And even if it did work, even if I finally convinced myself I’d chosen Rob, would that actually make me any happier? Or would I just feel as if I’d made yet another bad choice, because my phantom life with Billy (or with an imaginary man I could fall equally in love with) was still just out of reach, lingering beyond the frame?
* * *
The wedding definitely helped, and that was almost certainly because it was my decision. Mum had never mentioned it again (and I suspect she was secretly against), while Shelley had no real opinion either way. Though it was clearly what Rob dreamed of, he knew me better than to try to push.
Rob didn’t want his parents present – once again wouldn’t evendiscussthem – and that caused a fairly major tiff. But the end result was that in terms of family we only had Mum and Wayne. As we didn’t have that many friends we wanted to invite either, it ended up feeling very low-key but, perhaps because of that, also rather lovely and intimate.
Once I was MrsHavard, I definitely did feel more like I belonged. I’d look at Rob and think,my husband. I started referring to the place we lived as ‘our house’ instead of ‘Rob’s’. And sometimes, just sometimes, I managed to imagine getting old together.
I realised only once we’d done it that this was in fact the point of marriage. I’d always assumed that it was something showy, something you did for parents and friends to show off, or at the very least to satisfy their need for tradition.
But it was actually about saying, ‘I choose this.’ It was about saying, ‘I give up on ridiculous dreams of perfect men I haven’t met yet, perfect men with porn-star bodies, millions in the bank, and the wit of Ian Hislop. I accept I’m a perfectly ordinary human being, and I choose perfectly ordinary, sweet-hearted Rob.’
I got pregnant quite quickly afterwards, and we were happy when we knew it was a boy.
‘One of each,’ Rob said, ‘that’s perfect.’
‘All we need now is a black one and an Asian, and we’ll have the whole set,’ I joked, but I think it went over his head.
Pregnancy, second time round, made me grumpy. I was like a gremlin who’d eaten chocolate after midnight.
To start with, unlike with Lucy, I had morning sickness – the special kind that lasts all day. Looking after a three-year-old while suffering from all-day sickness did not put me in the best of moods.
Rob was in the middle of setting up a new business – perfect timing! – and was having to work sixteen-hour days. A year later, once the money started coming in, I finally took the time to understand what he’d been up to – and to appreciate his efforts – but at the time, I was resentful as hell. Banging me up and leaving me alone, vomiting with a three-year-old – how dare he?
But for a while, it seemed my daemons had been slain. I’d chosen Rob, I’d chosen pregnancy. I felt bloody awful, but there was no one else to blame.
Because Thatcher had done her best to make the NHS unusable, Rob signed us both up for BUPA. It was against all our principles, but at least this time I got my epidural right at the outset and a nice little dose of morphine once I was done. I suppose it’s no surprise that when you’re paying, the answer to any drug-related question is ‘yes’.
Rob also, after extensive negotiation, got to watch. At least, he did until the head appeared, whereupon he almost fainted and had to be led from the room.
I didn’t expect there to be so much blood,’ he said, afterwards.
‘Men,’ Mum said, rolling her eyes. ‘Other than shagging, what are they good for?’
When it was over and I had little Lou in my arms, I watched Rob and Lucy wave goodbye and promptly fell into a morphine pillow of sleep.
When I woke up, the shadows had moved halfway across the floor and a nurse was holding Lou just to my left.
‘Feed time, I’m afraid,’ she said, handing him over.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘No worries.’
I took him from her and thought first how beautiful and then how much like Rob he looked, and this made an unexpected wave of love rise up in me for Rob.
Once the nurse had gone, I looked more closely and realised that Lucy didn’t look like Lou, and by deduction, more importantly, she didn’t look much like Rob either. Before we’d had a second baby who was his spitting image that fact had been easier to ignore.
I shook my head to try to get rid of the thought, and glanced up at the TV screen, which was silently showing Sky News. Landmines were going off somewhere in the world and a black kid was missing a leg. The world was such a miserable place to bring a kid into, wasn’t it?
Another nurse stuck her head through the door and asked if everything was OK.
‘Can you do something about that?’ I asked, nodding at the telly, now showing a whole school full of amputees. The images were simply heartbreaking but I didn’t feel I had the strength left to bear it. ‘Isn’t there a music channel, or something?’
‘Sure,’ she said, entering the room and lifting the remote control from its holder. ‘MTV’s on 337. Is that OK?’
She turned the sound up until it was just about audible and left the room. Ace of Base were bopping around on screen singing ‘All She Wants’, which made me smirk. ‘That’s apt,’ I told Lou. ‘She’s singing about you and me.’
He continued to feed, through Meat Loaf and East17, and then a new song came on I didn’t know, prompting me to glance up at the screen.
