Chapter 4: Four - The Idea of You

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 continued 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.

‘It must be strange that you’ve never lived with Camille, not properly,’ she thought aloud.

‘It is odd to the outside world, but it made perfect sense for us. By the time she was born, Gen and I were divorced and she was already seeing Jean-Luc. To ask for anything more made me feel like I was imposing on their new life, messing things up, or certainly making it more complicated than any of us could cope with.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And if I’m being honest, it suited me.’ He looked down at the mattress. ‘I don’t think I’ve told anyone that before. Don’t get me wrong, I love her, I do, but I was able to carry on with my life, working hard to get the business established, and not having a small child in tow made it easier. Sometimes I don’t feel like I really know her and that makes me sad. I worry sometimes that it might be too late to properly rectify that. I don’t want her to be a stranger.’

‘Well, only seeing someone once a year for the odd week of the holidays doesn’t give you enough time to get to know someone; it’s like starting from scratch every time, and that’s not your fault. But what would be your fault was if you didn’t try to put it right. It’s not too late to get to know her better. It really isn’t.’

‘I guess.’ He swallowed.

Neither voiced the fact that Camille had declined to come for her regular visit earlier in the year. She had mumbled some vague excuse about an assignment for school and keeping her friend Alice company. It all sounded rather ambiguous and had made Lucy feel horrible, as if her presence meant that Jonah had to miss out on this precious event. Not that Camille had been this explicit, and Lucy didn’t want to suggest it in case she were wide of the mark, but nonetheless this was how she felt.

‘It was hard to know what to say to Geneviève earlier, though I hate arguing with her, and it feels like for every suggestion I make she has this acid-tongued rebuttal lying in wait.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘It is. We had this amazing courtship, she was such great fun, and it saddens me how quickly it all faded to dust after our marriage. When I talk to her, I always feel like she’s a woman on the edge.’

‘Maybe she’s unhappy?’ she suggested.

‘Yes. Maybe.’

‘Well, I’ve said what I think. You should definitely invite Camille over to stay again. I can give the spare room a quick tidy, remove all those boxes of clutter—’

‘Erm, hardly clutter, my precious collection of comics and vinyl,’ he pointed out.

She ignored his justification. ‘It’d be a lovely chance for me to get to know her, for you to spend some quality time with her, and it would give her mum the break she says she needs.’

‘I actually think things would be easier between Camille and me because you are here – less pressure to think of what to say or how to act. It’d be so much better with the three of us together. I’ve often wished there had been an interpreter present, having never been a teenage girl myself.’ He smiled.

‘The summer holidays are coming up, in a few months; that might work?’

‘Yes, she gets a long break – nine weeks, I think.’

‘Perfect, then. She would be more than welcome to come here,’ Lucy confirmed.

‘I didn’t want to suggest it, not with everything that’s been happening.’ He again averted his eyes.

‘Don’t be silly. It’s fine, Jonah. She’s your daughter.’ She dug deep to find a smile that might mask the hurt at having to again confront the fact that he was a parent and she was not. She ignored the punch of envy to her gut, knowing it was misplaced.

‘Let’s have a think about it,’ he concluded, reaching out for her and pulling her towards him, clearly now thinking about something else entirely.

* * *

The house was calm in the lull of a Saturday afternoon, as if the bricks and mortar knew there was no need to rush, not today. There were no trains to dash for, no deadlines to make and, unlike the working weekdays, they were not on a timer.

The sound system jumped between the two playlists and, as always, it made her chuckle. Her love of eighties pop, interspersed with Jonah’s favoured soft rock, meant that they switched from Depeche Mode to Bon Jovi in a blink. He beamed as she sang along, clearly delighted that she had, after a year of forced indoctrination, picked up at least some of the lyrics.

‘They’re here!’ she called over her shoulder up the hallway, towards the kitchen where Jonah chopped peppers and onions and stirred his homemade passata which had been bubbling for a while.

She opened the door to Fay, who inhaled the rich, garlicky aroma. ‘Oh, thank God! Jonah is cooking. Amen!’ She kissed her sister on the cheek.

‘Lovely to see you too.’ Lucy smiled, as her sister swept past.

‘Hello, dear,’ her mum called.

Lucy felt a little winded at the sight of her mum walking up the path with Fay’s one-year-old daughter on her hip. She hadn’t realised that Maisie was coming too. Not that it wasn’t lovely to see her, the little darling; it was. But the way her stomach folded with longing that felt a lot like hunger took her quite by surprise.

‘Take her, please. I need to visit the bathroom.’

Jan unceremoniously thrust Maisie into her arms and made a dash along the hallway. ‘Hey, Jonah!’ her mum offered quite warmly. ‘I shan’t be a mo; get ready for my greeting hug,’ she called, before closing the cloakroom door behind her.

Maisie gave a dribbly smile and reached up to grab a fistful of Lucy’s hair, wrapping it around her chubby fingers. ‘Mama,’ she cooed, before laying her head on Lucy’s chest and settling in for a hug. To be addressed by that word was so beautiful it took her breath away. Lowering her face towards her niece’s scalp, she inhaled the scent of childhood, a glorious mixture of baby powder and sweetness. ‘Thank you, Maisie,’ she whispered. ‘Where’s Rory?’ she called out to her sister.

‘He’s having a daddy day. Adam was delighted, let me tell you. I wish I had snapped a picture of his face when I told him the girls were having a day shopping and he was looking after Rory. I could tell that up until that point he could see nothing ahead but a golf course and a few beers at the nineteenth hole.’

‘Poor Adam!’ Jonah voiced his brotherly support.

‘Poor Adam? They are our children, Jonah. Don’t make me give you the same lecture I gave him – when’s my day off to play bloody golf?’ Fay yelled.

‘I concede!’ Jonah waved his wooden spoon in the air.

‘Not that I play golf, but you get my point.’ Fay opened the fridge in search of wine.

As Fay chatted to Jonah, making him laugh with tales of how she had nearly lost her mum in the vast Westfield shopping mall, Lucy walked up and down in the hallway, rocking the little girl gently from side to side, marvelling at the beautiful abandon with which Maisie edged towards sleep. The act of trust was implicit, as if Maisie sensed she would not let her fall.

‘I’ve got you,’ she whispered into her scalp.

As Maisie grew heavier in her arms, her full weight sinking against her and her body drifting deeper into slumber, the skin of her bare legs touched against Lucy’s arms and reminded her so powerfully of the contact she would never have with the baby she had lost that it rendered her still, while her heart continued to race.

‘Look at you!’ Fay called, coming up behind her, removing her lightweight jacket and popping it over the newel post. ‘You’re a natural. Looks like she’s nodding off. How marvellous!’

Lucy laid her head against her niece’s and walked slowly into the sitting room, where she stood in front of the large, ornate mirror above the fireplace and watched herself rocking back and forth.

I like the way I look holding you, Maisie. I think I look like a mum, a good mum . . .

‘Oh dear,’ her sister called loudly behind her, ‘stay away, Jonah, nothing to see here! But if I had to guess, I’d say someone might be getting broody.’

Lucy looked up as her mum, sister and husband gathered in the doorway. She stared at their faces reflected in the mirror.

‘I think there must be something in the water.’ Fay sighed. ‘Did you hear Davina is due any day, apparently? I got a call from Auntie Joyce; they are beyond excited, already opened a bank account for school fees and drawing up a list of names. Good luck to them, though; you can’t blame them for being thrilled. It is such an incredible thing when you have a child, not only for yourself, but it’s a wonderful gift for the whole family.’

I know this, Fay! And believe me, I would like nothing more than to bring that gift to you all! I want it more than you know!

Lucy tried to order her thoughts, noting that her sister had felt she couldn’t mention Richard when she spoke of Davina, and the way her mother had visibly coloured at the whole topic. It was ridiculous, this awkwardness, quite without foundation; everyone had moved on a long time ago. The omission of her ex in her sister’s chat made it an issue when it really wasn’t. The fact that they all mentally filled in the gaps with his name elevated him to a point of interest that he had no right to.

‘I’m right, you know, you are a natural,’ Fay chimed. ‘You should seriously start thinking about swapping your fancy career for a few years of good old-fashioned mothering; after all, you aren’t getting any younger.’ She lifted her glass of wine towards her big sister.

Lucy got the message loud and clear and felt her chest cave with hurt. Her sister’s words left her feeling hollow. In her mind it already felt like she was letting everyone down, knowing they would feel at best that she was slow off the mark, and at worst that she was deliberately choosing to remain childless. Which, if she were, would be nothing to do with anyone but her and Jonah. It was as if they had a right to the grandchild or niece or nephew they had been expecting, and the weight of that expectation sat on her shoulders, dragging her further down.

Jonah pushed past them, his expression determined, like a first-aider who has been called into action from the sidelines. He stood by her side. Raising his hand, he stroked Maisie’s head before gently resting his palm on his wife’s shoulder.

‘All in good time,’ he whispered, giving her a knowing look.

She did her best to keep her tears at bay, trying not to think that if things had turned out differently, today might well have been the day that she told them of her happy news, that she had indeed decided to have a few years of good old-fashioned mothering.

They were right, after all; she wasn’t getting any younger.

* * *

There are a couple of lovely schools around here. I tend to slow up as I walk past them on my way to and from the shops and I can’t help but beam at the little children who run around the playground like busy wasps. The noise they make collectively is glorious! It’s a high-pitched burble of words, suffused with laughter and squeals. I always think that if angels chattered, it would sound something close to this. It’s the sound of innocence, the sound of happy. Their little shoes are scuffed and they have the remnants of lunch on their cuffs and collars and splotches of paint and glue on their shirts. Even now, I envy the mums standing in clusters at the school gate, that disparate group from all four corners of the globe with only one thing in common: that they stand patiently waiting to wrap their hand around the smaller hand of their child and skip them towards home, where a cosy tea waits in a warm kitchen. I picture myself standing and chatting with those mums. ‘Oh she’s doing really well, she loves books! Takes after me like that, a proper little bookworm . . .’ and suddenly, there you are, smiling at me at the day’s end, ready to take my hand and let me lead you home.