Babyville Page 0,8
odd comment to one another, but not really talking.
At eleven Julia went up to bed. Mark said he'd come up after the film, at which point Julia gently reminded him that tonight was one of those nights, and could he please come up earlier. He huffed and puffed a bit, but didn't say anything. Just crossed his arms and continued staring at the screen.
Not perhaps the best of starts. It wasn't going to get any better. . . .
Once upon a time Julia wore sexy lingerie. She had drawers of lacy scraps of silk, with shoestring straps that slipped off her shoulders. Now she has oversized T-shirts for summer and pajamas for winter. Usually T-shirts that had been sent to one of her researchers, because someone, somewhere, thought that emblazoning an XL T-shirt with a huge logo would be a good selling point. T-shirts that have faded from the numerous washes over the years, that she wouldn't be seen dead in anywhere other than in her own house.
As for the pajamas . . . very definitely not sexy pajamas you might imagine someone like Meg Ryan wearing, nor even someone like Julia. Not the kind of men's pajamas that look cute and cuddly on models curled up by log fires in the pages of the glossy magazines. These men's pajamas are fraying at the edges. The bottom bags down to her knees, and because the elastic lost all its elasticity a long, long time ago, the waist is held together with a safety pin that isn't exactly safe but, amazingly, has never stuck her. They're baggy, colorless, and shapeless, except she doesn't actually care because they're so comfortable and warm.
That night was a pajama night. Julia made an effort to brush her hair and shake it out to sit on her shoulders in the way that Mark always used to love. She sat up in bed reading, intermittently looking at the clock. Even though she had promised herself not to shout at him, after half an hour her frustration became too much: She stormed to the top of the stairs and yelled at him to come up.
Five minutes later Mark came upstairs and stood in the doorway with a thunderous look on his face.
“I was in the middle of watching something that would have been over in fifteen minutes, and you could have been more patient. I'm fed up with everything revolving around you. Whatever you want, whenever you want it . . .” Julia opened her mouth to interrupt but he carried on. “And now I'm not in the mood. I know all about Day Thirteen, but frankly I find it completely implausible, and the last thing I want to do right now is have sex.” He spat this last word out as if it were the most distasteful thing in the world.
Julia swallowed her own frustration, something she found almost impossible to do, but after all, it was Day 13, and schedules must be adhered to, egos must be stroked, not to mention anything else.
“I'm sorry,” she said meekly, looking up at him from lowered eyelashes as she climbed out of bed and walked toward him. “I was selfish. I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry.” She reached up and kissed his impassive cheek of stone, knowing that there was only one way for this to go in the direction she wanted. She moved her hand down to the zip on his trousers as she lowered herself to her knees.
“Will you forgive me?” she mumbled, mouth full. Then she knew it didn't matter any more.
Ten minutes later she was lying on the bed, legs up in the air, reading a pregnancy book as Mark went to grab the toilet paper in disgust.
He didn't say anything when he came back to the bedroom. Just shook his head sadly as he looked at Julia and climbed into bed. A few minutes later he spoke, and his voice was muted, weary. “Was it ever better than this? Tell me it was better than this. Didn't we use to make love? Didn't it use to take hours? Wasn't it fun before all this baby stuff?” He looked at Julia, as if expecting an answer, but she chose not to reply, so he turned over with a sigh. Within a few minutes all you could hear was the sound of his gentle snoring.
How could she possibly have answered him? There was nothing to say.
Julia looks at Sam and shrugs. “Don't you think the sex