Chapter Eleven

I WAKE AT NINE. An easterly wind wafts faint chimes from Big Ben through the open window. Matt crawled into bed an hour ago, having spent the night assisting nursing staff in restraining a violent patient attempting to abscond, and cajoling another with a paranoia that the carpets harbour spies to emerge from her locked bathroom. We sift through the Sunday papers with, I am ashamed to admit, mounting excitement, only to discover that Simon’s treachery has been universally usurped by a compelling exclusive of celebrity infidelity.

At three-thirty, I arrive at Ed and Louisa’s. The invitation has been in the diary for weeks – a barbecue on their Tuscan stone patio overlooking one of London’s smartest squares; an opportunity for Ed to grill meat and refute the myth that he is only dating Louisa for her skills as in-house cook at his investment bank.

Ed will not now, of course, be present, having moved in with his secretary. Ed is another of my university coterie. Over time, our shared experiences (lectures, parties, hangover cures) have proved more durable than Ed’s manifold dalliances. These were often so short-lived that I noted each woman’s passing with no more enthusiasm than I would had she been a tree glimpsed at speed from one of Ed’s sports cars.

In his break-up with Louisa, I am torn. Perhaps it’s inevitable that at times of crisis women feel mobilised to show solidarity, to critique the sexes and find men wanting. Hadn’t we, the girls, dis-invited the boys, replaced the barbecue with scones and éclairs, to offer Louisa our unstinting support? But I don’t want to spend the afternoon belittling men. Gatherings of women make me wary.

And yet, while not wishing to diminish the trauma of Louisa’s own predicament, I have found Ed’s vanishing act unsettling. When Louisa telephoned with the news of her pregnancy (requesting a lift to the twins’ birthday party), I felt suddenly cold all over. And, after that call, I noticed I’d covered my blotter with doodles of three- dimensional boxes.

‘Did you know your skirt’s covered in cat fur, yaar?’

‘Bloody Dylan’s apparently allergic to the cats, so we’re lumbered with them. And no, Nicole, it’s not funny. Hello, I’m Amber.’

‘Please, call me Prue.’ The middle-aged woman now shaking my hand has the alert features of a lioness listening for the local pack of wild dogs.

‘What’s in the tin, Amber?’ someone asks me. I’ve made dairy- free cheesecake. Prue says she’ll fetch a plate from the kitchen. I sit down on an uncomfortable slatted-wood lounger.

‘How are you feeling, Louisa?’

‘Not too bad, thank you,’ replies a high voice strained through tight lips, ‘I haven’t been sick at all today.’ Louisa’s green eyes seem larger, more naive than ever, her face gaunt; a portrait of grief and catastrophe covered with a light foundation of resignation.

‘We were talking babies’ names before you arrived,’ says Jenny, hovering near the butler’s table and stroking a bead-edged jug- cover. The patio is a furnace (the clipped shrubbery provides only a bonsai level of shade), and I swear Jenny is wearing her thickest sweater. If my cleavage was as fabulous as hers, I’d let everyone see it.

‘Oh, great,’ I say, briskly. ‘I love the whole business of choosing names.’ Nicole smiles, and mouths the word ‘spreadsheet’ at me. ‘Do you know yet whether you’re having a boy or a girl?’ I believe it sensible to eliminate half the choices.

‘Not yet. We thought—, that is—, I—, no we had decided not to find out,’ Louisa suddenly leans forward, her eyes straining out of their sockets, ‘but I was thinking that maybe, if I did find out, and managed to get hold of Eddie and told him, it might make him more responsive, you see, if he could actually visualise a boy, say, rather than a girl. And then he, you see, he might—’ Her voice tails off as her mother approaches armed with a large china plate in one hand and a cake knife in the other.

‘Well,’ I say brightly, ‘what names are on your shortlist?’

Wilting in the heat, Louisa hands me a slim paperback, before sinking back into her chair and closing her eyes. Several pages are marked with slips of paper. I steal a glance at Nicole, whose wide- eyed nod confirms that the afternoon has indeed been as stilted as it feels. I open the book at random and see that ‘Merlin’ has been highlighted in pink. Ye-gods, as Nicole would say. No wonder Ed absconded.

‘Who’s for cheesecake?’ asks Prue.

‘Names are so important,’ says Nicole, accepting a plate and pastry fork. ‘At school, there were four Janes in my class. I thought that was so boring.’

‘I used to be called Jane,’ says Jenny slowly, mopping up digestive biscuit crumbs with her middle finger. Everyone turns to look at her; Nicole slips me a quick grimace. ‘Hmmmm. Yes,’ Jenny continues, putting her finger in her mouth.

‘When was this?’ I say.

‘University,’ Jenny replies, sucking every last crumb. ‘Just before I met you. I wrote “Jenny” on all the application forms. I didn’t tell my parents, and they never knew because all the correspondence came addressed to Miss J. Peel.’

‘I never knew that,’ says Nicole solemnly, helping herself quickly to another slice of cheesecake.

‘No reason why you should. By the time Clive and I got married, I’d changed it legally, so even the invitations— my parents were furious about that—’

‘Achha,’ says Nicole, concentrating on her food.

‘No, Nicole, you’re right. Jane’s a dull name. Plain. It shows a distinct lack of imagination. That’s what I said when my parents found out, when I had to introduce them to Clive and couldn’t pretend any longer. That’s what I used to be called at school, you see – “Plain Jane”. And when you’re as large as me, you can’t afford to hand your friends such easy ammunition. And I’d always thought the name Jenny sounded much more fun, much more sprightly. Like Jenny Wren, a tiny thing. I’ve always wanted to be small enough not to be noticed.’ Her smile is tight. ‘I guess it shows I’ve always been trying to turn myself into something else, something I’m not.’ And she goes over to the table and helps herself to an éclair.

I can’t move, a paralysis that makes my body burn with shame; that after Jenny’s candour I seem incapable of offering her any visible support. The dry Tuscan stone between us seems too vast, too inhospitable to cross. My negligence appals me. I feel as though I might be bleeding inside.

I steal a quick glance at the other faces. None betray the turmoil I feel. Some are nodding, as if to say, A change of name – yes, fascinating. They don’t appear to have heard what I heard: a tale of early hurts and hidden wounds. But I’ve heard it, and yet I sit here, rigid, helpless. I feel anger towards Jenny’s parents, and hatred towards Jenny’s schoolfriends, and I say nothing, do nothing at all. Jenny reaches for another éclair. Guilt burns my gut.

And I make a decision, there and then, to reach out to others; to put ‘you’ before ‘I’ in my dealings with the world. To improve myself. I must start immediately.

‘You have a very unusual name, Amber,’ says Prue, gracefully. With the focus abruptly on me, I have a memory of arriving at a child’s party in a velvet dress to find all the popular girls wearing jeans. ‘Is it your birthstone? Are you named after that?’ enquires Prue. I find myself looking into a pair of eyes similar to Louisa’s, verdigris in colour.

‘No,’ I say, cautiously, unaware that amber is a birthstone, sensing a trap. ‘I’m named after my mother’s mother’s ring.’ I stop speaking, but no one says anything. Maybe they expect something more, a story perhaps of love and happiness, hopeful and life- affirming; where commitments were made and never broken. But I have nothing cheerful to add. I’ve never seen the ring, or even had it described to me – my mother’s parents died in an air raid during the war. Friends at school were named after favourite relatives, or film stars, or places where they’d been ‘made’; names with substance, and fond memories. When I asked my mother for stories about the ring, I was told it had gone the way of everything else, whatever that meant. And the shutters had come down.

‘A ring,’ says Prue, thoughtfully. ‘Obviously a very precious piece of jewellery.’

I feel overwhelmed, as though by a wave of Louisa’s morning sickness. And I’m convinced it will do me no good to appear vulnerable to these women. I feel a fraud, and look over at Jenny again, who is stacking plates. The doorbell sounds.

‘That’ll be Serena and the girls,’ says Louisa, heaving herself up from her lounger. ‘Can someone let them in? I’m feeling a bit peaky. Think I’ll go and have a lie-down.’

*

After an hour, once Esme had fallen and gashed her knee on the Tuscan stone and the other girls had overdosed on sugar, Serena removes them from the cramped patio, leaving behind her fondest love for Louisa, who has yet to reappear. Since Jenny slipped away after answering the door to Serena, and Nicole left to see a film with Dominic, only Prue and I remain, clearing up the debris. We chat while we wash and dry, laughing at Ed’s failure to install a dishwasher in his chrome kitchen. Then we take mugs of coffee on to the patio. Before sitting on one of the chairs, Prue removes the cardigan from around her shoulders, folds it into a cushion and places it on the wooden slats.

‘Good idea!’ I laugh.

‘Stupid things. Why buy hard chairs? Just because they’re in vogue. Typical, shallow Ed.’

I hesitate. Have I just been given permission? ‘Has he been in touch?’

‘He wouldn’t dare!’ says Prue. ‘Not while I’m around.’

‘So what’s going to happen?’

‘He’s gifting her this flat. Buying her off, if you will. I’ll stay until she’s settled. Then I’ll head back home. The man’s a rake, and she’s better off without him.’

‘All the same—’

‘And don’t worry about Louisa hearing: she knows what her family thinks. But we’ll be there for her. It’s tough being a single mum. I should know – I was one when I had my first, John. I think I spent his first year crying. And even in the seventies, the stigma was terrible. But I’d see his smile and know I’d done the right thing. And then I met Louisa’s father, and he took us both on. Which even now I think was brave! And then Louisa came along. She’ll be fine; she doesn’t need Ed.’ Prue drains the contents of her mug into a potted box hedge. ‘Or his revolting, overpriced Fair Trade coffee. How come you’re friends with such a shit?’ The crows-feet at Prue’s eyes disappear as she raises her eyebrows.

I explain about meeting Ed during Freshers’ Week, and how by Christmas he’d single-handedly raised the money for the musical I’d performed in the following term.

‘Pity Ed couldn’t be the responsible type when it came to Louisa. And when are you going to have children?’

I choke on my mouthful of coffee.

‘The little girls here earlier clearly adore you.’

I cough. ‘Eloise is one of my goddaughters.’

‘And you were the only one not to be annoyed by their unruly behaviour, apart from that sedated bovine mother of theirs.’

‘They’re just being children.’

‘Yet you don’t fancy having any of your own?’

How am I having this conversation with this woman? Suppose Matt and I have been trying to conceive for years? Supposing IVF has left us bereft and broken-hearted? ‘Well, it’s not like I’m avoiding motherhood,’ I say, slightly unnerved to be saying this to a stranger. ‘But it’s the way of the world today; my friends are my family—’

‘To me a woman isn’t complete until she’s had a baby.’

No one has ever spoken to me so bluntly about this subject. The weight of Prue’s words bruises my skin. I have the dizzying sense that I’m staring into the abyss, that my future happiness hangs in the balance.

‘Parenting gives your life meaning, and direction.’

‘My life has that already,’ I reply, stiffly. It occurs to me that what attracted Louisa to Ed was the echo of her mother’s plain speaking. You don’t get to be head of an internationally successful trading desk by being the diplomatic type.

‘Yes,’ says Prue. Her tone is noticeably softer now, as if she recognises belatedly that I’m not the person she wishes to reprimand. ‘Being a mother’s hard work. And many’s the time I’d be shouting at the children – although usually John, because Louisa was such a good baby – and I’d think, What have I done to deserve this? You are an unspeakably horrible little child and I wish I’d never had you!’

‘You used to say that?’ A memory stirs in my mind.

‘Only in my head!’ Prue laughs. ‘But sometimes that was enough. To give myself permission to contemplate those words. They were my escape.’

‘My mother said that to me once. On a beach.’

Prue looks doubtful.

I rush to say, ‘I don’t know. There are so many things I want to do before having a baby.’

‘It doesn’t mean the end of your life. I went back to studying.’

‘What did you read?’ I ask, quickly.

‘It was all Louisa’s father’s idea; I left university when John came along. I did an Open University degree in Psychology and now I’m a clinical psychologist for the parole board.’

That, I say to myself, would explain your forensic interrogation skills. ‘So you had a complete career change.’

‘No,’ says Prue, glancing back towards the flat. ‘You never stop being a mother.’

On the way out, we look in on Louisa, lying asleep on top of the duvet, her swollen belly the focal point in the room, drawing the eye, like a foetus siphoning off all the nutrients. Louisa appears grave, which to me suggests that even in sleep she recognises how narrow her life has become; that she’s already acquainted with limitation.

‘It was very nice of you all to make the effort to come,’ whispers Prue on the doorstep. ‘Please thank your friends for me. I know my daughter appreciated it.’

‘Oh, it was nothing, it was our pleasure.’

‘No, Amber, it was a big thing. You are good friends of Ed’s, and I’m sorry you’ve all been put in this awkward position.’

‘We can do so little. She’s lucky to have you.’

‘Oh, I’m just doing what any mother would do.’

*

Out in the street, I experience an abrupt rush of giddiness. I double over, almost retching, as I cling to a nearby garden wall. My chest feels punctured as if no amount of air would ever be sufficient to fill my lungs. How has this happened, this rupture? Why this feeling of melancholy – of envy, no less! For what? The promise of congratulations cards and bouquets? Contact from people who read birth announcements and use them as an excuse to resurrect obsolete friendships?

I long to believe in the potential for fulfilment, that one tiny seed can offer redemption. But right now I can’t say that I do. Louisa and Prue’s relationship feels unfamiliar to me, as does their trust in the redeeming power of maternal love. And it is this lack of connection that so unnerves me.

*

Initially, I don’t tell Matt about my chat with Prue. Instead, I ask about his afternoon watching a televised Grand Prix.

‘A procession,’ he scoffs, with rare irritation. I envy the way Matt is able to confine his conflicts to sport. But then containment is his stock in trade.

You should see him with his fellow sports fiends such as Peder, shouting at the television, or providing running commentaries on what should be happening on the pitch, or on court, or in the pit, or on the green, or at fine leg. A sporting event without competition is, for Matt, barren and pointless. The most enjoyable contests are those with something at stake. And once the match, the race, the tournament is over, it’s as though his emotions have been properly digested.

Matt has asked me once or twice why I prefer my sport to be so predictable. And I snap that there is perhaps too much conflict in the world, which is unfair. As a white child of apartheid, crunching on racial eggshells, Matt knows all about conflict. Twenty years ago, on finishing at his English boarding school, he returned to South Africa to do his national service and found himself, at the age of eighteen, with an R4 rifle in his hand, patrolling the border with southern Angola. Doing his bit to keep his nation safe. You don’t need to lecture a man who has come across the remains of a former comrade sliced in half about conflict.

I lie on the sofa, in his arms. Through the open French windows I can see that the late August sky is marbled with the crinkly thin strata of bruise-coloured clouds. After several tracks of a CD, he asks if I’m all right.

I hold his gaze. I want to ask him something; want to ask him not because I’m curious as to the answer, but because I need him to crochet a security blanket of neat rows of reasons. To hear him recount how we adore our life; how we enjoy being able to travel at a moment’s notice (hospital rotas permitting), eating out, seeing the latest films and musicals, and discussing them with friends over late dinners. Sometimes on holiday we observe parents with a new baby, glimpse something of this couple’s shared joy at opening up the world for their child, and we smile at each other, with a look as if to say We could, you know. Why don’t we? And a foul infant, screaming on the return flight home, answers that question for us.

I wonder whether to tell him what I did in the taxi. How I breathed a pool of condensation on to the window, and drew a tiny heart shape, and then parts of an arrow poking out the sides. How at one end of the arrow I used a fingernail to etch Matt’s initials, and at the other end my own. Yes, Matt was the kind of man whose name I would have scratched on my locker had I known him at school. He would have toyed with my teenage heart, tossing it aside like chewed gum, confirming my belief that love is finite. But now? Now he’s the man into whose hands my father transferred me for safekeeping, who holds my heart together – an undertaking of such importance, such delicacy, it renders me incapable of disturbing its equilibrium.

And yet, and yet.

Just lately I’ve been grappling (what with Dylan’s plan to adopt, and Harry’s wish for a son) with how Matt feels about eschewing parenthood. Or, more specifically, with whether he might ever change his mind. In my head I weigh each possibility. Sadness – arguments – divorce? It’s easy to remember the heady moment when he said he wanted to marry me, and to forget that just before that he’d referred to a different life, with a different woman and a whole rugby team of children. And it sometimes occurs to me that, while Matt might never have really thought about having children, this might also mean that he never gave much thought to not having children. And when I think about that, and about the sacrifice he made for me, the dreams he might have laid to one side, I break out into vicious cold sweats, and I find myself reaching increasingly often for the hair at my parting, to feel the small stabs of pain on my scalp.

Through the French windows, the evening air hangs heavy and still, hinting at the forecast storm; Mother Nature is holding her breath. Maybe, I think, I should ask my question, to rid myself of its toxicity and relieve the pounding in my head.

I met a woman today, I want to say, who hinted at knowing the meaning of life. Who mentioned it so matter-of-factly that it had to be true. I can be seduced by clarity, I want to remind my husband. I read fiction, and recipe books; I need music, I cannot play the piano by ear. I also like to earn the approval of others. If I thought the route suggested by this woman offered me universal approbation, I would embrace it wholeheartedly. But I am consumed with doubt. I mistrust the information.

Am I brave enough, I wonder, to have a change of heart?

The source of my conflict is a fear that Prue may be right. That in avoiding babies I’ve made an error of judgement. I’ve built my life on the foundation of not wanting babies. It was never my plan to equivocate. Yet now my confidence is shaken. Maybe a woman’s life without children is like a sporting event without competition: barren and pointless. Maybe there needs to be more at stake.

So, if I ask you my question, dear husband, it’s not because I want you, in your masculine way, to fix things, or to reveal to me that you’ve changed your mind, or to dissect the choices I’ve made, but to have you sense the subtext in all of this, and simply stop the world imploding.