After You Left(63)

He’s being honest. No one could possibly lie and put themselves into this state if it wasn’t genuine.

‘But you must have known what you were going to do, Justin. Your note said you couldn’t do this any more. You must have already decided you were leaving me for them.’

He looks through me, surprised, as though this is an entirely new take on the situation. ‘I don’t know if I’d really decided that. It wasn’t that calculated. I was sitting there on the beach trying to act normal, and all I could think was I’ve put him here. This is because of me. Because of my bad gene pool. Because I carelessly got someone pregnant, Dylan will probably never know a normal life. And there I was marrying you – how could I have a child with you, now that I knew I was passing on all these problems? I could never risk this happening again. But then that’s unfairly depriving you . . .’ He looks at me, imploringly. ‘Alice, you could have a life with someone else. A family – one you can’t have with me now.’ His speech seems to wind him. ‘Do you see what I mean? This was all going round in my head.’

It’s going round in mine, too. ‘But that’s insane, Justin! If you and I never have kids, I’m fine with that. Especially if it’s because of medical reasons. I wouldn’t consider it a deprivation at all! We could adopt.’ I stare at him, and he’s watching me, listening and contemplating. I can tell he’s on a precipice, suspended between two choices; he might be persuaded my way if only I touch the right chord of his vulnerability.

‘Your baby’s condition wasn’t your doing, Justin. If everybody decided not to have children because of family health conditions, there’d be only a quarter of the population . . . It was just the luck of the draw. I’m sure Dylan could have just as easily been born perfectly fine. So you mustn’t think like that.’

‘But I do think like that,’ he says. And I know nothing I can say will change him.

I remember feeling so upset when he told me that, as a little boy, he couldn’t understand how his dad could have died so suddenly. His dad was a doctor. He saved lives for a living. Justin couldn’t understand how no one could save his.

He sits back against the cushion, extending his long legs, interlacing his fingers behind his head. I watch him as he stares and blinks at the ceiling.

‘Come home. We can make it work. I’d love your son, because he was an innocent little boy and because he was yours. Don’t you see, Dylan could have two families – one with his mum and one with us? He’d have three people who loved him. Can’t you look at that as a positive? If we adopted, he could even have siblings.’

I have never seen him appear more conflicted. He puts his head in his hands again.

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘But why can’t you?’

I already know the answer.

He looks at me now. ‘Because I want to be a proper father to him. I suppose for the rest of his life, whatever quality he’s got, I want to be there fully for him. I want him to know what it’s like to have a real family who love him. He deserves that. I don’t want Lisa marrying someone else and some other bloke raising my kid. Others mightn’t see that as a problem, but I do. I’m sorry.’

Echoes of everything he’s ever said about his unpleasant life with his stepfather come back to me. How he said there’s nothing worse than constantly trying to impress someone, trying to win them over to liking you, when you never can. Impossibly, it was as if everything he’s ever told me about his childhood was said to validate his decision now.

‘But you never wanted a child with Lisa.’

‘But I had one, didn’t I?’ Then he adds, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just something I have to do.’

It’s surreal. I can’t believe my ears. ‘So what about her, then?’ I say after a while. ‘Do you love her? I mean . . . you’ve moved in with her.’

‘I’ve been staying there for practical reasons. We’re not sharing a room. Trust me, sex is the very last thing on my mind. But do I love her? Well, I suppose, in some ways I still have feelings for her, because that’s the kind of person I am. I don’t get involved with people lightly. I don’t switch it on and off when it’s convenient. I’ve known her for a very long time. We had some good times and we had some less good times. She moved up North to be with me. And now by some crazy turn of fate she’s the mother of my son and she’s going through hell with this. I was never untrue to you about my feelings, Alice. Never. But life isn’t simple and cut and dried.’

It blows me over. It all does. I want to fight, but I have lost already. ‘So you think that because you’ve got a baby together, that you can be happy with her?’

He throws up his hands. ‘You know, Alice, I am thinking first and foremost of my son. Two weeks ago, he might have died. At the moment, he’s an unknown quantity. We’re just watching and waiting and praying. But as for love, well, you can love people in different ways, on different levels, and, in any case, those ways evolve over time, no matter how you start out. I once told you that I’m not unrealistic about how these things work. I’m not some starry-eyed teenager. And neither is Lisa.’

I can’t bear the words love and Lisa being uttered practically in the same sentence.

‘Sometimes, you get your life flung at you, and you have to get on with it and make the best of it. I have to try to make the best of it. For my son.’