Page 34 of The Life She Could Have Lived

YES

Anna took the Tube into town and headed for The Dog, where she was meeting Nia for lunch.

They hadn’t been able to do this while she was working at the school, and when she’d left, they’d agreed they would do it every other month.

When she got there, Nia was already sitting at their usual table with two drinks in front of her and she held one up to Anna, to show that she didn’t need to stop off at the bar.

‘Sausage sandwiches ordered,’ Nia said, by way of greeting.

‘You’re very efficient today,’ Anna said, leaning over and giving her friend a hug before sitting down.

Nia shrugged. ‘I’m starving. So what’s new? How’s the new business?’

‘It’s going well,’ Anna said. ‘But Edward isn’t being very supportive, so that’s annoying.’

‘Why not?’

Why wasn’t he? It wasn’t about money, she didn’t think. He earned enough to keep everything running and she’d hardly been earning a lot at the school library.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t get it. I want him to be happy and fulfilled and have the things he wants. But I’m not sure he feels the same way. Sometimes I think he’s still angry with me that we never had a third child. He never stopped wanting another one.’

Nia sipped her drink through a straw and kept her eyes on Anna, giving her permission to carry on.

‘You know, I was entirely consumed by motherhood for such a long time. I can’t even explain what it’s like, but I didn’t have the headspace for anything else.

And now I’ve emerged from that, the boys are a bit older and a bit more self-sufficient, and I feel like it’s my time.

Thomas is about to go to secondary school and it won’t be long before Sam is there, too.

But it takes a while to build anything up and at the moment I’m barely even covering the cost of the childcare – before and after school clubs, holiday clubs, all that.

And every now and then, my brain turns on me and I feel like maybe Edward was right all along.

Maybe I should have just stopped work when I became a mother.

Maybe I’ve been doing all this juggling for all these years for nothing. ’

Nia held up both her hands. ‘That’s a lot,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I just mean, let me process that for a minute.’

Kev came over just then with their sandwiches, and Nia grinned at him and took both plates from his outstretched hands.

‘Got everything you need, ladies?’ he asked.

‘Yes thanks,’ they chorused.

‘So,’ Nia said once she’d taken a big bite out of her sausage sandwich, ‘let me get this straight. You feel like Edward doesn’t really value your work, even though the freelance publicity stuff you’re doing now feels like it’s the right thing for you.

And sometimes you struggle to value it too, because of that. ’

Anna thought about that. ‘Yes. Do you remember when we were at school and I was always in competition with Max Ashwood over our marks in English? Do you know what he’s doing now? He’s a reporter for the Guardian .’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Facebook.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘I mean, they don’t tell you, do they, that you can do as well as you like at school, and you can go on to university, but if you want to have a family, which most people do, then you’re completely fucked?

You have to either take years out of your career, or wait until you’re more established to have your kids, by which point you might not be able to have them.

And all of that is assuming you meet the person you want to have children with at the right time in your life. ’

‘Anna, I agree with you, but you look like you might have a heart attack. Calm down.’

Anna took a deep breath and burst into tears.

‘Oh, Anna! I’m sorry, come here.’ Nia pulled her friend into her body, and Anna let herself be held. Sometimes, she thought, that was all she needed. It was a shame Edward never seemed to realise that.

‘I feel like I don’t know who I am,’ she muttered into Nia’s chest.

‘I know who you are,’ Nia whispered. ‘You’re my fierce and funny best friend. You’re someone who manages to juggle motherhood with a career…’

Anna snorted on this last word.

‘Oi, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re starting your own business, and that’s tough!

And like you said, it will take time to build.

You show your boys, every day, that it’s possible for women to work and be mothers and wives and have ambition and be compassionate, all at the same time. That’s an important lesson.’

‘Thank you,’ Anna said. She lifted her head and smiled a little. ‘You always say the right thing.’

‘I admire you, Anna, I really do. Sometimes I find it hard to manage my own life and you have everything on your plate that I have plus these two people who you made and who rely on you for everything. It’s pretty incredible, if you ask me.’

Anna shook her head. ‘It’s something millions of women do.’

‘And I think they’re all amazing, but we’re talking about you, Anna, not them. Brilliant, wonderful you.’

Anna felt tears start to prick at her eyes again. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she said.

‘Any change with your mum?’ Nia asked.

Anna shook her head. Her mum had lung cancer. Stage four. She’d been diagnosed a month before and Anna was struggling with it. They’d never been close, and her mum had never made much of an effort with her boys, but she was Anna’s mum, and she was dying.

‘I went up for the weekend, a couple of weeks ago. Just me, because we weren’t sure how she’d be feeling and whether seeing all of us would be too much.

She hasn’t started chemo yet so she feels okay, but I just thought there might have been a change in her, that it might have got her thinking about her life and who she loves and whether she regrets anything.

But she was just the same. Barely asked about the boys.

I asked if she wanted to talk about it, about dying, but she just shook her head, said she’d made her arrangements and that she’d send me an email with her funeral wishes in a few months.

It was so hard, being there. I wanted to scream.

And I wanted to comfort her too, you know, but she wouldn’t let me.

I guess why would she let me now? She’s still the same person. ’

Nia shook her head. ‘I just don’t understand her.’

Nia had grown up in a busy, happy family. She had two parents and three siblings. They fought and made up, but they were never cold. Anna had been on holiday with them a couple of times when they were teenagers, and it had been like peering into a different world.

‘Enough misery,’ Anna said. ‘Tell me about Aidan.’

Nia’s face lit up at the mention of his name, and Anna couldn’t help smiling.

Almost a year before, Anna and Nia had gone out for a night of drinking and dancing at a kitsch bar in Shoreditch, a proper chance to catch up, and Nia had met someone, met Aidan, almost as soon as they’d got there.

Anna had spent several hours with Aidan’s friend, Ben, talking about their children and their marriages (his was over) and watching Nia and Aidan move closer and closer to one another at the other end of the sofa.

‘I think this is it,’ Nia said. ‘At long last. I think he’s the one.’

‘One big love, one child,’ Anna said softly.

‘What?’

‘It’s what Magda predicted for you. Remember?’

‘Oh yes. Well, I might be a bit late for the child part. Back then, I thought it wasn’t much, what she said I’d have, but now, well, I think I’d settle for the love.’

‘Tell me about it?’ Anna asked. ‘The love, I mean.’

Nia smiled, lit up like a torch. ‘I want to be with him all the time. I miss him when I’m at work, or when he goes back to his flat for a night.

He’s going to move in; we decided last week.

And I can’t wait. When I leave the office, I spend the journey home thinking about the fact that I’ll get to spend the evening with him.

That we’ll cook together, or watch a film, and he’ll tell me about his day and I’ll tell him about mine.

It’s so simple, but I think I’ve been really lonely for a long time, and I only realised it when I wasn’t any more. ’

It was Anna’s turn to offer a hug. And Nia took it, but Anna could see that she wasn’t sad about the way things had been, she was just delighted at the way they’d turned around.

‘I’m sorry if I didn’t see it,’ Anna said. ‘If I didn’t try to include you when you were on your own.’

Nia waved a hand to dismiss this. ‘You always included me. The thing is, there’s nothing anyone can really do when you’re on your own like that, for a long time.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved joining you guys for Sunday lunches and coming with you on day trips, but sometimes it just reinforced what I didn’t have.

I’d get home and mope about because I knew you were all still there, being a family, and I was back on my own.

And I didn’t want to be jealous of you, but it was hard, sometimes. ’

Anna thought hard before asking her next question. She didn’t want Nia to think that she thought marriage and children were the only ways to have a happy, fulfilled life. But of course Nia knew she didn’t think that. Nia was well aware of the gaps in Anna’s life.

‘So what do you think the future holds for the two of you?’ Anna asked. ‘Beyond moving in, I mean.’

Nia’s eyes were bright, and Anna wondered for a moment whether she was close to tears or whether it was just happiness, making her sparkle.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. She held her hands up, as if to show that she had nothing in them.

‘He wants to get married and have children, all of that. But I don’t know whether we’re too old.

I’m forty-three. It’s okay for him, he could father a child in twenty years if he wanted to, but I might have missed my chance. ’

Anna didn’t say anything. What was there to say? It seemed cruel that Nia might not get to experience all the wonder and torture of motherhood.

‘I think we’ll get married,’ Nia went on. ‘I think we’ll definitely do that.’

Anna smiled. ‘I’m so glad,’ she said. ‘I’m so pleased you found him. That we went out that night. But I’m sorry about the children thing. I’m sorry you might not get to have that.’

Nia nodded. ‘I know you are. It really sucks to be a woman sometimes, doesn’t it?’

‘It does.’

‘You know,’ Nia said. ‘You can tell me if I’m crossing a line. But I sometimes think about that feeling you always said you were looking for, when we were younger. That feeling you had on the date with James. I’m not convinced you’ve ever had that, with Edward.’

Anna was taken aback. ‘We were just kids, Nia. What did I know about life?’

‘Well, yes, I get that. But what I have with Aidan, I’ve never had that before. It took me forty-three years to find it. So…’

‘So maybe I settled too soon?’

Nia grimaced. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying, Anna. Just that you don’t always seem that happy. And you don’t have to stick with something just because you made a promise a million years ago.’

‘Fourteen.’

‘What?’

‘Fourteen years ago. It’s our anniversary.’

Nia’s hands flew up to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry. Ignore me. I’m talking rubbish.’

Anna put a hand on Nia’s shoulder, to show that she wasn’t angry.

They’d both finished eating, and it was almost time to get back to work.

They took their plates up to the bar, as they always did.

Paid the bill. Kev thanked them and gave them a wink, said he’d see them again soon.

It was nice, Anna thought, to have a place in the middle of London where you could go and be known and welcomed like this, even if it was a fairly grotty pub.

‘We’ll be back soon,’ Nia said. ‘Best sausage sandwiches in London.’