Page 8 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

Anna sent Edward a text as she walked from the Tube to the office.

Happy anniversary. Let’s celebrate when you’re home.

He wouldn’t get it for a while. It was still the early hours of the morning in New York. She slipped her phone into her bag and flashed her security pass to get into the building.

Deborah was already at her desk. It didn’t matter how early Anna got in, she never beat her boss.

However, she knew that Deborah noticed what time she got there, and how late she stayed, and she knew it wouldn’t do her any harm when a promotion opportunity came up.

Deborah equated working long hours with working hard, and Anna was happy to prove herself.

‘Coffee?’ she asked.

Deborah held up her cup to indicate that she already had one. ‘Come over to my desk once you’ve got yours and settled in. I want to talk to you about Wings .’

Anna made an instant coffee in the kitchen area.

Wings of a Dove was one of the first books she’d been really involved with.

It had come out in hardback last year and been a smash hit, and the paperback was due in a couple of weeks.

Anna had been working hard on it, and they’d secured reviews in some great magazines and newspapers.

She hoped whatever Deborah wanted to discuss, it wasn’t bad news.

She pulled her chair over and sat opposite Deborah, the desk between them. ‘So,’ she said. ‘ Wings ?’

‘Yes.’ Deborah finished typing something and fixed her gaze on Anna. ‘I want this book to go stratospheric, you know that. And you know there’s a tour of bookshops?’

Anna nodded. She had organised the bookshop tour. Liaising with the shop managers and with the author, Katy. Sorting out train tickets and accommodation.

‘I was planning to accompany her,’ Deborah said, ‘but my husband’s been on a waiting list for an operation on his foot and he’s got a date now and, long story short, I can’t do it. And I’d like you to go in my place.’

Anna widened her eyes. ‘Me? On the tour, with Katy?’

Deborah nodded. ‘It was you or Ellie, and I think you’ve really proven yourself lately. I’m confident that you can do an excellent job.’

Anna smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’d love to.’

Back at her desk, Anna started composing an email to Edward.

But what had seemed like such exciting news when she’d been at Deborah’s desk a couple of minutes ago suddenly lost its shimmer when she tried to explain it in writing.

Edward got to travel all over the place, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be impressed by her two-week trip around the country.

In fact, he was likely to say it was an inconvenience, or to ask if they were going to put her up in nice hotels, maybe suggest he could come and join her for a couple of nights if they were.

She deleted what she’d written and minimised her emails.

Then opened them up again. She’d tell Nia instead.

She fired off a quick, excited email and two minutes later, Nia responded.

Sounds great! Well done, Mrs. You rock. Fancy a celebratory lunch at The Dog?

Anna beamed, sent back a reply suggesting a time, and sat back in her chair, drinking her coffee.

Four hours later, Anna walked into The Dog, a fairly dingy pub that she and Nia had been frequenting for lunch for years, after discovering that it was pretty much exactly the midpoint between their offices.

They did great sausage sandwiches at a fraction of the price of the more upmarket cafés and bars in the area.

Plus, the landlord, Kev, knew their names and their order.

‘Usual, Anna?’ he asked. ‘Nia’s over there.’

Anna smiled. ‘Thanks, Kev.’

Nia was sitting next to the window, but she stood up when Anna walked over. ‘Congrats on the book tour!’

‘It’s not really a big deal,’ Anna said, failing to hide her grin.

‘It is a big deal,’ Nia said. ‘And it just goes to show that those long hours and all that hard work really pays off. What did Edward say?’

‘I haven’t told him. He’s in New York and’ – she glanced at her watch – ‘he’ll only just have woken up. Plus he goes on all these fancy trips. Mine’s to places like Sheffield and Watford.’

Anna laughed, but Nia furrowed her brow. ‘So what? He should still be happy for you.’

‘He will be, I’m sure. I’ll just… tell him when he’s home. ’

Kev brought their drinks over, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder. Lemonade for Anna, Diet Coke for Nia. ‘Sandwiches are on their way, ladies,’ he said. ‘Oh, and we’ve got a new lad on the pot wash. His name’s Jason.’

‘How old is he?’ Nia asked, while Anna looked on in amusement.

‘Seventeen.’

‘Ah okay, not for us. But thank you!’

They both laughed, Anna giving Nia a soft punch on the arm.

‘Is everything all right?’ Nia asked once the laughter had tailed off.

‘Sort of. I mean, yes. It’s just…’ Anna thought back to the conversation she’d had with Edward the night before he left for his work trip. How could she frame it, so Nia would understand?

‘It’s our anniversary today,’ she started. ‘Which means that it’s two years since he said he wanted to try for a baby. And it seems like everyone in our lives is announcing a pregnancy, and every time, I feel so tense…’

Nia raised her eyebrows. ‘No baby here,’ she said.

‘You know what I mean. Not everyone, but enough people. Last year, I told him that I wasn’t sure it was ever on the cards for us, but it’s like he doesn’t take it in.

He just keeps asking. Before he went to New York, he asked.

And when I said no, he asked whether I was ever going to change my mind. ’

Kev came over again then and placed a plate down in front of each of them.

White baguette, with halved sausages stuffed inside, grease dripping down the side of the bread.

Anna realised how hungry she was, realised she hadn’t had any breakfast, and thanked Kev enthusiastically. Nia waited while Anna took a big bite .

‘And what did you say?’ she asked eventually. Her voice had changed a little. She sounded worried.

‘I said I didn’t think I would. That I didn’t see myself having children. Ever. I think in the past I haven’t been clear enough. He needs it to be black and white.’

Nia said nothing, and Anna loved that her face didn’t twist into an expression of shock. That she just took Anna’s words and stored them away, that she understood.

‘And what did he say?’ Nia asked.

‘Well, he was upset. Angry. He really wants a family, Nia. And I was basically telling him that that won’t ever happen for us.’

For a few moments, they ate and drank in silence.

‘Do you know?’ Anna asked. ‘I mean, I know you’re not with someone right now, but do you know whether you want to have a child someday?’

‘No,’ Nia said. ‘I don’t have a clue. But Magda said I’d have one, remember? I trust her.’

They were thirty-two. When she’d been a teenager, Anna had imagined she would have children by now. Things had seemed more straightforward, more cut and dried. She’d never imagined this.

‘I don’t know whether I’m enough for him,’ Anna said.

‘Did he say that?’ Nia looked furious.

‘No, it’s just something I wonder about. He thought he was marrying me and children would follow, automatically. But what if we tried and we couldn’t, or what if we had one and it wasn’t how we imagined it?’

‘Or what if you just didn’t want to?’ Nia said softly.

‘Yes, or that.’ Anna’s voice was little more than a whisper now .

‘If he made that assumption without ever having a conversation with you about it, that’s not your fault.’

‘But it’s just what people do, isn’t it?’ Anna asked. ‘They have children. Almost everyone.’

‘It’s not the only path,’ Nia said. ‘It’s not the only thing you can choose.’

‘You’re right,’ Anna said, but inside, she wasn’t sure.

If they never had children, she thought, what else was there?

There was work. She loved her job, and she was good at it.

Deborah’s faith in her hadn’t come from nowhere.

There was each other. Lazy weekends and carefree holidays and dinners out and trips to the theatre.

That was all good, wasn’t it? That was the kind of thing her friends with babies said they missed, that they longed for.

She could have that, without it being a compromise.

It could be her normal. Was it enough, to fill a life?

Anna wasn’t sure she could talk about it any more.

She changed the subject, asked Nia to tell her something, and Nia launched into a story about her colleague who was going through a divorce and spent, according to Nia, at least 50 per cent of her working day doing things to express her anger at her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

‘This morning,’ Nia said, ‘she printed about a hundred of their wedding photos off on the office printer. Full colour, the works. Then she sat there at her desk, cutting his face out of them. Humming. When the boss came prowling round to check up on us, I had to create a diversion so she could get all the photos off her desk. I had to pretend I had an Excel question. He bloody loves Excel questions, he thinks he’s the only person in the world who knows how to use it, so he was in his element.

Leaning over my desk and breathing all over me.

And all the time, I could see Ellen out of the corner of my eye and she was checking the printer and sweeping masses of paper straight off her desk and into a drawer and I could see that there were two little husband heads on the floor but I couldn’t alert her to it without Mr Excel noticing.

‘So after he’d finished showing me how to insert a row or some such thing, he went over to her and he bent down to pick up one of the husband heads and I felt like everything was changing to slow motion and I saw her noticing and her face falling and I had to do something, because last time, when he caught her making one of those ransom note things using letters from different newspapers telling him exactly what she thought of him – the ex, not the boss – he said she was on her last warning, and I could tell he meant it.

So I launched myself out of my seat and took the husband head out of his hand and said it was mine and I must have dropped it, and they both stared at me for ages until I said that I was on a dating website and I liked to carry pictures of my next date around with me so I could work out whether I was interested.

And we all looked down at this tiny picture of Ellen’s husband, who’s about fifty and has a porn-star moustache, and then the boss slunk off back to his office without saying anything else.

And then – get this – later, Ellen came up to me and asked if I was really going on a date with her husband. Tears in her eyes and everything!’

Anna laughed. She loved Nia’s work stories, even though she suspected they were massively embellished. She’d met Ellen and Nia’s boss in the pub a couple of times and they both seemed quite normal to her.

Before she knew it, it was time to go back to work. At the door of the pub, Nia wrapped her in a hug and kissed her cheek.

‘Happy anniversary,’ she said. ‘What were we doing this time two years ago?’

Anna looked at her watch. One thirty. ‘Photos?’ she said, unsure .

‘God, you looked amazing.’

‘So did you.’

‘You know, you said earlier that you might not be enough for Edward. But I think the question is more whether he’s enough for you,’ Nia said.

Anna was surprised. She looked at her friend, and Nia met her gaze and didn’t smile or frown. Just showed that she was serious.

‘I’ve always felt lucky to be with him,’ Anna said. ‘He has this great career and he looks like he should be modelling suits or something. I’ve always wondered why he chose me.’

Nia rolled her eyes. ‘You’re the shit. He’s the lucky one.’

Anna tipped her head to one side slightly, as if it might help her see the world, and her relationship, a different way.

Was Nia right? Was Edward lucky to have her?

Nia started walking away. They never said goodbye.

It was a thing of Nia’s, that every meeting was just a continuation of the last. All the way back to the office, Anna tried to make herself see things the way Nia saw them.