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THE FIFTH SUMMER – 2015

Sophie had planned to speak to Tom on the last night of their trip. Partly because she hadn’t wanted to spoil the holiday – although in all honesty, the anxiety she felt had spoiled it a little already – partly because if it didn’t go well, they wouldn’t have to pretend. They could go home, have some space, work out what to do next.

But the anxiety that had been steadily building since she’d packed her case had become almost unbearable. She’d been functioning – playing the part of the Sophie she usually was. But clearly, acting wasn’t her forte.

‘Are you OK?’ Tom had asked her more than once. And, ‘Have I done something wrong?’

And she’d lied and said she was fine and tried to smile and enjoy some of their usual haunts. But her mood had affected them both and rather than being upbeat and humorous, Tom had fallen silent by her side as they’d traipsed the Latin quarter, walked the Champs-élysées.

Now, settled in a small restaurant for an early dinner, she could feel her secret – the question she wished she didn’t have to ask – build inside her. And she was pretty sure he could too.

‘For fuck’s sake, Sophie,’ he said at last, after she’d drained her white wine at record speed. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong?’

She looked at him, at his worried face, and glanced away. The quickly ingested wine made her head swim. Turning back towards him, she realised that none of her plans made sense. She’d been delaying the inevitable. ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said.

‘That’s obvious,’ he almost snapped. ‘You’re killing me, Soph. Just – whatever it is – tell me? Are you sick? Has something… happened? Is there someone else?’

She laughed, not sure whether it was humour or hysteria driving her. ‘Oh, Tom,’ she said. ‘Of course there’s not someone else. Have you seen how knackered I am these days? There’s barely enough energy for us, let alone…’ but she trailed off. His face remained serious. Her fault. ‘Sorry.’ She took a deep breath, fiddled with the stem of her wine glass.

And she told him. Not in the confusing, euphemism-drenched way of her mother. But clearly, precisely, biologically. Using facts and setting out her position. Trying not to give in to the wave of emotion that made her want to beg him to do this with her, to take this journey earlier with her than they might have planned. Because he had to want to. That was the whole point.

‘So, not ideal,’ she said, shrugging. ‘And I suppose I have to ask you – do you feel ready? I mean, do you think we can do this? Do you want to?’

‘Sophie, I?—’

‘Because you have to want to, Tom. Otherwise, you can wait. Maybe start again with… Look, I don’t have a choice. But you… well, you’ve got years and years.’

‘Listen, Soph?—’

‘And I would have told you, if I’d known. Before we’d married. Before a lot of it, really. You have to believe me. I haven’t kept?—’

‘Soph, will you shut the fuck up and actually let me speak?’ The expletive made her look. Not the word itself, but the way it was delivered – with a smile. A little amusement. Had he not understood?

His eyes were on hers. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Yes what?’

He shrugged. ‘Let’s have a family. Now.’

‘But Tom, we’re only… I mean we wanted to be together first, didn’t we? We wanted to explore and live our twenties, have adventures and?—’

He shrugged again. ‘I can’t think of a much greater adventure than creating a human or two, can you?’

‘Well, no…’

‘Besides,’ he reached his hand and grabbed hers, waited until her eyes met his and looked directly at her, seriously. ‘Soph, we have our whole lives ahead of us. So we have a baby early. There are advantages. They’ll be off our hands by the time we’re forty-five. We can live out all our adventures then!’

‘At forty-five? Isn’t that a bit… well, past it?’

‘Forty-five is the new thirty-five,’ he said, with another playful shrug. ‘I’m sure I’ve read that somewhere.’

She felt herself begin to smile. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Of course. Do I want to have lots of sex? Hell, yes. And do I want to make you happy? Hell, yes,’ he said, grinning. ‘And do I want to have a family with you?’ He paused. ‘I can’t think of anything that would make me happier.’

She stood then, almost knocking the glass and leant over the table to kiss him. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back slightly, laughing. ‘When I said we could get on with it, I didn’t mean we’d try right here in the restaurant!’ he joked.

A couple seated near them clearly overheard and glanced at her, half amused, half alarmed.

But she was so happy she didn’t care.

‘Thank you, Tom,’ she said, sinking back into her seat and feeling her body let go of the tension it had held for the last fortnight. And feeling something else come over her. An excitement, an urgency, the thrill of imagining a different sort of future – one full of possibilities, hope and life.

‘No, thank YOU,’ he said, taking a sip of his wine. The tension had left his face too; she should have told him from the start instead of putting him through the wringer.

‘What for?’

‘For loving me? For wanting to bear my hundreds of children?—’

‘Steady on!’

‘And,’ he said with a smile, ‘for getting my mum off my back. She’s been giving me grandmother hints for months!’