The Baby Group

look at photos framed on the window ledge that are looking less and less like us; these people squishing their faces up against each other to get closer. This naturally uptight Ed who had softened with that first fun wave of love. Who couldn’t be in a picture with me without kissing me. Who could hardly be near me without kissing me. We loved long weekends in European cities, taking our running kits and beating our times along the Seine, around big Madrid parks. We loved having no guilt about the oily prawns or the sticky cheese board we would eat afterwards. We loved falling into bed later, limbs falling into each other whenever we stirred. We loved, if we’re honest, always being the hot couple at whatever wedding we went to, the statuesque model-like pair, everyone telling us we looked like celebrities. It’s probably why we got a kick out of the blog.

The new us moves around each other oddly, like losing track of each other’s minds means we no longer know the shape of each other’s bodies either.

I wonder why again. Is it just the video? Or are his limbs touching somebody else’s now?

Knowing how it used to be makes it so much worse.

Without comparison we have no idea what’s good, what’s bad. We used to stick together, now we float around miles and miles apart.

‘Do you have any plans this weekend?’ asks Ed, tentative, like we are on a second date and he is nervously suggesting a third.

Do you have any plans? It used to be we. Now we exist on separate planes, our plans and weekends presumed to be spent apart. I’ve seen it happen in divorced couples, friends of my dad’s; this is the start of the end. You move away, gradually, until no one has the energy to put their boots on and trudge all that way back.

I look up, holding a mug with our faces on it. A wedding present from my half-sister Josephine, now about to get married herself but at the time too young to enter into the systemic politeness of a John Lewis gift list. ‘I got you a mug!’ she said, so pleased with herself. ‘It’s got your faces on!’ It was one of my favourite presents, to be honest, in a sea of fancy stuff with no feeling.

I think of Asha’s matching sets. I’m fond of this mug, though less so since looking at it started to feel like nostalgia for the old Ed and me.

‘I don’t think so,’ I say nervously to Ed now because where is this going? Do I need to steel myself? Is he suggesting couples counselling? A divorce lawyer?

Ed looks emboldened. ‘Let’s go away,’ he says, decisively.

This is a long way from what I was expecting.

‘Where are we going?’ I say.

‘Anywhere,’ he replies, almost desperate and I wish I could close the gap and cuddle him tightly. ‘Anywhere. We just need to be on our own, Scarlett. Out of these walls. My parents will have Poppy.’

But are we ready for this?

I think of Joseph and the night at the coffee shop – a place I have had to steadfastly avoid in the weeks since – and I cringe.

Alone. Away from home. With nothing to do except talk. Can we do that? I’m so angry with him for leaving me alone through this. For that life holiday at his parents’. Do I even want to do that?

I am still holding the mug and I look at it now. At our faces in the grainy picture on the side: happy, naive, sure. Split up? Not them. Not those people.

‘Yes,’ I say. Don’t give in, Scarlett. Don’t give in. ‘Let’s book something.’

And miraculously, I can feel something that is not dread.

Forty-eight hours later we are dropping Poppy and her sixteen bags at Ed’s parents’ amidst promises of Peppa Pig marathons and strawberry ice cream.

I take a deep breath before we walk into their huge modern house to drop her off. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since the video – both parties, I suspect, as keen to avoid each other so that Ed has done every drop-off with Poppy. Whole-family visits – with Ed and I barely speaking – have been off the table anyway. Ed and Poppy head off together while I run or sleep or cry.

‘Scarlett,’ says Phillip, as red-faced as a drinker. ‘Good to see you.’

Nancy, in her cashmere cardigan and thick glasses, gives me a hug in which she manages to barely touch me. Fingertips float just above my skin.

I look down at the floor.

I wouldn’t say we’d ever been close.

But there are nations and continents and time zones between us now and I am not sure we’ll ever stumble back over to sit in the same country, let alone the same sofa.

We stay only long enough to settle Poppy in and then Ed and I and our two tiny bags are dispatched to our country house twenty miles away amidst promises of happy hour mojitos and stomps in the forest.

I don’t connect to the Wi-Fi. My marriage has my undivided attention. If I want this relationship to work, I need to put effort in.

Ed and I sit at a table outside. I kick my sandals off and tilt my face up to the sun. I exhale, and it feels like I’ve been holding my breath for a month.

‘What can I get you?’ says a slightly sweaty waiter.

It’s one of those moments that so rarely combine to mean you’re outside in an idyllic setting when it’s actually hot in England and it seems a sign. It’s helping us be fun us. The grass is cut neatly like a lawn at Wimbledon, the flowers are bright and we are the only ones here. It’s like we’ve got our own mansion with our own sprawling gardens.

I smile, lady of the manor.

I order a Prosecco cocktail, and I am getting into this now.

Maybe we’ll be okay. Maybe we can spend tonight clawing it back.

I