The walls of his office were covered with pictures of babies, held in the arms of shiny-eyed women and tired-but-happy-looking men. Mr Cartwright was featured in several of the photographs, smiling broadly as if delighted with himself. In one, he carried twins, his checked shirtsleeves rolled up and an identical baby nestled into the crook of each arm.
‘Is it worth it?’ Kate blurted out.
In the plastic chair next to her, Jake looked surprised.
Mr Cartwright met her gaze.
‘That’s a decision for both of you,’ he said. ‘I can speak from my experience of hundreds of patients and tell you that they definitely think it was worth it.’
His voice was calm. The consultant’s demeanour seemed designed to make Kate feel like an increasingly hysterical woman. His manner had changed from their first appointment, when he had cracked jokes and been breezily optimistic. Now, Mr Cartwright was frustrated that she wasn’t holding up her part of the bargain. He had done his bit,after all. More than once, he had told her that she was ‘failing to respond to the drugs’ as if the drugs themselves could not possibly be blamed, let alone his efficacy in prescribing them.
‘Thank you, Mr Cartwright,’ Jake said. ‘We’ll take some time to think about our next steps.’
They went for a coffee in the ground-floor cafe. They didn’t go on holiday, but spent the next couple of months trying to occupy themselves with other projects. They had friends round for dinner. They went to the cinema and art galleries and restaurants they had heard other people recommend. Annabelle came up and stayed for the weekend in the room that would eventually be the nursery, but which they had filled for now with a double bed. She was polite about the house and brought Kate a huge bunch of peonies to say thank you for having her. Only once did she revert to form, when she asked why they’d moved into such a big place.
‘It’s palatial,’ she said, even though it wasn’t and certainly not when compared to Annabelle’s own sprawling residence in the countryside. ‘You two don’t need this much room, surely?’
They were sitting on the L-shaped sofa in the kitchen extension. Kate and Annabelle were sharing a bottle of Chablis, while Jake was drinking a Peroni beer straight from the bottle, despite his mother’s protestations that he really should get a glass.
‘Don’t you like the house then?’ Jake asked.
‘Oh no, no I didn’t say that. It’s lovely. And how you’ve done it up is very … well, it’s very sweet. I just wondered if you ever felt like you rattled around a bit, that’s all.’
Annabelle tilted her face towards him. She was wearing another one of her floaty thin-knit cardigans, her wrist weighed down with a chunky gold charm bracelet that shook every time she took a drink.
Kate refilled her glass, staying silent.
‘We don’t rattle around,’ Jake said. ‘And it won’t always just be us anyway, will it?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, when we have children …’
Annabelle laughed.
‘Children?’ she said, enunciating the word as if Jake had outlined a preposterous conspiracy theory. ‘But surely you can’t be thinking … you’re … well … I hadn’t … you’re not even married, darling!’
Kate snorted. Jake’s neck was mottled red.
‘It’s not the nineteenth century, Mother.’
‘No, I know, but …’
‘Actually, we’ve been trying to get pregnant and it hasn’t been easy, and I – we – would appreciate a bit more sensitivity on that front.’
When he was furious, Jake’s syntax became formal and middle-aged.
Annabelle looked as though she had been slapped. Beneath the peachy circles of blush, her face was pale.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, placing her glass on the coffee table. She stood up from the sofa and swept out of the room, leaving a trail of Christian Dior perfume in her wake.
Kate emptied her glass.
‘That went well,’ she said drily.
Jake walked over to the kitchen counter, slamming his empty beer bottle into the recycling bin with such force she was surprised she didn’t hear it shatter. Kate knew she should go over to him and try and broker some kind of peace with Annabelle but she was too tired. She told him she was going to bed, and left the wine glasses on the coffee table for him to clear away.
The next morning, at breakfast, Annabelle sat with an uneaten slice of toast in front of her, very still and upright. She hadn’t applied her usual make-up, Kate noticed. She looked old and pale and clearly wanted to demonstrate her hurt.
