Sorrow and Bliss(54)

Patrick found us somewhere to sit down. He said I should go to the doctor again as soon as we got back to Oxford in case it wasn’t just a virus. I said it was and, since it hadn’t made me vomit before, clearly that was a separate, psychosomatic reaction to the fact that we looked so much like tourists because of his backpack.

I was pregnant. I had known for a fortnight and hadn’t told him. The doctor who had confirmed it said no idea to the question of how it had happened with the implant still in my arm. ‘Nothing’s foolproof. Anyway, five weeks, by my maths.’

Patrick stood up and said, ‘Let’s go back to the hotel. You can go to bed and I’ll change our flights.’

I let him pull me up. ‘But you wanted to see that bridge. The Ponte de whatever it is.’

He said, ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll come back.’

The walk to the hotel led us to it anyway. Patrick got out his guidebook and read from a page that had the corner turned down. ‘Why is the Bridge of Sighs so named?’ He said it was funny that I should ask. ‘In the seventeenth century …’

Listening to him read I felt like I was being constricted by sadness. Not because et cetera, et cetera, according to lore, criminals being led to the prison on the other side would sigh at their final view of Venice through the windows of the bridge which are typically baroque in style. Just because of the way Patrick was frowning at the page, the way he looked up intermittently to check if I was listening, the way he said wow, once he’d finished. ‘That’s quite depressing.’ We flew home the next day.

*

I told him at the allotment. Every day that I’d known, before Venice, in Venice, the week that had passed since, I had set out to tell him but in whatever moment, I found a different reason to defer. He was tired, he was holding his phone, he was wearing a jumper that I did not like. He was too content in what he was doing. That day, a Sunday, I woke up and read the note he had left me. I got dressed and went to find him.

He was sitting on the fallen log, holding something. I did not think I could do it, once I was close enough to see what it was. I could not rupture his existence, reveal my deceit and bifurcate Patrick’s future while he was holding a Thermos.

There was only ever one reason. Once I told him, it would be real and I would have to fix it. There wasn’t any time left. I just said it.

In the period of forestalling, I thought I had imagined every reaction Patrick might have, but it was worse than any I could invent myself – my husband asking me how far along I was. It was a phrase too specific to an experience we had not had, or one we were not allowed to use in our version of it.

I said, ‘Eight weeks.’

He didn’t ask me how long I had known. It was too obvious. He said, ‘I don’t know how I didn’t guess’ as if it was his fault and then, sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at the ground, he said, ‘We’re not deciding what to do though.’

‘No, I’m just telling you.’

‘So there’s not an immediate rush.’

‘No. But I’m not going to wait for no reason.’

He said okay. ‘That makes sense.’

I tipped the tea out and handed him back the cup. ‘I’m going to go. I’ll see you at home.’

‘Martha?’

‘What?’

‘Could I have a few days?’

I told him I hadn’t booked it yet. There would be that much time anyway.

*

Patrick did not mention it when he got home or in the days that followed but he moved differently around the house. He came home early. He wouldn’t let me do anything. He was always there in the morning but whenever I woke up in the night, he was somewhere else. I knew it was the only thing he was thinking about.

Sunday, again, he came into the bathroom while I was in the bath and sat on the end. He said, ‘So, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I’ve just been thinking, you definitely don’t want to keep it?’

I said no.

‘You don’t feel like, if we did – because I honestly think you’d be –’

‘Please don’t. Patrick.’

‘Okay. It’s just, I don’t want it to be something that later we wish we’d thought about.’

I pushed the water with my foot. ‘Patrick!’

‘Alright. Sorry.’ He got up and threw a towel over the wet floor. ‘I’ll get you the referral.’ His shirt, the leg of his jeans, were soaking.

As he was walking out of the bathroom, I said, ‘It shouldn’t have happened.’ I told him, it was never a thing. But he didn’t turn around, just said okay, yep.

I slid down, under the water, as soon as he had closed the door.

*

It was a miscarriage anyway.

It started the morning of the appointment, while I was pushing my bike along a steep bit of the towpath. I knew what it was and kept walking. At home, I called Patrick at work and waited in the bathroom until it was over. It had been so cold outside that I was still wearing my coat when he came in.

He drove me to the hospital and apologised on the way home, hours later, for not being able to think of the right thing to say. I said it was fine, I didn’t want to talk about it then anyway.

I did not tell anyone what had happened and, afterwards, only cried if Patrick was out – as soon as he left, from the effort of containing it. In short, intense bursts at the recollection of what I had been about to do. For minutes, as I moved around the house, weeping in gratitude that she had let go of me first.