Page 66 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

‘What?’ I say, dazed.

‘That’s a good thing. It’s a compliment. It’s because I liked you, because I fancied you—’

‘Sure,’ I say, feeling a bit shell-shocked as I run my hands through my hair. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, really. But that was our whole thing. It was in my wedding speech, it’s the story we tell when someone asks how we met, it’s our backstory, our, I don’t know,lore. It was the first impression I ever had of Jessica and, she’s right, the foundation stone for how I’ve read her over all these years. But apparently it wasn’t real. ‘I’m just slightly processing that you’ve been lying to me for the last fourteen years,’ I say. It’s supposed to sound dry, sarky but affectionate. It doesn’t come out that way.

‘Can you see how mad it is that you’re mourning a story from over a decade ago, and not any of the stuff we’re actually living through right now?’ she snaps.

She looks at me for a moment with pure, white-hot anger, and then she draws a breath. And I know what’s about to come is going to hurt.

‘Can you see how “mad” it is that you tanked our entire career because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut? Or that I’ve spent the last eighteen months trying to get pregnant with hormones and supplements and needles and all you’ve ever said on the topic is “it’s going to happen”? Or that I finally found something I love doing as a careerand you take every single opportunity you can find to make sure everyone knows that you think social media is beneath you?’

I sit down on one of the kitchen stools and decide that I actually really do want the glass of wine I poured and then left on the side. I take a big sip. It’s not very cold and not very nice.

‘Are you done?’ I ask.

‘No, I’m not done,’ she says, her voice calm. ‘When I told you I was on a press trip to Bath, I wasn’t. I was with Clay.’

Jessica

The tension that crackled in the air when we were screaming at each other has dissipated. The air is thick and heavy now. I want to put the words back in my mouth, to unsay them. Everything feels brown and bitter.

‘Why were you with Clay?’

I lean on the counter of the kitchen island, the marble cold under my forearms. It’s a sort of barrier between us, me standing on one side, him sitting at the other. Like a boxing ring. Appropriate, I suppose.

‘He took me to hospital.’

He looks surprised. ‘Hospital? Why?’

I’m not deliberately eking out this information; I don’t think this situation needs any more drama than it already has. I just can’t work out how far back to go, or what to tell him. I take a long breath. I should have told him at the time. I know that. But every time I’ve ever tried to talk to him about fertility, he’s told me that it’s going to be fine, without a single word about how, or why, or when.

‘I had a D & C.’ I pause before explaining. ‘That’s a procedure where they try to clean out your womb. Usually after a miscarriage, it’s supposed to make you—’

‘I know what a D & C is,’ he says. He’s sitting and I’m standing, so in my heels I’m taller than his head height. He looks up at me and in this half-light, he looks so young.

I want to point out that I could be forgiven for thinking that he, a man, wouldn’t know the details of a gynaecological procedure designed to improve fertility after pregnancy loss. The meanest part of me wants to ask whether he knows about it because he’s done research into fertility issues, or whether he just happened to work on a programme for the BBC where it was mentioned.

‘I had one done. And you have to bring someone with you because you’re sedated.’

Jack looks like he might cry. ‘You had a procedure under a general anaesthetic, and I didn’t notice?’

‘It was a routine day procedure and I had it done at a private hospital. Clay brought me home, you were out. I was okay the next day.’

Jack gets to his feet and walks across the kitchen, I sense with no purpose other than to move his legs in the hope that it’ll help him process this information. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. Which is true. I don’t really know. But that’s not fair, and it isn’t going to make this any better. ‘I didn’t want you to know. I thought you might be judgemental.’

‘Why would I have been judgemental?’

‘Because you’re the most judgemental person I know’ would be the obvious answer, but this isn’t the moment.‘Because the clinic said it wasn’t necessary. But there was a small chance that the D & C might help boost my fertility, so I wanted to do it.’

‘And you think I’d have judged you for that?’

‘You judge me for everything I do, all of the time!’

Jack sighs. ‘I wouldn’t have. I swear. I wouldn’t.’

I don’t think that’s true, but we’re reaching a calm impasse and I don’t want to rock the boat. I go to where he’s standing, looking out of the window at the garden and the orange windows of the houses opposite ours.

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