weekend, trapping us in the house. The highlight was Ella and the infinite games of Connect 4 we played, which obviously I lost every time. ‘You’re not very good, are you, Auntie C?’ Ella said kindly, sucking her thumb whilst my sister scowled at her ‘babyish habit’. ‘Let her be, Nat,’ I murmured, and then Ella let me win a single round.
The low point was – well, there was a choice, actually. There had been the moment when pompous Brendan drank too much Merlot over Saturday supper and had then started to lecture me on ‘time to rebuild’ and ‘look at life afresh’ whilst Natalie had bustled around busily putting away table-mats with Georgian ladies on them into the dresser. I had glared at my sister in the hope that she might actually tell her husband to SHUT UP but she didn’t; she just rolled table napkins up, sliding mine into a shiny silver ring that actually read Guest. So I sat trying to smile at my brother-in-law’s sanctimonious face, thinking desperately of my little flat and the peace that at least reigned there. Lonely peace, perhaps, but peace nonetheless. After a while, I found that if I stared at Brendan’s wine-stained mouth talking, at the tangle of teeth behind the thin top lip, beneath the nose like a fox’s, I could just about block his words out. For half an hour he thought I was absorbing his sensitive advice, instead of secretly wishing that the large African figurehead they’d bought on honeymoon in the Gambia (having stepped outside the tourist compound precisely once, ‘Getting back to the land, Claudie, and oh those Gambians, such a noble people, really, Claudie; having so little and yet so much. They thrive on it’) would crash from the wall right now and render him unconscious.
The second low came on Sunday morning, just after I had turned down the exciting opportunity to accompany them to the local church for a spot of guitar-led happy clapping.
‘Leave Ella here with me,’ I offered. My head was clearer today, not as sore and much less hazy than it had felt recently. The paranoia was receding a little. ‘It must be pretty boring for her, all that God stuff.’
‘Oh I can’t,’ Natalie actually simpered. ‘Not today. We have to give thanks as a family.’
‘What for?’ I gazed at her. She looked coy, dying to tell me something, that familiar flush spreading over her chest and up her neck and face. I looked at her bosom that was more voluptuous than normal and her sparkling eyes and I realised.
‘You’re pregnant,’ I said slowly.
‘Oh. Yes,’ and she was almost disappointed that she hadn’t got to announce it, but she was obviously wrestling with guilt too. ‘Are you OK with that?’
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’ I moved forward to hug her dutifully. ‘I’m really pleased for you.’
Natalie grabbed my hands and pushed me away from her so she could search my face earnestly. ‘You know why. It must be so hard for you.’ A little tear had gathered in the corner of one of her bovine brown eyes. ‘I – I’d like you to be godmother though,’ she murmured, as if she was bestowing a great gift. ‘It might, you know. Help.’
‘Great,’ I smiled mechanically. And I was pleased for her, of course I was, but nothing helped, least of all this, though she was well-intentioned; and I knew it was impossible for anyone else to understand me. I was trapped in my own distant land, very far from shore; I’d been there since Ned closed his eyes for the last time and slipped quietly from me. ‘Thank you.’ And I hugged her again, just so I didn’t have to look at the pity scrawled across her face.
‘If it’s a boy,’ she started to say, ‘we might call him—’
I heard an imaginary phone ringing in my room upstairs. ‘Sorry, Nat. Better get it, just in case—’ I disappeared before she could finish.
Whilst they were at church, I gathered my few bits and pieces and wrote her a note. I was truly sorry to leave Ella, I loved spending time with her, but I needed to be home now. I needed to be far, far away from my well-meaning sister and the suffocating little nest she called home.
And so here I lay, alone again. In the next room, the phone rang and I heard a calm voice say ‘Leave us messages, please.’
My voice, apparently; swiftly followed by another – male, low.