She should never have told Erika she was done with babies. It was a flippant remark. A carefully constructed flippancy was her default position with Erika. She should have confided that Sam didn't feel the same way, because there had always been the risk it could come up in conversation, just as it had today.
She rarely shared information like that with Erika. She deliberately withheld herself. With other friends she didn't think twice, she chatted about whatever came into her head, because she knew they'd probably forget half of what she said. There was no one else in the world, not her mother or her husband, who listened so ravenously to what she had to say, as if every word mattered and was worthy of being filed away for future reference.
As a child, whenever Erika had come to play, she would first do a peculiar audit of Clementine's room. She'd open every drawer and silently examine its contents. She'd even get down on her hands and knees to look under Clementine's bed, while Clementine stood, mutely infuriated but, at her mother's request, being kind and polite. Everyone is different, Clementine.
Erika had obviously learned some social niceties as a grown-up, and didn't go through her cupboards anymore, but Clementine still sensed that avaricious gleam in Erika's eyes whenever they were in conversation. It was as though Erika's desire to look under Clementine's bed was still there and so was Clementine's mute outraged resistance.
But the really ironic thing was that it now appeared Erika had the same policy of not sharing anything important. She'd kept this huge secret for the past two years, and Clementine's first reaction had been to feel hurt by the revelation: Oh yes, it was all fine for Clementine to lord it over Erika from up high on her friendship pedestal, graciously bestowing gifts: Why yes, Erika, you may be the godmother of my firstborn!
So, okay, fine then, if their friendship was an illusion and had no substance to it, on either side, but now Erika was asking something you asked only of a dearest friend.
She looked down at the cracker in her hand and didn't know what to do with it. The room was silent except for the gentle babble of Holly and Ruby in the next room, doing their craft like little angels, as if in rebuke to Clementine. Look how darling we are. Give Daddy another baby. Help your friend have a baby. Be kind, Clementine, be kind. Why are you so unkind?
A crazy, complicated symphony of feelings rose in her chest. She wanted to throw a tantrum like Ruby, to fling herself to the floor and bang out her frustration with her forehead on the carpet. Ruby always made sure it was carpet before she started banging her head.
Sam moved his hand from her leg and shifted slightly away from her. He'd left a triangle-sized piece of cracker on Erika's spotless white leather couch. Oliver removed his glasses and his eyes looked bruised and tender, like those of a tiny animal emerging from hibernation. He polished them with the edge of his T-shirt. Erika sat immobile and upright, as if at a funeral, her eyes following something past Clementine's head.
'That's Dakota,' she said.
'Dakota?' asked Clementine.
'Dakota,' said Erika. 'The little girl from next door. Vid must be getting impatient. He's sent her over to collect us for the barbeque.'
The doorbell rang. Erika jumped violently.
Sam leaped to his feet like a man whose name has finally been called after a tedious wait in a bureaucratic institution. 'Let's go have a barbeque.'
chapter eighteen
When Sam and Clementine got back from the restaurant and walked in the door, shaking their umbrellas, home from their 'date night' less than two hours after they'd left, Clementine's mother was aghast.
'What happened?' She turned off the television and pressed a hand to her throat as if preparing herself for terrible news. 'Why are you back already?'
'We're so sorry, Pam,' said Sam. 'The service at the restaurant was slow and in the end we just ... we decided we weren't really in the mood for going out to dinner.'
'But the reviews were outstanding,' said Pam. The restaurant had been her recommendation. She looked at them expectantly, as if she hoped she could convince them to turn around and go back into the city and give it another go.
Clementine saw that her mother had folded a basket of clean laundry into neat little piles on the couch, and had just now rewarded herself with a cup of tea and a single gingernut biscuit on a saucer, probably to enjoy while she watched Midsomer Murders. Clementine felt a stab of regret. It seemed this was her default state now: regretful. It was just the degrees of regret that changed.
'I'm sorry, Mum,' she said. 'I know you -' I know you thought a romantic dinner could save our marriage. She glanced at Sam, and he returned her look as passively as a stranger on a bus. 'We both felt sort of tired, I guess.'
Pam's shoulders sagged. 'Oh dear,' she said. 'I'm sorry if I pushed you into it. Maybe it was too soon. I just thought it would be good for you to get out.' She visibly rallied. 'Well, how about I make you both a cup of tea? I just made myself one. The water is still hot.'
'Not for me,' said Sam. 'I might just -' He looked around the room for inspiration. 'I might just ... go for a drive.'
'Go for a drive where?' asked Clementine. She wasn't going to help him. She wasn't going to pretend that going for a 'drive' in the pouring rain to escape a cup of tea with your mother-in-law and wife was reasonable.
But of course her mother was eager to let Sam slip straight off any hook. 'Of course you can go for a drive,' she said. 'Sometimes you need to just drive. It's meditative. Right now you two need to be kind to yourselves.'
Sam gave Pam a grateful smile, ignored Clementine and left the house, noiselessly closing the front door behind him.
'You've got the place looking very clean and tidy,' said Pam, when they were both sitting down with cups of tea and gingernut biscuits. She gave her a quizzical, almost uneasy look. 'All I could find to do was fold this tiny bit of laundry. It's like you've got a housekeeper or something!'
'We're just trying to be more organised,' said Clementine. She and Sam had both become manic about housework since the barbeque, as if they were being monitored by some unseen presence. 'Although we still can't find things.'
'Well, good, I guess, but there's no need to kill yourselves. You both look exhausted, to be honest.' She glanced at Clementine over her teacup. 'So I take it tonight wasn't a success then?'
'I'm sorry we had you babysitting for no reason,' said Clementine.