The Idea of You

by Amanda Prowse

  She had rocked on the mattress, trying to erase the words, which were not meant for her ears. Two male orderlies snickering outside her hospital ward: ‘How old? Dirty little bitch!’ followed by their lascivious grunts of laughter.

  Lucy shivered.

  ‘I suppose it is.’ He spoke as if in thought.

  ‘I don’t want to be the censorial maiden aunt in the background, but I guess I find it difficult sometimes to know where the lines are drawn. I definitely hold back where she is concerned. I know I do, and that makes it hard for me.’

  ‘In what way do you hold back?’ he asked.

  ‘Lots of ways, but a good example would be that if Maisie, when she was older, dressed how Camille did today, in a very revealing way, I would have no hesitation in telling her, nicely, that I think she’d be better off wearing something a little more conservative. I mean, yes, I would encourage her to celebrate her body, of course! She’s beautiful. But there was something a bit raunchy about Camille’s clothes that I didn’t think was right. It was her first day of work and I understand the need for her to be in fashion, but I don’t think it sent out the right message. God, listen to me. I sound exactly like that maiden aunt.’

  ‘No, I think you have a point, but it’s a hard one to broach,’ he confessed, and she was glad they appeared to be on the same page, something she had missed of late.

  ‘For me it’s about keeping her safe,’ she continued. ‘She has that amazing body, but she is only sixteen and I think sometimes, when you have a body like that, it can be a while before your mind catches up, even if you think it has. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jonah turned on to his side and stared at her. ‘Why do you think you hold back with her?’ He went back to that point, clearly still curious.

  Lucy turned her head towards him and they held hands. ‘I think I am very aware that I don’t want to tread on Geneviève’s toes. I’m conscious of the fact that she has a mum and for me to jump in with my amateur parenting would feel odd for us both. I guess also I don’t have the confidence because I have never done it, but I think above all I want Camille to like me, I know that will make you happy, so I tend to hold back, trying to be nice all the time so she likes me. That’s it, I guess.’

  She watched his eyebrows knit together, as if she were speaking a foreign tongue and he was trying to figure out the meaning. The clipped tone that followed was not what she had expected after her own impassioned confession.

  ‘We will only ever feel like a proper family if we can all relax; it’s important. It doesn’t need to be the big deal you are making it, Lucy. She is only here for a few weeks, don’t forget, and then she’s back in France to start a new course or get a job, whatever. I just want her to have a nice break while she is here. You don’t need to parent her; you need to be her friend, a guide, that’s it!’ He made it sound so obvious.

  ‘I know that, Jonah, of course I do! But firstly, it doesn’t matter that it’s only for a few weeks; it is laying the foundation for all future visits. And secondly, it’s not as easy as having a plate of pasta and whacking on some music and giggling until dawn; these things take time.’ Her blood pressure rose as she struggled to make herself understood.

  ‘Exactly,’ he gestured. ‘These things take time, and there are huge gaps in my knowledge, don’t forget. We shall figure it out together.’

  ‘That sounds good.’ Her words were both appeasing and resigned; she didn’t want to keep going around in circles. ‘Camille and I have to get to know each other, and I feel she puts up barriers that make that harder than it needs to be.’

  ‘Look, she’s probably nervous as hell; I don’t buy all that bravado. She might be sixteen but I think she’s still a little scared of losing her dad.’

  Lucy looked back towards the ceiling as a steady stream of tears fell along her temples and into the mattress.

  ‘Don’t cry, my Lucy!’ He leant forward and kissed her face; his mouth was soon wet with her tears.

  ‘I can’t help it.’ She sniffed. ‘I sometimes wonder if I lost a little bit of myself when I married you, and that scares me. Don’t get me wrong; I love you. I love you so much, but I get scared too. I know it sounds selfish, maybe it is, but I want us to come first and I think we’ve lost a bit of that recently.’

  ‘No no no no, Lucy.’ He laid his arm across her in a loose embrace. ‘You can’t look at it that way. You do lose things when you get married, it’s true, but what we gain far outweighs what we have lost. My life was so empty without you in it. That day I saw you in the church, your beautiful face and your manner . . . I fell for you, hook, line and sinker, and I realised that you were my missing piece. I am happy with you by my side and without you I am not. It’s that simple.’

  ‘Is it that simple?’ She wiped her eyes.

  ‘Yes! It really is. I know I can make you happy, always. And we have to try not to overcomplicate things.’ He kissed her face again.

  The two lay like that for some minutes, feeling the world settle around them until their heart rates dropped and the natural rhythm returned to their breathing. It was Lucy who broke the silence, as she tried to paper over the crack in her thoughts.

  ‘I had an appointment with Dr Millard today, just before I went to meet Camille.’

  He sat up on the mattress and faced her. ‘You should have said. I would have come with you.’

  ‘I know.’ She patted his arm and smiled. ‘But I wanted to go on my own.’ She sniffed again.

  ‘What did he say?’ His chest heaved.

  ‘Pretty much what everyone else has said, that these things just happen sometimes and that there was no real point in investigating why as, more often than not, people who experience early miscarriage go ahead and have healthy babies.’

  ‘Well that’s really good news!’

  She was certain his open expression was meant to reassure her.

  ‘I guess, but there’s a part of me that would like to know why, not only so that I can try and guard against it, but also because it would help me understand. I think it might make me feel less sad if I knew,’ she whispered. ‘He said there was no reason not to try again when we were ready.’

  Jonah’s face broke into a wide smile. ‘Lucy, this is good, good news! If it’s just a case of keep trying, why don’t we? I know that I certainly haven’t changed my mind. I want nothing more than to have our baby.’

  ‘Really?’ She looked into his eyes.

  ‘Yes, of course, really!’ He kissed her again.

  ‘I’ve been worried that you didn’t seem that fussed when I suggested we wait. I thought you might have been a little relieved and it threw me completely. I thought we might have been on different paths.’

  ‘Relieved? Not at all. We are on the same path, my love. But I didn’t want to put any more pressure on you than you were already trying to deal with. I still don’t.’

  ‘I do want our baby,’ she cried. ‘I want her so much. I feel like she’s waiting for me somewhere.’

  ‘I want our baby too.’ He held her tight. ‘I do.’

  The two fell into a deep slumber, wrapped in each other’s arms with the promise of a brighter day tomorrow. Lucy slept soundly, exhausted and at the same time relieved to have spoken her mind; she felt wonderfully unburdened.

  Both stirred as the light of dawn peeped over the horizon, flooding their bedroom with light.

  Jonah wriggled. ‘My arm has gone numb.’ He laughed, trying to work his limb free from under her side.

  ‘I feel happy.’ She smiled, snuggling closer into him under the duvet.

  ‘Me too.’ He pushed her hair from her face. ‘I’m sorry about the whole Cam thing yesterday. I didn’t know what to do. I felt caught in the middle and I didn’t like it one bit.’

  ‘Me either,’ she admitted.

  ‘I guess we have to figure these things out together, but one thing I do know is that you shouldn’t hold back, Lucy. If you want to say something you need to be able to. This is your h
ome and you need to be free to speak; otherwise things will get bottled up and that’s no good. No stress, remember?’ He smiled.

  ‘Yep, no stress.’ She nodded against him.

  ‘How about we organise a bit of a family day, take Camille out to meet Fay and Adam and your mum? Cam might like that.’

  ‘Really?’ She wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Yes, really. It would be great for her to feel she is part of something bigger than us rattling around in Queen’s Park. Let’s take her out to Kent to meet the wider family.’ He spoke with growing enthusiasm.

  ‘If you think so,’ she agreed.

  ‘I do. And in the meantime, I am very excited about us trying again for our baby, and you know what they say . . .’

  ‘What?’ She yawned, glad that there was still more sleep to be had before the alarm went off.

  ‘No time like the present.’ He kissed her, before pulling the duvet over their heads and rolling her on top of him.

  Things between us were strained. I knew I loved Jonah, that he made me happy and that I wanted to be married to him. I also knew he would be the best dad ever, I saw evidence of his kind nature every day, but it was like someone in the distance was slowly banging a drum that only I could hear. It was a low, slow, deep, heavy boom that resonated in my mind, reminding me of the passing of time and distracting my thoughts. I could only focus my mind on one thing, the fact that I was desperate to be a mother. It was an overwhelming, all-consuming sensation that flavoured my food, coloured my opinions and influenced my choices. I was also battling with the thought that Jonah didn’t feel the need for a child as strongly as I did and I didn’t know how to manage that.

  And this will sound extreme, ridiculous even, but when I got my period it was with such a sense of sadness that I would lock the bathroom door and howl, as surely as I had when I miscarried. These two events were, quite obviously, inextricably linked. The blood lost in both cases might have been for different reasons and in differing amounts, but both were proof of one thing: I was still a mum-in-waiting. And that made me sadder than I can say.

  ELEVEN

  The car journey out to leafy West Malling was pleasant. Camille sat on the luxurious back seat of the off-road Porsche. It was one of the perks of Jonah’s business, being able to rustle up a fabulous car when the need arose. With her headphones plugged into the sound system, her stepdaughter alternated between snacking on sweets and singing out loud. Every time her tuneless caterwauling filled the small space, Jonah laughed and Lucy joined in. She felt like they were any other family out on a jaunt, creating memories that would inevitably help build their shared history, and that could only be a good thing. Lucy tried to ignore the stir of concern that Camille might be rude or offhand in front of her family, not quite knowing how she would handle that.

  ‘This is so pretty!’ Camille sat forward and looked out the window. Lucy was glad that the traditional English high street – with its ivy-covered buildings, timber-beamed pubs, Georgian terraces, double-bay-windowed shopfronts and cobbled area where the war memorial lived – was making the right impression. Jonah again caught her eye with a smile that boasted success.

  The peace of the historic market town where her sister and family lived was shattered the second Fay opened the front door to their extended cottage. The original part of the house was over three hundred years old, with exposed aged brickwork and an inglenook fireplace. It was peppered with history: blackened hooks in the ceiling where meat had once hung to dry and the remnants of an ancient bread oven, now used as a rather natty bookshelf. There was a modern extension at the back, added in the seventies, where the big square kitchen opened out on to the garden, letting the light into what would have been a rather dark space.

  The sounds of Maisie crying, Rory shouting, Adam calling from upstairs, nursery rhymes playing and Duster the large mongrel barking filled the air.

  ‘It’s like a portal to the underworld! Please don’t make me go inside!’ Jonah pulled a face at Lucy, and she placed her hand on his arm in a small gesture of reassurance.

  ‘Fear not – I’ll protect you. I know their ways.’ She laughed.

  Camille showed none of the reticence that Lucy had envisaged. Instead, she climbed down from the back of the car, in her high-waisted jeans that stopped just above her ankle and a pretty sleeveless floral shirt, and trod the path to the house confidently.

  ‘Hey, Camille! Welcome!’ Fay stepped forward, wiping her hands – which were nearly always covered in paint, glue, flour or something equally as messy – on her jeans, and reached up. Lucy watched in surprise as the two wrapped their arms around each other in a warm, easy hug, as if they had been doing so forever, both parting with a smile. She found it hard not to recall the awkward introduction that had been made in their kitchen only a few weeks before, remembering what it felt like to have to lower her arms and retain her grin while her face flamed.

  ‘It’s so lovely to finally meet you! I have heard so much about you,’ Fay enthused. ‘Welcome to the madhouse!’ She stood back, gesturing with her arm for Camille to go on in, which she did.

  ‘How are you?’ Fay kissed her sister on the cheek.

  ‘Good, you?’ Lucy replied.

  ‘Great!’ She smiled.

  With the formalities out of the way, Lucy and Jonah followed Fay inside, handing over the bunch of flowers, box of chocolates and bottles of wine they had retrieved from the car, along with two brand-new children’s books whose illustrations had called to her when she had popped her head into Queen’s Park Books. She had thoroughly enjoyed choosing them.

  ‘You shouldn’t have!’ The gifts filled Fay’s raised arms. ‘But I’m very glad you did. Thank you for our goodies.’ She beamed as she deposited the booty on the dresser, to be dealt with later. Lucy felt her shoulders tense, worrying that the summer bouquet of pink stocks, sunflowers and orange antirrhinum wouldn’t get into water in time. They were already looking a little wilted after being incarcerated in the back of the car for an hour or so.

  They trooped in, and, without instruction, Camille turned left into the cosy sitting room and immediately sat on the rug where Rory, still in his Superman pyjamas, had laid out a rather elaborate car track that filled most of the floor space. He was busy running cars and rescue vehicles along it with sound effects as he shouted instructions. ‘You can be a lorry driver.’ He put the little green lorry into her palm. Camille immediately lay on her front, kicking her long legs up behind her. With the track at eye level, she whizzed the lorry around making an impressive engine noise, until it came bumper to bumper with Rory’s tractor.

  ‘Beep beep!’ she called out. ‘Hey! Move that tractor, Superman. I have important deliveries to make, you know!’

  Rory’s face split into a wide grin, clearly delighted with his new friend who was not only pretty but also great at playing cars.

  Fay pulled a downward mouth and nodded approvingly to Lucy, as if to acknowledge how well the girl had dropped into the house and become Rory’s playmate. It was almost as if she was challenging the picture Lucy had painted.

  ‘Hi, all. Sorry, got in a muddle with the days. I was convinced you were coming next week for some reason!’ With Maisie in tow, Adam looked as if he had only just jumped out of the shower, as was apparent from the wet hair that curled against his neck. This was not a shock. Adam lived his life at a permanent jog, undertaking every task with his arms set at right angles by his ribs, as if this half-running stance might help him claw back some of the time that he inevitably lost as the day unfolded. He was on constant catch-up. Lucy would have found his lack of punctuality and his forgetfulness hard to live with, and even as an occasional visitor she was tempted to shake him by the shoulders and suggest he set his alarm a little earlier and write stuff down. She and Jonah had privately wondered how he managed to deliver five sixty-minute lessons a day, picturing him as a haphazard tutor whose marking was sloppy and organisation poor. Lucy loved him regardless; he made her sister happy and was a great
dad to her niece and nephew, and that made everything else seem a little irrelevant.

  ‘Maisie is teething.’ Fay pointed at the plump baby girl with red cheeks who now hovered on her dad’s hip, her dribbly fist shoved in her mouth as she hiccupped tears.

  ‘Poor little thing.’ Lucy touched her finger to Maisie’s cheek and smiled at the little beauty.

  ‘Poor little us,’ Adam corrected. ‘She’s been up half the night.’

  ‘Do you want me to take her?’ Jonah stepped forward at Adam’s grateful nod and scooped Maisie into his arms, jiggling her up and down as she sat on his forearm. Her crying stopped, suggesting she was either glad of the change or a little shocked. Either way, no one minded the quiet that crept over the kitchen. Even Duster the dog seemed to sigh, as he lay with his greying muzzle on the cool floor by the back door.

  Lucy smiled at her husband. There was something quite wonderful and bittersweet about seeing her man holding this baby girl, and she wondered if he would ever get to hold their own.

  ‘Adam, as you are now hands-free, could you fire up the barbecue?’ Fay smiled at her husband, sweetly.

  ‘This is what she does.’ Adam shook his head in Fay’s direction, speaking about her with fondness, as if she were absent. ‘If she thinks I have a second in the day that isn’t allocated, she fills it up with a pressing chore.’

  ‘No, you are right, honey. Don’t bother,’ Fay mocked. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you. Why don’t you go and put your feet up and I’ll give everyone a raw hamburger and a bit of salad. It’ll be fine. Or a frozen chicken Kiev, à la Lucy!’

  Lucy pulled a face at her sister.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m going!’ Adam loped out to the kitchen, winking at the wife he adored, admitting defeat. Jonah and Maisie followed him outside.

  ‘So, how’s you?’ Fay asked, as if she might get a more honest response now they were alone.