On the campsite now, I have pins and needles in my foot from sitting cross-legged for so long and I stand up and stamp it out on parched grass, as much as a flip-flop allows. I wipe away tears I hadn’t noticed that have smeared my cheeks.
‘Luckily I swerved at the last second. Luckily the roads were quiet. Luck. Just luck. That’s how we made it. The only reason we are here.’
Not quite here. Oh, my baby. We were one entity that night. Now look at us.
‘Once I got home from hospital, Marc was his best self,’ I tell him. ‘Oh God, the difference. The relief not to be battling. He had sobered up from the shock of it all, in tears with how much he loved me, loved our baby.’
He made me a hot water bottle. Called work for me and told them I was sick. Tidied the house while I slept. Brought me herbal tea and scrambled eggs in bed when I woke.
‘I thought this had done it, given him a wake-up call.’
I laugh: ridiculous me.
‘He didn’t even know what had happened in the car. Didn’t give me a chance to talk. And I thought, what was the point? But the panic about me falling down the stairs had flicked a switch. He was obsessed with being a dad. Of doing it better than his parents had. A new version of him, one who could start from scratch. I thought that maybe now, and with the baby coming, he would stop being so angry with me.’
I pictured it. All the trimmings of a thirty-something new start. A family car. A roof rack. New towels for the bathroom.
I look at Adam.
I’m not sure now if it feels good to finally, finally get this out, or terrifying. I have stopped identifying feelings, just know that something in me is heightened.
‘Did you never notice anything?’ I say.
I hear it: desperation.
Adam stares at me like he is taking an eye test.
Reaches for my hand.
‘Marc told me you’re experiencing postpartum psychosis,’ he murmurs so quietly I can barely hear; he is deliberately gentle like he’s easing a gun from a terrorist. ‘And it feels … Romilly, it feels from the stuff you’re saying, like that … like that would make sense. This isn’t Marc you’re describing. You know it isn’t. Maybe this story is something you’ve read somewhere?’
It’s a frightening sensation to go from focused and ploughing forward to being punched, slam-dunk in the gut and grounded like an aeroplane.
‘If you’re experiencing postpartum psychosis, it means you would have delusions.’
Beat.
‘Paranoia.’
Beat.
‘Suspiciousness.’
He believes it.
He is checking the symptoms off now on his fingers.
‘I know what it fucking is, Adam. I’ve been monitored for it throughout my pregnancy. I have read papers on it. Whole books. Everything the internet has to give me.’
‘And are you …’
I stiffen.
‘Am I experiencing postpartum psychosis?’ I interrupt him. ‘No. I am not. But the problem is, as I’m sure Marc knows, that if I was, I wouldn’t believe I was, so it is quite likely that no one will believe me when I deny it anyway.’
I hear my voice plead.
‘He is trying to make me sound crazy, Adam. That’s the point.’
Postpartum psychosis.
Of all the things, Marc.
But aren’t I playing into his hands?
Adam can’t hide his frustration with me.
‘The thing is, Romilly, that even if this were true and weren’t a delusion – no, hear me out – even if it were, then it still wouldn’t make sense that you come to France when your newborn baby is lying in hospital. Would it?’
I twist the rings around my fingers, round, round, round.
‘So why would you have done that, Romilly?’
‘There is a woman,’ I answer, as I look up at him. ‘A woman I thought could help me to prove the truth about Marc. Ella, she is an ex of Marc’s.’
Round.
Round.
Round.
‘But she didn’t?’
I swallow. Another thing that went so wrong. ‘No. She didn’t.’
Round.
And even as I am talking, I know I am handing it to Marc on a plate. I sound deluded. Of course Adam doesn’t believe me.
He doesn’t even bother to ask more about Ella or find out who she is. He thinks she is fiction.
‘I’ve spent a lot of time with Marc lately,’ he says instead, careful with each syllable. ‘I can see how much he’s hurting. And you as well though, Romilly! You’ve been through a lot.’
I stare at him. My friend. Sitting in front of me, looking me in the eye.
‘You’re acting out of character, Ro.’
‘I’m acting out of character because of what he did to me, Adam.’
‘But Ro. I know you. And I know that you would never leave your newborn baby, ever, whatever Marc did. Unless you were going through something that took you out of your normal headspace. This is the only explanation, Romilly, the only one I can believe.’
I feel my fists ball up.
God, of course. Of course. That’s what he thinks I did.
‘Adam, this wasn’t me leaving the baby!’ I tell him, voice raised though he is inches away from me, even though the teenagers eat their pizza close by, the adults have another vin rosé. ‘This was only me leaving Marc.’
I picture it – how wrong it went – and it still makes me want to wail. The sadness of the irony.
‘I didn’t leave the baby, Adam,’ I repeat. ‘She got me out, and then she went back for the baby. But when she got back to the room, he was there. It was before 6 a.m.! There was no way he was supposed to be there then. He wanted to keep an eye on me, I suppose. As always. But it meant she couldn’t bring the baby.’
I can hear his breath.
I can hear my own.
‘She’s been trying to get the baby back to me ever since.’
There is the distant splash of someone jumping into a pool in the distance at what must be a private house, holidaymakers fancying a post-dinner dip. A yelp of joy, or drunkenness, or both.
Their joy hurts when I am burning in pain. When this has gone so wrong. When all I want is my girl.
‘Who?’ he asks, an odd note in his voice. ‘Who is she?’
And I realise he is terrified. Terrified that his girlfriend has been lying to him the whole time, and about what that means for them, their future.