‘This must be serious stuff.’ Clementine raised an eyebrow. ‘Background.’
‘We’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for the last two years,’ said Erika. Just get it out there. Move it along.
Clementine removed the cracker she’d been about to bite from her mouth and held it in front of her. ‘You’ve what?’
‘We’ve been through eleven rounds of IVF,’ said Oliver.
‘What?’ said Clementine.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Sam quietly.
‘But you never …’ Clementine looked flabbergasted. ‘I thought you didn’t want children. You always said you didn’t want children.’
‘We want children very much,’ said Oliver. He lifted his chin.
‘That was when I was younger,’ explained Erika. ‘I changed my mind.’
‘But I assumed Oliver felt the same way,’ said Clementine. She looked at Oliver accusingly, as though she expected him to back down, admit she was right and say, ‘Oh sorry, of course you’re right, we don’t want children at all. What were we thinking?’
‘I always wanted children,’ said Oliver. ‘Always.’ His voice thickened. He cleared his throat.
‘But eleven rounds of IVF?’ said Clementine to Erika. ‘And you never told me? You went through all that without saying a word? You kept it a secret for the last two years? Why wouldn’t you tell me?’
‘We just decided to keep it to ourselves,’ said Erika uncertainly. Clementine sounded hurt. Almost angry. Erika felt everything shift.
Wait … was that wrong? It had never occurred to her that she had the power to hurt Clementine but now Erika saw that yet again, she’d got it wrong. Clementine was her closest friend and you were meant to share things with your friends: your problems, your secrets. Of course you were. My God, everyone knew that. Women were notorious for sharing everything.
The problem was that Oliver had been so insistent that they tell no one about any of it, and to be fair, Erika hadn’t objected. She had no desire to share. She didn’t want to tell anyone about it. Her fantasy had been calling Clementine with the good news. The good news that never came.
And, after all, she had plenty of experience keeping secrets.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘No, no!’ said Clementine. She still hadn’t eaten her cracker. Her face was pink. ‘I’m sorry. Gosh, this isn’t about me. Of course, it’s fine if you didn’t want to talk about it. I respect your privacy. I just wish I could have been there for you. There were probably times when I was complaining about the girls and you were thinking, Oh for God’s sake, shut up, Clementine, don’t you know how lucky you are?’ She sounded like she was close to tears.
There had been times like that.
‘Of course I never thought that,’ said Erika.
‘Anyway, we know now,’ said Sam. He put his hand over Clementine’s. ‘So, obviously, anything you need …’
He looked wary. Maybe he thought they needed money.
There was silence for a moment.
‘So the reason we wanted to talk to you today,’ began Oliver. He looked at Erika. This was her cue. But it was all wrong. She’d stuffed it up. If she’d just been like a normal friend about this the whole way through, if she’d told Clementine, right back at the beginning, when they’d first started IVF, then this conversation would have had a proper, solid foundation. Each disappointment, each failure over the last two years would have been like a deposit of sympathy. They could have called on that deposit. But now, Erika sat opposite a confused, hurt friend and there was nothing in the bank to withdraw.
Self-loathing rose within Erika’s stomach like nausea. She never got it quite right. No matter how hard she tried, she always got it just a tiny bit wrong.
‘My doctor has said that the only option now for us is to find an egg donor,’ she said. ‘Because my eggs are of very poor quality. Useless, in fact.’ She tried to bring some lightness into the conversation, the way it was in the hallway, but she could tell by everyone’s faces that it wasn’t working.
Clementine nodded. Erika could see she had no idea what was coming next.
A memory came to her of blonde, pretty Diana Dixon marching up to Clementine in the school playground and grimacing at the sight of Erika, the sort of grimace you might give a cockroach. ‘Why are you playing with her?’ said Diana, and Erika never forgot either Clementine’s lightning-quick flash of humiliation, or the way she lifted her chin and told Diana, ‘She’s my friend.’
‘So we wondered …’ prompted Oliver. He waited for Erika. It was clearly her job to ask the question. Clementine was her friend.