A Modern Family

by Helga Flatland

  Liv has been one of the most vocal about me having children before it’s too late; ever since I hit thirty, she’s warned me about waiting too long. Now that it’s turned out to be more difficult than I’d imagined, it feels impossible to talk to her about it. She has a political agenda, it’s not just about me – she thinks the fact that so many people are waiting too long to start families is a development that is to the detriment of society. She’s written a number of articles about it, interviewing desperate women in their forties who have prioritised living a little, as Liv puts it. It’s what everyone says, Liv told me after writing one of her articles, they all wanted to live a little before they had children, but when I ask them what that means, none of them can really give a proper answer, it’s all vague dreams of travelling and working and partying more than they have done already, but in reality it all comes down to a fear of responsibility, a fear of becoming an adult. It’s a long time since she issued me with one of her warnings, but a few months after I met Simen, she asked me if I could imagine having children with him. At the time I was frustrated that it seemed to be the only measure by which she and my friends could assess things – do you want to have children with him, can you see him as a father? et cetera – and I dismissed her. It’s too early to be thinking about that, I said, but just a few months later Simen started talking about it too, the fact that he wanted children, that he’d always imagined having a big family. My family thinks I’m late to the game, he explained, adding that his younger brother already has two. And for the first time I thought seriously about it, and it was no longer just an abstract notion about a thing that would happen sometime in the future.

  I can’t talk to Liv because she does nothing but talk about her own children, reminding me of everything I don’t have. In spite of the fact she’s a journalist, and regardless of how up-to-date she is on most topics, Agnar and Hedda remain her key reference points. Something they’ve said or done, or, more often than not, her concern for them, however incomprehensible it might seem to me. You don’t know what it’s like, Liv says whenever I bring it up, repeating the arguments used by every parent of young children when they come up against anyone without children: Just you wait until you have your own, then you’ll feel differently about things.

  I send Liv a text, wish them a good trip to the cabin down south, tell her that we’re looking forward to coming towards the end of July, then end the message with let’s speak soon, leaving the next move up to her.

  A few weeks later Simen announces that he doesn’t want to go to the cabin after all. He’s agreed to take on some consultancy work as part of a large public project on language which is due to launch in August, and his only free week is at the end of July.

  ‘That was your decision,’ I say to him when he uses that as his argument.

  We’re lying in our new bed in the evening, a week and a half before the planned trip to the cabin. We’ve been having sex practically without touching one another at all, entirely without passion and without romance. Neither of us can face the prospect of pretending that it’s anything other than a purely technical act at this point, we say nothing, making no acknowledgements or assurances, sharing no laughter. We are silent and focused. Tomorrow it will be one week since we embarked on an entire year of attempts, and I remember that night in our old flat, the old bed, the fierce lust and delight that was released by the same desire that now kills those sensations.

  ‘We’ve already spent more than a week on holiday with your family this year,’ Simen says. ‘And we all know how that turned out.’

  I haven’t even got the energy to feel insulted.

  ‘It’s cheap,’ I say.

  I can tell from the way he’s breathing that he’s angry. It’s strange how two people who work in the field of communication can be so terrible at discussing something with one another, I think to myself. As if on cue, Simen braces himself.

  ‘Seriously though, Ellen,’ he says more gently. ‘It’s not that I’ve got anything against going to their cabin. I just think we need a holiday of our own, just the two of us, after everything that’s happened, don’t you?’ he says in his most pedagogical tone.

  ‘Everything that’s happened’ is provocatively imprecise, and I want to reply that having some time to ourselves had been my argument back in June when I’d first discovered that he’d agreed to work all through the summer without discussing it with me at all. His reply had been that we spent every evening and weekend together, which wasn’t true for the most part because we were usually both working. But there was something so unsympathetic about the way he had said it that I hadn’t dared to push it any further. It’s strange for him not to understand that it’s a setback having to adapt to his needs, even on the one week he has free; it’s offensive that he has the audacity to suggest doing anything other than what we agreed on several weeks ago.

  ‘We have a whole annex to ourselves, it’s not like we have to spend every waking moment with Liv and Olaf,’ I mutter half-heartedly, knowing that I’ve lost the argument and that I can’t force him to come anyway, not after saying no to a weekend away with his brothers, sisters-in-law and their many thousands of babies at his family’s cabin just a few weeks ago.

  It’s not that I don’t want to go on holiday with Simen. I don’t exactly feel set alight with desire at the prospect, not the way things are between us now, still silent and tense, but I get that it’s probably a good idea, that it might help us both to relax and find our way back to something resembling life as it was little more than a year ago. It’s more about my need for some time down at the cabin, my impulse to cling on to a tradition that hasn’t really held much importance for me over the past decade. As children, Liv, Håkon and I spent at least two weeks of every summer at the cabin, right up until we were each old enough to decide where we wanted to go on holiday. Nowadays Liv has effectively taken over the cabin, and she and her family follow the same pattern – at least two weeks there every summer. It’s been a gradual occupation, and it’s taken place in correlation with Olaf’s chopping down of more and more of the surrounding forest with each year that passes, extending the terrace, painting the annex, switching the upstairs windows on the main cabin, and so on and so forth. Mum and Dad have spent the past few years visiting Liv and Olaf there more than the other way around, something that Dad feels in two minds about, despite the fact that he was more keen than anyone that Liv should take more responsibility for the place – and he’s childishly, silently competitive with Olaf when it comes to lawn mowers, chainsaws and tinkering with boat engines for much of the time that they spend there together. But still they go, each and every year, jointly upholding tradition. This year is the first that neither of them plan to visit, and I wonder how much contact Liv has had with them, if she’s told them they can’t, or if they actually find some relief in the idea of not going. Both, perhaps.

  I’ve spent the entire summer longing to head south, eagerly anticipating the unchanging nature of life at the cabin, the routines, patterns and sense of security bound up in my memories there.

  ‘I just feel the need for a little bit of actual summer, a bit of sunshine,’ Simen says now, ignoring what I just said about us not having to remain glued to Liv and Olaf throughout our stay. ‘You can choose where,’ he adds.

  I picture Liv and I miss her all of a sudden, wonder why she hasn’t called me, what she’ll have to say about us not coming down. Maybe it’s all the same to her, maybe she’s had her fill of family get-togethers.

  ‘OK. I’ll message them in the morning to let them know we’re not coming,’ I say.

  ‘What about Greece? Or Croatia, maybe?’ Simen says, suddenly brimming with the excitement of a small child.

  I get my period on the flight home.

  Maybe you should talk to your mum, Simen suggested on our last evening in Croatia. I’d told him that Mum had experienced difficulties for a number of years before having Håkon, maybe it’s hereditary, I said. I placed a hand on my lower
abdomen, where something had definitely started happening; I’d felt something connect, just as I had every month for the past year, unambiguous even when I no longer believed it. I don’t ask Mum for advice, especially not now, I replied. Anyway, Mum can’t do anything to help with this, she never got any real answers as to why it was so hard for them to have children after they had me, I told him.

  That’s not quite true, but it’s too messy to explain that Mum actually blames me. Simen would be shocked at some of the things we say and think in our family, and then he’d pity me, feel that it must be awful to live with that kind of blame, that it must fester away inside me and come between us. It doesn’t, even though one night I dreamt that this was my punishment for ruining things for Mum simply by being born. I won’t accept any criticism, I told Håkon, you’re lucky to be so much younger. Well, it’s thanks to you that I am who I am, he sometimes says when I praise him for something or other. Mum isn’t joking when she says it’s because of me, but always adds that it’s not intended as a reproach, that it’s just a fact: It was probably something to do with your difficult birth, she says. Well, thanks for making it through, I hope it was all worthwhile, I reply.

  Although Simen and I have spent a whole week together on holiday, we haven’t talked as much as I’d both hoped and feared that we might. The days have disappeared in a warm, holiday daze, and even though we’ve both no doubt thought about the fact we ought to clear the air, we’ve put it off, talking about different things entirely. We’ve stumbled our way back to everything we used to talk about before the Baby – no longer referred to as the Baby, no longer discussed in definite form, but now an infected boil of silence – and after a few tetchy evenings at the start of the holiday, we also found our way back to the flow of previous conversations, the energy of our discussions. It was on the final evening that we dared broach topics that concerned us, when the waiter asked if we wanted to try a particularly good local wine. Simen hesitated as they only served it by the bottle, but I egged him on, it’s our last evening here, let your hair down, and before he could protest, I replied to the waiter: A bottle and a glass for him, please, and just a sparkling water for me, thank you. Simen’s gratitude was over the top, are you sure you don’t want a sip, he asked me when the wine arrived, and I shook my head and smiled, no, it’s probably best I don’t. Simen smiled back at me. It was like being in a bad film, and we both knew the other was playing a role, but Simen wanted to give something back, asking how I was feeling, if I’d had any new symptoms. I shook my head, nothing new, I said. I read recently that these kinds of problems can be hereditary, that if your mother or even your grandmother has had issues then the same problems can affect you, he said. At first, I was surprised to hear that Simen still read up on the subject, certain he’d given up all that because we had stopped talking about it. I told him about Mum. I’ll see the doctor if things don’t work out this time, I eventually conceded.

  I’ve put off making an appointment all summer long as part of a suppressive protest, waiting for Simen to challenge me, something he hasn’t done, but our conversation at the restaurant was enough to push me onwards, the fact that there was still some engagement there, some hope, perhaps.

  After a trip to the loo somewhere over Austria, I sit back in my seat beside Simen, who’s fast asleep, connect to the plane’s Wi-Fi and book myself an appointment with my GP, gripping my phone so tightly that my fingers hurt by the time I’m done, scared in a way that’s fresh and new, more scared than I’ve ever been.

  I have to wait just over three weeks for an appointment with the GP, and neither of us can be bothered trying in the meantime, not even when the ovulation test tells us the time is right. I’m only taking it so that I can be precise when the doctor asks me any questions, knowing that it’s the kind of thing he’ll quiz me about. I’ve done the rounds on various forums several times – it’s getting an answer that’s the aim now.

  My doctor is much more understanding than I imagined he would be. I was certain he’d tell me a year isn’t very long to have been trying, that many people try for much longer than that, that there’s nothing to worry about for the time being. But he doesn’t say anything like that. Yes, that doesn’t sound quite right, he says after I regale him with a detailed account of events. I’ve had it committed to memory for so long now; I don’t want to come across as hysterical, more mildly concerned, I want to appear to be the kind of person who’s mostly coming to receive some helpful advice. I tell him about Simen, myself, Mum’s issues with Håkon, about my cycles, any previous contraceptives, that I’ve got no known illnesses, I’m taking no medication, I’ve had no miscarriages, no abortions, but also that there’s been no baby. I’ve done some googling, I tell him eventually, attempting a smile. My doctor doesn’t return my smile, just nods. That doesn’t sound quite right, he says, and it takes every ounce of concentration not to break down in tears then and there. He asks me a few follow-up questions about my lifestyle and my body. I find it’s more difficult to answer his questions about my mental wellbeing than it is about my physical health, when previously the opposite has always been true.

  I have a greater awareness of my body now than I’ve ever had before. I can feel every nerve and spasm, I’ve spent more than a year seeking out and focusing on every possible physical sensation. I’ve never thought much about all the many processes at work within me, things that crumple and rumble and tickle and ache and run and sting and itch and tremble; there’s always something happening, nerves signalling things I’ve never previously picked up on. Now I find myself aware of the slightest change and the tiniest of signs. I’ve become conscious of my own body in a completely different way, a consciousness that extends far beyond aesthetics or vanity. I remember our teacher at primary school talking about the body as a machine: It’s the most complicated machine in the world, he said, with hundreds of thousands of tiny parts that need to work on their own and together in order that the whole thing – that’s you and you and you, he said, pointing at various members of the class – will work too.

  ‘And what about your partner, do you know if he’s been tested or has had any illnesses that might affect the quality of his sperm?’ the doctor asks after writing up some notes on his computer.

  ‘I don’t think so, he’s only thirty-five,’ I reply.

  I haven’t asked Simen, so convinced have I been that this is about me. Besides, I’m sure he’d have said something if there was anything worth mentioning, he’s the most honest person I know, and he’d never allow me to go around thinking that it was me who had a problem if it was more likely to be him.

  ‘It’s not always about age where men are concerned,’ the doctor says. ‘You know, men can reproduce throughout their lives, theoretically speaking.’

  ‘Do you think age is a factor for me, that I might have left things too long?’ I ask, my voice shaking. I’ve never experienced that before, but now my voice sounds like the one I put on to make a point to the politicians I voice coach, weak and erratic.

  I’ve never felt old before now. Never been afraid of getting old, either – it’s not like I’ve blocked out the fact I’m approaching forty, but I simply haven’t thought of it as old, not in the same way I did when I was fifteen. Forty’s the new twenty, nothing to dread, a colleague who turned forty last year told me, and I joked that at this rate she’d feel as if she were hitting middle age when she was seventy. That was before Mum and Dad demonstrated the reality of a comment made in jest, and I understood it was something that is constantly shifting, that nobody feels their age these days, at least not with traditional perceptions of what a forty or seventy-year-old ought to be.

  Strange that evolution hasn’t addressed this problem, I want to call and tell Liv on the way back from the doctor’s – my body is just as prone to ageing as my great-great-great-grandmother’s was when she was nearly forty, we’re all on the same downward spiral at the end of the day. I imagine Liv’s childlike, rippling laughter, the soft, comforting
voice of a big sister telling me that things will be fine, that I needn’t be afraid, that what the doctor said about age is just something he has to say to be on the safe side, that he can’t know any more before we’ve had any tests done. Really, I want her to tell me that he doesn’t sound like much of a doctor at all.

  I remember how much I wanted to be like Liv when we were younger. To wear her clothes, to walk like she did, to flick my hair like her, to listen to the same music and like the same artists as her. I admired her handwriting, the way she blew on her nails after painting them, I wanted to have friends who looked like her friends, to fall in love the way she could fall in love. I wanted to experience the things she wrote about in her diary, the things I never felt for myself, things I’ve never really felt at all. Even so, I bagged my first boyfriend after reading Liv’s diary, learning how I ought to feel and talk and think – and even though I grew so tired of him that I virtually flinched every time he touched me, I held out, because this was what Liv wrote and dreamt about. I never considered what Liv might have felt about it at the time, not until Mum and I discussed it many years later. Oh God, do you remember how jealous Liv was, Mum laughed, it was hard having two teenage daughters so close in age, remember that when you have children of your own.