21 Miles. Jessica Hepburn

If you’ve got them, you’ll know.

      Never feeling like a real woman because you can’t do what every other woman seemingly finds so easy to do;

      Never being able to feel happy for someone when they announce they’re pregnant without feeling sad for yourself at the same time;

      Never being able to admit that you’ve been in the loo crying about it because you don’t want people to pity you;

      Never being invited to a baby shower, christening or children’s party without it hurting;

      Never not being invited to a baby shower, christening or children’s party because people are trying to spare your feelings without that hurting even more;

      Never being able to make a pregnancy announcement to your family and friends and have them throw their arms around you in warm congratulations;

      Never being able to legitimately eat for two or buy a cool maternity dress or go into a bookstore and buy What to Expect When You’re Expecting (although I did once and then I miscarried and felt like a fraud);

      Never feeling the first kick of life inside you;

      Never being able to say, ‘I think my waters have broken’, or ‘Bring me gas and air.’ Is that what people really say? Never knowing that;

      Never having a baby placed on your chest and saying ‘hello’ for the first time;

      Never being able to breastfeed and use your body for what it was built for;

      Never being able to write an ‘out of office’ that says ‘I’m away on maternity leave’;

      Never being able to see your child’s first steps;

      Or first words;

      Or first day at school;

      Or first anything;

      Never being able to share these things with your friends, and growing distant because of it;

      Never seeing someone else’s photos of their children on Facebook without wishing you had photos to post too;

      Never hearing anyone call you ‘Mum’

      That’s the pain of never.

      –––––

      Later in the day, when I’m back at my desk eating lunch, checking my emails and feeling good that I won the War of the Tiles, I overhear some colleagues chatting. Someone they know parachuted out of a plane over the weekend to raise money for Cancer Research. Everyone starts comparing personal fundraising challenges. Someone says they want to run the London Marathon next year; someone else wants to walk the Coast to Coast.

      ‘Hey, Jessica,’ they shout across the room. ‘What would you do for charity?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never done a sponsored anything.’

      ‘You should do a sponsored swim,’ someone says.

      Everyone laughs.

      ‘Pardon?’ I say, my mouth full of ham and cheese.

      ‘A few lengths up and down the pool, surely you could manage that?’

      Everyone laughs again.

      ‘What’s so funny?’ I say. It’s true I’ve never been known for my athletic prowess and I don’t look good in a swimming costume, but who does?

      For the rest of the afternoon I can’t get the conversation out of my head. It’s reminded me that several years ago, when Peter and I were away on holiday after another IVF failure, I’d started a new list book: my Bucket List Book. Top of the first page was ‘Become a mother’. But there were other things on the list as well. Positioned between ‘Get a cat’ and ‘Learn to stand on my head’, I’d written something down that had been a long-forgotten childhood dream. I hadn’t thought about it for nearly thirty years when I wrote it and, if I’m honest, I hadn’t thought about it again since. If number one on my bucket list had come to fruition, then it would probably have been consigned to list history.

      Yet in that moment, on Blue Monday afternoon, as everyone laughs, it suddenly comes back to me. It’s big. It’s not the sort of thing you could do with a toddler in tow.

      That will teach them, I think.

      I pick up the phone to call Peter. And then I remember. I’m not allowed to here. He doesn’t want to be in this story.

      Horizontal Walking

      ‘Hi, is that John?’ I say into the receiver.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I found your details on the internet. I was wondering whether you might be able to help me?’

      ‘I’ll try,’ he says gamely. His voice is positively plummy.

      I take a moment before speaking.

      ‘I think I want to swim the English Channel …’

      ‘Do you?’ he says. ‘What makes you think that?’

      ‘It’s a childhood dream,’ I say and then add: ‘Turned mid-life crisis.’

      He breaks into a chuckle. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?’ he says.

      ‘Forty-three.’

      ‘And are you a swimmer?’

      ‘Well, I can swim. I wouldn’t call myself a swimmer.’

      ‘Did you swim competitively as a child? For your county or a club?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Have you ever done any open-water swimming before?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well, how many times a week do you swim?’

      I pause, wondering whether this is the sort of moment that justifies a fib. I don’t want him to write me off already, but since I started trying to get pregnant I’ve all but given up exercise. There’s a theory that doing too much isn’t helpful when trying to conceive and, whilst I don’t think this means you’re supposed to abandon it altogether, up against all the other things you’re told to give up – alcohol, coffee, etc. – this wasn’t a hard one for me. In fact, it was really rather easy. I’ve never been very good at sport, and the only thing I really like about exercising is feeling virtuous when it’s over. At school, I was the sort of person who had to suffer the ignominy of being last to be picked for the rounders team. But I did enjoy swimming when I was a child, and not just because we always went to McDonald’s on the way home. For years I attended a swimming class on a Wednesday night at the Prince of Wales Road baths in Kentish Town. The instructor, Max, in his black trunks and red terry-towelling T-shirt, would line us all up along the pool in speed order. I was always towards the back. Everyone used to joke that my best stroke was breaststroke legs.

      Then one day, when I didn’t get into the school swimming team (again), I found myself consoling my dad. It was always harder managing his disappointment than my own, so I told him that it didn’t matter that I hadn’t got in, because one day I was going to swim the Channel instead. I think I must have read about someone doing it in a newspaper, and I figured you didn’t need to be fast to swim all the way to France – you just needed to be able to keep going. I’ve always been good at keeping going. That’s probably why I’ve done eleven rounds of IVF. (Yes, that’s right, eleven. I didn’t want to mention the number before because I thought it might appal you.)

      I refocus my thoughts on the question at the other end of the phone line. ‘Maybe once a week,’ I say and then add, ‘on average.’

      This is a semi-fib. I can up my average if I include holidays, but it’s probably more like once a month (if that). Sometimes I don’t even swim between holidays.

      ‘Can