She starts taking her shoes off with abrupt movements, one hand on the wall to keep her balance, and Marisa can see that she has upset her.
‘No, that would be nice. A herbal tea it is. I’ll just put this away.’ She gestures at the paintbrush, which is now dripping a trail of greenish water into the palm of her hand.
Kate grins.
‘Oh good! I’ll put the kettle on.’
Back in her study, Marisa places the brush back in the water jar, unties her painting apron and hangs it on the hook on the back of the door. Best get this stupid cup of tea over with. Pretend to have some girly bonding time and smile and nod and then hope Kate leaves more quickly than she would have done otherwise.
Downstairs, Kate is sitting on the bar stool by the kitchen island. She’s made herself a cafetiere and is slouched across the marbled surface flicking through a Sunday newspaper supplement. Her raincoat is over the back of the sofa, arms thrown out like a police corpse outline. She is humming.
Make yourself at home, why don’t you, Marisa thinks. Her irritation has become more marked since her pregnancy, the heat of it rising like sap at the most trivial thing. Yesterday, she had been furious at a pedestrian crossing when the traffic light took too long to turn to red.
‘Oh hi,’ Kate says, sitting up straighter and sliding the magazine away. ‘I didn’t know what tea you’d want.’
‘Camomile is fine. I’ll get it.’
‘No, no, let me.’
Before Marisa can stop her, before she can protest that this is her house and she’s perfectly capable of making herself a cup of tea, Kate is bustling around the kitchen, taking a teabag out of the jar, removing a mug from the cupboard and waiting for the kettle to steam and click. Marisa hauls herself onto a bar stool, her limbs woollen. She observes Kate as she pours the water into the mug, noting the economy of each action, the litheness of each movement. She has a dip between her shoulder and the top of her bicep, Marisa has noticed. You can’t see it today because she’s wearing long sleeves, but Marisa knows it is there: the tidy compactness of her muscle, the self-assuredness of it. When Kate claps, there is no swinging loose flesh under each arm. There is no excess flesh to her. She looks as if she has been moulded from light brown clay.
‘Here you go.’
Kate presents her with a mug of tea and a small saucer with a teaspoon on which, Marisa supposes, she is meant to put the teabag.She would never have thought of that. She deliberately leaves the teabag in, until the camomile is stewed and dark yellow.
‘Do you want any honey?’ Kate asks.
‘No thanks.’
‘So,’ Kate says, leaning forwards and looking at her straight on. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine.’ She sips the tea which burns her tongue.
‘I mean, with the pregnancy and everything. How’s it going? I want to knoweverything.’
Marisa laughs.
‘Really?’
But Kate’s face is open and expectant. It was odd, Marisa thought, how invested she seemed to be in their pregnancy. They’d had to tell her on the evening they found out because Kate had been waiting downstairs with her macaroni cheese and the table laid for her special dinner and she had heard the screaming and wanted to know what was up. When they told her, Kate was almost as thrilled as Jake. At one point, her eyes had filmed over and Marisa had thought she was going to cry.
There is the same sense of emotion now, in the kitchen, over their cooling mugs.
‘What’s it like?’ Kate asks. ‘Being pregnant, I mean.’
Marisa feels sorry for her then. Her annoyance recedes. How sad it must be to watch a younger woman get pregnant and to be in love, she thinks, when Kate’s own life seems so dominated by work.
‘It’s amazing,’ Marisa lies. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted. I suppose I feel, in some way, that it’s the reason I’m here. As a woman, I mean.’
Kate blinks.
‘Not that you can’t be a real woman without being pregnant,’ she adds hurriedly. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘I know.’
Kate smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
‘It’s weird feeling that there’s something growing in your body that you have no control over. I feel a bit out of sorts.’
