Babyville Page 0,58

can't get pregnant, and instead of actually doing something practical about it, going to see someone, she's doing these ridiculous things like making me carry juniper berries in my wallet because it's supposed to increase a man's potency, and dancing round these stupid bloody candles with penises on them.”

I can't help it. I start laughing. “What?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, candles with penises on them?” I don't even want to begin to describe the picture that flashes into my head.

“I don't know,” he says, shrugging. “There was a big candle with an erect penis carved into it.”

“Okay.” A thought occurs to me. “Do you carry juniper berries, then?”

Mark reaches into his inside pocket, opens his wallet and pours a dozen juniper berries on to the coffee table with a sigh. We both pick one up and examine it.

“It sounds like she's scared,” I offer finally.

“Of course she's scared. I'm scared too. But being scared isn't going to make her pregnant. She has to be more practical.”

“I understand that, Mark, but it must be the worst feeling in the world to not be able to get pregnant. I'd be lying if I said I understood it, because children are really not on my agenda, but I'm sure that infertility would compromise your very womanhood.”

“But what about me?” Mark says, and as he turns to look at me the pain in his eyes is frightening. “She said it was my fault. That she'd been pregnant and therefore I had to be firing blanks.”

“Jesus.” I let out a long whistle. “Did she actually say that?”

“Basically.”

“That's tough, Mark.” We sit in silence for a while. “Can I ask you something else?” He looks at me, and I'm not even sure I ought to be asking what I'm about to ask, but I can't not ask him, it's too urgent. “Do you actually want children?”

“Yes. Of course. I love children. I've always wanted children.”

“Okay, let me put it another way. Do you actually want children with Julia?”

It's a loaded question and Mark catches his breath. “What are you asking?”

“I'm asking whether you're happy with her. Happy enough to spend the rest of your life with her. To wake up next to her every morning, for her to be the one you kiss every night before you roll over to sleep.

“I'm asking you, Mark, whether, should you actually get what you're looking for, you want Julia to be the mother of your children. Your partner for the rest of your life. That's what I'm asking. That's all.”

There's a very long silence while Mark drops his head into his hands. At first I think he's crying, but after a while he looks up at me and his eyes are dry. “Once upon a time I would have said Yes. Definitely. But now I'm not sure of anything anymore.”

13

I love my mum. I mean, I really, really love my mum. She's my best friend in the whole world and I've never understood how my friends can have so many problems with their mothers, because isn't it the most important relationship a girl should have?

Maybe it's because my parents divorced, because my mum and I only had each other, but throughout my teenage years, when my friends would turn up huffing and puffing about how much they hated their mothers and how stupid their parents were and would it be okay if they came and lived at our house, I thought my mum was fantastic.

She truly was the big sister I never had. It helped that she looked just like me, and that she didn't look very old, but then again she actually wasn't very old, as she had me when she was twenty, so when I was a teenager she was, Christ, she was pretty much the age I am now.

God, that's spooky. I could have a twelve-year-old daughter. I see women like that all the time. Women my age with that constantly harassed and tired look on their faces, pushing buggies, explaining things to toddlers, accompanied by pissed-off twelve-year-olds desperate to grow up and get away.

Children have never been part of my scheme of things. Should I spot a Mothercare looming on the particular street on which I'm walking, I will make sure I avert my eyes. So-called cute adverts featuring babies and their bottoms have never done it for me, it's just a cynical manipulation of emotions, and luckily I was born without the baby gene.

I'm not interested in babies, and I'm not interested in talking about