The One That Got Away

by Lucy Dawson

  ‘Nothing!’ shouted Dan, swerving slightly. ‘That’s the point. He knows nothing! He’s just a pig-headed old man! You know the best way to handle him when he’s in one of his moods is just to let it go.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You played right into his hands by showing him he’d hit a nerve with all that pregnancy stuff, charging in without considering the consequences.’

  ‘He didn’t hit a nerve,’ I crossed my arms defensively.

  ‘Yeah he did!’ Dan said. ‘I saw you.You looked furious.’

  ‘Yes, because of what he’d said to you! I know I shouldn’t have let rip and I am really sorry, but he is lucky they’ve made such big medical advances. When Dad had his heart attack they … can you slow down a bit?’ I broke off for a moment. ‘The roads are wet and I’d rather get home than not at all.’

  ‘Right, that’s it.’ Dan exploded, pulling sharply left into a lay-by, causing the car behind to nearly wind up in our boot. Their horn blasted angrily as they flashed past.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said, bewildered, as he jammed on the brakes, wrenched the handbrake up and turned the engine off.

  ‘You drive then!’ he said, unclipping his seat belt. ‘Seeing as I can’t even get that right!’

  ‘Dan!’ Amazed, I reached out and put a steadying hand on his arm. ‘What on earth is wrong with you? It’s just your dad being a prat, that’s all.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’ll call him and apologise when we get back, OK? I’m sorry.’

  Dan looked heavenward. I saw a muscle flicker in his jaw.

  ‘And so what if work have frozen your salary?’ I continued. ‘At least we’ve both still got jobs, that’s the important thing, because if—’

  ‘How do you think it makes me feel,’ he burst suddenly, ‘listening to Dad have a pop like that, not knowing how to defend you, what I ought to be saying, when inside …’ He stopped and then took a deep breath. ‘You heard what he said, “unless he gets a move on.” And my mum made a good point on the phone last week; it’s all well and good waiting to have our first baby until now – but what about the second and third?’

  WHAT? I couldn’t help my look of astonishment. And how exactly had that come up in conversation?

  ‘We’ll be ancient, we might not even be able to have them and I absolutely don’t want our first to be an only child,’ he said resolutely. ‘It’s not fair on them – I hated it. I still hate it now. Mum said she wished she’d kept on at Dad for a brother or sister for me.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you’d talked about this,’ I said carefully. ‘And what happened with your parents was different, there was the age gap for starters …’

  ‘They’re obviously both wondering what’s going on, and in a way Dad’s right – it’s not something we can keep dodging, Moll.’ He ignored my point completely. ‘You know what I’ve realised? This time last year we discussed starting to try and you said we should wait until we’d sold the flat. Well we have, and now somehow it’s turned into we should wait until we’re not renting … I wonder who else has started thinking “Come on Dan, be the man! Still no baby? Everything all right?” It isn’t fair, because it’s not me that’s stalling is it, Moll?’ He looked at me challengingly. ‘Or perhaps they think there’s some other problem, like you don’t love me enough or something?’

  My mouth fell open. It was so left field I didn’t know what to say. We had never, ever questioned the way we felt about each other – ever. ‘Are you worried that’s what they think – or are you trying to say that’s what you think?’ I asked slowly.

  He twisted in his seat so he could look me in the eye. ‘You tell me! You’ve been acting weird ever since I tried to discuss it with you yesterday. You do actually want children, don’t you?’

  I almost couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘Of course I do! But Jesus, Dan, what’s the sudden mad rush for? We’ve just been enjoying being married, having fun. What’s wrong with that? And it’s none of your Dad’s – OR your Mum’s – business what we do or don’t decide to do. You shouldn’t be discussing it with them anyway, you should be talking to me!’

  Dan looked at me incredulously. ‘What do you think I’m trying to do right now?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ I said, holding my hands up, trying to placate him; it wasn’t like him to get so agitated. ‘You don’t need to shout at me!’ He was completely overreacting; his dad had successfully wound him up and made him think there was a problem when there just wasn’t …

  I had conveniently forgotten my reservations from the night before.

  ‘We will talk about this Dan, I just think—’

  ‘But what’s to talk about?’ he exclaimed. ‘We both want them, so let’s do it.’

  ‘OK, after Christmas—’

  ‘Why after Christmas?’ he said stubbornly. ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Dan, that’s only another two months!’

  ‘You’re not exactly going to get pregnant immediately. How is waiting until then really going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things?’

  ‘Well quite a lot for ME actually,’ I said, starting to feel cross myself. ‘OK, it might not happen straight away, but if it does, I’m going to be heavily pregnant right at the height of summer – I’d rather avoid that if I can, thanks very much. And I’d quite like to just enjoy my birthday and Christmas being able to drink too.’

  ‘You could still have the odd small glass,’ Dan looked out of the window. ‘Well, probably …’ He sighed, beginning to calm down, obviously considering my two-month deal. I should have just left it there.

  ‘I’ve got to tell you though, putting pressure on me like this is not exactly making the whole thing fun,’ I added tersely, and completely unnecessarily.

  ‘Right!’ he said triumphantly. ‘So it IS my fault then?’

  ‘It’s not anyone’s fault!’ I shouted back, finally losing my patience. ‘This is a completely pointless argument! All I’m saying is that we’re never going to get this bit back again Dan. Can’t you see that? Once we have kids, that’s it. We’ll be on a whole new adventure – and it’ll be great, I’m sure, but please, stop wishing this part of our lives away. I just want to enjoy things as they are, for one or two more months. That’s all.’

  ‘That’s what this is about?’ He made a face. ‘You just want to have a bit more fun?’

  ‘Yes! What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Well – we’ve been together four years.’ He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘How much fun do you want? I’m thirty-six Moll … I don’t want to be an old dad.’

  ‘You won’t be!’

  ‘OK, but is fun really all you’re worried about?’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘Is there other stuff? Stopping working, that sort of thing?’

  I hesitated. I’d not even considered that. ‘Not really. I just like life as it is right now. I know it won’t always be this way, but it’d be nice to have a bit longer of not needing to—’

  ‘You’ve always said to me that it’s important to work to live, not live to work …’

  ‘Well it is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get something out of having a job, Dan.’

  ‘No one’s saying you have to stop completely, you could go back part-time.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but when you’re part-time you don’t get given the good—’

  ‘Both our mums would help out,’ he cut across me eagerly. ‘We wouldn’t even need to pay for childcare; how lucky are we? I know we still need to buy a house, but the market’s not exactly going to shoot up again, and it’s not like we haven’t got a second bedroom if it came to it.’

  ‘You mean my office?’

  He nodded. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. If we ditch the dining room table and move your desk in there, along with a proper sofa bed rather than that shit thing we’ve got at the moment, you’ll still have somewhere to work and people could stay over if they wanted to. It’ll be a better use of the space, in fact. Who has a separate dining room these days?’ He ha
d it all planned out.

  I said nothing, just rested my head back in the passenger seat, suddenly exhausted.

  ‘You don’t seem very excited.’ He looked deflated. ‘Hasn’t all of your friends – I mean your London lot, not Bec and Joss – having babies made you feel like you want one too?’

  Hmmm. Well he hadn’t been there when Rose announced her pregnancy and in the same breath said confidently, ‘This won’t change anything – this baby is going to have to fit around me …’ I’d watched my sisters-in-law adjusting to motherhood for long enough to know that wasn’t even vaguely how it worked. And so what if that’s what they were all doing? Was it really that crazy of me not to want to swap lazy Saturday mornings for sleepless nights just yet? I wasn’t saying never … was I?

  Another car blasted past, making us rock slightly. We were both silent, I stared ahead at the wet road stretching out in front of us, feeling very confused. All I could hear was persistent rain on the car roof. I wanted to go home, back to our cosy house; shut out Michael and his nasty comments, shut out the world.

  I reached for Dan’s hand and held it. He didn’t grip back, it sat loosely in mine.

  ‘Please – I don’t want to row like this.’ I squeezed his hand. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Now say it like you mean it!’ I joked. I really was only teasing, trying to lighten the tone.

  ‘It’d probably be a lot easier if I didn’t,’ he retorted.

  My eyes must have widened with surprise and fear, because he immediately looked like he wished he hadn’t said it. Maybe it frightened him too.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said immediately, ‘I didn’t mean that.’ He reached across and pulled me towards him. We hugged awkwardly, the handbrake and seat belts getting in the way. ‘Come on.’ He kissed me quickly on the mouth. ‘Let’s go home.’

  So given that we were already very much out of sorts, it was a little unfortunate that later – on going into our bedroom having removed my make-up and brushed my teeth – I found Dan standing by the bedside table holding a pin in one hand and a wrapped condom in the other.

  Chapter Five

  I stood there, frozen to the spot, and stared at him.

  He looked down at his hands, and then back up at me anxiously – but met my gaze directly. ‘OK, in light of what we were talking about earlier I can see exactly how this must look,’ he said, ‘but I SWEAR on my life it’s not. You know I would never, ever do something like that.’

  It took about a half a second for a million thoughts to run through my mind: it would be completely and utterly out of character. Even if he thought I needed a nudge in the right direction – we were married, it was going to happen eventually, why not give nature a little helping hand? – he wouldn’t do it. Dan was honest, straightforward, had never lied to me before and I trusted him with my life. It could only be appalling bad luck that I’d walked in as he was holding two such incriminating items. It was the events of the last few days that were skewing everything, making this moment appear more significant than it was. In isolation I would be thinking nothing of it. We’d be laughing – because after all, it was the kind of thing that happened in bad soaps, not real life, and it certainly wasn’t something MEN did.

  ‘So what are you doing?’ I said eventually, and his shoulders visibly relaxed.

  ‘Putting the condoms back in the box because you don’t like leaving them out on the bedside table where anyone could see them. I was stuffing them back in and knocked a pin off the table – I honestly don’t know what that was doing there,’ he said sincerely.

  ‘I pinned the new blackouts to the curtains on Friday—’

  ‘You’re so weird about needing it pitch black,’ he smiled faintly. ‘Anyway – I had bare feet and I didn’t want to tread on it; I picked it up – and that’s when you came in.’

  ‘That was his excuse?’ my ex-colleague froze – her baby held above her knees, mid-bounce – as she looked at me incredulously the following day. ‘Tidying up?’

  ‘It wasn’t an excuse.’ I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. ‘Dan does loads of stuff around the house.’

  Anita raised an eyebrow as if that in itself was deeply suspicious. ‘So let me ask you a question.’ She settled her son down on her lap and handed him a breadstick. ‘You walk into a room and someone’s holding a gun and a dead cat: you’re seriously telling me you think it’s been run over?’

  ‘That’s my point,’ I said patiently. ‘Of course everyone would automatically assume it had been shot. It doesn’t mean it actually was.’ Hmmm, she wasn’t seeing the funny side, I had misjudged my audience. ‘It was just one of those weird things!’

  Anita looked at me half pityingly and half like she thought I was completely insane.

  ‘Okkkkayy,’ she said. ‘But you still made him fill all of the condoms with water, right?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Oh you are kidding me!’ Her mouth fell open so wide I could see fillings. Her little boy, as he sucked on his fingers, suddenly tired of our conversation and began to wriggle around on her lap emitting cross little squawks. I sympathised, I was beginning to feel much the same.

  ‘Why would I have made him fill them with water?’

  ‘Ah – I get it!’ her eyes gleamed. ‘You just bought some new condoms and threw the others away so he was none the wiser didn’t you? You’re right. Two can play at that game, can’t they!’ She nudged me.

  It was my turn to look at her like she was crazy. ‘I don’t actually think Dan stuck a pin in the condom,’ I said very slowly, so she understood.

  There was a pause.

  ‘You didn’t throw them away either, did you? I don’t believe it!’ she exclaimed and then chortled with disbelief. It was then that I realised this was going to be served up alongside the banana cake at her next mums’ coffee morning: ‘Don’t say anything, because I really shouldn’t be talking about it, but a friend of mine found her husband …’ she’d pause for effect while everyone sat up, their appetites whetted; ‘in their bedroom … pin in one hand, condom in the other … I know, I know! ’

  ‘Well,’ she sniggered. ‘I guess we’ll find out in nine months.’

  I sipped my tea glumly, wished I’d just not told her in the first place and wondered if it was too early for me to say I was going home.

  ‘We’re what, November now? Ooohh, a summer baby!’ she teased.

  Oh for God’s sake. Since Anita had gone on maternity leave, it had become horribly apparent that beyond the bubble of medical rep gossip, neither of us – despite previously having been happy partners in work-related crime – actually had anything in common at all. Our ‘catch ups’ had become little more than me regaling the latest work dramas while she tried to look interested in people she no longer cared about and stared adoringly at her baby. I would then try to look equally fascinated by the very detailed updates on her son’s sleeping habits. The visit had been looming in my diary like the Black Spot for weeks and I should have jumped ship a lot earlier. I could easily have blamed work being too busy, which actually wasn’t far from the truth. But then it had sort of snuck up on me before I’d realised and by then it was too late to cancel.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ she said cosily. ‘I don’t mean to be nosy Moll, but—’

  I braced myself, clearly she was about to be very nosy indeed.

  ‘—why’s Dan – taking matters into his own hands?’

  I went quiet … but she was reaching to get a muslin and didn’t see the look on my face. ‘I just assumed you must be trying like crazy, you being – what – thirty-three? To be honest, I thought there was some medical issue and that was why it was all taking such a long time, but I didn’t like to intrude. I thought you’d talk if you wanted to – nothing’s worse than those insensitive types who say “So, when are we going to hear the patter of tiny feet?” every time you see them! I thought you and Dan,’ she lifted her little boy up again a
nd began to jiggle him about, trying to get him to use his legs, ‘were one of the most sorted, together couples I knew. I did, didn’t I? Yes I did!’ She beamed at her son who regarded her thoughtfully and then poked her in the eye with the half-gummed breadstick. ‘Whenever you brought Dan along to work dos and stuff, you both seemed so in sync … like …’ she blew a raspberry on his tummy, ‘I don’t know, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.’

  ‘Pre him dying I hope?’

  ‘Paul Newman died ?’ Her jaw fell open. ‘Nooo! When was that?’

  ‘About a year ago.’

  ‘Oh how sad. I liked him. That’s the problem when you have kids,’ she sighed heavily. ‘You just don’t have time to do stuff like sit around and read the papers any more.’

  I bit my tongue. Thank God I’d scrambled like crazy all morning at home with unending emails and half a presentation just to make dashing over to hers possible. It had absolutely been worth it …

  ‘So?’ she said and waited.

  ‘So what?’ I tried to play dumb so she’d have to spell it out, but she had the hide of a rhino and wasn’t the least bit embarrassed.

  ‘Are you having problems?’ She looked at me sympathetically. ‘Going through a rough patch?’

  ‘No. We’re very happy.’ ‘Well, IS everything all right medically then?’ she probed further.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But nothing, I do want them, but I really like just spending time with Dan, we’re in a rented place right now, work’s tough and—’

  ‘Moll, I’m going to stop you right there,’ she interrupted with a deadpan look. ‘There is never a good time, believe me. Dan’s got the right idea,’ she said, performing an astounding U-turn. ‘Throw caution to the wind; just do it.’

  ‘He wasn’t doing anything!’ I said, becoming exasperated. ‘We will have them, I just want to have a bit longer as we are at the moment, that’s all. It’s probably a bit selfish of me but …’ I shrugged and looked up at her. She had her eyebrow raised.