‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
Steve stopped for a minute and turned to her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ he said. ‘You’re doing a bloody tough job and sometimes you need a minute, that’s all.’
She was so grateful to him then that she wanted to throw her arms around him. Why couldn’t Edward ever say anything like that? When she cried in front of him, he never seemed to know what to do or say.
‘Tell me something funny,’ Anna said.
And then she wondered whether she’d overstepped a mark. That was the kind of thing she might say to one of her friends, but she didn’t know this man very well. They weren’t close. Might they be?
‘Okay, here’s something. My wife, Theresa, started a new job recently. She’s a solicitor. She kept talking about me and Luke, saying her partner was at home with the baby. And yesterday she found out that the whole firm thought she was a lesbian. She was absolutely baffled about it, had no idea why they might think that. And her boss clued her in that it was just because of me being the one to stay at home. They couldn’t conceive of a man doing that job.’
‘That’s kind of more sad than funny,’ Anna said, but she did laugh a little as she said it.
‘You’re right. I’m the only man at every group I’ve been to. You’ve noticed that at playgroup, right?’
Anna laughed again. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed. I can always hear your voice when we sing “The Wheels on the Bus”. Plus I’ve heard a few comments about your arse.’
As soon as she’d said it, she was embarrassed. And she could see that she’d embarrassed him, too.
‘My arse?’
Anna couldn’t look at him. ‘Yeah, you know, you have a few… admirers.’
‘Bored mums, I expect.’
Anna felt like she was suddenly walking a tightrope, where before she’d just been chatting to a friend. Was that what she was, a bored mum?
‘Well, anyway, for us it just made sense to work it this way. I was doing building work and I earned a fraction of what Theresa does.’
‘Will you go back to it?’ Anna asked. ‘At some point, I mean?’
Steve seemed to consider this. They were walking through the common now, having not discussed where they were going, and Anna looked around at the games of rounders and dog walking that were happening around her.
‘I’m not sure yet. I liked my job, but I like being at home with him too. And the cost of childcare would mean that I was doing it for basically nothing. Plus, I think we’ll have another one in a couple of years. What about you? What were you, before you were a mum?’
That was almost enough to start Anna crying again. What was she? She was rarely asked these days. When she’d been in her twenties and she’d met new people, the first question they’d asked, after her name, was what she did. And now, no one asked her name, they just called her Mum or Mummy. ‘Give that to that mummy over there.’ ‘Ask that mum if her little boy would like a rice cake.’ ‘And would Mummy like a cup of tea?’ Now, she was asked what Thomas’s name was, and how old he was, and whether he was starting to crawl yet, and whether she was breastfeeding, and how the birth had been.
‘I’m in publishing. Publicity,’ she said. ‘I didn’t earn much either, but I liked it. I’d only been in that role for a few months and I’m hoping there’ll be an opportunity to step up at some point, when I’m back.’
Steve nodded. ‘It’s not straightforward trying to make those decisions. And it’s not an easy ride, being at home, is it?’
‘No,’ Anna said.
Nothing she’d ever done had been harder than this. And she couldn’t quite explain it. Because she did watch daytime TV sometimes, or go on nice walks like this one, through the pretty area of London where she was lucky enough to live, or sit with her feet up while Thomas napped on her, taking in the magical scent of him. And she’d been there when he first clapped, whenhe first laughed, all those milestones Edward had missed because he’d been in the office. And yet. She felt like she’d forgotten who she was. And worse than that, she felt like she’d stopped being herself entirely.
Anna’s phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket, and they both stopped walking. It was Nia.
‘Hi,’ Anna said.
‘Hey,’ Nia said. ‘I got your email. You sounded a bit low. Shall I come over after work?’
‘Yes please,’ she said. ‘I would really like that.’
It was so good to hear her friend’s voice.
‘Edward’s still away, right?’
‘Yes, he’s in New York until Friday.’
