by Carol Mason
On Wednesday night I go to a Pilates class – first scanning the room to make sure Lucy isn’t in it. On Thursday, I meet Sophie at the Pig’s Ear for a glass of wine and a Scotch egg. Out of the blue, she texted and suggested it. For the first time ever – and perhaps because it’s blissfully just the two of us – I tell her honestly about how things are between Joe and me, how there are days when I almost regret marrying him.
‘It’s like, when we first met – from the very moment, actually – he made me feel so seen. And yet a few months into marriage and, at times, I think I’m invisible.’
I tell her I don’t mean it in the sexual sense. It’s the rest of me – my thoughts, ideas, my feelings, that are being ignored.
She says, ‘Well, your marriage is tested, on some level, by Joe’s kids. Ours is tested by the lack of them.’
I sense it’s taken two large reds and Charlie’s absence to get us here.
She meets my eyes and then surprises me by saying, ‘Charlie and I can’t have children.’ Before I can react, she says, ‘It’s him, not me. It’s why he decided he couldn’t go through with the wedding. He said he didn’t see the point of being married if we can’t have kids.’
‘So that’s the big secret?’ I can’t help but feel horribly underwhelmed.
‘It’s big to him, let’s just say that. He’s struggled with it. Sometimes he gets depressed.’ She looks a little tight-lipped suddenly. I don’t press her for details. If she wants to tell me, she will.
‘I tried to make him see that it doesn’t matter to me.’
I scour her face. ‘Doesn’t it?’
‘Not enough to dump him. Maybe some people would say it’s odd – a paediatrician who doesn’t actually care if she has kids . . .’
Kids are not something Sophie and I have ever talked about. And yet I suppose there was always an assumption that we would both end up having them.
‘Some might say he was prepared to walk away from me, to stay single and play the field rather than have a life with me . . .’ She briefly lowers her eyes. ‘Maybe they’d be right. But he said that had nothing to do with it. He was just worried it would eventually come between us . . .’ She shrugs. ‘It definitely would have been a great opportunity for me to say, “Okay, let’s just part ways . . .”’
‘But instead you ended up changing his mind and marrying anyway.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think I put his mind at rest, more than changed it. I told him it would never, ever come between us. That I’d be fine with it being just us . . . I think deep down he fears being alone, fears ending up with no one who would properly love him – like family.’
This makes me wonder if Grace and Toby would one day properly love me, or if I would always be left with a sense that I never quite belonged. ‘Is this why he always seems to go with you everywhere you go? Because he hates to be alone?’ I’m glad I’ve finally got this out.
She doesn’t flinch, or seem surprised. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Or . . . well, maybe a bit. He doesn’t like to be . . . passed over, or feel he’s not included. He’s just that personality type, I suppose. Seems confident and blustery but deep down he’s a bit insecure and needy . . .’
It strikes me that she seems to have him all figured out. If only I knew Joe that well.
‘And maybe there’s part of me that enjoys that, you know. Maybe I secretly love being needed. Maybe it gives me a sense of purpose.’
I think about that. I had never really thought that anyone who was so driven in their professional life would consider themselves in need of a purpose.
And then I say, ‘Well, on some level I can relate.’
I have never told her about my conversation with Joe on the topic of kids. The one that came shortly before he proposed, and – interestingly – soon after my strange pub night with Meredith. It would have been one more black mark against his character, and another excuse for Sophie and Charlie to tell me, again, why they thought Joe was wrong for me. But as we’ve ventured into this, I say, ‘Joe doesn’t want any more children.’
She looks stunned, then says, ‘Seriously?’ And then, ‘I don’t understand . . .’
‘I never actually found a way to talk about it. Maybe for the same reasons you didn’t.’
‘Tell me,’ she says.
And so I do.
I picture it so vividly, like it happened only days ago.
Joe sitting on the sofa, his left arm extended along the back, right ankle on his opposite knee. I could sense immediately that a serious conversation was coming. And that’s when he brought up my birthday night at the restaurant, when he’d given me my bag. When we had danced around the idea of a future together, and I literally would have said anything to convince both him and myself that we were on the same page – and I almost did.
‘You know what we touched on? Well, I actually lose sleep over it, you know,’ he said.
Apprehension crept up my spine. I was in love. I only wanted happy conversations, not ones that kept people awake at night.
He didn’t immediately go on. I felt the impact of it, the concept of there being something that wasn’t going to go away just because I’d decided to pay it no mind.
‘Lauren . . .’ he finally said. He patted the seat beside him. When I sat down he took my hands, stroked the knuckles with his thumbs. ‘You’re a young, beautiful woman and it’s only natural that one day you’re going to want children.’
He had articulated it. I was stunned by what might be coming next.
‘And you don’t,’ I pre-empted.
He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t say that . . . I didn’t exactly say I don’t want them, but I do think we need to talk about timing.’
He was trying to be tactful. That’s how I knew this was big.
‘What I’m trying to say is, you’ve got another foundation year to complete, then another three before you become a family doctor. I think we have to be realistic . . . I can’t imagine it would be ideal for you to have a baby in the middle of all that.’ He fixed me with a level stare. ‘You’re not going to want to interrupt your studies to become a mother, are you?’
It was true. I’d never really thought about it consciously or with such calculation, but now he put it this way, I couldn’t deny it. Having a baby before I was established in my career would not be the best timing. I shook my head. ‘You’re right.’
‘So, then . . .’ He had let go of my hands and, with the gesture, I felt something way more than just a physical parting of skin. ‘If you wait until you’ve been a family doctor for, say, a year or so, then you’ll still only be in your mid-thirties, which is fine for you.’ There was a loaded pause. ‘But it’s not fine for me.’
‘What?’ I said. I was genuinely not following.
‘I don’t want to be an old dad.’ The way he said it was final. Like there was no room for movement.
I suddenly felt like I’d been lifted to an extraordinary height and then dropped on to concrete.
‘Old dad?’ Nothing about Joe was old or ever would be.
I told him this.
He didn’t look flattered. He was on a mission.
‘Think about it from my perspective,’ he said. ‘By the time it was born, I’d be forty-seven/forty-eight. I’d be in my mid-to-late sixties when it was going off to college!’ I could tell he was searching my face, desperate for me to understand.
All I could hear was him calling a baby we might have it.
I couldn’t look at him. Was there a possibility I’d misheard? Got the wrong end of the stick?
Part of me longed to just rush headlong and fall in line with his wishes, to say, It’s fine! Really! I can have a baby sooner than that. Now. Tomorrow. In fact . . . just tell me when it’s convenient for you. Anything that would make this – obstacle, if that’s what it was – go away. But I was aware that, unlike on other occasions, that compliant pleaser in me was hanging back. Perhaps it was shock.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally, as the silenc
e between us grew and grew. ‘I’m only saying this because I care about you and I feel it’s my responsibility to be honest with you, and put my selfish interests aside.’ He took hold of my hands again. ‘I once told you all that mattered to me was your happiness, and it does . . . I want to give you the life you deserve. But I can’t give you something I don’t have in me to give. And the very last thing I could ever stand knowing is that for some reason you didn’t end up having a family of your own, you were deprived of being a mother, because of me.’
I wondered if the timing thing was a bit of a red herring, because this almost sounded like he was saying he didn’t really want any more kids at all. Tears swelled in my eyes. I tried not to blink so they wouldn’t fall.
He was studying me closely. I felt his eyes combing over my face, my hair. After a long spell, he said, ‘I don’t want to lose you. But I think you need to think through what a future with me would look like, given what I’ve said and where I stand.’
I didn’t press for clarification, like I should have done, perhaps out of fear of losing him. I told him I’d think it over.
When I’ve finished, Sophie says, ‘That’s terrible! It seems so selfish. Where does it leave you, Lauren?’
I think of Scotland and the birth control reaction. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I married him knowing how he felt. I told him I was probably okay if we didn’t have kids of our own.’
I remember I was so caught up in our romance that I would have signed away every last right to be with him; I would have sacrificed pretty much everything and convinced myself it was no sacrifice at all. I pretended it didn’t matter simply because I didn’t want to confront it.
She searches my face. ‘Can’t you talk to him? Change his mind? I mean, he’s got two already, what’s one more?’
‘I don’t know that it’s fair to accept something big like this and then try to change somebody’s mind about it. Love isn’t about trying to take what someone can’t give.’
‘Can’t is different from won’t.’
I nod. But something occurs to me: as we’ve just been talking about male insecurity, I wonder if it’s got nothing to do with being an old dad. Is Joe worried that if our marriage doesn’t work, he could end up with two broken families? I think of the buying versus renting comment. His recent remark in the restaurant: I never – ever – want to have to live through another evening where my wife walks out of our home . . .
Despite his behaviour sometimes indicating otherwise, is Joe terrified of losing me?
It must be confession time. Or perhaps it’s catching. Because when I get home, Joe is sitting up in bed working. He promptly closes his laptop.
‘I want to tell you something,’ he says. ‘It’s been on my mind for a while.’
For some utterly inane reason, I’m thinking he’s going to say he’s changed his mind about having a baby.
But then, as I perch on the end of the bed, he says, ‘You asked me a long time ago about why Meredith and I divorced.’
My mind drifts back. ‘I did,’ I say.
His gaze coasts over my face, my shoulders, drops down to my hand resting on the duvet. ‘You were right. It was more than just about us feeling like we were ships that passed in the night.’ He looks pensive suddenly. ‘Meredith cheated.’
It takes me a moment to think straight. ‘Meredith did?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And not once, but twice.’ And then he adds, ‘Well, as good as . . .’
TWENTY-NINE
‘She had an affair with Alistair – you met his wife, Lucy.’
Lucy? After a shocked pause, I say, ‘The guy who died?’
‘Yes.’
I rush to try to make sense of this, remembering how she insinuated she didn’t like Meredith. ‘So Lucy knew about it?’
‘Yes.’ He stares off in the direction of the window. ‘Apparently on his deathbed he got some urge to come clean, so he told his wife.’
‘What?’ I must look aghast. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Don’t ask me. Maybe he thought clearing his conscience would serve him better in the afterlife. Who knows?’
I contemplate this. ‘That’s utterly . . . horrible!’
He studies my reaction. ‘If he’d never said anything, Meredith would never have told me, I don’t imagine . . . It was only because she didn’t want me hearing it second-hand.’
‘My God,’ I say.
‘It happened a long time ago, apparently. It didn’t really mean anything. At least that’s what she told me.’
I frown. There’s something I’m not grasping. ‘So why did Lucy imply you were the one with the wandering eye?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘It may have something to do with the fact that she once came on to me at a party years ago. I turned her down. Maybe she took the rejection personally and this was her way of getting back at me. I don’t know what would motivate her to say something like that, to be honest . . .’
‘Wow . . . So did Meredith know about her coming on to you?’
He shakes his head. ‘God, no. That would have only put a match to petrol. Anyway . . . it was nothing. No huge big deal. I put it right out of my head.’
‘This is crazy,’ I say. ‘So how did you feel when she told you?’
‘Fantastic, of course,’ he says sarcastically. ‘I was angry, naturally. Angry she’d done it, and angry I had to find out, in a way.’
‘You’d have preferred not to have known?’
‘Of course,’ he says, a little awkwardly. ‘I’d always thought of her as loyal.’ He looks off across the room again. ‘She can be a contradiction at times; she’s inherently loyal in some respects, yet she can be disloyal in ways she doesn’t think are important . . . But I didn’t think it applied to something like this.’
It strikes me that this is perhaps the biggest thing he’s ever revealed to me. ‘So is this why you divorced?’ Something about this is confusing me but I can’t pinpoint it.
He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t divorce her for this exactly. No.’
I must look incredulous because he says, ‘I had Grace and Toby to think about, didn’t I? If there had only been the two of us . . . Toby was a baby! I had to put them first. Besides, it’s not like the affair was ever going to start up again – Alistair was dead. It was in the past. So I just decided to let it stay there.’ Then he adds, ‘It was purely for my kids.’
I think of what he told me a while back. Everybody will try to fuck you over but you need to be able to count on your dad.
We sit through a spell of silence. Finally I say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? Why was it such a big secret?’
He stares at a spot on the duvet. ‘It’s not a topic I like to revisit, to be honest. It was all very painful at the time. It made me question my judgement, made me doubt myself – how could I not have known she’d do something like this? Why did I not suspect at the time? Plus, Alistair was supposed to be . . . a friend.’ He looks away. ‘Besides, it’s not exactly the best reflection on me, is it? When your wife cheats. Not something a guy probably wants to go around advertising.’
Go around advertising? It’s astonishing how he can sometimes make me feel so insignificant. But I don’t have the energy to take issue with it.
‘But I know you had some unanswered questions around this . . . I accept your right to know.’
So this is Joe’s way of letting me in, of bringing me closer? I have a lot of questions, but only one is pressing. ‘You said she cheated twice – or as good as. So what happened the second time?’
THIRTY
He says, ‘I need a drink,’ and then he gets up and goes through to the living room.
I follow, like a puppy, and watch him pour a couple of Scotches, dropping a single oversized ice cube in each glass.
‘Meredith assaulted a colleague. A twenty-six-year-old pupil in her chambers.’
‘Assaulted?’ I picture her getting annoyed and clonking someone on the nose.
‘They were at the pub celebrating a big win. She had a few too many to drink and made a pass at him . . .’ He frowns, as though the memory pains him. ‘He wasn’t up for it. I suppose to him she was just this older woman – and his boss, to boot!’ He takes a sip as though he’s not even really tasting it. ‘It’s possible it could have all died there, but when the time came for him to apply for tenancy – after his apprenticeship was completed – she didn’t keep him on.’ He briefly meets my eyes. ‘She told him he wasn’t compatible with the set . . . I imagine nobody knows for sure if the two were connected, but clearly, he felt they were.’
‘He reported her?’ I try to picture her hitting some guy up when she’d had a few too many drinks, remembering that evening in the bar – how she’d been checking out the young, fit barman.
He shakes his head. ‘No, he didn’t exactly report her. Not in the way you mean. Not to the Bar Standards Board . . . I suppose he could have. But it’s a tricky thing to file that type of complaint against someone, isn’t it? And it’s probably almost always the woman filing against the man – not the other way around. Maybe he was worried that if he went down that route, the allegation would stick to him throughout his career, influence his job potential – which we all know it might. We’ve seen it happen to women plenty of times.’ He takes a sip of his Scotch again. ‘The thing is – the really unfortunate twist to the story for Meredith – was that she had no idea this kid’s aunt was actually Chief Justice and OBE, Pamela Carlton – the chair of the QC appointments panel. So, when Meredith came to apply for QC, she didn’t get accepted.’
I almost slap a hand to my mouth. ‘But I thought she was a QC! Didn’t you tell me ages ago that she was?’
‘No. I think I mentioned that she applied . . . I was actually going to tell you the whole story but then, well, I thought maybe it was best not to bother.’
‘My God,’ I say, cringing as I recall my gaffe when I met her at the pub that time – when I congratulated her on her recent appointment. ‘So this young lawyer . . . she never knew about his aunt?’
