So, even though things still feel uncertain between them, it doesn’t take long for her to reply. ‘Yes. I’ve always liked the idea of giving rowing a go.’
Which is about as true as her making out to her patient Ben that she has even the slightest interest inMatch of the Day.
CHAPTER 42
Kate finds Jay in the garden studio.
‘It’s looking amazing in here,’ she says as she steps through the door, Rosie asleep in the sling. He looks up from his computer, where he had been editing photos from his last shoot. The light might be dimming outside, but it still feels fresh and bright in here. He’s added an armchair in the corner and Kate notices new photographs on the walls. She steps closer to look at them.
Alongside the posed images of Kate and Rosie that had been in here previously, there are some new ones too. Kate and Rosie fast asleep on the bed, Rosie lying on her back with arms splayed and Kate curled around her like a comma, a protective hand placed over her stomach. The room around them is a complete mess, dirty washing dumped in piles on the floor. But they look peaceful in the midst of it all. Another photo shows Kate sitting on the sofa nursing Rosie, the TV flickeringin the background. There’s a faraway look in her eyes that so captures how she feels in those moments, as though she is half here but half elsewhere too. And a final one of Kate holding Rosie out in front of her, beaming at her with her mouth wide open, her head flung back. She remembers the moment – she’d been singing ‘Wonderwall’ again. Rosie’s face is violent red, her eyes scrunched up, but it somehow makes for a sweet and funny photograph, that contrast of emotions.
‘These are beautiful. I didn’t even notice you taking them.’
‘I’ve been thinking about everything you said about how you were expecting all of this to be,’ says Jay. ‘And I think part of the problem is that people usually only share the best bits. It’s something I’m guilty of as a photographer. But I was thinking about changing that.’
‘Oh yes?’ Kate replies, still lost in the images on the wall that so perfectly capture her experience over the past few months. She looks back at Jay and notices that his eyes are sparkling. The dark circles are still there, but there’s an excited energy in him that she realises she hasn’t seen for quite a while.
‘Now that the studio is pretty much ready, I was thinking of doing my first portrait shoots. And I thought I could specialise in parent and baby photos. Not those posed ones you usually see …’
‘Where the babies are arranged to look as if they’re asleep on a bed of leaves?’
They both laugh, and Kate realises how much she has missed that special feeling of laughing together with the person she loves.
‘Yeah, exactly. My photos would be the opposite of that.Just real parents with their babies, showing up with whatever emotions they were feeling that day. Totally stripped back, just them showing it all. What do you think?’
He rubs his beard, glancing up at her from beneath his long-lashed eyes. Something inside her gives a little skip, reminding her of how it felt to fall in love with him at the lido all those years ago. She realises that over the past few months she’s been so focused on Rosie and on her own emotions that she hasn’t spent enough time just looking at her husband. Now she traces around his face with her eyes, taking in the familiar green eyes with the faint crinkles that have developed there, the strong line of his jaw, the scruffy beard flecked with gold and grey. His lips that she has kissed a thousand times before and not nearly enough.
‘I think that sounds amazing.’ She steps forward, holding onto his shoulders and lifting onto her tiptoes so that her lips can touch against his. And for the first time since Rosie was born, she doesn’t pull away after a couple of seconds. She leans towards him, letting her mouth soften open. He’s hesitant at first, as if the kiss has taken him by surprise, but then he quickly responds, matching her intensity and then increasing it. Goosebumps dart up the back of her neck.
He wraps his arms around her waist and takes a step forward, pulling her in. But they can only get so close with Rosie in the sling.
‘I feel like there’s something coming between us,’ he says with a laugh. They both look down at Rosie and smile.
‘Shall we put her to bed?’ she says.
Once Rosie is settled in the Moses basket with the babymonitor switched on, Kate takes Jay’s hand and leads him back downstairs to the sofa. But instead of reaching for the TV remote to switch on something mindless before bed, Kate climbs into his lap. She wraps her arms around his neck and lets her fingers run through his strawberry blond hair, delighting in the way he shivers involuntarily at her touch.
‘Mmm, that’s nice.’
How long has it been since they last did something like this? Certainly not since Rosie, and in the final weeks of her pregnancy she hadn’t felt like being touched either, her body hot and aching. Kate pauses to pull her hair out of its messy bun and then leans forward again, letting it fall around them so that she feels as though they’re in a little cave for two.
‘I’ve missed this so much,’ he says softly, groaning as her fingers claw at his shoulders, enjoying the warmth and solid breadth of him that always makes her feel safe.
‘I’ve missedyouso much,’ she replies.
They kiss some more, heat rising in her stomach and flowing all the way up to her cheeks. After a while, she pulls back ever so slightly.
‘I’m not sure I’m ready forthatyet …’
He kisses the tip of her nose, pushing her hair out of her face. ‘That’s OK, sweet. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We don’t have to do anything ever again and you know I’ll still love you.’
‘I didn’t say I don’t want to doanything…’
He lifts an eyebrow at her and flashes her a smile, the smile that’s just for her.
‘Then why don’t you take off your clothes?’
Her heart hammers in her chest, but she does as she’s told. But once she’s naked, she finds herself wrapping her arms around her stomach, suddenly conscious of its softness and stretch marks. Ever since Rosie, her stomach feels the most tender and vulnerable part of her, not for the way it looks so much as for everything it has been through.
