Page 113 of Spiralling Skywards
Liam had pickedme up from work just after twelve, and we were an hour into our drive into Suffolk. The sun was shining and The Kaiser Chiefs ‘Ruby’ was blasting on the radio.
I watched Liam as he drove and sang along to the song.
“If we have a little girl and she has red hair, I think we should call her Ruby. What d’ya reckon?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.
“I reckon we should wait until the house is finished, we’ve settled in, gotten married, and have spent a few years enjoying each other’s company before we start picking baby names. We’ve been together what, five months? Why the rush?”
Liam had raised the subject of starting a family a few times, and it scared the crap outta me.
I loved him, I’d agreed to marry him, I just wasn’t sure at what stage I wanted to have children. Everything had moved so quickly with us. I just wanted to move in together and draw a breath before we started planning a wedding. Children could come later, much later.
If I were being totally honest, the thought of being a mother was not something I found appealing.
Okay, the thought of me turning out to be abadmother terrified me. I was coming around to the idea that, with the right support, which Liam had promised he’d give, I’d be great at it, but alongside the desire to give Liam a child was the almost crippling fear that I would be a failure. That I’d be just like my own mother, like both my parents in fact.
“You wanna wait a few years? C’mon, Sares, I’m thirty already. I don’t want you having to push me in a wheelchair at the same time as you push our baby in a pram. I’m not rushing, I just wanna be young enough to enjoy my kids.”
“You’re hardly old and infirm. You proved that in the bathroom this morning.”
After his sexy dance in my Ms Bitch boy legs and his beautiful marriage proposal, he’d lifted me up onto the edge of the sink and had me coming in seconds with his tongue and minutes later with his dick. I’d arrived at work late and with my cheeks still pinked with an after sex glow.
He grinned his crinkle-eyed grin, shrugged, and gave me his what-can-I-say look. I almost climbed into his lap and rode him all the rest of the way to Suffolk.
But that would be dangerous, so instead, I continued to state my case.
“Anyway, I’m only twenty-two, remember? I’ve got plenty of time.”
“So that’s not a no then?”
“I’ve never said no. I just don’t think I’m quite ready yet.”
I stared out at the passing countryside without actually seeing anything but a green blur. Having this conversation was making my stomach churn.
“You know I’d never do what he did, don’t ya? I’d never just up and leave.”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t turn to face him.
“I’ve never for a moment thought that you would.”
I turned and looked his way. He took his eyes back off the road to meet mine.
“You’re my future, Liam. You’re all that I want right now. But like I said, let’s concentrate on the renovations, get moved in, and plan our wedding. Then we can go from there.”
He turned his gaze back to the road and we drove in silence as The Fray told us how to save a life.
***
My grandparents’ place was a four-bedroomed, grade-two listed, detached farmhouse. It was set in over an acre of the beautiful British countryside, just outside of Newmarket and close to the Cambridgeshire border.
Their move out to the country was supposed to have been a downsize for them. Although the house was a little smaller than the one Luke and I had grown up in, it still had as many bedrooms. Nan worried about where we would all stay when we came to visit and insisted she still have four bedrooms at their ‘downsize’.
Most of the grounds were covered in grass, but there were a few large trees scattered here and there. There was a huge flower bed and a raised vegetable patch. An old barn stood to the side of the property which my grandad used as a potting shed, it also contained a beer fridge, an armchair, and a radio. He would disappear to “pot up some plants” for hours at a time some days. Whenever I’d go to fetch him in for his dinner, I’d find him asleep in his chair, horse racing on the radio, and a can of Guinness in his hand.
The car tyres crunched on the gravel drive as we pulled up. The front door was wide open and Winston, my grandad’s tan-and-white British Bulldog came out. Most dogs bounded, but Winston was old and fat, so he plodded on his short legs towards us.
I climbed out before Liam had even shut off the engine, and moved to give Winston a rub, trying at the same time to avoid getting his slobber all over my jeans.
Liam walked around the car and bent down next to me to pat the dog’s head.
