The One That Got Away. Annabel Kantaria

other’s face, and I feel like I can see into George’s soul. I feel myself softening; a sense of ice melting. I’m less obsessive at work – I delegate more while I let myself daydream about what it might be like to have a family.

      Even George notices a difference in me. I’m kinder, more pliable and I start to feel that this life, this love, really could be mine. It’s like a shedding of layers – the layers of protection I’ve worn since the day George walked out on me. I start smiling at strangers. I find myself looking at other people’s children, noticing for the first time not their raucous screams but the joy in their smiles, the pearly whiteness of their tiny teeth and the pudginess of their squidgy little hands.

      One lunchtime I’m in Boots, being jostled by the lunchtime crowd. The heating’s up too high; industrial fans are blasting hot air into the store. I’m sweating under my coat and suit, the air’s too dry on my skin, and my hair’s gone static. I find myself in the vitamins section. Before I know it, I’m holding a jar of folic acid supplements in my hand and wondering if I should buy them. I feel naughty, like I’m a teenager caught by my mum with a packet of condoms in my hand. Folic acid is for those respectable women who plan babies – to date it’s never featured in my life plans, but George’s words have pierced me deep inside: I can’t stop thinking about getting pregnant and, if I have a baby, I want it to have the best chances in life. I’m passionate about this: an apology, perhaps, to the baby whose life I prevented from starting.

      I stand still, people pushing past me down the narrow aisle, and I remember the feeling of those first days of pregnancy: the tingling breasts, the unshakeable feeling that there was something growing in my belly. Back then, it caused nothing but horror but, now, I long to feel it again. I smile to myself: this time I’ll do it right. I put the tablets in my basket and take them to the checkout, where I catch the cashier’s eye. She doesn’t say anything, but she smiles, and I know she knows. I feel like I’m joining a secret club.

      Maybe now the time is right.

TWENTY

       George

      Stell’s late to our hotel one day and I loiter about the room wondering what to do. It crosses my mind to wait, naked, on the bed but, as I’m undoing my trousers, I think maybe that’s too presumptuous. So I stand at the window, watching the street below, but the angle’s not right for me to see the hotel entrance so I can’t see if she’s arriving.

      Time stretches. I make an espresso, clicking a pod into the machine and inhaling the aroma as the machine vibrates and coffee splashes into the cup. When I hear the click of the door – half an hour late – I’m pacing the room. I turn and catch my breath as she wafts in: that face; that hair; those eyes; those lips – where Ness has curves, Stell is all drama, edges and adrenalin. My cock stiffens.

      ‘Princess!’ I cross the room in two strides and stop in front of her. She makes no apology, no explanation, for her tardiness – neither do I want her to. We stand, centimetres apart, for a moment, taking each other in, then I lean in, push her hair back from her face and kiss her softly on the lips. ‘How are you?’

      She doesn’t reply, just steps around me without speaking and starts to undress, slowly removing her clothes in what I’m sure is a tease show until she’s left only in stockings and heels. Then she lies back on the bed and starts to touch herself, her hands sliding over and into the flesh I’m desperate to taste. All the while she does it, she’s watching me with her eyes half closed, moaning. I move to join her, my hands on my belt buckle, but she shakes her head.

      ‘Oh no. Not yet.’

      Dear God, she makes me watch until I can’t bear it, then, finally, she rolls onto her front and slips a pillow under her hips.

      ‘Fuck me.’

      I realise, as I come, gasping, inside her, that in the heat of the moment I forgot to use a condom.

      As we lie together afterwards, I stroke her taut belly, so different to Ness’s, which, while I can’t yet feel the bump, is starting to thicken. ‘Oh God, Stell, I’m so sorry.’

      She smiles. ‘Are you really? You said you wanted a baby with me.’

      Before I can reply, she jumps out of bed and heads into the bathroom and I lie there contemplating how I’d cope with both my wife and my lover pregnant. If you sat me down and made me pick one of them at this point, I’m pretty sure I’d pick Ness. Not so much through love but because she’s carrying my child and it’s the right thing to do. Just think of the bad press I’d get for leaving her pregnant. But, wow, if Stell was pregnant too, it would change everything. The thought is both terrifying and and exciting.

      I’m this far into my thoughts when she reappears wrapped in a towel. I watch as she steps back into her clothes. She sits on the edge of the bed as she rolls her stockings back up her legs – usually she makes a show of it for me – it’s often a sticking point that delays my return to the office but today she does it matter-of-factly, turning her body so I can’t see the stretch of her legs as she eases the stockings up her thighs and I wonder if she’s cross with me about the condom; if it’s reminded her of that awful time when we were eighteen. Sometimes she’s so difficult to read. She re-buttons her blouse and slips back into her skirt. Then she stands in front of the mirror and puts her hair back up ready to return to the office. I’m still naked on the bed watching her – drinking her in – my hands behind my head.