Dinner for Two (21 page)

‘What good news?’

‘You know Adele? As in Adele and Damian?’ They are old university friends of Izzy’s who are pregnant. They aren’t division-one friends – more the kind that Izzy keeps in touch with in bimonthly phone calls which always conclude with the phrase ‘we really should meet up sometime.’

‘Adele had the baby last Saturday,’ she says. ‘A little girl. Madeleine Katriona Mason. Eight pounds six ounces.’

I watch her face for any signs of upset at this news. Neither of us has mentioned the miscarriage in such a long while that it feels like it never happened and yet when she tells me about Adele and Damian’s baby I’m still a little uncomfortable. Izzy however appears to be completely fine.

‘How’s Adele?’ I ask.

‘Exhausted. It was quite a long labour, apparently. Eighteen hours. Her contractions kicked in early in the morning when they were in bed and then her waters broke and it was all systems go . . . Damian cried at the birth.’

‘Well, I suppose you would, wouldn’t you? It’s an emotional thing.’ As the words leave my lips I’m struck by their pertinence. How would
I
know that?

‘They want us to go round and see them, if we can,’ says Izzy. ‘Tomorrow after work. Do you fancy it?’

‘Do you?’

She nods.

‘Okay, then,’ I reply. ‘We’ll go.’

We’ve just arrived at Damian and Adele’s flat in a converted Victorian three-storey house in Finsbury Park laden with gifts: a huge array of aromatherapy stuff for Adele; a bottle of brandy for Damian; and a baby gym from the Early Learning Centre for Madeleine. I press the buzzer and we wait. Moments later Damian appears. He’s usually impeccably dressed in designer clothes but this evening he’s in an old pair of jeans, a Moschino T-shirt stained with what I suspect is baby sick, and bare feet. A few days’ growth covers his normally clean-shaven chin. He welcomes us in and on the way up to the flat he tells us about how much sleep he’s not been having. ‘She woke eight times last night . . . and the night before she didn’t go to sleep at all . . . and the night before that she slept three hours . . . and then the night before that . . .’ we reach the front door and he opens it ‘. . . I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know what day it is now.’ He scratches his stomach absentmindedly. ‘So how are you guys?’ he asks, and leads us to the living room.

‘We’re fine,’ says Izzy. ‘Work’s good for me.’

‘And work’s fine for me,’ I add.

Damian smiles. ‘Adele was saying you’ve left rock journalism to work in teen mags or something. How’s that going? It sounds like fun.’

‘Yeah, it is. Not as easy as it sounds but it’s a good laugh. Anyway, never mind what’s going on with me and Izzy, we’ve come to see
you
. How are you, new Dad?’ I shake his hand. ‘Congratulations once again.’

‘I didn’t really do much except get in the way. Here,’ he says, pointing to the sofa, ‘you two take a seat and I’ll make you both a drink. Adele’s just trying to make herself look presentable – her words not mine.’

He disappears and leaves Izzy and me to look around us. I can’t remember the last time I was in their flat but I’m sure they’ve done a lot of decorating in here. The room is pale green when before it was yellow, the old gas fire has been ripped out and replaced with an open hearth, and piled up in a corner are several half-unwrapped presents. I can make out a few soft toys and a large box with the Fisher Price logo. Lying across the back of a small armchair is a pair of lime-green dungarees. I recognise them immediately as the ones from babyGap. I walk over to them and pick them up, holding them up to the light like I’d done that day in the shop.

‘They’re cute,’ says Izzy. ‘But aren’t they a little big for a newborn?’

‘You’re right,’ says Damian, coming back into the room. ‘My brother Gareth bought them. He’s only nineteen and it didn’t occur to him to read the size label, which says “twenty-four to thirty-six months”. Still, she’ll grow into them.’

We all look at the dungarees. But only one of us has to leave the room because of them. I announce that I need to use the loo, and when I return I’m back to normal, composed, the moment of shakiness gone.

‘So, how does it feel to be a dad, then?’

‘Great,’ says Damian. ‘Just as good as I thought it would. It’s so weird now she’s here. You know, it was like this huge build-up and then she was kicking and screaming in the real world. I still can’t believe it, really.’

‘That’s it now, Damian,’ says Izzy cheerfully. ‘You’re a dad for life. You’ve got it all to look forward to, especially with a girl. Before you know it she’ll be a teenager, sulking in her room, fancying spotty teenage boys and playing music really loud.’

‘I don’t mind the loud music, it’s the boys I worry about. I’ve already told Adele that Maddy won’t be having anything to do with boys until she’s well into her twenties . . . or, even better, her thirties.’

‘As the only person in the room who used to be a teenage girl,’ says Izzy, ‘let me tell you for a fact, dear Damian, that there’s not a dad in the world who can stop a teenage girl when it comes to boys so you might as well get used to the idea now. I’m not even sure that my dad was too keen on Dave to begin with but he warmed to him eventually.’

‘Your dad thought I was really cool until you told him we were moving in together,’ I say, laughing.

‘It’s true,’ says Izzy. ‘He even warned me that by shacking up with Dave I’d ruin my chances of him ever making an honest woman of me. He said, “Why would he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?” ’

Adele enters the room holding the baby. She looks even more shattered than Damian and she’s wearing a T-shirt, a towelling dressing-gown, tracksuit bottoms, and
Simpsons
socks. This casual look, like her husband’s, is something of a new departure given that the last time I saw her – over a year ago when the four of us had gone out for dinner – she was wearing a very sexy black sleeveless Prada dress and spent the whole evening worrying about her hair.

Damian takes the baby from her, and Izzy and I give her a hug. Maddy snuffies in Damian’s arms.

‘Do you want to hold her?’ he asks.

Izzy nods and takes her carefully from Damian’s outstretched arms. I have to leave the room once more under the pretext of getting a glass of water.

It’s eight thirty p.m. and Izzy and I are on the Northern Line travelling home. We are in the end carriage which is virtually empty. Izzy has been quiet for most of the journey, content to stare out into the darkness or read the small adverts above the windows; only occasionally do we speak and when we do our voices are hidden from the world at large underneath the rhythm of the train on the track.

‘Do you know what March the nineteenth was?’

‘No?’ I reply.

‘It was the day our baby would’ve been born if it had gone full term,’ she says, matter-of-factly. There is no sadness at all in her voice. ‘I worked it out months ago.’

‘You shouldn’t think like that.’

‘I know.’ She looks at me, her eyes searching. ‘Do you think about it, though?’

I hold her gaze. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘I didn’t think you did.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t talk about it any more. I know I didn’t like talking about it either. But at least when it happened I could tell you wanted to talk. But now . . . nothing. It’s like it never happened.’

‘Would you like me to talk about it more?’

She focuses on the carriage window opposite. ‘No . . . I just wondered, that’s all. Do you still want kids one day?’

I nod, and wonder where this is going.

‘I do, too,’ she says. ‘What do you think it would be like to try for a baby?’

‘Do you want to?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. I’m just thinking aloud. I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to have sex with the intention of getting pregnant and whether it would be any different from, you know, what we’re used to.’

‘I’m pretty sure it would be the same.’

She takes my hand and squeezes it, then lets go. ‘Are you sure? Of all the couples we know who have kids they all say they didn’t plan them.’

‘I had the same thought a while ago.’

‘But don’t you think that’s strange? Why don’t people want kids any more?’

‘They do. People have kids all the time. Maybe it’s just the type of people we know. A lot of our friends have got small flats or live in dodgy areas, or maybe they feel like they haven’t sorted out their careers.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Perhaps we’re all waiting for the perfect time . . . I think it’s quite scary, though.’

‘What?’

‘Saying that you actually
want
to get pregnant. I mean they even call it
trying
for a baby. Some people just say, “We’re trying,” and everyone knows what they’re talking about.
Trying
. The thing is if you try you can fail, but if you’re just intentionally forgetful about contraception there’s no failure if nothing happens, is there? In fact for most of our twenties it’s the other way round: you’re lucky, you had sex without contraception and you didn’t get pregnant. Think about it: no more fiddling around with foil wrappers; no more stuffing yourself full of dodgy chemicals; you can be free to make love without consequences. That’s why I think most people don’t admit to trying because that way they can’t fail. But for the people who try and try and try and then fail; for the people who want and desire a child more than anything in the world; for the people on their third or fourth round of IVF treatment: for these people sex without consequences is the worst thing in the world, isn’t it?’

She looks at me as if she’s waiting for an answer. But I’m thinking about Nicola and the short conversation we’d had about sex. ‘
Everyone’s trying to make out like sex isn’t a big deal but it is
.’ It’s only now that I see that she’s right. You can call it ‘casual’, you can call it ‘safe’ but it always has the potential to turn your world upside down.

I look at Izzy and respond to her question. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Sex without consequences can be the worst thing in the world.’

‘You see,’ she says, ‘this is what I don’t understand. Who in their right mind would want to join them voluntarily? I couldn’t do that yet. I don’t think I could face it, no matter how much I wanted a child.’

‘But you’re talking as if failure’s a foregone conclusion.’

‘I am?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t mean to. All I’m saying is that, right now, I don’t have what it takes to face failure. Do you?’

‘I don’t know. I think it’s one of those things where you often don’t know what you can do until you do it, isn’t it?’

‘Do you think I’m a coward?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Of course not.’

‘You can, you know. You can say what you want.’

‘I know I can say what I want. And
no
, I don’t think you’re a coward. What happened was sad and horrible. Anyone would be a bit apprehensive.’

‘I think I am a coward,’ she says, so quietly that I can only just make out what she is saying above the sound of the train, and then, without looking at me, she says, ‘Are you having an affair?’

‘A what?’

‘An affair. It’s a simple question, Dave. Are you having an affair?’

It’s as if I’ve just been roused from a dream. I turn to face her, my whole body rigid with fear. ‘No, of course not.’ I speak louder than necessary. The couple sitting closest to us in the carriage look at me and then look away. I lower my voice immediately. ‘I don’t understand what would make you ask me such a thing.’

This is a lie, of course. I understood precisely why she was asking me this question. I have thought dozens of times of the similarities between my situation with Nicola and an affair: the lies, the sneaking around and, most of all, the fact that I have fallen hopelessly in love with someone other than my wife. It
is
an affair – just not a romantic one. But it will be equally catastrophic and devastating when the truth gets out.

I watch the tears well up in Izzy’s eyes and roll down her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Just ignore me. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘You should, if it’s what you believe. You must know I’d never do anything like that.’

‘I do.’

‘Then why did you ask?’

‘Because things don’t feel right between us. They haven’t felt right for a long time. I don’t know. I’m just being paranoid.’

‘But why? Why would you think that of all things? I love you. I’d never do that.’

‘It’s my fault. I’ve been neglecting you. I feel like I’m working all the time. I don’t deserve you.’

If there’s ever been a moment when I should tell Izzy everything, this is it, but I don’t have that strength of character. ‘Don’t say that, babe. Don’t ever say that.’

‘Why shouldn’t I? It’s true. We barely see each other any more, now that I’m so busy at work. And when we do see each other I’m always tired or in a bad mood or whatever. Love doesn’t work like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like there’s an endless supply of it that you can keep taking out time and time again. I feel like I’m taking from our relationship without putting anything in. I feel like I’m taking you for granted. What happens if we run out of love?’

I look at her and, for a second, she reminds me of Nicola on the day I first met her: she looks so lost, so badly in need of looking after that my heart goes out to her.

When we reach home that night she’s looking more tired than ever so I suggest we go away for the weekend but she says she doesn’t want to run away any more. She wants to stay at home. I say okay, but only as long as we make it special.

I turn off both our mobile phones, unplug the land line, the fax, the computer, the TV and video, close the curtains and we go to bed, determined to shut out the world. We don’t leave the flat all weekend. Instead we talk and sleep and look after each other like a latter-day John and Yoko. We might not have brought peace to the world but by the time Monday morning comes round it seems a nicer place.