by Julie Cohen
A sudden urge gripped him to fling his arms around her. To hold her tight, to lie down with her on the grass with the chatter of the party next door muted. To feel her heartbeat and compare it to his. But it was the Thompsons’ garden; they couldn’t roll around on the lawn next to the Thompsons’ swing set.
‘Well,’ said Felicity, standing up, ‘that was lucky.’ She brushed twigs and grass from her dress. ‘I suppose we should go back to the party.’
Quinn stood. ‘Is your arm okay? You’ve scraped it.’
‘Have I?’ Felicity peered at it. ‘Oh, I have. I’m fine.’
‘Maybe we should walk round to the front rather than going through the hole again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Felicity, as they skirted bicycles on their way to the front garden. ‘I know you were enjoying the party.’
‘You saved me from Mrs Miller’s conspiracy theories.’
‘Did you know that one of the women in there stole your pencil when you were a child?’
‘It’ll be all over the Tillingford Tea Pot tomorrow, how Quinn and Felicity Wickham disappeared through a hedge.’
‘Oh dear.’ She frowned, and he put his arm around her waist. ‘I don’t think I’d have stolen your pencil,’ she said.
‘I’d have given it to you.’ They reached the gate, and he opened it. ‘I’d have given you anything,’ he said.
Chapter Three
I KEEP ON thinking about how it felt to have that sparrow fly away from my hands. One moment it was there, light as fluff. And then the next moment I felt its claws on my palms, a flicker of air on my face. Flit. Gone.
Quinn changes out of his suit but I stay in my dress. I slip off my shoes and lie back on the sofa, propping my bare feet on the arm. The prosecco has made me drowsy and relaxed. When Quinn comes back he lifts my legs, sits on the sofa, and rests my feet on his lap.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asks me.
‘I thought it was dead. It was as if it came back to life, right in my hands.’
He smiles. ‘Yes, but the christening?’
‘Oh. It was all right. I still don’t know the hymns.’
‘Ed and Alice seem very happy. Apparently they’ve been trying for a while.’
‘Yes, very happy,’ I say. ‘And taking full advantage of a new reason to go shopping. Did you see their new pram in the hallway? It looks like something off a spaceship.’
He murmurs assent, and begins to rub my foot. Quinn gives lovely foot massages. Apparently one of his ex-girlfriends, Maya, taught him because she always had sore feet. She never knew that I’d be the one benefiting from her penchant for ill-fitting shoes. It’s odd that every relationship we have, aside from the first one, is patched together from things we’ve learned already, habits we’ve formed with other people. I close my eyes and wonder what I’ve brought to my relationship with Quinn. The thing is, he’s quite different from anyone else I’ve ever been involved with.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ says Quinn.
‘Oh dear.’
‘Always dangerous, I know.’ He runs his thumb up the arch of my foot, something that should tickle, but feels good. Sexy. ‘And Patrick said something today, which made me think about … and how lovely the christening was, and how happy Ed and Alice are, and their parents. I mean, I was wondering, do you think …’ He takes a breath. ‘Don’t you think it’s time we started trying for a baby?’
‘A baby?’ I sit up, pulling my feet under me so I’m cross-legged, facing Quinn. He’s looking at me.
‘You know, little creatures,’ he says. ‘Drink milk. You’ve heard of them.’
‘I’ve heard of them, yes. I didn’t know you wanted one.’
‘You don’t think it’s a good idea to have a family?’
‘I … haven’t thought about it, to be honest. I mean, we’ve only just got married.’
‘A year next month.’
‘Really?’ A year, a whole year, stretches behind me. Behind us. ‘That happened quickly.’
‘I thought that was one of the reasons we bought this house,’ he says. ‘Three bedrooms: one for us, one for your studio, one for a nursery. With room in the garden for an extension if we have more children.’
I thought we bought the cottage because we liked it. Because of the roses over the door and the cracks in the plaster and the golden colour the thatch turns at sunset. I thought the third bedroom was a spare one.
‘I mentioned it at the time,’ Quinn says.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’ His voice is patient. ‘I told you how Mr and Mrs Ogden lived here all their lives and brought up three children here and then they grew old together here. I told you how their son Michael was my maths teacher at school. I said it was the right sort of place for us to do the same thing.’
‘I must have forgotten.’
He lets out a short sigh of exasperation or disappointment.
‘I just haven’t thought about it,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know you had.’
‘I thought it was the normal next step.’
‘I don’t know. Is it? Are we a normal couple?’
‘Of course we are.’
But are we? I felt quite different from the other couples at the christening today, with their four-wheel-drive cars, the couples with babies in carrycots or toddlers in clothes that require ironing. The couples who refer to ‘their other half’ and who talk about the desirability of local schools.
‘It’s all quite sudden, Quinn. I mean, a year and a half ago, I didn’t even know you yet.’
‘Surely you’ve noticed my mother talking about it?’
‘Well yes, but that’s Molly, isn’t it? I didn’t think you were listening.’
He isn’t exasperated; he’s hurt. And now I’ve insulted his mother as well. I touch his arm.
‘It’s all new to me, Quinn. Probably, yes, I should have been thinking about it. You clearly have, but I haven’t. But I’ll think about it now. I promise. Okay?’
He leans over and kisses me on the forehead, then gets up. ‘Thank you. Fancy a cheese sandwich? I’m making one.’ I shake my head, and he leaves me alone in the sitting room, thinking.
The next morning, Quinn cycles off to get the paper before I’m out of bed. While I’m standing by the bedroom window pulling on my socks, I see him returning. He wheels his bicycle through our front gate and leaves it just inside, unlocked. No one ever locks up anything in Tillingford. At first I thought it was because no one ever stole anything, but that’s not the case; it’s because everyone knows everyone else and any thefts that do happen are easily remedied. Quinn’s had his bike stolen twice, both times by Cameron Bishop, and both times Quinn has walked round to the Bishops’ house and taken it back from beside their shed. I’ve run into Cameron’s mother Lisa Bishop in the post office several times and she’s never said a thing about it.
I didn’t sleep much last night, though I went to bed before Quinn did and pretended to be asleep when he came up. Quinn is right, of course; Quinn is almost always right. People get married and then they have babies. It’s the normal order of things.
Quinn would make a wonderful father. As a couple, we’re in a good, sensible place to have a baby. We’re financially secure. We have insurance and pay the mortgage on time. My career is something I can easily do from home. The baby would be brought up in the countryside, with loving family close by, one set of grandparents and an aunt. It’s the ideal situation, really. It is quite different from how I grew up, travelling from house to house, country to country, with money either short or plentiful and somehow never anything in between. A baby created by Quinn and me would be confident and comfortable. It would know its place in the world. It would be a Wickham in temperament as well as in name.
It would be quite different from me. That would probably be a very good thing.
I come downstairs to the kitchen. The door jamb is marked with the heights of all three of the Ogden children, in half-inch and inch increments, each including the date. T
hey begin about two feet from the floor and stretch over my head. Michael is the tallest; Sophia is the shortest. The most recent date is 1978. I’ve thought that was just another of the cottage’s nice quirks, a little bit of history. Now it seems more like a map of the future.
Quinn’s got the kettle on. From the washed-out tin in the sink, I can see that he’s already put out food for the neighbours’ cat. The paper and a carton of orange juice sit on the table. ‘Morning, love,’ he says, stretching up to reach the tea bags.
‘Morning.’ I get the milk and put it out on the table. Every Saturday and Sunday morning, tea and the paper in the kitchen. When there’s a big story, Quinn sometimes buys two papers. He makes the tea and I add the milk to both mugs. He pours us each a glass of juice and he settles down to read.
I watch Quinn. His concentration is complete. If I asked him a question later on about the story he’s reading, he’d be able to recite it for me almost verbatim.
I’ve asked him several times why he’s never moved to London, got a job on one of the broadsheets, instead of being an editor here of a local paper. ‘I like living here,’ he’s said.
‘But you could commute,’ I’ve suggested. ‘It’d only take an hour each way.’
‘Long hours, long commute. Competition. I’m not ambitious, Felicity. All I want is to be happy.’
He’d be good working for a national newspaper, I think. He’s curious. He remembers everything. But I can see that he likes living here, where he grew up, where he knows everyone. He likes being known as Derek and Molly’s son, Suz’s brother, a man who’s made his own place in his own community, who’s made something of himself. The paper was nearly defunct when he took it on, and increasingly irrelevant. He built up ad revenue, developed an online presence, widened the news to include more than Scout meetings and farming reports. He writes most of the copy himself; he chooses the causes to support, ways to improve this small part of the world. It’s been commended in a Regional Newspaper of the Year competition and most of the people who work for him think that next year they’ll win it. I only know most of this because Patrick has told me; Quinn wouldn’t mention it himself.
He turns the page. I drink my tea and I look at the top of his head, at his hands holding his mug, at his eyes following the words. He hasn’t forgotten what he mentioned last night. I wonder when he’ll bring it up again.
I wonder what I’ll say.
I get up to put on some toast. ‘What are you up to today?’
‘I was thinking of going for a walk after breakfast,’ he says, eyes still on the newspaper. ‘Before going round to Mum and Dad’s. Do you want to come?’
‘Oh.’ I gaze at the sunshine outside. ‘I … should try to draw.’
‘It might give you some inspiration.’
I put butter and marmalade on the toast, give him both the pieces, and put in some more for me. His questions hang in the air: both the one about the walk that he’s asking now, and the one he’s really asking, the one he asked last night.
‘Better not,’ I say.
For the next week, Quinn doesn’t mention a single word about babies or the possibility of having one. In fact, he does the opposite. He gets up to make a cup of tea when a nappy ad is on the television, his face a careful blank. Another time, we’re in the Seven Stars having a drink and Rowan, the landlady, tells a story about leaning down into a pram belonging to a couple who came in for lunch and how the baby grabbed her hair with both hands and would not let go. Quinn actually interrupts before the story is over to tell us a news item about an eighty-year-old local man who is planning to climb Kilimanjaro for charity.
It would be funny if it weren’t so truthful. Although the question goes unasked and ignored, it hangs between us in the house. I picture it, a plump pink baby hovering near the ceiling, crowded in with the other unanswered questions of this marriage. I draw the baby floating there, and then throw the piece of paper away. I draw some flowers with silly faces instead. I notice a new crack in the wall by the front door, and pin the flowers over it.
When the adverts come on television on Thursday night, Quinn gets up from the sofa. ‘Brew?’ he asks.
‘Yes, please.’
I watch him go into the kitchen. I think about what it would be like on a Thursday night if we had a baby. There would be toys on the floor over there, under the window. The baby might be here with us, asleep in my arms. Or it might be upstairs and there would be a baby monitor on the low table where sometimes Quinn props up his sock-clad feet.
It wouldn’t be much different. It wouldn’t be cataclysmic. Things would carry on much as normal. Everything would be normal for ever, except for this other person depending on me to get it right.
Chapter Four
Dear Ms Bloom,
You may recall that several months ago I wrote to you to tell you of the major retrospective of your mother’s work which the Gallery is holding in July and August. We’re tremendously excited as it will be the first exhibition of her work outside of London since your mother passed away, and the first that will include several of Esther Bloom’s pieces that have been held for many years in private collections across the world.
Some few weeks ago, I sent you an invitation in the post to attend the exhibition opening as our guest of honour. Many curators, art critics, historians and collectors will be present, along with international press, and we would be privileged to have you amongst us. We will, of course, cover your expenses for your journey and your stay here.
You may have already replied to this invitation, in which case please excuse me for writing again, or it may have been misdirected or misplaced, which is why I am contacting you once more …
I fold the heavy cream paper in half and in half again, and in half again. I twist it into a tight tube and drop it into the recycling bin.
Lying on her white pillow, her skin yellow like wax, her cheeks sunken, she took my hand in hers and she whispered, ‘This was always going to happen. Let go, my darling. Travel lightly, my girl.’
And then the other things she said, later.
I don’t need a retrospective to remember my mother. I wish I could stop remembering.
‘Any post, love?’ Quinn calls from upstairs, where he’s knotting his tie, getting ready for work.
‘Nothing,’ I call back up. He appears at the top of the stairs.
‘I thought I heard something.’
‘Junk mail.’
I feel a bit sick, so I open the door and step out onto the flagstone path, into the watery morning sunlight. One day I’ll remember only the good things. One day I’ll stop seeing her on the street. One day I’ll think about her with joy, and not with pain and regret.
I wish I could ask her what I should do. Whether she always knew that she wanted a child; how she knew that she wanted me. I know what she would say, but I want to hear her say it. I want her to send me a sign.
Sunday lunch is a Wickham family tradition. Quinn’s mother Molly cooks something enormous, and the grown-up Wickham siblings and I gather at their parents’ house, which is across the common from our cottage. Sometimes we have it at ours, and sometimes we have it at Suz’s house, and sometimes we travel to various aunts’ and uncles’, but most of the time we have it at Molly and Derek’s. Their house, the Old Vicarage, is 220 years old, made out of local grey stone, and furnished in chintz and watercolours of horses and flowers. Derek grew up in it.
This week, Molly has made roast lamb and a mountain of mash. I sit at the table beside Quinn, as I always do, across from his sister Suz. ‘I made enough for an army,’ says Molly, joining us at the table with a bowl of broccoli, her dark hair streaked with silver and pushed behind her ears. She smiles at her family. Molly Wickham – plump and welcoming, homely and conventional – is exactly the sort of woman my mother tried not to be. She is, however, a very good cook, and she always does make enough for an army.
Quinn helps his mother load everyone’s plates with food, while his father and Suz pour
the wine and water. I’ve noticed how they unthinkingly split down the middle when there are tasks to be done. Quinn and his mother, Suz and her father, neat mixed-gender teams. I mentioned it to Quinn once and he was bemused, as if it’s something ingrained in his family that no one had ever questioned or even noticed before. Maybe all families with two parents and two children do this. I have no idea.
‘How is the drawing going, dear?’ Molly asks, passing me a full plate of roast dinner. In-laws are served first at Molly’s table.
‘All right, thanks, Molly. I’ll take some photos later to use as backgrounds.’
‘I was talking with Ella Richardson the other day about you. We were saying how marvellous it must be, to be so creative.’
‘Yes.’
‘You must love being a creative person? It must be so interesting?’
Molly asks a lot of questions that you have no choice but to agree to. On the day Quinn and I got married, in the car on the way to the church (the church where Derek and Molly were married, and the church where both sets of their parents were married too) she put her hand on my knee and she whispered to me, ‘I hope you will always look upon me as your mother, Felicity?’
She had that soft smile on her face and tears beginning in her soft grey eyes, and there were many things I could have said to her, if I’d wanted to talk about my mother. My only mother, my real mother, my quirky and talented and loving mother Esther Bloom, who could never be replaced.
But really there was nothing to say but, ‘Yes.’
‘Yes,’ I say now. ‘Yes, it’s very interesting.’
‘I wish I could! I can’t do anything but cross-stitch, and that’s all to a pattern that’s been printed on the canvas already, you know.’
‘Cooking is creative,’ says Derek, accepting his plate. ‘You’re a splendid cook, Molly.’
‘Oh, well, that’s just feeding my family. It’s a pleasure.’ She passes a plate to Suz. ‘Ella was also saying that her nephew was visiting next week – you remember George, don’t you, Susan?’
