Later, back at Polly’s, I ask if I can go up and see the kids, who are all in bed.
Blake, Polly’s youngest, is sprawled across his mattress, limbs everywhere, mouth hanging open. I wonder what he is dreaming about. On the balance of probability I’d guess Manchester United. His nightlit room is a shrine to his favourite team, a scarlet blaze of posters and autographed photos, soft furnishings, scarves, signed shirts.
Blake adores Josh, confides in him about all sorts. They always have their heads together if they’re in the same room, and Blake will usually kick off whenever Josh has to leave.
I sit cross-legged on the carpet, draw a breath. My dad told me once that he used to do this, after my mother left – just sit on my bedroom floor and watch me sleeping.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Just to check you were still there,’ he said.
At my back, the floorboards creak. Polly squats down and envelops me in a hug. Warm and soft, a cloak of Chanel No. 5. Ingrid is right behind her.
‘I want all thissomuch,’ I whisper.
Polly rests her chin on my shoulder, hugs me harder. ‘You can still have it. Please don’t give up.’
‘But I can’t have kids with Josh unless I know the pill was a dud.’ And waiting to be certain will mean another whole decade, possibly longer, of living in limbo.
Perhaps, in itself, that isn’t insurmountable. But the part of me that’s begun to pull away from Josh – instinct, or is it something stronger? – feels as if it’s here to stay.
‘So you wait – what? – ten years,’ Polly suggests gently. ‘Plenty of people have kids in their forties.’
‘But it’s a massive gamble, to put it off that long. By the time we know for sure... it might be too late.’
‘You could do it alone,’ Ingrid says.
Polly and I turn to look at her.
She shrugs. ‘You don’t need an actual partner to have a baby, do you? I’ve been wanting to remind you of that for ages, but now I’m wondering if it might not actually have occurred to you.’
And maybe this is the moment when clarity finally blows through me, sharp as a winter wind.
I want more than anything to have a family, however that comes into being. But my vision of parenting with Josh has been irreversibly altered by what he did. Our future feels murky and messed-up, like smears across a still-wet painting, the picture confusing now, all its colours strange and wrong.
And I am starting to realise that the longer I leave it to make this call, the harder it will become.
I look round at my friends, and shake my head, just once.
They do not need to ask.
Polly gasps, covering her mouth with one hand. ‘Rach. Really?’
‘Shit,’ Ingrid breathes.
22.
Josh
June 2001
Rachel has gone to Polly’s for the evening, so I call Giles, ask if he fancies a drink. Together, we regress somewhat, ending up in a dingy little club called Blackout, to which we have given far too much time and money over the years. It’s the kind of place where they don’t care if you behave like an idiot, which is lucky for me, since I’ve decided to hit the dance floor, a once-in-a-decade event. After I fail miserably to moonwalk, Giles wisely retreats to the sidelines, where he observes me with a sort of appalled admiration, as though he’s watching one of those contests where people in gazebos speed-eat fry-ups for money.
I can’t stop thinking about Rachel. About everything we’ve shared over the past twelve years. I think of her dad, and what he’ll say when he finds out. I think about how badly I’ve let both of them down.
The DJ starts playing Moby’s ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?’
At the bar, someone shoves against me. I snap, shove him back. He swings for me, and only by way of an ungainly but fortuitously timed duck do I avoid having my face rearranged. Giles has to jump in. The bouncers get involved, and – no doubt to Giles’s immense relief – the two of us are turfed out on to the street.
