Page 64 of Close to You

I didn’t want it – and now that I do, I can’t have it.

It’s been three months, which I know isn’t long enough to know for certain – except that, somehow, Idoknow. I can feel my body rejecting our attempts at making a baby. It’s telling me something that, perhaps, I knew all along.

‘I love you,’ David says.

‘I know.’

He crosses to the bed and sits at my side, stroking my hair. ‘I’d never let anyone hurt you.’

‘Stop.’

‘I’d kill for you. Do you know that?’

It’s a strange, mixed-up, almost clichéd thing to say. It’s supposed to convey a degree of romanticism, as if anyone would want that. But who would? It’s an incomprehensibly manic idea to love a person so much that killing someone else is somehow acceptable.

‘Why would you say that?’ I ask.

‘Because it’s true.’

For perhaps the first time in our relationship, I genuinely believe him.

The doorbell sounds three times in rapid succession and I jump to my feet, spurred on by the urgency.

‘Don’t go,’ David says.

He trails me all the way to the door and, when I open it, Ben is standing there.

‘How’s it going, Morgs?’ he asks.

‘It’s been worse.’

He glances past me towards David and then pushes the door wider. ‘Shall we go?’

I take a breath and then step outside, where the rain continues to lash: ‘Yes.’

Thirty

THE NOW

Toddlers are much like brides-to-be on a hen do at the end of the night. They stagger around in circles, babble nonsense, crave attention, and then fall over and burst into tears. They also sometimes vomit on themselves.

Jane’s daughter, Norah, is at the stage where she can generally walk around by herself, although she’s like a mini human bumper car. She bumbles around my living room bouncing off the sofa arms and coffee table, before setting herself right again.

Jane is on the sofa, nursing a cup of tea.

‘You saw David?’ I say.

‘Norah likes walking,’ she points to her daughter, who is seemingly trying to prove the point as she does a wobbly lap of the living room. ‘Well, sometimes. Other times, I’ll strap her into her buggy and she’ll refuse to get out for hours. She won’t sit on a chair, she’ll have to be wheeled into the living room in her buggy. Anyway, we were at Elizabeth Park and there was a bloke sitting at the edge of the pond by himself. I’d glanced away for one second – and then Norah was bumbling towards the pond.’

She gives thewhat can you do?sigh that only mothers can manage. I think there’s an acceptance that deep water is for jumping into; fire is for touching; anything with a danger sign can be ignored. Kids are like lemmings and it’s only parental reflexes that prevent the inevitable.

‘I had to rush to catch her and, when I got there, I looked up and the man on the bench was watching us.’ She gulps and then ends: ‘I could have sworn it was David.’

A week ago, I’d have known she was imagining it. Now, I’m not so certain.

‘How close were you?’

‘One side of the pond to the other. Not far. I started to go around there, but Norah was wriggling and, by the time I got halfway there, he’d gone.’