‘Imagine it!’ he grinned, that intense eye contact that people found so beguiling. That I had described to people when I first met him. That was one of the many things that made me feel so adored, at first, so important. ‘Swimming in the ocean and skiing down the slopes in this cute little line.’
This idea bedded into my mind until it became the clearest, most perfect thing I could imagine. This would make us whole; make us too busy for the bad times.
In October that year, with Luke in agreement, I took my last pill and we started trying for a baby.
I told my mom, surprising myself. But it had been so long since we had something to pull us close together. I longed for my parents, despite my attempts to block the feelings out. The idea of a grandchild, I thought. That might change things. Do something more tangible than an engagement. Reset mom’s thoughts on Luke and me. Glue my family and me back together again.
‘Luke and I have decided to try for a baby,’ I told her in one of what were now our very occasional phone calls.
‘Well that’s lovely,’ she said, but I heard the tone in her voice and regretted my words already. There was a long pause and I could hear her debating. Should she say it? Keep quiet? Was she pushing me away further, if she said what she really thought? ‘But I thought you were definite on not wanting them? Have you changed your mind?’
I stayed silent, furious, on the other end of the phone. Because I knew what she was getting at.
‘You mean that you think Luke pushed me into it, right?’ I hissed. ‘Why are you always, always having a go at Luke?’
She was silent then, for a second.
‘Because I don’t think he’s kind to you and I don’t think he’s right for you,’ she said gently.
I put the phone down on her then, not for the first time. After that, I began to ignore most of her calls.
Then Luke and I started trying for a baby here, in this flat, where I now live alone, next to a happy couple and their happy life. And what do you know? They are trying for a baby, too. They live my old life and I live my new one.
Before my flat was empty, it was full. Before it was lifeless, we lived life, planned life, hoped, here, to make life. We cooked joints of beef, sent scents out into the hallway that said ‘We are here, we are popular, we are rich and full and greedy.’ We chose colours together, put up pictures. We put plants on the windowsills that are dead now, withered.
Whatever our imperfections were, whatever anyone else would have judged them as, I could live with them. They were worth it for what was presented to the outside world. For my value, when I came in this package. Isn’t that what matters now, anyway? Behind closed doors can be flawed, as long as Facebook says joy.
Luke and I planned to turn one of the rooms in our flat into a nursery, as Lexie and Tom will soon. Luke presumed I would give up work and I presumed that I would do whatever he wanted, so we left it there, even though the thought of not composing made me feel nauseous and unanchored.
Sometimes I thought of how much our children would miss out on in grandparents and my heart hurt. Luke wasn’t close to his family and, I had to admit to myself now, neither was I any more to mine.
Luke had no interest in trying to have a better relationship with my family – even when I had spoken to them more regularly, he would leave the room when they popped up on FaceTime – and Luke was the focus, so I created more space between us.
I didn’t think it mattered, anyway. Until I took a wrong turn and became one, we were two, set to become three, four, five … I pictured that ski trip. I had all I needed.
After Luke’s proposal, my confidence surged. I stopped doubting my worthiness with Luke quite so much and work was soaring. I started speaking up. Questioning. The difference was noticeable. Luke started to comment on it, called me ‘arrogant’, ‘difficult’.
In December, we landed back from a trip to the German Christmas markets and headed straight out to West London for tapas with some friends of his. I complained. I was tired, cold, lugging a giant bag and I wanted it to just be us. Us was always enough for me. Simpler, easier, less likely to end in a row.
‘Why do we have to be with other people all the time?’ I sulked on the Stansted Express – exhausted enough not to edit my thoughts before they became words.
‘Because friends are important, Harriet,’ he said lightly, typing a long message that was hidden from my view. ‘One day you should get some and see.’
He spent the rest of the journey on his phone. I spent it staring at him, nervous. It’s just because we’re tired, I thought. Don’t panic.
I sat through dinner with one foot mentally wedged in the door of the train home. I smiled politely through a chorus of Happy Birthday. I listened patiently to a woman called Francine tell me about her love-life woes. Luke ordered dessert and I bristled because seriously, how much longer?
‘You look stressed out, Harriet, everything all right?’ said his friend Aki, dark fringe hanging in eyes that peeped out to mock me.
Later, Luke would deny that she was anything other than concerned but I knew. She was one of the ones I thought would make a ‘real’ girlfriend for Luke.
Aki – single, too – met the eye contact of another friend, Seb, and I saw it in that second: they talked about it – how odd I was, how peripheral to the group, how I made everyone else feel tense, even as they speared olives and toasted their friend’s thirtieth birthday with the obligatory bottle of cava. I glanced around, paranoid.
Over tapas, the night got worse – drunker, blurrier – and Luke leaned in close to Aki, brushing her hair out of her face and whispering to her. I wasn’t in the toilet or outside. I was simply sitting next to him. This was an old move of Luke’s. He didn’t try to be subtle. He didn’t need to, because he knew I wouldn’t react.
Finally, we left.
And this time I did react.
‘Were you flirting with Aki?’ I dared to ask, drunk enough.
‘You know what,’ he said, fixing his eyes on me, hard. ‘You’re so obsessed with flirting that it’s probably you who’s shagging someone else, not me. Are you cheating on me, Harriet?’
From then on I went back to biting my tongue so often that it must have been scarred.
Meanwhile Lexie, I hear her, shouts and speaks and argues and still gets to live out everything I want, just centimetres away through the wall. She and Tom make meals, the kind that Luke and I used to share before dinner became a chore for one. They curl up on their sofa and watch films, as we did, and make plans, as we did.
And I listen to the life I should have had, and am expected to exist alongside it. I sit as close to the wall as I can and I listen to them laughing, and I know something purely and clearly: I cannot let Lexie and Tom have a happy life. I cannot let Lexie steal my happy life.
I think of what happened before. I think about how, when someone steals my life, I am capable of doing anything to get it back.
January
I smear lipstick on then panic that lipstick isn’t in any more. Is gloss back? My reference points stop in time when I stopped in time. It’s one of the reasons I need this.
I need to snap myself out of my rut, so I am going on an official night out.
I need to leave this box. I can’t exit the one in my brain, but the front door of the flat is easy to open when you make yourself do it – and when you take your pyjama trousers off – and that’s