. How does that sound?’

  Lucy looked up at the expectant face of her friend, who rarely asked anything of her. ‘Sounds like a plan, and how amazing that he is talking so well!’ she managed, ignoring the throb in her stomach and groin where her body continued to try to fathom what had occurred.

  ‘Well, okay, I admit he’s still not talking, but I can tell you that if he was, that is most definitely what he would be asking.’ She grinned as she made her way back to her desk, her parting words, ‘Good to have you back, by the way.’

  Lucy felt the need to visit the bathroom, where she hastily removed the evidence of her miscarriage that continued to come from her and popped it in the sanitary bin, trying not to look at the tiny stains. Reminders. All that was left of her dreams of motherhood.

  The next couple of weeks were hard. Lucy felt torn. In some ways it was a blessing not to have told the world that she was pregnant; it meant she avoided the embarrassment of having to set people straight when they asked how she was doing in that knowing way, sparing them both the ordeal. But at the same time, not having the support of those who loved her to help her through her loss left her feeling isolated. She spent a chunk of her working day secretly looking at thousands of threads online written by women who were in similar situations, and it helped a little. There were of course the odd one or two comments that left her reeling and confused; one was from MsNinjaZx6R: ‘It’s only like a heavy period, a bunch of cells. Get over it! Talk to someone who has lost a child; now, that’s hard.’

  She sat on the train that night with her bag clutched against her chest and her mind whirring. Maybe MsNinjaZx6R was right; was she overreacting? How could she be grieving for ‘a bunch of cells’? But she was, and that grief was real. As she strolled the length of Salusbury Road, smiling nonchalantly at the mums pushing their buggies or clutching the hands of their toddlers, she felt her resolve weaken, her armour loosen and her smile fade. By the time she arrived home, without the will to search in her purse for her key, she rapped with weary knuckles, waiting to be let in. Jonah answered the door. And there she stood, aware of her mascara-laden tears running in thick stre
aks down her face, leaving a sticky, dark smear across the back of her palm; her nose and throat were clogged with distress and her heart and womb pulsed with longing.

  ‘Oh, my Lucy!’

  He stepped forward and pulled her towards him, shutting the door behind her, as she cried into his chest. ‘I wanted our baby, so . . . so badly,’ she managed.

  ‘I know, and it will happen for us, darling, it will. Just you wait and see,’ he whispered. ‘I promise.’

  Again she clung to him, wanting so desperately to believe him.

  I like to imagine all the pictures and cards that you would have made at nursery school. I know that our kitchen cupboards and walls could only benefit from being covered in things that you had made and designed. It would bring me joy every time I looked at them. Oh! To see your little handprints smeared across a page in red or blue paint and to be able to frame the first Christmas card you made! I think that would be the most wonderful thing. I picture a badly drawn Christmas tree, coloured in with sparkles and glitter all over it. I bet you would love to get your hands covered in glue and pom-poms and bits of macaroni, and I think it’s these pictures, these glorious creations, that turn any house into a home, don’t you? And that’s a house I have always wanted to live in.

  FOUR

  Lucy learned to move on; at least, that was the face she presented to the outside world. It wasn’t that she hid her feelings from Jonah as such, but she was certainly aware of presenting an outer persona that was often stronger than she felt, as if this was the person he expected her to be. When in the house alone, she did on occasion pull the baby book from behind its French Revolution barricade and flip to the page where she would be, if nature hadn’t played its cruellest trick on her.

  She held the open book to her face and read.

  At week thirteen, were you able to see your baby you would probably recognise it as a baby. It has nails on the ends of its fingers and toes and can move its neck and head. It is approximately the size of a large clementine and can open and close its mouth.

  ‘Wow!’ she spoke aloud. ‘Little nails on the ends of your fingers, imagine that!’ She ran her hand over her flat stomach before reading on.

  At week fourteen your baby is now moving around a lot. It is 8–9 cm in length. If it’s a boy, his penis will be visible on a scan.

  Lucy closed the book and popped it back in its hiding place, just as the phone rang.

  ‘Lucy, hi. Fay and I were thinking of coming to town on Saturday for a bit of a stroll and a spot of shopping – are you around for an early supper?’ Her mum’s tone was, as ever, a little clipped, impatient, as if there were somewhere else she needed to be or something else she needed to do and this call was a complete but necessary inconvenience.

  Like her mother, her sister, Fay, younger than her by three years, loved to shop. It was a total mystery to Lucy, who could find no joy in ambling along crowded pavements or scooting around sanitised malls with a desire to buy stuff, any stuff. For her, shopping was an unpleasant necessity and it had to be done fast, like ripping off a plaster or getting a jab. Food, bar the odd special item, was largely delivered. Clothes were selected from websites and bought with an impatient click, and furniture was sourced and then bought online. The very word ‘stroll’ made her shudder. Who had time to ‘stroll’?

  ‘It would be lovely to see you both. Why don’t you come here?’ she suggested, a little reluctantly.

  ‘Will Jonah cook?’ her mum asked nervously.

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed, ‘don’t worry, I won’t.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ Her mum gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I’m still reeling over your chicken Kiev. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been the same since.’

  ‘Please don’t drag that up again.’

  ‘That’s easy to ask, Lucy, but I shan’t ever forget it. It’s still a mystery to me how you managed to get the outside charred and keep the middle still frozen. Oh God, I’m feeling queasy just thinking about it.’ Her mum’s voice trailed off. Lucy pictured her in the hallway with her hand at her throat, trying to quash the urge to be sick. She suppressed her wicked desire to laugh at the image.

  ‘Well, don’t think about it then. And at least I tried.’ She recalled how everyone around the table had gone silent, including her new husband, each wondering how to broach the subject that was going to wipe the very satisfied smile of accomplishment from her face.

  ‘Can I bring anything? A cookbook? A takeaway?’ Her mum still found it hard to believe that she could do anything without her assisting in some way, without interfering or suggesting a better way of doing things.

  ‘Very funny. Nope. Just yourselves.’ She spoke with a false brightness.

  ‘See you Saturday then.’ Her mum ended the call abruptly.

  The sound of Jonah’s key in the door made her smile. She swallowed the strawberry laces she snacked on illegally before supper and pulled a cold beer from the fridge, popping the lid before meeting him in the hallway.

  ‘Well, this is the kind of welcome I could get used to.’ He shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the newel post before taking the beer bottle into his hand and crushing her to him with his free arm. Lucy reached up for a kiss, and within seconds this kiss had bloomed into something more. They leant against the banister, kissing like teens. It was lovely, unexpected, carefree and cathartic. It had been weeks since they had slept together – her fragility and their joint loss had been a gatekeeper for anything more – but here in this instant, as he held her close, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Jonah paused from kissing her and tentatively took her hand, leading her up the stairs to their bedroom. She avoided looking at the wicker hamper on top of the wardrobe as he lay her down and they slowly began the process of reconnecting.

  Lucy lay with her head on his chest while he twirled her long hair between his fingers.

  ‘How was your day?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, it’s got a lot better since you came home.’ She smiled against him.

  ‘Mine too!’ He laughed. ‘But I meant at work.’

  ‘Good, busy, the usual. We are all frantically working on this pitch for the green energy company. It’s interesting.’

  ‘I do hope you get it.’ He kissed her.

  ‘Me too. Oh and Mum called, she and Fay are popping in on Saturday for an early supper. I said you’d cook.’

  ‘Great idea – can you give me your recipe for those chicken Kiev ice lollies that you made the last time they came to eat?’

  ‘Don’t you start! I’ve had my mum reminding me about that already. Sheesh, a girl makes one mistake! She turns it into a joke but I know she is genuinely worried about me cooking.’

  ‘Yes, but it was a pretty memorable mistake.’ He laughed, wrapping her in his arms and rolling her on top of him. ‘Luckily I didn’t marry you for your cooking skills.’

  ‘Funny, because that’s the exact reason I married you.’

  ‘I thought it was because you found me irresistible.’

  ‘No, it was because I thought, now this looks like a man who can whip up a mean grilled cheese sandwich.’

  ‘And you were right.’ He kissed her before pulling away. ‘You seem a bit . . .’ He looked up to the ceiling, clearly searching for the best word.

  ‘Better?’ she volunteered.

  ‘Yes.’ He held her gaze. ‘Better.’

  They were silent for a second or two before Jonah spoke. ‘You don’t have to be brave all the time, you know. You can tell me how you are feeling and I will try to make it better if I can.’

  ‘I know.’ She smiled, declining the subtle offer to open up to him. It was hard for her to explain how she handled things best: by keeping a lid on certain aspects. She had trained herself to be this way, living alone and being single for long periods.

  ‘I spoke to Geneviève today.’ He shifted his position until they were lying facing each other across the mattress, as if this topic required a more remote stance. Reaching out, he continue
d to run the ends of her long hair through his fingers.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Lucy pictured the woman she had only seen in photographs, the petite blonde with the deep tan, pixie crop and slightly aggressive stance.

  ‘She’s having a bit of a tough time with Camille. I told her it’s probably normal teenage rebellion, which she took as an excuse to remind me how fortunate I was to be able to diagnose this from afar and not actually have to suffer the slamming of doors and open hostility that she’s been subjected to.’ He tsk-tsked.

  ‘It must be tricky. I was never a door slammer, and I think my only act of rebellion was to sneak sweets before bedtime – that was, until I became a teen, and then I really went off the rails.’

  ‘Sour strawberry laces by any chance?’ He laughed.

  ‘If they were available, yes.’ She nodded, swallowing and trying to refocus her attention on the present. ‘I think you are right, though; it’s probably normal and healthy that Camille shows a bit of rebellion – all part of testing the boundaries. Fay was a right handful, really put my mum through the mill, and she levelled out pretty quickly once she’d left home.’ She pictured her lookalike little sister, a great mum and a good teacher, happily married to another teacher, Adam.

  ‘I’d like to see Camille more, I really would,’ he mused. ‘And it gets me that Geneviève has a go at me about not being there when I would love nothing more than to be involved in her everyday life. But she just doesn’t see that.’

  ‘I’ve already told you to get her over here. I’d really like to meet her! It’s weird for me that I haven’t.’

  ‘It’s weird for me too, but it’s just kind of how it is. She has her life in France, school, friends, and her mum and Jean-Luc, and I have always been this shadowy figure on the outside. I feel more like an uncle sometimes, except when Geneviève can’t find anyone else to scream at and then of course she calls me.’ He looked skyward.