Try to imagine two more different couples than these. You can’t. They are as opposite as it gets. Oil and water. Salt and sugar. Always and never. Lost and found.
As midnight came and went, so too did Julius’s hope of Anna giving birth exactly then, with the bongs and fire-cracks of the new millennium heralding the baby’s arrival.
‘Any chance you could push a bit harder, babe?’
‘I hope you’re joking, you weapons-grade twat,’ Anna panted.
‘Course!’ Julius chuckled.
(He wasn’t joking.)
It would’ve made a perfectly neat nice story. There might even have been some coverage, which could have boosted Julius’s stalling pro le. Yes, there might. But the baby didn’t come then. So there wasn’t. And his disappointment was palpable.
Anna felt the culpability stronger than the waves of intense pain that flooded her body with each contraction. She found herself perversely welcoming the rhythmic spasms as something that was at least tangible and immediate. It was real, and happening right now, and it needed managing, something Anna was supremely skilled at. It gave her an undeniable focus, a job to do, with a result at the end of it. Something to show for her efforts, something to infill the fissures in the marriage, someone she could guide and administer. A little person who would surely listen to her, look up to her and make her feel as though she mattered. Someone to dress nicely. Someone to live because of. A purpose, finally, that wasn’t primarily about him. No one could deny her part in this. In this, she shared equal responsibility, if not more. She didn’t have to be only Julius’s wife. She could be a little child’s mother. Finally, she would have made something. With any luck, the next step might be that she could feel something . . .
Something.
Anything.
Leave a Reply