The Godmother (16 page)

What we had to face instead was a cyclist, lying twisted on the ground, sixteen feet from where we'd stepped out of the passageway. She'd been racing downhill on the pavement; she had no lights and no helmet. We hadn't even stopped to look for pedestrians, let alone cyclists. She hit Ben at full pelt, smashing his leg to pieces. I watched her jettison off the bike and fly over Ben's body as he crumpled to the ground. I watched her head miss a lamp-post by a millimeter. She skidded across the cement, shearing off the skin on her face, then rolled into the gutter. Ben let go of my hand and started to rock with pain. Whatever moment there had been evaporated. The real world had come back to remind me that there is nothing so brutal as life and you mess with it at your peril.

The girl was so concussed she didn't know her name, so I stayed with her. Ben was taken away in another ambulance. By the time I got to him, Mary and
her family were lodged alongside him in the hospital room. I couldn't get near him, and when I did, it was awkward and uncomfortable. I couldn't get rid of the image of the cyclist's head streaking past the lamppost. Any closer and she'd have been dead; I would have killed her. It was a stark warning to leave Ben well alone. Two weeks later our plane landed in Hanoi and I spent the next few months learning how to pretend to forget.

As I said, a lot of my life lies in that break.

At six o'clock the next morning I heard a key in the door. I sat up as Al walked into the sitting room. He didn't look like he'd slept much either. I hugged him. I told him Claudia was still asleep, that the doctor had given her some sleeping pills, but that she'd been crying out in her dreams. Then I left and drove home through London. It wasn't until I got home that I realized the photo of Ben in traction was still in my pocket. I slipped it into my bedside drawer, pulled back the covers and climbed into bed. Curled in a ball, with the duvet pulled high over my head, I fell asleep sucking my thumb, wishing that none of this was happening.

I didn't know what Claudia would feel like eating, if anything at all, so I brought everything: bacon, eggs, yogurt, organic muesli, fresh bread, kiwis, juice, almond croissants, green tea and caffe mochas for all. I rang the doorbell and listened to Al's heavy footfalls as he made his way downstairs. He opened the door a fraction with a fierce expression. I watched his brain recognize that standing on his doorstep was friend not foe; his face softened, his body relaxed and finally the door opened wider. Instinctively, he took the bags from me. Ben and Al are cut from the same cloth in that respect.

“I don't know how to ever thank you,” said Al, wrapping the plastic bags around me in a bear hug. “Thank God you were here. Come in. She's sleeping.”

I followed him down the hallway into the kitchen. On the staircase wall was the faint grimy outline of a missing photograph. I swore silently in my head. The photograph was still back at home, though that was not what I was swearing about. I stared at the step and watched again, as I had a thousand times during the night, a kiss that had come nearly twenty years too late. I put my fingers to my lips and the memory made me giddy with yearning.

Al poured the coffee into mugs, put them in the microwave to reheat and pulled out a croissant each. Neither he nor I had slept a great deal and what we craved was a hefty dose of sugar. I'd make something sensible and slow-burning in a while, but what we needed right then was a hit. I dunked the croissant into the caffe mocha and sucked. Al did the same.

“You think of everything, don't you, Tessa? I couldn't believe it when I saw you'd repainted the…” Nursery. Spare room. Constant reminder of their infertility.

“I couldn't have done it without Ben. He chose the paint.”

“You are the best team of friends anyone could wish for.”

I kissed Ben on the steps. I used your personal tragedy to cross a boundary. What kind of friend does that really make me? If Claudia hadn't cried out…Once again, my face registered my thoughts because Al looked concerned.

“I'm so sorry, it must have been horrible,” he said.

I dismissed his concern. “What are you going to do?”

“Get out of here,” said Al immediately. “It's all organized. I just haven't told Claudia yet.”

“Move house?”

“No. I mean get out of the country. I still have a job in Singapore. We've been put up in a sister hotel of the one we're working on. It's stunning. Claudia can rest, spend her days in the spa, swim, recover at whatever pace she can. The work isn't taxing. We'll be able to have lunch most days, travel around the area on the weekends, go island hopping. My bosses know the situation and are happy to be flexible, not for ever, but for a little while.”

“How long would you be away?”

“A couple of months. Don't you think it's a good idea?”

“I think it's a great idea, I just don't want you to go. But you should absolutely, definitely go.”

“I'm going to try and sell the house too. I booked an agent to come and see it tomorrow while Claud is at the doctor's. I know this is a bit cheeky, but I thought maybe you might oversee the sale.”

“Of course I will,” I said. “Consider it done.”

He reached over and placed his hand on mine. “Thanks, Tessa, I knew I could rely on you.”

The feeling of satisfaction rose up inside me faster than the dampening reminder of why Al was asking me to sell his house for him. I couldn't help it. I had always done a great deal for my friends, they were my family, so it was reaffirming for me that Al and Claudia felt they could rely on me. Although this was happening to them, we were, as I'd always suspected, in this together.

“You really have got it all organized,” I said, when Al retracted his hand.

He stirred his coffee. “I've learned to fear the worst.” He rubbed his eyes. It was an involuntary movement but it reminded me of the incredible strain
Al had been under all these years. You can't be the strong one indefinitely. Somewhere, something has to give.

“You are an exceptional man, Al. Claudia is lucky to have you.”

“You think? She'd probably get pregnant like that”—he clicked his fingers to demonstrate—“with somebody else. She'd certainly have been able to adopt.”

“Don't think things like that. It's you, only you, and it will always be you,” I said.

“But we all know that's not true. People lose husbands and wives and find new people and are just as happy, sometimes happier. People are heartbroken and go on to find new people to love. There isn't just one person. Claudia would find someone else.”

He was scaring me. “Al, is this about you, or her?”

“Her. She's the one upstairs, drugged up with opiates so she doesn't feel the pain that I'm causing her.”

“You didn't do this to Claudia, in the same way that Claudia didn't do this to you, or herself,” I said. “This is just some terrible shitty thing that has happened to you both. I know Claudia wants children, but not without you. That would be too high a price.”

“This is already too high a price, Tessa,” said Al. “I can't watch her do this again.”

“I'm sure she doesn't want to go through this again. What about going back to adopting again?”

“We can't. My record.”

“Not here, abroad, where papers aren't so strictly adhered to. China, Africa, Estonia, Russia. There are orphanages everywhere, Al. Countless children who need a home.”

“Maybe it is time to look into that,” said Al. Frankly I was surprised they hadn't looked into it before.

“It could be exciting,” I said, trying to sound positive.

“Maybe. But Claudia has to accept that the IVF has failed and she will never be a mother to our child.”

“And you?”

“If Claudia is happy again, I can live without children. But her survival
mechanism throughout all of this has been that ultimate failure was not an option. She had to believe that it would work. If not this time, then the next. She had to believe that or else she wouldn't have been able to get up in the morning. How do you undo that steadfast faith? It's like telling someone not to believe in God any more.”

“So you would consider it?”

“We went for adoption before we went for IVF because they told us our chances were so slim. We went for adoption first and they screwed us. I screwed myself. I screwed us.”

“Stop it. Let's not go back to that. The drugs had fallen through the lining of your bag, it could have happened to any of us. We were all guilty.”

“But I knew it was missing. I could have looked harder. How is it possible that one second in time, almost twenty years ago, can still make my stomach clench into a knot and leave me unable to breathe?”

Let's go home
. “I don't know,” I said, feeling the familiar sensation of my heart pounding in my chest and my airway contract. But it could.

I sat on the side of Claudia's bed. The bed I had stripped and remade the day before. I glanced at the carpet. I could still see the faint trace of pink from the single drop of blood. I wondered if I always would.
Out, out, damn spot
. Maybe Al was right. This house had too many sad memories. Al and Claudia needed a change. Singapore was as good a place to start as any. Claudia moved her head on the pillow. Very slowly she opened one eye and looked at me. She smiled and closed it again. It opened again as she yawned and I watched her force her other eyelid, prising it open; she blinked a few times in a battle to keep her eyes from closing again. It was like watching her come round from the anesthetic all over again. It was like watching the twins wake up after the christening.

“Hey, you,” I said softly.

“Hey,” Claudia croaked.

“I brought you some fresh juice and some green tea.”

She smiled and started to prop herself up in bed. Within seconds she'd slumped back down on the pillow. “Where's Al?”

“Downstairs. Do you want me to get him?”

“Is he all right?”

I stroked a strand of her hair away. “He's worried about you. How are you feeling?”

“Numb. No, not numb. Empty.”

I took her hand.

“Did they tell you why?” she asked me.

I nodded. This was hard. “The placenta had come away from the uterus wall.”

“My baby starved to death.”

“No, Claudia. You can't think like that.” I moved round the bed and lay next to her. “Once the oxygen supply was lost it would have been very quick. She would not have felt a thing.”

“I thought I felt her move while we were painting. How could I not have sensed that something was wrong? Shouldn't I have felt something? What sort of mother would I make?”

“Stop it. This isn't going to help you or change what has happened. You have suffered a medical problem, one that isn't even that uncommon. The doctor said there is no reason to think that the IVF won't take again and this time they will monitor you and keep you in bed. He will explain it all at your visit tomorrow.”

Claudia let out a long breath. We lay there in silence for a while as I stroked her hair and waited for some words of comfort to come to mind. None did. Al found us there some minutes later. Claudia's tea had gone cold. She propelled herself off the pillow and fell into her husband's chest. He wrapped her up like the precious parcel she was and rocked her gently side to side. I could hear Claudia was crying and I could see that Al was too.

It was time for me to go. There are some things that friends are for. There are others when only husbands will do.

I was halfway down the stairs when I heard Al. He ran down after me, held me for a moment in a tight embrace, then kissed me quickly on the lips.

“From both of us,” he said. “We love you.”

He hugged me again for a split second then returned to his wife. I stood on the step. It was unnecessary to thank me but I was grateful, except for one thing: any notion that what had passed between Ben and me on the same steps, in the same circumstances, the previous evening was purely platonic
was ludicrous. What had just happened with Al was platonic. More than that, it was familial, brotherly, fatherly. What had happened between Ben and me was something else entirely and I had no idea what to do about it. I pulled the front door behind me quietly and walked to my car, heavy with sadness and guilt. Whatever terrible outcome kissing Ben at eighteen may have had, it could not be worse than this.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Ben's home number. I looked at it. If I ducked his call it would be tantamount to admitting something was really wrong. I had never ducked a call from Ben in my life. If I answered it, was I going to make it worse? Could I pretend nothing had happened? I stared at the phone…Who was I kidding? I'd been pretending for years.

“Hi,” I said gently.

“Hey, Tessa, I thought you might need scooping up.”

It wasn't Ben. Of course it wasn't Ben, he always called me from his mobile. Not home. “Sorry?”

“Ben told me what happened.”

No. No. No. “What?”

“You're not all right, are you? Ben said you were there all night. Al is back, right?”

“Yes.”

“Are you still with them?”

“I'm just leaving.”

“Right, I'm not taking no for an answer. Meet me at that organic café in Battersea. I'm leaving now.”

“Oh Sasha, thanks but I'll be—”

“No, Tessa. I'm taking you out for lunch, plying you with lentils and organic wine then I'm taking you home. It's time someone looked after you. Twenty minutes. I'll be there.”

“Really, Sasha, I'll—”

“Tessa, you can't carry everyone else's shit all the time. You just can't. You've got to leave a little bit of room for you. I'm already getting into the car.”

She ended the call, leaving me with no choice. Why does she have to be so fucking nice? The same reason she has always been so nice. She just is. This is why in normal circumstances consuming alfalfa beans and wine with Sasha,
then lying on a sofa chatting and farting, would be a great way to spend a Saturday. But ordinarily I hadn't just kissed her husband.

The café is tiny but we were early and Sasha had a table in the window overlooking a little triangle of shops. Sasha is a striking lady with Annie Lennox hair and figure. She wears narrow rectangular glasses which make her look trendy and intelligent all at the same time. In truth, she is more intelligent and less trendy than her glasses. Her somewhat sloppy dress sense is probably a good thing—if she were too finely turned out she'd be terrifying and when she's in a suit, I can't help but imagine a whip in her hand.

She has always come across as smooth to me; I don't mean smooth as in smarmy, I mean as in the absence of sharp corners. She is opinionated, as most of us are, but you won't find yourself impaled on her arguments; she doesn't charge at you as some people do. What Sasha does is walk slowly and steadily into conversational battle, somehow managing to deflect all incoming targets until she is standing in your corner with her flag dug firmly into the ground. I think it comes from the deep-seated confidence she possesses in her core. I don't know Sasha's family that well, but I have met her parents and her two younger brothers and they all possess it. I think it is the powerful combination of encouraged individualism and a strong family unit. She possesses every quality Ben needs. For this reason I could only ever rejoice in my friend's choice of wife.

Sasha gave me a big hug and passed me something green and zingy to drink. I drank it thirstily. Turned out something green and zingy was exactly what I needed. Sasha knew me well. I wanted to be the woman she knew. I didn't want to be the nervy, distracted, guilty woman who sat before her.

“Tell me what happened,” said Sasha. I presumed, since she was offering to buy me lunch, she was talking about Claudia losing her baby and not me kissing her husband. I enveloped myself in the memory. It wasn't hard to obliterate all other thoughts that way.