‘William—’
‘I know. I know. I’m a sad old man. But that money was just sitting there anyway, not doing anything.’
‘But you promised me. “We’ll try for a baby this year.” You swore.’
‘I did, I know. I know.’
‘You’ll have to pay it back. We’ll need it, won’t we? For when the baby comes.’
He’s silent and for a moment I forget about Kim – my trump card in her pale pink bra and sheer knickers – and watch him shift uneasily in the beam of my irritation.
‘William?’
‘I never promised you that.’
I stare at him, tears brimming. Even though I’ve already figured this out it still hurts to hear it from him.
He looks away from me. ‘Can’t we just wait and see what happens?’
‘That is what we’ve been doing!’ I yell, piston-straight, my head pounding. ‘And here we are, still doing it six years later! You lied to me then and you’re lying to me now!’
‘Frances, I swear to you—’
‘You don’t know what it’s like, to feel like this,’ I tell him. I’m forcing myself to be composed but it’s hard, it’s hard. ‘To want something so much it hurts. You have no idea!’ He studies me, head tilted. ‘You were never going to agree, were you? You’re just here waiting out the clock, right? If we wait another year I’ll be giving birth at thirty-five. By the time the baby goes to school I’ll be forty. By the time it goes to university I’ll be sixty. Even if I leave you and I’m lucky enough to meet someone else I would have kids with, how long will that process take? Four years? Six? Longer?’
He reaches for me and I brush him aside. I can barely speak without my voice shaking. Anger, burning my throat like acid.
‘Frances, I don’t know what to say.’
‘What you should say is what you should have said six years ago. “I don’t want kids.” It would have saved all of this! Why lie to me?’
‘Because I had nothing else to offer you! I wasn’t exciting. I didn’t take risks. I hated the parties you went to and the people you hung out with. I hated the drugs you took – cocaine made you nasty, ketamine made you boring. All I had in my favour was my security. That, I could give you.’
‘But it’s not enough. And you knew that. And you did it anyway. You’re a fucking monster.’
I pick up my drink, knocking him aside with my shoulder as I push past him. I hear Alex open the door to the dining room and ask William what the hell is going on in here, Mum’s trying to sleep, but already I’m pushing open the back door and heading into the inky soft night, the grass damp under my hot, bare feet, stars glittering in the vast sky above. Tears blur my vision and my breathing, ragged, uneven, makes a rasping sound in my throat. I find the place where the hammock has been strung between two old apple trees, the ropes of it greyed with age, and sit there, head down, letting the sobs come, letting them slowly erode my defences as the moon rises between the branches of the trees.
William finds me an hour or so later. By this time I am lying on my back, one leg hanging over the side of the hammock, nudging it from side to side. I don’t respond to his presence, or his questions, and I pretend not to notice the concern on his face as he squats down beside me.
‘I know about Kim, William. I went to see her.’
‘Who?’
‘Rattlesnake80,’ I tell him. ‘She said that’s the name you use.’
Oh boy, the look on his face. It’s like watching a meteor impact, like a cave-in. I can almost forget my own pain.
‘How long have you known?’
‘Since before we came down here.’
A pause. The rasp of his breathing lifts into the air.
‘It’s just money, Frances. It’s a transaction. We’ve only talked once or twice. I don’t even know her real name.’
‘It’s Kim.’
‘Is it? Huh. She doesn’t look like a Kim. She was using one of those corny cam-girl names like Dallas or Cherry or something.’
‘What did you know about her?’
‘Not much. She said she’s a student. She wouldn’t tell me which university.’
I feel oddly calm. Knowledge is power, after all. William, on the other hand, looks swept away, grey-pallored, almost queasy. Good; he deserves it.
‘What’s it for, William? If it’s not sex, what is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You gave away nearly three thousand pounds.’
‘I know that, Frances.’
‘Why?’
I let him be silent long enough, his eyes downcast.
Finally he says, ‘She gave me something you didn’t.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s that?’
‘Distance. You were always so intense. Like you were on the verge of a – I don’t know, a – a breakdown. Your career, your moods, even the way you had sex – it was always so intense. I just needed to get away from that.’
‘Huh.’ My temper is a wildfire, fast-spreading and hard to control, always changing direction. But when it burns out, as it inevitably does, I feel washed out. Numb. Fire is cleansing. It purifies. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hurt him back. To sting him like the words will come back and sting me, the sharp pain of them in the middle of the night, at home alone.
I turn my head upward, looking towards the sky. It’s high and vaulted, a cathedral ceiling finely painted with silvery clouds and pockets of stars, a perfect crescent moon. I almost expect a seraphim to appear.
‘I saw your dad’s grave today.’
William immediately bristles. His posture changes, becomes stiffer. His arms fold across his chest. It’s that subconscious behaviour again, animating him from within. How well I know it. How well I know him.
‘Would you say you two were much alike?’
‘Frances, whatever you think you know about my dad—’
‘That’s the problem,
