I’m not pregnant, again, and the drugs that I am on to try to get pregnant have given me period pain so excruciating that all I can do is pace up and down our tiny flat – turning approximately every three seconds – and cry silently so that I don’t disturb the night time.
I am pacing and crying when I hear Harriet making what can only be described as sex noises. The sex noises are a better painkiller than any sort I have ever taken, because I am inherently nosy and distracted by them.
Harriet is having sex! Normally, the noises we hear from Harriet’s flat late at night are pure party – irritating often but difficult to get too worked up about when you live in Zone One and buses and idiots zoom past your window twenty-four hours a day. We’re used to noise. But this particular soundtrack, I don’t hear that often.
I’m gutted Tom is away; getting back into bed with no one to whisper with about what I just heard is disappointing. Then, I think, would I do that these days anyway? Now things are different. Now there is no fun.
I lie awake and when I stop writhing with the pain, I think about my neighbour, writhing in something else. Is she with a boyfriend or a lover? A date or a one-night stand?
I lie awake and seem unable to stop thinking about Harriet and her close but distant life. I think about how imposing and groomed she looks when I catch glimpses of her on the stairs. I think about how I feel I know her and yet realise there are basic level omissions in my knowledge – if she is in a relationship, who she loves.
I think about how much money she must make to afford her flat, alone. I think about how impressive that is, especially from a creative job that lets her be – presumably – her own boss.
I think about how she is what I had hoped I would be in my thirties and how very far removed from my reality that is today.
And then, I think about Tom. Away now, sleeping in a bed that I am not in. Alone? I think so. I hope so.
If Tom were cheating on me, would it be with a woman like Harriet? A woman who had her shit together but was fun, still viewing Friday nights as being for pushing your way to the bar and dancing?
Part of me still believes that what Tom wants now is me, in whatever form I come in, and a baby, however long that takes.
But on the bad days, and when he is sleeping far away and I can’t soak in the reassurance of his face, I can conceive of a world in which the other appeals far more.
When the period pain lingers enough to stop me sleeping still, even at 5 a.m., I Google my neighbour. I see her social media filled with pictures from a party last night. Harriet, squeezed between friends and pouting. Harriet, downing a shot with a gaggle of equally groomed women. A platter of sushi adorned by an app with the word YUM.
And then, of course, she came home with a man. She had fun, audible, late-night sex. Tomorrow – today – they will likely nip out to a restaurant on the high street for breakfast and Bloody Marys. I realise then that I am picturing Rachel and in my head, she is Harriet. Glamorous, popular, sexy. They are blending into one and merging with the other women I see on the street and sit next to on the bus, who wear ironed clothes and cute boots. The ones who take their phones out of their bags and speak firmly about what they need and what their plans are. Who have signature scents and blended eyeshadow.
I am suddenly horrified by myself: a woman who is jealously googling her neighbour in the early hours of the morning after listening to her have sex. I get up to change my sanitary towel and sit with my head in my hands on the toilet. If Tom wanted a Harriet instead of a Lexie, who really could blame him?