by Matt Wilven
SECOND
TRIMESTER
ONE
In June’s warmer, longer days growth and replenishment replace the struggle to reproduce and survive. Food becomes abundant and rearing is in full swing. Poppies, orchids and foxgloves add blush to fields. Ducklings, goslings and cygnets waddle behind their parents. Grasshoppers and crickets begin to chirp in meadows. Butterfly wings unfurl and take flight. Dragonflies hover over water. Female bats suckle inch-long pups. House martins, swifts and swallows swoop and glide, diving for insects. Fawns fall and antlers rise. Baby badgers squint at their first night sky. Though much is lost or stolen, destroyed or killed, more is found and given, created and born. The rustling of life is everywhere.
We have the dating scan this afternoon so Lyd’s taken the day off. I’m sitting at my desk pretending to write, realising (because of Lyd’s presence in the house) that I haven’t been working properly since Blackie messed with my mind in the back garden. I have six chapters, a whole bunch of scraps and no focus or momentum to put any of the rest of it together. Nothing correlates. All the chapters are about different people, in different times, in different places. I no longer have any idea what I’m working on.
Two weeks ago I used editing as an excuse to scroll down the same six chapters again and again. On the Friday I sent my first three chapters to my agent, Angela “not the dead novelist” Carter, and convinced myself that this was enough of an achievement for a week.
Last week, along with the pointless scrolling and unfocused rereading, I was checking my email for a response from her thirty, forty, fifty times a day. Constantly clicking, scrolling, clicking. She still hasn’t got back to me.
Usually, when I send Angela pages, she at least acknowledges them. Later, she gets back to me with ideas about where we might send extracts for some advance publicity or else she suggests areas that could do with a little bit of tightening up. I’m beginning to think that she’s so embarrassed by what I sent her that she’s ignoring me.
I try to forget about it and instead focus on why I’ve ground to a halt. I revisit my archaeology metaphor where the unmapped charters of fiction are the entire landmass and the seed of inspiration, the excitement of the new thing, is like the first moment, after months of methodical digging, when the archaeologist reveals a small portion of an ancient bone. What follows – the real work, dusting away at the bones, following alien curves, revealing unforeseen crevices, allowing the hidden object to reveal itself – that’s where I got lost.
I have to start again where I left off; that’s what Lyd’s presence in the house tells me. I need to reconnect with the bones, let them surprise me, trust that slowly following them will lead me further into their deeper structure. Their subterranean world is full of incomplete fragments but I have to believe in my initial feeling; that this is a special project, the different strands are part of a singular structure, I have to keep going and see it through.
The doorbell rings. A distraction. I rush down the stairs but Lyd’s already there. She opens the door to her brother, Peter, whom she is extremely surprised to see.
“Oh. Hi. Did I tell you about the scan?”
“The what?”
“What are you doing here? Come in, come in.”
“Vince…” he says, seeing me on the stairs and nodding, “erm, told me you’d be around. Did he not tell you I called?”
I make my way down the rest of the stairs. He looks at me with a pitiful need for me to corroborate his story. He did not call. He must be here to see me. He would have thought Lyd was at work. She turns her head to face me.
“Sorry. I forgot,” I say.
Tension drifts out of both of their faces.
“Maybe he did mention the scan,” Peter concedes, unusually generous. “I just remembered that you were going to be at home. I thought we could… eat.”
He holds up a brown takeaway bag.
There’s something different about him. He’s sniffing a lot, which probably means he was snorting coke last night (hopefully not this morning), but it’s not that. It’s beneath that. His face has softened. He looks mildly worried, less reptilian.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I mentioned it,” I say.
We walk through to the kitchen.
“Can you eat before this thing?” he asks.
“Yes. And I have to drink at least a litre of water. We don’t have long though. What did you bring?”
“Sushi.”
“It looks fancy,” she says, impressed and coming round to the idea of his unplanned appearance.
“It is. I’m told the chefs are very good.”
“It doesn’t seem like much for three,” I say.
“It looks like plenty,” says Lyd, looking at me insipidly.
My ego is a little bit drunk on the fact that Peter seems unable to belittle me for a change. I have to be placated and fed posh sushi. This must be about Gloria.
(Lyd now knows about Sergio running off with Mitsu and that Gloria has been sleeping with someone else but she doesn’t know that Peter is that someone.)
“So, why aren’t you at work?” I ask him.
Lyd walks over to the cupboards and starts gathering plates and chopsticks. Me and Peter sit down facing each other, leaving the middle seat for Lyd.
“Oh, you know, business lunch.”
“You finance boys don’t do a thing in your big offices all day,” I say. “I bet you could disappear for a year and they wouldn’t notice.”
“Vince,” says Lyd. “If you’re trying to say thank you for the lovely food I think you’re getting it a bit wrong.”
“He’s probably right,” says Peter, attempting a laugh but failing. “Sometimes I look at what’s in front of me and I’m not even sure what I do.”
“I’m sure that’s just because it’s complicated,” she says, putting plates down on the table.
“Maybe,” he says, sighing.
Lyd opens the boxes of sushi and starts putting the pieces on a big central plate.
“Are you…” Lyd pauses, looking at me sharply before settling back on Peter tenderly, “okay?”
“Of course. You know me,” he says, with a complete lack of the piercing charm he is so well known for.
He takes two hosomaki rolls off the middle plate and covers them in soy. Lyd finds a little tub of wasabi at the bottom of the brown paper bag and passes it his way. She serves out the rest of the sushi, puts the empty boxes back in the bag and leaves the bag on the floor by her chair, out of the way, for recycling as soon as she’s done eating.
“How’s the writing going?” asks Peter, smearing wasabi on the vinegared rice of one of his rolls.
“You should probably avoid the tuna,” I say to Lyd. She looks baffled. “Mercury.” She rolls her eyes and takes a tuna and avocado futomaki from the centre. I look at Peter. “I’ve been in a bit of a difficult patch. I think I might be coming out of it now.”
“Are you allowed to tell us what it’s about yet?” he asks.
“I’m not very good at talking about my work,” I say. “I’m better at describing the process.”
“Oh well,” he says. “Keep trucking and all that.”
Lyd’s head is moving back and forth between us, mildly suspicious about how polite her brother is being.
“How are things with you?” I ask.
Peter pauses at the question, his chopsticks hovering. He sniffs, looks down at his plate and a desperately lonely smile creeps onto his face.
“I think I might be in love,” he says.
“That’s great,” says Lyd, sympathetic now that she feels that she has the missing link. “Pascale is so perfect.”
Peter looks up at her, confused, the momentary wet sheen on his eyes dull again.
“Who?” he asks.
“Pascale,” I say, for her.
“Yes… Pascale… No… I’m not in love with Pascale.”
I take a large spicy salmon temaki from the centre.
“It must have been
a whirlwind romance,” I say.
Lyd shows me the whites of her eyes.
“Not really,” he replies. “It’s been on the cards for a while. It just seemed… impossible. Like it couldn’t really be happening. Pascale was just a distraction. I’m done with Pascale.”
“So, who’s the lucky lady?” I ask.
“Yes. Who is she?”
“I can’t… I mean, I’m not ready to talk about her.”
“Just the process,” I say.
“Yes,” he replies, with an amused lilt.
We eat the rest of the sushi. Peter, besides sniffing occasionally, is quiet. I tilt the conversation towards the dating scan. Lyd looks puzzled. I can see that she’s already building a deep defence against this woman whose love has dimmed the sparkling elegance of her brother.
I clear the plates once we’re done and leave them to chat for a minute while I wash up and put the recycling out. When I come back in from the bins I hear Lyd say:
“Right, I’m going to pop to the loo before I have to drink all this water.”
The second she leaves the kitchen Peter stands up and rushes over to me.
“You have to talk to her for me, Vince. I need to see her.”
“Gloria?”
“She won’t answer my calls. She’s not answering the door. I’m afraid there might be something wrong with her. Something might have happened.”
His gruff intensity is suddenly back, but fuelled by anxiety rather than the usual egomania. My raised palms are doing nothing to ease him away from me.
“Slow down,” I say. “Calm down.”
“I’m serious.”
“You can’t pull me further into this thing. I feel bad enough about lying to Lyd as it is. Have either of you thought about when you’re going to tell her?”
“I’m going out of my mind here. I know you don’t like me. I know Sergio’s your friend. But please. I just need you to do this one thing.”
“Did you hear me? You need to tell Lyd. You’re ruining one of her favourite friendships. You’re forcing me into a position where I have to lie to her. Does any of this mean anything to you?”
“I wouldn’t ask unless I was desperate.”
I’m momentarily astounded by this admission. His honesty coerces me the way his charisma coerces others. I find myself nodding.
“Okay. I’ll pop round,” I say. “But this is the only time I’m getting involved. I don’t want to know about this stuff. You need to keep me out of it.”
He puts both of his huge hands on the sides of my head.
“When? When?”
“Today, if I get a chance. Tomorrow, maybe. But remember, I’m only doing this so you two can talk about how to tell Lyd. Whether it’s over or not, one of you needs to tell her.”
“Let me know as soon as you’ve seen her. Please. And let me know if it’s going to be tomorrow. I can’t sit around all night not knowing.”
“I’ll text you later.”
He releases my head and hugs me with forceful gratitude.
“Thank you, Vince. I mean it.”
He lets go of me and waits around for Lyd, unable to meet my eyes. Purpose fulfilled, ashamed of his display of weakness, he’s ready to leave. When Lyd walks back in he quickly perks up and grabs her for a hug.
“Got to dash, sis. Got to go and sit in my office and pretend to do some work.”
“Okay,” she laughs. “You seem very chipper all of a sudden.”
“He’s a good man, this one,” he says, unclasping one of his arms from her and pointing at me. “You keep hold of him.”
He kisses her cheek and sees himself out.
“Bye,” she calls.
“Bye,” I echo.
Lyd looks at me with disbelief and, as soon as the front door closes, asks:
“What was that about?”
“I have no idea.”
“What did you say to him whilst I was gone?”
“I just fed him some line about love. I can’t remember.”
“I knew you’d grow on him eventually,” she says, a deep confirmation forming within her. “You’re good with people when they’re down.”
“Sure,” I say. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“Still, he was acting weird. I’m a bit worried about him.”
“Yes,” I agree. “Not himself, was he?”
After drinking a litre of water, Lyd drives us to the clinic. In the waiting room her leg is jigging up and down. She already needs to urinate and, because she doesn’t understand why she isn’t allowed to, she’s feeling aggressive and annoyed about it. Her arms are crossed and her elbows are hunched up. I stare at the other couples in the waiting room and decide that we’re the best one, the one I want to be a part of.
We’re called through.
The sonographer has the self-satisfied posture of a person who feels like he is doing something good with his life. His smile gives the impression that, because he thinks that he lives in the presence of miracles, he has different priorities and understandings to the rest of us. He is only slightly grounded by the occasions on which he has had to deliver serious or bad news and goes about his work with an air of mild bliss.
I am envying his charmed mind. Lyd is half sitting/half lying on an electronic examination bed staring at him, trying to scratch out his harmless conceit with invisible claws.
“Can you just hitch your top up to your ribs for me?” he says.
She does.
“That’s great. You might have to undo your trousers and pull them down but they’ve got quite a low waist so let’s see if we can get a peak without. I’m going to rub some of this gel on your stomach. It’ll be quite cold and I’ll have gloves on so it might feel a little bit strange, okay? I know you’re probably bursting for the toilet, and there’s going to be some pressure on your bladder, but try to relax.”
Lyd smiles with discomfort, glad that her situation has been acknowledged, and nods.
Once the skin over her womb is covered in lubricant he wheels over a machine that is much more hi-tech than the one that was used at Charlie’s ultrasounds. It has a thousand knobs and dials, a touch pad, devices with curly wires hooked onto the side, a big monitor on top and a large vaginal probe sticking up on the right-hand edge.
The sonographer grabs the transducer from the nodule beneath the probe and moves it over Lyd’s lubricated stomach. Four grainy images immediately flicker onto the monitor, and dials and bars light up all over the machine’s surfaces. He presses a few buttons on the touch screen and twists a few knobs. Lyd’s initial unease from the pressure on her bladder quickly dissipates into curiosity, knowing that all the lights and measurements are derived from her body and its systems.
“Nicely placed… It’s over seven centimetres and just starting to curl so you must be around fourteen weeks… The heartbeat looks good… No major structural abnormalities visible, but we’ll know more about that next time. Have you had any bleeding? Light spotting?”
“No. Nothing like that. Would that be bad?”
“Not necessarily.”
My eyes are fixed on the screen but I can’t see anything. I don’t even have an inkling of what they could be looking at. I have a creeping suspicion that we’re not seeing the same thing. My screen is blank. It’s empty. There’s no life, just a bit of green fuzz.
“Everything looks great,” he says.
“It’s got a face,” says Lyd. “Oh my God. It’s got a face.”
She squeezes my hand.
“Yes,” he confirms.
“Yeah,” I agree, but it still seems like a blank womb full of pointless squiggles and dots to me.
I don’t want a new baby, I hear myself think, but not in my own inner voice. It’s something more direct, more instantaneous, coming from nowhere.
“Can we tell if it’s a girl or a boy?” asks Lyd. “Wait. I’m not sure I want to know.”
“You’re a bit further on than we thought, so we could have a good gues
s, but think it over. You’ll be able to know for sure at your anomaly scan.”
The word anomaly makes my stomach turn.
“No, actually. I don’t think we want to know,” she says. “Not yet.”
“No,” I mumble, in agreement.
I feel light-headed.
The sonographer says something I can’t hear, takes the transducer off Lyd’s stomach and gives her some tissues to wipe off the gel. I’m still looking at the blank screen wondering why I didn’t see it.
After the scan Lyd goes to try out a yoga class for pregnant women that she’s found online. Whilst she’s out the house I take the opportunity to visit Gloria. It’s less than a fifteen-minute walk from ours.
Sergio’s vintage mahogany MGB GT V8 is parked in the driveway. Sitting in the passenger seat, Mitsu waits with her arms folded, disgusted with everything. She is dressed like a schoolgirl again but with an additional neo-western shoestring necktie clasped with a silver skull.
I wave, keeping my enthusiasm in check. Her eyes slowly track over towards me, acknowledge nothing and move back to their prior position. I sarcastically give her a false suburban smile and salute. She stares gloomily ahead.
The front door is open so I put a foot inside and crane my head over the threshold. I can hear Spanish words violently slashing through the air from upstairs.
“Hello?”
The two voices continue to bicker.
“Hello?”
There is a momentary lapse in sound before the squabble starts up again, getting louder and louder until I can pretty much gauge the full volume of it coming down from the top of the stairs. Sergio is shouting with amused disdain. Gloria is screaming with the emotional volatility of somebody surprised about how hurt she is.
Sergio comes down the stairs with two suitcases. Gloria is throwing shirts and trousers down the stairs after him, along with torrents of verbal abuse. Seeing me, Sergio frowns for a moment before shouting back up the stairs:
“Whore!”
“Pervert!” she shouts back.
A shoe flies down at him. He flinches, trying to move out of the way, but it hits his shoulder.
“Psycho!” he shouts.
He picks up the shoe and throws it back up the stairs at her before turning and walking quickly past me, barging my shoulder and ignoring me. He looks terrible. The last few weeks with Mitsu have aged him. Perhaps he is just sleep deprived from an overactive sex life but I get a deep sense of loss and loneliness from his eyes.