Free time works only when there is no crisis. He sees no end to this day, nor to the lowering of their postures. Tonight if they fall asleep at all, they will remain hunched, taut, stop and start.
‘I didn’t mean it. What I said before. Of course I want to try again.’
There is nothing to say. He has to take her lead. He will only open his mouth for beer.
‘You got me when I’d just woken up. I’d been thinking about it in my sleep. It frightened me, the thought of what we’d have to go through. Awake, slightly pissed, I feel I can handle it. Raring to go, actually.’
‘Is this the right thing to do?’
‘As soon as possible. Tonight if we can.’
Under the table, his legs shudder involuntarily at the thought. He will hug but cannot touch her in that way. Needs to be anywhere but. The tension in his jaw resumes. His whole head frozen with it.
Men, Hari says, will fuck anything. If it’s on the rag, they’ll fuck it; if it’s asleep, they’ll fuck it; if it has two heads and a mouth like a bag full of spanners, they’ll have a go.
He does not know why her words suddenly bring him back to this nasty, bachelor mindset. Perhaps his nervousness. He giggled when Puppa told him his grandfather had died. Same territory; his mind spanning to previously unthinkable tangents. Still, it is disgusting. In his so-called heyday he never got anyone. Never laid claim so indiscriminately the way Hari did. He had too much deference.
Is this what he thinks of his wife? Former pedestal royalty humbled into doggy style in the sewer? To be humiliated in the way of Hari’s damaged women? Truth: he wants to hold her, but does not want to lie with her. Comfort her, but not touch her. Revive her, but still forsaking the act.
Maybe she is talking over her truth: that it might be best to call it a day after their one shot failed. No shame in that. Save themselves the heartache, something that will leave deeper scars if, as he is starting to suspect, the next pregnancy goes the way of the first.
He thinks of all the great things that couples can do without the burden of children. How their lives could remain an abundance of spontaneity and disposable income. They could buy a holiday home abroad. Two. One on each hemisphere if that is what would make her happy. He racks his mind to think of the childless couples they know – not the kids from the office; guys their age and older – but cannot dredge any up. In their immediate circle, there are no trailblazers, only conformists. No matter. They are taste makers, she and him. They can set the precedent.
There are all those hotels advertising breaks ‘just for adults’. The supermarket shop can be done online. Gyms hit before work. Multiplex cinemas eschewed for Arthouse. Theatre replacing bars and the occasional nightclub. Everything in their life can be tailored, shaded, trimmed to the point where children become like the dodo – rarely sighted, and then finally, extinct.
They can find a way back to sex, just not now. He is not the man to take advantage of the wounded, the dead. These things must come back in their own time no matter how loud her hormonal alarms. He realizes how it will be seen: as the ultimate revenge for being treated like a mating machine, but he cannot help his feelings. He will withhold. He must.
But only in his head is he the leader of anything. Leaning forward, she grabs his forearm and shakes it urgently.
‘If we mark a start tonight, we could be pregnant in a few weeks. I won’t conceive tonight, I know that. We just have to believe that we can. No one need know.’
He laughs harder than he means to, both incredulous and frightened by her tunnel vision.
‘I think they’ll work it out when the pregnancy spans ten or eleven months.’
‘Some babies stay in the womb past their due date. What were you telling me about your cousin’s wife?’
‘She was three weeks late. But she was also obese. The sprog had to push through all the fat. Why do you care what people think all of a sudden? When our kid comes it’ll be the right time. Call it destiny, it doesn’t sound too mystical. Nothing to do with fear of losing face, looking stupid.’
He is harsher than he needs to be. Hates himself for it, the pain that crinkles her forehead; the determined shake that banishes it away. The hand that retreats from its place on his arm back to the fold of her lap. Wounded crustacean, preyed upon, crawling back to its shell.
Someone has to be logical. Show leadership. This is probably what they advise in the counselling leaflets they left behind at the hospital. They can give in to their imaginations but not to fantasy. Nothing good can come of such indulgence. As the husband, it is down to him to be the tough guy. No one else can be trusted to give her these firm truths.
He will be the captain of their ship, sailing with a steady hand. There will be a need for steadfastness but he will be fair with it, just until the waters settle and she sees that desperation is not the route they need to take. Thirty-four may not be the same as twenty-four, but they still have all the time in the world if they can keep their heads.
‘Please ’Mal. Please, let’s do this.’
The steel in her eyes ready to level him to dust. The note in her pleading, chills. It promises harmful consequences if he does not adhere. Unable to hold her gaze he goes to the bar. Let the alcohol flood the desperation out of her. Wash the need away.
He downs a double whiskey chaser at the bar whilst waiting for his pint, not caring whether or not she notices. She has had the luxury of sleeping pills. He needs this. Usually he would turn to face her whilst the bar girl is getting the drinks together, both of them indulging in this distant perspective on the other; seeing how strangers might see them. Not today. That he feels her crumbling in her seat is enough.
The shot puts him on the wrong side of sober. He is a sorry excuse for a husband. An overnight stay at Liz and Sam is no longer a flight of fancy, but a necessity; once he gets to the bottom of that pint glass a very obvious one. No matter. There are greater things to worry over.
She has moved to a new table in the centre of the room where he must join her. Here stools take preference over chairs, as if her intention is to force them both to rediscover their backbone. She sits dead straight in a Finishing School posture. In Sussex they learn these rules almost by osmosis. He puts a fresh glass in her hand, noticing now that the old one remains barely touched on the other table.
‘Two forty.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been doing some mental arithmetic. Two hundred and forty.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘You realize I’ve been having periods since I was fourteen? Twenty years of it. Twenty times twelve. That’s two hundred and forty opportunities to have a baby and almost every one of those passed up.’
‘You have to stop this, Claud. You’re not being fair on yourself.’
‘This has nothing to do with feeling sorry for myself. I’m stating biological facts. I’ve had over two hundred chances and I ignored them. What’s that they say about listening to your body? It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘We have jobs that we love . . .’
‘Trust you to make it worse than it already is. My career’s to blame, is it?’
Through the muddle of alcohol, he is still flooded with a sweet sense of familiarity. These are traps he regularly falls in, where he stitches himself up with thoughtless attempts at empathy. He says the wrong thing whether she has had a bad day at work or been short changed at the dry cleaner. Nothing can be the matter if they are treading down these well-worn paths. He is comfortable in this province of trip-ups and hashed apologies. Quells the fear of earlier when everything was uncharted, unexplained.
‘I’ve said it wrong, as usual.’
‘If I’d have given in that night of the Christmas Fayre. Dropped my knickers instead of giving him a hand job.’
‘I’m sorry. I should learn to listen more.’
‘I could be the mother of a sixteen-year-old child.’
‘I’ve missed something. Who are you talking about?’
‘
That guy at my sixth form who wanted to burn down Battle. Rory. Wasn’t just the Castle he was into.’
He takes her hands, the first time all day, he realizes. Cups them to his lips. It is the closest he’ll get to kissing her on the brow, cheeks, mouth.
‘You can’t keep torturing yourself like this, Claud. What you’re talking about is just mathematics. It doesn’t have any relevance to real life.’
‘Who are you to say what’s real to me?’
Outrage in her eyes, but no power to her voice.
‘You never had one hundred and fifty chances to get pregnant, or whatever it was. You’re a flesh-and-blood woman, not a sodding battery chicken or breeding heifer.’
A flash of a smile: bitter, powered by guilt.
‘This from your plan to cheer me up, is it?’
‘Look around this place. We’ve had some good times here, haven’t we?’
She has danced on this floor with her shoes off. The soles of her feet blackened with dirt and, before the smoking ban, fag butts. Toes caked with broken crisps and other stray bits of food. Every milestone leading to her thirty-four years has been marked with a loosely choreographed shimmy, same as everyone else who has bred here.
They have danced on this floor together. With abandon. His first Christmas away from Leicester, enjoying the freedom but riddled with nerves; and her, face reddened with a mulled wine and Bacardi mix, seeking to lead him out of it.
She rooted through the catalogue of CDs on the jukebox and pulled up the song from Dirty Dancing. One moment he had gone for a piss. The next, she was singing to him across the bar, enthusiastically, tunelessly, until there was no choice but to be Patrick Swayze to her Baby. Groins in step but feet out of kilter. Laughing the whole time. Unable to believe she liked that mushy crap. Cheers from their side of the Snug, as her mates willed them along.
That was their wedding, there. Not the stiff afternoon eight months later both painfully aware of the cost and trying to fool the other out of their self-consciousness. But that moment on the makeshift dance floor was boozy, sweaty perfection. The whole village was in on their bubble; approving of and championing their hope. A perfect start to that Christmas. First of many. Bloody brilliant.
How he has got her dancing, he does not know. There was no power in his suggestion, softly spoken and burdened with compromise. Still, here she is on her feet, holding onto him as they move in a tight space circling the tables.
There is reticence over a full embrace. Instead, they are joined loosely; able to separate at the first sign of the slightest misstep. He is too scared to tempt fate on the jukebox so they dance along to the radio: an urban ballad neither is familiar with but which succeeds in making them feel old. Their moves are silent and awkward. Two cousins at a wedding forced together after accusations of being spoilsports.
Claud nods towards the girl at the bar, preferable to making eye contact with him.
‘Bren will think we’re a pair of nutters.’
‘She’s gone to change the barrel. We’ll have some privacy for a bit. Anyway, she’s not going to mind, so long as I get another round in. Probably seen worse.’
Claud looks for confirmation before continuing. Peers through the clear border of the frosted glass panels that separates the Snug from the rest of the bar. Brenda has disappeared. The information should relax her, but does not. Same as the drink; untouched. Still dances as a pupil, stiff as a board.
‘I’d rather be sitting down. If someone comes in I’ll feel even more stupid than I already do.’
‘Uh-uh. Stay on your feet. Till the song finishes, at least.’
Couples should slow dance, even if they cannot bear to touch one another. Her hold is barely a grasp, as if his shoulder is burning paper; without substance. Her face, downward and studious as she follows his feet, followed by a tense nod, distracted and insular, after noticing their body positioning. He too realizes his mistake, twisting his body a fraction, so that their torsos are at an angle, ballroom-style, rather than touching. He wants to pull something out of her without making her uncomfortable. But he is clumsy and unsuccessful, as if confirming that he too finds her disgusting.
‘Just until this song’s over, yeah? Too much makes me dizzy.’
She speaks through her teeth, every word as tortuous as the steps.
‘Sure. Whenever you like.’
When she told him the news three weeks ago, his first impulse had been to pull her off the sofa in delight. They danced to what was playing at the time, the theme tune to a soap opera followed by an advert for a building society.
‘We did it! God knows how, ’Mal, but we did it!’
Laughing then, breathless with the wonder of it. Carelessly spilling their joy in the direction of the make-believe on television. Taking her by surprise, him too, he twirled her round several times to screaming, cheering, elation. They could afford to be that generous with their happiness. In that moment there was more than enough to go around.
Twirls morphed to a cuddle-dance, still giggling breathlessly like schoolchildren who had been told of an imminent treat. Their moves were an amplification of all the bliss they had ever known: the pleasure and then the greediness of Christmas and birthdays, first date, first kiss, first shag, passing exams, getting wasted at the very same Glastonbury, first year at their respective universities, driving down to the coast mid-summer, plugging into people power at raves, slipping back into parental homes at dawn, the first corporate pay packet, sunbathing on hired catamarans, knocking back aperitifs on a pensione terrace, that moment on their wedding night when everyone had finally cleared off and they sat in bed scoffing the remains of the cake.
The cha-cha-cha around the TV was qualified to rank in that scale, though it towered above all else: the Nth Power of pleasure and high-fives; something beyond simple personal gratification. In between catching his breath he saw the same realization reflected in the depth of her eyes, punctuated by brief, acknowledged flashes of fear. She blinked a delicious heart-stopping fear that spoke for both of them. The focus of their meticulous planning, and her belligerent hectoring, was finally real.
They were no longer dancing a couple, newlyweds, boyfriend and girlfriend. They were dancing as a family. Forever it would be so.
She pulled his face to her cheek, roughly, affectionately. A move she usually practised when drunk.
‘Come here. Give us a kiss.’
‘You’ve made me very happy, Mrs Joshi.’
‘And you me, ’Mal. Even before this. I just never thought we’d get here.’
He wants to tell her now that they are still dancing as a family on this hard pub floor but cannot bear to see the disbelief that will appear on her face. How she will think that he is playing with her. More cruelty. If he was braver, able to pull her closer to him, he would push her fingers into his pockets and allow her to find it for herself: the retrieved hospital bracelet.
He never left us, you see. I was keeping him safe. There is a sense of something lost that we will always carry around, but this plastic in my pocket is the real thing. The almost sheer, tangible object that makes our baby concrete.
They could frame it if she wanted. Encase it in a clear resin block to sit on a bedroom shelf. He could run to gold-plating if she wanted; if that made it less painful. The parents of stillborn children get to take hand and footprints of their sleeping babies. Theirs should be similarly honoured.
Conflicting thoughts flood him. Will she allow the bracelet to be cut so that he too can wear him on a chain around his neck? Whether she can bring herself to share. Whether he can. He ponders the price of selfishness; whether the damage it will cause outweighs the continued comfort of having the complete coil safely in his pocket. He is a child pleased as punch with finders keepers. Needs more time with his treasure before disclosing.
Carrying a child will always be an unknown quantity to a man. No matter how closely the expectant mother communicates it, or the length of time he may attempt in a simulator suit, his
depth of knowledge will only ever amount to a fraction of the real experience. He has felt her stomach, read every leaflet but still knows nothing.
A bracelet means nothing. Claud is dead on her feet, shuffles as if blindfold. The last song has mixed into the next, something dance-y and unsuitable, but he does not release her. She is the conduit for his solace; a flesh-and-blood lightning conductor. It is a poor substitute for the real thing but he is past caring. This is all he has. With one hand in his pocket he clutches at the plastic between his fingers and wishes for a heartbeat.
‘When I was changing,’ she says now, ‘I had a look inside that box that Mum won at the tombola. It was a bell. Like the ones Morris dancers wear. What do you think she’s going to do with it?’
‘Give us a turn at dinner? Don’t know. They’re supposed to be lucky aren’t they, those bells?’
‘A couple of rattles over our heads to bring us good luck.’
‘Would you turn your back on an offer of good luck?’ he asks, seeing that she needs to be pulled out of herself; chewing hard on the inside of her mouth in pained concentration.
‘No. Not right now.’
He leads her outside to the Green. Holding her hand as lamp-light guides them to the spot. She is quietly submissive. The strength of her trust can be read through her grasp: firmer than he realized; tenacious to the end.
They should be shivering as the sharpness of the early evening air hits them but the last round of drinks has coated their insides with a vigorous, acidic fire. Even Claud, encouraged by her movements on the dance floor, made some headway into her red wine; two big gulps for courage, then slower and measured sipping once her taste for it returned.
The alcohol has brought looseness to her movements. Her steps are light and there is fluidity to her left arm as she gently swings his hand as they walk. It recalls the confidence of his glory days, back when he was a late teenager; when the casualness of walking hand in hand with a girl could give him all manner of strength. How the gesture itself, both shy and commanding, promised all manner of possibilities; all pleasurable ones that made him feel alive.
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