all the more important.’ He stood up and slid a cigarette box out from behind a well-thumbed book on the shelf. ‘Smoking. My one and only vice and, therefore, extremely important to me. No one knows. Or at least, if they do, they’re kind enough not to say anything.’
He held out the packet.
I hadn’t smoked for over ten years. Dave and I used to smoke incessantly, with coffee and pints and wine, in parks and pubs and restaurants. It seemed to go hand in hand with talking about films and our friends and our weekend plans.
And now, with Mia’s lungs so compromised, the idea of destroying my own repulsed me. ‘No. Thanks. That’s fine. I’m fine.’
‘Suit yourself.’
Then there was nothing but the spark of a lighter, a party popper in the background and his deep inhalation. I felt far from the sound of plastic cracking under my heels and from Dave’s blaming, appalled cries. Far from the floorboards and the noise of traffic and the pressure in my head.
‘I didn’t leave Mia’s medicines out in the sun,’ I said. ‘I poured them down the sink.’
He looked up, and moved his cigarette to the side like it had been blocking his view.
‘I’d seen my mum,’ I said. ‘And I missed my dad. And so I don’t know why, I broke the syringes and I threw the medicines down the sink. I didn’t want CF in my house any more.’
Richard nodded slowly, looking at me with lidded eyes, squinting against the smoke and my confession.
‘After Rachel was diagnosed,’ he said, ‘a whole seven years and twelve lung infections later, I didn’t break medicine bottles but I did do some damage to the lives of people I’d just met. I made huge redundancies in the name of re-shaping my company and increasing profit. My career and business took off but I could only do what I did because the thought of losing Rachel early knocked me sideways. That pain, that imagining, it blunted my feelings towards everything but my family. But we got through it and here we are now,’ he smiled. ‘Having weekly parties. We manage it. We get by. We more than get by.’
His fingers tremored where they bent round the cigarette. He made me want to join him.
I reached out my hand instinctively towards his words. ‘I should go,’ I said suddenly, letting it fall by my side.
‘How are you getting on with that speech?’ he said brightly, stubbing out the cigarette and cradling his hand, twisting the ring on his finger, round and round.
I looked away quickly. ‘I’m not. It’s not my thing,’ I said to the door.
‘I think you should do it. And going to the conference might dilute some of the despair. There’s no greater high than hearing a medical professional announce he’s months away from a cure.’ I smiled. ‘And it’s all quite fun, despite the subject matter.’
I motioned to the cigarette packet. ‘Can I? I won’t smoke it. I just want to be close to the smell.’
He opened the packet. ‘Here, take two. Then they won’t be lonely.’ He caught my eye and I caught my breath.
I smiled. ‘Thank you. For everything. For your help.’
‘Any time.’
When I got back in the car, I wound down the window and used the car’s lighter to singe the edge of one of the cigarettes he had given me. The smell of it was everything I knew it would be and yet not enough, so I put the cigarette to my lips and inhaled deeply. Smoke hit the back of my throat, making me cough and splutter. It was all I needed, to be reminded of how nauseating the rush was after such a long time, how it was never as good as I imagined. I threw the cigarette out on to the road. It rolled into the gutter and my face flushed red at the thought of him seeing this. As if I might be someone who was surprising to him. A woman who lay on his lawn and looked up to the sun – burning her face today for a tan tomorrow.
I stowed the remaining cigarette in an empty crisp packet, pushed it to the back of the glove compartment and drove home.
Saturday afternoon on Camden High Street and a sea of shoppers crossed, idly, in front of the car. There was power in their purpose and in their numbers because they kept on walking – line after linked-line of shopper – all assuming that I wouldn’t drive on. But what if I put my foot on the accelerator – defied expectations, overturned their assumptions, drove over their skinny jeans and satchel bags?
‘Bloody, touristy bloody Camden,’ grumbled Dave.
I waited for a break in the flow then accelerated sharply, gripping the top of the steering wheel like a naval captain steadying the boat in a storm. The heat of the day made the skin beneath my nylon dress itch with salted sweat. I hated the heat as much as I hated the bitter chill of winter. I craved average – a temperature without remark, a family without remark.
A woman ran in front of us, arms flapping in the sleeves of a scarlet kaftan. She cleared us, easily, but Dave pushed back into his seat as if the brake pedal was beneath his foot. ‘Should have got the tube.’
Words of blame and disappointment, his first of the day. Reckless was the last thing he’d said to me the moment I stepped back into the house from Richard’s. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes before he handed over Mia, as if she had only been on loan to him for the few hours I was gone.
He’d given me the silent treatment all through breakfast even when I’d made him coffee and suggested a trip to the zoo that morning. A family trip. I even invited Caroline and the boys. You’ve been wanting me to see my sister for ages. Come on, let’s go. Why not? It’s on one of your lists. Our List, actually. He washed up his cup and silently helped me pack Mia’s nappy bag.
‘Our List’ wasn’t the same as a shopping list or a DIY tasks list or even the inventory list Dave had pinned inside the linen cupboard to keep track of the sheets (cot, single, double, dust). Those lists were instigated and executed by one person, usually the one who thought them most necessary. Usually Dave. It’s not that I didn’t shop or clean or tidy – I did all those things – but I didn’t have the same need to document them in linear order.
Until the day I’d had an extra scan at six months pregnant.
Only then did the need to document overwhelm me. Like a tide I’d been holding back.
After the scan – Looking great, the radiologist had said, absolutely viable now, even if she makes an early appearance! – we went to a nautical-themed café with painted ash floors and a table by the window where we could watch the snow fall and blunt the corners on everything.
We smiled at each other, a lot, over hot chocolate and a plate of scones to celebrate. But that sense of things looking great hadn’t lasted long as one set of anxieties was replaced by another, as I said something like:
‘Now the life inside me is looking like it might well, live, shouldn’t we make a list?’ The café felt too hot, the chatter around us too sharp and loud but the way his eyes lit up like he’d won the lottery – lovely, really – I thought, Maybe this will be all right? ‘We should list the places we could go together as a family, like the Natural History Museum?’
He laughed, loudly, as if I’d told a joke. ‘But she won’t be old enough to understand what a T-rex is!’
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