Page 26

25

THE SIXTH SUMMER – 2016

She zipped up the canvas pouch and added it to her suitcase. Thermometer, ovulation sticks, a little piece of rose quartz that some magazine had highlighted for its fertility-enhancing properties – she didn’t believe in all that, but there was nothing wrong with being thorough.

She didn’t hear Tom come up behind her, so she jumped when he slipped his arms around her. ‘Finished yet?’ he said.

‘Just packing the baby-making stuff,’ she said. ‘Don’t want to leave anything behind.’

He snorted. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m not going to leave my dick behind, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Tom!’ she snapped. Then calmed herself. He was only trying to make her laugh. ‘No, I mean the ovulation sticks. Don’t want to miss our window.’

He turned her around and shook his head, looking into her eyes. ‘Soph, we are not going to miss our window. I tell you what. We’ll have sex every couple of hours – surely that ought to do it!’ he grinned. ‘And it’s pretty much a win-win situation from where I’m standing.’

She reached and pushed back a random strand of his hair. Her Tom. Supremely confident that this – the next challenge of his life – would prove as easily surmountable as all the others that had come his way. Confident that all it would take would be their anniversary weekend at a posh hotel and bam! Baby on board. After almost twelve months of trying and failing. She’d love him to be right. But it was better to be sure – to give themselves the best chance.

‘Ha ha,’ she said. ‘As if you’d have the stamina.’ She smiled.

‘Anything for you, m’lady.’ He doffed an imaginary cap.

‘But it’s important, Tom,’ she said, the unease that had settled over her ever since they’d agreed that they were definitely ‘trying’ for a baby, spiking again. ‘People do all sorts of things, they take ages to get pregnant sometimes. I just think… well, this stuff exists, why not give us the best chance?’

He chuckled. ‘That’s what I love about you.’

‘My endless paranoia?’

‘Your preparedness.’

‘Doesn’t sound very sexy.’

He laughed again. ‘Oh, believe me, I love an organised woman.’

She allowed him to envelop her in his arms and rested her head on his chest, hearing the reassuring thrum of his heartbeat. It had only been a year. Lots of couples took longer than that to conceive. And when he held her in his arms, she felt she took on a bit of his optimism. That it would work. That things would turn out OK.

‘Not boring though?’ she asked, her self-doubt returning the minute he released her.

‘Never boring,’ he confirmed.

‘Even though we’re going to Paris – again.’

‘Even though. Paris is our place anyway, you said that. I reckon we should go for all our anniversaries.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘Then on our seventieth anniversary when we’re both – God – ninety-odd, we’ll climb up the Eiffel Tower and sling ourselves off together. A sort of romantic, low-carbon emission Thelma and Louise moment.’

‘That sounds… well, bloody awful.’

‘It does, doesn’t it.’ He smiled, still somehow pleased with himself. ‘It sounded better in my head.’

In actual fact, she’d worried he might have forgotten their anniversary. His work had become busy and, more often than not, in the evenings he’d fall asleep on the sofa. Like an old man, she’d tell him.

She was busy too, but settling more into her role and able to plan lessons more quickly than she had in the past, meaning she suddenly had more space in which to worry.

This time she’d been the one to book Paris, despite questioning whether it was too much to go yet again.

She’d laughed with surprise when he’d come home that evening and, dropping his work bag down the side of the sofa, had suggested, ‘Shall we book Paris for our anniversary after all? I need something to look forward to after this bloody project is finished!’

‘Already on it,’ she’d said grinning, and he’d raised an eyebrow.

‘Great.’ He walked over to her, wrapped his arms around her waist. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this,’ he said. ‘I honestly feel like Paris is where it might happen. You know. The baby.’

‘You do?’ It meant nothing, really, but the words gave her a frisson of hope all the same.

‘Why not? We can relax, do all the Paris things. And just think. One day we’ll be able to tell him or her that they were conceived in the most romantic city in the world.’

‘That would probably give them the ick.’

‘True.’ He kissed her. ‘But still. This is our time, Soph. I really feel that.’

‘Don’t jinx it!’

He laughed, easily, confidently. ‘You, Sophie Gardner, have got to drop this paranoia. You’re with me now. Nothing could go wrong.’

‘Well now you’ve really done it,’ she said, grimacing. ‘Tempting fate.’

‘Ah, fate, do your worst. You’re no match for Tom Gardner.’