but the skin was contracting quickly. I’d spent however many years of my life without a baby inside me but now, everything about not having one there felt wrong to me. I closed my eyes, pushing back hot tears that I knew would fall if I let them. In a final act of cruelty, every pregnancy symptom had disappeared, almost immediately, in fact. My breasts were no longer tender, the intense nausea had dissipated, and with it, the special glow I had felt inside at harbouring a new life. And that unique fluttering sensation … I fumbled over this. That incredible, joyous feeling of my baby moving and stretching inside me had gone and I could barely remember what it felt like. I even missed the hideous nausea because it had been such an inherent part of my pregnancy.
I gripped my knees. The sorrow I felt for our lost baby was overwhelming and, without Luke, I couldn’t make sense of it. Was it my ‘hostile environment’ that had caused this to happen? Or was there some other reason this last little IVF baby hadn’t been able to stick around? I had called my parents to let them know and they had been concerned, but predictably detached – or perhaps I felt detached from them and their well-intentioned, but somehow neutral, reaction to both bits of shocking news.
Did I want them to come down from Scotland, my mother had asked? I told them not to, that I would contact them if … when, Luke’s prognosis changed. I couldn’t see the point; my mother would be caring enough, but unable to offer me much in the way of emotional support, and my father would pat me woodenly and look uncomfortable. No, I was better off with Dee and Dan – with Nell. Patricia, even. Although things were still a little strained between us. That unspoken reproach of hers towards me over the baby stuff jabbed at me bitterly. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I had rather too much to worry about in terms of Luke’s future right now to stress about Patricia’s motives.
I felt bleak, but I couldn’t help thinking that Luke would be urging me to pull myself together and be optimistic. Whatever happened, Luke always tried to see the positive in things. I wandered back into his room, certain the new wee bag must be in place by now.
The nurse absently smoothed the bed sheet into place. ‘Have you and your husband … Luke, been together long?’
‘Five years. No, sorry. We’ve been married for five years, but together for much longer than that.’
I took a seat next to Luke. He had been properly cleaned up and his freckles were visible beneath his fading tan. The bruise on his forehead was developing into a spectrum of impressive colours, as if Tilly or Frankie had been making his face up with eyeshadow. Most of his body was still tightly bandaged and the machines continued their monosyllabic blip and chhhh noises, over-compensating for Luke’s complete silence.
It was so unlike him, to be silent, I thought, as I sat on the edge of his bed. Ever since we’d met, Luke had been at the centre of everything.
June, eight years earlier
‘Please come,’ Dee pleaded. We were sitting in the tiny garden of her flat on the outskirts of Bath drinking very strong gin and tonics. ‘It’s a party; what’s not to like?’
‘Whose party?’
I adjusted my chair. It was one of those fold-up things that made one’s backside sweaty and one’s posture inelegant. Recently boyfriend-less, I wasn’t in the mood to hear about a party, let alone go to it. I berated myself for being so grumpy.
‘Liberty’s.’ Dee pulled a face. ‘She’s pretentious, I know, but her parties are fabulous, Luce. Champagne in the bath, trendy live music.’
I glanced at her. There had to be more to it than that. Champagne and trendy live music were two a penny in the circles Dee moved in, even if Liberty’s parents did own a gorgeous stately home thing just outside Bath. There was a man involved; there had to be.
I pulled at my hair, which was in desperate need of some sort of hair product. Heat made it frizz up like those bright orange crisps, Nik Naks. My hair wasn’t orange, you understand. Just … full of kinks.
‘Who’s going?’ I asked. It was a pointed question.
‘Dan Sheppard,’ Dee admitted, knowing there was no point in denying it.
I smiled. Dan Sheppard was an arty type Dee had recently met at her brother’s barbecue. Usually cool about men she had a thing for, she’d talked about him non-stop since they’d met and that meant that Dee was serious about him.
I gulped down my gin and tonic. I knew I’d be going to the party, because my friend needed a wing-woman. But I was feeling rather low right now. Lack of boyfriend aside, I’d been working in a book shop for almost a year at this point and the literary degree I’d finished seven years ago felt like a distant memory. I felt as if I had lost my way a bit because, even though I wasn’t overly ambitious, I did want to do something fulfilling with my life, something I enjoyed.
‘I don’t have anything to wear,’ I offered lamely.
Dee leapt out of her fold-up chair – no mean feat – and kissed my cheek. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! And I have plenty of clothes you can borrow. Let’s go and find you a dress …’
And so it was that I found myself at Liberty’s party, wearing a too-short, black-and-white-striped dress of Dee’s that had me yanking the almost-pointless hem down over my bottom every two minutes. I made suitable murmurs of appreciation at the magnums of Moët nestling in ice in the marble bath, and I dutifully agreed that the rather shouty live band Liberty had hired would be fantastic at Dee’s brother’s wedding in the autumn.
Sitting outside clutching a glass of champagne, even though I would have preferred a gin and slimline or one of Dee’s Salt ‘n’ Peppa Vodkas, I nudged her. Liberty was heading over with a brown-haired man wearing slouchy Levi’s and a Foo Fighters T-shirt. Whoever he was, he wasn’t Dan Sheppard. I sighed. I was terrible at small talk.
‘This is Luke Harte,’ Liberty announced, pushing him forward like some sort of trophy wife. ‘He’s funny, charming and ridiculously clever, so I knew you’d both want to meet him.’
Luke Harte pulled a face. ‘Holy shit. I’ll never live up to that introduction. I’m not even remotely funny, for starters.’ He grinned, Dee laughed and Liberty melted away, job done.
Luke Harte had managed to commandeer a beer, despite everyone else being forced to drink champagne, I noted rather sourly. He looked unabashed. ‘Sorry about that. Liberty always says such embarrassing things. Hey, do you really think she’s called Liberty?’
Dee eyed him approvingly and straightened the bold, off-the-shoulder floral dress she was wearing. ‘I’m Dee. Delilah, actually,’ she said. She held her hand out.
Amused, he took it, giving it a firm, non-flirtatious shake. ‘You’re shitting me. Parents Tom Jones fans?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You must get fed up with people chorusing ‘Why, why, why’ at you when they’re drunk. A bit like being called Eileen when “Come On, Eileen” comes on. Nightmare.’
Dee was eying Luke appraisingly, almost as though she was wondering if he might be a better option than the elusive Dan Sheppard.
Luke’s eyes drifted to me. ‘What about you? Are you named after a song as well?’
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, no. Nothing nearly as exciting.’
I didn’t offer up my name at this juncture; what was the point? You know – we all know – when you’ve met someone who is out of your league.
Luke Harte was good looking. A nice chin, lovely eyes. I couldn’t see the colour; it was too dark outside,