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This time—laden down with bags and a car seat—I take a cab. It isn't much faster than the bus, especially as it's the middle of rush hour, but it's altogether quieter, allowing me to rest my head on the door and stare out of the window.
We pass the familiar landmarks: shops, the station, the pub on the corner where Alex used to play. I remember a hundred different nights spent in there with him. The way he would grab my bottom as we left, his guitar slung over his shoulder, hair messy after a night of hard rocking.
It makes me feel wistful. Though I thought I'd washed my melancholy down the shower drain along with the dirt that clung to my skin, it's come back with full force. Perhaps it's the post-natal depression, perhaps it's knowing Alex chose his band, his career over us. Or maybe it's the knowledge I came so close to losing my baby that makes my heart feel as if it's been slashed in two.
When we pull up at the hospital, I count out the money and hand it to the driver, telling him to keep the change. Then I climb out, slamming the door behind me, and walk back into the hospital with arms full of baby stuff.
Taking the lift, rather than the stairs, I press the button for the top floor. A couple of people get in after me, before the doors slide closed. By the time I get into the Neptune ward, I'm glad to put down my bounty, and I have to shake my arms to return the feeling to my fingers.
Things haven't changed in the time I've been gone. The beds are still full of children, some sleeping, others surrounded by family. The walls retain the vibrancy of the murals, the smiling Disney faces adding a cheer to the ward. In the past few days I've become accustomed to the sounds and smells of the hospital. It feels familiar. Comforting. And as I walk into the room beside the nurses' station the smile on my face is genuine.
Genuine, but fleeting.
Max is awake, being held while he sucks at a half-full bottle of milk. His hand grasps the plastic, as if he's trying to feed himself. Even after two hours he looks brighter. Healthier. His cheeks are pink and supple.
But it's not Max I'm staring at, it's the man holding him. The man with the sinewy biceps and colourful tattoos that cover his arms. The man who is looking at me, a smile breaking out on his lips.
Alex.
* * *
Back when I worked in an investment bank, Saturdays were reserved for all the crap I couldn’t get done in the week. Trips to the hairdressers, dumping laundry at the dry cleaners. Stocking up on essentials at the local Tesco Metro. What they weren’t reserved for was bringing strange singers back to my flat in the early hours of the morning. Yet that’s what I found myself doing the first night I met Alex.
I lived in one of those impossibly anonymous apartment blocks that surrounded London’s Docklands. Red brick, and warehouse-like, they lined the waterways, their blandness reflected back in the rivers they loomed over. Even with the morning sun rising up behind them, they failed to look anything else than what they were; holding pens for City workers.
“You live here?” Alex asked, looking around the lobby as we walked to
wards the bank of three elevators. “Seriously?”
I glanced behind me, wondering what he found so funny. The desk was manned by a security guard, his face half-hidden by the huge vase of fresh flowers resting on the walnut countertop. The floors were marble, veined with pale blues and pinks. I couldn’t see anything amusing about them.
“Yeah, why?” I wrinkled my nose.
“I dunno. It doesn’t seem very you.”
“What does that mean?” I couldn’t work out if it was a compliment or a criticism.
We stepped through the open lift doors. “It’s too boring. No life to it.”
I pressed the button for my floor and watched as he leaned against the mirrored wall. A dozen Alexes reflected right back at me. “It’s close to work,” I protested. I didn’t know why his dislike of my place annoyed me, but it did. I felt as though he was judging me.
“What do you do again?”
“I work in hedge funds.” Normally people tuned out as soon as I started talking about my job. All they ever wanted to know was what I earned, and what shares they should invest in. Anything over and above that and they were falling asleep.
“Do you like it?”
He stared at me and I felt that pull again, as though an invisible cord was wrapped around my waist.
“It’s a great job,” I said. “It’s challenging and difficult but it’s brilliant experience. I get given a lot of responsibility, more than other firms would.”
He raised a single eyebrow, making his ring glint in the glare of the light. “But do you like it?”
My head started to ache as I thought of the downsides. The times we lost millions, the way all the partners shouted at us constantly. How I always felt I wasn’t good enough.
“It’s a job.”
I didn’t like the way he looked at me. As if I was something to be pitied.
