Page 72 of The Last Train Home
She doesn’t understand what I’m driving at. ‘He’s got friends at nursery,’ she says. ‘Wait, what do you mean?’
‘I mean, do you think we should … have another?’
She sort of recoils her head back into her neck, which was not quite the reaction I expected. ‘No,’ she says, glancing atTeddy, who’s going great guns with his felt tips in his new Peppa Pig colouring book. ‘I don’t want any more. I’ve just made partner, which took me years, and I’ve got my life back. Why would I want to undo all that with another one?’
I don’t reply, toying with the stem of my wine glass.
‘You can’t seriously want to do it all again?’ she asks.
‘Why not? It wasn’t that bad. It was good, in fact.’
‘It wasn’t,’ she says. ‘You took two weeks’ paternity leave and then left me to deal with it on my own.’
That’s not quite how it went. Samantha’s mum came to look after Teddy two days a week, so she could go to the gym, have lunch with her friends and check in on her work emails. And then she signed him up for nursery and went back to work. She went to mother-and-baby groups. I dropped him to nursery and picked him up most nights. I think we had it easier than most people. Night-times were hard for a while in the early days, but they’re hard in the early days for everyone, surely.
‘What if we hired a nanny?’ I offer, despite knowing that would be the world’s largest financial stretch for us.
‘A nanny?’
‘To take the pressure off, right from the start. Five days a week, if you like. Until we’re comfortable with sending the baby to nursery.’
She sits back, mulling this over. I think I’ve got her now. ‘I’ll still need to take maternity leave,’ she says.
‘You don’thaveto take maternity leave, do you? If you don’t want to – which I’m guessing you don’t. If you feel you can’t, you could work from home unofficially or … do what you like, if we’ve got a nanny.’
She sips a bit more wine. ‘Can I think about it?’
‘Well, I want to put a baby inside you in about two hours’ time, so you’ve got until then to think about it,’ I say.
She stares at me.
‘I’m joking!’ Samantha never gets my sense of humour.
Teddy says, ‘Baby?’ and I wonder if he and I can work on her together over the next few weeks. I want her to want this too. And it might help mend us, Samantha and me. Teddy brought us back together, and another baby soon might be the perfect timing. I smile, remembering those scans, seeing Teddy for the first time, the way Samantha and I held hands waiting to hear if Teddy was healthy, if his measurements were what they were supposed to be. It was perfect. We were sotogetherthen.
We go home, sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Teddy and he blows out his candles. He’s having a proper party at the weekend but today has been nice. It’s been more than nice – it’s been perfect.
And it’s made even more perfect when, after Teddy goes to sleep in his little car-shaped bed, Samantha and I creep into our room and have sex for the first time in … I’ve lost count how many months it’s been since we last had sex.
She still popped her contraceptive pill into her mouth as standard the next morning before breakfast, though.
I’ve got tickets to the Wimbledon men’s singles final. This was very much luck of the draw through work, and I never thought I’d get one. Nor could I ever have afforded it, and anyway I never do anything at the weekends any more. I don’t think I realise that until I’m sitting here, wearing a crisp white shirt that Teddy isn’t here to spill stuff on, surrounded by hundreds of people.
I’ve never seen anything as nail-biting in my life. Federer and Nadal play for almost five hours. If only the sodding rain hadn’t delayed the start. They need some sort of retractable roof in here.
It’s only as I’m leaving, buoyant on corporate hospitality and full of Pimm’s, champagne, strawberries and cream, that I bump headlong into a man using his hat to fan himself as we queue to exit. The chatter is so loud and excited and I apologise for nudging him.
He brushes it off as no bother, and then says, ‘Good match.’
‘The best,’ I say. ‘Incredible.’
And then he looks up at me and does a double-take. I smile politely and he says, ‘It’s Tom, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I say and I realise I’m doing that recoil-of-the-neck thing that I hate so much when Samantha does it.
‘It’s Ken – Abbie’s dad.’
This is crazy. ‘Oh my God! How are you?’ I ask. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t recognise you.’
