Truly Madly Guilty

'Yeah, it comes when she's at school and it goes when she's playing on the iPad. She's playing us,' said Clementine. 'As soon as I got her in the car she was fine. She talked the whole way home about her party. She wants to invite Dakota, by the way.' She said the last part quickly, without looking at him.

'Dakota,' said Sam. He straightened as if sensing danger. 'That Dakota?'

'Yes, that Dakota.'

'She can't invite her,' said Sam. 'Obviously. Jesus.'

'I told her that Dakota was probably too big for a sixth birthday party. And she had a meltdown. She said that we told her she could invite whoever she wanted, and we did say that. We made kind of a big deal of it.'

'Yeah, well, we meant anyone except Dakota,' said Sam.

'She was inconsolable.'

'She doesn't even know Dakota,' said Sam. He pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers, went to wring it with his hands and then reconsidered. 'She met her one time. Like you said, she's too old. She wouldn't want to come to Holly's party!'

'Well, anyway, I gave in,' said Clementine. 'She was becoming hysterical. It was kind of frightening.'

'You just said yourself that she was putting it on about the stomach thing,' said Sam. 'So she's putting it on about Dakota too. She played you, Clementine.'

He said this mockingly. Before, he'd always teased, but he'd never mocked.

'I don't think so,' said Clementine. 'Look. Holly wants to invite her, and it's her party, and she's obviously going through a bad stage at the moment, which is maybe not unexpected, so if she wants to have Dakota at her party, she's having Dakota at her party. It's not that big a deal!'

Sam clenched his jaw. 'She's not coming.'

Clementine threw her hands up. 'She is coming.'

They stared at each other.

How did they get out of this? How did a couple resolve something like this, where there was no possibility of compromise, where one person had to give in? What happened if no one gave in?

'I called Erika today,' she said, to change the subject. 'I told her that I'd donate my eggs.'

'Right,' said Sam.

He began to take his shirt off. Clementine found herself not quite but almost averting her eyes in the polite way you did when someone else's husband took off their shirt.

'She was funny about it,' said Clementine. 'I think she definitely overheard what I said that day, when we were upstairs. Those horrible things I said.'

'I need to get changed,' said Sam distractedly, as if she were boring him.

'So you're fine with me donating my eggs?' asked Clementine, without making eye contact, as if it were an inconsequential question.

'It's your decision,' said Sam. 'She's your friend. Nothing to do with me.'

His disinterest felt almost exquisitely painful, as if it was a pain she needed, a boil she needed lanced.

'So you definitely don't want another baby?' she said. There it was again. Like at dinner the other night at the restaurant. That desire to push him, to shove him off this ledge where they were stranded.

'Another baby?' said Sam. He hung his wet shirt on the handle of Holly's door. 'Us? Have another baby? You're not serious.'

'Oh. Right,' said Clementine. She piled clothes on top of each other. 'You haven't seen Holly's strawberry top, have you? It's vanished.' She looked around her in frustration and tried not to cry. 'Oh, I can't stand it, why do things keep vanishing?'

chapter thirty-seven The day of the barbeque

'Mummy!' It was only Holly calling for her mother's attention.

'Holly!' sighed Clementine. 'You gave me a fright! You don't need to call out as if it's a matter of life or death each time.'