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She scrutinises his face, sees that he’s serious.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, feeling the burning heat of shame creep up her cheeks. ‘I … I thought you’d need to cool down first.’ This is a lie; he is right, she didn’t think, but she doesn’t want him to know this. ‘I was only in there for a few minutes.’ That at least is true. She’s already in the habit of timing herself after he remarked that she was taking too long, wasting the planet’s resources. She’s got it down to three minutes, including hair wash and express leg shave, no mean feat. ‘Sorry,’ she says again.
Wordlessly, he leaves her to get dressed. A moment later, the luxurious rush of the German Raindance shower head reaches her from the en suite. Miserably she resolves to be reading, or at least pretending to read, when he gets back from now on, or better still, to grab her shower the moment he leaves so that she can prepare breakfast once he returns.
After breakfast that morning, he gives her a peremptory nod and asks if she’s ready, and thinking that he’s still cross with her, she replies quietly that yes, she is. And as with the coffee–sex routine, only much later will it occur to her that another routine was substituted that morning: the soft kiss on the back of her neck, the casual remark on the colour of the sky or the wonderful surprise of birdsong was in that moment replaced forever by the irritable twitch of his head, the dull, unsmiling way of speaking to her. She will not be able to remember when exactly these things became part of the fabric of their life, nor when the chatty drives into London or to Richmond station became silent, the CDs he longed for her to check out replaced by Radio 4 news, which, if she tries to talk over, is met with a brusque, frowningshh.
When Marcia asks her how it’s going, Samantha tells her that Peter is a bit of a stickler. Grumpy, she would say, though not out loud, and definitely not to Marcia. ‘Cold’ is the word that nestles lower, much lower down. But this is part of what it means to live with someone romantically, which of course she has never done before. And the thing is, he is right about so many things. It is important to listen to the news, rude to talk over the top when someone is listening, inconsiderate in the extreme to take a shower when you know your partner needs one. If she wants to be worthy of him, she has to grow up; she knows that. And in the evenings, particularly after their seven o’clock pre-dinner glass of red, he softens, he really does.
‘Come here,’ he says, beckoning her to join him on the couch, pushing back her hair and kissing her neck. ‘God, you’re gorgeous.’
It is the stress of his day diluting, she thinks. And hers too. In fact, she feels herself de-stress along with him, closes her eyes to the feel of his hand as it traces its way to her waist. Yes, her evenings are never lonely. And Peter has helped her to become so much more organised. Where before she studied whenever the hell she liked, sometimes until two in the morning, a turret of Hobnobs diminishing rapidly on her desk – chaos! – now she drinks camomile tea, eats proper food at the proper time, has a regular bedtime of ten thirty.
Daytimes, if Peter’s at home, she writes her essays at the dining-room table while he works in the study. If he’s going into the uni, he likes her to study in the library until he’s finished lecturing, so that they can travel home together. Evenings are for reading, nothing heavier. Her iPhone is not allowed after eight o’clock. Together they lie top to tail on the sofa, wine on the coffee table, fire in the hearth. In these moments, she feels a little more at peace, and it is this peace she focuses on, hoping that it will permeate the rest of her days, gradually overtaking and obliterating that small seed of unease.
The new year dawns: 2017 is ushered in by firelight and an incredible bottle of vintage Veuve Clicquot. Just the two of them, together in their love nest.
And then one Saturday in February, just after Peter’s thirty-ninth birthday – which he celebrates at home with a 1968 Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Château Cheval Blanc – she realises that her period is late. She missed one in January too, and she thinks back to that drunken time with Peter over Christmas. While he’s out running, she stares at the calendar, racks her brains, but she can’t think, can’t think, can’t remember exactly. All she knows is that the possibility alone is making her nauseous. God only knows what confirmation will do. If she even is, which she can’t be. She isn’t. Oh please God, make her not not not be pregnant.
She calls Marcia. ‘Hey, can I come over? Like, now?’
‘Sure,’ Marcia says, and even in this one word, Samantha can hear the surprise of former closeness now lost.
But perhaps not forever. She tells Peter she is meeting Marcia for coffee. She’s so sorry, she forgot to mention it and now she’s late. She waits until he is in the shower to tell him, shouts it to him through the steam.
‘What?’ he protests, but for once, her stress levels trump anything he might have to say, even as he complains that he’s bought some Guatemalan Finca Capetillo for them from Monmouth Coffee, that he’d thought they’d drink it together this morning with the papers, that he wishes she’d mentioned it earlier.
‘I’ll have some later,’ she says, running down the stairs before it becomes an argument. ‘I won’t be long,’ she calls up, knowing he can’t hear her. She feels like she’s abandoning him, guilty that he is now upset because of her, but panic wins over guilt and she legs it all the way to the station, stopping only at the chemist on George Street.
Marcia makes tea in the flat they used to share while Samantha goes into the loo and pees on the white stick. They sit on the sofa and Samantha tries not to think of giggling fits and boozy, smoky nights in front of crap telly. Marcia takes her hand and holds it, grips tight when two blue lines appear like magic in the tiny window.
‘Oh my God,’ Samantha whimpers, a gut-churning memory she has pushed aside over and over emerging now from the fog in a hot, anxious wave. These multiplying cells – she cannot say ‘baby’ even in her mind – are the result of that—
‘But you were being careful,’ Marcia says. ‘Weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Samantha replies, thinking of that night. ‘But …’
They had been out for dinner at Luigi’s, Peter’s favourite Italian restaurant, over the bridge. As had become their habit, they had drunk an early-evening glass of expensive wine – a Chianti that night, she thinks she remembers – from Taylor’s, the wine merchants Peter always uses. Later, in bed, when Peter discovered that the box of condoms in the bedside cabinet was empty, he said he was too lazy and too drunk to fetch the spare packet from the bathroom. It had made her laugh, in the moment.It’s OK,he said.I’ll be careful. Trust me.
‘So you let him do it without?’ Marcia is incredulous; she just doesn’t get it.
‘I was … we were … you know? Quite far along. I didn’t want to ruin the moment.’
Marcia sighs. ‘But you know how babies are made, right?’
‘Of course I do. Stop being so judgemental. I … I suppose I trusted in his experience, you know? I trusted him in a way maybe I wouldn’t have trusted someone my own age.’
Trust misplaced, as it turns out.Oops,he had said, forehead crashing on her chest.Don’t worry about it; it’s only once.She put it to the back of her mind, told herself it would be OK, she’d have to be so unlucky for …
Marcia says nothing, rubs her back. Samantha is more grateful than she can put into words.
‘It’s one of his favourite albums,’ she says after a moment, the test limp in her hand.
‘What is?’
Samantha nods to the white stick. ‘Blue Lines. It’s by Massive Attack. They were big in the nineties.’
They laugh, because in that precise moment there’s nothing else they can do, until Samantha lets her face fall into her hands.
