Page 10 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

‘New York?’ Anna repeated, making it a question.

‘New York,’ Deborah confirmed.

‘As in…’

‘As in the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, yes.’

‘As in Carrie Bradshaw and yellow cabs and massive pretzels?’

‘I don’t know how else to say it, Anna,’ Deborah said, a smile in her voice.

They were in a coffee shop in Soho, where Anna thought they’d come to talk about a new campaign she’d been planning.

‘But why me?’ Anna asked.

Deborah sat forward in her chair, drained her coffee, and fixed her steely gaze on Anna. ‘It’s a programme we run; anyone’s eligible to apply. I just think you’d be great for it. Or maybe it would be great for you.’

Anna remembered hearing about it when she’d first started.

Whispers of some people getting to go to New York for a year.

She’d ignored it; thought it was an urban myth.

Like the rumours about bosses sometimes letting you go home at lunchtime on Christmas Eve that had circulated at every single office she’d ever worked in.

She realised Deborah was still speaking and tuned back in.

‘He was so impressed with you when he came over. With the campaign for Wings of a Dove . He contacted me a while ago asking if I thought you might give it a go…’

Who? Was she talking about David? David had come over from the New York office in the spring and Anna had thought he was so handsome she’d found it hard to look directly at him, and had spent at least one full evening describing his face to Nia in graphic detail.

‘But what about…’

‘Your husband? I did say that might be a sticking point. We’d be able to get him a working visa, but I don’t know whether it’s something you’ve ever considered, the two of you. What is it he does again?’

‘He works for an investment bank,’ Anna said.

She was stunned. The whole time she’d been with Edward, it had been his career that had mattered the most. It was unspoken, understood.

He earned all that money, and she’d often thought that if he had to move with his career, she would go too.

But they were in London, so where would he possibly have to move to?

Nothing like this had ever come up. She thought about telling him, about asking him whether he’d be prepared to take a year so that she could…

what? Follow a dream? But it wasn’t even a dream of hers, was it, to go to New York?

It was somewhere she’d always wanted to go on holiday, but living and working there was something that had never entered her head before Deborah had suggested it .

‘I just don’t know,’ Anna said.

Deborah shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, you need to think about it. Talk to your husband. I certainly won’t be upset if you turn it down.

And of course, no one’s expecting a decision straight away.

I’ll get David to email you all the details.

He wanted to ask you himself, over the phone, but I persuaded him to let me do it. Anyway, shall we head back?’

Deborah stood up, all calm and composed, as if she hadn’t just put out a hand and rocked the boat of Anna’s life, which until then had been sailing on reasonably still waters.

Anna drained her coffee and stood up. Her legs were a little shaky.

She was glad they were only minutes away from the office.

It took all her composure to make small talk about the weekend with Deborah as they made their way back, and as soon as she was safely behind her desk, at her computer, she started typing a flustered email to Nia.

Just as she was about to hit send, she realised she hadn’t even told Edward yet.

She deleted the words on her screen, watching them disappear.

Then she picked up her mobile, slipped it into her pocket and left the office.

In the hallway that no one ever used, because it just led to the first aid room and a meeting room that had been locked for over a year, she dialled his number with shaking fingers.

‘Anna? Is everything okay?’ he asked.

She never called him during the day. Sometimes they sent each other messages, but they never spoke. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Do you have time to talk?’

He didn’t speak straight away and she knew that he was checking his watch. She heard him sigh. ‘I’ve got a call in five, but I’m fine until then.’

‘Okay. I just had coffee with Deborah and she asked me if I’d like to move to the New York office for a year.’

Silence. Then, ‘New York? ’

‘Yes!’

‘As in, Central Park and the Rockefeller Center?’

‘The very same.’

‘I don’t understand. Why?’

Anna had asked this question herself, but that didn’t stop her from wishing that Edward hadn’t. Couldn’t he conceive of her just being very good at her job, so good that someone from another office might want to offer her a role? Couldn’t he just believe in her?

‘It’s this thing the company run, and they think I might be a good candidate. I can fill you in later,’ she said, trying to keep her voice bright. ‘I just wanted to let you know. So you can, I don’t know, think about it.’

‘You mean you want us to consider this? Moving to New York? Me leaving my job?’

Anna was leaning against a wall. She sank down then, until she was sitting on the floor. ‘I thought we might,’ she said. ‘It’s just a year. And I mean, if you were offered this kind of opportunity, I think we’d consider it, wouldn’t we?’

‘But that’s completely different,’ he said. ‘I mean, unless they’re talking about significantly increasing your salary?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘No, there’s been no talk of that.’

‘No, I’m not surprised. What I mean is, I’m the main breadwinner, so if it was my job that was moving to New York, it would make more sense to give it serious consideration. Hang on, what happens if you say no? Is your job here safe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, there you go then,’ Edward said, as if the whole thing were settled. ‘Listen, I need to dial in to that call. We can talk about it more tonight, if you want to…’

He didn’t say that there wasn’t really any point, that he’d decided for both of them. He didn’t need to .

‘Okay,’ Anna said, holding back tears. ‘See you later.’

And even after he’d ended the call, and there was silence, she held the phone in her hand, because a part of her still believed that he would call back, that he would remember to say well done. To say I love you, and you’re brilliant, and well done.

That evening, by the time she heard Edward’s key in the door, Anna was standing in the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand.

She hadn’t stopped thinking all afternoon, hadn’t got any work done.

Part of it had been daydreaming about New York, but most of it hadn’t.

Most of it had been running over that phone call she’d had with Edward, and other conversations they’d had, and trying to come to some sort of decision.

‘Hey,’ he said, putting his head around the door.

‘Hi.’

‘I got held up, my meetings all ran on. And then Rav caught me just as I was trying to leave – can you believe his son is eighteen months old? He was asking if we want to sort out a weekend away with them. Anyway, what do you fancy doing for dinner? Shall we order something?’

‘I’m not really hungry,’ Anna said. ‘You go ahead.’

Was she waiting, to see if he brought it up, to see if he was taking it seriously? Or was she just putting it off, because she was a coward, and she knew this was going to come out of nowhere for him, and she didn’t know how to start?

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, reaching into the drawer where they kept takeaway menus.

‘I don’t think I am,’ she said. She pulled a chair out and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Can you sit for a minute?’

Edward pulled out the menu he’d been looking for. Chinese. He would order that prawn thing he always had. Would he, still, after what she had to say? He sat down, reached across the table for her hand. ‘Is this about the New York thing?’

‘Kind of. Did you think about it any more?’

‘Not really. I mean, it’s not really feasible, is it? I can’t just throw away my job and follow you to New York…’

Anna wondered, for a minute, whether he was jealous that it wasn’t him who’d had this offer. His company had New York offices.

‘I feel like you should have at least asked me some questions. Like whether I wanted to do it, whether it was important to me. I feel like you should have taken it seriously, not just dismissed it. I mean, you keep asking me to have a baby, and you expect me to take a year out of my career for that, and yet you’re not prepared to do the same, for me. ’

Edward dropped her hand. ‘What is this?’ he asked, an edge of anger in his voice. ‘Where is this coming from? You can’t compare a job opportunity to a baby!’

Anna took a sip of her wine. ‘When Deborah said it,’ she carried on, ‘I was so shocked. I mean, me? In New York? I was just a receptionist until a few years ago and now, suddenly, I’m someone who other people want in their publicity team.

I couldn’t believe it. But then I called you, and you couldn’t really believe it either, and that made me realise something. ’

Edward swallowed. ‘What?’

‘That you don’t believe in me at all. That you were hoping, after we got married, that I would give up work and have babies and…’

Edward stood up, his chair scraping across the tiles. ‘I did think we might have babies, yes! Is that so wrong? Is that so unusual?’

‘No, it isn’t. And you still want that, and I still don’t.

And now there’s this, and the thought of it is terrifying but in that good way, you know, like when your stomach’s in knots every time you think about something.

Like when you’re falling in love.’ Anna trailed off.

It wasn’t until then that it hit her. That it had been a long, long time since she’d felt anything like that when she thought about Edward.

‘What are you saying?’ Edward asked. ‘I didn’t realise how important it was to you…’

‘You didn’t ask.’

Edward was standing behind the chair he’d been sitting on, his hands balled into fists and pressing down on the back of it.

Anna kept her eyes on his hands. His wedding ring was a thick platinum band.

Hers was much narrower, white gold. They’d chosen them together, and Anna had asked whether he thought it mattered that the rings were nothing like each other, and Edward had said that of course it didn’t, that they were nothing like each other and they were still perfect together, weren’t they?

And right there in the shop, he had kissed her and she’d felt the whole world melt away, the way she always had.

She couldn’t look at his face. If she looked at his face, she would see how he felt about this.

He might be crying. Or worse, he might be just fine.

‘I’m going to go,’ Anna said. ‘To New York. It’s the kind of opportunity I won’t get again, I think, and I just want to give it a go.’

‘What about me?’ Edward asked.

She wanted to ask him not to make her say it.

Hadn’t she made it clear? Hadn’t he realised where this was going?

But that wasn’t fair. Just because this had been pushing its way to the forefront of her mind all day, all year, even, it didn’t mean his thoughts were keeping pace.

On their wedding day, when she’d sat on her bed for half an hour before getting up, asking herself over and over whether it was the right thing, perhaps he’d just been sure.

‘You’re going to stay here,’ Anna said. ‘You’re going to stay in your job, because it’s important to you.’

‘Anna, you’re my wife! That isn’t how it works. You don’t just have jobs thousands of miles away from each other. You find a way to be together, no matter what.’

Anna felt a tiredness like nothing she’d ever experienced. There would be so much to do, she thought, so many people to tell. There would be forms to fill in, explanations to be made. And yet. The fact that it was those things that she was focused on told her everything she needed to know.

‘It’s not working,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not.’

And she did look up and into his eyes then, and she couldn’t quite read them.

If he was sad, it wasn’t clear-cut. He was annoyed, she thought.

None of this had gone to plan. First she had said she didn’t want to have children, and now she was saying she didn’t want to be with him at all.

It was messy, it was difficult. It was a failure.

It didn’t fit with his idea of how his life should be.

She stood up and left the room, and he didn’t call her back, and she wouldn’t have gone if he had.

Upstairs, in their bedroom with the door closed, she called Nia.

‘I think I’m leaving Edward,’ she said.

‘Fuck.’

‘You were right. We don’t fit.’

‘Fuck.’

‘And there’s something else. I’ve been offered a placement in New York for a year.’

Anna heard Nia’s intake of breath, listened out for what she would say. ‘Christ. Congratulations! Do you want to go?’

‘Yes. I really do. ’

‘Wow. Big day.’

‘Can I come over? Can I bring some stuff, stay on your sofa?’

‘You can sleep in my bed,’ Nia said. ‘I’ll open a bottle of wine. See you in half an hour. If you’re not here, I’m coming to get you.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Anna said, taking a shaky breath.

She hung up. She opened her wardrobe door to pull a suitcase out, and in doing so, she caught a glimpse of her watch, of the date.

She sank down on the bed. Four years ago, they’d been cutting the cake, dancing under a mirror ball with a hundred pairs of eyes on them.

And now, four years to the very day since they’d promised to be together forever, it was over.