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Ada opened up Tinder and closed it and opened it again, and the first photo was a man with a ‘summers in the south of France’ tan and she shut it again. She could hear Mel and Sadie discussing her in the kitchen, Sadie asking if the cramps were always this bad and Mel saying it depended on the month. Ada felt like a sick child listening to the hushed grown-ups wondering if she was well enough to go to school.
Ada tried Instagram and saw Gabby and Hank in a restaurant together, the ocean visible behind them. Hank was leaning forward to blow out a candle surrounded by a tray of prawns and the caption read, ‘Happy birthday to my spunky Yank (don’t tell him what that means, it’s better he doesn’t know). Bump and I will try to make 36 your best year yet. Love you darling one, thank you for saving my life.’ And Ada realised Hank had booked her a plane ticket and written her a lovely email on his own birthday and no one had told her, especially not Gabby. Ada liked the photo so Gabby would know she knew. What a nice thing he did. What a very nice man he was.
Ada scrolled back further, past the thousands of Hank photos, the millions upon billions of images of the growing bump. She reached Australia, the time before Gabby moved, then further back again to the time before Gabby knew Hank existed. There was a photo of Gabby out with work friends and then her toasting their parents by the Christmas tree, the first year Ada wasn’t there. She wondered who took the photo and remembered her dad saying they had invited a lot of people over for that particular Christmas lunch ‘to distract us from missing our baby’. Her mother said, ‘And even ten extra people weren’t as loud as you,’ and Ada said, ‘Hey!’ and they’d all laughed on the family Skype, even Gabby, from memory.
But Ada wasn’t mentioned in the caption of the photo by the Christmas tree. It just said ‘Tis the season!’, which was a phrase Ada was pretty sure Gabby had never said out loud because when Ada used to decorate the whole house on the first of December, blasting Mariah Carey, Gabby had hidden in her room and refused to join in. But suddenly ‘tis’, suddenly ‘the season’? OK, Gabby.
It had stung then (no ‘toasts to absent sisters’? No ‘it’s a little different this year’?) and Ada had complained about it to Mel at the time. Mel pointed out that Ada had never mentioned her sister in her Instagram captions which seemed like a deliberately obtuse thing to say, but it was Christmas morning and they were staying with Mel’s silent parents and it had put both of them in a weird mood so she had dropped it. That night, after a long, sober lunch and then an enforced ‘Christmas walk’ through some frosty, muddy woods, Ada and Mel had got into bed together and drunk terrible ‘festive’ gin right from the bottle while watching The Muppet Christmas Carol and even then Ada stewed over the caption.
Sadie came back in with peppermint tea and Ada lifted her feet slightly. Sadie looked down and said, ‘Oh no, don’t make yourself uncomfortable.’ She put the tea next to Ada and took her place back on the floor and Ada thought about saying that it would have actually been very comfortable to lay her legs on Sadie, but then a wave of nausea came. She closed her eyes and let the smell of peppermint ease her through it and then opened them, ready to be cheerful.
Sadie was watching her. ‘You should talk to a doctor; these seem like really bad cramps.’
Ada said, ‘What’s a doctor going to do? I am simply paying my feminine penance. Original sin!’ and Sadie said, ‘Yes, I know all about that, I went to Catholic school,’ and Ada said, ‘Your family is Catholic?’ and Sadie said no. And they passed the time talking about their convent schools. Ada said she always played Mary in the liturgical plays and Sadie said, ‘That figures, it’s always the prettiest white girl, which isn’t strictly historically accurate.’ And Sadie told Ada that the Catholic school thing was another failed parental attempt at assimilation but that, ‘as it turns out, it was a great place to be gay’. Ada tossed over whether it was nice that Sadie had called her pretty or bad that she had kind of implied she was racist.
Mel joined them and said she couldn’t relate to all the Catholicism chat. ‘But while we’re talking about guilt, how does everyone feel about breaking the household meat rule and getting fried chicken?’ and Ada said, ‘Yes, my uterus needs this,’ and Sadie laughed and said, ‘Go on then.’ It felt like family, almost, right down to Sadie asking Ada if she should be mixing her ibuprofen with quite so much wine and Ada explaining that she felt it made both drugs more effective, actually. Ada had vaguely thought Sadie had somewhere to be that night but no one mentioned it. They let Ada choose the movie so she went with Obvious Child, cute enough for her to cope with in her current state but with enough feminist politics that she wouldn’t hear about it from Mel.
After the movie, Mel tidied up and Sadie disappeared upstairs, then called Ada’s name. Ada dragged herself up and saw that Sadie had run a bath and left a tumbler of bourbon on the side. She looked embarrassed, maybe. Whatever it was, it wasn’t familiar, and she said, ‘Sorry if … it just occurred to me that it might be nice for the pain.’ Ada said, ‘Wow Sadie, this is so romantic,’ and it was so quiet then that she said, ‘I’m joking. I am currently dropping clots from my body, sorry I’m just saying shit, it’s not romantic,’ and Sadie laughed and it was almost OK again. Ada undressed and Sadie let herself out but said to call if she needed anything. Ada set a podcast going about Dolly Parton’s place in the American canon and eased into the water, feeling the pressure on her torso ease enough to breathe in the steam.
She stayed in the water until her drink was done and the edge of a chill was setting in around her body, then dried herself and did her teeth. She came to bed to see Sadie still up and reading and she said ‘thank you’ and Sadie said, ‘Did it help?’ and she really seemed to hope it did.
‘Yeah, I feel pretty good now. Could be the drugs of course,’ and Sadie said ‘good’ and looked back down at her book. Ada reached into a drawer and pulled out her M & S pyjama shorts and a grey T-shirt she had stolen from a one-night stand, big and well worn. She realised it would be her first time sleeping next to Sadie with clothes on and thought maybe that was nice actually.
But when she got into bed and Sadie kept reading and didn’t look over at all, she wondered if maybe it wasn’t that nice. She wondered if this was Sadie’s way, if this was the most she ever had to offer, but then she remembered that Sadie slept in that other girl’s spare room for a week, just waiting for the girl to love her, and she figured it probably wasn’t. Ada had been in one relationship, only one, that felt balanced, like both of them wanted and felt wanted, and that had been with the guy who thought she had too many emotions. She hadn’t minded him thinking that because she liked that he saw her as passionate. But in the end, she frustrated him and he bored her and they held on out of equilibrium. Ada knew she would never do that again and being the wanter wasn’t so bad when your object sometimes ran you a bath.
Ada closed her eyes and dreamed of Gabby. They were swimming but the water was hot and rough, knocking them around and into each other and away again. Gabby seemed grateful to Ada for something, she kept trying to thank her, but every time it seemed like the words might come out, she would be dragged away and under by the boiling tide. Ada felt a tugging underneath her and looked down to see she was pregnant and she knew she was carrying the baby for Gabby because Gabby had needed a break, why wouldn’t anyone give her a break?
But Ada didn’t want to do this for Gabby. Why should she? If she was going to carry this for her then this was her baby and Gabby and Hank could go get their own! Gabby had drifted a long way out now and was floating on the steaming sea, free of her burden, and Ada started to swim to shore. If she could get out of the water and find Mel they could keep this baby. She’d be gone before Gabby even noticed she was missing. But the shore stayed the same distance away no matter how hard she swam and while Gabby floated out out out, Ada felt herself dragging under.
Later when Ada kicked herself awake, stomach hot, sweat cold, she wondered what life Gabby felt Hank had saved and then she was gone.
TWELVE
16/09/2017
Ada Highfield
20:48
I think you’re not talking to me which is fine but I was reading the Guardian (an actual newspaper, we get it every weekend, Mel is 60 years old cosplaying as 30) and I saw that there’s an exhibition at the Tate in Liverpool of queer British art. No pressure or anything but it’s closing soon and I thought it would be cool to see. So … I dunno! Maybe I come to Liverpool! Know anyone fun there?
•••
Ada Highfield
21:01
