‘But . . . you’re not pregnant now.’
I sip my wine.What a strange comment, I think.
‘No,’ I say eventually, to humour her more than anything else. ‘You’re right. I’m not.’
Later, for the first time, we go through my pregnancy sketchbook together. I brought it with me this weekend to show her, although I almost left it behind on the train.
Lawrence’s hand on my stomach, a few months in. The first sleepsuit we chose together. The cucumbers I kept insisting oneating whole. Her teddy bear, the one she still has on a shelf above her bed. Lawrence building her cot. My expanding belly. The night-time view from her little nursery window.
At one of the pages, Emma pauses. ‘This has been ripped out.’
I swallow, remembering the realisation that I had sketched Josh with his feet up reading a baby book, instead of her father.
She holds my gaze with a faint smile, eyes lunar-pale in the half-light. ‘It’s funny. You’d never know from these that Dad was totally the wrong person for you.’
‘Emma,’ I say – and I will keep repeating myself on this, no matter how many times she needs to hear it – ‘if I hadn’t been with him, then I never would have had you. So I don’t have a single regret about how things worked out. Not one.’
79.
Josh
August 2030
Rachel and I go out for lunch at the kind of pub we used to love when we were married. It has a huge beer garden that rambles down to the river, serves platefuls of food so big they leave you semi-comatose.
The lawn is almost full, with only a table beneath a lime tree going free. Everyone else is basking in the sun, limbs bare and faces upturned, as we might have once too, forty-odd years ago. Nowadays, I’m much more like a dog, seeking out shade whenever I can.
Rachel took some persuading, to come here today. She’s been telling me a lot lately that she prefers to do things at her own pace. Which is odd, because my life is hardly a non-stop bender. She’s turned down a couple of parties recently, and has become increasingly impatient with Ingrid, who keeps trying to get her to fly out to LA. Rachel insists she’s tired, that she’s taken on too much work over the past few months, and has struggled to get over a particularly nasty bout of flu.
She has just said – again – that she thinks she looks old enough to be my mother. Even though she knows I hate it when she talks like this.
‘Well, you don’t. But even if you did, who cares?’
The correct answer to this is no one. I don’t, and I can’t believe Rachel still gives a shit. And there is not a person in this beer garden who has slung more than a brief glance our way since we got here.
‘I’m going to ask someone.’
‘Rach—’
‘Excuse me,’ Rachel says sweetly to a passing server, while I consider if there is time to secrete myself beneath the table before he sees me. ‘Can I ask you something?’
The kid is young, maybe twenty. Then again, these days it’s becoming harder and harder to tell. Kids are getting Botox in their teens.
I pull my sunglasses firmly down over my face.
‘Yes?’ the server says uncertainly, looking between the two of us.
‘Me and this man,’ Rachel says, gesturing in my direction. ‘What would you say our relationship is?’
‘I don’t know,’ the boy says nervously, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘Nan?’
Despite myself, I suppress a laugh.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel says to him. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’
The kid walks away, and Rachel turns back to face me. ‘Nan,’ she deadpans.
I notice, suddenly, that her shirt is misbuttoned. But I decide against telling her. It’s not gaping or anything. Just a mistake. Unusually, I sense – for some reason – that my pointing it out might embarrass her.
