Babyville Page 0,31
holiday and—”
“But what about Mark?”
“What about Mark? You're both unhappy, you've both said terrible things, and the best thing for you both right now is to have some space. Talk to him when he gets home, tell him you're doing this to save your relationship, then come out and have some fun. Jesus, Julia. When was the last time you had any fun?”
“I couldn't. I mean, it sounds great but I couldn't just go. There's too much to do and—”
“What do you have to do?”
Julia sighs. “Okay, it's not that I'm particularly busy, but half my stuff's in the laundry and I haven't got anything to wear and—”
“For God's sake, Julia. New York's the shopping capital of the world. It's cheap and it's easy. Just stick some underwear in a suitcase and come. Anything else you need you can get there.”
“I haven't been to New York for years,” Julia muses.
“Right. Then you're coming. I'm going to put the phone down now and see if I can get my office to organize your flight. I'll call you back.”
Julia is too stunned to do anything, but half an hour later, when Bella calls her back, she goes into overdrive, pushing aside her worries about Mark, and starting to pack.
She's barely thinking, whirling around the huge house, sorting out dark washes from white washes, ironing sweaters, oblivious to the time, to the fact that Mark still isn't home, and, good God, what is that feeling in her stomach?
Not a baby. Not a hope of that when her period has just arrived, but is that . . . could that be . . . butterflies? As she neatly folds sweaters and tucks shoes into her suitcase, Julia is astonished to find she is grinning.
She stops only to put the kettle on and make some coffee, because while her mind is racing, her eyes are starting to close. The coffee manages to do the trick, and finally her suitcase is packed and she collapses on the sofa.
And the key turns in the lock.
Julia turns to look at the clock. It is six-fifteen in the morning. She doesn't say anything as Mark walks into the room, sits on the sofa facing her, unable to meet her eye.
He looks terrible. He looks as though he is either very very drunk, or very very hung over, and Julia assumes he is hung over. His suit is crumpled, tie crooked, and his hair all over the place.
Once upon a time Julia would have demanded to know where he had been, who he had been with, but it has been a long night, and she is too relieved to see him back to put him through an interrogation.
“Are you going?” he whispers finally, and Julia melts, for he has seen the suitcase in the hall and has clearly presumed she is leaving him.
“No,” she says, “not exactly. Although sort of.” Mark looks up, confused. “I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I'm sorry for everything. I know we haven't been happy recently and I know I haven't been fun, and I really do appreciate how hard this has been for you, this bad luck, and not getting pregnant, and getting obsessed.
“But at this moment in time the only thing I'm absolutely sure of is that I need some space, and I imagine, given your disappearance until”—she checks her watch—“a quarter past six in the morning, you do too. I'm not leaving as in leaving you, but I've decided to go to New York with Bella for a break. I need some time on my own, to think about my life, our life together, and I need to try and, I don't know . . . God, it sounds so stupid to say I need to find myself again, but that's how I feel.”
“Are you really that unhappy?” he asks, and Julia thinks for a moment about what to say. She could lie, say that really she was fine, and that it wasn't so bad, and that it was something that would just blow over, but she's fed up with lying.
“Yes,” she says. “And you are too. I'm not sure anymore whether that's because of not having a baby, or because of us. Because of what's happened to the relationship, or because of me, but I do know that neither of us is ever going to find out if I just stay here and we carry on in the same old routine.”
“I take it you're leaving soon?”
Julia nods.
“Why don't I make