Postscript(22)

I haven’t done this late-night room wandering for years, not since the months after he passed, but now I feel the house is owed my attentive farewell. My mind is whirring with ideas. Bert’s quiz, Ginika’s letter, Joy’s trees and flowers notions; I didn’t ask Paul what he wants to do. They had more questions for me than I for them, about the dolphins, the holiday, the sunflowers. Sunflowers. My October letter from Gerry. A sunflower pressed between two cards and a pouch of seeds to brighten the dark October days you hate so much, he’d written.

When Gerry was alive, I hated winters. When he died, I embraced them. These days, I simply take them at the natural rhythm they arrive. The seeds were included with Gerry’s eighth letter. I’d told everyone it was because sunflowers were my favourite flowers. They weren’t. I’m not really the type of person to have a favourite flower; flowers are flowers and they are mostly all attractive. But the sunflowers had a meaning, a story. They started a conversation. Gerry had managed to start a conversation from his deathbed, which was Gerry’s gift.

The first month in our house, we had very little furniture. Most of the furniture in our apartment had belonged to the landlords and so we had to start afresh, which meant we couldn’t afford to buy everything at once, but also we weren’t the best at managing delivery times, expecting couches to be available the moment we chose them from the shop floor, all the usual beginner mistakes. And so we had three months in the house without a couch or coffee table. We sat in the TV room, on bean bags, drinking wine, using our unpacked moving boxes as side tables.

‘Sweetheart,’ I say one evening when we’re snuggled on a bean bag with a bottle of red wine after eating steak and chips for dinner.

‘Uh oh,’ Gerry says, looking at me sideways, and I laugh.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not bad.’

‘OK,’ he says, reaching to his plate on the floor to spear some left-over steak.

‘When do you want to have a baby?’

His eyes widen comically and he immediately puts the steak in his mouth, chewing slowly.

I laugh. ‘Come on. What do you think?’

‘I think,’ he talks through his chews, ‘we need to start marinating our steak.’

‘OK, if you’re not going to be adult about it, I’ll speak. We’ve been married for two years, and apart from one horrible summer, and the two weeks we broke up when I saw you kissing Jennifer O’Brien, we’ve been together—’

‘I did not kiss Jennifer O’Brien.’

‘She kissed you.’ I’m smiling. I’m really over it by this point. We were fourteen years old at the time.

‘She didn’t even kiss me. She leaned in and brushed my lips, and the reason we brushed is because I moved my head away. Let it go,’ he besieges me, mockingly.

‘Hmm. Anyway. Let me continue.’

‘Please do.’

‘We’ve been married for two years.’

‘You said that.’

I ignore him, continuing: ‘And we’ve been together twelve years. Give or take.’

‘Give. Always give.’

‘And we said as soon as we left the rat-infested apartment—’

‘One mouse. One time.’

‘And bought our first house, we would discuss when to have a baby. We have now bought a house, which we won’t own for another one hundred years, but isn’t it time for the discussion?’

‘And no better time than right when Man United have just kicked off against Arsenal. No better time at all.’

I laugh. ‘You have a stable job—’

‘Oh, you’re still talking.’

‘And when I’m working, my jobs are stable.’

‘Between the instability,’ he agrees.

‘Yes. But I currently have a job that I dislike intensely and won’t miss while on maternity leave.’

‘I don’t think you get maternity leave in temp jobs. You’re covering for somebody else’s leave.’ He looks at me, his eyes laughing at me.

‘OK, so maybe I don’t get maternity leave, but I do get leave,’ I reason. ‘So all I have to do is get pregnant and leave …’

He laughs.

‘And you are beautiful, I love you, and you have powerful super semen that should not be kept away from the world, hidden away down there, in a dark place, all alone.’ I make a sad face.

He chuckles harder.

‘They’re ready to create a super species. I sense it.’

‘She’s still talking.’

‘And. I love you. And you’ll be an amazing daddy.’

He looks at me, serious now. ‘Are you finished?’

I think some more. ‘And I love you.’

He smiles. ‘I want to have a baby with you.’

I start to squeal and he kills it.

‘But what about Gepetto?’

‘No!’ I move away from him and throw my head back, frustrated, and stare at the ceiling. ‘Do not bring up Gepetto again.’

‘Gepetto was a great beloved member of our family and you … frankly, Holly, you killed him. You took him away from us.’

‘Gerry, can we have an adult conversation for once?’

‘This is an adult conversation.’