‘But won’t Grandma ask you why you can’t support your husband for once and won’t Grandpa nod in the background because he doesn’t understand why you can’t support your husband for once?’ One thing my daughter is not, is unobservant. She picks up on everything, even the stuff I think no one has noticed or I believe has gone over her head, she’ll bring up at a later date with her almost near-perfect recall and analysis of the situation. She has just described exactly what our Sunday lunches turn into. We could walk to my parents’ house from our place, but we always drive because we need somewhere to hang around while we wait for Alain. I can’t remember a time when he was on time for Sunday lunch.
‘Yes, sweetheart, that’s what will happen, but I don’t want us to be sitting in the car for much longer.’
‘It’s fine, Mum, honestly,’ my seven-year-old says. ‘It’s giving me a chance to catch up on my reading.’
I lower my head to hide the smile that takes over my face. She is so grown-up sometimes, her words so definitive, that I have to remind myself that she isn’t even double digits in age yet.
A loud rapping at the window causes me to almost leap out of my seat, hands up ready for battle. I still jump at loud, sudden noises – more than the average person, I think. Alain opens the passenger-side door and gets in. ‘How are my two favourite girls?’ he says.
Once he’s in place, I continue to stare out of the windscreen so I don’t scowl at him. I’m aware of him, though. His hair is damp and freshly washed, I can smell the lavender and mint from his shampoo; his body is recently showered and towel-dried – he still has notes of the Dead Sea sulphur soap he uses wafting around him. And I can feel the heat radiating from him from where he’s run to get here.
‘Dad, you’re late. It’s not very polite to be late. At least that’s what Grandma is going to say to Mum later.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Alain replies to our child while looking at me. ‘I can’t help it if her parents find me adorable.’
‘You’re not being very fair, you know, Dad,’ our daughter continues to admonish. ‘Mum gets us here on time, but she gets into trouble for you being late. That’s not very fair.’
I know he is looking at me so I continue staring out of the windscreen. I have to stop myself glowering or giving any indication of the insurmountable rage that is building up inside. He always does this and it always winds me up and I always have to stop myself from letting out my frustrations because, more often than not, Betina is around.
‘You’re right, pumpkin, that’s not very fair.’ Alain loses the cheeky-chappy tone to his voice and sounds somewhere near regretful. He reaches out, slips his hand onto the back of my neck, carefully caressing away the tension. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says softly. ‘I’m really sorry.’
I almost fall for it, almost allow my eyes to slip shut and my body to lean towards him while his hand works on releasing all the knots lined up in my neck and shoulders like the first row of a knitting project. Almost fall for it. I remind myself that this has never been the problem with us. The physical contact between us has never been an issue or something that isn’t smooth and easy and every kind of pleasurable.
‘Uh-huh,’ I reply to his apology, leaning away from him and causing his hand to slip away. I’ve heard it all before. Just last Sunday, in fact.
‘Come on, Small Stuff, grab your things,’ I say. ‘Let’s go before we’re even more late.’
June, 2012
‘Poppy, what are you doing awake?’ Alain asked.
I was sitting downstairs in his living room, wearing his dressing gown, with my legs pulled up in the armchair. The lights were out and I had been listening to the hum of various appliances thrumming through the house. I loved this place; it was big enough for a family, but cosy and intimate, too. I always felt as though the house liked having me here, that it relaxed when I was around, just like I felt able to breathe out in its four walls.
‘Just thinking,’ I whispered to him.
‘Thinking about what? And can’t it wait till morning?’
‘Not sure I can stop thinking about something once it’s in my head,’ I replied.
‘What is it you’re thinking about?’
‘I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking we’ve been together nearly two years. And I’m going to have to make a choice soon.’
‘A choice about what?’
‘I missed out on so much. When I was younger, before I met Marcus, I had plans. I wanted to travel. Go interrailing, maybe visit Australia.’
‘You can still do that. We can do it together, if you want.’
‘In theory, yes, but the reality is I have no cash and absolutely no will to do all the planning that it would take. But that wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do. I wanted to . . . I wanted to get married and have a child. Or two. I keep thinking about Serena and how she’s got it all sorted. She married a handsome doctor and she’s got two kids. That could have been me. And I’m wondering if I need to start thinking about that now.’
I chanced a look at him then. I wasn’t sure how he’d take this revelation. I was effectively saying we’d have to commit to each other or I’d move on.
Alain sat back on his haunches and stared at me very hard in the darkness of his living room. ‘That sounds like an ultimatum,’ he eventually said. His voice was subdued and his face seemed disappointed more than anything. ‘We seem to have skipped from a discussion about the future to an ultimatum without actually having the initial conversation.’
‘Fucking hell, Al! You know I don’t dress things up. I don’t do hinting. You know when I say something it’s full on, unadorned. And you came down here and asked me what I was thinking, and I told you. Actually, I only told you a fraction of it.
‘What I was thinking was: do I talk to you about having a baby or do I just leave? Do I even truly want a baby? Babies grow up and they become children. What if they turn out like me? What will I do? And then, I think, there’s nothing wrong with me. Except I’m hugely gullible. As evidenced by the fact I let someone abuse me for years, and then, when I should have known better, I was essentially tricked by another man who I fell in love with and whose house I’m in.
‘I met my best friend in the world when I was in prison and she isn’t here any more because her burdens were too huge and the world wouldn’t give her a chance. And sometimes I measure time by the last time I cut up, the last time I wanted to cut up, and occasionally even the last time I had the urge to cut up but managed to resist it. So, is having a child a good idea when that is my background, those are the broad and fine strokes of who I am?
‘That’s what I was thinking, Alain. I didn’t invite you into my thoughts, you basically barged your way in and now you’re feeling under siege because my unvarnished, unrefined feelings and mindscape are unpalatable.’ I was getting more and more angry with each word. ‘Do me a favour next time, Al, don’t ask a question you’re not ready to hear the answer to.’
Once the dust storm from the tornado of my angry words had settled, and the room had returned to its dark peacefulness, Alain felt safe enough to speak. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I panicked. No one has ever said that they’re thinking of having a baby with me before.’