The upper section was going to be more of a challenge and Holly wanted to work up some additional sketches before she started constructing the wire skeletons which would support the mother and child figures that were to be moulded from clay. She had persuaded Tom to strip down to his waist and drape a dust sheet around himself, holding a baby doll in his arms. Tom wasn’t exactly the figure of the mother she had in mind, but he was certainly less of the man she had waved goodbye to.
‘Well, if you’d seen what it was like, you’d have come back half-starved too. It wasn’t that we weren’t well catered for, we were. But I couldn’t switch off what was happening around me, none of us could,’ Tom had told her.
When he had set off to Haiti he had been a highly polished, slick anchorman in the making with his cropped hair and shiny suit, but his transformation had shocked Holly. He’d appeared on screen reporting in Haiti and each time Holly had seen him, he had looked just a little bit less polished, a little less slick. In some ways, Holly had been glad to see him reverting back to his old dishevelled self, but he had gone beyond dishevelled and had acquired a look that was gaunt, tortured even. It was more than evident that the changes weren’t only physical.
‘Well, you’re home now. I know you’re not going to be able to forget what you’ve seen, but you can’t fix it, not everything, not on your own. You are making a difference, Tom. It’s a demanding job but it’s the job you always dreamed of, and who knows where it will lead to?’
‘Straight back to the studio, that’s where. It’s only a secondment, remember. What difference will I be able to make then?’
‘You’ll make a difference,’ Holly said, in a weak attempt to reassure him. ‘Now stop moving and keep your arm straight.’
‘I know I shouldn’t complain, it’ll be worth it in the end. I can’t wait to be a dad,’ he said with growing excitement as he cradled the plastic doll in his arms.
‘We’ll see,’ whispered Holly, desperately trying to focus on her sketch and not resurrect the drunken argument that had been so narrowly avoided at the disastrous Sunday lunch.
‘What’s happened, Holly? Last time I was home you were so keen to start a family. Now, every time I raise the subject, you’re freezing me out again.’ Tom had kept to his pose so he wasn’t looking at her, but still he sensed the sadness that was threatening to overwhelm her.
‘What if we can’t have children?’
‘Of course we’ll be able to have children. Just look at this baby-making physique.’ Tom flexed non-existent muscles in a rather scrawny arm as if to prove the point.
‘Would our relationship survive if we couldn’t?’ Holly’s voice echoed across the studio. The photos hanging around the room swayed mournfully in an invisible breeze, their hopeful smiles mocking her. She wished she knew with absolute certainty the answer to the one question that was still haunting her. Would the moondial ever show her that she could be a mother and survive to watch them grow? Holly visualized rain trickling down a windowpane. Each raindrop represented an unborn child and, in her mind’s eye, each one trickled towards the same path. Would there be no way to avoid paying her dues to the moondial for the rest of her life?
Tom finally broke from his pose and looked over to her. ‘We’d survive anything, Hol, I promise. But it’s not going to come to that. As long as it’s still what you want. You do still want kids, don’t you?’
‘I do. You wouldn’t believe how much I do now, but …’ stumbled Holly just as the door to the studio swung open, bringing with it a blast of cold air.
‘Whoops, am I interrupting?’ Billy was standing at the studio door covering his eyes from the sight he’d just seen.
‘It’s all right Billy, you can look,’ Holly said, casually wiping the corners of her eyes in case either of them noticed her newly formed tears.
‘I hope he isn’t naked underneath that sheet,’ warned Billy.
‘It could be worse, he could be standing there without the sheet!’ Holly laughed as Billy pulled a face of disgust.
‘Hey, I take exception to that,’ complained Tom, who was now trying to flex his muscles and hold onto the doll at the same time.
Holly and Billy stood staring at Tom’s less than manly stance. ‘I think you should pick your models a little more carefully next time,’ suggested Billy.
‘I thought us men were supposed to stick together,’ replied Tom, indignantly.
Holly had a feeling this childish banter could go on all morning. ‘Listen, boys, I’ve got work to do. Billy, you’re distracting my model. What is it we can help you with?’
‘I was only dropping by to say hello,’ Billy answered sheepishly.
‘So what’s that rolled up under your arm?’ Holly demanded.
‘This? Oh, just a little plan for a job I’m doing. It’s nothing much.’
‘Hand it over.’ Holly had assumed the tone of a parent chastizing her child and the irony didn’t escape her.
Billy looked beseechingly at Tom, but Tom was looking equally uncomfortable.
‘It’s the plan for the garden, isn’t it?’ Holly asked when neither man made a move.
‘Might be, then again it might not,’ muttered Billy, again looking to Tom for help.
‘I’ve just remembered, I need to phone the studio,’ Tom said, letting the sheet slip to the ground and tossing the poor baby doll onto the workbench some ten feet away.
Wearing nothing but boxer shorts, he headed for the door. Billy tried to follow suit, but Holly grabbed him by the shoulder.
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Holly said. ‘You’ve lost me my model and you’re just going to have to take his place.’
‘Me?’ stammered Billy.
‘Sorry, Bill,’ Tom said, taking the plan from him and disappearing out the door.
‘Didn’t you know I was always after your body?’ Holly told Billy with a mischievous wink.
Two weeks together was all they had and for that brief time Holly tried hard not to think about the future. Life was all about living in the present. Tom’s next trip was to be his last assignment; he was going to South America to film a piece on the lives of young children who made their living scavenging on landfill sites. The subject matter promised to be as harrowing as he’d encountered in Haiti, and Holly worried how this new assignment would affect Tom. She wondered if he would be in any fit state to deal with the news that she would have to break to him when he returned. Part of her was looking for more excuses to put off her confession, but she knew that one day soon she was going to have to tell him about the moondial.
It had taken the full fortnight to get Tom looking like his old self, but the hollow anxiety etched around his beautiful green eyes had gradually filled out after copious amounts of rest, relaxation and home cooking, even including Holly’s burnt offerings.
‘I’m glad your hair’s growing back.’ Holly was watching Tom run his fingers through his damp, freshly washed hair. It was the early hours of the morning and the taxi was already on its way to pick him up. Holly lay back on the bed watching him pack up the last few things that had actually made it out of his suitcase.
‘You do realize that the studio is going to make me get it cut again as soon as I get back from South America,’ warned Tom. ‘While we were in Haiti, they tried to bribe the crew into cutting it while I was asleep.’
‘So