Page 37 of Prognosis So Done

Harriet’s hands still momentarily as Gill’s soft voice reached her from somewhere behind and she turned slightly towards him. Did she blurt out what she’d been thinking about just now? Tell him she knew how affected he’d been

during the C-section and how just thinking about it had her

heart hammering like a teenager before her first kiss?

Or did she let it be?

‘Just thinking about nature. The cycle of life,’ she fudged deciding to let it be. ‘One baby dies. Another one is born. Nimuk dies and a little girl is born. Don’t you ever feel small and insignificant? Like we’re all just part of one great master plan? Or is that just last-day blues?’ She gave a self-deprecating smile and turned back to the instruments.

‘You always get reflective on the last day.’

‘Do I?’ she asked, turning back again.

He nodded. ‘You forget, Harry, I know you. We can separate and even divorce but I’ll always be your guy. I’ll always be the man who knows you best.’

Harriet didn’t doubt it for a moment. Maybe when she

remarried and she and her husband had been together for many

years, maybe then she could tell him he was wrong. But until then Gill was, as he had put it, her guy.

He did know her and understand her better than anyone.

‘Then you know that holding that baby affected me. And I’m

pretty sure it affected you, too. Don’t you forget that I, also

know you.’

Gill rubbed his hands through his hair, removing his cap as

he did so. ‘Yes, OK, for a moment I did think about a baby.

About our baby. But...I’m sorry, I wish I could adequately explain why I don’t feel the urge to procreate — I just don’t.

Kelly was holding the baby before and all I could see was an unfortunate victim of war. The...stuff I felt in theatre when you were holding her just wasn’t there. I didn’t feel anything. I suspect it had more to do with you than the baby. And you know, maybe when I’m fifty, when I’m old and grey, maybe I’ll regret not having children. But I’m fairly at one with the decision now.’

‘Gill...it’ll be too late to do anything about it when you are old and grey.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ He nodded. ‘I can live with that.’

Harriet felt two years of disagreements well up between them again. She almost cried in frustration. She’d been through all this and had made a decision, but she could feel herself being sucked into the same old argument again. Trying to convince him he was wrong.

Trying to make him see.

For a brief moment during the C-section she’d thought he’d

finally got it. And somewhere inside him a little light was dawning. But he was still letting his preconceived ideas suffocate the fledgling glimmer of light, and she didn’t have time to hang around and wait for him to get it.

If, indeed, that was even possible.

‘Here you both are,’ said Siobhan, bustling through the

swing door, oblivious to the atmosphere.

Harriet turned back to the sink and began sorting through

the instruments, packing them back inside the stainless-steel

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