After the End(93)

“Nothing wrong, I hope?”

“Just a routine scan. I should have had one at twelve weeks, only I—” I break off. “Anyway, my twenty-week scan is this afternoon, so . . .” I gesture vaguely in the direction of the exit.

“You’re anxious, perhaps?” Lars scrutinises my face. “After losing your son? It must be . . . bittersweet—is that the word?”

Bittersweet. It is exactly right.

“Yes, that’s the word.”

“Perhaps we may talk as we walk?” He speaks English in a correct, almost old-fashioned way that makes me smile. We fall into step together, occasionally breaking apart to circumnavigate a stranded suitcase or a throng of passengers.

“So . . . what have you been up to?” I jump in with the small talk—anything to avoid talking about Joburg . . .

“Actually, I’ve been learning to cook.”

I stop walking and look at him. “Really?”

“Like you said—one day might never come. It’s two hours once a week, and I keep missing them because of work, so I can tell you how to make pastry, but not what to do with it, or how to make gravy, but not how to roast a chicken to go with it.”

I laugh. “Who else is on the course?”

“There are six of us. Four men and two women. One of the women thinks she’s a Cordon Bleu chef, and keeps telling the tutor how she does it.”

“Bet that goes down well.” We’ve reached the exit, and I stop walking. Lars turns to face me.

“Last time we met . . .”

Oh God, last time.

“. . . we talked about the countries we’d been to, how much we loved to see the world. When Jada said you were grounded, I thought you must be missing the travel.” He takes something from his pocket, and hands it to me.

It’s a postcard. A sunset, like the one we saw from the hotel restaurant in Joburg, only reflected in open water instead of a formal garden pool. Reds and oranges shimmer across a lagoon on which is moored a flat-bottomed boat with a tall mast.

“Thailand?”

“Cambodia.”

“It’s beautiful.” I turn to look at him. “Thank you. For this, and”—I hesitate—“for thinking of me.” We reach the exit and stop, awkward again. “Things are a bit . . . difficult at the moment.” I hope he won’t ask me to elaborate. He doesn’t. Instead he reaches again into his jacket pocket and pulls out a business card.

“My number. If you feel like a coffee, or a walk, or . . .” He shrugs. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you hardly know, isn’t it?”

I watch him walk back the way we came, his long legs making short work of the return journey. I think about how being at work is often more straightforward than being at home, and how much easier it can be to share confidences with hairdressers, dentists, taxi drivers, than with our loved ones. I think of Max meeting up with Blair after a lifetime in different countries—the years making them strangers—and how easy it must have been to fall into a friendship that quickly became more.

I think about all these things as I walk to the car park, and it’s only when I’m looking for my keys that I realise there’s writing on the other side of the postcard. In thick, confident strokes Lars has written:

    Cambodia, December 2015

Wish you were here.





* * *





I meet Max in the hospital car park.

“It’ll be easier,” I said, although we both knew that wasn’t the real reason. The maternity unit is next to the children’s hospital—I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to walk up to the door.

“You look great.” Max kisses my cheek. He holds my gaze for a second, and I feel so suddenly sad that we couldn’t make this work, and yet at the same time so certain that it’s over. “How are you feeling?”

“OK. Good.” I stop. “Nervous.”

“About the scan?”

“About . . .” I wave an arm towards the hospital. Max takes my hand.

“Me too. Come on.” We walk together, our eyes dead ahead, and we don’t stop until the doors slide open and we’re in the entrance to the maternity unit. I let out a breath. That was easier than I thought.

It is nothing like PICU. There are rows of women, stroking enormous bellies and—for the most part—looking perfectly content to be doing so. A heavily pregnant girl runs after an errant toddler, catching him by the play area and tickling him till he squeals with laughter. He’ll adore that new baby, I think. And then she’ll start crawling, and wanting big brother’s toys, and . . . I feel a tight pain in my chest.

“OK?” Max searches my face for concern.

“OK.” Stop doing that, Pip. It’s like picking a scab, or throwing stones at a bear. You know what’s going to happen, how it’s going to make you feel. I stop it. At the far end a nurse with a clipboard calls someone’s name. “Let’s sit over there.” I find a magazine and flick idly through the pages.

Max leans forward on his knees, picking at his fingers, working up to something that doesn’t surprise me when it comes. “I miss you.”

What can I say? What should I say? I miss him too, but that doesn’t change anything.