She emerged from the tube and soaked in the familiar sites of Baron’s Court as she made her way home, noticing the small changes that the onset of summer had brought with it, the new roadworks and building developments that had sprung up while she had been away. She decided to go straight home so that she could dump her suitcase before heading to the shops to restock her fridge.
Her resolve began to wobble as she approached Mayfield Road and she braced herself as she opened the front door and climbed the stairs to her flat. She unlocked the green door, noticing that the paint was peeling slightly near the lock and making a mental note to do something about it. As she pushed open the door she was struck by the slightly musty, stale smell of an unoccupied house. It looked a little sad and neglected, and she felt bad for having abandoned her home. Lucy turned on the lights, dumped her bag on the floor and scanned her eyes around the flat. It felt surprisingly normal, as though the absence of Alex and his belongings was barely noticeable. The flat had been the same for so many years before him: she supposed, that it was only natural that it still looked like home without his possessions scattered about. It would be in the storage spaces that she would notice the emptiness more.
She walked into the bedroom, turning on the lights as she went, and opened her cupboard doors. Someone, Alex or more likely Claudia, had thoughtfully spread her clothes evenly across the railing so that a large gap was not evident. There was a lot more space, no boxes and bags, and no set of golf clubs. Lucy’s heart wrenched as she remembered the day when she had found the ring, how her emotions had danced the tango as she had opened the little velvet box, how happy she had been. But now there was nothing there. Tearing herself away from the wardrobe, she moved to the chest of drawers. Likewise there were no gaping, empty drawers; her clothes had been neatly folded and redistributed to fill the spaces that Alex’s jumpers and boxers had vacated. She went back into the sitting room and looked around.
Claudia had a spare set of keys and had been letting herself in once a week to forward any mail and to water her beloved plants. They had flourished in her absence and the bright red geranium in her window box was in full bloom; a vivid splash of colour that brightened up the sitting room. She knelt on the cushioned window seat and raised the sash window, letting some much-needed fresh air seep into the flat. There was a note from Claudia on the kitchen table:
Welcome home Luce! London has missed you. Can’t wait to see you! Look in the fridge for your dinner… can’t have you rushing to the shops the moment you get back!
Love you C and D xx
In the fridge she found a chicken casserole, a bag of potatoes for baking, some butter, broccoli, milk and a packet of microwaveable chocolate soufflés. Lucy was so touched by this sweet gesture that she immediately reached for her phone and called Claudia.
‘Lucy! Are you home?’ said Claudia.
‘I just got here, thanks so much for stocking up my fridge. You honestly are the best friend a girl could ask for… mini chocolate soufflés?! You know me so well!’ she said.
‘Well it has been thirty years, I’ve had plenty of time!’ laughed Claudia. ‘How does it feel to be back, not too weird I hope?’
‘Do you know what, it’s not half as bad as I was expecting,’ said Lucy, surprised. ‘Thanks so much for rearranging my things so that I wouldn’t be faced with too many empty spaces. I think I had made it into something so traumatic in my head that the reality was much easier to deal with! Though ask me again in the morning when I’ve been sobbing into my pillow all night and I might have a different opinion!’ said Lucy wryly.
‘Don’t you dare, he is not worth it!’ exclaimed Claudia.
‘It’s okay, Clauds. I promise I’m feeling much stronger now.’
‘Are you still having bad days?’ Claudia asked.
‘The odd one, but generally I’m so busy focussing on the future that I am trying hard not to look back into the past, it’s a great distraction,’ Lucy explained, determined to put a brave face on and to try her best to sound positive.
‘The best distraction of all: having a baby!’ Claudia squeaked. ‘How are you getting on with your research?’
‘Not bad actually. It seems that I’ll have to have artificial insemination, where they’ll use a donor’s sperm to impregnate me!’
‘Right. So you don’t have to have IVF or anything?’
‘I don’t think so. Not to begin with anyway. I’m going to make an appointment with my GP so I can find out more.’
’Good idea. If you do go ahead with your plan, I’m definitely going to be god-mother, right? You’ve got to promise me that!’
‘I promise. Speaking of which, I had better go and see my godson soon, I can’t believe I haven’t seen him for so long, what a bad godmother…’
‘Tor will understand. You can offer to babysit and get some lessons,’ Claudia suggested. ‘You’re going to need them!’
‘I might actually start paying attention to some of the more graphic pregnancy stories too, perhaps it’ll put me off!’ she joked, knowing full well that there was nothing that could put her off now that she had her heart set on it.
‘So long as you don’t feel the need to pass them on to me. That is one part of life that I am very happy to remain out of the loop on, thank you very much!’ stated Claudia firmly.
‘Changing the subject entirely, have you heard from Dan how Alex is doing?’ asked Lucy, trying to keep her voice casual but instantly feeling sick at the thought of him having a separate life, separate experiences that she knew nothing about.
‘Ummm… not really. He has moved in with his sister for the time being, living in the spare room apparently,’ Claudia said.
‘Which one?’
‘The one that lives in London?’
‘Oh, Isabel, well yes that makes sense,’ Lucy said. ‘Is he dating anyone?’ she asked tentatively, hoping beyond hope that the answer would be no.
‘I honestly don’t know, Luce,’ Claudia said. ‘But you’ve got to try not to think about that. What he does now is no longer your concern, as painful as it may be.’
‘I know, you’re right. But it’s not easy. The thought of that still makes me feel physically sick.’
‘Will you see him?’ Claudia asked. ‘Are you going to try and get in touch?’
‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ve thought about it, but I just can’t. It’s too hard. I feel like I’m doing fairly well by myself now, and I know that if I see him it will send me hurtling back to square one.’
‘I think that’s very sensible,’ Claudia said.
They proceeded to chat about Claudia’s work for a while. She was a PA for a monumental bitch in the world of finance, and Lucy loved nothing more than listening to Claudia’s character assassination of her boss and the accompanying stories. She had been particularly bad recently, and Claudia’s daily texts reporting on her antics had been a wonderful source of amusement over the course of the last few weeks, proving to be a fantastic distraction from her blue moods.
Sending Dan lots of love and promising to come over the next evening for supper, she eventually hung up the phone. She then texted Tor to see if she could pencil in lunch for the following Saturday with her and her godson, Otto. Tor immediately phoned back to check in on her, to find out how she was feeling being back in the flat, showering her with positive messages about the future and motivational talk as only Tor could, mid breast-feed! Otto suddenly appeared to have had enough of his mother’s attentions lying elsewhere, proceeding to scream in protest, forcing Tor to hang up the phone whilst apologizing like crazy for her son’s rude manners.
Chuckling to herself and feeling lucky to have such amazing friends, Lucy turned on the oven to the maximum temperature and shoved one of the potatoes into bake. Next she began to unpack her clothes, all carefully washed by her darling mother and smelling of home, before pottering around the flat tidying and cleaning happily, with an episode of New Girl playing on the television. She had a glass of crisp, white Sauvigno
n Blanc, cold from the fridge, as she ate her dinner, perusing the channels to choose a movie. She settled on an old favourite, The Bridges of Madison County, and sank back to enjoy it. She tested her emotions to see how she felt, as though dipping her toes into the sea to test the temperature of the water. She realized to her satisfaction that she was okay, and she knew, from that moment on, things would begin to get better.
Chapter Twenty
The next day Lucy got dressed for work in a navy shift with a black belt and some strappy gold sandals. It felt good to be back in her routine. She didn’t even mind the early, piercing wake-up call from her alarm clock. She had missed Lettie, Simon, Jack and the rest of her colleagues and was looking forward to catching up on all their news. She was especially looking forward to seeing Jack. She had missed his company. She wondered how he was getting on, whether he was back in the family home or not.
She was relieved that no one approached her to talk about the break-up. There were no insensitive comments and the prying eyes and pitying looks that she had been dreading barely made an appearance. Jack came over to find out how she was and to talk to her about the latest updates on their social enterprise project: a campaign to promote a telecoms brand that was aiming to connect thousands of people in rural Africa. It sounded like they had made great progress with it in her absence.
At midday Lettie and Simon announced that they were taking her out for lunch to the local Leon. They filled her in on all the office news, including the big scandal that arose when the head of Human Resources, Sandra Wysowski, had been caught in the stationery cupboard kissing bald Alan, her underling. Lucy cackled with laughter, trying hard not to regurgitate her lunch at the thought! It felt good to be back.
Lettie and Simon were both dating. Simon was still seeing the man that he had been dating since March, a Spanish guy called Andre who worked in IT. It seemed to be going well and Simon was optimistic, for once, about the future. He was even talking about moving to Spain, which Lucy thought was a bit drastic. Young love, she reminded herself, was very fanciful. Lettie was dating a string of men that she had met on match.com and spent most of lunch regaling them with stories of the dates that she had been on so far, ranging from the bizarre to the outright extraordinary.
‘You guys are not going to believe this one!’ Lettie said with glee. ‘Last week I went on a date with a guy called Mark. He seemed perfectly normal when we were messaging but seriously… he was anything but!’
‘Go on!’ urged Lucy, taking a slurp of her Diet Coke and leaning closer in anticipation.
‘Okay, so we met at this bar in Soho. I spotted him immediately and went over to meet him, he bought me a drink and it all seemed to be going quite well.’
‘And?’ asked Simon, intrigued.
‘Well we sat down at a table in the corner and he took a deep breath and said, “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t really look like your profile.” I didn’t really know what to think seeing as it’s a close-up of my face and it looks just like me, so I asked him to clarify exactly what he meant. He replied that he had hoped that I would be larger than I was, explaining that he wasn’t really in to “slim women”, apparently he only fancies women that are in the unhealthy/obese category of the BMI scale!’
‘No!’ exclaimed Simon.
‘Maybe he’s one of those feeders that you see on TV!’ shrieked Lucy. ‘What did you do?’
‘Well I couldn’t leave with a full drink so I apologized for being too slim, secretly congratulating myself on the compliment, and decided to pry into this bizarre fat fetishist a little further. He told me that he was extremely attracted to the sight of rolls of fat. I began to feel a little queasy and started downing my wine in bigger gulps. He proceeded to explain a particular fantasy of his where he would lift up a fat roll…’
‘Nooooo!’ shrieked Simon and Lucy, wincing at the thought.
‘…insert a slab of cheese, wait until it had melted slightly and then eat it!’
‘Aaaah!’ screamed Lucy. ‘No way!’
‘Eurgh, I’m going to be sick again at the thought!’ Lettie shuddered.
Apparently Lettie had almost vomited on the spot and knocked over a table in her haste to get out of the bar. Lucy was encouraged to find herself really laughing, a deep, belly-rippling laugh that she hadn’t emitted in a long while.
That afternoon she ploughed through the rest of her emails and made sure that she popped into see her boss, Jill, to thank her for her understanding, for letting her take the time she needed. She bumped into Jack again on the way back to her desk. He seemed to have resumed his old flirtatious manner, giving her a cheeky wink as he passed her, no doubt encouraged that Lucy was now single once more, but she was determined not to encourage him. Ignoring his complicated home life, she was so focussed on her plans for motherhood that she didn’t want or need any distraction.
As the weeks rolled by, Lucy settled into the routine of work, running home once or twice a week, catching up with friends, seeing her granny and spending her free evenings researching.
One Saturday in late July, she met with her GP. As she sat in the chair and the doctor asked her what she could do to help, Lucy almost wimped out. She felt embarrassed to say that she was interested in finding out about donor insemination. She was worried that the doctor would judge her somehow, that she would think her naïve or foolish, that she should wait until she met a man like everyone else before having a child. She steeled herself and tentatively broached the subject, her desire to find out exactly what her options were overriding her embarrassment. Her doctor was surprisingly sympathetic. She asked her whether she had thought carefully about proceeding down this path, then recommended various websites that she could go to to get advice and support.
Feeling slightly more positive about the choices that lay ahead and armed with some literature that the doctor had given her, she set off to meet Tor in the park. The sky was a warm, cobalt blue. A light scattering of cloud streaked above the horizon as if a piece of white chalk had been dragged across it. Even the pavement beneath her feet seemed to radiate with the dry heat of the day. Lucy fumbled in her bag for her sunglasses, squinting against the bright light of the sun.
As she walked through Holland Park she inhaled the floral fragrance that permeated the air, noticing with joy that the towering delphiniums and scarlet oriental poppies that blossomed at this time of year were out in full force. She telephoned Tor, who was en route, to find out what she wanted to eat and then went inside the cafe to order, carrying her tray full of sandwiches and crisps out to their usual table in the sunshine.
About five minutes later she saw Tor approaching, pushing her enormous pram, looking slightly dishevelled but grinning happily and waving as she spotted Lucy. Putting the brakes on the pram, she gave Lucy a hug, plonking herself down on the chair and saying, ‘Phew, I made it!’ with a sigh of relief.
Lucy peered into the pram and admired the sleeping baby.
‘I’m telling you, Luce, it’s a bloody nightmare trying to get anywhere with one of them!’ she moaned, pointing at the pram.
‘I can imagine!’ said Lucy. ‘I’m going to push him around the park later, see if I can steer it. It looks like an awkward contraption to manoeuvre!’
‘It is! It’s supposed to be top of the range, but surely they can come up with something better than that. I mean, in the first few weeks, I’m not exaggerating when I say that it took me about five minutes to work out how to stop at the pedestrian crossing and press the button to cross without letting the pram slide into the road!’ she laughed, rolling her eyes at her own hopelessness.
‘I honestly don’t know how you do it!’ laughed Lucy.
‘It’s trial and error, that’s all,’ confided Tor. ‘I haven’t really got a clue! Anyway, much more importantly, tell me how it all went with the doctor this morning.’
‘I was pretty terrified, to be honest,’ said Lucy. ‘It all feels a lot more real when you find yourself eye to eye with a med
ical professional.’
‘Has it put you off?’ asked Tor. ‘I remember my first consultation when we started IVF… it sounded frankly horrific: the needles, the injections… et cetera. But in a way I was grateful that I knew what lay ahead; forewarned is forearmed, as they say.’
Lucy had been there for Tor the whole way through, it was too late to spare her the gory details. ‘It turns out that IVF is only used if you have had trouble conceiving naturally. Because I haven’t tried to get pregnant yet, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to without any help.’
‘Thank goodness for that. So what did they suggest?’ asked Tor.
‘Something called IUI.’
‘Oh yes, I remember that. What does it stand for again?’
Lucy glanced down at her leaflets, riffling through them to find the one she was looking for. She showed it to Tor. ‘Intra-Uterine Insemination.’
‘I’ve heard of that,’ said Tor. ‘We were offered it but I think our chances were better with IVF so we went straight for that.’
‘Well apparently it is a pretty straightforward procedure. They wait until you are at your most fertile and then inject you with sperm with some kind of turkey baster!’
‘A glorified one-night stand!’ laughed Tor.
Lucy raised her eyebrows as she took a bite of her sandwich, contemplating the prospect. ‘It would certainly be a lot cheaper!’ she agreed.
‘And you can choose what they look like.’
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