‘Tom is amazing,’ I say to Angharad.
I am loyal to Tom, always. Even with what has been happening, I dislike those people who moan about their partners leaving towels on the bed, dressing badly, forgetting the dry-cleaning, never doing the vacuuming. It’s life-draining. I am pro-Tom. And if I wasn’t pro-Tom, I would leave. Would I? I think I would, but then lately – it’s not quite so simple.
‘He wants a baby as much as me, and he’s so on board with this treatment,’ I enthuse. ‘I’m incredibly lucky to have him.’
Angharad smiles.
Then she stays silent.
Silence has always been tricky for me.
I get together with friends to watch a film then speak over it until it ends. Kit and I never let each other finish a sentence.
But I try for a few seconds, smiling, meeting eye contact.
Angharad is better at it than me, though, and I crack, inevitably. I can’t bear it – how do people cope with the lingering emptiness of no noise?
‘There was … I was a little bit worried that he was … but it’s probably nothing.’
‘What did you think it was?’
‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘But you did.’
I try silence again. Fail again.
‘It just crossed my mind he was cheating on me, but he wouldn’t, it was stupid.’
How have I said these words out loud?
‘Okay.’
She’s doing it again.
‘It was just some odd behaviour.’
‘Mmm.’
‘And a social media message from some girl.’
‘Okay.’
‘And some condoms that he’d bought, even though we are trying.’
‘Mmm-hmm.’
‘In the spring.’
Silence.
I literally can’t do it. I am powerless to stop speaking.
‘Nervous, distant, taking his phone with him to the loo …’
Beat. Big, silent beat.
‘But it’s fine now.’
Oh, the torture.
‘I probably imagined it. The girl was clearly weird. I was paranoid around that time.’
Finally, she speaks.
‘Have you ever talked about it?’ she asks. Voice as steady as a newsreader now, she is a chameleon of reassurance.
‘Kind of. I tried.’
I flush so much it stings as I think about how easily I swept this away. What kind of girl doesn’t track down the other woman and find out more? But our situation is so dense, like everybody’s, and so those sweeping ‘what kind of girl?’ sentiments: they’re more complicated than that, aren’t they?
‘Well, it might be something to talk about, if it’s on your mind.’
‘No, it’s really not,’ I say decisively. ‘I don’t know why I mentioned it. It’s gone. I mean, it wasn’t anything anyway. But it’s gone.’
She nods and we move on.
‘Are there other people you can speak to?’ she asks. ‘Outside of your relationship? How about your mother?’
I resist the urge to eye-roll. Oh, here we go, in therapy and back on to my relationship with my mother.
‘She’s not really a talker,’ I say. ‘She believes in getting on with things, fixing them, buckling down.’ I pause. ‘She’s always thought I’m a little … flighty.’
I think about her disappointment when it was evident that I was headed for more creative pursuits, rather than the rules and the black and white of science.
I suddenly picture telling my mum I’m in therapy. She would find that incomprehensible.
‘And your dad?’
‘He’s a bit better, but he’s a little older than Mum and he’s old-school, too. We don’t delve into the hard stuff. Plus, they’re very far away, in Canada. There isn’t much chance to talk.’
Despite our distance, I feel disloyal.
‘What about when they were here?’ she asks. ‘When – presumably – you did live with them. Did you talk then?’
I try to think. Did we?
‘I think so,’ I falter.
But all I can picture is Kit’s bed, Kit’s arms around me when I was sad, Kit’s kind eyes as he brought me a custard cream.
‘Angharad,’ I say as I leave. It’s the last time I will see Angharad – if I want to continue I’ll have to transfer over to somebody else - as she is going on leave. She doesn’t state what type of leave, comically, even though it could not be more apparent.
‘I just wanted to say that I am sorry. For going on about you being pregnant.’
She smiles.
‘That’s okay,’ she says. ‘You’re human. This stuff isn’t easy to navigate.’
‘I’m a nice person, normally,’ I laugh. ‘Believe it or not.’
She touches my arm.
‘I can tell that, Lexie,’ she says. ‘I can tell that.’
My eyes fill with tears. It takes so little, these days, and now – like a true cliché – I am leaving my therapy session and contemplating my own family. Why didn’t we talk? Is that why I haven’t told my mum about our fertility struggles? Because an open conversation about something so clunky and unsolved is beyond us? I walk away from the hospital feeling tipped upside down and shaken out.
Next, reflexology. Tom is suspicious, wary that the promises of reflexology helping fertility issues are designed to take sixty pounds a time from desperate middle-class thirty-somethings, pulling off their socks and handing over their wallets.
‘I can’t see any problems with your uterus,’ says the reflexologist, putting pressure on my foot, and I think: What if you could?
What would we do then? March down to the hospital and tell the doctors what they missed?
I have three sessions then abandon it and Google acupuncture.
Tom is quiet this time. ‘If it helps you feel better, then it’s worth it,’ is all he will say when pushed.