It’s 2 a.m. and I pace the downstairs rooms of my house. There aren’t many. Living room to dining room to small U-shaped kitchen that only has enough standing room for two people, a toilet and shower room under the stairs. Which is ideal for me because it’s only me, and occasionally Gabriel. His house is nicer and we stay there more often. Mine and Gerry’s was a starter home; a new build in the suburbs of Dublin for us to begin the rest of our life together. Everything was shiny and new, clean, we were the first to use our shower, the kitchen, our bathroom. How excited we’d been to come from our rented flat to our own home with stairs for the first time.
I walk to the staircase and look up.
‘Holly!’ Gerry calls me.
He was standing where I’m standing now, at the foot of the stairs, hand on the banister.
‘Yes!’ I yell from upstairs.
‘Where are you?’
‘In the bathroom!’
‘Where? Upstairs?’
‘Gerry, our only bathroom is upstairs.’
‘Yes, but we have a toilet downstairs.’
I laugh, understanding. ‘Ah yes but I’m in the bathroom upstairs. Where are you? Are you downstairs?’
‘Yes! Yes, I’m here downstairs!’
‘OK great, I’ll see you in a minute when I come downstairs, from where I am upstairs!’
‘OK.’ Pause. ‘Be careful on the stairs. There’s a lot of them. Hold on to the banister!’
I smile at the memory, running my hand up and down the banister, touching all the places he touched, wanting to rub him on to me.
I haven’t done this late-night room wandering for years, not since the months after he passed, but now I feel the house is owed my attentive farewell. My mind is whirring with ideas. Bert’s quiz, Ginika’s letter, Joy’s trees and flowers notions; I didn’t ask Paul what he wants to do. They had more questions for me than I for them, about the dolphins, the holiday, the sunflowers. Sunflowers. My October letter from Gerry. A sunflower pressed between two cards and a pouch of seeds to brighten the dark October days you hate so much, he’d written.
When Gerry was alive, I hated winters. When he died, I embraced them. These days, I simply take them at the natural rhythm they arrive. The seeds were included with Gerry’s eighth letter. I’d told everyone it was because sunflowers were my favourite flowers. They weren’t. I’m not really the type of person to have a favourite flower; flowers are flowers and they are mostly all attractive. But the sunflowers had a meaning, a story. They started a conversation. Gerry had managed to start a conversation from his deathbed, which was Gerry’s gift.
The first month in our house, we had very little furniture. Most of the furniture in our apartment had belonged to the landlords and so we had to start afresh, which meant we couldn’t afford to buy everything at once, but also we weren’t the best at managing delivery times, expecting couches to be available the moment we chose them from the shop floor, all the usual beginner mistakes. And so we had three months in the house without a couch or coffee table. We sat in the TV room, on bean bags, drinking wine, using our unpacked moving boxes as side tables.
‘Sweetheart,’ I say one evening when we’re snuggled on a bean bag with a bottle of red wine after eating steak and chips for dinner.
‘Uh oh,’ Gerry says, looking at me sideways, and I laugh.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not bad.’
‘OK,’ he says, reaching to his plate on the floor to spear some left-over steak.
‘When do you want to have a baby?’
His eyes widen comically and he immediately puts the steak in his mouth, chewing slowly.
I laugh. ‘Come on. What do you think?’
‘I think,’ he talks through his chews, ‘we need to start marinating our steak.’
‘OK, if you’re not going to be adult about it, I’ll speak. We’ve been married for two years, and apart from one horrible summer, and the two weeks we broke up when I saw you kissing Jennifer O’Brien, we’ve been together—’
‘I did not kiss Jennifer O’Brien.’
‘She kissed you.’ I’m smiling. I’m really over it by this point. We were fourteen years old at the time.
‘She didn’t even kiss me. She leaned in and brushed my lips, and the reason we brushed is because I moved my head away. Let it go,’ he besieges me, mockingly.
‘Hmm. Anyway. Let me continue.’
‘Please do.’
‘We’ve been married for two years.’
‘You said that.’
I ignore him, continuing: ‘And we’ve been together twelve years. Give or take.’
‘Give. Always give.’
‘And we said as soon as we left the rat-infested apartment—’
‘One mouse. One time.’
‘And bought our first house, we would discuss when to have a baby. We have now bought a house, which we won’t own for another one hundred years, but isn’t it time for the discussion?’
‘And no better time than right when Man United have just kicked off against Arsenal. No better time at all.’
I laugh. ‘You have a stable job—’
‘Oh, you’re still talking.’
‘And when I’m working, my jobs are stable.’
‘Between the instability,’ he agrees.
‘Yes. But I currently have a job that I dislike intensely and won’t miss while on maternity leave.’
‘I don’t think you get maternity leave in temp jobs. You’re covering for somebody else’s leave.’ He looks at me, his eyes laughing at me.
‘OK, so maybe I don’t get maternity leave, but I do get leave,’ I reason. ‘So all I have to do is get pregnant and leave …’
He laughs.
‘And you are beautiful, I love you, and you have powerful super semen that should not be kept away from the world, hidden away down there, in a dark place, all alone.’ I make a sad face.
He chuckles harder.
‘They’re ready to create a super species. I sense it.’
‘She’s still talking.’
‘And. I love you. And you’ll be an amazing daddy.’
He looks at me, serious now. ‘Are you finished?’
I think some more. ‘And I love you.’
He smiles. ‘I want to have a baby with you.’
I start to squeal and he kills it.
‘But what about Gepetto?’
‘No!’ I move away from him and throw my head back, frustrated, and stare at the ceiling. ‘Do not bring up Gepetto again.’
‘Gepetto was a great beloved member of our family and you … frankly, Holly, you killed him. You took him away from us.’
‘Gerry, can we have an adult conversation for once?’
‘This is an adult conversation.’
‘Gepetto was a plant.’
‘Gepetto was a living, breathing life form that needed air, light and water, like us. He also happened to be a very expensive bonsai, exactly the same age as our relationship. Ten years old. Do you know how difficult it was to find that bonsai? I had to drive to Derry to get him.’
I groan and pull myself up out of the bean bag. I carry the plates to the kitchen, half-irritated, half-amused by the conversation. Gerry follows me; eager to ensure he hasn’t really annoyed me but unable to stop when he’s in this zone, prodding, poking away like a stick at the fire.
‘I think you’re more annoyed that you had to drive to Derry to a dodgy bonsai dealer than you are at me for killing it.’ I scrape the food from the plates into the bin. I put the plates in the sink. We don’t have a dishwasher yet, the basis of most of our arguments.
‘Ah! So you admit to murdering him.’
I raise my hands in surrender. ‘Sure, I killed him. And I’d do it again if I had half the chance.’
Gerry laughs.
I swivel around for the full reveal. ‘I was jealous of the attention you were giving Gepetto, how the two of you left me out. So when you went away for two weeks, I planned it. I left him by the window, the place that gets the most sun and … I didn’t give him water.’ I fold my arms and watch Gerry double over laughing. ‘OK, seriously, if this conversation about Gepetto is a distraction because you’re not ready for a baby, that’s fine with me. I can wait. I was only bringing it up for discussion.’
He wipes his eyes and the smile off his face. ‘I want to have a baby with you. There is no doubt in my mind.’
‘I’m ready.’
‘You change your mind a lot.’
‘About what dress to wear, and whether I should get tinned chopped tomatoes or whole peeled plum. About work. About wall-paint colours and tiles for the bathroom floor. Not about babies.’
‘You sent the dog back after one week.’
‘He ate my favourite shoes.’
‘You change your job every three months.’
‘It’s called temping. It requires that I must. If I stay longer they’ll have me forcibly removed.’
He leaves a silence. The corners of his mouth twitch.
‘I won’t change my mind on this,’ I say, getting agitated, finally, with this conversation, with having to prove myself – me a grown adult – to my own husband. ‘In fact, I already waited three months to have this conversation.’ Because he’s right, I do always change my mind. Apart from a commitment to Gerry, pretty much any other decision that involves long-term change scares me. Signing the mortgage on this house was terrifying.
He reaches out to stop me from leaving, and pulls me back to him. I know he’s not deliberately trying to wind me up. I know he’s trying to ensure I’m serious, in the only way he feels won’t cause an argument. We kiss tenderly and I feel this is the time for decision, a life-changing moment in our lives.
‘But,’ he says mid-kiss.
I groan.
‘I still can’t help but feel we need to prove it.’
‘I need to prove shit to you. I want a baby.’
He laughs. ‘First,’ he holds his finger dramatically and I roll my eyes and try to move away from where he’s pinned me against the counter. ‘For Gepetto and for the future of our super child, you will do one thing. You must prove you can grow and keep a plant alive. Then and only then can we make a baby.’
‘Gerry,’ I laugh, ‘I think that’s what they tell people who are leaving rehab who want to start new relationships.’
‘Yes, unstable people like you. It’s good advice. In the name of Gepetto.’
‘Why are you always so dramatic?’
‘Why are you … not?’ His lips twitch.
‘OK,’ I say, getting into the game. ‘I want a baby, so I’ll see your ridiculous dare and I’ll raise you. We both have to plant and grow our own seeds to prove we can both care for a baby. I will surprise you.’
‘Can’t wait,’ he grins. ‘Game. On.’
‘Mum,’ I whisper, down the phone.
‘Holly? Are you OK? Have you lost your voice? Do you want to me send over some chicken noodle soup?’
‘No, my throat is fine,’ I reply, then rethink it. ‘But I’d still love the soup. I’m calling because Gerry and I are doing this thing. Kind of like a competition.’
‘Honestly, you two,’ she says, chuckling.
‘What’s the fastest seed, flower thing, I could grow?’ I ask, making sure Gerry’s out of earshot.
Mum laughs loudly.
I clear out a jam jar. Gerry watches me while he drinks a coffee before leaving for work. I stuff the jar with cotton wool, then place two butter beans among the cotton wool. I pour water inside, just enough to make the cotton wool damp.
Gerry roars with laughter. ‘Seriously? If that’s how you think you grow flowers, I’m worried about how you think babies are made.’
‘You watch,’ I say, carrying the jam jar to the windowsill. ‘My little butter beans will blossom where Gepetto perished.’
He holds his heart as though he’s been shot. ‘I only hope the cow that you sold was worth these magic beans.’
‘I’m winning already. Where’s yours?’
‘I’m surprised that you’re so quick off the mark. Some of us have to buy soil and seeds. Even though I haven’t planted anything, I’m still winning because all you did was plant beans in cotton wool,’ he says, and doubles over laughing.
‘You wait. I want to be a mother, I will grow these beans with sheer determination alone,’ I say, grinning, loving the sound of the words aloud. I want to be a mother! Gerry is right, such certain words from me are rare, and it’s exciting to be a person who knows what she wants for once. But I am also stubborn and often choose to stick to my side of the argument whether I believe it or not. But not in this case.
Two days later when I go downstairs in the morning, I notice that one of the beans has started to sprout a small root, which is visible against the glass. I grab the jar and race upstairs. I jump on the bed, waking him, annoying him, and bounce up and down with my prospering bean.
He rubs his eyes and stares grumpily at the jar. ‘That’s impossible, how the hell is it growing in cotton wool. Did you mess with it?’
‘No! I’m not a cheat. I watered it.’
Gerry doesn’t like to lose. That evening he returns from work with a packet of sunflower seeds, but he has forgotten to buy a pot and soil.
On the fourth day, when he has only planted the sunflower seeds, my bean root has little tendrils.
Gerry takes to talking to his sunflower seeds, he reads the seeds a book. He tells the seeds jokes. He carries out full-on conversations with the seeds while I laugh. Two more days on, while Gerry’s sunflower seeds are still beneath the soil, my beans sprout shoots. Gerry carries the sunflower seed pot to the bean bags where he plays computer games with his pot, even going so far as to place a controller in front of the pot.
One morning I walk into the bathroom to find the sunflower pot sitting on the toilet seat lid, with an open dirty magazine.
After ten days of this carry on, I call it.
‘OK, admit it: I’ve won.’ My beans have sprouted and grown shoots, and there is a large network of shoots off the main root, with a sturdy stem growing straight upwards and out of the cotton wool.
But of course he won’t give in.
The following morning, he gets out of bed and goes downstairs to make our morning coffee before I do, which is a rare and precious thing, and I know something is up. He starts yelling, frantically, and I think we’ve been burgled. I fall out of bed, stumble downstairs and find him dancing around in his boxers, holding his potted plant with a single two-foot-tall sunflower climbing high.
‘It’s a miracle!’ he says, wide-eyed.
‘You’re a cheat.’
‘I did it!’ he dances around with the sunflower, following me to the kitchen, and points a finger at me accusingly. ‘You thought you could bury me, you didn’t know I was a seed.’
‘Cute,’ I nod. Game over. ‘So now we can have a baby?’
‘Definitely,’ he says, serious. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted.’
On a high from our decision, we drink our morning coffee, him from his Star Wars mug; we’re grinning at each other like lunatics, as though we’ve made the baby already. The post lands on the hallway floor.
Gerry gathers the envelopes and brings them to the kitchen, flicks through them and one takes his interest. He tears it open and I watch him, grinning at my gorgeous husband who wants to make a baby with me in my new house with a staircase that brings you upstairs from downstairs and downstairs from upstairs, feeling like life couldn’t be any more perfect.
I study his face. ‘What is it?’
He hands me the letter. ‘I got the appointment for the MRI.’
I read the letter and when I look up, I can see he’s nervous.
‘These things are standard procedure. It just rules things out.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he says, kissing me quickly, distracted. ‘Still hate it. I’m going for a shower.’
‘Where? Upstairs? To our shower upstairs?’
He stops at the bottom of the stairs and smiles, but the light has gone out in him. ‘The very one. You take care of Esmerelda. She likes porn and video games.’
‘Esmerelda?’ I look at the sunflower, and laugh. ‘Nice to meet you, Esmerelda.’
Esmerelda doesn’t live much longer; our collective sense of humour stalled somewhat after the results of the MRI. But we don’t know that yet on that morning. That morning we’re busy planning life.
Gerry runs up our new staircase and then I hear the shower water running.
He’s twenty-seven years old.
I finish my walk through my rooms at the door to my bedroom. I scan the room. It’s not the same at all. New bed, new headboard, new curtains, new paint. New large strong protective lump beneath the duvet. Gabriel stirs, and a hand reaches out for me in the bed. It feels around. He lifts his head from the pillow, scans the room and finds me at the door.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘I was getting some water.’
He looks at my hands, which are glass-of-water free; he can’t be fooled. I climb into bed and kiss him. He lifts his arm and I turn my back to him and reverse into his warm body. He closes his arm around me and I’m instantly cocooned. He can protect me from the past that’s chasing me, build a bubble around me where memories and emotional backtracking can’t penetrate me. But what happens when he lets go, when the streaming light of morning stirs him, and the safety of slumber slithers away revealing truth? Much as I want to, I can’t hide in him forever.