Page 75 of The Life She Could Have Lived
I don’t know whether I can.
You can. Go home, and then call me.
Anna went back to the table, saw that David had bought another round while she’d been gone. She was feeling a little soft around the edges. Not yet drunk, but not entirely sober. She knew another drink would lead her down the path she was so desperately trying to avoid. She sat down, took a sip, and then she remembered the weeks after David had left her. The way she’d shut herself in her apartment, failed to get dressed for days, and stopped eating proper meals. The ache of it all.
‘I need to go home,’ she said.
David wasn’t the type to plead. He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
‘Will you finish your drink?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
How many women had there been? How many women had he talked to the way he’d talked to her? It was hard to accept but she knew she was one of many. That it hadn’t been love, for him. That it hadn’t ruined him. She stood up again. And he stood up too.
‘Let me walk you…’
‘No,’ she said, a little sharply.
A woman at a nearby table looked round, and Anna knew she was assessing the situation, trying to determine whetherAnna was in danger, the way women did. She smiled at her, hoping to convey that she wasn’t. Not that sort of danger, anyway.
‘I just… need to go,’ she said.
He nodded, and they shared a look, and she thought that he was sorry for what he’d done to her, not just that day but back in New York. She hoped he was. That he knew. That he understood.
On the Tube home, Anna sat next to a young girl with massive headphones, her music turned up loud. The sound was tinny, but Anna recognised the song immediately. It was her song, hers and Edward’s. The one about meeting someone, about all the small things that could stop you from meeting them. She considered how different her life would be if she’d never met David. If she’d never met Edward. Or if she had met Edward, and she hadn’t left. What would that be like?
As soon as she’d let herself into her flat, she messaged Sarah to tell her she was home. Sarah said she loved her, told her to call if she needed to. She felt protected, safe. Like she’d avoided something toxic. And she had, undoubtedly. She imagined David, back at the bar, finishing off both their drinks and then looking around for someone else to pick up, to take back to his hotel. It wasn’t about her, she could see that now. It was about him, and his ego, and his need for attention.
When he messaged her, pleading with her to come back, she could see it for what it was. Pathetic. He must have failed, she thought, failed to find someone else. She typed out several replies, from the polite to the blisteringly rude. And then she decided that the best response would be no response at all, and she went to bed.
26
YES
Wednesday 5 June 2013
Anna took the Tube into town and headed for The Dog, where she was meeting Nia for lunch. They hadn’t been able to do this while she was working at the school, and when she’d left, they’d agreed they would do it every other month. When she got there, Nia was already sitting at their usual table with two drinks in front of her and she held one up to Anna, to show that she didn’t need to stop off at the bar.
‘Sausage sandwiches ordered,’ Nia said, by way of greeting.
‘You’re very efficient today,’ Anna said, leaning over and giving her friend a hug before sitting down.
Nia shrugged. ‘I’m starving. So what’s new? How’s the new business?’
‘It’s going well,’ Anna said. ‘But Edward isn’t being very supportive, so that’s annoying.’
‘Why not?’
Why wasn’t he? It wasn’t about money, shedidn’t think. He earned enough to keep everything running and she’d hardly been earning a lot at the school library.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t get it. I want him to be happy and fulfilled and have the things he wants. But I’m not sure he feels the same way. Sometimes I think he’s still angry with me that we never had a third child. He never stopped wanting another one.’
Nia sipped her drink through a straw and kept her eyes on Anna, giving her permission to carry on.
‘You know, I was entirely consumed by motherhood for such a long time. I can’t even explain what it’s like, but I didn’t have the headspace for anything else. And now I’ve emerged from that, the boys are a bit older and a bit more self-sufficient, and I feel like it’s my time. Thomas is about to go to secondary school and it won’t be long before Sam is there, too. But it takes a while to build anything up and at the moment I’m barely even covering the cost of the childcare – before and after school clubs, holiday clubs, all that. And every now and then, my brain turns on me and I feel like maybe Edward was right all along. Maybe I should have just stopped work when I became a mother. Maybe I’ve been doing all this juggling for all these years for nothing.’
Nia held up both her hands. ‘That’s a lot,’ she said.
