Esme turned away from him again, starting towards dry land.
Tom went after her.
‘Do you not see how he wasn’t saying that for me or for you. He
was saying it because he blamed himself for me not wanting to get
married, and was arrogant enough to think he could fix it before he
went.’ She wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘And you, like some bloody
patsy, just go along with it. Because, if you’re being honest, Tom, it is what you want too.’
‘And what if I do? What if I think we need this? If I need it?’
‘Then you’re going to be disappointed. I’ve said so many times
that I—’
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‘And what about me?’ Tom yelled over the noise of the waves.
He was surprised to hear himself say it. ‘This whole thing has been
about you.’
‘What whole thing?’
‘Marriage, Esme. You have never once, literally not once, asked
me what I think. You said no, and that’s the end of it.’
‘I don’t want to get married, Tom. Why is that so fucking difficult
for you to understand?’
Tom didn’t answer immediately. He knew what he wanted to say.
But was unsure if it would be wise to say it.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘Because I think it would be good for us, Es,’ he said, matter-of-
factly. ‘Things have been . . . well they’ve been a bit shit. With my . . .
stuff. And your dad. I think that maybe this is what we need.’
‘I don’t.’
‘If you’d just think about it.’
‘I have. I’ve thought about marriage a million times. On every hen do. Every time a friend asks me about it. Every time your bloody
mother drops it into a fucking conversation thinking I won’t notice.’
‘Fine.’
‘No, it’s not fine, Tom. It’s anything but fine. You knew how I
felt.’
‘And now you know how I feel.’
Esme and Tom stood apart from one another, each looking into
the other’s eyes. Tom knew he was in fact looking at the same woman
he had met at a party all those years ago. She had remained consist-
ent, certain of herself and her life. He questioned if he was the same man. And if not, who was she looking at?
‘I’m going to go,’ Esme said. ‘I don’t want you to follow me.’
‘I’m not sorry I did it,’ Tom called out as she walked away.
‘I am,’ she called back. ‘I never wanted to turn you down, Tom.
But I didn’t think you’d ever be stupid enough to ask.’
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*
Fifteen minutes later, Tom was sitting alone on the few rocks that
hadn’t yet been claimed by the sea. He was wondering where he
would sleep, given that Esme would almost certainly not want him
in her bed. And how would it be when he arrived back at Laura
and Aman’s beach house? Awkward and silent? Or would the four of
them gamely press on with the evening, playing games and chatting,
pretending that the day – the whole week – had not been ruined?
Maybe there would be a room at the pub. Though Tom knew
that today of all days was not the time to spend a night above taps,
bottles and optics.
Inside the pocket of his hoodie he fingered the rough velvet of the
small, black ring box. Part of him wanted to toss it into the water,
to let the gentle waves of the Celtic Sea consume it. Another part
knew that he couldn’t. Something unseen and unknown tied him to
it. Instead of selling, returning or junking it, he would take it home, place it at the very back of his desk drawer and leave it to gather
dust. He would allow the gold band to slowly tarnish over time, its
pointless emerald to become dulled with disuse.
‘IDIOT!’ Tom heard called from behind him. He looked around
to see Laura walking across the sand towards him. Since moving here
she had become every bit the middle-class English woman at the
seaside. Blue and white Breton top, tight khaki trousers rol ed up
at the ankle, Birkenstock sandals. Her blonde, wavy hair bounced
on her shoulders. She permanently wore the relaxed look that Tom
now associated with escaping London, having quit her job at the
Telegraph before Christmas last year to move to the coast and work on her children’s books.
‘Mind if I sit?’ Laura said, dropping down onto the sand next
to him before he could answer. ‘So. Are you going to stay here all
night?’
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‘I was thinking that the sea might eventually carry me out. I could start a new life in . . . wherever’s over there.’
‘Ireland.’
‘Probably not far enough.’
‘I don’t think things are that bad, Tom.’
‘Well,’ Tom said, stretching his legs out in front of him, feeling
the coarse sand on the backs of his legs. ‘Right now I’m not sure
how they could be much worse.’
‘Tom,’ Laura said, as though asking one of her kids to be reason-
able.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s okay. Bit upset still. I left her reading a Doctor Seuss story
to Mo with a G and T.’
‘He’s old enough to understand Doctor Seuss?’
‘Not really. But he likes the cartoons and Esme does the voices.’
Tom thought of her sitting on the couch in Laura’s big living
room, surrounded by expensive wooden furniture, decorative drift-
wood and garish plastic children’s toys. He could see her with the
two-year-old boy on her knee, arms around him as she read over his
shoulder. He imagined her voice reading, how she would take care
to give each character a distinct tone and accent, slipping from one
to the other to delight the child.
‘I love kids, but I’m not sure,’ was Esme’s stock line when they
spoke about the prospect of having children. His too, unsure of
whether he’d made too much a mess of his own life to convin-
cingly curate another’s. They were never quite ruled out, never quite
planned in; he could see a child in their future just as easily as he
could see them growing old together without one. Typically, it was
another thing they’d never really had a proper talk about; allowing
the busy bustle of life to obscure bigger decisions year after year.
They’d skirted around it in the way other people might discussions
about putting in a new kitchen.
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‘It’s a bit fucked, isn’t it?’ Tom said.
‘No!’ Laura said, allowing a long pause to set in before she con-
tinued. ‘I mean, it’s not brilliant. But . . . I don’t know, Tom. I see where you were coming from.’
‘I’m glad someone does.’
‘When did you change your mind? I always thought you didn’t
care enough to push it.’
‘Her dad told me to do it. Just before he died.’
‘Yes, I know her dad told you. But how many times do you think
they actually discussed marriage, him and Esme?’ she asked, making
Tom feel a flash of sympathy towards the various politicians she had,
as a journalist, determinedly grilled over the years.
‘Well, clearly never.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But the thing is that talking to him made me realise that I
wanted to as well. That’s the bigger problem.’
‘You’ll get over it.’
‘Maybe. But it’ll always be there, won’t it? I want to. She doesn’t.’
Tom dug his feet into the sand, enjoying the feel of grit between
his toes.
‘It was a stupid idea. I should’ve known,’ he said.
‘If it helps, I can see why you went for it, Tom. I really can. God,
there have even been times I thought she might change her mind,
because it’s you. But you know Esme.’
‘Yeh.’
‘She’s really determined about these things.’
Tom nodded and re-crossed his legs.
‘I know she always says that it’s just a piece of paper. But some
pieces of paper are worth more than others,’ Laura said, once again
nailing her colours firmly to the pro-marriage mast. ‘No matter what
Esme says.’
‘Degree certificates.’
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‘Huh?’
‘The pieces of paper she values most: degree certificates.’
Laura smiled.
‘You are good together,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘I liked to think so.’
‘Tom,’ she said. That tone again.
‘Things are such a fucking mess now.’
‘And you’ll get through it. There are some couples who just work.
They click. That’s you two. Everything you lack, she has. Same the
other way around. You’re like two bits of bloody Lego or something.
You make it work.’
‘I always thought that about you and Aman.’
‘Tom. Come on. I love Aman. But sometimes things between
us are a total shit-show. My terrible racist of a dad still isn’t totally comfortable with the fact that I married an Asian man. And Aman
hates it when I go away for work, but he’ll happily fuck off to give
a keynote at some techie nerd conference in San Francisco at the
drop of a hat. Where, by the way, I am almost certain he flirts with
every young reporter who asks him a question. We barely have sex,
and at least once a month have an argument that I think is going
to end the marriage.’
‘It all looks fine from where I’m standing.’
‘Well, it isn’t. We keep it on the rails because we love each other.
Despite all the reasons not to,’ she said with a laugh. ‘You and Esme
are nothing like that.’
‘We used to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know about everything, don’t you? From last year. That . . .
episode.’
Laura nodded.
‘Since then it’s been hard. She found out some things . . . from
my mum of all people.’
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‘I know. She said.’
‘Then her dad.’
‘Tom, you’ll—’
‘The thing is I’m not quite there, you know? Better, I mean. I
still get these moments.’
‘Does Esme know?’
The two of them sat looking out at the waves for a minute.
‘Tom,’ she said, prompting him.
‘That’s why I did it. The proposal. So she wouldn’t leave. If there’s
a next time.’
‘Does Esme know this?’
He hesitated before he spoke. ‘Not really. She thinks I’m better
than I am.’
Laura got up, brushed the sand off her backside and took a long,
deep breath of the sea air.
‘I can’t be the one you talk to about this. I love you. You know
I do. But I can’t.
‘Laura—’
‘I’m going back,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s Mo’s bedtime.’
‘Please.’
‘Talk to her,’ Laura said, looking back at him. ‘For fuck’s sake,
just talk to her.’
Tom waited a minute for the sea to get a little closer to him. The
pub was in full voice tonight. They had a band on. He thought back
to the last time he’d played live music to a crowd. It would be a nice thing to get back to – and he needed the money.
In the distance, a church bell began to chime. He took the ring
from his pocket.
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
10 – 11 am
THE WORST PART OF
THE HOSPITAL
January 2017 – The Royal Free Hospital, London
Esme tapped her foot against the floor. It was as if there was music
playing somewhere and she was swept along by the beat. Every few
seconds there it was: tap, tap, tap. The hard, stubby heel of her shoe against the cold, pale blue linoleum of the hospital. The cold, bare
corridors seemed to make it much louder than it actually was, each
tap echoing down past the maternity and early pregnancy unit.
He noticed that she’d barely looked up as they walked through,
past all the expectant mothers and nervous fathers. Since they’d been
told by the GP that there was a problem she’d found it impossible
to so much as glimpse a young child or baby without welling up.
‘It’s never a good sign at this stage,’ the doctor had told them the
day before. He was an old man who they both suspected had lost
faith in the medical profession years ago. ‘But we’ll send you for a
blood test. See what comes back.’
The results of the test were rushed back to the clinic in West
Hampstead, and confirmation that her HCG levels were low meant
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Esme was immediately booked in to the early pregnancy unit for later that day.
‘How low?’ Esme had asked.
‘There’s no exact number, I’m afraid. But at this stage we’d be
expecting them to double every couple of days or so. And it doesn’t
look as though they are.’
After cancelling her appointments for the day, Esme spent the
rest of the morning scouring the internet for good news stories of
women with low HCG levels and bleeding in early pregnancy. She
was looking for hope in the doom-laden forums. All she found was
acronyms and empathy.
Tom, meanwhile, had been feeling it all coming on again. It was
as if there was something inside him, around his lungs or stomach
perhaps. Something real, as if he reached his hand in behind his rib
cage he could grab at it and pull it free. But through it all he had
adopted a four-word mantra that he repeated to himself: Don’t let
Esme know.
He hoped it would pass with the weather, later in the year, when
the winter lifted. And in the low moments he tried to rationalise it
all, to tell himself that he wasn’t worthless, that life wasn’t hopeless.
Yet still, there it was. The feeling that he might break down any
second.
When Esme had showed him the positive test, Tom decided that
there were more important things
to think about. It was time for
him to be a man – to protect and persevere rather than malinger
and suffer.
‘But it says “pregnant” doesn’t it?’ Esme had said, climbing onto
their bed, where he was scrolling through his phone, trying to distract himself. She was confused because her period had arrived on time.
‘Yeah.’
‘So,’ Esme had said, a broad smile spreading across her face.
‘So . . .’
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‘You’re going to be a dad,’ she had said.
Tom had smiled, laughed and cried. But behind it all was that
deep fear again. How could a man who struggled so much to care
for himself care for a child? Tom had searched online for articles
about whether depression and anxiety could be genetically passed on.
At the same time, he worried about bringing a baby into a
relationship that had struggled recently: the blow of Esme’s father’s
death; that day in Cornwall. Although they had celebrated and
promised a new start on New Year’s Eve, it was hard to see where it
would come from when the beginning of 2017 looked so much like
the end of 2016.
But maybe, beyond everything else, a baby – created between the
two of them – offered the hope they needed as a couple. The hope
Tom had thought he could offer through his proposal.
Though he would not admit it, a child might prove restorative,
something to bring him out of the mire. Something to reconnect
the two of them.
‘Esme Simon?’ a chubby, red-cheeked nurse said, poking her head
out of a paint-chipped grey door. The two of them looked up at
her. ‘We’ll be with you in a minute. We’re just finishing up with
another lady.’
Yet more delays. Time had been a curse in the whole thing. The uncertainty and prevarication of various GPs had allowed it to run
on for three weeks, when it could so easily have been a closed matter
within a few days. The first of them had all but ignored Esme’s
concerns over the bleeding, passing it off as ‘implantation issues’ and referring her directly to the midwives for an eight-week appointment.
‘I reckon he was thinking about getting to lunch,’ she had said,
later in the process.
It was only Esme’s continued concern that led her to try again,
to book another appointment with him. Then, more visits, more
tests, more setbacks.
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