I wish I’d had more cider. Maybe I should take off my sports bra to prove how fine I am. Evie’s breast is staring competitively at me. Go on, it’s saying, through that big, dark mouth at its centre. Show us what you’ve got.
“I’d kill for your body, Solvig,” says Evie, staring at my flat stomach and my protruding hip bones. “Would you mind if I touched you now?”
I shake my head and wait stoically for Evie’s fingers. I focus my attention on her bump, flopped to one side because of how she’s lying. I can see her heart beating in her belly, and I can see a lump too, maybe the baby’s head. The lump starts to squirm.
Evie’s acting like it isn’t happening. Her fingertips rest on my cold skin, and I gasp.
“Solvig, why are you crying?” Evie wriggles forwards on the bed and envelops me in an embrace. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she says. “Shh. It’ll be all right.”
My body convulses as I sob. “I’m sorry . . . I thought I wanted . . . I’ve been looking for . . .”
“I know,” says Evie, her breast squashing into mine. “I know, pumpkin.”
23
I stretch out, starfish-like, and look at the ceiling. I see bits of myself reflected in the chrome lampshade. There I am: a woman in her midthirties, who has a partner and plans for a family. A woman who nearly cheated last night. I suppose I did cheat, but if I didn’t sleep with Evie, and I didn’t kiss her, and I didn’t touch her anywhere but her stomach, would it do any good for James to know?
I sent James an apology text this morning. Sorry I didn’t call last night. Look forward to seeing you later. Felt good to say “sorry,” even if it wasn’t for the thing I feel guilty about.
I also watched a YouTube video of someone crying in space. It was Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station. And he wasn’t really crying. He was squirting water in his eye, to show the difference between crying on Earth and at zero gravity. A globule of clear jelly formed over his eye and then slowly spread across his face. After the demonstration, Hadfield said to the camera: “The big difference is, tears don’t fall.”
In the shower, I scrub my skin so hard with the loofah that it turns pink. I scrub away Evie, Center Parcs, the Mars Project. I keep scrubbing until it’s just me, James, and our future baby. It hurts.
•
I’m only twenty minutes from home when I stop in a car park and rest my head on the steering wheel. I don’t know how long I sit for. Time is wrapped around me like a duvet: soothing, suffocating.
When I lift my head off the wheel, I half expect to have a ticket, but there’s nothing. I pay for an hour’s parking and head for the centre. I walk past Lemon Quay, towards the shops on Boscawen Street. I go past tourist shops, chain stores, and boutiques, glancing in windows and dismissing everything.
Then, a white shopfront catches my eye: Mothercare. I’m meant to be looking for something for James, something that will make me feel better, but I find myself going in.
There’s music playing on the speakers. A Disney tune? Something about how feeling the wind on your face can lift your heart. I run my fingers over a terry-cloth romper suit with a duckling on the front. I scrunch up a mint-green velour pinafore dress. I clutch teeny socks and mittens. I shake rattles and caress blankets.
The newborn onesies are all labelled as unisex, but there’s clearly one side with a lot of pink flowers and princesses on it, and another that’s full of blue tractors and dinosaurs. I like to think, as many have thought before me, that I won’t gender-stereotype my daughter. Incidentally, a girl is what I feel instinctively that she’s going to be. Maybe it’s because I once read that divers have more female than male children. It’s something to do with sperm fragility, not that this would affect me, I suppose.
I’m going to get all sorts for my daughter. Like this onesie, for instance. It’s on the blue side, and it’s got an orange octopus embroidered onto it. My little girl, enveloped in the manyarmed embrace of a cephalopod. Symbolic, perhaps, of all the different people that are going to love her, to fold her in their arms and protect her.
“Can I help you at all?” asks a saleswoman.
“I’m having a baby,” I say.
“Congratulations! When’s he due?”
“It’s a she. We’re not sure of the exact date yet.”
“Well, let me know if you need anything.” She wanders off towards the prams at the back.
I hold the outfit close. This is it. The thing I am going to buy. The thing that will make me feel better.
•
James kisses me on the cheek. “Thought you’d be back ages ago.”
I can hear voices in the back room. James always takes visitors in there. He thinks it’s cosy. I think it smells of damp. Right now, James smells of paint stripper. “Have you been drinking?”
“Guilty as charged.” James opens the front door wider and reveals a bottle of beer. I notice that he doesn’t apologise for breaking our rule.
I put my rucksack down in the hall. The onesie is in there. It doesn’t feel like an appropriate gift now I’m home. “You’d better get one for me too.”
“Gotcha.”
I follow James into the kitchen and hiss: “Who’s here?”
“I threw an impromptu board game night. We’re being retro and playing Scrabble.” Normally, James plays geeky games like Lords of Waterdeep and Settlers of Catan. He hands me an open bottle: a wheat beer called White Noise. “How was Liverpool?”
“Work was fine.” The beer tastes strong. “How come you’re having a board game night tonight?”
“A few of us fancied it. Let’s go through.”
“But Scrabble?” I persist. “That’s not your thing, is it?”
“I picked something everyone would know.”
We head
