‘Absolutely. And I could always talk Dad into getting a dinosaur head on a stick for Bella and me—you know, the sort with a trigger on the end so you can make the mouth snap shut. We used to pretend to be T-Rexes and chase each other round the garden. Bellasaurus and Graciesaurus, that was us.’
Grace, all young and carefree and letting herself shine. When had that stopped? he wondered. He’d really, really liked the carefree Grace who’d danced the salsa with him on the banks of the Seine. Could she be that Grace back in London? And could she take a risk with him?
When they queued up to see the dinosaurs, the little girl in front of them was scared when one of the large animatronic dinosaurs roared unexpectedly, and burst into tears. Her father immediately swung her up in his arms to comfort her.
‘Poor little lass,’ Grace said.
Roland gave her a sidelong look. Was he being oversensitive and paranoid, or did she have the same kind of broody expression that he’d seen permanently on Lynette in that last year?
‘Do you want children?’ The question was out before he could stop it.
She stared at him and blinked. ‘That’s a bit abrupt. Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondering.’ Stupid, stupid. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut?
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘But you were engaged to Howard for four years. Surely you talked about having a family?’ He knew he should shut up and leave the subject well alone, but his mouth was running away with him. Big time.
‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘We didn’t. What about you? Did you and Lynette...?’
The question made him flinch inwardly, but he knew it was his own fault. He’d been the one to raise the subject. ‘I was still getting my business off the ground.’ That was true. Up to a point. But oh, yes, Lynette had wanted a baby. More than anything.
‘But did you want to have children when the business was more settl—?’ She stopped herself. ‘Sorry. I’m probably bringing back difficult stuff for you.’
Yes, she was, but not in the way she thought. Roland had never spoken to anyone about the way he and Lyn had struggled and struggled, and how their love had got lost somewhere under her desperate need for a child. Or about the shock news the doctor had given him at the hospital. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. Even though it wasn’t and it hurt like hell.
‘Sorry, anyway,’ she said, and squeezed his hand.
Change the subject. Change it now, he told himself.
But it was like prodding a bruise to see if it was getting better yet. And the words just spilled out before he could stop them. ‘I can imagine you as a mum.’ She’d bring her child somewhere like here, to point out the wonders of the big blue whale and the dinosaurs and the fossilised lightning and the beautiful colours of the gemstones. And he had a sudden vision of himself at the seaside, building sandcastles with a little girl who had her mother’s earnest blue eyes and shy smile.
‘I think I’d like to be a mum,’ she said.
And that was the sticking point.
Roland had wanted to be a dad—but not at the expense of his marriage. He’d wanted their life to grow and expand, not for some of it to be excluded.
‘But there are no guarantees,’ she said.
It was the last thing he’d expected her to say and it surprised him into asking, ‘What do you mean, no guarantees?’
‘Apart from the fact that I’d need to find someone I wanted to have a family with in the first place, not everyone can have children. I’ve got friends who couldn’t, even after several rounds of IVF,’ she said.
That figured. Grace would take the sensible, measured point of view. But then again, he’d thought that Lyn would take that point of view, too, and maybe look at alternative options when things hadn’t gone to plan. But, once her biological clock had started ticking, Lyn’s views had changed. She’d become obsessive, almost. And, instead of running away and hiding in work, he should’ve done more to help her. He should’ve found a middle way that worked for both of them.
‘Not everyone can,’ he said, and hoped that Grace couldn’t hear the crack in his voice, the way that he could.
She didn’t comment on the fact he was quiet for the rest of the afternoon, but she bought him an ice cream in the museum café, and she got him talking about the amazing architecture of the Natural History Museum.
Funny how she understood him so well and knew what was balm to his soul.