Free Second Life by S. J. Watson Page B

‘Look after yourself,’ he’d say, ‘We all miss you
. . .’, and I knew he meant, Those people aren’t your friends. He was trying to save
me, even then; I just wasn’t ready to be saved.
    ‘She was a really lovely person. Full stop.’
    He hesitates.
    ‘So, why didn’t she want me?’
    ‘Connor,’ I begin. ‘It’s complicated—’
    ‘Dad says I shouldn’t worry about it. He says that Auntie Kate loved me very much
but she wasn’t coping, that she couldn’t afford a baby, but you could, so it made
sense.’
    ‘Well, that’s really a very simplistic way of looking at it . . .’
    I wonder when Hugh’s been telling Connor all this. I didn’t even know they’d talked.
I tell myself we need to make more of an effort, to be upfront with Connor, to be
united. Like we’d decided years ago.
    ‘If you wanted children, why didn’t you have one?’
    ‘We couldn’t.’ I’m trying to keep my voice even; I don’t want it to crack, to betray
how much loss I contain. ‘We’d been trying. For several years. But one of us . .
.’ I stop. He doesn’t need the details. ‘We just couldn’t.’ It comes to me, then.
The clinic: white walls and rubber floors, boxes spilling blue gloves, posters advertising
helplines and charities that I knew I’d never call. I remember the stirrups, the
cold metal between my legs. It felt like a punishment.
    I realize I’ve still never told anyone about that, certainly not Hugh. He doesn’t
know anything about that baby I could have had but didn’t.
    ‘Who couldn’t?’
    I look at my son. At Kate’s son. ‘I don’t know.’ The familiar sense of shame comes,
then. I thought I’d conquered it, years ago. I was mistaken. ‘We don’t know. But
it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference. We love you, Connor. You’re our son.’
    The toaster pings, the bread pops up. I’m startled, briefly, then I begin to butter
his toast.
    ‘Thanks, Mum,’ he says, and I’m not sure what he’s thanking me for.
    I take the key from my bag and unlock the padlock. The shed door swings inwards with
a creak and I wait for a few moments to let some of the heat out before stepping
in. Even though the walls are lined and painted and I light scented candles in here
when I work, it still smells vaguely of wood. Yet it’s comforting; my own space,
a refuge.
    I close the door behind me and sit at the desk. I put the biscuit tin in front of
me, the one Anna gave me. I feel calmer, now. I know what I have to do.
    I take Kate’s Filofax out of the tin and put it on the desk, next to my laptop. The
light that streams into my studio through the window behind me reflects off its surface
and I adjust my chair and change the angle of the screen. Finally I press a key.
    My background picture is an old photo of me, sitting on a bench on the Heath with
Connor on my lap. In the photo he’s four, maybe five. A decade ago, and I look so
happy, so excited finally to be a parent, yet now it feels as if it belongs to a
different time completely. I realize once again how Kate’s death has sliced my life
in two.
    I press another key and the picture of Connor disappears, replaced by the last window
I’d had open. It’s a video.
    I press play. It’s a film of the two of us, me and Connor, on a beach. Hugh took
it, years ago, back when he still used his camcorder. Connor is about five, dressed
in red trunks and slathered in sunblock, and the two of us are running away from
the camera, into the sea, laughing as we do.
    It was a glorious summer; we’d hired a villa in Portugal. We spent the days by the
pool, or on the beach. We had lunch in a restaurant in the village, or we’d take
a drive into the hills. We sat on the terrace and watched the sun go down after we’d
put Connor to bed. We’d sit, and talk, and then we’d go to bed ourselves, where,
quietly, carefully, we made love. We were happy. So very, very happy.
    The video is almost over when I get a call; it’s Anna, on Skype. I don’t want