The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [47]
‘Is it?’ She gave him that same unsmiling stare. ‘You mean you don't get to have a say in whether we start a family?’
Chris thought: Probably not, if you've already made up your mind – and was taken aback by the depth of his anger at his helplessness. He didn't answer.
‘But if I could cope,’ she argued after a few moments, ‘if it, you know, would get me back on track, how would you feel about it?’
‘I'm not against having a family’ he answered defensively; ‘it's just the timing. We don't know that being pregnant would help you to be less fearful and anxious, do we? It might even make you worse. It's a big chance to take. Wouldn't it be more sensible to give this another six months? See how it goes before we start having kids?’
Her face fell into dispirited lines and his heart sank.
‘Look, it's up to you,’ he said. ‘Honestly. If you really think you could manage and that it would help …’
His voice trailed away and they continued to sit in silence, each of them trying to gauge the other's thoughts.
Driving back from Wadebridge, Liv decided to make a detour up to Trescairn; it was a good afternoon to have a walk up on the Tor. Driving between wild, high hedges, streaked and splashed with paint-bright colours of the celandine and campion and buttercups, she pondered on her earlier reaction to Val. Liv realized that by talking to her in such a way she'd done her own cause no good. Instead of standing aside to give Val plenty of space to self-destruct, she'd offered her a lifeline back to normality – and to Chris. It would be so easy – and so tempting – to let Val dig her own deep pit and then topple into it, requiring barely a nudge from anyone else.
So why had she felt the need to stretch out a hand to her? Had it been the pitiful sight of that tense, immobile figure, shut off from the happy little group in the café, that had roused her compassion? Whatever had been the cause of her pity she'd felt the need to respond to it.
‘More fool you,’ Liv told herself crossly – but she couldn't quite regret it. If Val insisted on alienating Chris then she needed to see the extent of the damage that might follow; that was only fair. She, Liv, had no intention of letting him topple into the pit with Val.
It had been such fun at lunchtime; sitting with Chris, opposite Zack and Caroline. Not only was there the fizz of excitement at being so close to him but also a nice, comfortable quality too. After all, they'd done this before. They'd sat in cafés with friends, walked through the streets of Durham and over the Northumberland moors; laughed, fought, made love.
Driving through a small hamlet of granite cottages, where the clematis, charming ‘Nelly Moser’, scrambled up the walls and across the roof of a small stone hut, and laburnum trees dripped golden pendent blossom over garden walls, Liv tried to remember exactly how their love affair had ended. There had been no dreary deterioration, none of the painful disillusion that Chris and Val were suffering now; it had been an amicable parting of the ways. Chris had been offered a very good job in the financial department of a huge pharmaceutical company, whilst she'd been determined to travel. She'd had no such tempting job offer to make her weigh up the advantages of going with Chris to London and, anyway, she'd always wanted to see the world. Another student friend had invited her to go to Australia with her; she had relatives there, she'd said, and they'd be able to pick up work as they went along. Liv had been unable to resist. The parting had been hard, they'd promised to stay in touch – and there had been several moments when she'd seriously considered giving it all up and coming home to him – but in the end they'd drifted apart. Distance had not made the heart grow fonder.
Which must surely mean, Liv told herself now as she approached Trescairn, that it wasn't meant to be; our love simply wasn't strong enough to survive.
She turned up the drive, parked outside the house and climbed out. The car wasn't in its usual place and the back door was locked.