Page 75 of One Night With You

‘When’s she due?’

‘May.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah. Soon.’

Ruby pulls a face, and then looks sad. Every time I think she sounds like she’s erring on the it-isn’t-a-big-deal side of things, suddenly I’m not so sure. She doesn’t have to be involved at all. I can separate church and state. But if she wants to be involved that’s cool too. It’s a lot, but why not? People have unusual and strange set-ups all the time. Who is to say I can’t figure out being a parent at the same time as starting a relationship? This is the Twenty-Twenties. Anything goes.

‘My stepmother never really liked me and my sister,’ Ruby announces. ‘And we knew it. I always hated Dad for marrying somebody who didn’t want us around. It’s like when it came down to it, when he had to choose a side, he picked her, not us. And that was a really shitty feeling.’

I don’t speak.

‘You’re a good guy, Nic,’ she says. ‘And you won’t ever make the shitty choice – I know you won’t.’

‘Ruby …’ I begin, but I don’t know what I’m hoping to say next.

‘Do you know what catapulted me into this Year of Me thing?’ she says, rhetorically, holding up a hand to signal I need to let her finish. ‘It was finishing with Abe, yes, but the reason I finally had the strength to end it with him was because I had a miscarriage.’

‘Oh, Ruby,’ I say. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

She’s staring at a spot on the floor, just beyond our knees. She doesn’t look up at me.

‘I hated myself for months afterwards. But not because I lost it – I hated myself for months because I was secretly pleased that I hadn’t had to make a choice. I knew that I was half-living up to my potential and calling it my twenties, calling it fun, calling it just-what-you-do when you live in London, in a big city, with your friends and get drunk and do stupid things and all of that. But then miscarrying right before I turned thirty and realising that it was a fucking close call? That was awful,’ she says. ‘It was a shock to the system, likewake up! Go and do something with your wild and precious days!I realised what I want to do is make art, and live on my own terms. I’ve never even had to talk to a partner about building a future because I’ve never had a partner I was building something with. But if I was to put a stake in the ground now, it would be: I don’t want children, I don’t even know if I believe in marriage. But I do believe in myself, and the stories I want to tell, and that deciding to take myself and those dreams seriously is the most important thing to have ever happened to me. What happened yesterday, in Paris – meeting JP and chronicling his story. That’s made me even more sure. It makes me feel more alive than anything in the world.’

‘Can’t this be different?’ I venture. ‘This isn’tyourbaby. I’m not asking you to stay home and warm my slippers by the fire and cook my dinner. I’m not like that.’

‘You’re not listening,’ she counters.

‘I am!’ I say. ‘You don’t want kids! That’s okay! I don’t even know if I want kids!’

‘But youarehaving one,’ she says, kindly. She’s not angry. ‘And you’ll be magnificent. You’ll be thoughtful and patient and you’ll build a life that works for you both, and I can’t be in that. I’ll be with a video camera and a boom mic in a forest somewhere, or on the beaches of Seville, or on a rig off the Atlantic. And even if I’m not, even if I never leave Manchester again, I know that when I see you …’

‘It’s not going to be for soft play and bath time.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Two paths diverged in a wood,’ she whispers, ‘And we took a different one each.’

‘You say yesterday with JP has made you feel more connected to storytelling than ever before, but what about real life? Didn’t yesterday prove that when you find your person you don’t let anything get in the way?’

‘JP had a beautiful life,’ Ruby says. ‘Seeing Amelie again would have been the cherry on top.’

‘I’m just a cherry?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘You’re wonderful. But you can be wonderful and it still not be right. I won’t make you choose between me and your daughter. My own father did that and made the wrong choice.’

I think about what she’s saying. For a brief second, I wonder what it would be like to not be involved with my kid at all. To leave Millie and her boyfriend to it. But then just as quickly, I know I’ll never do that. A future I didn’t plan for is coming for me, but it’s a future I won’t run from.

‘I don’t want to stop you from having everything you want,’ I say.

‘I don’t want to hold you back either,’ she replies, and we stare at each other sadly.

‘I really am sorry about what happened to you. The miscarriage.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’ve made peace with it now. I’m okay.’

She reaches out for my hand and kisses my knuckles, in the way that she does. As it happens, I already miss it.

‘So this is it?’ I say. ‘It’s so unfair. I didn’t ask for any of this. I’ve had ten minutes of knowing what it’s like to fall into something fucking brilliant, like the stuff they write the songs about, and now, because of something that happened before we even met, we have to break up? I really do have to choose?’

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