Sorrow and Bliss(20)

‘Not a baby – our baby. Can you imagine? My looks, your brains. How can you wait?’

‘I’m not waiting. I never want one. Neither do you.’

‘And yet, I just suggested it.’

‘You told me,’ I said his name because he wasn’t listening, ‘you told me the second time we met that you didn’t want children.’

He laughed. ‘I was front-running it, Martha, in case you turned out to be one of those women who is desperate for a –’ Jonathan interrupted himself. ‘Imagine a girl. Me with a daughter, a tribe of them actually. It would be phenomenal.’

Already and from then on, Jonathan was consumed by the idea, in the same way he would be if one of his university friends called to say they should go skiing in Japan ASAP or buy shares in a boat. He kicked the covers back and sprung off the bed, saying he was so convinced he could change my mind, he might as well put one in me now before he had to leave for the gym so that it was already underway by the time I did.

I laughed. He told me he was deadly serious, and went over to his wardrobes that looked like a stretch of mirrored wall.

My suitcases were in his way, open and empty but surrounded by the clothes that I had taken out the day I arrived and was still in the process of putting away. He asked me to take care of it while he was out because the whole area was starting to look like the square footage beneath a TK Maxx sale rail.

‘Have you ever seen inside a TK Maxx, Jonathan?’

‘I’ve heard tell.’

He opened the wardrobe doors and, as he was dressing said, ‘Apart from the risk of my daughter also being a slattern, you’d be a ravishing mother, ravishing.’ He jogged back to the bed, kissed me and said, ‘Fucking ravishing.’

Once he was gone, I went back into the en suite and started running the bath.





8

THE NIGHT I got engaged to Jonathan was also the night I found out, beside a row of commercial rubbish bins, that Patrick had been in love with me since 1994.

I had come down, hoping Ingrid might still be on the street. There was no one. I crossed over and stood under an awning, unready to go back upstairs. It was raining and water was sheeting off the sides and thundering onto the footpath. I had been there for a few minutes when Oliver and Patrick appeared out of the lobby. Seeing me, they bolted across and pressed in on either side. Oliver reached into his jacket pocket, took out a cigarette, lit it behind his hand and asked me what I was doing.

I said mindless breathing. He said ‘in that case’ and put the cigarette to my mouth. I inhaled and held in the smoke for as long as I could. Above the volume of the rain, Patrick said congratulations.

Oliver looked sideways at me. ‘Yes, bloody hell, that was quick work.’

I let go of the smoke and said yes, well. A taxi came around the corner and drove towards us, spraying water from puddles. Patrick said he’d actually come down to leave and might make a break for it. He turned his collar up and ran out.

Oliver took the cigarette back and I put my head on his shoulder, exhausted by the prospect of having to go back inside and talk to people.

He let me stand like that, then a moment later said, ‘So you’re sure about the getting married to Jonathan thing. He doesn’t seem especially –’

I lifted my head and frowned up at him. ‘Especially what?’

‘Especially your type.’

I said since he had known Jonathan for two and a half hours I wasn’t massively interested in his take on things. He offered the cigarette back and I accepted it, irritated by what he’d said, more at how sullen I’d sounded in reply.

Patrick had not stopped the taxi and was waiting for another one, unsheltered on the other side of the street. I smoked and stared ahead, aware that Oliver was observing me. After a minute he said, ‘So you’re clearly not with child then. In which case, what’s the rush?’

I began to say that I didn’t have any conflicting plans but stopped because acid was starting to come up my throat and then I was coughing.

After a series of painful swallows I said, ‘He loves me.’

Oliver took back the last inch of cigarette and with it in the corner of his mouth said, ‘Not the biggest newsflash though, is it? It’s been what, ten years?’

I asked him what he was talking about. ‘I’m talking about Jonathan.’

He said, ‘Shit, sorry. I thought you meant Patrick. I assumed you knew. Sensing now, you didn’t.’

I turned and looked at him properly. ‘Patrick does not love me Oliver, that’s ridiculous.’

He replied in the slow, over-articulated tone of someone trying to explain an obvious fact to a child. ‘Ah, yes he does. Martha.’

‘How do you know?’

‘How do you not know? Everyone else does.’

I asked him who everyone was in this instance.

‘All of us. Your family. My family. It’s Russell-Gilhawley lore.’

‘When did he tell you though?’

‘He didn’t need to.’

I said oh right. ‘So he’s never said so. You’re just guessing.’

He said no. ‘But it’s –’

‘Oliver, he’s basically my cousin. And I’m twenty-five. Patrick’s whatever, nineteen.’

‘Twenty-two. And he’s not, by any definition, your cousin.’