by Julie Cohen
She grinned at her reflection and took a pillow off the bed. On second thoughts she took both of them. There was a collection of objects hidden under them: a balled-up nightgown, a plastic bottle of hand cream, a novel, a notebook, a black-and-white photograph.
A black-and-white ultrasound scan photograph.
She hadn’t known that Romily had kept any of the scan pictures. She peered more closely, and realized this wasn’t the same as any of the ones she had herself, the ones she’d memorized and carried around with her.
It must be of Posie. Still kept treasured, all these years later. Claire smiled and picked it up, wondering what Posie had looked like in the womb. If she’d resembled her half-sister or brother. If all babies looked the same before they were born, or if they were different, individual, already themselves. This one showed half a face. The baby had its thumb in its mouth.
The date was printed across the bottom.
‘Claire?’ called Posie. ‘I’ve chosen my bedtime stories.’
Claire put the photograph back where she’d found it, on top of the notebook. Biting her lip, she went back into Posie’s room with the pillows.
‘Thank you,’ said Posie happily, arranging the pillows behind her. She had a stack of books on the bed.
Why did Romily have a scan photograph from 29 August this year?
‘Let’s start with Peter Pan,’ said Posie, handing her a book. Automatically, Claire opened the cover and began to read aloud.
That was the scan that had been done in the hospital. After the fall. Romily had said she hadn’t asked for a printout.
Why would she do that?
She read about Neverland without understanding a word of it. Then something about a witch, something about a bear, something about the Mayans. She found herself closing the next-to-last book and looking down to see Posie fast asleep on her tower of pillows, her hand tucked under her cheek.
She kissed Posie’s forehead and smoothed back her hair. She turned on her night-light and gently closed her door. Then she went back into Romily’s bedroom.
She wasn’t snooping. She’d found this by accident. And it was a photograph of her own child, after all.
Claire sat down on the bed and picked up the photograph again.
Romily had never seemed particularly interested in the scans. Unlike Claire and Ben, she hadn’t been glued to the screen. Claire had always had the impression that she wanted to act as if she wasn’t actually there, to try to give the illusion that Ben and Claire were alone in the room. ‘That’s your baby,’ she’d said several times.
And yet she’d kept this one picture, taken the one time that Ben and Claire hadn’t been with her.
And then lied about it.
And hidden it.
Claire looked around the room as if it would give her a clue about why Romily would do all that. Romily, who seemed to Claire to be one of the most straightforward people she’d ever met. Who said what she thought, who’d cheered Claire for doing the same thing. Who was honest to the point of tactlessness, sometimes.
Who’d asked her to hide her dinner with Jarvis from Ben.
The room didn’t reveal anything except for the fact that Romily’d been tidying up. She’d probably shoved all this stuff underneath the pillows to get it out of sight. Or did she sleep with this photograph under her pillow every night? While Claire’s baby slept inside of her?
Claire touched the notebook that the photograph had lain on. It was a plain paper-backed notebook, spiral-bound, A5, with a green cover. There wasn’t anything written on the front.
And hadn’t the photograph been partly inside it? With the corner just underneath the cover? As if it had fallen out when Romily was tidying?
She tried to remember, tried to picture it as it had been when she’d first seen it.
Claire glanced around the room again. This other woman’s room, this other woman’s life. She picked up the notebook and opened it.
Dear Thing, she read.
35
What Could Have Been
IT REALLY HADN’T been that bad after all, Romily thought. They’d had plenty to talk about: mutual acquaintances, music, Jarvis’s travel, Romily’s work, the field uses of Vaseline and string. Books. How they both missed seeing proper films on a proper screen and had to make do with DVDs or aeroplane entertainment systems. The Kyoto Agreement. Fleas and bedbugs. They’d talked all through dinner, which was not at an expensive restaurant but at a newish pub by the river that did good food with plenty of vegetarian options – over Jarvis’s glass of wine and her glass of lemonade, over his steak pie and her beetroot tart, the sticky toffee pudding that she ate while he had two cups of coffee. He preferred his sugar to be accompanied by caffeine. She remembered that about him from years ago.
She’d forgotten about all the conversations they used to have.
And they talked about Posie, of course.
‘If we agree on some definite dates, I can arrange my year’s work around them,’ Jarvis had said, stirring his coffee. ‘A few days at Easter, maybe. And a week in the summer when I can take her camping.’
‘You can do that? I thought you had to go when the work came up.’
‘I can have a few times a year which are non-negotiable. What about Boxing Day?’ He smiled. ‘I’d like some Christmas with her.’
‘I didn’t think you’d like that sort of thing.’
‘I liked it when I was a kid. As an adult, the magic rubs a little thin. Especially when everyone else in your family is paired off.’
‘It’s usually just me and Posie. We stay in our pyjamas all day and eat nothing but chocolate.’
‘It’s fun as an uncle. I think it would be more fun as a dad. I might be able to arrange for all my nieces and nephews to be there.’
That was yet another thing Posie had missed out on: big family Christmases. Something Jarvis could give her and Romily could not.
‘That should all be fine,’ Romily said at last. ‘I think she’d like it.’
He looked up from his coffee. ‘You’d trust me with her? Overnight? Or for a week camping?’
‘You’ve kept yourself alive for this long, and you’ve demonstrated that you can shift it to the nearest hospital in an emergency. I think you’ll keep her safe. But …’
‘But what?’
‘Oh, nothing. I was just thinking – it just occurred to me that with her gone for that long, I’d be lonely.’ Romily laughed. ‘Silly. I’ll be able to sleep late and get loads done.’
‘But you’d still be lonely.’
She shrugged and ran her spoon around her plate to pick up the last bit of sticky toffee.
‘I don’t mind being alone,’ Jarvis said. ‘I quite like it. I used to think that since I liked being alone, I could never get lonely.’
She caught his eye for a moment, and then looked down again at her plate.
‘So Boxing Day, and we can set dates during the school holidays,’ she said hurriedly, ‘which you’ll work around, and then some weekends and evenings, to be decided according to our work schedules as we go. Does that sound right?’
‘It sounds good. I was thinking it’s time I did more work in this country, so that will make it easier.’
‘You don’t have to stay around. Our lives aren’t that complicated. I’m happy for you to ring when you’re heading back to England and give us a few days’ notice.’
‘I want to stay,’ he said, and stood up. ‘Done?’
They walked back on the towpath along the Thames. The streetlamps reflected off the black surface of the water in undulations of orange light. An unseen duck protested at the shadows. She remembered one evening in London, years and miles away but on the bank of this same river, when they had walked together and he had taken her hand.
He kept his hands in his pockets and she held her handbag strap on the side facing him. ‘You don’t have to be alone to be lonely,’ she thought about saying to him. ‘You don’t have to be alone at all.’
B
ut she didn’t say it.
They turned up onto her street. The curtains of her flat had been drawn. The two of them stopped in front, and when Romily turned to say goodbye to Jarvis, he was much closer than she’d expected him to be. She could smell the faint scent of his shaving lotion and hear the rustle of his clothing and her eyes met his and her heart thumped and Romily forgot the facts of her life. Her hand loosened on her bag and she tilted her face up towards his. His breath touched her cheek.
The baby kicked.
‘Oh,’ said Romily, putting her hand on her stomach. ‘Um. Well. Thank you.’
‘Thank you. That was fun. A bit like old times.’
In old times he would have kissed her goodnight. She ducked her head. ‘I’ll ring you about next weekend.’
‘All right. Goodnight, Romily.’
He didn’t move, though, and Romily hesitated before she realized that he was waiting for her to get safely inside before he walked to the station.
It only took the short flight of steps to her front door for her to travel from what had been and what could have been, to what was. By the time she opened her door and looked up at Jarvis, he was already walking away.
Claire had all the lights on inside and she was sitting on the armchair that Ben always used. Romily put a big smile on her face.
‘Good news,’ she said. ‘I didn’t spill anything on the dre—’
Claire looked up. Her face was white. On her lap was Romily’s notebook.
‘I found,’ she said, and swallowed. ‘I found the scan picture.’
Romily stood where she was, the door swinging shut behind her.
‘You read my notebook.’ Oh no. Oh dear Lord no, no no no. ‘Why are you reading my notebook?’
‘I saw the picture,’ Claire said. She was speaking as if she were in a dream. ‘I borrowed a pillow for Posie and I saw it, and I was putting it back inside the notebook and I saw the letters you’ve been writing. To my baby.’
‘That’s private.’ Romily strode over and snatched the notebook from Claire’s lap. The scan photograph fluttered to the floor. Romily shut the book and held it close to her chest, all the words she’d written flashing through her head at once. All the secrets.
‘You were doing what I’d asked you to do,’ said Claire. ‘Writing letters to the baby. To let him know he was wanted. You said it was a stupid idea.’
‘It was just silly stuff, just feelings. No one was meant to read it. I was going to rip it up.’
Claire didn’t sound angry; she sounded stunned. Maybe she hadn’t read all that far. Maybe she’d only just started reading it. It wasn’t that bad at the beginning, was it?
And then Romily realized what Claire had said. She had called the baby ‘him’, even though she and Ben had been so careful not to learn the sex.’
‘“Love isn’t the answer”,’ said Claire. ‘“Love is the problem”. How long have you been in love with my husband, Romily?’
‘I’m not,’ Romily said automatically. ‘I never was. I only wrote that because I – I was making up a story. Once upon a time. Like it says at the beginning.’
‘It’s not a story. It’s true.’
‘It’s not. I’m not in love with Ben.’
‘So why do you have a whole page where you tell yourself not to be in love with him? Over and over and over again?’
‘It’s …’ Romily couldn’t breathe. It was as if the room were shrinking in on her, crushing her. ‘It’s just the hormones. They want me to pair-bond with the father of the child I’m carrying. It’s nothing, nothing at all, and I’ll get over it as soon as the baby is born.’
‘You’re a horrible liar.’
Claire’s voice was cold. She stood up, her body straight as an arrow.
‘Did you volunteer to carry Ben’s baby because you loved him? Was it your idea that once you were carrying his child, he’d fall in love with you too, and you’d get to keep him and the baby?’
‘No! No, it wasn’t like that at all. It’s not like that.’
‘But you loved him when you said you’d carry his baby. That’s why you said you’d do it.’
‘I … no.’
‘And it was even easier for you because I couldn’t conceive. So the baby is half yours.’
‘Claire, please.’
‘I trusted you,’ said Claire. ‘I trusted you with the most important part of my life. The part I felt weakest in, the part I was most afraid of going wrong. And you knew that.’
‘I trusted you,’ said Romily, on a sudden surge of anger. She welcomed it. Anger was better than panic. ‘I trusted you to be in my house and look after my daughter and not go snooping through my life.’
Claire pointed to the notebook in Romily’s hand. ‘That’s about my life. My baby. My husband. You want them both.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘Have you been laughing at me this entire time?’
‘It’s not about you, Claire. It doesn’t all revolve around you. Every minute since I’ve got pregnant, I’ve been examined and looked at and questioned and told what to do, what to eat, how to behave. I don’t belong to you. Not my body, not my feelings. They’re mine and they’re private and they’re none of your business.’
‘Everything you’ve done has been an act. It’s all been to lull me into a sense of security. You kept telling me the baby was mine. You saw the nursery. I liked you. And all the time …’ She choked.
‘You were never much bothered with me before. Did you like me, or did you like what I was doing for you? The service I was providing?’
Claire hurried to the sofa and scooped up her jacket and her handbag from where they lay. She slammed the door after her. Romily dropped the notebook and leaned back against the wall, her hands over her mouth. Her heart pounded.
Posie appeared, rubbing her eyes, her hair mussed from sleep. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ said Romily. ‘Nothing’s going on. Claire had to leave quickly because she forgot to do something. Go back to sleep, Pose.’
Posie nodded and padded back to her room. Romily picked up the notebook and, as quietly as she could, ripped every single page out of it. She tore each letter to shreds, tinier and tinier until she could barely see the writing any more. And then tore it tinier still.
36
All There Is
BEN HAD SPREAD his blueprints all over the kitchen table. A half-empty glass of milk and a crumb-littered plate sat in front of him. He barely glanced up when she came in. ‘Good book club? You’re home early.’
‘I wasn’t at book club.’
‘Sorry, was it something else? I’ll do the washing-up before I go to bed, promise.’
‘I was at Romily’s.’
He did look up at that. ‘Is she all right?’ Claire’s face must have been broadcasting her feelings, because he pushed his chair back and stood. ‘What’s wrong? Is the baby okay? I had my phone right here, why didn’t you ring?’
‘The baby is fine. I was babysitting Posie.’
‘That’s all? Why didn’t she tell me?’
Romily’s little secret about dinner with Jarvis seemed so faraway and trivial now. Compared with her big secret. ‘I found something while I was in her flat. She’s been writing letters to the baby.’
‘That’s what you wanted her to do.’
‘She’s written all her feelings down in them. All her feelings.’
Ben stood in their kitchen, wearing jeans and a rugby top she’d bought him. His hair was rumpled where he’d run his fingers through it as he worked; he still wore his reading glasses. He looked familiar in every way. The way the world had looked before she’d opened that notebook and discovered that nothing was familiar any more.
She had gone through it in her head, over and over and over again on the way home, stopping carefully at red lights, looking both ways before she pulled out at junctions.
How could Romily be in love with Ben if he’d never encouraged her? All these years without a single sign back? You didn’t fall in
love with someone who was indifferent to you, someone who was just your friend. Someone who was in love with his wife.
But Ben couldn’t know. He’d never have let Romily get pregnant with his baby if he’d known. He’d never have kept seeing Romily, spent so much time alone with her.
Unless all this time, when she’d thought of nothing but a baby, when she’d been blind to everything except the failure of her own body, unless all this time Romily and Ben had been …
‘There’s something wrong,’ he said. ‘You look like there’s something wrong. I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you? Not at all?’
If he didn’t know how Romily felt, she could keep going. She could handle this. They could make a plan together. They could see a solicitor, they could draw up the agreement Romily and Ben had said they didn’t need.
Had they dismissed it because …
‘Claire. Don’t make me guess. If this is something about Romily and our baby, it affects me too.’
‘Romily is in love with you.’
She held her breath. She waited for him to laugh it away. She waited for him to react in horror.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘She wrote that?’ he asked. ‘In her letters to the baby?’
‘She wrote that she’s been in love with you for a long time.’
‘Oh,’ he said. He sat back down in his chair.
‘Is that all you have to say about it? “Oh”?’
He chewed on his lip. ‘I’m not sure what to say about it.’
‘You mean that you knew?’
Ben paused. His whole manner was thoughtful, as if he were sifting through evidence, memory and emotion. Claire, on the other hand, was trembling. She held on to the back of a chair, her fingers pressing against the wood.
‘No. I didn’t know. But now that you say it, it’s not a surprise. Oh God. It’s not a surprise.’
‘It was to me!’
‘You don’t know her as well as I do.’ He was looking off into the distance. ‘She’s been single for a long time. I’ve been more or less the only man in her life. Objectively, it makes sense.’
