The Judas Scar (13 page)

When she’d finished, she wrapped herself in a dry towel and walked back into the bedroom. Then she went over to her drawers and opened the top one. She reached in and felt for the cardigan, closed her fingers tightly around its softness, pulled it out. For one last time she buried her face in it, breathing deeply, and allowed herself to cry. When she finally stopped, she walked over to the bin in the corner of the room, the pain in her stomach making each step unbearable, and dropped the tiny cardigan into it, then turned her back on it.

C H A P T E R    T E N

Will lay on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, picturing the cracks that crept across it, invisible in the darkness. He thought about the moment she’d told him she was pregnant. It was a Thursday morning. She was about to leave for work. He remembered it clearly, even what she was wearing – a dark navy skirt and jacket, a white shirt, her Tiffany heart, trainers on her feet, her smart-heeled ‘meeting’ shoes that gave her blisters in her bag for when she arrived.

‘I’m pregnant.’

She’d said it just like that. Out of the blue. She was packing her briefcase with her notes, her reading glasses, an apple, and then she just stopped, both hands resting on her bag, and said it.

I’m pregnant.

There had been a quiver in her voice and when he looked at her he saw she was trembling, but her eyes gleamed and there was the promise of a smile that lit her face and turned the corners of her mouth up ever so slightly.

‘I’m pregnant.’

His heart stopped.

‘But how? How can you be?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you forget a pill?’

Her smile fell. ‘You think I did it on purpose?’

‘What? No.’ Will shook his head, confused; he hadn’t even considered she might do it on purpose. But then: ‘
Did
you do it on purpose?’

‘Of course not! I wouldn’t do that and I didn’t miss a pill either. I’ve not missed a pill in eighteen years.’

‘Then how?’

‘I’ve no idea. I suppose the stats say it’s only ninety-nine point eight percent effective. I guess we’re the point-two percent.’ And then Will saw the wonderment dawn on her face.

‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, ‘I’m pregnant!’

Lying on the sofa Will rested his palms on his face. He could smell her on him and his loins stirred inappropriately as he remembered moving his body inside her. He heard the shower start in their room. She was awake still. He wondered about trying to talk to her, considered what he would say, how he would convince her he was sorry. He should have been honest from the start. That was where it all went wrong. He should have told her on that Thursday morning. It had been a mistake to let her believe he was okay with it, that he was looking forward to having a baby. He could see his mistakes so clearly now. Why had he lied?

‘What are you thinking?’ she’d said, as she walked over to him and placed the flat of her hand against his cheek.

Will noticed how her other hand rested on her tummy, a protective barrier between him and it. Protecting it from what? From his reaction? From his coldness? He should have said something right then, as her hand rested lightly on his face and there was understanding in her voice. But he didn’t.

‘I know it’s a shock,’ she said, ‘but … ’ She broke off without finishing her sentence and her face broke into the widest of smiles.

‘It’s a good thing, isn’t it? Don’t you think? This will be good for us. It’s what we need. It’s fate.’

But you don’t believe in fate.You’re a scientist. Fate doesn’t exist for you.

‘I mean, I know we weren’t planning it, but you’re happy, right?’

She rubbed his shoulders and asked him again. ‘Please say something, darling. Tell me you’re happy.’

Looking down at her face tilted up towards his, her eyes shining, he lied.

‘Yes. I think I’m happy. A bit shocked, that’s all. But I’ll be fine. I just need a day or two to get my head around it.’

And then, as these lies eddied around them, as they filled her eyes with happiness, he smiled and kissed her and held her back when she threw her arms around him.

‘That’s good enough for now,’ she whispered into his ear, before pushing away from him, her face childlike in its excitement. ‘Oh, Will! We’re having a baby!’ Then she jumped back into his arms and kissed him again.

But would telling the truth have helped? She’d never have got rid of the baby. Then he thought about the vasectomy, about the phone call he’d made to the private hospital, the way they’d run through the details, the price, the ease of the operation, the approximate time it would take him to recover. At the time it had seemed rational. Obvious. He’d been annoyed he hadn’t done it years earlier. He remembered feeling suffocated, the walls of his world inching in from all sides, the cold sweats, that agonising mistrust of himself. Those damn words, Larkin’s words, ringing like a tolling bell in his ears. He’d spent every waking moment of those first few weeks trying to imagine himself with a child. He tried to be positive, told himself how it could be a good thing, how this was an opportunity he should embrace. But he hadn’t been able to convince himself and his anxiety had grown until he found it difficult to eat or sleep or breathe. Yet all that time he’d put on this ridiculous mask of happiness. He smiled when she told him how wonderful it was. He pretended to listen when she read aloud from baby magazines, told him how large the foetus was, which bits of its body had developed that week, how her ankles would swell soon, how her stomach would grow until her tummy button turned inside out.

He was a coward. He always had been.

C H A P T E R    E L E V E N

Harmony woke later than usual, after eight. Her eyes ached from crying and lack of sleep, and she felt cold and shivery. She washed her face and dressed in black work trousers and a thick grey winter sweater. As she walked along the corridor to the kitchen, her heart pounded. She was unsure about seeing Will; remnants of last night’s animosity came at her like shooting pains, a rage inside her so strong she could barely draw breath.

He was sitting at their small kitchen table. He was wearing last night’s boxers and a sweater he’d taken from the dirty laundry basket. His hair was all over the place and she could tell from his puffy, tired eyes that he’d had no more sleep than she had. She wondered briefly how long he’d been out pacing the pavements. As she approached him he stood. They faced each other like nervous teenagers, both knowing they were supposed to say something, neither having the faintest clue what.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked at last. ‘I’ve just made a pot.’ His eyes searched hers, worry written all over his face.

She nodded and he poured her a cup and added milk from the carton, then handed it to her.

‘Harmony, I’m—’

‘Don’t,’ she said, feeling her eyes well with angry tears. ‘Not yet.’ Her stomach churned and her throat tightened as the kitchen grew unbearably claustrophobic. She opened the back door to let some air in. The day was duller than the last few days with a slight chill and maybe the promise of rain. She breathed in the freshness and stared out across the garden to the flats beyond their boundary. She saw the shadow of a figure walk past one of the windows.

‘Do you ever ask yourself if this is it?’ she said, turning to face him. Her voice was calm and level. She looked at his face intently, trying to find signs of the man she was supposed to love.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean this. Us. The flat, the shop, my work?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I never think that; I have everything I want.’

She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling herself fill up with spite, wanting to hurt him. ‘Well, I do. I look at this place and I see a dead end.’

‘Our flat?’ His brow furrowed. ‘But you love it, don’t you?’

‘No, Will, I hate it. I didn’t always hate it. For a long time I thought it was perfect.’

‘It still is.’

‘It isn’t. It’s as far from perfect as it can be. We had all these plans. You remember? We were going to redecorate, apply for planning to build over the side return.’ She turned and looked back across the garden. ‘And then there’s the garden. I mean, look at it. It’s a mess.’

‘I thought you liked it wild and overgrown. You said it’s romantic.’

‘No, Will,
you
said it’s romantic. It’s not romantic; it’s untidy and uninspiring. I don’t want to sit out there in the evenings with a glass of wine and each other for company, and I should, shouldn’t I? That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Looking forward to simple pleasures like that?’

She heard him draw a breath as if to speak. ‘I am trapped here,’

she said before he had the chance.

‘Because of what I’ve done?’ he said, his voice full of reticence, as if he didn’t want to hear her answer.

‘Yes. You’ve taken my options away. It feels like I’m stuck here with no future. Like I’m trapped against my will. Last night I was thinking, wondering why I’d been so excited about the pregnancy and why I was so desperately lost after the miscarriage. Being pregnant lifted me out of some sort of rut I was in and the miscarriage pushed me right back down.’

‘You were that unhappy before the pregnancy?’

She let his question tumble around her head. It sounded odd. She’d never thought of herself as unhappy before the baby. Had she been? She trawled her mind, trying to pin down exactly what it was she’d felt. Had she been bored, maybe? Or unfulfilled? Numbed? Were these feelings real or just a reaction to the bombshell he’d dropped on her?

‘All I know,’ she said, picking at the edge of her thumb nail, ‘is that for much of the last six months I’ve felt alone and uncared for, and at times it was like I’ve been abandoned in the middle of an ocean. And then hearing what you did, knowing you could do something like that … ’ She shook her head and left the sentence unfinished.

Say something, Will, she begged silently. You need to tell me it’s going to be okay. That everything is going to be okay because we have each other and because you love me.

But he said nothing.

‘I need to leave,’ she said. Her stomach turned over at the sound of her words. ‘I can’t be here.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

She began to chew on her lip, unsure what was unfurling, unsure if she believed the words that hovered on the tip of her tongue. ‘I need to leave,’ she repeated. And as the reality of what was happening took root, she felt another stab of pain to her gut. She walked past him, unsteadily, and then out of the kitchen and back to their bedroom. He followed, then watched silently from the doorway as she bent to pull a suitcase from beneath the bed. She gathered clothes and flung them into the case.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to work and then I’ll stay with Sophie.’ She went into the bathroom and filled a wash bag with the things she would need.

‘I have to have space to think,’ she said, as she came back into the bedroom. ‘And I can’t do that here.’

‘You can’t leave. That’s crazy.’

‘Stop it, Will!’ She turned to face him, hands on her hips. ‘Did you not listen to a word I just said? It isn’t crazy. If our marriage has a chance in hell of surviving I need some time away from you to think clearly.’

He walked up to her, grabbed her upper arms and held her firmly, almost too hard. ‘Don’t do this.’

She noticed his eyes prickling with a suggestion of tears and her stomach clenched. Will didn’t cry. He’d told her once he’d given up crying when he was a child; he said crying only made things worse, it was a luxury he’d learned to live without.

‘Don’t do this,’ he said again.

‘I haven’t done this,’ she said. ‘You have.’

She watched his expression change from distress to panic. His eyes grew wide, darting back and forth over her face, and he bit down on his lip so hard Harmony worried he’d bite through it.

‘I need space,’ she whispered. ‘You do too. Maybe you should go and see your mum.’

‘My mum? What’s my mum got to do with this?’

Harmony growled with frustration. ‘I don’t know! I just know that you’re not doing the right thing by those of us you’re supposed to love.’ She sighed heavily and closed the suitcase. ‘You need to sort your life out, Will. You need to start behaving like a grown-up.’

Harmony found it impossible to concentrate on work. The words swam on her screen as she read or wrote. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Will, her mind on a roller coaster as she tried to work out what she felt. She lifted the phone and dialled her sister.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me.’

‘What’s wrong?’ her sister asked, immediately concerned.

‘I can’t talk now,’ she said, glancing up as a couple of colleagues walked past her desk, deep in conversation. ‘Can I stay with you tonight?’

‘Of course you can. You sound awful. Do you want me to come and get you? Are you at work?’

Harmony’s eyes welled. She dried her tears on the back of her sleeve. ‘No, I need to try and get some stuff done here.’

When the clock finally hit six o’clock she walked down to South Kensington tube station, battling through the crowds of commuters and camera-toting tourists with her suitcase. The tube was hot and stuffy. Her head pounded. She reached into her bag for her bottle of water. The woman in front of her glared at her suitcase and muttered under her breath. Harmony closed her eyes. She hated the underground, especially in the summer, crammed shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, tired bodies, sticky skin brushing sticky skin.

Harmony wondered if she was making a mistake. Should she be heading home to face him? Was going to Sophie’s the equivalent of shoving her head in the sand? She thought of him as she’d left him that morning, standing on the steps of their block, hands in pockets, grim acceptance written on his face as he watched her leave.

When Sophie opened the door of her sprawling Wandsworth home she wrapped Harmony in a tight embrace before leading her through to the kitchen. It was reassuringly chaotic, with school bags and gym kits discarded all over the place, shoes kicked off, piles of homework littering the dining table, a pan bubbling away on the hob and the noise of the boys playing football in the garden.