Babyville Page 0,3
was then very definitely Gospel Oak.
And now they rattle around together in this big house that is far, far too big for Julia. Julia loved her tiny house, loves small, cozy rooms, has never felt comfortable in this house, never felt right.
Mark, on the other hand, loved it instantly. Because Julia thought she did not really care where she lived, thought if Mark was happy she would be happy, she agreed, even though she now finds she has always been intimidated by the vast rooms, the high ceilings, the floor-to-ceiling bay windows.
They meet in the kitchen, the one place Julia does like, the one room that makes her feel as though she belongs, the only room in the house that bears witness to the occasional times that Mark and Julia laugh together. Talk. Communicate.
Because every now and then they do have a fantastic time. Both of them are still clinging on, hoping that those fantastic times will increase, that they will be able to recapture some of the magic that was there at the beginning.
Which is why Mark agreed to the baby. Julia knew he wasn't keen, wasn't ready, but she has come to believe this baby is their best shot. Of course it's not right to use children as a means of grouting up the cracks in a relationship, but Julia is convinced she'd change if they had a child together. She'd be settled. Happy. They would be a family.
Nine months ago they thought it would be easy. Nine months later they know it's not, and their inability to do something so natural, something that other people find so effortless, seems to be putting yet more distance between them.
They talked about it at first. Tentatively. Nervously. Neither of them wanting to admit that there might be a problem, although at that stage neither genuinely thought there was a problem. They were still having sex spontaneously then. Making love without checking the chart, or taking a temperature, or lying, as Julia is now, with legs raised perpendicular to her chest, to give the sperm the easiest, laziest, route to her—hopefully—welcoming egg.
In the old days they used to lie in bed after each lovemaking session, spontaneously or otherwise, wondering whether they had done it, whether they had created a baby. Friends of Julia said they knew. Sam said she knew. The very moment it happened Sam said she knew, but other people she'd spoken to said it was rubbish, that you don't feel different, that the only reason they ever suspected was because their periods were late.
And Julia has spoken to many other people. Many, many, many, because making a baby has become an obsession, succeeding in making a baby her mission in life. She will gladly speak to friends of friends, distant colleagues, total strangers, in a bid to find out how it is done, how she can make it work.
It is as easy to approach strangers, to quiz them on the most intimate subjects (which, luckily, mothers don't seem to mind, all privacy and intimacy having presumably been removed from their lives at some point on the birthing table), as it is hard to be around people she actually knows who have children.
Stupid. Selfish. Self-obsessed. Julia feels all these things, and yet she knows she cannot handle it. Cannot handle the pain when she sees those precious children, cannot handle the ugly side of herself, the only side that emerges on those occasions.
She has managed to admit to Sam her true feelings: She is jealous and angry about other people's ability to have children. Not strangers; she can happily be around strangers and their children. But friends? Family? There have been times when Julia has been filled with hateful fury. Furious hate. There have been times when she has not been able to speak, so overwhelmed with this anger that she has been scared it will project from her mouth in a stream of invective.
Don't hate Julia for it. She is not a bad person. She's a woman filled with jealousy and resentment, a woman who hates herself for it, but cannot help it.
Hates herself for avoiding situations where she will see people she knows who have children. Avoids family parties because her brother-in-law's sister has a ten-month-old girl called Jessica. She last saw Jessica when Jessica was three months old, and Julia had not yet discovered she might have a problem having a Jessica of her own.
She held Jessica and felt her heart swell with joy, but she