Good Husband Material

‘Thank you for sharing that thought, Mother.’

‘Mummy, dear. And I only say these things for your own good, Leticia.’

‘Tish,’ I corrected. Fair is fair.

I set off early for home, calling off to purchase a bottle of inexpensive champagne on the way, then took a taxi from the station (but that was just because my being out for so long puts such a strain on that daft dog’s bladder).

However, she’d been good, and was rewarded with biscuits and a walk to the village pond, where she chased the four Muscovy ducks until one turned and gave her a hard stare. Then she slunk off with her feathery tail between her legs.

James was late home, didn’t eat much, and said cheap champagne wasn’t worth buying. ‘Are we celebrating something?’

‘Well, we never really celebrated moving in here, darling, and it’s almost April already! And you know I went up to see that agent today?’

He nodded, and I told him all about it, though he couldn’t seem to grasp the importance of it to me – to us – at all.

‘But is it worth it? After all,’ he said, sloshing down the despised cheap champagne like lemonade, ‘once you’ve got a baby to look after you won’t have time for writing, will you? Now I’m a full partner in the firm we can manage without your writing to bring in any little extras.’

My mouth must have dropped open several inches. It took me a few minutes to get my voice back. ‘It’s more than a little extra! Besides, I like writing, and I can’t just turn it off like a tap. I don’t want to turn it off!’

‘You say that now, and I know how much your little hobby means to you, but when you have a baby to look after—’

‘There might not be a baby.’

He smiled indulgently. ‘I don’t see why not; we’re both healthy and I don’t think we should leave it much longer. I want my sons while I’m young enough to play football with them.’

‘Sons? They may be girls, James! Or girl – I don’t think I want more than one. And my writing isn’t a hobby, so I’m not going to stop doing it!’

(I don’t think I could stop, actually. It would all dam up inside me until I burst.)

We carried on like this for some time, because James couldn’t be persuaded out of his old-fashioned, stupid ideas and just kept repeating, ‘Wait and see!’ in his solicitor’s voice.

He’ll wait and see for ever, if he keeps this up.

Although the idea of starting a family once we moved to the country was on the agenda, I find now I’ve got cold feet. I might not – horror of horrors – enjoy motherhood at all! My biological clock seems to have a very quiet tick.

Thinking back, I felt much the same about pets, before the arrival of Toby and then Bess …

And just how much of the childcare would James actually be prepared to do?

Still, I suppose babies sleep a lot, and then I would be able to write. I don’t know, I’ve never so much as held a baby and know nothing of them. They sort of fascinate and frighten me at the same time, so goodness knows what sort of mother I’d make!

Not one like mine, at any rate, who is so unsure of my love that she is incapable of letting go for a second. It’s pretty sad, really, that she never realises such tactics have the opposite effect to the desired one.

I wish I had a close female friend I could discuss it all with, only I seem to have lost touch with college friends, and my schoolfriends vanished after I met Fergal – no one else existed for me when he was around.

I do have a good friend I made when I joined the Society for Women Writing Romance (there are two organisations for romantic novelists, and I chose to join the SFWWR because my favourite author, Tina Devino, is a member), but Peggy, who is older than I am, lives in Cornwall, so mostly we chat on the phone.

I used to think James and I thought as one on all the important things and that there was nothing we couldn’t discuss, but either he’s changed or I was seeing him through rose-tinted spectacles … He didn’t even seem to be aware of the fundamental chasm opening beneath his feet.

Just to round the evening off nicely, I had a peculiar phone call. Not peculiar in the sense of being obscene: just silence, although I was convinced there was someone at the other end of the line. The caller withheld their number.

The Chinese may have the Year of the Rat, but March is clearly Month of the Lavatory.

The fatal day got off to a good start when James forgot to duck under one of the low beams and gave his head such a crack that he was writhing and swearing for a full five minutes, with Toby listening to every juicy word. One day I expect James will become accustomed to the beams, and react automatically like Pavlov’s dogs. A sharp blow to the head early in life has been the making of a lot of men – Augustus John springs to mind – but unfortunately I think James is too old now for it to make any difference.

After he’d finally driven off to work, pale, martyred and armed with a whole bottle of paracetamol, I climbed up onto the toilet lid to try to unjam the shower curtains. This proved not to be a great idea, for there was a sudden cracking noise, and I ended up with one very soaked velvet mule and some nasty scratches round my ankle. This was doubly upsetting for, apart from the shock and pain, I’d have all the embarrassment of trying to order a new toilet lid, and since the bathroom is ancient and old-fashioned I’d have to take the remains of the old one with me to ensure I got the right type. I didn’t think I could persuade James to do it for me.

I at last unjammed the shower curtains by fetching the kitchen stool, and was standing under the hot spray in my mules, directing the nozzle at the one that went down the loo, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t examined myself for lumps recently, what with one thing and another.

So I did, and when I got to that portion of my anatomy where my left breast becomes my armpit, I wished I hadn’t, because I felt something. A lumpy quality. A faint tenderness.

Fighting down panic, I felt again, and it was still there … The next thing I knew I was sitting on the side of the bath thinking: this sort of thing can’t happen to me!

Then I pulled myself together and tried comparing the other side, and there was definitely a difference on the left – although surely not that single hard lump you’re supposed to look for? Also, I thought I’d read somewhere that there’s no pain with breast cancer until it’s terminal?

Of course, once I’d let the dreaded words terminal and breast cancer into my mind, cold, shaky panic crept in too, even though I kept trying to assure myself that I had just pulled a muscle scraping paint or something. I felt perfectly fit and well, after all.

So there was no need to go to a doctor. If it was – if it didn’t go away – I didn’t want to know …

I didn’t think I wanted to know.

Only that was stupid. I decided to wait and see.

To add to my misery, the fluffy fake fur trimming on my very expensive mules went all stiff and matted like a dead cat, and I didn’t feel the same about them any more.

One week of pure hell followed.

James wouldn’t notice if I was dragging myself round on crutches, since he’s begun a new craze: ham radio. This also foiled my attempts to distract myself by getting on with my writing, since he’s cut several things out of my ham radio magazine, and hogs my library books.

I can only hope it is temporary. It’s bad enough him slipping back into the habit of meeting his cronies after work in the pub (which is turning dinner into supper practically every evening, now he has so far to drive home), or risking arrest by consorting with Howard, without him having his nose glued to my books whenever he is here and I want him to do something.

Friday morning, the Lump still being present, I went to see my new doctor, which I should have done at the start.

Not that she – brisk, brusque and overworked – was very reassuring.

She said she didn’t think it was anything to worry about, but would refer me to the hospital anyway and I’d be sent an appointment.

This meant another wait, although I knew that if she’d only been pretending not to be worried by the lump I’d be sent for instantly.

So the longer the wait, the less important she’d found it …

It didn’t do anything to stop me worrying.

Fergal: April 1999

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