The Two Week Wait (21 page)

Lou helps him. ‘ . . . Not that well paid?’

‘Mm.’

‘To be honest, I’ve been so taken aback by all that’s happened over the last few months, I’d only got as far as thinking money wouldn’t – and shouldn’t
– deter me. The timing is so crucial, I just thought, I’ll bloody well make it work. I hope that doesn’t sound irresponsible. I just find sometimes when people say, “I
can’t afford to have a child,” what they may mean is, ‘I’m too selfish.” Not that having a child isn’t selfish in some ways too. But my parents didn’t have
much money when my sister and I were young; they got by because they had to.’

‘But you’d have to take some time off work, surely?’

‘Of course. The last thing I want is to be like one of those high-flying executives, back at work forty-eight hours after labour. I am entitled to some maternity pay, and obviously I
couldn’t commute with a baby.’ She looks at him. ‘Why, what are your thoughts?’

‘Oh, mixed, really. I want to be involved, obviously, too . . . But my job is pretty important to me, I guess – sorry, not that yours isn’t, but it’s a big shift to be
making, and like you say, it’s all so fast. Part of me thinks it’d be good for me to split the care with you fifty-fifty, part of me isn’t so sure I’d be happy – or
even able to. And then I think, oh honestly, Adam, don’t be such a cliché, there’s more that defines you as a person than your job, it’s so typically macho to feel that way
. . . And then I say to myself, well come on, Adam, Lou probably earns less than you, it makes sense for you to be the one still working if need be for a while, perhaps you could help support her .
. . But then I worry about divvying up things in such a traditional way; I don’t want to end up with you and me having stereotypical roles . . . One of my whole reasons for wanting a baby is
to do it differently. See what I mean? To say I’m in two minds is an understatement.’

Lou smiles. We’re both safeguarding our respective worlds, she thinks. There’s me not wanting to give away too much physically, here’s Adam not wanting to give away too much
emotionally or financially. We are both testing, questioning. Which is not surprising: this is all so uncharted and we’re still getting to know one another.

‘You don’t have to work it all out on your own, you know,’ she says.

‘Sorry?’

‘We can work it out together
.
’ Lou can sense this is not the way he is used to doing things. ‘I think in the end, it’s quite simple. We must remember this
isn’t about you, or me, ultimately. There’s one person who is more important than either of us. Our baby. Let’s remember what we said about producing a happy person. I don’t
want to be naive, but if we focus on that, hopefully we can find a way that makes both of us happy, too.’

*  *  *

‘Hello?’ Rich calls, stepping over the threshold.

The lights are blazing downstairs, but there’s no sign of Cath. He feels a draught coming down the hall – the back door is open. That’s odd, he thinks, it’s nearly
midnight. Why would she be outside? Alarmed, he heads into the garden.

‘Cath?’

‘I’m in here.’ She emerges from the shed onto the lawn. A triangle of light from inside illuminates her in the darkness: she appears covered in dirt, her hair is wild.

‘Good Lord, what are you doing?’

‘Tidying,’ she says, as if he’s a fool for asking.

‘Love, it’s very late.’

‘I know, but I’ve been as quiet as quiet can be. I was going to cut back the creeper, then I came in here, and God, Rich, you left it in complete chaos. I could hardly get through
the door.’

‘Sorry.’ Rich feels a twinge of guilt. Once he’d started piling things in, doing otherwise was impossible. ‘Isn’t it a little odd to be doing this, um, now . . .
?’

‘I suppose . . . Though you know me. I’m crap at waiting. And once I got going . . . ’ She drops her hands, exasperated. ‘I had to do
something
. Anyway, I’ll
stop in a sec. But first, come and see.’

Rich is intrigued, but concerned. He’s seen his wife like this once before.

A few months after she finished chemo, he watched her behaviour grow increasingly erratic: at first she was just a bit hyper, then she was unable to sleep; eventually she grew so manic she was
ironing at 3 a.m., getting up and going for runs – runs? Cath? – at the crack of dawn. It was when she spent twenty-four hours straight stripping woodchip from the bathroom walls he
became convinced something really serious was amiss. But no matter how vehemently he’d told her to slow down, she wouldn’t, until one day she crashed, like a moth drawn to a fatal
flame. After that she spent three weeks refusing to get out of bed and weeping, until he finally persuaded her to go back to their GP, who diagnosed post-traumatic stress. With hindsight, the
timing should have been a giveaway; she’d used every ounce of her mental strength to get through the cancer diagnosis and treatment. When she was out the other side, it was as if her brain
finally caught up with her body and folded in protest, and she succumbed to the depression she’d been suppressing so long. He prays they’re not heading down the same path again.

She tugs his arm, pulling him back to the present. He knows she won’t rest till he’s admired her handiwork.

He’d forgotten how big the shed is; the space looks vast. But what startles him most is something else entirely: lined carefully along the shelves are dozens of pots. He realizes at once
they are Cath’s – her parents have quite a display. But he’s seen nothing resembling this. These pieces are so striking he’s sure he’d remember if he had. There are
tall, thin porcelain vases, ghostly silhouettes of white against the dark of the shed walls. There are delicate cups etched with leaves and flowers, and plates so slender they’re almost
translucent, decorated by a simple contrasting texture. There are teapots and jugs in shapes so pleasing it seems hard to believe they’ve been fashioned by just one pair of hands, and giant
fruit bowls in the palest of grey, woven like cobwebs. En masse, even in the dim light of a 40-watt bulb, they are breathtaking.

It takes Rich a moment to find his voice. Seeing this collection is like seeing a whole new side to his wife.

‘Why did you never show me these?’ he asks. ‘They’re amazing.’

Cath shakes her head as if she doesn’t know herself. ‘They’re the last things I made,’ she says. ‘Before I stopped.’

Together they stand there, looking.

Lou is in the staffroom. Opposite her is Shirley, the Head, forking the contents of her plastic lunchbox into her mouth while she talks about the last day of term. But
Lou’s had a thumping headache all morning and is finding it difficult to concentrate. Presumably it’s the medication – she woke repeatedly in the night pouring with sweat. She
could miss vital information; she should say she is feeling unwell. It’s just the two of them, an opportunity to bring her boss up to speed, yet Lou is worried she’ll need time off in
the future and doesn’t want to try Shirley’s patience. All the staff are under enough pressure as it is; the pupils are demanding and funding is tight. If she can just make it through
to the holidays, by September she’ll know if she’s pregnant. Most women hold off on telling their employers at least that long, why should she be an exception?

The door opens. It’s Brian, the maths teacher. ‘Budge up.’ He wants a space at the table. There’s a waft of peanut butter – Brian’s favourite – as he
unwraps his sandwiches from their silver foil. The smell is a fast track to Lou’s childhood.

*

‘
Pea-Mite
,’ her father is saying. ‘That’s what I call it.’

‘Goodness, Frank, how disgusting,’ says her mother.

Lou’s sister, Georgia, pulls apart the white bread and wrinkles her nose at the brown smears. ‘Ew.’ She discards the sandwich, reaching instead for the ham ones Irene has
prepared.

‘Mm . . . delicious,’ says Frank, pointedly. ‘Can I tempt you, Louloubelle?’ He holds out a triangle, winks in camaraderie.

‘OK.’ Lou reaches across the picnic rug, takes a bite. She can appreciate why he likes it; the yeasty tang of Marmite combined with the sweetness of peanut butter is strangely
appealing, and she’s enjoying the fact that her father has made his own lunch in defiance of his wife. Her mother is a perfectly adequate cook, but never experimental.

Lou finishes the sandwich, takes a pack of Chipsticks and sits on the rug, legs crossed, the sound of crunching filling her ears, looking out over the tall grasses. Next to her Georgia is lying
on her tummy, reading a photo love story in
My Guy
magazine, riveted. Not far away two boys close to Lou’s age are playing football on a stretch of lawn; a man she supposes must be the
father of one is in goal.

They’re not bad, she thinks, watching them tackle one another, and wanders over to take a closer look, trying to appear nonchalant. She stands there, breeze against her bare legs, on the
edge of the pitch, eyes scrunched up against the sun.

‘Hey! You wanna join us?’ shouts one of the lads.

Lou thinks they mean someone else: turns, looks behind her. No; it’s her they’re asking.

‘Oh, yes,’ she says. She likes football but rarely gets the chance to play. At school she is only ever offered netball and hockey in winter, tennis in summer, and there’s no
way Georgia would kick about with her.

‘Great, we can play Wembley then,’ says the boy. ‘Dad, you stay in goal.’

‘Er . . . I don’t know the rules,’ says Lou.

‘You don’t know Wembley?’ says the boy.

Lou tries not to mind his scorn.

‘It’s easy,’ says the dad. ‘It’s just a knockout game. Each of you tries to score while stopping the others.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Pretty much. If you don’t beat them to it, you wait on the side while the other two continue.’

Lou doesn’t need more detail and before he has the chance to stop her, she’s scooped the ball from between the feet of the scathing boy. She dribbles it down the field and
THWACK!
into the goal.

‘You could wait for me to get back,’ protests the dad, laughing, and pants to his place between two jumpers.

Three games and two wins later, Lou has proved her point: she might not know the right names, but she’s no pushover.

After a while her father gets up and comes to watch.

‘Want to join in too?’ asks the other dad.

‘Nah, you’re all right.’ Frank smokes heavily: running around isn’t easy. Although he stays on the sidelines and doesn’t say much, Lou can sense him cheering her
on.

Eventually, they call time. While the two boys and the man gather up their things, Lou returns to the rug and flops down exhausted next to her sister to cool off.

‘Not too near to me,’ says Georgia, who remains immersed in her magazine. ‘You’re all sweaty.’

Lou is still lying on her back, face pink, T-shirt and shorts drying off, when the three of them walk past.

‘He’s good, your son,’ says the man.

‘Who, Lou?’ says Lou’s father.

‘Yes. He play for anyone?’

‘Um, no.’

‘You should get him to trial for Hitchin Tigers. These two both play, don’t you?’

The boys nod.

‘He’s just as good as them. Really fast, too.’

‘Right,’ says Lou’s dad.

Lou catches her mother frowning.

After they’ve gone Frank turns to his daughter. ‘I didn’t know you could play footie like that.’

Lou is chuffed; she can tell he is proud. ‘Do you think I could try for the Tigers then, Dad?’

‘What do you want to play for the Tigers for?’ asks Georgia.

‘I daresay we could look into it,’ says Lou’s dad.

Irene tuts. ‘Oh Frank, of course she can’t.’ She looks at her daughter. Lou can feel her appraisal, head to toe. ‘He thought she was a
boy.
’

Georgia sniggers.

It’s as if Lou has been smacked. No matter how hard she tries, it seems she can never impress her mother.

*

The staffroom isn’t cold, but Lou shudders.

Never mind telling Shirley what she’s embarking on; if she does conceive, she’ll have to let her mother know she’s going to have another grandchild.

Georgia’s offspring are Irene’s pride and joy: she sees them all the time. But her sister has chosen a conventional route to parenthood – she married her husband, Howard, a
financial consultant, at twenty-four, and they live in one of the most sought-after properties in a smart village nearby. They drive a huge new VW, go to posh dinner parties, and these days
Georgia, like her mother, reads a newspaper Lou wouldn’t give houseroom to.

So how will Irene react to Lou’s co-parenting plans? She’d like to give her mother the benefit of the doubt, and lately they have been striving to understand one another better.
Irene will like the fact that Adam’s a doctor, surely, yet the set-up is bound to throw her. She’ll worry about money, Lou’s work, what other people will say, what she will say to
other people. In short, even if she tries to mask it, Irene will be critical; when it comes to Lou, it’s her default position.

*  *  *

The phone rings in the hall; it’s Peter, Cath’s father.

‘I’m afraid Cath’s in the bath,’ Rich tells him, knowing it’s his wife Peter will want to chat to. ‘Shall I get her to call you back?’

‘Er, yes,’ says Peter. ‘Though actually, while you’re on the line, how’s she doing, do you reckon?’

‘Oh. Good . . . ’ Rich moves into the kitchen so he’s out of earshot. ‘She should be starting medication shortly—’ He stops, remembering the conversation with
Sukey and Mike. He’s rapidly learning that Sukey isn’t the only one who seems to feel entitled to express her opinions on egg donation – only the day before a colleague made his
hackles rise. ‘For her the drugs are relatively mild.’ He casts a veil over the fact that Cath will have to have scans to monitor how the lining of her uterus is developing. Cath may be
Peter’s daughter, but he’s an old-fashioned man.

‘So how long does she do that for?’

‘Depends on how the donor responds, but two weeks, roughly.’ Rich looks out at the garden. Everything is trimmed and tied back and tidied away. The waiting is excruciating for Cath,
so the house is unnervingly pristine too, but he doesn’t want to alarm Judy and Peter. They’ve been through enough as it is. Rich is conscious he and Cath should be looking after them
these days, not the other way around. Instead of voicing concern he says, ‘After that we’ll have to go back to the clinic.’