being childless when girls younger than you were dropping babies like rabbits.
At home, Emma climbed the stairs slowly, still in her baby dreamworld. She was almost surprised when Pete didn’t go into the bathroom to brush his teeth but instead pulled her down on to their bed, kissing her passionately. It wasn’t his fault, she thought blankly as she let him unbutton her blue shirt. He was telling her he adored her but his words seemed to roll off her.
They’d made such wonderful love in the beginning, she remembered. Neither of them had been exactly experienced – well, Emma didn’t count the year dating her first teenage boyfriend as experience. But they’d both taken to the concept of fun in bed like fish to water. Her sister Kirsten had jokingly given them a Joy of Sex book as a secret engagement present, and they’d gone through the whole thing from beginning to end, never quite getting the hang of some of the more athletic positions.
But it was changed now. Emma never bought strawberries or chocolate buttons for sexy games in bed; she hadn’t purchased any Body Shop massage oil in months. All sex had become trying-for-a-baby sex. Pete didn’t appear to notice this change. He still enjoyed himself and did his best to make Emma enjoy herself too. But he didn’t know that the passionate moments which used to give her so much pleasure no longer transported her into a world of erotic bliss.
Instead, she was willing each sperm to swim wildly up her cervix, to breach the tiny opening and emerge like a brave warrior into the fallopian tubes in search of her all-precious eggs. While Pete was groaning in sexual frenzy, Emma was on an incredible journey, like a documentary camera filming groundbreaking footage inside a woman’s uterus, watching the miracle of conception. Sexual pleasure came a poor second to the thrill of conception in Emma’s book.
And The Joy of Sex no longer gave her the thrill that Annabel Karmel’s toddler babyfoods book did. Hidden at the back of her wardrobe, her nest of baby books gave her solace and comfort. Like the few shameful baby things she’d bought on one trip to Mothercare. She’d felt so guilty even going in there, as if she had the word ‘impostor’ tattooed on her forehead. People would know she wasn’t a mother; only experienced women could tell which sort of bootees you should buy for a newborn. She’d planned to say she was buying a present for a friend if any nosy shop assistant noticed her inexperienced fingering of tiny garments. But nobody had come near her, so she’d borne away the small pink velour dress with pride. You couldn’t buy baby clothes and not need them, could you? God wouldn’t do that to a person. She would need them, of course she would. Maybe not yet but someday, soon.
On Sunday morning, she rang Leonie to say hello. She didn’t know why she had this compulsion to talk to Leonie, but she did. There was something comforting about Leonie, and there was the added bonus that she and Hannah knew how Emma felt deep-down about her desire for a child. There was no need to bullshit with people who knew your heart’s desires.
‘Emma!’ Leonie said, sounding delighted to hear from her. ‘How are you, my love?’
Emma gasped and let out a little sob. ‘Terrible, Leonie. That’s why I’m ringing you. I’m a mess, I’m sorry, I’ll go…’
Leonie interrupted her: ‘Don’t you dare hang up, you mad thing. It’s always depressing to come home and discover everything is exactly the same as it was before. You half expect that the world will have caught up with your renewed sense of purpose and, of course, it hasn’t. Is it the baby?’ she asked softly.
‘Yes.’
‘What are you doing today?’
Emma shook her head and then, realizing Leonie couldn’t see her, said: ‘I don’t know. Nothing really. We’ll probably go to the cinema tonight and I should spend today sorting out the house and the washing.’
‘So you and Pete have nothing planned? Well, will he mind if I steal you away for an hour?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a deal, then,’ Leonie said firmly. ‘I’ll phone Hannah and see if she’s free. I’ll hop in the car and be with you in an hour, OK?’
‘OK,’ Emma said tremulously.
‘Wait a moment and I’ll phone you back.’
Hannah didn’t answer the phone until the fifth ring. ‘I was vacuuming,’ she explained to Leonie. ‘I’ve been up since eight and, as the place was a disaster, I’ve cleaned everything, done the kitchen cupboards and most of the hand washing.’
Leonie grinned. ‘Will you come and do my house next?’ she joked. ‘All I’ve done this morning is walk Penny and toy with the idea of unpacking my suitcase. I’m phoning because Emma rang and she sounds very down. I suggested meeting in an hour for a quick coffee. Are you game?’
‘Yes, you can come here,’ Hannah suggested. ‘The place is clean now.’
‘As in, it was a tip in the first place?’ teased Leonie.
‘Well, it was a bit…’ started Hannah until she realized she was being neurotically houseproud and Leonie was teasing her. ‘Bitch. You bring the biscuits and I’ll have the coffee perking, right?’
Leonie got directions, then phoned Emma with them and arranged to meet in an hour.
‘Pete, love, I’m just popping out for a few hours,’ Emma called to her husband who was engrossed in the Sunday papers in the kitchen. ‘I’ve got a book of Leonie’s and I have to give it back to her, so we’re meeting for a coffee.’ She didn’t want to say she was meeting the girls because she needed the moral support they provided her with. It seemed traitorous to seek comfort from them instead of from Pete, but she couldn’t tell him how she felt. Not yet.
Hannah’s flat was just like her: perfectly elegant with not a caramel velvet cushion out of place. After hugging each other delightedly, Emma and Leonie prowled around the small living room, admiring the modern fireplace with the fat cream candles in their cast-iron holders and the arrangement of cacti in a gravel-filled pot on the small glass-topped coffee table. Everything was airy and contemporary, from the muslin curtains draped over a cast-iron pole to the oatmeal throws Hannah had arranged carefully over her two elderly armchairs. Beautiful black-and-white photos of city streets hung in silver frames on the cream wall, but there were no family photos, no pictures of a smiling Hannah with other members of her family, Leonie noticed. It was as if she’d divorced herself from her past and used arty photos from other people’s lives to hide the fact.
‘I’m so sorry about the coffee,’ Hannah apologized for about the fifth time, as she came into the room with three fat yellow ceramic cups on big saucers. She’d been horrified when she went to make the coffee to discover that she only had instant. She loved it, but it wasn’t polite to serve instant, was it? She hated feeling insecure about things like that. At home, they’d only ever drunk tea and their guests had never been what you’d describe as polite society. It was when she was entertaining that Hannah really felt her lack of understanding for things like how to hold a fork or how to introduce people to each other. She longed to be blasé about these matters, longed to know instinctively instead of always carefully watching other people for hints.
‘Stop fussing about the coffee,’ Leonie said, waving a hand at her. ‘Far from percolated coffee we were all reared. We never have real coffee at home or I’d be permanently broke. Danny loves it and uses up a pound in a week.’
‘Instant is perfect,’ Emma added. ‘Your flat is so pretty. You really know how to create a lovely atmosphere. I’d never know how to make those muslin curtains drape.’
‘Penny would have them dragged off the pole in a week because she loves going in behind the curtains to sulk,’ Leonie said with a laugh. ‘That’s probably where she is right now, actually, sulking with me. She was thrilled when I got home last night but she wouldn’t let me out of her sight all morning, convinced I was going to leave her. She howled when she saw me putting on my good coat.’
‘How’s poor Clover?’ asked Hannah. ‘Traumatized from