Page 18 of All the Things We Never Knew

‘Nothing like a drop of wee on a spring afternoon.’

We laughed and I felt my mood lighten. I opened the packages of food, and we ate and drank. Or rather, Gray tried to eat. I watched as he took a bite of bread and butter then put the rest down, bit into a slice of mango and grimaced. I felt a surge of anxiety – almost panic – at how he was deteriorating, dwindling. His appetite for food was leaving him, and eventually his appetite for life would too. I’d been hungry myself when I sat down, but I had to force myself to look enthusiastic as I ate.

We talked about normal things: the long bike ride I’d done on Sunday, in spite of the driving rain. The mouse Gray’s family cat had caught and left dismembered on the kitchen floor. The alarming developments in world politics.

When it was clear neither of us could eat any more, I wrapped the food up and tucked everything away in my backpack, and he lay down on the blanket, resting his head on my thighs. I stroked his head the way he liked, smoothing the hair back from his temples, my fingertips exploring the familiar curves and planes of his skull.

‘Gray?’ I said gently.

‘Speaking.’

‘What do you think would have happened to us in the end? If this hadn’t?’

‘Us?’ He smiled, his eyes closed against the sun. ‘We’d have got married and lived happily ever after.’

I felt a sharp stab of pain – not sadness exactly; I was too used to sadness already for it to give me a sharp stab of anything. But something else, something more like regret.

‘You’re already married, remember?’

‘I could’ve become a bigamist. Or a polyamorist – isn’t that what all the young people are into now?’

‘Not sure we’re young enough for that sort of carry-on.’

‘Laurel.’ He opened his eyes, squinting against the sun. ‘Here’s the thing. I don’t know. I met you and I fell head over heels, and I thought that somehow it would all work out. I never really thought about how. All I knew was that I didn’t want to hurt Anna and the kids.’

‘You have hurt her, though,’ I went on. ‘Now she knows about me.’

‘Course. It’s been hard for her, finding out about us along with… all the other stuff. But it’s not like things were perfect between us before.’

‘How weren’t they perfect?’

He grimaced, pushing his sunglasses up off his eyes. I could see the yellow tinge in the whites.

‘No marriage is. No person is, right? You start out and everything’s roses and violins and then you buy a house and suddenly every conversation you have is about money and plastering, and then you have kids and all you talk about is sleepless nights and shitty nappies, and before you know it you’ve lost your way.’

‘Is that what happened with you and Anna? You lost your way?’

He sighed. ‘I’m not good with words. I’m a visual guy. But I guess so.’

I thought about me and Simon. The scuffs and chips that had appeared along the way in our relationship, the outworn habits, my awareness that it wasn’t right for me any more but my reluctance to change anything because what I had was familiar and comfortable and I thought that was enough – until it wasn’t.

‘Would that have happened with you and me? If we’d met each other twenty years ago instead of last year? If we’d… you know. Had kids and stuff?’

He reached for my hand and held it. ‘You wanted a baby, didn’t you, Laurel?’

I hesitated, but there was no point in denying it. ‘Yes. I mean, that’s why I left Si. He said he wasn’t ready yet, but he’d been saying it for ten years and it was pretty darn clear that unless I started poking holes in condoms with a pin it wasn’t going to happen.’

‘Do you still want one?’

‘In theory. I mean, if the stork brought me one right now I wouldn’t say no. But when I met you – that kind of felt less important.’

He grinned – that familiar beam of delight that I’d fallen in love with. ‘I swept you off your feet so fast you couldn’t think of anything else, right?’

I couldn’t help returning his smile. ‘Well, yeah. You kind of did.’

‘And how about now?’ As quickly as it had lit up his face, the smile vanished. ‘How do you feel about that now?’

‘If I’m honest, it’s the furthest thing from my mind. I can’t even imagine…’