He’d thought they’d been very careful with contraception. He wasn’t a huge fan of condoms, but she insisted so he obliged. He was aware she was also on the pill, so he reckoned that wearing the condom was the least he could do, considering she was putting chemicals into her body. They were covered, he thought, so it wasn’t discussed much. In fact, she didn’t stay the night with him for several months after they met. She wanted to know him, to trust him. After all, he would be her very first lover. She wasn’t prim, but it mattered very much to her that it mattered to him, that it was to do with love, not lust. They waited. He didn’t mind. He wanted her very much but it was daunting, because it was also the first time for him. He didn’t tell her that until it was over. He reckoned she wouldn’t know because she had nothing to compare it with … which, for him, was a giant relief. He needn’t have worried. Hope and Quiet Isaac fumbled their way through that first time with extreme tenderness, and both were glad it was the other, and no one else.
Once that first time had happened, they had fallen into an easy intimacy and made love often. Sometimes they were both so very tired that sleep nabbed them before they could, and when they woke up they couldn’t believe they’d missed out. Hope could only imagine that it must have been in this kind of fuggy stupor of fatigue that the sex happened carelessly, without any protection, and this must have coincided with her also forgetting her pill. Shocked as they were to discover her pregnancy, and worried as they were about telling their two families, nothing could dampen their excitement. It wasn’t planned, far from it, but it was still undeniably wonderful. They had no idea how they were going to manage a baby, let alone afford one, but they knew for sure, right from the positive pregnancy test, that they would do it somehow, together. They talked endlessly about how their lives would change.
‘I won’t go home when I get my degree,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll find work here in London.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, so sure. Maybe we will get married? That way I will be able to stay. And we will be together, so we should get married anyway, if you want to …?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I’m sure. Maybe before the baby comes.’
‘Really? So soon? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Maybe you should meet my parents first? And I should meet yours?’
‘Before the baby? Or after? Are you sure?’
‘Maybe we should move to Bristol? Then you could be near your mum?’
‘Yes! Are you sure?’
‘Yes, or we could stay in London. The pay is better here …’
‘Yes … Oh, I want this so much, Isaac, I didn’t know how much ’til now.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
But that was then, and this is now.
In Anna and Julius’s room, the tension was palpable. A change was happening. Anna’s face was altering. She locked her gaze on to Julius and followed him wherever he moved to in the small room. He was shuffling about quite a bit; he took and made phone calls from anxious family and friends; he looked out of the window at the dark city; he looked out of the door into the corridor; he opened every drawer and cupboard; he scrutinized all the machinery in the room. Anna knew he was restless and bored. Patiently waiting wasn’t Julius’s strong suit. Neither was tenderness or compassion, or any of the virtues Anna could’ve sorely done with at that moment. Julius’s strong suit was Julius, and this birth stuff didn’t concern him directly, so his being here was chiefly duty. And show.
Even the phone calls at this late hour annoyed him. Why couldn’t people wait to hear from him when he had something definite to say? It wouldn’t be long, by the look of things.
The look of Anna, the way she looked right now, and the way she was looking at him, were unusual to say the least. She was clearly zoning out into some world of her own pain whilst her gaze was firmly clamped on him. It made him uncomfortable. He could ordinarily escape her if she became too focused or dwelt on difficult subjects or pinned him down in any way, but even selfish Julius knew it would be wrong to escape at this particular moment. He was expected to be here, so that was that. Did he want to be trapped in this fuggy room with his irrefutable duty? No, he didn’t. Given a free rein, he would go and do something else, almost anything else, and come back for the big finish. Anna’s eyes told him everything about how much of a mistake that would be, especially now as she started to enter the serious stage of labour. He could see that she was trying to cope with the huge unlocking that was happening inside her. She was trying to stay in control.
Anna had had no idea it would be like this. She was on the edge of panic. Some of the contractions felt like a jackhammer was trying to break out of her. Some felt like waves of searing hurt ebbing and flowing through her. As the baby started to move down, she felt sure she would tear apart and the sound she could hear in her ears was herself screaming although she knew she wasn’t. She was grunting and moaning. The screaming was inside her head, very loudly inside her head. She wasn’t screaming simply to herald this new baby’s arrival, she was screaming about everything …
About Julius’s avoidance of her.
About his endless crass infidelities.
About his smug entitlement.
About how this baby now meant they were joined forever.
