‘And did that bother you?’
Her voice has hardened. I have to keep her onside. I can’t tell her my thoughts on marriage; how I never wanted to end up like my parents; that I didn’t want anything from Chris, just the knowledge that he would always come back to me; that knowing he loved me more than he would ever love his wife was enough. Though I know now that’s a lie. So I tell her what she wants to hear.
‘Yes, of course it bothered me.’
‘How did you feel about it? The pregnancy?’
‘Shocked at first,’ I tell her. ‘Unprepared. But then I started to get used to the idea. Although that might have been the happy hormones kicking in.’
Shaw nods her head and looks down at her notepad. She hates me, I can tell. I am the ‘other woman’, the kind women like her have nightmares about. But right now I would give anything to be in her place, to live a safe, cosy existence with a husband and family. As I sit waiting for her to continue, I feel so alone it physically hurts.
‘You say you’d planned this lunch to tell Chris about the baby?’
‘Yes.’
The memory of his lips on my skin as he stood up from the table and greeted me burns through my body as I sit waiting for Shaw to go on.
‘But he chose to end the relationship before you got the chance to tell him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he give you a reason?’
‘His wife had found a message,’ I say. ‘And she made him tell her everything, so he did.’
My voice comes out like a croak. Chris is all around me. I can smell his cedarwood cologne, see his eyes narrow as he leans towards me, takes my hand and says: It’s Helen. She knows.
And with those words I knew it was over. Given a choice between his dependable wife and his flighty mistress, I was always going to come away the loser.
‘He agreed to break it off. Give their marriage another chance.’
‘That must have been a shock,’ says Shaw, looking at me intently.
‘To be honest, I just felt numb,’ I say.
And it’s true. I did. They say emotional shock doesn’t strike until long after the event and as I sat there listening to him I found myself smiling. Jesus, I even agreed with him. I didn’t storm out of the restaurant or throw a glass of wine in his face or tell him that he was a bastard, I just sat there and ate my risotto and told him that, yes, this was all for the best.
‘Why didn’t you tell him about the baby?’ asks Shaw.
‘I couldn’t.’
Looking back now I guess I was paralysed with grief. Yes, I could have told him about the baby, but it all felt so wrong, so tainted. He didn’t want me. He wouldn’t want our baby either.
‘And what did you do then?’
Something tells me she knows the answer.
‘I went to my club on Greek Street.’
‘And is that where you drank the wine?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much did you drink?’
‘A couple of glasses. But before then I hadn’t drunk for . . . some time.’
We stare at each other for a moment, doctor and patient, both taking in the seriousness of my admission, not mentioning the big things like babies and birth defects and safe limits.
‘And when you returned to the office you lost your temper with Rachel Hadley?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Can you understand it now?’
Shaw doesn’t answer.
‘How long did you stay in the hospital?’
‘Just a night,’ I reply. ‘The bleeding slowed down over the course of the morning and by midday it became clear that I would be bed blocking if I stayed any longer. They prescribed me a course of strong painkillers and I left.’
‘And then?’
‘I walked home. I wanted to think.’
‘Taking a detour by the Star cafe?’
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘I didn’t really know where I was going though. I just needed to think.’
‘When the police finished talking to you, did you go home?’
‘Yes.’
I think back to that evening. The scent of the hospital clung to my canvas rucksack as I climbed the stairs. I can smell it now as I sit here. Hospitals and police cells have the same scent – a mix of chlorine and despair. When I opened the door to the flat my phone rang. It was Graham asking if I’d received the itinerary. And I pretended I was fine; that my world hadn’t just fallen apart. I told him I would see him in the morning and then I curled up into bed and cried myself to sleep.
‘I went to Syria the following day,’ I say, looking up at Shaw. ‘With Graham, my photographer.’
She looks flabbergasted.
‘The next day?’ she exclaims. ‘Even though you’d just had a miscarriage?’
‘Women lose babies every day, Dr Shaw,’ I tell her. ‘This is my job. People were relying on me to go out there.’
‘Who was relying on you?’