The heat hit like a blast wave as we left the air-conditioned mall. By the time we’d meandered down a few cobblestoned streets in search of a café with outdoor seating, I was feeling uncomfortably sticky. Just the thought of having to try on more dresses was exhausting.
‘Maybe I could make do with something I already own.’ I paused to flash a smile at the waitress as she placed two iced coffees in front of us. ‘I mean, you can’t go wrong with a little black dress, can you?’ I asked Mel, or rather the back of her head, for her attention was firmly focused in the opposite direction. ‘What do you think?’
‘Hmmm. Yes,’ she said distractedly.
I peered around her, trying to work out what had snagged her attention, but could see nothing unusual. Just an ordinary street on an ordinary day, busier than usual perhaps, but we were in the middle of the school holidays so that was to be expected.
‘Of course. If I really wanted to make a memorable impression, I suppose I could rock up wearing nothing but a big smile and a sparkly G-string.’
Mel nodded in agreement.
‘Yes, definitely,’ she murmured, before my words pierced whatever bubble she’d floated off in. ‘You what?’
‘Oh, so you were listening. Sort of.’
She bit her lip guiltily and that made me feel bad. Especially as there was a new expression in her eyes, one I’d never seen there before.
‘Mel?’ I reached across and folded my hand around hers. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’ I was right to be concerned when my innocent question caused her bottom lip to tremble.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘It’s something,’ I countered. My eyes went once again to the street, searching for whatever it was that had upset her. I scanned the crowds but could see no obvious culprit among the mums pushing prams, or those corralling little children who’d clearly rather be anywhere but shopping on a sunny summer’s day.
‘How did they all do it?’ Mel asked, her voice not entirely steady. But then neither was her hand as she reached for her iced coffee.
‘How did who do what?’ I asked, inarticulately.
‘Her,’ Mel said, her voice low as she nodded at a woman disappearing down the road, her right hand firmly clasping that of a little girl skipping along beside her.
‘Or her,’ Mel said, this time her gaze going to a young woman who was trying to stop her small boy from chasing the street pigeons scavenging on the pavement.
‘Or her,’ Mel whispered, her voice almost fracturing as a heavily pregnant woman crossed the road at the nearby pedestrian lights.
I should have been quicker to recognise that the everyday sights I scarcely even noticed were real triggers for her. Guilt took a nip at my heels as I realised just how deeply Mel was affected by her desire for a child and the difficulty she was having getting pregnant.
I sat back in my uncomfortable metal foldaway chair, looking at her and wondering how long I’d been this blind. Admittedly, there was a lot about the last year I still didn’t remember. But this pain, the one I could now see so clearly in my friend’s eyes, was obviously not new. The longing must have been there for a very long time before the despair found a foothold.
‘Last week I found myself counting how many pregnant women I saw walking around Sainsbury’s. That can’t be healthy, can it?’
I shook my head sadly.
‘I just wish I knew how it seems to be so easy for everyone else and so impossibly hard for us.’
‘I don’t know, hon. I wish I could give you an answer. But the truth is, you never really know what anyone is going through. Maybe each one of those women experienced something similar before it worked out for them.’
‘Maybe,’ she said, sounding far from convinced.
I dug deep, trying to find something that didn’t sound like a meaningless platitude. It was ironic that we’d spent our twenties desperately trying not to get pregnant. And now, when I hadn’t been paying attention, someone had moved all the goalposts – or at least they had as far as Mel was concerned. Now the very thing that would derail my life was the only thing she could think about.
‘Even though you know how I feel about all that woo-woo stuff, I really do have a feeling that it’s going to happen for you,’ I said, leaning across the table, uncaring about the sticky spills from previous customers on its surface. ‘I’ve met loads of couples over the years, and I’ve yet to find one that would make better parents than you and Steve, and I refuse to believe the universe doesn’t know that too.’
‘It’s just such an uphill battle,’ she said on a sad sigh.
I bit my lip worriedly, wondering if this was the right moment to say what had been on my mind since the night in the bar.
‘I don’t know much about how these things work,’ I said, walking on the thinnest ice imaginable. ‘But I do know that IVF is expensive, and I just wanted to say that if money is tight, or if worrying about funds is holding you back...’ I cleared my throat, feeling weirdly nervous. ‘Well, the business hasn’t been doing too badly recently and I’m sure I could—’
‘Absolutely not,’ Mel interjected emphatically, her curls bouncing in protest. ‘That’s very generous of you, Ellie, but this is our problem, not yours.’