Lying next to my husband’s dreaming body, his skin scorching me, I want to turn and kick out at the sheets, get some air. The marriage vows we made to each other thread in and out of my mind, the memory of my fingers grasping my bouquet too tightly, and then in the taxi, the way he picked confetti out of my hair. You are happy, aren’t you, darling?
We’re a team, Leo and me. And now our relationship’s going to be tested just trying to get pregnant. I shouldn’t see Sam again. But it’s only a couple of hours, in daylight, sitting on a bench on the Heath.
I wake to the alarm, my heart racing at the clanging interruption, the scattering of another world.
Leo’s empty cereal bowl is on the table. The cat jumps up, hopeful for milk. I shoo it away. ‘There you are,’ my husband says, looking up from his newspaper and kissing my cheek carefully. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m not ill,’ I remind him as I pour kibble into the cat’s bowl.
‘I know that,’ he says gently, taking his jacket from the back of a chair. ‘But it must have been a shock to find out about the damage your ruptured appendix caused. These things take time to sink in.’
‘Yes. Sorry.’ I put a hand on my forehead. ‘I just feel a bit … touchy, I guess.’
‘Understandable. Look, I have to run. See you tonight, darling. I’ll call you later with the details of our first hospital appointment.’ He drops a kiss on my cheek. ‘Exciting!’
Grace comes into the kitchen in her school uniform, backpack slung from her shoulder. ‘What’s exciting? What hospital appointment?’ she asks, as Leo leaves.
‘It seems I have a problem with getting pregnant. So your dad and I are going to talk about maybe having IVF.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A very clever way that doctors can give people a chance of getting pregnant by fertilising an egg outside the body and then putting it back in.’ I wipe the drops of spilt milk from the table.
She frowns, biting her lip. ‘Will it be painful?’
‘Maybe. Not much.’
‘I want a baby sister,’ she says slowly. ‘But not if it’s going to hurt you.’
‘No,’ I tell her quickly. ‘It’s fine. We’ll give it a go. But it may not work – I don’t want you to be disappointed.’
‘I won’t be,’ she says in a quiet voice, and bends to give Fat Mog a stroke.
It’s then that I see a small red slash on the inside of her wrist. ‘Ouch! Did you hurt yourself?’
She straightens up, and turns away, pulling her cuff down. ‘Oh, this? It’s nothing. Mog scratched me by mistake.’
‘Did you put antiseptic on it?’
‘Mmm. See you after school,’ she murmurs over her shoulder.
‘Grace?’
She’s gone. I stand alone in the kitchen and put my hands on my belly. Something that was supposed to be simple has turned into something complicated. And now there’s Sam, twisting the complication into a tangled knot. I have a flash of memory back to the ball of wool I untangled for Grace, standing in that rainy graveyard.
I look round at the soggy cereal and dirty cups, the dishwasher blinking under the counter, needing emptying. I feel disengaged from it all, as if I’m looking at a film. I put the dishrag on the side of the sink and wipe my hands on my dressing gown. I’m seeing Sam today. It’s strange to hold that fact inside me, here in the heart of my home. Everything else falls away. I don’t want to think about hospital appointments, or what to cook for dinner tonight; I only want to be with him one last time. I look at the clock on the wall and count the hours before I can start to walk towards the Heath, towards our bench.
He jumps up when I push past the hawthorn leaves. ‘Got here ridiculously early,’ he says sheepishly.
We smile at each other, suddenly shy. We sit on the bench and look at the view. It’s brighter today, the low sun warm on my face. ‘How are we going to do this?’ I ask.
He raises his palms. ‘Let’s just be ourselves. No pressure.’
I give a short laugh. ‘Easy to say.’
‘I know,’ he says quietly. ‘But we can try.’ He takes a deep breath and I sense his shoulders relaxing. ‘I started a new song yesterday. After we met.’
I turn towards him. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘It’s you, Cat,’ he says. ‘You inspire me. What we have together inspires me. Always has.’ He rubs a thumb over a mark on his jeans. ‘Did you like the song I wrote – the one about us in Atlantic City?’ He hums the tune, singing a few bars. ‘Our first hit. It was the start of it all.’ He smiles. ‘At the time, I thought you might hear it and … understand.’
I push away a ticklish strand of hair. ‘It came out years after we were together.’
‘You didn’t read the lyrics? They were printed on the inside of the CD cover.’
‘Yes, but …’ I shrug. ‘I couldn’t be sure it was really about me.’ I glance at him. ‘I couldn’t think why you’d write something like that, but not keep in contact.’
‘Shit. Yeah.’ He scrubs at his face with his fingers. ‘If you didn’t get my letters, I can see why you’d be confused,’ he says. ‘This new song in my head is about us too – about being separated and finding each other.’
‘For your new album?’ I angle my body to face him, warm from the knowledge that I inspire him to write. ‘Are you nervous about going solo?’
He shrugs. ‘A bit. But it’s different this time.’ He gives a half-smile. ‘I want to write something I’m proud of. I don’t need a huge audience. I just need to be able to survive on my work.’
‘I’m glad,’ I say. ‘And you’ve made loads of money already, haven’t you?’
He laughs. ‘We did all right,’ he agrees. ‘Although we had to pay the record company back for money spent on videos and things. And boy, did we do some over-the-top videos.’
He takes my fingers in his and squeezes. The shock of his skin against mine makes me flinch, then, with a small shudder, I let my hand lie quietly inside his. My whole arm feels tingly. I want to lean into him, put my head on his shoulder.
‘A hundred years ago,’ he says in a different voice, low and intimate, ‘there would have been cattle grazing here, locals coming to dig up sand, collect wood for their fires. Just think, we could have been a couple with a smoky cottage to go back to, standing out here, feeling the sun on our faces, the scent of the new ponds in the air. Me reaching for your hand, kissing you, your hair, your mouth, and not caring who saw.’
I can’t speak. I slide my hand away from his. He doesn’t stop me.
He clears his throat. ‘You know, Guy Fawkes and his gang planned to watch Parliament blow up from this vantage point,’ he says, ‘and there’s a myth that Boudicca’s buried here.’
‘Boudicca! Are you making this up?’
‘I used to love reading guidebooks – finding out stuff about places I was visiting. The last few years, I’ve hardly known what city I’ve been in.’ He shows me a battered book from his coat pocket. ‘I found this in a second-hand shop near the Tube station. Hampstead Heath: The Walker’s Guide.’
‘Very sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,’ I say, laughing.
He makes a comedy face and pretends to grab me. I leap up and run down the hill; the boggy ground slurps at my heels, the tussocks of grass make me stumble, but I crash on down the steep slope. Cold air rushes into my lungs and my cheeks sting. He’s coming after me; I hear the gulp and splatter of his boots in the mud, the rustle of his coat. And then the thump of his body against mine. He’s got me around the middle, holding tight. We’re laughing, nearly falling. I twist around to face him, trembling, hands flat on his chest to push him away, but he drops his face towards mine and our mouths meet.
It’s as if we’re back in Atlantic City, crouching between two parked cars, kissing for the first time. Except I know this man, this mouth, this tongue. We kiss for a long time, and then we stand in the mud, holding each other. I never want to let go. The noises of the park hum around us: leaf whisper, distant voices, birdsong, the far-up zoom of an airplane. I let my arms slacken and move away a little, giving us space. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen,’ I say quietly.
‘Cat.’ He takes my hand and presses it. ‘I want to be with you.’ I screw up my face, frowning. ‘I’m—’
‘I know,’ he says quickly. ‘I suppose I’m asking if … if you’re happy with him. Really happy.’
‘Happy?’ I duck my head. ‘It’s not that simple, Sam. It never can be. Not any more. Two people count on me.’
I don’t want to discuss Leo with Sam. It feels wrong.
‘But you’re talking about duty again.’ He gives an impatient shrug. ‘Are you going to let duty dictate the rest of your life? What about what you want?’ I hear the rasp of his breath. ‘You know what happened with my dad, how he made me believe I owed him my life.’ He holds my arms, looking into my face. ‘It wasn’t until I met you that I found the courage to stop – to just be myself.’ He shudders. ‘Fuck duty, Cat.’
‘This is different,’ I say. ‘You know it is.’
His face crumples, and he lets go, turns and trudges back up the hill towards the bench. I follow, stumbling next to him. ‘I made a promise,’ I say. ‘Don’t ask me to break it. It’s not fair.’ I bite my lip. ‘You said you wouldn’t do this.’
We sit down. He rubs a hand over his face, rough fingers pushing at his skin. The rasp of stubble. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
Neither of us speaks for minutes. I touch the engraving on the back of the bench, ‘Still sitting here beside you,’ I read aloud, ‘come rain or shine.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, with a small smile. ‘Makes me shiver. Weird, isn’t it? It’s the same idea as the one in Atlantic City – the one with your brother’s name.’
I rest my hand on the wooden back. ‘As soon as I found this bench, I knew it was the right one. The words made me feel at home, as if I belonged here.’
‘We should have an inscription too,’ he says.
I tilt my head. ‘For Cat and Sam, who found each other and lost each other and found each other again,’ I suggest.
He purses his lips, ‘Not bad. Not bad at all.’
I fold my arms, laughing, relieved by his humour. ‘What would you have?’
‘Sam and Cat’s bench.’ He gives me his crooked smile. ‘And then, in capitals: Keep off!’
‘Not very public spirited.’ I slap his knee lightly. ‘Or poetic. I found one once that said, In memory of Joe, who hated this Heath and everyone on it.’
He laughs.
‘What do they mean to you?’ I ask. ‘Words on benches? You’re the only person I know who has the same obsession as me.’
He traces the engraving with one finger. ‘They’re a testament, I suppose, a testament to love, in all its foolish bravery. The risk of it, the knowledge of the danger it puts us in, when anyone we love can be taken from us at any moment.’ He pauses, a little frown between his brows. ‘And then there’s the way we can be let down, betrayed, deceived, and yet we still dare to love, to give ourselves to other people – not just lovers, but children and friends and parents.’ He looks at me. ‘All that love, all that courage: that’s what those little plaques mean to me. It’s what connects us, I guess – the impossible decision we make to love and go on loving, despite everything.’
Speechless, I nod.
‘And you?’ he asks.
I clear my throat. ‘When … when I’m reading someone’s name on a bench, I imagine them sitting there. I know I’m in a place that meant something to them, and for a moment, it’s as if they’re there with me. And even though I never knew them, I remember them. Sounds weird, I know …’
He shakes his head.
I lift my shoulders, wanting to explain. ‘It’s such a simple thing, isn’t it? A bench in a park. Something we walk past without noticing most of the time. But it’s as if those words – even basic names and dates – kind of resonate with the beautiful bits of what it takes to be human.’
‘Cat,’ he says, his voice breaking.
My chest tightens, clenches like a fist as I stop myself from reaching for him. Instead, I push my hair back behind my ears, angle my face away.
He understands at once, shifting a little further from me. The air between us is tight with the effort of not touching.
‘Tell me what you do.’ He’s trying to sound normal. ‘I mean in your everyday life,’ he adds. ‘I want to be able to picture you going about your day when I’m not with you.’
‘I look after my stepdaughter, Grace.’ I close my eyes for a second, knowing that we need to talk our way back into our separate lives. ‘I swim here – in the ponds. I love the feeling of swimming outdoors, the mud, the greenery, the air on my skin. I do it all year round. In the winter, we break the ice. And I write for about four or five hours a day. I’m a children’s author now,’ I tell him. ‘I have a two-book deal. My first is coming out next year.’
‘Your first novel! Why didn’t you say before?’ His eyebrows shoot up. ‘I’ve been looking for your name in bookshops, and now it’ll be there, where it belongs. What an achievement.’
‘Well, I’m not a superstar like some people I know …’
‘I didn’t think Americans were supposed to be modest.’ He drapes his arm around my shoulders and squeezes me tight. ‘A children’s book? You rock, Cat. Always have. Sometimes you just need to say: fuck it, I did it. Take that, world.’ He sweeps his other arm towards the view.
He lets go and we sit looking down the slope towards the woods, the distant cityscape and the world beyond. The weather is colder; a slight mist haunts the air, seeps into my bones. I shiver.
‘Do you think we would have made it?’ he asks. ‘I mean, if we’d stayed together?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I guess all the ordinary stuff would have fallen on our shoulders sooner or later, all the domestic details of sharing a life.’
‘I think we would have made it,’ he says quietly. ‘I think we would have been bigger than that.’
I don’t answer, because there’s nothing I can say that would make me feel any better, nothing that wouldn’t be disloyal to Leo.
‘Is this really goodbye?’ Sam murmurs.
‘What else can it be?’ I lick dry lips. ‘We can’t have an affair.’ ‘How about we meet, I don’t know, once every six months, once a year even?’ He says it so quickly that I know he’s already thought about it. ‘Just so we don’t lose contact,’ he adds. ‘But you couldn’t call it an affair.’
I sit up, back straight, my hands caught between my knees. The suggestion rolls around inside my head, and everywhere it touches feels good and possible, and better, so much better than the endless loss of him. But then I remember my conversation with Leo last night, the disappointment in Grace’s voice this morning.
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It really is over, Sam.’
‘But … I’m going out of London for a while to work on my new album,’ he says. ‘That takes us into next year, and—’
I stop him. ‘You don’t understand. I’m trying to get pregnant. We’re trying to get pregnant, Leo and me.’
He stares at me, shock wiping his features clean.
‘So … it’s impossible.’ I blink away tears. ‘I can’t see you again.’
He looks as though he’s going to say something else, argue perhaps, but he doesn’t. He sits with his hands over his stomach, as though what I’ve said has winded him, stolen the breath from his body; then he takes my face in his hands, cupping my chin and cheeks, and looks into my eyes. We stare at each other. He kisses my mouth, once, briefly.
‘I want you to be happy.’ His voice is husky. ‘I hope you find what … what you truly want.’
I manage a nod, placing my fingers over his.
‘I will think of you,’ he says. ‘Every day.’