Dear Thing (13 page)

Claire doesn’t know what she does have
, she thought.
Nor that I want him, too.

‘All right,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Claire.

Ben had been waiting for her when she got in from her walk. There was a large bouquet of flowers beside him on the table, in a vase that was too small for them. She ignored them.

‘You don’t have to take any time off work,’ he said. ‘She’s made the first appointment for five o’clock. You’ll have plenty of time to get there.’

‘I’m not going to a midwife appointment.’

‘Claire, this is our baby. I thought you’d want to be involved. More involved than sending boxes of supplies for me to deliver. Don’t you think you’ll regret it later, if you aren’t?’

‘This isn’t about regret. This is about self-preservation. I know what I can and cannot do, Ben. I can buy vitamins, I can buy supplies from the internet. I can research what’s best for a developing pregnancy. But I cannot go and sit in a midwife’s reception room next to a woman who’s having a baby for me.’

‘Why not, darling? I’d be there too.’

‘It will be full of pregnant women. I’ll feel like a failure.’

‘You’re not a failure. We’re going about things a different way, that’s all.’

Claire went past him to the tap and got herself a glass of water. ‘Let’s stop talking about this. We’re just going round in circles. I’m not attending the midwife appointment, not this one. I can’t.’

‘No one in the waiting room is going to know that you’ve tried to get pregnant,’ Ben said. ‘They’ll think you’re Romily’s sister, or her friend, or her lesbian lover. And who cares what they think, anyway? This is about us.’

‘But I’ll know. I always know.’

He sighed. ‘And I’m in the middle here with Romily. You
haven’t seen her since the day she took the positive test. She’s worried that you don’t like her.’

‘Right at this moment, I don’t.’

‘So you can’t go to the midwife with her, fair enough. But what if you did something else together, just the two of you relaxing and having a good time? I could get you a spa day—’

Claire laughed, once, humourlessly. ‘A pregnant woman can’t do a spa day. You’re not allowed any of the treatments.’

‘Okay, something else then. Lunch, or the cinema. A gallery.’

‘Ben, she’s pregnant with your baby and I’m not. A visit to a gallery isn’t going to change that.’

Ben got up. He put his hand on her neck, and stroked his thumb down her nape. Claire didn’t respond.

‘She’s not my wife,’ he said. ‘You are.’

‘Don’t ask it of me, Ben. Please.’

‘She’s doing the most incredible thing for us. For
us
, Claire.’

‘She told me it was for you. Because you convinced her to have Posie.’

‘Whatever she does for me, she does for you too. She knows that.’

Claire put down her glass of water and braced both her hands against the sink. It was a salvaged farmhouse sink of heavy white porcelain, cold and smooth under her hands. ‘I’ve been trying to sort it all out in my head, Ben. I know it’s an incredible thing. I know I should be happy that we’re going to have a family. But it’s all been too fast. I haven’t had time to assimilate it. You have to let me come to terms with it in my own time.’

‘Maybe you should write a diary, or letters. Like you asked
Romily to do. It could help you sort out your emotions.’

‘I’m not sure the baby would want to read what’s going through my head right now.’

‘I hate to break it to you, Claire, but I don’t think the baby’s going to come out reading.’

She managed a shaky laugh.

‘I love you,’ he told her. ‘I’ll accept that maybe I can’t understand how you feel, not exactly. But I think it’s important that you try.’

‘Maybe … maybe later. After the first trimester, when it’s safer.’

‘I know you’re worried about losing the baby. But there’s no reason to think it’ll happen this time.’

And don’t you think your certainty hurts me?
she thought, but she didn’t say it. Instead, she turned and went into his arms.

‘I don’t have that innocence any more,’ she said, her cheek against his chest. ‘I can’t afford to hope.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll have to hope for both of us, then.’

‘ROMILY,’ SAID POSIE,
‘why have we got a big box of vegetables outside our front door?’

Romily, who had been trying to tighten her bra straps as she walked so that her boobs didn’t move quite so much, and had just about given it up and decided she needed to buy some new, proper bras, preferably ones involving some sort of hydraulic lift system, stopped and looked where Posie was pointing. Sure enough, there was a big box of vegetables outside their front door.
Stonyfield Organic Farm
, it said on the side.

‘I think we’ve been visited by the veg fairy,’ said Romily, though of course she knew who’d arranged it. Lady Bountiful, sending gifts from a distance. She’d be sending a cleaner next; Romily hadn’t missed the way she’d looked around the flat the one time she’d been there. Because God knew that healthy babies were never born in a house that had a few dust bunnies. ‘Help me take it in.’

It looked like a huge pile of healthiness in their otherwise barren kitchen. Cabbage, onions, leeks, courgettes. Great. All stuff she had to cook, and which created smells too. Smells
were a problem just now; everything made her want to retch. Romily peeled a carrot, gave it to Posie and then lay down on the sofa, putting her feet up on the arm. All by themselves, her eyelids drifted shut.

The morning sickness was new. She’d never been so much as nauseated when pregnant with Posie. But this was nearly constant, dragging her down, stopping her from thinking properly. For the last three mornings, she’d had to get up at 5 a.m. to run to the toilet and vomit. At the museum, she couldn’t even get close to anything remotely smelling of naphthalene; she’d been stuck working on the database. Eating supposedly helped, but she wasn’t ever hungry.

She hadn’t mentioned it to Ben, knowing if she did, a big box of organic, safe nausea remedies would turn up at her door.

Crunch
.

She opened her eyes. Posie was standing over her, chewing on her carrot.

‘Nice rabbit impression, Pose.’ She closed her eyes again. ‘I’m really tired, love. I’ll make tea in a minute, I just need to rest first. Why don’t you look up cabbage recipes on the internet?’

‘I know what’s wrong with you.’

Her blue eyes were serious under her blonde fringe. Romily sat up.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m absolutely fine, Pose.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re tired all the time. You keep on taking those pills when you think I’m not looking. You keep on sending me out of the room when you talk to Ben and Claire. And now you’re trying to get us to eat more healthy food.’

Romily made a mental note to no longer underestimate
Posie’s powers of observation. ‘None of that means anything is wrong, Posie. I’m just trying to get healthier.’

‘Even I know that you get healthier by exercising, not by lying on the sofa every day after school. And I’ve heard you throwing up.’ Posie sat down next to Romily and took her hand, a gesture that was so un-Posie-like that Romily sat up even straighter. ‘You’ve got cancer, haven’t you?’

‘What?
No
, I haven’t got cancer.’

‘It’s okay, I’ve looked it all up so I understand. I can help look after you. It’s your breasts, isn’t it? Mrs Corrigan is starting up a Knitting Club at school so I can join that even though I don’t like clubs, because you’ll probably want some hats for when your hair falls out.’

‘Posie. I do not have cancer.’

‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better. But I’m old enough. I can know the truth. I want to know the truth.’

A tear ran down Posie’s cheek. Romily took her by both shoulders and looked her in the face.

‘Mariposa J. Summer. Listen to me. I am telling you the truth. I do not have cancer. How long have you been thinking this?’

‘I don’t know. A while. Since you’ve started having all these private conversations with Ben and Claire.’

Weeks, then. And Romily knew how Posie built things up in her imagination. Every detail, every dramatic possibility there could be.

‘Oh, Posie,’ she said, taking her daughter in her arms. Posie buried her face in Romily’s neck and sobbed loudly. Romily stroked her hands down her back, patting and whispering that it was okay.

How long had it been since she’d held Posie as she cried? She’d held Posie all the time when she was very little, after
falls or bumps or disappointments. When her best friend hadn’t liked her any more or when she’d lost her favourite teddy. And before that, when she’d been tiny, and her cry meant anything and everything.

It had been some time since.

She held her daughter and breathed in the smell that was only hers, felt the tears falling hot on her skin. Posie was really upset. Just because she was clever, just because she lived in a world of her own, didn’t mean that she wasn’t affected by what was happening. This was what came of hiding things from her and planning things that didn’t include her. This precious child, hurting.

‘I’m so sorry, little girl,’ she murmured, as the sobs quietened and Posie began to draw in long, hitching breaths. ‘You must have been very worried.’

Posie sat up. She rubbed the tear trails from her face with a hand. ‘I wasn’t worried about myself. I knew that if you got very sick or died I’d go to live with Claire and Ben.’

Of course she did. Romily remembered the birthday party, and nearly shook her head. It wouldn’t be such a bad result for Posie, in the long run. Oh well, at least Posie had been worried about her.

‘If you died,’ Posie said, ‘would I be an orphan?’

Romily bit her lip. ‘Uh. Well, technically maybe not, since both of your parents have to be dead for you to be an orphan.’

‘And you don’t know where my father is.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Could he maybe be dead?’

‘It’s statistically unlikely.’

Posie thought about this, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jumper.

‘Not on your sleeve, please, Pose.’

‘So what is wrong, if you’re not sick? Is something wrong with Claire or Ben?’ She looked panicked.

‘No. No no no, nothing is wrong with Claire or Ben. The thing is, Posie …’ Romily took a deep breath, feeling her breasts aching and her body exhausted. ‘The thing is, that I’m pregnant.’

Posie’s eyes grew very large. Tears had clumped her normally pale eyelashes together, making them dark. ‘You’re going to have a baby? I’m going to have a brother or a sister?’

‘Well, no, not that either.’ She took another breath. ‘You know how Claire and Ben don’t have children?’

‘They have me.’

‘I mean children of their own, who live with them all the time in their house. They’ve wanted to have children very, very much, but they haven’t been able to.’

‘Don’t they know how?’

‘No, they – they know how, but something is wrong that means that they can’t conceive a baby by themselves. Claire’s been seeing lots of doctors and they’ve been trying to help, but nothing has worked.’

‘She isn’t sick, is she?’

‘Not sick sick, but she has problems. You remember how human babies are made, right?’

This had been the subject of many earnest and detailed discussions about a year ago, but Posie hadn’t brought it up for a while.

The child recited: ‘A man’s sperm meets with a woman’s egg when they have sex and they both use half their chromosomes to make a whole baby, but it happens inside the woman’s body and she doesn’t lay the eggs like insects do.’

‘Some insects,’ Romily corrected automatically. ‘Well,
Claire’s eggs are apparently not very good for making babies. So I offered to let them use mine. I said I would get pregnant for them, and when the baby was born, I would give it to them and it would be theirs.’

‘Whose sperm did you use?’

‘Ben’s.’

Posie screwed up her face. ‘You had sex with him? Ugh.’

‘No, we used artificial insemination.’

‘That’s when you breathe into someone’s mouth.’

‘That’s artificial respiration. For this, Ben put some of his sperm in a little container. We didn’t have to touch each other.’

‘And you put the sperm in your vagina so it would meet your egg.’

‘Yes.’

‘And now you’re pregnant.’

‘Yes. And that’s why I have sore boobs and why I’m tired and why Claire is sending us all kinds of vegetables to eat so that the baby grows up nice and healthy.’

‘Are you allowed to have a baby for someone else?’

‘Of course you are. It’s called being a surrogate.’

Posie thought about this for some time. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘that’s not such a big deal.’

‘I’m glad you think so.’

Posie settled herself more comfortably on the sofa, her legs draping over Romily’s stomach. Romily adjusted them slightly so they weren’t pressing down on her bladder.

‘Where will the baby live?’

‘At Ben and Claire’s house, with them.’

‘It won’t have my room, will it?’

‘I really don’t know which room they’ll choose for the
nursery. But there’ll always be space for you at their house, I’m sure.’

‘If it’s a girl I’ll let her play with my castle doll’s house.’ Posie said it with the air of someone conferring a great favour.

‘Hey, don’t gender stereotype the kid before it’s even been born. A boy might like to play with a doll’s house too.’

‘It’ll be my little brother or sister.’

‘Except that it’ll have different parents.’

Posie jumped up. Romily winced as a sharp elbow grazed her chest. ‘This is so exciting! I’m going to go and make a card for the baby to say congratulations for being made.’

‘I think the baby would like that very much.’

‘If it’s a boy, he should be called Rupert. And if it’s a girl, she should be called Rapunzel. No, Guinevere. Guinevere Mariposa, after me. And I’ll help look after her and I can push her around in the pram and everyone will know that we’re sisters.’

‘Well, biologically you’d be half-sisters, but in fact—’