Sorrow and Bliss(39)
*
He and I were alone then. I sat on the side of the bath and told him to give up – it still looked like there had been a machinery accident and Winsome was probably going to have the tiles ripped up anyway.
Patrick came and sat down. I asked him if he’d been terrified, delivering a baby in circumstances like that.
He said it wasn’t the circumstances. ‘It was just because, I’ve seen a lot of births, obviously, but never,’ he said, you know, ‘done one.’
While we were talking, Winsome tapped the open door and, putting her head in, said it looked like the battlefield of a particularly bloody civil war. She told us there was a change of clothes waiting for each of us in different bathrooms, ‘and towels et cetera’ then said she needed to go and get rubber gloves and, with a sad look at the floor, ‘a rubbish bag for those ones,’ so recently her best.
*
I spent a long time in the shower and a long time changing into the clothes I found folded on a bathroom chair and a long time texting Ingrid, expecting no reply, before I finally went downstairs. Everyone was in the kitchen. The controlled mayhem Hamish had described was now absolute. My father and Rowland were having a conversation from opposite sides of the room, the subject of which I couldn’t grasp. It was clear that my father was upset and my uncle was irritated. The dogs were yelping and running in circles around Rowland’s ankles. Winsome was washing pots and Jessamine was putting plates into the dishwasher without being especially close to it, forcing them both to raise their voices further over the irregular clatter of china against china. Nicholas and Oliver were outside in the garden smoking. Periodically, Jessamine shouted at them to come and help. Each time, she tried to get the window above the sink open with her wet hands, then banged on it with her fist when she couldn’t. My mother was sitting Liza Minnelli direction on a kitchen chair, doing some sort of performance, regardless of the fact that no one except me was looking at her.
Patrick wasn’t there. I went up to Winsome, who told me I looked very fresh, and asked if she knew where he was. She said he had left; whither, she could not say.
I went in a taxi to his flat, not knowing if he would be there and not knowing what I would say if he was, but he was the only person I wanted to be with.
19
I ARRIVED, IN Winsome’s clothes. Patrick opened the door, still dressed as Rowland. He asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. I said yes and while we were waiting for the water to boil, I told him that I loved him. Patrick turned around and leaned against the counter, folded his arms loosely and asked me to marry him.
I said no. ‘I don’t mean it like that. I’m saying it because I don’t think we should spend as much time together as we were before you went away. I felt like your girlfriend and it’s not fair for me to be with you all of the time, because even if I was your girlfriend, it couldn’t go anywhere. Even though I do –’ I picked the edge of the table ‘– want to be with you, all the time.’
Patrick remained exactly as he was. ‘I want you to be with me all the time.’
The way he said it made me feel like my body was suddenly full of warm water.
In which case, he went on, ‘it seems quite straightforward.’
‘It isn’t though because I’m saying, I can’t marry you.’
He asked me why not. He did not seem perturbed, reaching around and tucking in the back of his shirt.
‘Because you want children and I don’t.’
‘How do you know I want children? We’ve never talked about it.’
‘You told me at the Tate that you always imagined yourself having children.’
‘That isn’t the same thing as actively wanting them.’
‘I just saw you deliver a baby, Patrick. It is obvious. You do, and I would be Sophie’s Choicing you because you can either marry me or be a father with someone else.’ I went on, so he would not say the thing I had been told so often by people who knew me and people who didn’t. ‘I won’t change my mind. I promise, I’m not going to and I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get to be a father.’
Patrick said, ‘Interesting, okay’ and went back to making the tea. He brought mine over and put it in front of me. He had taken the bag out because he knew with it in, I would feel like I was trying to drink out of the Ganges without getting any semi-submerged rubbish in my mouth.
I thanked him and he went back to where he was before. Leaning against the counter again, the folded arms. ‘The thing is, I will never change my mind about you.’ He said, he hadn’t read Sophie’s Choice but nevertheless, he understood the reference. ‘And this isn’t an impossible decision Martha. This is no decision. Whether or not I want children, I want you more.’
I just said, ‘Okay, well’ and touched the rim of my mug. It was strange, to be wanted so much. I said well again. ‘There’s also the issue of my predisposition.’
‘What predisposition?’
‘Towards insanity.’
He said, ‘Martha’ and for the first time sounded unhappy. I glanced up. ‘You’re not insane.’
‘Not presently. But you have seen me like that.’
That day in summer: he came to pick me up from Goldhawk Road at lunchtime. I was still in bed because my dreams had been grotesque and they had lingered like a physical presence in the room after I woke up, making me too afraid to move. I knew it was the beginning of something.