Almost a year from the day that he had sat dry-mouthed in the Dean’s office for his doctoral viva, he had – at his parents’ insistence – attended a graduation ceremony. After lunch, Stella had joined them for drinks, laughing at John still in his robes. The conversation flowed amicably with the wine that afternoon and after they’d bade his parents goodbye, John had suggested another drink. The bar was packed with other red-robed PhDs and a few familiar faces had waved and shouted greetings across the smoky room. As the noise and heat began to rise, Stella had slipped her arm beneath his gown and whispered in his ear and soon they were walking into the park, their half-drunk bottle of wine corked with a tissue in her handbag. They’d found a secluded spot and sat down, swigging from the bottle, the rough wine sharp against their throats. The evening light had given the park a golden tone and Stella felt a sudden shot of clarity, as if this moment was destined to become a memory. John had rolled up his trousers and tossed his cap on the grass beside him, looking back at her with the lowering sun in his face.
‘Stella?’
She’d moved to sit beside him, kicking off her sandals. Her white feet had burrowed into the rich green of the long grass, a faint tracery of blue veins across them.
‘Stella, I really do love you, you know.’
She’d turned then and looked at this man, the angular slant of his shoulders brushed by his light brown hair, the wide hands that were clasped at either side of her waist. His face was tense, as if struggling with a devilish maths problem and she’d smiled at how much that must have cost him to say.
Pushing him gently to the ground, she’d leaned across him. ‘I love you too, John.’
Ten days later, they had stood at Paddington Station waiting for Stella’s train to Bristol. John pressed his face into her gold-streaked hair in a last embrace.
‘It’s only for two weeks,’ she’d whispered, trying to ignore the tug within her throat.
They’d kissed and then she’d run, waving as she climbed aboard the train, thinking only of home and her parents and the rolling green landscape that would soon unspool to take her there.
Her father had been waiting at Bristol Temple Meads, car keys jangling in his hand. She’d slipped her arm through his and they had walked together out of the grand old station and into the cloudy warmth of that late July evening. At home, her mother had held her tight and kissed her cheeks.
‘My baby’s home!’ she’d laughed, appraising the young woman before her, with her stack of books and washing. Later, in the kitchen, they had sat down to eat together and talked about her brother and his year in France, her research and the writers she’d uncovered in the archives, the house repairs – an endless litany of things to do.
‘Victorian houses,’ sighed her father as his after-dinner cigarette glowed bright.
The week had drifted past. Stella ate and slept and read. She walked with her mother to the shops and helped in the garden, sweating in the muggy heat of the overcast summer. Around her everything had seemed quite as it should be. And yet. There was, she noticed, a shift she couldn’t quite describe: an unlatching, or perhaps an ebbing away. She would find herself suddenly tired, a lethargy that made her trail off in conversation, an absence that overtook her. But then, she thought, those weeks before the holidays had been frenetic, carved in sharp relief by adrenalin, hunger and a biting sense of time running out as she’d scrambled to finish her literature review. She’d been rushing for weeks now; it was no wonder that her period was late. She’d stared again at the whiteness of her underwear as she’d wiped herself and dropped the tissue in the toilet, wondering when her cycle would be back to normal.
She’d slammed into the thought as if it were a wall.
For a moment she’d been frozen, her head a rattling void. Then she’d run down the stairs and out of the heavy front door towards the doctor’s surgery. Her hands had shaken as she made the appointment with a stern-faced receptionist, who’d eyed her naked fingers with small ungenerous eyes.
Days later, when her parents were out, she’d held the paper slip while sitting on the landing floor, staring at the red stamped letters – POSITIVE – in their neat white window. Eventually, soundlessly, she’d walked into the bathroom and flung the paper into the toilet. Leaning over the washbasin, she splashed her face with water. Straightening up, she stared at her reflection. In the mirror she saw the same face, startlingly unchanged from yesterday. Stella felt the wet skin on her bare neck tighten into goosebumps and heard her breath crashing in her chest. How could they have let this happen? Stupid stupid stupid. But as her breathing had slowed, in amongst the panic and the fear she’d sensed a glimmer of something else, a gentle rise inside herself, like the faintest strain of song. She’d phoned the lab and told John she was coming back, then called her mum at work. It had been impossible to ignore the note of disappointment in her mother’s voice, but she’d promised she’d be home again soon. She’d scribbled a note for her father, pushed her clothes in a bag and called for a taxi to take her to the station. The whistle had gone as she’d been running down the platform, and she’d had to tug at the door as the train started to move, jumping onto the step and slamming it shut behind her. The late-afternoon landscape unfurled as the train had picked up speed, and Stella had watched it with her head pressed to the cool glass, feeling her plans for the future slipping further away with every mile that passed.
An hour and a half later she’d descended cautiously from the train with the early evening sunlight behind her, her bag heavy on her shoulder. John had emerged at last through the rush of commuters, his face creased in thought, and she’d felt a rising flare of love for this earnest, angular man. He’d picked her up in the middle of the concourse and spun her in his arms.
‘Let’s go for dinner, shall we?’
Stella had nodded, putting off the revelation. Instead of going north to Kilburn, they’d headed south and emerged at Piccadilly into its circus of vulgar lights, passing home-bound office workers streaming down the steps into the station, tourists struggling with their maps and finely dressed theatre-goers gliding through the crowds to Shaftesbury Avenue and Haymarket.
John had led the way across the busy road, past the liveried doormen of the Piccadilly Hotel and up a narrow side street where he stopped outside a grubby-looking café.
‘It doesn’t look like much,’ he’d said, ‘but we might just see someone famous. It’s where all the actors eat between their shows.’
Stella had nodded and tried to smile as they’d sat down at a sticky-topped table and ordered pie and chips. Leaning across the table, John had held her hands between his as he told her about his research and all its latest findings. So much had happened, he’d told her, speaking so fast that Stella had struggled to follow. Eventually he’d paused as the waiter had clattered their steaming plates of food in front of them and Stella had taken her hands from his.
‘John.’
There had been a note to her voice that he’d not heard before.
‘Stel? Are you OK? I’m sorry – there’s so much happening, am I going on too much?’
He’d lifted his eyes to hers, but she did not return his lopsided smile as she raked her hair from her face with both hands.
‘I need to tell you – that is, God, I don’t know how to say – it’s just – I’m pregnant, John.’
He’d stared at her, his face blank, his eyes distant. ‘Oh …’
In two