The Longing

by Jane Asher

  ‘It’s all that crying,’ Michael smiled back into the darkness. ‘No more, now, Anna. Stop crying and concentrate.’

  He slipped a finger firmly up inside her and she gasped again in pleasure.

  ‘You’re lovely,’ he murmured. ‘I’m here, Anna. Feel me. I’m here.’

  After a few moments he moved his hand to her thighs and roughly pushed her legs wide apart, so that one slipped over the side of the sofa. As he lifted his body carefully on to hers she bent the other leg and wrapped it over his back, and he felt, when he pushed into her, a jolt of exhilaration, as, with a thrust born of the strength of despair, she raised her hips up to meet his.

  ‘Now,’ he whispered as they moved together, ‘just forget.’

  She was moaning and grunting as he pushed harder into her, trying to speak but the words getting lost in the effort of squeezing every ounce of physical sensation out of the moment.

  ‘Forget,’ he whispered as she gripped his shoulders tightly with the ends of her fingers and began to thrash about under his relentless rhythm, ‘just for a tiny fraction of time, I’m – going – to – make – you – forget.’

  ‘Andy, how do you feel about bow ties?’

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘What do they do for you?’

  ‘On you do you mean?’

  ‘Yes. And no. Generally as well. I just thought maybe I should be getting a bit more the Great Man-ish if you know what I mean. A bit more style in the old bedside manner.’

  Anthony was studying himself in the bathroom mirror as he called to Andrea, who was sprawled on the bed next door reading Hello!. ‘I remember when I was a student being very impressed with our prof’s ties. He wore a different one every day, and I don’t remember them ever coming round again, although I suppose they must have. Grateful patients used to shower him with them. What do you think? Charmingly eccentric or irritatingly young fogey?’

  ‘They’re a bit, um, what’s his name, aren’t they? You know. Used to be on Question Time. Ages ago.’

  ‘Oh, Robin Day you mean? Yes, maybe you’re right.’ Anthony removed the bow tie that he had mentally superimposed on his reflection. He thought for a moment. ‘Braces aren’t right are they?’

  ‘No. Definitely not! I think you look great as you are. Your packaging as the serious and talented young doctor is spot on as far as I’m concerned. And I should know, remember.’

  ‘Well, yes, exactly. That’s why I asked you, my darling. I’m well aware of your brilliance at selling the product. It’s only, I just feel a bit – how shall I put it – bland.’

  Andrea looked up from studying some fascinating pictures of the beautiful Viennese home of a rather odd-looking bejewelled Austrian aristocrat and took a long look at him as he walked into the bedroom. ‘No, I don’t think so. Perhaps a more exciting shirt occasionally.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. Pink or something.’

  ‘Mmm. Do you mean colour or make?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pink the colour or do you mean a Thomas Pink shirt?’

  ‘Oh. I meant colour. But both, preferably.’ Andrea lay back on the pillows and scratched her midriff absent-mindedly. ‘You’re far too good-looking as it is, if you ask me. Which reminds me; how’s your old lady fan doing? Still besotted?’

  ‘You surely can’t be referring to one of my patients. Show a little more respect please. The lady of whom I assume you speak is into a second cycle. I didn’t implant her as I wasn’t in theatre that day. So I have no idea of exactly how she is, but she must be coming up for her blood test some time pretty soon.’ Anthony was assuming an indifference he didn’t feel. The thought of Juliet still stirred an unease deep inside him, and made him especially nervous in the context of Andrea. ‘I haven’t heard any talk about her starting again or anything, so I assume she hasn’t had a bleed. I’ll find out how she’s doing today if you like. Check her exact timing for you. Satisfied?’

  ‘Mmm. Is she pretty?’

  Anthony squatted down by the side of the bed and leant his folded arms on the duvet. ‘Darling, you’re not serious when you talk like this are you? Not even a tiny bit? You do know, don’t you, that I’m crazy about you and never think about looking at another woman. And I’m only teasing when I tell you about adoring patients. I have absolutely no desire to flirt with them. Quite apart from the fact that it might be a bit irritating to be struck off at this early stage of my glittering career. Darling?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes of course. I know. But watch it anyway.’

  Was Anthony imagining the small hint of threat behind the bantering tone?

  ‘MICHAEL!’

  This time a scream, not a whisper. The urgency in Juliet’s voice was frightening, and Michael woke with a start. He was sitting in front of the gas log fire, his head leaning at an awkward angle against the wing of the armchair, his jaw slack and open, using the excuse of a cancelled afternoon appointment as an opportunity to come home and doze off after lunch. He closed his mouth quickly, feeling the dry sour taste as he moved his tongue around and tried to answer. A dry squeak came out, and he cleared his throat as he began to move his limbs, which had stiffened uncomfortably during his nap. ‘What? What is it?’

  Juliet came into the room in a blur of intense, frantic energy. Michael was aware of her scarf brushing his face as she dived towards him, almost knocking him back into the chair from the semi-erect position he had reached, before she squatted in front of him, her raincoat billowing into folds on the floor around her, her face tensed, her eyes at once utterly focused on his and yet at the same time looking somewhere beyond or behind him — as if she were living in two dimensions at the same moment, both equally vivid and real: one existing in the immediacy of the present and the other in the timeless distance of some other plane.

  He sat back down into the chair and looked at her. ‘Christ, Julie, you scared me. What’s—’

  ‘MICHAEL, MICHAEL—’

  ‘Julie, for God’s sake calm down! Don’t shout at me. Just tell me, just tell me what it is.’

  She suddenly laughed, her eyes still staring at him, but their intensity softened a little by the way the skin crinkled up around them. Michael held his breath and looked into her face as she paused, her hair framed by a coloured halo of out-of-focus lights on the small Christmas tree behind her; then she leant towards him as her laugh quietened into a beaming, confident smile.

  ‘Michael, don’t look so afraid, darling. We’ve done it, we’ve done it!’

  A shock of understanding hit him like a blow in the stomach. He sat bolt upright in the chair and gripped her hard round the shoulders. ‘Do you – oh Julie, do you mean–?’

  ‘Wait, darling, wait a second. I’ve been saying this to you in my head all the way back from the clinic. Don’t spoil it. Don’t say anything yet. I want to be the one to say it first; there’ll never be another time when I can say this for the very first time in my life. I’ve got to do this. I want to be able to remember this moment for ever, the time when I said it out loud for the first time. And it’s true – oh God almighty it’s true. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it! Yes, darling, yes — don’t look so upset. Smile at me, Michael, smile at me, darling, please—’

  And he did. Michael smiled so broadly he thought his cheeks would split. He too laughed out loud, and reached forward to hold his wife gently in his arms, to fold her still scarfed and raincoated body closely to him. They stayed wrapped together without speaking for a few seconds, her breathing fast and loud in his ear, his mind already jangling with echoing repetitions of the as-yet-unspoken phrase hanging between them.

  As her body calmed and her breathing slowed, Michael moved his arms tenderly from her back and once more on to her shoulders. He pulled back a little to look at her, and for another moment they stared at each other in a kind of fascinated awe, not smiling now but quietly serious.

  ‘Well?’ he said at last, almost whispering. ‘Well, darling? What do you
have to tell me?’

  She couldn’t help the smile that blossomed again at her mouth. It spread to her eyes, lifting her cheeks and pulling her face up into a picture of youthful happiness, radiant in its expression of her uncontainable inner joy. She leant forward to whisper in his ear, and he felt her breath against his skin before she spoke.

  ‘I’m pregnant.

  ‘I’m pregnant.

  ‘Oh Michael – I’m pregnant.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘The big problem, of course, is when to tell the grandmother.’

  ‘Oh God yes, of course, your mother. But she doesn’t approve does she?’

  Juliet gave Harriet a wry look across the kitchen table, which was strewn with used cups, half-empty cereal bowls and assorted toys. ‘I wouldn’t bet on it. I think we’ll find that once it’s a fait accompli, in spite of it all being horribly “unnatural” and me being a terrible wife and so on, she’ll rather enjoy the doting granny act.’

  ‘Well, surely, you don’t want to tell her yet, do you? It’s very early days, you know.’

  Harriet absent-mindedly picked up a one-legged plastic Power Ranger from in front of her and threw it across the room into a wicker toy basket in the corner. ‘In fact I’m thrilled you’ve even told me. Oh, Jules, it’s such wonderful, wonderful news, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ beamed Juliet, ‘yes it certainly is.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And sort of confident – I can’t explain it, it’s funny. I just know it’s all OK this time.’ She paused and looked out of the window for a moment. ‘I wonder what it is, Hat. What sex I mean. I don’t have any feeling about that at all. I wonder what I’ve got growing inside me.’

  Harriet stared at her for a moment, then suddenly leapt up from the table and dashed towards the door. ‘Hang on – I’ve got the very thing! How extraordinary – I can never find anything I want in this God-awful flat, but I saw exactly what we need just yesterday when I was digging out the Christmas decorations. That’s amazing,’ she continued as she left the room and shouted from the bedroom, ‘it must be an omen. I haven’t seen it for years, and then, just the day before we – hang on, where is it now – I know I saw it in – here we are. Brilliant – I knew it.’

  Harriet bustled back into the kitchen holding a piece of cord with a small shiny object attached to it, which, as she brought it nearer, Juliet could see was what appeared to be a curtain ring. ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Hattie,’ she laughed, ‘don’t tell me you’re going to go divining or whatever they call it.’

  ‘You can laugh,’ answered Harriet, ‘but I may tell you that my grandmother correctly forecast the sex of at least a dozen babies with this little piece of gadgetry.’

  ‘I’d hardly call it “gadgetry”. An old curtain ring on a bit of string.’

  ‘It’s not a curtain ring. It’s her wedding ring. And this bit of string, as you call it, has unfailingly produced the right result over and over again. Even with my little darlings.’

  ‘Was she divorced, then? Or widowed, or what?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, why wasn’t she wearing the ring?’

  ‘She was. When she was here to wear it, I mean. She used to take it off and tie it on to this very piece of cord whenever she wanted to tell the sex of a baby.’

  ‘Before it was born, presumably. Otherwise she could have just had a look.’

  ‘You can mock all you like, but it works.’

  ‘Does it find water too? Or oil, or anything really useful?’

  ‘That’s enough – you’re very skittish today; I can’t think what’s come over you, apart from pregnancy of course. There’ll be tears before bedtime, you mark my words. Now shut up and lie down on the sofa and I’ll tell you which brand of human being you’re unwisely planning to bring into the world.’

  Juliet got up from the table and smilingly lay down on the battered sofa in the corner of the kitchen. She felt more like a young girl than a woman halfway through her thirties; a little light-headed, almost giggly.

  ‘This is ridiculous. I’ll be able to have a scan pretty soon and—’

  ‘Oh, this is far better than a scan. Nothing is as early, or as reliable, as Granny’s patent diagnostic ring.’

  ‘I see.’

  Juliet lay still while Harriet gently placed a hand over her abdomen and felt down towards her crutch. In her other hand she held the cord by its end and lifted it into a position directly over where she guessed Juliet’s womb to be discreetly hidden under the layers of fat, skin and clothing, letting the ring hover half an inch or so above the material of Juliet’s skirt.

  ‘Does it work through clothes, then?’

  ‘Oh yes, I don’t think Granny would have been able to use it otherwise. Naked human flesh would have been far too much for her to take.’

  Juliet watched, fascinated, as the ring began, very slowly, to circle clockwise.

  ‘Oh you’re doing that yourself,’ she laughed.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m not, honestly. Look, my hand isn’t moving at all, is it? It’s not me, it’s the ring.’

  ‘Oh sure. Very likely. My father knew an obstetrician who used to predict the sex of babies. He’d tell the mother quite definitely whether she was having a boy or girl, then if it turned out not to be what he’d said, he’d show her a notebook. Next to her name would be written the sex of her baby – correctly this time, of course. “Look,” he’d say, “I knew it was a boy. I just had a feeling you wanted a girl and I needed to keep you happy during the pregnancy, so I told you a little white lie. But, as you can see, I knew what it really was, and I knew you wouldn’t mind by the time he was born.”’

  ‘And if by chance he was right first time, presumably the notebook never made an appearance?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s very clever. But this really does work.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s a boy.’

  ‘Where’s the notebook?’

  ‘No notebook. This is definitely and unequivocably a little chap.’

  Anna woke first. Daylight, coloured and diffused by the red curtains, was filling the room, and she realised with a puzzled, almost guilty awareness, that this was the first time she had woken to find the sun already up since Harry’s disappearance. She had lived through every moment of the other dawns, watching through eyes sore and raw from crying and lack of sleep, as the light had inched its slow, inexorable way into the room, signalling the end of a night of helpless longing and the beginning of another day; a day that would either be filled again with empty despair or one that would bring news of the only reason left to live.

  Now on this morning she felt different. She had woken with the usual lurch of terror, but deep within herself she knew there was an almost imperceptible change; so slight as to be too subtle to search for mentally lest it escape altogether, but strong enough to exist unquestionably. She was aware without opening her eyes of Michael’s arm still thrown across her body, of the warmth of his thigh touching hers. She listened to his steady breathing. Each intake of breath verged on becoming a snore as it was drawn in through his nose, fluttered round the back of his throat, then turned to a sigh, gently moving the hair of Anna’s cropped black fringe, as it escaped again through his mouth, which was pressing heavily on her forehead. It was comforting to bask in the regular rhythm of it; to be alone and uninterrupted in her thoughts and yet physically to be not alone; to be clasped firmly by another body, which was as yet too deeply asleep to be aware of her existence in this new day.

  She kept very still so as not to wake him, too relieved to have the edge taken off her permanent state of misery by this human contact to want to change anything. Her left ear rested against his breastbone, and she could feel as well as hear the shuddering little spasms of his heart as it formed a background to his breathing, quickening the pattern of its beating a little every time Michael breathed in, then slowi
ng again as she felt the faint draught of exhaled air across her forehead. Her world became bounded by this rhythm of sound and feeling. The pulse of her own body also sounded in her ear as she listened, mingling with his heartbeat and stepping in and out of time with it as the two beats kept pace for a few seconds and then diverged, her quicker beat passing his like a runner lapping his rival, only to rejoin him again to beat in unison once more.

  Michael moaned in his sleep, then, as he attempted to turn and found himself constricted by the small body beside him, his breathing changed, and he lay very still for a few seconds as if suspended in mid-movement. He suddenly opened his eyes and stared straight into Anna’s. For a moment or two he was silent, then he frowned a little and whispered to her, the smell of his breath sharp and sour on her face.

  ‘How extraordinary. How can it be possible?’

  She whispered back, ‘What is it, Michael? Are you all right?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure it could be true. I didn’t want to open my eyes in case I’d imagined all this. How can I feel such joy in the middle of this nightmare? Anna, when I woke just now and felt you next to me — I don’t know how to tell you this — just for a moment I didn’t think of them. I thought only about us.’

  She gave a faint, wry smile. ‘I didn’t,’ she said.

  ‘No, of course not. But I’m not going to apologise for this, Anna.’ He tucked the sheet up round them both with one arm, then held it tightly round her. ‘I’m here for you now, I’m not leaving you alone until we’ve found him.’ He looked down at her and smiled. ‘You are completely beautiful, you know. Whatever happens from now on, I know I’ve found something that I shall never forget. Perhaps only two people so desperate could feel this. I understand what you were trying to tell me now. Nothing matters; nothing is right or wrong.’ He kissed her gently on the forehead then rested his head back on the arm of the sofa, filled with a strange and not unpleasant confusion of emotions.

  ‘Michael, I can’t—’