Broken Chords (Love in London 2)

David takes one look at me, then glances down at Max, whose volume seems to have increased since David opened the door. “Everything okay?”

Once again, I shake my head, squeezing my lips shut. But in spite of my efforts, the tears squeeze out anyway, and I look down, trying not to l

et him see.

“Come here.” He leads me inside, pulling the buggy in with his right hand. Then he gently takes Max from me, hushing him softly, bouncing him up and down. “Let's go into my place. I'll make you a brew.”

Tea; the British cure for everything. Even David's worked it out and he's only been here a few months. Without answering I follow him and Max, leaving the buggy at the bottom of the stairs. Of course, he manages to quieten Max almost immediately, and though I'm glad for the silence I can't help but feel useless.

“Is he sick?”

“A cold,” I reply, sitting down. “He didn't sleep much last night.” Then I remember the thin walls. “Oh God, he didn't keep you awake, did he?”

“Nah, nothing can do that. I heard him crying when I went to sleep and crying when I woke up this morning. I filled in the blanks.” He looks at me. “You have to be exhausted after everything that's happened.”

He must have heard the row between Alex and me. I add mortification to my list of emotions. “I didn't get much sleep either,” I admit.

He makes us both a cup of tea, handing me an old, chipped mug with a photograph of a surfer on it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I have mild postnatal depression.” It's the first time I've said it to anybody. “At least, that's what the doctor says.” There's a part of me that still thinks he's wrong. That I'm only tired. Angry with my husband, suffering from exhaustion.

David is silent for a moment. Still holding Max, he nuzzles him gently. “Claire had that.”

“Your girlfriend?” He hasn't mentioned her name before. Rarely talks about her or his daughter.

“Yeah. Right from the start it was clear something was wrong. My mum said it was probably the ‘baby blues’, that she'd get better as Mathilda got older, but she didn't, she got worse. Looking back, I should have done something earlier, said something to her. Maybe things might have turned out differently.”

“How did she get over it?” I lean forward, desperate to know.

He gives me a sickly sweet smile. “She kicked me out.”

Oh. Definitely not what I wanted to hear. In the interest of full disclosure, I tell him. “Alex is leaving for three months.”

“Really? Why?”

David listens as I recount the whole sorry tale. Some of it he knows, of course. The argument at the festival, the shouting at home. He listens, his face solemn, Max cuddled into his chest, and smiles sadly when I tell him Alex didn't come home last night.

“I'm sorry, I didn't realise how bad things were.”

“I'm not sure they were, not really.” I crinkle my forehead, trying to sort through the haze of events in my mind. As stupid as it sounds, I can't quite work out when our bickering turned into full blown arguments. When our insults turned from cheeky into bitchy. “But then he's been offered this tour in the States and he didn't even ask me what I thought, just assumed he was going. No mention of Max or leaving me alone with him. No thoughts that he might miss all the little milestones.”

“That sucks,” David agrees. “But then I can hardly talk, can I? I'm half a world away from my own kid.”

“If Claire called tomorrow and said you could see her, would you fly back?”

“I'd be on the next plane out.”

That sort of proves my point. Where David would be flying one way, Alex is fleeing in the opposite. It’s as if I don't know him anymore. I sit back, rubbing my face with my hands. “Ugh, I'm so confused. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I wanted a baby, a family. I didn't realise how much things would change.”

“Nobody does,” David comments quietly, though there's a hint of humour in his voice. “You go around for thirty years thinking the world revolves around you, then suddenly you wake up realising you're pretty insignificant compared to the tiny thing screaming in your arms.”

“So why doesn't Alex feel that way?”

“Men are different to women, I think. We compartmentalise a lot better. Even though I think about Mathilda every day, I still function, have a good time. There's a lot of truth in 'out of sight, out of mind', even if I hate to admit it.”

Max has finally fallen asleep in David's arms. I sit there for a minute and watch them, the man who has lost his own child, and the baby whose father is leaving him.

“You know, I'm supposed to have all the answers. I help people for a living. It's killing me not to be able to solve my own problems, it's as if I've failed.”