Before it happened I would have said no way. If I thought about it at all, I assumed I would have a termination. But once the baby was a fact, the no way became something else entirely. No way would I get rid of it. None of the friends who disapproved had been in my situation, so I didn’t care what they thought.
But Tom? I know it’s there, at the back of his mind. I know some of his friends, the girls particularly, encouraged him to do the wrong thing. But he didn’t, and I didn’t, and for better or worse, here we are. And he’s talking about not sowing oats. That hurts.
‘Vicky. Try and understand. I had plans. I was going to travel the world and have adventures but I gave up that dream because I loved you and I thought you loved me. Now I wonder if I’ve ever been enough. Perhaps I’m the one who stifled your spirit, not the other way round.’
This is so patently unfair that I am almost lost for words. ‘I’m sorry it’s been such a disappointment,’ I mutter.
‘No. You don’t understand. It’s been the best thing. Christ.’ He shoves back his chair violently and walks over to the window.
‘I’ve let you down,’ I say to his back. ‘I am so sorry.’
I wait for him and eventually he comes back and refills my glass. We drink in silence and when I stand up, I sway. I start to clear the table and he tells me to leave it till morning but I can’t because it’ll smell, so we work together and he even ties up the bin bag and takes it out. When he comes back I’m sitting at the bottom of the stairs, my chin resting on my linked fingers. He looms over me, then takes my hands and hauls me up.
‘Are you pissed?’ he says.
‘Mm.’
‘Me too. Do you want to watch a film?’
This seems like a good idea and we collapse on to the sofa companionably. I draw my legs up under me as he reaches for the TV controls.
‘So what do you want to watch?’
I shrug. ‘You choose.’
I lean my head back into the cushions while Tom checks what we’ve recorded. I study his profile. I like his big nose. I’ve never tired of Tom’s face and have always thought he’d make a fantastic character actor. He catches me watching him and raises his eyebrows.
‘What about this?’ he asks. ‘Not too violent for you?’
‘No.’
It’s still light when he starts the film and leans back into the sofa cushions. There’s a gap of about a foot between us and my feet are pointing in his direction, so there’s no way, unless I change my position, that we’re going to get any closer. The curtains are open and I leave them that way because closing them would send an odd message. I try hard to concentrate my mind on the plot, but Tom is always there, at the edge of my vision, a constant distraction. When the ads come on, instead of whizzing through them, he gets up and goes for a pee. I turn round so that I’m sitting closer and drape the rug from the back of the sofa over my knees. When he comes back in, he slips his feet under it.
‘Cold?’
‘A little,’ he says and jumps up to close the curtains.
Normally, we would have cuddled up and kept each other warm. I shift my feet so that they’re touching his and he doesn’t move away. It feels nice, the balls of our feet pressing against each other, but I’m careful not to wiggle my toes. It’s hard to sit like this, without communicating or even commenting on the film, like I normally would, complaining that the violence is gratuitous, or giggling at some crass piece of dialogue. I fight the onset of misery. I think, inappropriately, about sex.
‘Are you falling asleep?’ Tom asks.
‘No. I’m fine.’ I stretch my arms above my head and yawn. I’m tingling all over. ‘This is so weird.’
Tom pauses the film. On screen, two middle-aged men face up to each other, their noses practically touching. ‘Weird how?’
I focus my mind. I’m not going to leap on my husband because I don’t think I could handle the rejection. ‘Unnatural. We haven’t rowed properly, have we? I mean, we’ve argued, but we haven’t yelled at each other or thrown stuff. It’s just been miserable and painful.’
He looks at me and a memory returns with such force I blink. Tom lying in bed beside me while I feed Emily, his head propped by his hand, gazing at us. Trying to understand what he was seeing, trying to put it into the context of our lives.
‘Can I tell you how I feel?’ I say.
I stare at his mouth and under the rug my hands clench into fists. I channel my need into forcing myself to confront him, to make him listen even though any discussion of emotions makes him uncomfortable.
‘You’ve already done that, Vicky.’
I let the pause speak for me and he lifts his hands in surrender. ‘Say something then.’
I shake my head and rest my hand against his jaw. He pushes it away but he does it gently, without conviction, and I let the tears fall. Finally, he leans forward and our foreheads touch. He wraps his arms around me and I feel a shift in him. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I let him hold me and my arms go round him, and I rest my hand against the nape of his neck. The position isn’t exactly comfortable, but that doesn’t matter. I tilt my head and let him feel my tears on his cheek.
‘Vicky,’ he says. ‘Don’t. I need to tell you something.’
‘No you don’t.’
My voice cracks and he wraps me in his arms and crushes his face into my neck. I want him and even though I’ve engineered this, the way I’m trembling is entirely involuntary. I love the smell of him, even with the overtones of curry. Without thinking, I kneel and his hands slide to my waist and our lips touch. The light from the television is a warm glow and enough for us to see each other. I pull my shirt over my head and he groans and pushes his hands down the back of my jeans and we lie like that, touching and kissing until we are both frantic. Afterwards, I lie in his arms, giddy with happiness.
By the time I’ve finished brushing my teeth, he is sound asleep.
I lie awake looking at him. His shoulders are bony, hunched over like a baby bird, his shoulder blades protruding. His ears are set close against his skull, the lobes and tips turning out a touch. They are neat. He has stubble. I enjoyed the rasp of it as we made love. I reach to touch him, my fingers hovering so close to his skin I can almost feel his pulse and then I change my mind. The thread between us is too delicate. If he wakes, it will be over.
He sleeps the same way he always has; away from me, hand and forearm flat under the pillow, the other arm bent over and under it, as if the pillow is afloat and the bed a calm sea. We’ve always slept facing away from each other. Tom because he likes to sleep in his own personal bubble, me because I don’t like that feeling of being about to pitch forward into the dip the weight of his body makes. When it’s particularly cold, I turn and fit my body into his, tucking my knees behind his knees, my stomach, ribs and breasts moulded against his back. But only if he’s asleep, and sometime during the night he’ll twitch and I’ll roll away.