Читать книгу 21 Miles - Jessica Hepburn - Страница 9

Prologue

I slide off the side into the deep end. My body feels weightless in the water as I start to swim. Breaststroke arms and legs pull me forward; it feels like my speed is strong. Could the duckling have turned into a swan?

My opponent’s mum nods admiringly as I reach the shallow end, as if she is impressed. My mum stifles a smile, I think, I can never be sure with my mum. Whoever wins today’s swim-off will compete in the inter-schools swimming gala. The teachers haven’t been able to decide which one of us is faster, so me and a classmate have been sent to the local pool to sprint it out, two girls marshalled by their mothers.

My opponent climbs down the steps into the water and now we are both poised, ready to start. Her mum says ‘Go!’ My mum stands silently watching. I’m not sure she would know what to say; she’s not like most people’s mums. I push off and swim, reaching ahead, pulling the water past me, kicking back. But I don’t feel as quick as I did on my first length. I’m fighting the water, I’m losing the race and the coveted place in the gala.

When you’re a child, life is all about speed. Who will be the first and the fastest? When you grow up, you realise that life’s really about endurance. Water would teach me that.

–––––

‘Can we have the works tonight?’

‘You mean starter and pudding?’

‘Go on. It is Christmas.’

‘But you know I don’t like puddings,’ Peter says. ‘I’m happy for you to have one though.’

‘It’s not the same eating a pudding on your own. Will you at least share one with me?’

‘If it makes you feel better, I’ll share one with you and you can eat it.’

There’s no point continuing this conversation. I’m not going to win.

It’s the night before Christmas Eve and we’re having supper at our favourite restaurant, just round the corner from our flat. The place is fairly quiet. Most work parties are over, and everyone is either doing last-minute shopping or staying home in preparation for the excess to come. The waiter comes over.

‘Shall we?’ Peter asks.

‘Why not? It is Christmas.’

‘Touché,’ he says, before turning to the waiter. ‘Two Negronis, please.’

The waiter smiles. Every waiter who knows their cocktails always does when you order a Negroni. It’s a drink lover’s drink.

I order the food. Crab on toast, followed by seven-hour lamb and a bottle of the Douro. It’s what we always have.

‘Any sides?’ the waiter asks.

‘Greens definitely,’ I reply. ‘Do you think we need potatoes?’

‘Depends how hungry you are. The lamb’s for three so it’s going to be a big portion for the two of you anyway.’

‘It’s OK,’ Peter says, ‘She likes big portions.’ He smiles at the waiter.

Peter likes food too. Not quite as much as me, maybe. But I could never have stayed with a man for twelve years who didn’t like to eat. Having said that, my perfect partner would share my love of carbohydrates – Peter thinks they’re boring.

Our Negronis arrive. ‘Here’s to Christmas,’ he says as we clink glasses. ‘And to a great year ahead.’

‘You say that every year and we still haven’t had one. I’ve been thinking about doing my own version of the Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day – 2013: my annus horribilis. I might think it was something to do with the number thirteen, except that every year for the past nine years has been unlucky.’

It was Christmas day nine years ago that Peter and I first decided to try for a baby. I had just turned thirty-four and the topic had been under discussion for a while. I’ll always remember him looking at me across the dinner table, surrounded by our family, and mouthing: ‘Let’s do it!’ But nine years later we still haven’t had one. This is the first Christmas in years that we’ve spent at home in London. We usually escape somewhere hot, somewhere we’re not reminded of the children we haven’t got.

‘It is going to be great,’ Peter says in his most encouraging voice. ‘This is the year you officially become a writer.’

‘Yeah, but who’s going to want to read a book called The Pursuit of Motherhood that doesn’t end with a baby?’

‘Not yet. There’s still hope.’

‘Peter, I love you for your optimism, but I’ve just turned forty-three. Haven’t you heard that’s the age a woman’s fertility jumps off Beachy Head?’

‘Why Beachy Head?’ he says.

‘Well, I would say “falls off a cliff”, but apparently good writers steer clear of clichés.’

He laughs.

‘Mind you,’ I continue, ‘clichés are clichés for a reason. They say it how it is. There’s nothing active about the decline in my fertility. It’s falling, not jumping.’

Peter gives me that look which I know means he’s afraid I’m heading down the path of despondency. ‘I don’t know what you’re worried about,’ he says, trying to turn the conversation around, ‘misery memoirs are all the rage these days.’

‘Yeah, misery memoirs that have a happy ending. I know I didn’t manage it by the end of the book but I was at least hoping that by the time it came out I’d be able to announce I was pregnant. It would have made a perfect real-life epilogue.’

A month earlier, just before my forty-third birthday, we had undergone another round of IVF. As usual, everything seemed to go well. Three high-quality embryos that had been fertilised ‘in vitro’ were put back into my womb, and we were due to find out whether I had got pregnant just before my birthday. Talk about timing: my book about our long struggle to conceive is due to come out in the new year, and it ends with me saying that I am going to continue trying for a baby until I reach the age of forty-three. This is based on the philosophy of a good friend of mine from university who’d once said to me: ‘It’s all about the number forty-three. If you haven’t had a baby by then, you can get on with the rest of your life.’ It had become my mantra, and on the eve of said birthday it felt like we had been cast in our very own version of The Truman Show and someone somewhere had decided to give us the most climactic happy ending. I was convinced it would be twins. I could do twins. I could even do triplets. But the cycle was negative. All we added to our family was another fifteen grand of debt and disappointment.

I pick up my glass and take another sip of Negroni.

‘Let’s face it,’ I say, ‘there’s basically no chance of Julia Roberts playing me now. Who would adapt a book into a film about a woman who desperately wants a baby, does everything possible to get one, and fails?’

‘Isn’t she a bit old?’

‘Who?’

‘Julia Roberts.’

‘No. Celebrities are the only people who are never too old to have babies.’

Our crab on toast arrives. Peter does his usual, picking off the meat and leaving the bread. It’s such a waste, but with lamb for three (plus potatoes) on the way, eating his toast would be, well, greedy.

‘So while we’re working out what to do next, why don’t you focus on all the incredible women who didn’t have children?’ Peter says. ‘You know, like Virginia Woolf, Frida Kahlo …’

He’s doing that optimist thing again.

‘Virginia Woolf killed herself, remember,’ I say.

‘A minor detail. The important thing to remember is that history is full of women who didn’t have children and no one thinks about whether they were mothers or not. We think about what else they did in their lives.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ I reply, ‘but it is true that if I can’t be a mother I’m going to have to do something big instead. Something really impressive.’

Peter sighs. ‘That’s not what I meant. You don’t need to try and become the next Virginia Woolf or Frida Kahlo if you don’t have a baby. Why don’t you just start by planning the other things you want to do in your life – like that trip you’ve always wanted to take on the Trans-Siberian Railway, something like that.’ He pushes his plate away, toast untouched. ‘God, I wish I’d never mentioned them now.’

‘Trans-Mongolian,’ I say pointedly.

‘Pardon?’

‘Trans-Mongolian Railway I want to go from Moscow to Beijing, not Vladivostok.’

‘Well, Trans-whatever-it-is. What I mean is you don’t need to change the world just because you can’t have a baby.’

‘So what’s the point of being here then? If you don’t have children and your only purpose is to serve the economy and maybe have a bit of fun from time to time, is it really worth it? Unless you do something Big.’

He gives me a weary look as the waiter comes over to take our plates.

‘I’ve always fancied becoming prime minister,’ I say, pouring us each a glass of wine. ‘PM Hepburn, that would be pretty cool.’

‘But you don’t know anything about politics. You didn’t even vote in the last election.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s because I don’t know whose side I’m on any more. Maybe I could be an independent. There are definitely a few things I’d like to campaign for: three-day weekends, free public transport, the death of Starbucks …’

Peter laughs.

‘The problem is,’ I continue, ‘I’m not sure anyone would vote in an “infertile” to run the country. Not when babies are what win elections.’¹

‘I hate that word. I wish you wouldn’t use it.’

‘What word?’

‘Infertile. You’re not infertile, you’ve been pregnant lots of times.’

‘I’m not sure it counts if you don’t end up with a baby.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

I’m thinking as our main course arrives.

‘Maybe I could write another book?’

‘What about?’ Peter says as he starts to dish out the lamb onto our plates, well practised in putting more on mine than his own.

‘About what happens next. A bit like the “Katy” series?’ I say. ‘You know, What Katy Did; What Katy Did Next – the books by Susan Coolidge? Didn’t you read them?’

‘I’m a boy. Boys don’t read books about Katy.’

‘Oh yeah, they prefer pictures of Katie Price.’

He gives me a look of disdain. I take two potatoes and push the bowl towards him but he ignores it.

‘So, that’s it,’ he says. ‘Write a book about What Jessica Did Next. Maybe she can even go to Beijing …’ he says. ‘But here’s the deal: this book. I’m not in.’

‘What do you mean?’ I say, picking up my fork.

‘I mean what I just said, I don’t want to be in it.’

‘You’ve got to be in it. Otherwise people will wonder what’s happened to you. You can’t just disappear.’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘But everyone that’s read a proof of my book says you come across as a really nice guy. That’s the beauty of fiction.’

‘I am a nice guy. Your book isn’t fiction. It’s non-fiction. It’s about our life.’

‘Yeah, well you can’t say that and then say that scene I wrote where we had a row is embellished.’

‘Well, it was.’

‘Well, maybe that’s the thing about reality. It’s subjective. You think that row is embellished. I don’t. I chose to write you as a nice guy. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are one.’

Peter looks at me. ‘Either way, I still don’t want to be in it. I agreed to be in your first book because you needed to write it. But that’s it. In book terms, we’re getting a divorce.’

I’m quiet for a few moments.

‘OK, I get you. How about a dessert instead, then? They’ve got Christmas pudding ice cream on the menu. If we’re going to get a divorce, surely you can’t deny me a scoop of ice cream?’

Notes

1 ‘The problem is,’ I continue, ‘I’m not sure anyone would vote in an “infertile” to run the country. Not when babies are what win elections.’ In July 2016, Theresa May became the UK’s prime minister following the resignation of David Cameron. May is childless. She has said that she and her husband wanted children but couldn’t have them. Ironically, her appointment was aided by comments about her childlessness made by her rival in the Conservative Party leadership campaign, Andrea Leadsom – a mother of three. Leadsom said: ‘I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be “Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t” because I think that would be really horrible, but genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.’ There was a considerable backlash against these comments. Leadsom apologised to Theresa May ‘for any hurt’ she had caused, and withdrew from the leadership campaign shortly after.

[‘Andrea Leadsom Apologises to Theresa May over Motherhood Comments Row’, Independent, 11 July 2016.]

Jessica Hepburn writes: thankfully, my prophecy was proved wrong but perhaps the furore proved my point.