Babyville (6 page)

She walked up to the Heath, running up the concrete steps before she hit the wide open spaces, the children's paddling pool now empty for winter, the running track with a few lone runners. It was good to be outside in the fresh air. Good that her nose was turning red with cold, that she had to bundle her hands down deep in her coat to try and keep them warm.

There was so much to think about, so many thoughts to process, that it was actually easier to think of nothing at all. She walked, and walked, and walked.

A few lone dog walkers had also braved the freezing weather. She did a full circle, then sat down outside a cafe for a while, warming her hands around a mug of steaming coffee, occasionally exchanging the odd word or two about the weather with a passing dog walker.

Just as she was about to leave, a woman turned up with two children. One of them a girl, about three years old, the other a little boy, not more than eighteen months, toddling around the table. The little girl was beautiful. Dark hair, big brown eyes, eyelashes that could have picked you up and carried you away. She was tiny, so tiny and doll-like, with the sweetest smile. Julia couldn't tear her eyes away.

“No, Katie,” the mother reprimanded, as Katie crouched down to pick up someone's half-eaten Crunchie. “You mustn't eat that. It's rubbish,” and she picked it up gingerly and took it over to the dustbin while the little girl's face was crestfallen. “Here you are, lovely,” the mother soothed, reaching into her bag. “Here's your favorite. Yum yum yum. Organic rice cake.”

Julia watched them, a smile on her face, which the harassed mother returned, assuming the smile was for her. The little girl took a bite of the rice cake, promptly dropping it on the floor when she saw Julia watching her. She pranced off, turning round so her back was to Julia, then looked over her shoulder coyly, giving Julia a smile.

“Hello.” Julia's heart melted as she watched her display. “That's a lovely dress.”

The little girl watched Julia, sized her up and down, evidently deciding whether to talk. “It's my party dress,” she said eventually. “Can you see my rabbits?” She held up the skirt to show off her embroidered rabbits.

“They're beautiful,” Julia said, wanting nothing more than to scoop up this little girl and take her home. “Do they have names?”

The little girl shook her head. “Do you have rabbits?”

“No. But I did when I was a little girl. Like you.”

“What were their names?”

“I had a big white fluffy one called Flopsy, and a small brown one called Bugsy.”

The little girl bit her lip as she digested this information, then she took a step closer to Julia. “Do you have a little girl like me?”

Julia almost gasped in pain as she shook her head silently.

“Why not?”

“I . . . well . . .'' Julia looked up at the sky and tried to blink her tears away. “I'd love a little girl like you and maybe one day . . .”

“Katie!” the mother interrupted, coming over holding the little boy with one hand, her bag under her arm. “Leave the poor woman alone.” Taking Katie by the hand, she led her away with an apologetic glance at Julia. “I'm so sorry,” she said, pretending not to see the tears, “she drives everyone mad.”

“No, no, it's fine . . .” But the woman, seeing Julia's tears, had moved on, and Julia was left alone to grieve for the child she hadn't conceived.

How
can she explain this to Mark? Mark, who has managed to internalize whatever pain he has been feeling. He doesn't talk about it. Doesn't share it. Figures the best way of getting over it is getting on with it.

Julia is occasionally envious of this. More often than not she is furious about this. If Mark won't share his feelings, then neither will she, but this loss and grief and pain is becoming a burden that's almost too heavy for her to carry, and it is all she can do not to scream at him with fury, using anything as an excuse to vent her rage.

Today, the day that Julia has left her job, has been forced to leave her job, Mark is still standing there, unsure what to say, to do. He feels constantly as if he is treading on eggshells around her. One false move and his whole world will come crashing down. He does feel her pain, does have a sense of her loss, and he wants to reach out to her more than anything. He just doesn't know how to do it. He doesn't know where to start.

And he worries that it might be too late.

“Julia.” He reaches out a hand, pleading. “Let's not do this. Not tonight. I want to hear about what happened, not have an argument over nothing—”

“It's not nothing,” Julia snaps, but he knows he's winning, and her heart wasn't really in the snap.

“I know, I know,” he soothes. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Why don't you finish drying your hair and I'll pour you a glass of wine? How does that sound? And do you want a curry tonight? I could order in? Yes? Julia?”

Julia scuffs the carpet on the stair with her big toe, then shrugs. “Okay,” she mutters, sounding astonishingly like a truculent sixteen-year-old. “But I don't want Chicken Korma. I want Chicken Tikka.”

“Okay.” Mark smiles to himself as he watches her walk back upstairs. It may only be temporary, but his peacekeeping skills have actually worked. In the kitchen he uncorks the wine, pours himself a glass and drinks it down immediately, quickly refilling it in case Julia walks in.

Grabbing the bottle and an extra glass, he takes it through to the living room to build a fire. Not that you're supposed to have log fires in Hampstead, only gas imitations, but everyone Mark knows has a real one. It's not uncommon to bump into the occasional local mate on forays to the Heath late at night in search of logs.

The second glass of wine is gone in seconds. He's not a big drinker, but God knows he needs something to help him through at the moment, something to ease the pain.

If I were a religious man, he thinks, setting the glass down on the table and picking up the phone to place the order, I'd start praying to God right about now.

6

“Oh God, I think I might
seriously love him.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Bella's looking at Sam aghast, mostly because Sam looks incredible. Yes, she's six months pregnant. Yes, she's the size of a small whale. But she looks stunning. Sam is—usually—the laziest of all of them when it comes to superficial appearance. The most makeup she'll wear is tinted moisturizer, mascara, and pale-pink lipgloss.

But today Sam wears nearly as much makeup as Bella. Her skin is smooth and slightly tanned, her lips a full glossy pout, and her hair has been blow-dried straight so it bounces gently as she moves. Gone are the dungarees and smock-type dresses she has favored since the beginning of the pregnancy (“I know they're revolting, but they're just so bloody comfortable. You're only allowed to intervene when you find me glancing lovingly at Birkenstocks”). Sam is wearing black bootleg trousers, high-heeled black boots, and a tight orange sweater. She looks amazing.

“You look amazing.” Julia's mouth is open.

Sam maneuvers herself into the chair and places a hand over her heart. “I'm serious, girls. I think I'm in love with Mr. Brennan.”

“The diabetes bloke?” The midwife had been concerned about the amount of weight Sam had put on, and one of the causes, she explained, could have been gestational diabetes. Sam had now done the glucose tolerance test, and she's fine, but just to be on the safe side she is now seeing the consultant at her checkups. Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Brennan, according to Sam, is not her usual type. He's not very tall, he doesn't have very much hair (“But at least,” she justified, “he doesn't plaster it over his scalp''), he is what Sam has described as “definitely cuddly,” and has a bedside manner that could charm your socks off.

Sam has taken to waxing her legs and wearing good underwear before every checkup. Evidently that is no longer enough.

“I seriously, seriously have a huge crush on him,” she confides, before blushing like a schoolgirl.

“Darling, that's natural,” Bella says breezily, beckoning over a waiter for another bottle of sparkling water and a large glass of milk for Sam. “All my friends in New York have huge crushes on their OB/GYNs. Don't worry, you'll get over it.”

Sam sits forward urgently. “I think this might be different.”

Julia laughs. “Are you trying to say that Chris was a terrible mistake and Mr. Brennan could be The One?”

Sam looks uncomfortable.

“Oh please!” Julia starts to laugh. “You're not seriously trying to say that, are you?”

Sam squirms, then grudgingly admits that last night, the night before her appointment this morning, she had an erotic dream starring Mr. Brennan; that her crush is now major league and she could barely look him in the eye when she turned up there today.

“Details, details.” Bella is transfixed. “What kind of erotic dream? What happened?”

“I don't remember how I got there, but I was abroad and I think I started off with Chris and we were in bed together, and suddenly Chris turned into Mr. Brennan and it wasn't so much the sex, but he was so tender and he kept cuddling me and . . . well. That's it, really.”

“That's it?” Bella's disappointed.

“No sex?” Julia chimes in, although frankly she too would be more inclined to go for the tenderness at this precise moment in time.

“It was sexual, intimate, without there actually being proper sex, okay? But when I walked into the room today it all came flooding back and I could barely look at him.”

“Did he notice?”

“I don't think so.”

“And did you have to get your knickers off, then?”

“Bella!” Sam shouts.

“Bella!” shouts Julia.

“Well, did you?”

Sam sits back, fanning an imaginary flush. “Thank God not today. I swear, that really would have been embarrassing. Having an orgasm during a routine internal examination with your gynecologist. Jesus Christ. Can you imagine?” They all laugh and then Sam's face turns serious. “And the other thing is he told me I looked really nice.”

“No!” Julia's turn to be mock-shocked. “Was he flirting with you?”

“No. Definitely not. I wish.” She shakes her head, then pauses as she stops to think. “Actually”—she starts to smile, twirling a lock of her hair girlishly as her gaze fixes on to the middle distance—“maybe. Do you think? Could he have been? Oh Christ. I feel like such a teenager. He said that I'd done something different and I just kind of stammered that I'd had my hair done for a party the day before and that really the party hadn't been worth it anyway, which of course was way too much information, but I couldn't stop babbling and I'm sure he knew, and he said it looked nice and now I've spent the last hour analyzing his tone of voice and how he said it and how he looked at me, and whether it means I'm special.”

“You're off your trolley,” Bella says, not unkindly.

“I know, I know,” Sam sighs. “Let's change the subject. But can I just ask one more thing?” She looks both of them in the eye. “Seriously. Do you think he fancies me?”

When
Bella was living in London the three of them would regularly meet up for suppers at one another's houses, usually Julia's, as her kitchen was always the most conducive to a girls' night in, plus Julia was the only one who could actually cook at that time, Sam having not yet discovered her culinary skills, and Bella eating primarily in expensive restaurants.

Sam would ring up from her mobile en route, asking, “Anything you need?” and would invariably have to make a stop at Sainsbury's for a packet of pita bread, a tub of Häagen-Dazs, and a couple of packs of Marlboro Lights.

The obligatory bottles of wine would be cooling off in Julia's fridge, and the three of them would chatter nineteen to the dozen as they chopped salads, mixed marinades, poured dips and crisps into bowls.

Food would be eaten around the kitchen table, and depending on their mood they would either sit there into the small hours, talking about their lives, their pasts, their men, their hopes, or gravitate into the living room, sometimes to watch television, sometimes to read the magazines Julia kept in a pile next to the fireplace. Such was the nature of their friendship: easy, natural. As close as family but without the politics.

Now that their lives have moved on, perhaps the one to miss those days most is Julia. Sam is blissfully happy with Chris, and expecting her first child.

Bella has entered another world in New York. She has a new circle of girlfriends who don't go to one another's houses, as they all live in apartments the size of shoeboxes. None of them has seen their kitchen in over a year, they meet up at restaurants and bars, and sit and chew the (metaphorical) fat over Cobb Salads with no cheese, no dressing, and toasted bagels, no butter. Oh, and a serving of cream cheese on the side. Nonfat. Just a schmear. Thanks.

But Julia? Julia tried to blend her life with Mark's, and when it didn't work she let go of her life. Her old life. The friends he hadn't approved of she barely saw anymore, and she hadn't made new ones as—she told herself—she was too busy with him, even though she hardly went out these days.

She told herself she was ready for commitment. For Mark. And a baby. For nine months all her energies had gone into that, and it's only now that the three girls are together again, albeit in a restaurant, that Julia realizes how much she's missed this. Her gang. Her sisters. Her soulmates.

I miss being single. The words enter her consciousness, making her jump with shock. She tries to wash them away with a sip of water, then relaxes slightly. They are only words after all, they don't mean anything. They certainly don't mean she has to make any major life changes.

But it is definitely something to think about, how easily those words slipped into her head, how real they feel, and she knows in an instant it is not the men she misses, or the adventures and excitement of being single, but the freedom.

Trapped, she suddenly realizes. I am trapped in a relationship with a man I like very much, but I would rather be on my own.

Oh God. Did she really just think that?

She shakes her head to dislodge the thought, replacing it instantly with a picture of a cooing, fat little baby. That's better, she tells herself, her pulse still racing from the shock of admitting something she knows deep down to be true, but still won't consciously admit.

Her heart starts to slow down as she brings this picture into focus. A fat little baby lying on a sheepskin rug, gurgling with delight as she holds her toes and smiles up at Julia. I want a baby, she tells herself, adding hurriedly, and Mark. And a family. I will banish all stray thoughts of being single. This is what I'm going to concentrate on from now on.

 “Earth
to Julia, Earth to Julia. Come in, Julia.”

Julia shakes her head. “God, I'm so sorry, I was just thinking about the good old days and about how much I miss this.”

“Miss what?” Sam is affronted. She and Julia, after all, do still get together, still go out for the occasional lunch if Sam has a meeting near Julia's office and Julia's not snowed under with work.

“The three of us. Together. This is just so nice. It makes me feel . . .”

“What?” Sam prompts gently as Julia shrugs.

“You'll think I'm mad”—she looks at each of them in turn—“but it makes me feel whole.”

“You mean you don't feel whole the rest of the time?” Bella glances at Sam as they exchange a brief look of alarm, but Julia doesn't see and Bella is doing a good job of acting nonchalant.

Julia shrugs.

“Do you think,” Sam says carefully, “that maybe you're trying for a baby because that might make you feel whole? That maybe you're never going to find it outside of yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

Sam sits back in her chair, for she remembers the Julia of old. She remembers the vibrant Julia, but she also remembers the quieter moments. She remembers the times when Julia phoned her up crying with loneliness, when Julia would disappear for days at a time, isolating at home as she dwelt in self-pity and sadness.

Not many people saw this side of Julia. As tough and uncompromising as she could be at work, she was vulnerable and soft in equal measure. And Sam remembers, quite clearly, Julia saying then that she wanted to find her other half.

Sam always said that she believed each of us could be happy with any number of people, but Julia always disagreed. Julia felt that somewhere out there was the man who would make her whole, and even then Sam wanted to tell her she was wrong, she would only ever be disappointed if she led her life waiting for that, but there was never an occasion that warranted it.

“Remember how you used to say you wanted to find your other half?”

Julia nods.

“And remember how I never believed in it? Well, it's just that as long as you're looking to other people to make you complete, you're never going to find happiness.”

“But I've been happy,” Julia protests. “I was happy with Mark. I am happy with Mark.”

“But it's not true happiness,” Bella interjects. “I have to agree with Sam. Mark, as lovely as he is, hasn't made you feel complete, and I don't think a baby will either.” She carries on, ignoring the pain in Julia's eyes, and covers Julia's hand with her own. “We love you, Julia, but God knows, if there is any possibility that this baby will be a terrible mistake, you just can't go through with it.”

There's a long silence and eventually Julia starts to laugh. “What bloody baby?” she says. “At this moment in time I don't think this is something I'm ever going to have to worry about.”

Sam
is first to leave. As vivacious as she has been, she has got into the habit of mid-afternoon naps, and the other two endured fifteen minutes of her yawning before telling her she had to go.

Julia and Bella stay on. Bella is on holiday, and Julia may as well be. She misses being busy, being needed, but hasn't even thought about the office. Not really.

Johnny calls her from time to time to feed her office gossip, which, although nice, she could take or leave. Maeve is apparently proving to be a popular choice, and the word on the street is that Mike Jones is after her, although she is not an easy catch by all accounts.

The waiter brings yet more cappuccinos, and Bella reaches into her bag. “Listen,” she says, drawing out a piece of white paper, “I can't believe that I, of all people, am going to give you this, but what the hell. I know this girl in Manhattan who was trying to get pregnant for about a year and nothing happened. Eventually, she got on the internet to find out about fertility stuff, and found this fertility ritual on some pagan site. . . .”

Julia's heart races as she whispers in amazement and with a touch of fear, “A fertility spell?”

“Kind of. I suppose. But I think you're meant to call it a ritual. The point is, she got pregnant the month after doing it, so I asked her if she could give me the spell, I mean, ritual, and I brought it with me and I wasn't sure whether to give it to you or, hell, whether it's even going to work because as far as I'm concerned it might just as well have been a lucky coincidence. . . .”

“Bella, I love you!” Julia shrieks, grabbing the piece of paper and flinging her arms around her friend. “I think you may have just changed my life.”

They
read the ritual together. All the “ingredients” seem accessible. Julia, naturally, wants to do it immediately. Bella had planned on a spot of shopping in the West End, but she too is curious to see this in action, so agrees to be there for moral support.

“You're sure it won't stop the spell, though? I mean, ritual? Me being there?”

“Not if your intentions are the same as mine,” says Julia, a huge smile stretching from ear to ear, possibly the first genuine smile to have been seen on her face in months.

“I can do without a baby, thank you very much,” Bella says in horror as Julia laughs.

“Silly. As long as you visualize me with a baby and take it seriously, then we'll be fine. Do you think it will still work even though it's not a full moon?”

“Why does it have to be a full moon?”

“Look, it says here ‘This ritual is preferably done on a full moon.' ”