Perfectly Ordinary People(53)

‘Why?’

‘Yeah, why are you asking me this at . . .’ I checked the clock. ‘9.05 on Sunday morning?’

‘No reason,’ Dan said. ‘Just checking.’

‘OK . . .’ I said, doubtfully. ‘And would it be a problem if I wasn’t?’

‘Erm, yeah!’ Dan said, sounding sarcastic.

‘Erm, yeah?’ I repeated, copying his tone.

‘I just mean that it’s something I’d need to know. It’s something we’d have to discuss.’

‘OK then,’ I said, grasping the nettle. ‘Let’s discuss it.’

‘Really?’ Dan said. ‘Now? At 9.05 on Sunday morning?’

‘You started this discussion sweetheart. Anyway, it’s now 9.06.’

‘OK,’ Dan said. ‘I suppose now’s as good a time as any. So, yeah, I don’t want kids. Not yet I don’t, anyway.’

‘Not yet,’ I repeated. ‘Well, as it happens, I’m not pregnant, and even if I were, I’ve heard it can take a while before a baby pops out. Months, some people say!’

‘Nowhere near yet,’ Dan said.

‘Well, I’m thirty-three,’ I said. ‘So . . .’

‘And I’m thirty-six.’

‘Yeah, only your testicles don’t have an expiry date, do they?’

The discussion did not go well.

I wouldn’t say we exactly had an argument, and certainly it was nothing like that awful meal in Chinatown. But let’s say that it wasn’t the friendliest chat I’ve ever had. Not the friendliest chat at all.

Once it was over and we’d agreed to discuss it further once we’d both had time to ‘mull things over’, I asked Dan if we were still moving Buggles to his place for the fortnight. I’d bought a new carrier for him the day before. It was made out of cloth rather than hard plastic so was purportedly less traumatic for the cat.

In a way, my question about his plans may have been a strategic error, because it made something that had been definite become a choice.

‘Can we maybe have a rain check on that, then?’ Dan asked, the final ‘then’ emphasising the fact that I was the one to have made this optional.

‘Do you mean you just want to stay on here another week, or . . . ?’

‘The “or” part of that equation,’ Dan said. ‘Definitely the “or” bit.’

‘You’re going to your place, you mean? Alone?’

‘Yeah, I think I might. Just for a breather.’

Within an hour, Dan was gone, leaving me sitting on the sofa with my cat, struggling to work out what I was feeling.

Buggles purred as loudly as he had in a long time. He seemed quite happy about Dan’s departure and eventually, after half an hour or so, I had to admit to myself that my principal emotion was relief. Sure, the baby thing remained problematic, but it didn’t need to be dealt with immediately, after all.

On reflection, I managed to acknowledge that I’d been artificially stoking my resentment about Dan not being head over heels about wanting a kid. Because evidently he was supposed to be so totally smitten with me that nothing would please him more than tying himself to me for ever with a child.

But the truth was that I knew how Dan felt, because the idea of a baby made me feel panicky too. Biological clock or not, I didn’t feel ready to become a parent either, nor was I one hundred per cent certain that Dan was the right man to do it with.

Buggles abandoned me in favour of a tiny patch of sunshine on the armchair, a patch he tends to track throughout the day, and that made me think about how unhappy he would have been at Dan’s. That was a fact I’d known all along but had suppressed because it was inconvenient. Everyone knows how territorial cats are. Everyone knows you can’t just cart them around willy-nilly. What a silly, crazy idea that had been!

And while we’re on the subject of territoriality, I would have hated living at Dan’s place as well. If I’d wanted to live in a flat-share then I wouldn’t have crucified my finances with this mortgage, would I? I spent my days alone, at home, with Buggles and the never-ending slush pile. And that was exactly how I liked it.

I wondered what had got into me, into us, that we’d made so many bad decisions lately.

I made a cup of tea and stared out at the street for a while. And then, while sitting on the loo, I sent a text to Dan.

I said that I was sorry we’d got each other’s hackles up, but the truth was that I didn’t feel ready for a baby either.

And then I sent another one saying that the timeshare concept was pretty rubbish because neither of our flats was big enough. So could we please just go back to how things were before?

I was on the train out to Walthamstow when his answer came through.

It said, ‘I love you and I do want kids with you and I do want to live with you. But not like this and not right now. Are we OK with that?’

‘We’re OK,’ I replied. ‘We’re more than OK. We’re in love.’

He replied with ‘<3’ and, because I hadn’t come across a sideways love heart before, I assumed that he’d typed it by accident. Which is a shame because if I’d understood the message, it would have pleased me no end.



At Mum and Dad’s it was full house, meaning the ambience was basically mayhem.