‘Would you have liked one?’ I said, tentatively. ‘A baby, I mean.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘But with the right partner. Teaching has been a way of being around children, of being part of their lives but I would have wanted one I could call my own. If you’re allowed to call them your own.’ He turned to me, a wry, regretful look on his face. ‘It never happened. And it’s probably too late…’
I wasn’t sure what to say in return as I thought about the baby – our baby. The baby we lost.
‘I’m starving,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Would you like to go for something to eat? Maybe Rosie would like to come.’
‘She’s still in Alice’s,’ I said. ‘And then going out with Michael. I hope he doesn’t go on about trying for Trinity again.’
He smiled. ‘Is she good at dealing with him?’
‘Better than me,’ I said. ‘Fathers and daughters are different to wives and husbands. Daughters have more power than they maybe realise.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Red and I saw each other every night that week and we seemed to be finding our way back to one another. However there hadn’t been the right time to tell Red about the baby. Perhaps I was scared that he might not want to see me again and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.
We’d been for a walk to the harbour this evening and he’d come in for a cup of tea.
‘Tab?’ Red was leaning against the kitchen cupboards after we’d eaten and cleared up. ‘Yes?’
‘Why didn’t you come to San Francisco? What happened? I wish I could just let the past be the past and not go on about it. We were both so young I know that, and it was so long ago but… but I just want you to tell me, give me a reason.’
I had to finally tell him my side of the story. I’d heard some of his, he didn’t know any of mine. But he’d brought it up now.
‘Red…’
‘Look, Tab, there is something about you that makes me so happy, so deeply, incredibly happy, that I can’t stop… and I wish I could. Because it is burning me up, it’s stopping me from just getting on with my life. Moving on. I thought I’d done it, I thought I was okay. All healed and put back together once more and then I walk into your office and it’s like I’m twenty all over again. And it’s been so difficult. I am right back to where I started, when you… when you broke my heart.’
‘Red, I’m so sorry…’
‘Tab, just tell me, why didn’t you come to San Francisco. Was I not good enough? Had you fallen out of love with me? What? Just tell me and it might help me. I’m not going to be hurt again, but I would know. And that would be so much better than not knowing. Because it’s the not knowing that really killed me. Did you meet someone else? Was it Michael?’
I took a deep breath. I was scared of hurting Red but I didn’t want to carry on withholding something from him that he had had a right to know years ago. Here we go. ‘I was pregnant and I… and I lost the baby.’
Utter confusion and bewilderment filled his face, he shook his head, trying to put everything together.
‘It was ours. I only found out the week before Rosaleen passed away. And it was such a lovely feeling,’ I went on desperately. ‘I had a whole week to start to think about the baby and how much I was going to enjoy being its mother. I didn’t tell you because I thought it would be a really lovely surprise when I came over. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. It was impossible. And I liked just knowing it myself. God, that sounds selfish. But I didn’t think it was a secret. I was going to tell you. I just wanted to tell you in person. And I was going to see you so soon. Not telling you seems like the most stupid and self-indulgent thing in the world now.’
He’d been silent for all of this, taking it in. ‘Did you tell anyone?’ he said, eventually.
‘First just Rosaleen knew. And then… I told Nora.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’ His voice was quiet, urgent, his questions filling in the gaps of my story, as he mentally rearranged the piece to try and find some kind of coherence… a reason.
‘I wasn’t thinking clearly,’ I said. ‘If I did it all over again, I would tell you. But, Red, you’ve got to remember, I was going to be seeing you in ten days’ time. It was my secret, but only for a little while. I thought I was doing the right thing.’ He nodded slowly, as though he sort of understood. Or at least was trying to understand. But standing there, trying to explain myself, it seemed such a stupid and selfish thing to do.
‘When did you lose the baby?’ There were tears in Red’s eyes.
‘The day of Rosaleen’s funeral, I went down to the Forty Foot. I hadn’t slept at all and I thought I’d go down and have an early morning swim. And it was freezing. I mean, it always was, but it seemed particularly cold. And for the first time, it was like there was death in the air or something dark and horrible in the water. There wasn’t, I know there wasn’t. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t know, it was a combination of grief and hormones or maybe I’m imagining it, I don’t know. I can’t say. It was just one of those things, I know now, but then I blamed the sea, blamed myself for going swimming…’
‘Oh Tabitha.’ And Red’s arms were around me, pulling my body to his, holding me closer and tighter and more tenderly than I had been held in years. ‘Oh Tab. I can’t believe you went through that.’ He pulled away, looking at me. ‘I wish you had told me.’
‘It felt like the deepest punch in the stomach,’ I said, ‘as though life, and me, and everything would never be the same again. I mean, I couldn’t function. When I look back now, I just remember that I couldn’t get out of bed. I felt unutterably changed, entirely different. I thought nothing could ever be the same again. I wasn’t me. People lose babies all the time, don’t they? Why did it affect me so badly? Why couldn’t I have just got on with things, brushed it off. I could have flown to you in San Francisco and told you all about it and… everything would have been all right. But I couldn’t. For some reason, I just couldn’t. It just so seemed so silly to be mourning the loss of a baby I was too young to have, that I had never met, that I had only known about for a couple of weeks. It all seemed so stupid, something that no one would understand.’
‘I would have understood,’ he said. ‘I would have been there for you, every step of the way.’
‘There was so much to think about and the last thing I wanted to do was think. We’d lost Rosaleen, I’d lost the baby. Telling you was one thing I couldn’t do. I couldn’t have coped with your reaction, your sadness, your anger, whatever it might have been…’
‘I wouldn’t have been angry,’ he insisted. ‘I would have been there for you. Like I always promised I would be. But you didn’t give me a chance.’ There was silence for a moment between us. The clock ticking on the wall. The birds outside. ‘I would have been Tab.’
I nodded, miserably. ‘But I couldn’t do anything. For weeks and months. I stayed in my room. I couldn’t face anyone. I’d never experienced anything like that before. Maybe it was the combination of Rosaleen being gone as well, but it was like I had lost a part of me. No, not a part of me. It was like I had lost the most precious thing I might ever have. And I had been careless and stupid and lost it. I blamed myself. I didn’t know where to begin to try and explain how I was feeling, but this beautiful thing, this lovely treasure inside me was gone.’
‘Who looked after you?’
‘Nora. She hung around for a few months. She was amazing, actually. I think it was some kind of breakdown. It’s all a blur, really, and it took me years to get over it, completely. Even after Rosie was born, it took me time to bond with her. But slowly, I did. Slowly I got better.’
‘I’m sorry you went through all that.’ He took my hand and kissed it and then held it. ‘I wish you had told me, given me the opportunity to be there for you…’
‘Me too,’ I said quietly. ‘Me too.’