A/N:
[1] Rated T, I guess? There's a bit of sex, but really light.
Hope you enjoy this!
viii.
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There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days. Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made and she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings. Sunday pulls its children from the piles of fallen leaves.
Passing Afternoon – Iron & Wine
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.
The next time Martha opens her eyes, it's to the sound of the shower running. The bed is cold, empty next to her; it takes a moment to remember where she is. Daylight has broken outside, not sunny but light, the clouds almost white, hiding the sun in the sky.
She yawns, sits up, inspects the room; the shower stops. There is a pair of dirty trainers at the entrance, by the door, a fitted rain jacket draped over the armchair, the alarm clock reads 9:37 –
Clive comes out of the bathroom just then, hair still wet and a towel wrapped around his waist. Her gaze trails down his frame (Martha wouldn't be this obvious about it if her brain were functioning normally, but then again, she's never really been subtle in the morning) and: not bad, she catches herself thinking.
"Done looking?" Clive teases, smiles; she blushes a bit.
"You went running." An observation; her voice is groggy and full of sleep. She rolls over to her side, back to the window, curls her knees up a bit under the covers and closes her eyes again.
"Yep," Clive speaks, like it's a normal thing to do before nine on a Saturday morning, and crawls back in bed with her. She groans, at the droplets that hit her skin and at the fact that she's pretty sure she's been paying a good fifty quid a month for the last five years for a gym she's barely ever set foot in, likes to think of it as the cost of her punishment for not going.
"Didn't you have a boring conference to get to?" Martha mumbles; she feels his hand on her arm, oddly warm and cosy.
"And yet, I've made the ultimate sacrifice and decided to stay here with you instead," he quips and kisses her, then, a long peck on her lips. Opening her eyes, she realises that he's staring right back at her. "Come on, sleepyhead," he whispers, getting back up, pointing to the nightstand behind him. "I got you coffee."
.
They walk around Manchester all day. Clive's driving home that night so they leave his bags at the hotel and try to make the most of their time in the city. There's nowhere to be in particular, really, but for some reason, Martha holds Clive's hand on the way. It's odd, at first, kissing him in a place where no one knows them, kissing him when she wants to, rather than to make a statement. There's an understanding between them, now; she knows what the rules are and it feels strange, almost, somewhat freeing.
Late morning, they stumble upon some sort of fair; Clive beats her twice at a game that entails throwing darts at balloons and popping as many of them as possible within a limited amount of time; she's not sure what irritates her most: the fact that he won twice, or the fact that her irritation seems to set off uncontrollable fits of laughter on his side of the argument. She's thankful when his phone goes off just as he offers her to re-game ("you're such a sore loser, Marth," he tells her); she sits down on a bench as he steps aside to take the call. It's more of a polite gesture than anything else - she can still hear everything when he speaks.
By then, the wind has chased some of this morning's clouds away, sun hovering in and out of view; she feels the heat on her face. "Ellie, hey! Thanks for calling back! How are you?" Clive says, on the phone, and: oh right, Martha thinks to herself, getting her own mobile out to scroll at the latest headlines of the Guardian. Eleanor (Ellie), is Clive's sister. She's a couple years older than him, Martha knows, and although they've never met, Martha's always felt a bit of sympathy for the woman, being the only girl out of four children – one of the boys being Clive – it can't have been easy. He probably called her first, this morning when he was out on his run; his niece's birthday is the day after Martha's. 'I'll never forget that one,' he'd laughed, a few years ago, after the girl was born.
Each article on Martha's phone tells the tale of another government fuck-up, so it becomes more uplifting to listen to Clive, after a while.
"So, how's your birthday going, Princess?" he asks, suddenly, speaking on the phone and his voice has grown softer; he's speaking his niece, Martha guesses. "Oh yeah? A bike? And it's purple? Wow," Clive goes on and Martha betrays the fact that she is listening in by letting out a quiet chuckle; Clive turns to her and smirks, shaking his head. He lets the girl chat to him for a bit, smiling at Martha from where he stands, voice periodically throwing in kind words like "Oh, that's good," and: "Really?" He's good, Martha thinks to herself, cares. "Well, that's a lot of presents there, Rosie," Clive interjects, later; Martha can tell he's interrupted by the little girl again. "Ooooh," he repeats, throwing Martha a knowing look. "Uncle Clive gives the best presents, is that right?"
Martha laughs to herself but he does give great gifts, she guesses, absentmindedly twisting the ring around her finger. A bit of debating ensues between the girl and Clive. "A castle?" he says. "That's a bit complicated Rosie. Where's Mummy going to put it? In the garden?" The girl probably giggles at the other end of the line.
Eventually, though, Martha gets lured back in by the Guardian's headlines, dragged into reading yet another analytic piece on the Scottish referendum, she kind of tunes out of whatever Clive is saying until a few minutes later, when she feels him sit down next to her on the bench, sighing loudly with exhaustion, extending his legs in front of him. His mobile is gone from the side of his ear.
"She wants a castle, dolls, and some sort of boxset to make candles," Clive says with a smile, throwing a quick glance at Martha. She smirks up at him. "How do I keep my title of best uncle in the whoooole word if I can't deliver? The pressure is unbearable," he jokes, arm touching hers.
And, that's when, as they start talking about Clive's niece and sister, and the family gathering next week, Martha has an idea. To be fully honest, it comes by way of her mum, actually, who complained to her a couple of days ago. 'We're throwing this out and you never even played with it, what a waste,' she'd said, a reproachful glare aimed at her daughter as they packed the house into boxes. Wait, Martha thinks to herself, she took a picture of it -
"Oh, wow, was that yours?" Clive asks a bit later, quickly taking the phone from Martha's hand. He zooms in on the details of the photograph; the angle isn't the best but it does manage to show how massive the bloody thing is - it took up about half the wall space on one side of Martha's bedroom.
"Yeah," she laughs. "I mean not really. I don't think I ever played with it."
Clive nods, seems very interested in what's on the picture. "Let me check with Ellie, though, I don't know if they'd have the space."
For another while, the both of them just stay there, sitting on the bench, enjoying the fleeting sun and watching other people play the darts game. Martha's wearing the same jeans as yesterday; they're a bit dusty and worn off, from all the moving done over at her mum's house, paler in the daylight. She drinks a sip from a can of coke; Clive looks at his phone when it chirps again. What comes in from his sister in lieu of a response is a short video of a few seconds; Clive plays it for the both of them, laughs out loud at the end. It shows a little girl, first, brown hair and bright blue eyes, running down a staircase and around a kitchen, shouting off the top of her lungs: "I'm getting a dollhouse! I'm getting a dollhouse!" to whoever is willing (and unwilling) to listen. Martha bursts out laughing when what she guesses is Eleanor's face comes into focus, a stern look in her eyes.
"When you have kids, Clive," she says. "They're getting a drum kit."
.
Later, when the both of them stop at a pub for lunch, Clive gets a burger and a pint of Heineken and Martha she judges him loudly on his choice of beer, stealing a few chips from his plate. She's not particularly hungry, shrugs at the food that is on her side of the table. "Last night," Clive starts and of course he wants to talk about last night, again, as if they hadn't talked enough. There's still a bit of embarrassment, on Martha's end, about the dream she had; she doesn't think it'll ever go away. "You said you didn't want this," he gestures between the both of them. "To interfere with work. Does that mean you're thinking of coming back to work?"
Oh, she thinks. Not what she thought he would ask. And: "No," she shakes her head, isn't. Not really. It's just that since she's coming back to London tomorrow night, and since that wasn't part of her plan, then she doesn't know what the plan is, anymore. The fleeting idea she had of taking over her parents' house and opening a pub in Bolton hasn't been replaced by something new, yet. "I feel like I should do something," she tells Clive, and in a practical sense, of course, she's got bills to pay, but: "I just don't know what."
"Not Chambers, though?" he confirms; there's a lingering glimer of hope in his voice.
"Not Chambers."
She'd assumed he would look crushed, then, and maybe there's a little bit of that, still, but he hides it behind a smile. "Okay," he says, starts to think and suggests: "Florist?" randomly. Martha bursts out laughing, shaking her head at him. "Barmaid? Carpenter? Sex shop owner?" he says and the propositions get wilder and wilder; he makes her crack up and roll her eyes at him in equal amounts.
"And what makes you think I'd do that?" she laughs, a curious grin on her lips. Clive shrugs, smirks.
"Well, you've got experience, haven't you?"
She bursts out laughing. "Experience in what?"
"Well, I was going for barmaid on that one but what have you not told me about your uni years, Martha?" he teases.
They laugh for a while longer, eating their food. There's a distinct lack of pressure when she speaks to him; she's honest, funny. Clive looks at Martha when he finishes his pint, suggests: "Teacher?" She laughs at that one, too.
It's definitely never been her thing. Kind of a classic for all the other girls in school, who wanted to be another Mrs Williams when they grew up. No, Martha wanted to be a vet, then an actress. She wanted centre stage, never particularly liked school. Didn't like being taught, even by her parents. When she was a teenager, she remembers, her father sat her down, once, intent on setting the record straight. The rays of sunshine peeked through the garden of their house, morning light falling past the Georgian windows. Martha remembers the awkwardness on his face – she was fifteen, already, chipped, jet-black varnish on her nails and truth be told, by that point, he was a little too late.
'Look, Martha, you're refusing to talk to your mother so we figured –'
'Well, unless she apologises for what she said about –'
'That's enough.' Her father held up his hand between the both of them. Martha heard the tone in his voice, relented. 'Due to the current state of things in this household,' he paraphrased, quickly, leaving no time for her to pushback again. 'We figured that I would be the one to have this conversation with you.'
He'd made tea for the both of them so Martha reckoned the talk must be serious, figured he was – again – going to try and hammer into her brain the importance of going to uni; as far as she was concerned, being fifteen made her young, not deaf.
Martha sipped on her tea, waited. She noticed her father got a bit red in the cheeks when he spoke, all of a sudden. 'Are you and Sean, er, well -?'
He trailed off and Martha frowned, for a moment. Together was the first word that came to her mind, but then her parents knew that already, so why would her dad – oh, she thought. That.
Martha let go of her mug and crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair. Her father sighed, caught her glare. 'Martha, help me out, here. Please don't make this difficult.'
She dealt with it the only way she knew to deal with things, back then: provocation. 'Are we fucking, is that your question?'
Her father choked on his tea, laid his mug back down on the table. Martha counted score: one – nil. She watched him with interest and faux-nonchalance as he caught his breath but to his credit, he didn't back down. Simply caught her gaze again and smiled. Every time she spoke to her mum, almost, she managed to shock her, rile her up into having another shouting match, or both. Her father was never quite so easily swayed. 'Yes, that is the question, yes,' he smiled. Martha bit her lip.
The tables turned and she found herself being the awkward one, all of a sudden. She looked down at her hands, didn't really want to have the talk, but also didn't want to lie to him. She never lied to him. 'I don't need your warnings, Dad,' she settled on, glancing back up at him. 'I'm fine.'
'Well, that's good, but let me be the judge of that, pumpkin,' he said, sipping his tea again. He had this way of breaking through the defences she'd put up, back then, a way to show that he'd always care for her, no matter what. 'So, are you?' he challenged. Martha looked back down at her hands before letting her eyes drift back up to him.
'Yes.'
'And you're using –'
The outrage was back almost as quickly as it had left her and: 'Of course, we're using condoms,' she said, adamant. 'Do you think I'm stupid enough to get pregnant with some kid I don't want, like Maureen out there –'
She was having a phase, back then, during which she'd decided to call her mother by her first name, mostly because she'd noticed it irritated her more than anything else. Her father cut the discussion short, again. 'That's enough, Martha,' he countered. 'Your mother and I wanted you more than anything in the world –'
'Well, she's clearly regretting that now, isn't she?'
Dad sighed, then, she remembers. Didn't push the matter but after Martha admitted that yes, there had been a couple times when the condom had broken, he gave her her first pill prescription right there and then, wrote it down on his pad with a pen that was lying around the kitchen table. Martha knew he'd given it some serious thought, though, because he barely ever agreed to prescribe her anything, didn't even want to write doctors' notes to get her out of PE. You can't think straight when it's your family, he'd always say.
(Ironically, by that point, he'd been self-medicating his Alzheimer's for over a year, but of course, Martha only found out about that much later on.)
'You don't forget it, ever, okay?' he'd said, back then, and well, Martha guesses, now, finishing her beer while Clive pays their bill, it would probably have done her some good to remember that particular lesson, a few years ago.
She catches Clive's glance, then, updates him on her last few days in Bolton. "I gave a guest lecture at the University, here, couple weeks ago," she observes, catches his glance. He raises an eyebrow at her, intrigued. "That was fun."
Clive nods, smiles, playfully teases. "Oh, professor Costello, then," he grins and, given her complicated history with teaching, it sounds oddly alright, Martha guesses.
.
Her mother phones, later on. They're walking down the street and Martha stops in her tracks, steps away to take the call. The tone is passive-aggressive on the other end, as usual, and: "You didn't come home last night," is the first thing that her mother notes, letting the awkward pause that follows sink in.
All the good girls go to hell, too, Martha thinks, so: "No," she agrees. Never said she would, as a matter of fact, said the exact opposite, actually, when her mother caught her wrist in the stairs, yesterday, after Clive got to Bolton and Martha went back into the house to pick up an overnight bag.
'Who's that?'
'Clive.'
'Clive?'
'I'm going out,' Martha responded and twenty years later, felt the utmost satisfaction at being able to get away with it. 'Don't wait up.'
"Well, where are you, then?" her mother asks, now, and God, there's a reason why Martha left home at eighteen.
"Manchester."
"And, do you intend to come home?"
"Yes. Tonight. Mum, I'm thirty-ni–"
"I worry, alright?" her mother snaps, interrupting. "You're my daughter and frankly, you showed up on my doorstep, so I get toworry. You don't have children, you wouldn't understand," she says and okay, that's not a very fair argument, Martha thinks. "I mean, no offense but you haven't been doing all that great, lately, so forgive me for asking questions when you go off with some man I don't know and don't come home in the morning, and also to be honest with you, you haven't really evidenced the best taste in men in the past so –"
Martha doesn't get to hear the rest of her mother's wonderful demonstration because she takes the phone away from her ear and lets it rant into the air for a few more seconds until she finally hears silence at the other end of the line. There's a smile on her face, though, when she speaks, thinks she does understand, actually, thinks – "I'm fine, Mum," she says, her glance leaving her feet to settle on Clive as she sees him typing on his phone a few yards away. He stops, though, when he hears her speak again, doesn't look at her. She hopes that's a good thing. "I'm happy," she adds, closing her eyes.
Moments later, she's kissing Clive's lips and he takes her hand back in his, asks: "What did she want?" The ring on her finger brushes against his palm. Martha feels it all the time, now.
"She thought you'd kidnapped me." A joke. Clive laughs, next to her.
.
Later, they're in Costa ordering coffee when it happens. It is the thought that crosses her mind uninvited, the pointed question her mother asked last week, the thing that smells like a rose and that Martha doesn't want to name.
They're are standing at the till. She hands out her debit card to pay for an Americano while Clive tells her a story she doesn't really pay attention to, looks to the end of the bar to her right. There is a young woman standing there, leaning against the counter; she's holding her kid's hand – early-thirties, long golden hair that cascades down her back; she's objectively beautiful, the kind of beautiful that only exists in books, Martha thinks, like she doesn't even know she is.
In fairness to him, Clive only throws her a look because of Martha's staring. He wouldn't even have glanced, otherwise, and the rational part of her brain knows that. Yet, Martha feels her jaw clench, her eyes roll at him, and when he smiles, gives her arm a reassuring light squeeze, she hates herself for being so petty. She can't be jealous. You're not allowed to be jealous when you're the one who doesn't want to belong to someone else.
As time passes, though (Martha moves to the side to let the bloke behind them order, her coffee warm in her hand), Clive's gaze drifts. Martha keeps staring at the woman but his look focuses on the kid. The little one smiles up at him. The mum hasn't noticed them but he certainly has – kids always see that kind of thing – and because it's weird and unusual to have two people staring at you from across the room when you're about four, pulls his tongue at them. Martha looks away, slightly awkward – can't even really pinpoint why she was staring - but Clive laughs next to her and, to Martha's surprise, pulls a face at the kid, too.
The little one laughs. Naturally, wholeheartedly, like children do. Pulls his tongue again.
Alerted by the sound of laughter, this time, the mother sees her little boy misbehave, looks at him, Martha and Clive. "Oh, no, don't do that!" she says, chastising her son, then: "Sorry," to the adults in front of her, apologetic.
Martha opens her mouth but Clive is quicker, catches the woman's gaze. "Oh, no, that's all right," he says, smiles that dazzling smile of his; Martha rolls her eyes again – Really, Clive? Yet, instead of talking to the mum, Clive takes a step forward and squats down to face the kid, grinning.
It reminds Martha of a conversation they had, years and years ago. They were still so young; one of her clients had had to bring her son to a con, the boy creating a bloody racket in Chambers. Clive took him aside, played with and distracted him, taught the little one how to make a house of cards stand on its own. Martha smiled at him across the table at the pub, later, and: 'You're really good with kids,' she observed, over a glass of red.
Her tone was neutral, devoid of any awkwardness – what would have - could have - made this conversation tense, years later, hadn't happened, yet. 'One of the added benefits of having lots of nieces and nephews,' he joked, smiled back.
Martha eyed him across the table and saw there was something else in his look. She was twenty-nine; he'd turned thirty, and her friend Jo had just had her first girl. 'Do you want kids?' Martha asked, catching his look. She could still ask, back then, ask in the abstract, with nothing that related to her, particularly. Clive laughed, amused, knee bumping against hers. That fleeting moment in time, Martha knows, was the height of whatever they were, all flirt and innuendos.
'Is that a proposition? he quipped. She burst out laughing, shook her head at him and was ironic, back then - it's painful to look back at, now.
'Yeah, of course, Clive,' she spoke, between sips of wine. 'I'd want nothing more than to have a kid with you.' He laughed, too, sat back in his chair. She waited a bit, just eyeing him: I'm bringing you home, tonight, she thought to herself, although she wasn't sure he knew that, yet. 'Seriously, though?' she chased, curious, later on.
Clive gave it some serious thought, finishing his beer. Shrugged, nodded. 'Yeah,' he settled on and Martha could tell that he was honest, as much as he could be. 'Not now. And with the right person,' he added, catching her gaze. 'But yeah, I think so.'
She watches him interact with the little boy in Costa, now, and reminds herself that conversations like these are the ones they can never, ever have, now.
The kid looks at Clive with wide-open eyes, a mixture of fear at having done something his mum didn't want him to do and interest at Clive. "Hey, what's your name?" Clive asks, then.
"Leo."
"Well, hi, Leo, I'm Clive," he adds, takes the kid's hand in his and shakes it lightly before letting go. Leo stays silent for a bit, unmoving. "So, you like pulling faces, huh? Can you do that one?" he says and pulls another face, twisting his mouth and framing his eyes with his fingers, like glasses.
Leo lets out a franc, childish, belly laugh and this time, so does his mum, smiling at Clive, first, then at Martha. Martha finds herself smiling back as the boy attempts the face in return; it's funny, really, the way his little hands attempt to mimic Clive's. Not a full success, yet, so his professor starts giving him tips to make it better, showing him how to make perfect circles with his thumbs and forefingers.
Leo's mum throws an amused look at Martha over the boys' heads (a look that says: that one's a keeper, she knows) and maybe that's what, in the end, makes the boy finally notice Martha. He stares over Clive's shoulder for a long while, not really paying attention to what Clive is saying, anymore. Confused, Clive turns around and sees what – who – the kid is looking at, smiles.
"Leo, this is Martha," he says and the kid smiles, shy, looks to the floor.
"Hello."
"Hi Leo," Martha says, cocking her head to the side to see him better, smiling but staying put, standing a step behind Clive, just waving her hand at him. She has a cup of coffee between her fingers, steals a sip of hot liquid. Has always been a bit uncomfortable around the children of strangers, to tell the truth.
Leo finally dares to glance up and his eyes fall on Clive again, the mother smiling behind him. The boy looks at Clive, corner of his mouth twisting with something he's not sure is okay to say and sighs. "She's very pretty," Leo tells Clive as though Clive is the only one who can hear and all three adults suddenly burst out laughing, the boy going red in the cheeks. The mother opens her mouth to reprimand but Clive shakes his head, grins.
"Yeah, she is," he agrees, nodding and smiling at the kid, his voice reassuring. "She's very smart, too," he adds and the kid's glance travels from him to Martha, who smiles and shakes her head, then back to Clive.
The boy frowns, pouts. "Smarter than you?" he asks, looking up at Clive with question marks in his eyes.
Clive turns slightly and throws Martha a glance before he speaks again, nodding at Leo. "Loads," he confirms, Leo's mother smiling up.
The boy looks very impressed at that, glance drifting from Clive to Martha back and forth a few times before finally, a thought seems to occur to him. "Can she do the faces too?" he asks and makes everyone laugh, again.
When their laughter quiets down, Martha hears his mum say: "Okay, I think that's it, Leo," smiling, amicable, but firm, pulling on the little boy's hand. Leo nods, and: "say goodbye, Leo," she adds, so he does, because that's what Mum told him to do. He looks like he wishes he could play pulling faces with them a bit longer but shrugs as his mother thanks the both of them and walks to the front door. Clive stands back up next to Martha, leans against the counter to reach for his coffee.
He looks at her and the grin on his face turns into something else, subtle; she sees it in his eyes when his glance falls onto hers; she clears her throat a bit. "I didn't know you could pull so many faces," Martha says, lightly, because it's the first thought that occurs to her that she actually can voice, the others buried deep in an area of her brain she absolutely does not want to venture in.
"One of my many hidden talents," Clive jokes, sipping his coffee and moving closer to her, slowly inching them towards the exit. They step out onto the street and as Martha walks next to him, nursing coffee in her hands, she realises that she can't stop looking at him, throwing sideway glances and wondering what the hell is going on in her head right now. Clive notices, after a while, throws her an amused look and asks: "What?" between two gulps of hot liquid.
"It's back," she says, fidgets.
"What?"
She steals a glance in his direction, smiles. "Your charm," Martha answers, because it's true, because it's scary, because when she thinks about them, sometimes, she thinks about them sitting on her couch that night and it –
Clive chuckles, takes her hand in his as they walk. "Well, I'm glad," he says, oblivious – or very good at pretending to be – and she bites her lip, shakes her head, shakes the thoughts that must not be named out of there.
.
They eat dinner a couple of streets away from his hotel, the kind of place that sells fifteen quid burgers that come with salad as a side unless you specify otherwise. Clive offers to drive her home; she says she's fine taking the train (it's already 10 PM and he's got to drive back to London, after all) so they argue back and forth for a good five minutes until Martha caves, figures that if he really wants to, he might as well. That and she sort of wants him to, in the back of her mind, doesn't really want him to leave.
They get to Bolton and the house is dark, her parents' street only shaded by a couple of lampposts. Out the window, she sees Jamie, standing at the corner typing away on his phone. There's Mrs Robinson, too, angrily dragging her dog away from the neighbour's petunias and the flickering lights behind a few people's curtains. She wonders what all of this must look like to Clive.
"There you are," he says, with his hand on her knee to nudge her out of her thoughts.
She looks into his eyes and smiles. "Do you want to come in?"
.
The fact of the matter is: the enterprise entails a little bit more negotiation that she had initially thought. First, there's Jamie, outside. She walks over to him and holds his gaze, tells Clive to wait in front of the house. She whispers when she speaks to the kid; he seems amused. "You don't touch that one either," Martha instructs, pointing at Clive's car, because, well, certain things are actually better being expressly stated.
"But, Miss," Jamie rolls his eyes, frowning. Yeah, Martha thinks to herself, I know you alright. "A nice one like that –"
"You heard me," she insists and he concedes, shrugs.
"Who's he, anyway?"
Martha laughs, shakes her head at him. "That is absolutely none of your business, Jamie," she tells him.
And: "What was that about?" Clive asks, later, when she walks back. She pulls him past the front gate of the house, gestures to be quiet with a finger to her lips before she opens the door. Her mum is probably asleep, by now.
"Just trust me," she whispers, pushing the door open. The fact that she's just kept his car from getting nicked is one of those things that are actually better left unsaid.
.
Next, there's the staircase. The steps creak; they both hold back giggles until they get to her bedroom, don't dare turning the lights on. Martha decides they're safer sitting on the roof so that her mum really won't be able to hear them; Clive acts very dramatic when she makes him step over the gap between the two buildings; she laughs and calls him a wuss. They drink tea and okay-just-a-notch wine that turns into a bottle emptied between the both of them and Clive's certainly not going anywhere, now. When he asks her to stay over, he does so by tiptoeing around the topic, claiming that he can't drive, claiming that she'll have to stay awake with him until he sobers up. Martha offers him shelter, promising her that mum will be long gone to work by the time they wake up tomorrow and kisses him in the dead of night.
There are no stars on cloudy evenings but Martha's always been a city girl anyway so her eyes follow the curve of the roads, their street lamps and tiny windows, the headlights of cars heading home. They sit with a blanket thrown over the both of them; she warms herself up off the heat of Clive's body. They're quiet, talk and fight the urge to sleep with stories and soft chuckles whispered in each other's ears. From their vantage point, Martha shows him the street on which her mum works, the corner shop where she had her first job, the house where her best friend used to live when she was six years old and the school across the road. Her thumb is constantly playing with the ring he gave her, last night, dancing around her finger as if to check it's still there, not going anywhere. Martha also tells him about her school and the skirt of her uniform, how she got sent home more than once on the grounds that it rode three quarters up her thigh.
Clive laughs, shakes his head. They're drinking her mother's wine straight from the bottle, white, the glass almost glows in the dark. "Bit of teenage rebellion?" Clive asks, smiling next to her.
"Something like that, yeah," she agrees.
Clive catches her gaze; the bottle makes a quiet clink sound when he lays it on the ground. "I wish I'd known you back then," he admits, sits back on his palms, looks at the rooftops in front of them.
Oh, God, Martha laughs, looking up at him, imagining the kind of teenager he probably was, the kind of people he was probably friends with. Yes, she may be a bit prejudiced and judgmental, here, but after all, he did go to Harrow. She hums, shaking her head. "Um, no, you don't," she declares, a playful twinkle in her eyes.
Clive frowns, asks: "Why not?"
"Irreconcilable differences."
"Now, what's that supposed to mean?"
Martha pauses when she speaks next, trying to explain, looking for the right words. "I don't know, I was just –" She takes a moment to think. "Insufferable, really. Dyed my hair black, boys, drinking, skipping school, coming home in the middle of the night: the whole works," she adds, sees Clive smile in the dark. "Rowing with my parents, teachers, terrible grades – frankly, I don't really know why the school never expelled me, I barely even showed up," she admits as an afterthought.
Clive sets a half-amused, half-disbelieving look on her, a large mocking grin and an eyebrow raised. "You dyed your hair black? Please tell me there is photographic evidence of this."
Martha laughs, drinking, shakes her head. "There is. Which you're never, ever going to see," she smirks, setting the bottle on the floor. There is something calming, peaceful about the sound of Clive's laugh.
"I'll make it my life's mission to," he jokes, taking the bottle in his hand and holding it up, making a promise, or a toast.
In her head, Martha remembers one late night in Chambers, when she admitted to having gotten arrested once before, for smashing a beer bottle onto a police car, protesting a wrongful arrest. Clive had laughed so hard tea came out of his nose and that explains so much, he'd said as she rolled her eyes. Well, now, Martha guesses, telling him tales of her younger self, he knows the full extent of her teenage rebel career.
"Once," she adds, grinning at him. "I even told my dad I wasn't going to partake in tests at school anymore, because they weren't fair to people who weren't good at taking tests," she laughs.
A loud chuckle escapes Clive's mouth; it covers the hoot of a car down the street. "Flawless logic, Marth."
"Oh, shut up," she smiles, taking another swig of their wine.
The moon hovers behind the clouds; there's a white glow to it. Martha watches time pass by, one of those quiet moments where evenings don't really need to end. It's a while before Clive speaks again; he's looking at the city below them, shadows over his face. "What happened, then?" he wonders, catches her gaze. "I mean, you went to university, you must have –"
"Gotten my shit together?" she suggests. He laughs.
"I wouldn't have put it like that, but -"
"Dad got sick," she says. Leans into him and speaks matter-of-factly, and yeah, that's pretty much what happened. In a nutshell. That part is harder to tell, somehow, she has to force the words out of her mouth to keep telling him the truth. "He wanted me to go to university," she shrugs. Generally, there's something about these things that she'd rather only admit in the dark, when they can't quite see the look on each other's faces. She can avoid his gaze, too. "I don't know if he ever really understood I did, but –"
And, there's no appropriate way to end that sentence, really, just a loose sense of hope. A sense that maybe, maybe he did, maybe he was proud of her, and maybe Billy's proud of them, too. Martha feels Clive's arm circle around her, touches the side of her head to his, closes her eyes against the night breeze. Mechanically, after a while, she disentangles herself from him and fishes out for her pack of cigarettes, reaching behind her for the lighter and ashtray, out of their hiding place under a brick. Clive arcs an intrigued eyebrow at her, looks at the brick, the hiding place, the mint gums next to it, then back to her.
She smiles, shrugs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I only smoke out here," Martha explains, glancing back at the house. "She doesn't know."
"Your mum?" There's an incredulous tone in his voice, a curious and disbelieving glance.
"What? You never hide anything from your parents?"
And she hears Clive laugh, sees him shrug, knows he's about to crack a joke but -
"Sean was there, you know?" she whispers, honest and almost out of the blue, opens her eyes to look into Clive's. Her fingers fidget with the pack: open, closed, open; she sets it down on the floor. "He was – no matter how shit things were at home, there was always a space for me at his place, and laughter, and beers to get numb on," she breathes, shaking her head softly. "I was the one who failed him, not the other way around."
And in truth, she doesn't know if it's the resigned tone in her voice, or the honesty with which she's finally, finally, ready to talk to him about this, but Clive doesn't look angry like he usually does when she mentions Sean. Doesn't roll his eyes or sigh or even urge her on, just waits until she speaks, his hand softly massaging her shoulder. Martha smiles, sad, sighs.
"I –" she starts, stops, tries to explains. "When Dad got sick and I finally, well – I grew up and made it out of that phase. I tried to take Sean with me, you know? I tried to push him to go back to school, tried to make plans for us in Manchester, tried everything I could so that he'd make it out of the shithole he grew up in. I just," she says, pauses. "Couldn't, I guess."
"Is that why you took the case?"
And: "Yes," she admits. It's almost like breathing again, telling Clive, admitting to feelings that she can't control. Martha's not in love with Sean, hasn't been for decades on end, but guilt is another insidious drive for making terrible judgment calls. It's her fault, she thinks, and it's always been her fault, and now he's in prison because of her and not one day goes by where she doesn't think she might not be able to pull herself out of bed the next morning because of it.
Clive doesn't say it's not her fault. She knows he doesn't think it is, from the way he looks at her, breathes next to her but he knows her. Knows her enough to know that whatever he says won't make a difference. Instead, he smiles, sad, asks, curious: "What made you break it up? In the end?"
Martha rolls her eyes. Remembers: the parties and the drinks, and the loosening of tongues. "Alyssa Manfield," she says, the name leaving her mouth like an insult. Clive cocks an eyebrow at her. "It was a few months before I went off to uni. She went around the place telling everybody they were sleeping together."
"Ah, that's -"
"To be honest, I don't think they were," Martha counters, before Clive can even go on and get back into a favourite hobby of his: pointing out to her how much of a jerk Sean is. "He denied it," she adds and sees Clive roll his eyes, gently shoves his shoulder. "It wasn't the point, anyway." Martha looks down at her hands, hugging her knees close to her chest. "It just felt like one more thing I didn't want to deal with," she admits. Wasn't brave, didn't do the right thing, didn't hang on as much as she could have, should have. She was tired, she remembers, wanted to run away.
They stay silent for a while and she feels his lips against her temple again, rough with five o'clock turned midnight shadow. She thinks of the day that they've spent together, of her cheeks that hurt from laughing too much, thinks of dart games and pulling faces, teenage angst, reaches out for his hand in the dark. Clive's thumb caresses her skin, softly, fingers locking with his. The ring he gave her is still there and just like him, it's not going away any time soon.
"Dad lost his medical licence," she confesses, a bit later. That's one thing that she's never told Clive before. Martha's look is directed in front of her when she speaks, their shoulders touching; she doesn't dare cross Clive's gaze.
Her family were never well-off, she explains, but they were never poor, either. In Bolton, they had a nice house with a fence and a mortgage, and while her classmates might have financially struggled, Martha never really did. Her dad had a good situation, as they would say, and her mum didn't even have to work. He one of a few local GPs, practiced at a clinic until one night, when she was sixteen, Martha overheard her parents argue in dark.
She found out her father was dying through whispered arguments in their living room.
'I don't understand how you could do this to us, Dennis,' her mother accused, arms crossed over her chest and tears in her voice. He knew. They didn't. He figured out what was happening with the memories that were slipping away from his brain and yet, he continued to go to work, to practice. It was only a matter of time before the clinic found out and their small, idyllic, three-people family unit suddenly began to drown under legal fees and board hearings. Her parents had to liquidate all their savings to keep a roof over Martha's head. Her grades only improved back then because she stopped sleeping, found out that work could keep her brain busy until morning. In the end, they took her father's licence but didn't charge him for malpractice. By the time the case reached the CPS, he wouldn't even have understood what negligence was.
Martha's mother stuck by him. It was never a question. She loved him. They both did. One night, Martha remembers, he'd needed to use the bathroom, couldn't remember where it was, didn't want to admit it. Martha was supposed to be in bed; she hid behind the banister at the top of the stairs to watch her parents. He'd soiled himself, her mum was helping him out of his clothes. 'Maureen,' he said, looked straight into Martha's mother's eyes. 'You didn't marry me for this. Please take Mar. Have a nice life.'
Martha's mother shook her head, then, spoke in that no-nonsense tone of hers. 'Dennis, don't be ridiculous.'
When her father passed away, Clive laid in Martha's bed staring at the ceiling and she sat up on the sheets, smoked a cigarette. There's always been something a little melancholic about cigarettes after sex, as far as she's concerned. Her eyes studied Clive, his bare chest and the muscles in his arms, narrow hips, the Calvin Klein branding of his underwear.
He caught her gaze, then. Had her bedside table lamp on; it cast a low glow over his face. Martha's eyes were full of tears that had nothing to do with him so he rose up to meet her, took the half-smoked cigarette from her fingers and killed it in the ashtray. 'Shhh,' he whispered, and kissed the pain away.
She looks up at him, now, and the words are out of her mouth before she can really filter them. She's never told anyone about this. Has never really even told herself about this. Spent hours on Google in the middle of the night, pretended nothing had happened in the morning. "It's genetic, you know?" she says, now, looking down to the floor, to her fingers, anywhere but him. "Alzheimer's, I mean."
Before they found out, Martha remembers her dad summoning her to his practice, one afternoon. He'd had a call from school about some argument she'd gotten herself into. It was winter, she recalls, flu season, she'd looked around at the people in the waiting room, thought to herself she was going to get sick.
'Things are going to have to change, Martha, you need to understand,' he'd said but she hadn't, not back then, had made a nonsensical comment about her mum and how she was trying to control her life, had stormed out of his office like she always did. Looking back, now, she wonders how he felt, wonders if he wished to be like her, head deep in the sand for as long as she possibly could.
"I looked it up," she goes on, hesitates. "Early onset, close family member – it's a fifty/fifty chance," she says, glance drifting to the city lights. Drifting anywhere but Clive. "I'm not really good with fifty/fifty chances."
A look of understanding washes over Clive's face; she sees it, even in the dark, the wheels clicking into place. She knows what he's thinking, probably, and: is that why –? Why a lot of things, really.
"There's a test," she whispers, after a beat. "They run your DNA and tell you if you have it. Or likely to have it. Something."
"Do you?"
Martha bites her lip, makes herself look up at him. "I don't know. I didn't want to know," she breathes, honest. For years, she didn't even consider it, because what would be the point, anyway. Clive opens his mouth, almost nods before - "Then, I got pregnant," she goes on, glancing down, unable to maintain eye contact. "And I thought – Well, I don't know what I thought exactly. I only got the results in my pigeonhole two weeks after the baby was gone, so I didn't look," she breathes. "Threw the envelope in my handbag and that was that, really."
Clive is silent for a long time, after she speaks. Like he's taking it in, like a lot of things are starting to make sense, in his brain, just from what she told him. Suddenly, though, a thought occurs to him; she sees it in his look and braces for impact. "Don't tell me –" he breathes. She looks away. "Do you still have it?"
Her look finds her hands, the floor, the ring, anywhere but his face. She doesn't want to admit it, starts: "I –" stops.
"For God's sake," Clive sighs, genuinely stunned. "Don't tell me you've been dragging it around for two years?"
And, look, she wants to tell him. It didn't happen like that, wasn't planned, she didn't mean for it to happen, it just –
"Marth, that's insane," he presses. "You either open it or you don't; you don't torture yourself with it for –"
"It's not that fucking simple, it's –" she snaps, stops, breathes, explains. "Sometimes, I take it out and I want to open it, but then I think what's the point? Because I've always told myself I wouldn't be like him. And, I know the symptoms, Clive, I know what it's like, and the day I know I have it…"
"Marth -"
"Oh, don't go all Patrick Stevens on me," she says, rolling her eyes. "You don't know what it's like, you haven't seen –" she wants to talk about her father and what it was like, and what – No, she decides, she doesn't really want to talk about it. It's her problem, not Clive's. "I'm sorry," she apologises, quick, decisive. She didn't mean to snap at him, didn't mean to - "I shouldn't –"
"Stop," Clive says, his voice cutting her off, decisive. Martha's startled; it not only makes her stop talking but also finally makes her dare look up at him. "Can I look?" he asks, and it sounds so obvious to him. She feels fear at the pit of her stomach; it hadn't even occurred to her that he would want to, ever, that he would –
She's said too much, she thinks. Doesn't know if she wants him to know, doesn't know if he should –
"I won't tell you if you don't want to know," he promises, staring into her eyes. "But I do."
And, as she looks at Clive, then, Martha suddenly remembers him when he found out about Billy, and the days that followed. She hated knowing. Hated keeping that secret, hated knowing what was coming and being unable to prevent it. It felt like watching her father forget her, forget her mum, watching water slip past her fingers. She looks at Clive and realises that Clive, though, would have wanted to know. He's always been like that, likes facts and preparing for things when she doesn't, when she prefers to watch the water flow rather than try and catch it. Maybe he should know, too, because she –
She stops there, mid-thought, wouldn't know how to say it, anyway, wouldn't know the words, so she nods, finally, reaching to fish the letter out for him. It's battered, has been sleeping in her bag under piles of files and general mess for three years, the confidential notice on the front almost faded out. Clive turns it around, goes to open it but before he can, the thought comes back to her like something she needs to say, something that keeps her heart from slowing down, something –
She grabs his hand, stops him. "Whatever's in there," she starts, trails off.
She used to think that she didn't want to end up like her father, forgetting everything that had ever made him him, too long before he forgot how to breathe. Martha used to think that when the time came, when she'd forget to pick up the milk up one too many times, she'd make that decision for herself, with a glass of red and sleeping pills, because she deserves better than that. Tonight, though, she looks at Clive and thinks something else, for the first since her dad got diagnosed: she thinks she doesn't want anyone else to go through what her mum went through. It doesn't change the end game, doesn't change her decision, but it means something, she realises, admits it to herself. Breathes.
Her voice is quiet, arms hugging her frame tight, wrapped in the blanket, looking at the little city lights dancing ahead of them. Martha can feel Clive's body heat next to hers, can't really see his face in the dark. If he asks, she thinks, she'll say. "Don't let me forget this, okay?" she asks, softly. "Don't let me forget tonight."
And it's like she's standing outside of a building, after dinner and a movie, drinks, with a boy that's about to kiss her and her heart pounding in her chest. Clive sighs, but not a heavy sigh, more of a smiling sigh, the kind of sigh that makes her turn and look at him. "Why?" he asks.
And it's funny, really, because she doesn't know why. Maybe it's the way he looks at her when she's happy, or when she's angry, or maybe it's the ring that he gave her and the expectations he didn't have, the quiet, honest words that he uttered, or the fact that he showed up in her life at all. Yeah, perhaps, it's just because she met him, at Shoe Lane, one September morning, a long time ago. Why is something she's been wondering about for far too long, every time she looks at him, every time she feels like she's falling and he throws out a hand, catches her and tells her to breathe.
"I don't want to ever forget you," she admits.
Clive stops mid-movement, then, mid-breath, his whole body still, sitting next to her. He frowns, but also smiles. "That will never, ever happen, Martha Costello," he tells her, like that's the one thing he's always been certain of. Martha gives a really quiet laugh, the first one in a long time.
Quickly, his mouth is on hers, strong and confident, stubble grazing her lips. His hand finds her lower back, weight pushing her down onto the blanket under them; soon enough his palms are everywhere, on her skin under her shirt and in her hair, her hands curving behind his neck. The roof is hard against her back but she can't bring herself to care; it reminds her of last time, when they were drenched in rain, reminds her of them.
She briefly wonders how far this is going to get when his mouth leaves hers to find her neck - in fairness, this roof has probably seen worse and it's not like anyone can see them, so –
He stops, though, a few seconds later, remains close, above her, staring straight into her eyes. "I love you," he simply says, promises: "I'm not going anywhere." And his words are not just words, anymore, or fleeting feelings escaping him whenever he finds it convenient. No: "I love you," he says and for the first time in her life, Martha crosses his gaze and knows, just knows that it's true.
.
The envelope makes its way back between his fingers, eventually, after the last drops of their wine are drunk, too. Clive swallows, forefinger slipping and slowly ripping the paper open. Martha bites her lip, doesn't want to look at him, but can't bring herself to look away.
She sees him go through the words without showing anything, just reads for an agonising thirty seconds or so, his face blank when he finally glances up at her.
"You sure you don't want to know?" he asks, staring back at her, poker face on – if the envelope didn't say 'personal and confidential' on it, she thinks he could have been reading her grocery list, for all she knows.
Somehow, it's comforting, knowing that he doesn't seem to have run for the hills just yet. "Yeah," she says, briefly shutting her eyes before nodding, certain. "I don't."
So, he nods, too, smiles, and doesn't tell her. Never, ever, tells her until it's time, until she asks, years and years later. For now, he takes her lighter from off the floor and brings it close to the papers. "So, you don't have to carry it around, anymore, alright?" he says and Martha nods, watches as the letter turn into ash, slowly, script burnt and undecipherable, falling to the ground.
The flame dies, eventually, and she looksup at him. Clive takes her hand in his.
"Come on," he speaks in the dark, starting to sit up. She's a bit cold, now, they're sitting on top of the blanket rather than under it and – "Let's go to bed."
"Wait."
It is a tricky, manipulative thing, really. It is a fleeting thought caressing the back of her mind at regular intervals, when her mum mentions it, or when Clive pulls faces at a little boy in a café, the kind of thing that is never truly there but never leaves, like a non-committal shrug as a response to an important question. She'd never thought about it again, really, or about it again with him, at least, just as an abstract what if in her head. They fished out the letter, though, tonight, and it came back to her mind as the reason why she'd done the test in the first place. It's wrong, it's stupid, was never even here in the first place, was never meant to – "Marth?" Clive utters, low and distant, looks at her.
She only now realises that her hand is resting on her stomach because he tries to take it in his, smiling, trying to get her to talk to him and tell him what's going on inside her head and: "I –" she says, stops. Clive's hand rests on top of hers for a split second before she relents and takes it, shakes her head.
She sees something in his look, something that tells her he knows, tells her that -
"Never mind," Martha says, her glance catching his for the shortest of times; she shakes her head to herself and smiles. "Come on," she adds. "Let's go to bed."
Clive nods as he stands, helps her up. "All right," he says. "Let's step over that gap again and try not to die –" he whines, looking at the edge of the building and the window of her bedroom on the other side. Martha rolls her eyes.
"Wuss," she says, again, shaking her head at him.
.
There's always been something about being away from home, Martha thinks. It's Manchester and Bolton, now, was Nottingham a few years ago; she feels bolder, more confident, like enveloped in a cocoon. Like nothing can ever happen, when they're away.
Back then, she was reckless. Led him inside her hotel room (kisses, moans, lips hungry and warm against his skin) – 'I thought you didn't want to do this, anymore,' he teased and she rolled her eyes at him, spoke.
'We're not in London, it's different.'
Later, he whispered in her ear: 'Shit, Marth. Condom?'
And the worst thing is: she did have one. It had been living inside her wallet for a while – probably wasn't in the best shape - but they could have tried, at least, tried to avoid it. But condoms were messy, and she never really liked them, and she trusted him, and: 'I'm on the pill,' she said. It was true, technically (she would never have lied to him about that), but she'd taken it late the day before, and they'd been out to dinner when her alarm rang today, and what were the chances, anyway?
She took him in her hand and guided him inside her, moaned into his mouth when he kissed her, rough and unapologetic. His look locked with hers; Clive smiled against her skin. 'I missed this,' he whispered in her ear.
"I missed this," he says, now, too, lying in bed next to her. Back then, she was reckless, and tonight, maybe she is, too. Her childhood bed isn't a twin but it's definitely smaller than her bed at home so they have to squeeze in together; she spoons into him and smiles, his other hand trailing in her hair, then down her arm. "I love you," he whispers, from behind her. She lets out a short laugh, bites her lip. The thing is, he says that and no matter how lightly she pretends to take it, her heart still skips a beat every time he does.
He's playing piano against her hip again, fingers toying with the lace on the side of her pants: it's frankly distracting. "My mother's downstairs, Clive," she says, another chuckle escaping her lips. "Say that all you want, but I'm not having sex with you."
"Oh, now, you know," he whispers in her ear with a smile in his voice. "That's very unfortunate.'"
"Shut up. I'm sleeping," she says, puffs out a laugh and rolls her eyes, thinks she hears him laugh, too.
.
The thing is, though, she doesn't sleep. Stays awake and stares at the poster of Ian Curtis on the wall and the other thing is: she doesn't think Clive sleeps, either.
When his hand moves down from her hip and follows the curves of her skin, at first, she wants to believe that he is. Listens to his breaths in her ear and almost convinces herself of their regularity, almost convinces herself that he doesn't know what she's thinking, what she was thinking just minutes before, outside on the roof, or that at the very least, if he does, he won't say. It has crept back in her mind at the speed of light; she feels one of Clive's fingers tap once, twice over her stomach. Martha becomes acutely aware of the rhythm of her own breaths, of the way his hand follows the movement of her body against his.
It's a really long time before he speaks, remains still to the point where eventually, she does wonder if he has indeed fallen asleep, until she hears his voice, a murmur in her ear. "Marth?"
"Yeah?"
Her own voice is detached but she's pretty sure he knows she's holding her breath against his hand; she makes a conscious effort to let go, a long sigh escaping her mouth. Her belly moves in rhythm: in and out, she thinks. In and out. "What you were going to say –"
"Forget it," she says, quick, too quick, really. His hand stops drawing circles against the skin of her stomach and just rests there, for a while, just –
She doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want Clive to think about it, really. Doesn't want to address the elephant in the room, the thoughts that crowded her brain this afternoon when she saw him at Costa with that kid, little Leo, or the way he laughed, or the way Clive smiled, too. Frankly, he's learnt enough things about her and about what's going on in her head for a lifetime, tonight. Except: "Marth?" he repeats, again, and as he goes on, she closes her eyes, holds her breath and this time, doesn't think she cares if he knows. "I would want to, you know?" he adds, quiet, like he, also, barely dares. "If you wanted to."
And the last time his hand rested on her stomach without being on the way to another part of her body was years ago, she remembers. It was dark outside and he was a bit drunk in her apartment and they were young, felt so, so young when she looks at them now and how naïve and unaware they were, couldn't think that anything could ever go wrong.
She held his gaze as he stood at the bottom of the stairs down to her flat, remnants of the drizzling rain falling onto the floor of her hallway when he stepped past the threshold. Slid slid him a beer, settling next to him on the couch, nursing tea in her hands, thigh bumping against his:
'This is going to sound stupid but can I –' he finally asked after skirting around the topic for a good half hour, feigning interest in Chambers gossip and rambling about cases, his gaze hovering over her skin. It made her laugh, back then, scoot closer to him as she lifted her shirt, the touch of his fingers slightly cold and wet from his drink. Clive laid his palm flat against her skin and discretely, she observed his reaction. With clothes on, she wasn't showing yet, barely looked like she'd put on any weight, but lying down like this, her skin bare, it was another story. There was a bump, there, a very real bump, something that even she had been unable to ignore, lately. Quietly, his eyes set on hers, she remembers, thumb tracing patterns on her skin. He asked if it moved, yet, and wasn't it strange, to have another person growing inside you.
Martha stays silent in the dark, now, turning thoughts around in her head. She wants this to be real, doesn't want this to be real, wants –
Quickly, suddenly, she turns around to face him, finds his eyes wide-open in front of her, bites her lip. "Clive," she says, in a breath. "I'm not even sure –"
He smiles. They're lying so close to each other that she feels his breaths on her skin. "Would be pretty weird if either of us was, don't you think?"
"It's not –" she starts, sighs. "Even if we try again –"
"We weren't really trying the first time."
It annoys her that he makes her smile and yet he does; she shakes her head and pretends to ignore him. "I'm thirty-nine years old."
That is one tangible objection she feels is very relevant and yet, he just shrugs, barely blinks. "So?" he says. "We try. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's not for us. I'm personally in favour of lots of trying –"
Martha smiles and rolls her eyes, bites her lip. "It's not funny, Clive –"
"Of course, it is," he counters, and suddenly he sounds serious, gaze narrowing in on her. She doesn't dare to move. "It's us, Marth," he adds, again, like last night, like it means something.
She opens her mouth but –
"You and me," he continues, instead. "Me making you laugh and you making me laugh, and us screaming at each other, sometimes, and making up most of the time," he smiles. "And you being bloody insufferable, sometimes, and me being insufferable most of the time, and it's –"
When he trails off, she's forgotten the words she could have rehearsed, forgotten to roll her eyes or shake her head, just knows that if she doesn't let her thoughts out now, she might never do so. "I told you last night, we're not together, I don't -"
And while there's a flicker of hurt on Clive's face, he doesn't give up, just points out the obvious. "That didn't stop you from keeping it last time," he observes. "And, I mean," he continues. "We've known each other for fifteen years, Marth, I don't think we're ever going to stop this," he gestures between the both of them. "One way or another. I mean, what's the longest we've ever spent without talking?"
A month, she concedes, in her brain. The month that's just passed, the one she spent here in Bolton, sleeping in this bed and pondering over her life choices. Not an experience she ever intends to repeat.
Clive breathes and for the first time in a while, she does, too. "Marth," he says, pauses, his thumb against her cheek. "There's no one else I'd like to argue with, about schools and football games attendance, and Christmas presents. Not one else but you," he says and trails off again, looks into her eyes. "You're the one," he shrugs, non-committal, like it's nothing more than water being wet. "I want a baby with you. If that's what you want, too."
And three years ago, when he laid his hand on her stomach, the bloody thing mostly made her feel nauseous, frankly, so that's what she told him, admitted that much with a laugh and told him the story of how she had almost thrown up on the police misconduct panel a few weeks before. She honestly thought she'd stopped breathing when he leaned down, his breath caressing her skin and said: 'Hey baby,' spoken softly. 'Be nice to Mummy.' And Mummy, she heard, looked up at him and: Daddy, she thought, right before he kissed her, a quick peck, across her lips, like something free and secret, something that didn't bind them to anything. 'We're going to be okay,' he added, breaking away, his forehead resting against hers.
She looks up at him now and the words are natural, out of her mouth, like they've always been, lying there under the surface, waiting for their time to shine. "I do," she says, nods. "I want that, too."
And two years ago, when he visited her that night, she remembers crossing his gaze and thinking to herself that they were going to be parents, one day.
.
.
[1] All The Good Girls Go To Hell by Billie Eilish