The Judas Tree, page 10
‘Just tell me.’
‘I …’ He hesitated again. ‘I had a vasectomy.’
‘What?’ Barely spoken, no more than a breath. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘A vasectomy.’ He reached for her hand that clutched at the duvet. ‘I had a vasectomy.’
Chapter Nine
As his words sank in, she stared at his face and caught the full weight of his pained expression and how his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.
‘Harmony?’
She didn’t move. He reached over and turned his bedside light on. She closed her eyes against the brightness, against him. His words tumbled around in her mind.
Had she heard correctly?
Disbelief muddied her thoughts and vision, drunk on his admission. Her head swam and as she forced herself out of bed her knees threatened to buckle.
‘A vasectomy,’ she said. ‘You had yourself sterilised?’
He didn’t answer and she turned away from him and walked to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. As she stood in the centre of the room, unsure what to do, her body began to shiver. She reached for the towel on the rail. It was damp from her earlier shower, but she wrapped it around herself like a cape, then closed the loo seat and sat down.
Will opened the door. He’d put some boxer shorts on, which gaped unattractively. She felt nauseous and looked away from him. He crouched beside her. Rested his hand on her knee.
‘Don’t touch me.’
‘Harmony, I—’
‘I said, don’t touch me, Will.’
He withdrew his hand and as he dropped his head, she closed her eyes against a wave of nausea.
‘Let me get this straight.’ Her voice was quiet, her words strained, and she was unable to look at him. ‘You went to a hospital and had a vasectomy without telling me?’
‘Yes.’
She concentrated on her breathing, focused on the air passing in and out of her body. Did he have any idea of the damage he’d done? As she sat there, her shock turned to disbelief. She fixed her eyes on him, her brow furrowed, her head shaking from side to side as she grappled with what he’d told her.
‘Have you any concept of how serious this is?’
He didn’t respond, just crouched there, motionless, struck dumb.
‘How could you do something like that without talking to me?’
His face showed all the shame, all the guilt, of a scolded child. His lips were pursed and his gaze was fixed on the floor between them.
‘Why would you?’ She forced the words through gritted teeth.
‘You know why,’ he said.
‘No. I don’t.’
‘I never wanted children.’
For a moment she was silent. Processing his statement. She thought of the cardigan tucked into the back of her drawer. ‘But we were going to have one,’ she whispered. ‘I was pregnant. I thought that changed things?’
His eyes flicked back and forth across her face, his head shaking almost imperceptibly.
‘But you seemed OK with it. Happy even,’ she said. ‘When the baby died you must have felt something, some sort of loss? Surely that changed things?’ She was pleading with him, pleading for him to admit some sort of emotional response, something that would reassure her he wasn’t a heartless monster.
He sighed heavily, rubbed his face, then stood up and walked over to the bath. He sat on its edge. ‘That’s the point, I didn’t. I didn’t feel the things you wanted me to feel. I wasn’t happy when I found out about it and I wasn’t sad when you lost it. I tried to be there for you because I love you and I care about you, but you can’t expect me to mourn something I never felt attached to.’
A swell of anger rose up inside her. ‘How can you be so callous?’ she whispered.
‘You don’t understand what I’m saying.’ Will paused, his face twisting as if in physical pain. ‘When it died …’ He hesitated. ‘When it died I felt …’ He stopped himself.
‘What, Will? Tell me. What did you feel?’
‘I felt relieved.’
The word hung between them, poisoning the air.
‘Harmony, I didn’t—’
‘Fuck you.’ She dropped her head, struggling to process everything she was hearing. Relief? How? She lifted her face and stared at him and as she did she pictured his heart, black and shrivelled in his hollow chest.
‘Why are you so shocked?’ he asked then. ‘We’ve talked about it. Talked about it until we’re blue in the face. When we got married – no, when we met – we talked about it. Christ, Harmony, from the start, you knew the score.’
‘Knew the score?’ She spat the words from her mouth as if they were battery acid.
‘I never wanted children. I still don’t.’ He squared his shoulders and looked her directly in the eyes, faced her, primed to defend himself. ‘So I had a vasectomy.’
Raw hatred swamped her then. A hatred born of a wound she never imagined him capable of inflicting.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ she shouted. ‘How could you? You and I might have talked about it years ago, but things changed. We got pregnant.’ She was crying now, hot tears coursing her cheeks. ‘You knew how I felt about our baby. You knew from the start. But then you go … and … and have a vasectomy? Without even telling me?’ She paused and shook her head, pressing the edge of the towel that covered her against her eyes to blot the tears. ‘I mean, shit. Is it even legal to do that without my consent?’
‘Your consent?’ He looked genuinely surprised and she fought the urge to slap him.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My consent. As your wife. Given that what you did affects me profoundly.’
‘You’re missing the point. This goes beyond the vasectomy. It reaches far deeper. None of this is based on a whim. It’s fundamental to who I am. I don’t want children. I’m not capable of being a father. I’m not capable of caring for another human being—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she interrupted, looking at the ceiling to try and stem her tears.
‘I’m not being ridiculous.’ Then he got up and walked back into the bedroom. ‘I don’t want to have children.’
‘But I do!’ she shouted after him. Then she started to shake, as the shock of their row and what he’d told her took hold of her body. She felt cold suddenly and tightened the towel around her. ‘Oh God,’ she breathed. ‘Will, what have you done to us?’
When she stood, her legs were shaky, her heart racing. She made herself walk when all she wanted to do was collapse on the floor. She dropped the towel from her shoulders and took her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door. She put it on, tying the cord tightly, then stood in the doorway and leant against the frame. He was sitting on the bed, his back facing her, shoulders hunched.
‘When did you do it?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Will? I asked you a question. When did you do it? When I was dealing with the pain of losing our baby?’
‘Not then.’
‘When?’
‘I went to see the doctor not long after you found out you were pregnant. I was all over the place. We had this child on the way and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again; I didn’t want more children.’ He shifted his position on the bed to look at her. ‘I didn’t want to take any more chances.’
‘But you would have been unwell – there’s swelling, isn’t there?’
Again he didn’t reply.
‘For God’s sake! Tell me when you did it!’
He shook his head wearily. ‘At the beginning of December. I told you I was sick with flu.’
Her mind whirred, thinking back to the week he spent in bed, tucked up in a darkened room, curtains drawn, an extra pillow. Chicken soup. A hot water bottle. ‘But I looked after you,’ she said. ‘I phoned Frank and told him you were too ill to go into the shop.’ She put her hand on her forehead. ‘I gave you ibuprofen. I cared for you …’ Her voice trailed to nothing.
‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I was going to, at one point, but I kept putting it off, avoiding it, and then you had the miscarriage and, well, I didn’t want to upset you any more than you were.’
She laughed bitterly and fixed her eyes on the wall. ‘Well, thank you for not wanting to upset me. Thank you for your consideration. For your thoughtfulness.’ She shook her head again. ‘You get the prize for most caring fucking husband of the year!’
‘Don’t shout.’
‘Why the hell not?’ A sense of finality mushroomed inside her. It was like he’d fired a machine gun at their marriage and it now lay in bloodied tatters at her feet. As she stared at him she had the strange illusion of him turning into a stranger. His features grew unfamiliar. The set of his face became that of someone she vaguely knew, a man with a resemblance to Will, but a man she couldn’t place.
‘This is nuts,’ he said, with a note of anger. ‘You’re looking at me like I’m the devil, like I’ve torn your heart out, but you knew if you married me you wouldn’t have a family. It was a sacrifice – I know that – but you made it. I was there when you agreed to it, standing beside you in the registry office, holding your hand and slipping that band of gold onto your finger.’
‘Don’t you throw that at me! This is way beyond will we or won’t we have a child. Way beyond our marriage vows. If you want to bring marriage vows into it, how about love, cherish, honour – a marriage built on honesty? You’ve made a mockery of everything that day stood for, every promise you made me. And yes, you’re right, I did love you enough to make that sacrifice, and it was a sacrifice, it was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. But this isn’t about that day anymore, can’t you see that?’ Tears sprang in her eyes and fell unchecked down her cheeks. ‘What you’ve done is despicable.’
Will stood and walked over to her then. He reached out towards her, but she recoiled and stepped back from him.
‘When I felt our baby inside me,’ she said, ‘I … felt … like I was complete. Then, when I …’ Her stomach twinged with an echo of the pain of her miscarriage. ‘When I lost it, it was as if my world had ended and, in the months that followed, all I wanted for was that mistake, as you call it, to happen again.’
She saw him swallow and his shoulders dip as guilt took hold, or perhaps regret.
‘I wanted you to have felt it too,’ she said, fighting the lump in her throat. ‘I wanted to think you’d imagined being a father and holding your baby and that something inside you had awakened. And I wanted you to feel as bereft and as cheated as I did.’ She searched his face for signs of comprehension, of an empathy she now feared he didn’t possess. ‘I see how foolish it was now, but I just hoped you’d changed your mind.’ She blotted her tears on the back of her hand. ‘You have torn my heart out, Will. Doing what you’ve done, making that decision without me, taking away the option of me ever having a baby without even talking to me. You’ve torn my heart out and trodden it into the dirt.’
He moved towards her again but she shoved him back. ‘Leave me alone. You can sleep on the sofa. I don’t want you anywhere near me.’
‘We need to talk.’
She snorted bitterly. ‘Oh, now we need to talk?’
‘Harmony—’
‘I said leave me alone.’
For a moment he looked as if he might try and approach her again. She walked past him, careful not to touch him as she did, and got into bed. She stretched across to turn the light off and then lay there, arms either side of her on top of the duvet, willing him to leave the room.
She heard him take a breath to speak.
‘Go, Will.’
Then he left.
She listened to his footsteps as he walked down the corridor. Heard him go into the living room. Heard the door close. Then it was quiet. So quiet. The silence rang in her head. She felt as if she’d been driven over, stunned and confused, her head pounding at the temples. It scared her to feel this level of hatred towards her husband. She thought of her mum then, of a conversation they’d had when Harmony was about seven. She’d been crying in bed and crept downstairs and sidled into the television room where her mother was watching the news. Her mother had opened her arms and Harmony had climbed onto her lap and curled herself into her, burying her face in her soft wool sweater.
‘What’s the matter, petal?’
‘Stupid Stevie Graham says my dad left because he didn’t love me.’
Her mother had tightened her arms around her. ‘Well, what does Stupid Stevie Graham know about anything anyway?’
Harmony had shrugged.
‘Nothing, that’s what.’ She kissed the top of her head. ‘Your dad loved you all the way to the moon and back.’
Harmony turned in her mum’s arms and looked up at her, her fingers idly reaching up and stroking the balding patch on the side of her head. ‘Why did he go then?’
Her mother hadn’t answered immediately, but had taken a deep breath then finally smiled. ‘Some people are like birds,’ she said. ‘You can’t keep them caged. He needed to fly, that’s all. I hoped he wouldn’t fly too far, but sadly for us he did.’
‘Do you hate him?’
‘Hate him?’ Her mother laughed softly and rested her chin on top of Harmony’s head. ‘No, I don’t hate him. I could never hate your dad. I love him and you can’t turn love on and off like a tap. There’s nothing he could do – even leaving – that would make me stop loving him. Just like he still loves us, whatever he does, wherever he is. You remember that next time Stupid Stevie Graham says anything daft about your dad.’
Harmony’s memories were interrupted by a sudden wetness between her legs as Will’s semen seeped out of her. She cringed as she remembered their lovemaking. Less than an hour ago, when she’d been happy, when she’d felt close to her husband. She recalled the way he’d kissed her, so tenderly, so full of love, but all the time he knew what he’d done and was concealing it. Concealing the stake he’d driven through the heart of their marriage. She shifted her body against the discomfort she felt, pulled the sheets between her legs to dry herself. The thought of it turned her stomach; she was revolted by the dead and useless liquid tainting her body with its deceitful sterility. It was like venom inside her, and suddenly, violently, she wanted all trace of him out of her.
She got up and went to the bathroom and set the shower to as hot as she could stand, and there, in the quiet darkness, she stood beneath the scalding water and scrubbed herself clean of him.
When she’d finished, she wrapped herself in a dry towel and walked back into the bedroom. Then she went over to her drawers and opened the top one. She reached in and felt for the cardigan, closed her fingers tightly around its softness and pulled it out. For one last time she buried her face in it, breathing deeply, and allowed herself to cry. When she finally stopped, she walked over to the bin in the corner of the room, the pain in her stomach making each step unbearable, and dropped the tiny cardigan into it, then turned away from it.
Chapter Ten
Will lay on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, picturing the cracks that crept across it, invisible in the darkness. He thought about the moment she’d told him she was pregnant. It was a Thursday morning. She was about to leave for work. He remembered it clearly, even what she was wearing – a dark navy skirt and jacket, a white shirt, her Tiffany heart, trainers on her feet, her smart-heeled ‘meeting’ shoes that gave her blisters in her bag to change into when she arrived.
‘I’m pregnant.’
She’d said it just like that. Out of the blue. She was packing her briefcase with her notes, her reading glasses, an apple, but then she paused, both hands resting on her bag, and said it.
I’m pregnant.
There had been a quiver in her voice and when he looked at her he saw she was trembling, but her eyes gleamed and there was the promise of a smile that lit her face and turned the corners of her mouth up ever so slightly.
‘I’m pregnant.’
His heart stopped. ‘But how? How can you be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you miss a pill?’
Her smile fell. ‘You think I did it on purpose?’
‘What? No.’ Will shook his head, confused; he hadn’t even considered she might do it on purpose. But then: ‘Did you?’
‘Of course not! I wouldn’t do that and I didn’t miss a pill either. I’ve not missed a pill in eighteen years.’
‘Then how?’
‘I’ve no idea. I suppose the stats say it’s only ninety-nine point-eight per cent effective. I guess we’re the point-two per cent.’
Then Will watched the wonderment dawn on her face.
‘Oh my God,’ she breathed. ‘I’m pregnant!’
Now, lying on the sofa, Will rested his palms on his face. He could smell her on him and his loins stirred inappropriately as he remembered moving inside her. He heard the shower start in their room. She was awake still. Should he go back in and try to talk to her? He thought about what he would say. How could he convince her he was sorry? He should have been honest from the start. He should have told her that Thursday morning. It had been a mistake to let her believe he was OK with it. Let her assume he was looking forward to having a child. He could see his mistakes so clearly now.
Why had he lied?
‘What are you thinking?’ she’d said on that Thursday, placing the flat of her hand against his cheek.
Will had noticed her other hand resting on her tummy, as if forming a protective barrier between him and it. Protecting it from what? From his reaction? From his coldness? He should have said something right then, as her hand rested lightly on his face and there was understanding in her voice.
But he didn’t.
‘I know it’s a shock,’ she said. ‘But …’ She stopped without finishing her sentence and her face broke into the widest of smiles. ‘It’s a good thing, isn’t it? Don’t you think? This will be good for us. Having a family. It’s fate.’
Fate? She didn’t believe in fate. She was a scientist. Fate was like fairies and ghosts; it shouldn’t exist for her.
‘I mean, I know we weren’t planning it, but you’re happy, right?’ She rubbed his shoulders and asked him again. ‘Please say something, darling. Tell me you’re happy.’
