Page 19 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

Anna’s phone rang when she was walking from the subway to the office. Nia.

‘Hey.’

‘Anna,’ Nia said, her voice little more than a whisper.

Anna stopped walking, moved to the side of the street. ‘What’s happened? Are you okay?’

‘Anna, everything is so fucked up, Jamie’s gone and?—’

‘Jamie’s gone?’

‘We had this massive argument. You know I thought he was cheating?’

‘No!’

‘Oh, I thought I told you.’

I thought I told you . It was like a punch. If she’d been there, in London, Nia would have told her. They would have dissected it all a hundred times.

‘Was he? Cheating? Is he?’

‘I don’t know. I don’ t think so. I went to see Magda.’

Anna was twenty-two again for a moment, drinking cheap wine in Nia’s parents’ kitchen, her mind on James. Jamie. How strange, Anna thought, that both of them had asked Magda for guidance regarding this same man. And Nia didn’t know that.

‘And?’

‘She said she didn’t think I had anything to worry about, but I couldn’t believe it. He was coming home late, all those things.’

‘Maybe he was working,’ Anna said.

‘That’s what he said.’

‘But you don’t believe him?’

Nia was sobbing again. Anna waited, wishing she was there and could put her arms around her friend, look her in the eyes and try to make her laugh through her tears. It was never the same on the phone. They pretended it was, but it wasn’t.

‘Why wouldn’t he cheat?’ Nia burst out. ‘Since I had Cara, I’m so different. I’m boring, I’m fat, I have nothing interesting to say…’

‘Nia, none of those things are true.’

‘You don’t know, Anna. You’re not here.’

Anna didn’t know what to say. And then she did. ‘Shall I come? If you need me, Nia, I’ll come.’

Nia wailed. When she was upset, she couldn’t cope with people being nice to her. Anna knew this. But still, she wasn’t going to retract the offer. She meant it.

‘Don’t come,’ Nia said through sobs. ‘But thank you for offering to come. And stop being so nice to me, you bitch.’

Anna laughed, and it made her realise that she was close to tears herself. On that manic knifepoint where you’re a second away from all the emotions.

‘Nia, I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding. Jamie adores you.’

‘How do you know?’

How did she know? It was a feeling, more than anything.

She’d only seen them together on that trip back to London just after Cara was born, but it had just been so clear.

That was what had made it easy to push the James fantasy to the back of her mind.

Here he was, this man she thought might have been perfect for her, so clearly perfect for her best friend.

‘I just know,’ she said. ‘I could tell when I was there, and I can tell when you talk about him. I mean, isn’t this the first argument you’ve had?’

Nia was quiet. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Has he really left?’ Anna said it quietly, scared to set Nia off again.

‘He’s gone to a friend’s for a couple of nights. He said he needed some time.’

‘Because you didn’t trust him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you went to see Magda?’

‘He doesn’t know about that. But he does know that I went through his phone.’

‘Oh, Nia.’

Anna hated to think of her friend, worried and sad.

‘I’m so fucking scared of losing him,’ Nia said.

Anna wanted to reassure Nia that she wouldn’t, but she bit the words back. She couldn’t know, could she?

‘Tell him that,’ she said instead. ‘I bet he needs to hear that.’

‘Okay.’

‘How’s Cara?’

‘Perfect. Sleeping. It’ll be a different story in an hour.’

‘Send me pictures, please.’

‘I always think I send too many pictures, that everyone will think I have nothing else going on in my life. Which I don’t.’

‘Nia, why are you being so down on yourself? You’ve been a mum for just over a year. It’s a massive adjustment. Give yourself a break.’

‘My world is just so small, Anna. I go to work some days, and other days I’m at home with Cara, and we go to baby groups or swimming lessons or for a walk to the bloody supermarket.

Sometimes I find myself telling Jamie a story about buying baked beans and I sort of catch myself and wonder who the hell I am. ’

Anna didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t hers, this life that Nia described. It might have been, but it wasn’t. And she didn’t know how to reassure her friend when she’d never been in that world.

‘What about work? Are things okay there?’

‘Well, Ellen’s menopause is causing a fair few problems.’

Anna laughed, couldn’t help it. ‘Tell me more.’

‘She won’t stop going on about it. Calls it “the change”.

Says it in one of those stage whispers that are louder than her normal speaking voice.

She has about five hundred hot flushes a day and every time she rushes out to the toilets for ten minutes, and I have to cover for her when the boss comes out of his office to poke around, which is basically every single time.

I think he thinks she has some serious digestive issues. ’

‘I wonder who covers for her on the days you’re not in.’

‘God knows. Last week, she came back in from the toilet while he was standing by my desk. She was fanning herself with a leaflet for printer ink and when she saw him, she started mumbling all this stuff about her body going through some things. He went as red as that time I was throwing a tampon across the office to Ellen – before “the change”, obviously – and he was walking past and it hit him in the chest. Scuttled off, didn’t come out again for a good hour. ’

Anna could hear the laughter in Nia’s voice. It felt good, to hear it.

‘Nia, I love you,’ she said. ‘I just want you to know. I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t think Jamie is either. I know you feel a bit lost right now, but you won’t always. And I know I’m far away, but I can come. Don’t forget that.’

Nia was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke, Anna could tell that she was trying to hold her voice steady. ‘Thank you, Anna. I just bloody miss you. When you’ve finished having the time of your life out there, come home, will you? There are people here waiting for you.’

They ended the call, and Anna finished the short walk to her office.

Sometimes, when she spoke to Nia, it made her question what she was doing all these miles away from her life.

And then she remembered that that was part of her life, and this was part of her life, too.

This huge lobby. This shiny lift that carried her up twelve floors to the space where her cubicle was.

Her plants, her stack of books, her mess of Post-it notes and to-do lists.

Her job that she loved. She wasn’t really concentrating as she got out of the lift and started to cross the floor to her desk.

And then somehow she collided with a woman carrying a stack of photocopies.

‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ Anna said, bending down to pick them up.

The woman was tall with a mass of dark curls. Anna’s age, more or less. She bent down too. ‘No problem,’ she said lightly.

Anna gathered most of the paper together and picked it up. ‘Do they need sorting or is it all single pages?’

The woman winced. ‘It’s twenty sets of twenty pages. For an acquisitions meeting,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry. I’ve got’ – she looked at her watch – ‘ten minutes.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Anna said, ushering her into an empty meeting room. ‘It’s the least I can do. ’

They worked side by side, standing in front of a big desk.

‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ Anna said. ‘Are you new?’

‘First day,’ the woman said. ‘Got here early and asked if there was anything useful I could do. I’m Sarah, I’m on the publicity team.’

Anna had forgotten someone new was starting. The early morning conversation with Nia had thrown her off a bit. Her head was in London.

‘Same team,’ she said, smiling. ‘Anna.’

‘Ah, Anna. David talked about you. Sounded like you’re his number one publicist.’

Anna felt her face redden. She didn’t know what to say to that. She looked down at the paper they were sorting.

‘Thank Christ the pages were numbered, right?’ Anna said, and Sarah smiled.

There was a warmth about her, Anna thought. She liked it. She could imagine them becoming friends.

‘Do you live in Manhattan?’ she asked.

Sarah shook her head. ‘Brooklyn.’

‘Oh, me too.’

‘But you’re from…’

‘London,’ Anna said. ‘Over here for a few years. Or forever, I don’t know.’

‘Are you married?’ Sarah asked.

‘No. I was, back home. But then it fell apart and that’s when I came here. Are you?’

Anna loved this back and forth, this getting to know a new person. She was never sure how far to push it, what was okay to ask, so she was glad Sarah was asking just as many questions as she was.

‘I’ve had a girlfriend for a while, but I don’t think it’s a forever thing. I’m not sure that’s for me. ’

‘What about kids?’ Anna asked.

Straight away, she wished she could take it back. She hated it when people asked her. Do you have kids? Do you want them? Everybody wanting to know the whens and wheres and hows.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s?—’

‘I don’t mind,’ Sarah said, shrugging. ‘I don’t have any. I don’t think I will.’

‘I don’t have any either,’ Anna said.

It felt good to say it to someone who you were sure wasn’t going to judge you. Over the years, Anna had been asked and asked, and she’d never quite found the right way to say that it was none of the other person’s business, or found a concise way of saying why she wasn’t a mum.

The sorting was finished. Anna lifted the pile and handed it to Sarah.

‘I really am sorry about that,’ she said.

And Sarah waved her hand as if to say that it was nothing. When they were leaving the meeting room, Sarah turned to her.

‘Listen, shall we get a drink one night after work?’

Anna smiled and nodded. ‘That sounds good. Maybe next week?’

‘Great.’

David was standing by Anna’s desk. ‘Oh good, you two have met. That saves me a job. Anyone need a coffee?’