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along quietly to ‘You Wear It Well,’ which we both consider one of the best songs ever written. Just as it comes to the chorus for the second time Izzy turns down the volume. I’m about to ask her what she’s doing but something makes me stop.
    ‘Dave,’ she says quietly, ‘I’ve been thinking about kids. And I know that what has happened should make me want to have them more than ever – but it hasn’t. And I have to be honest . . .’ she begins to cry but manages to control herself enough to continue ‘. . . I’m not sure I could go through all this again. I really don’t think I could. I’m sorry if that makes me a coward. I really am. But . . . at least for the foreseeable future, I’d like us to forget about it. I don’t . . . I can’t even think about it if it’s going to fail every time. And before you say it, I know it won’t necessarily happen every time. But even one more time is one time too many.’
    I pull the car over to the side of the road and tell her I understand. I tell her that I, too, am not sure. I tell her I think it would be best for us to forget about having kids for a while.

    silence
    This decision turns out to be a defining moment for Izzy. It’s the moment she lets go of the past and decides to live in the future. It’s the moment she moves on from being just okay to being her old self. Soon everything is back to normal.
    Apart from me.
    While I understand her apprehension about trying for another baby, and while I’m far from sure that I have what it takes to face that kind of disappointment again, the truth is that we’ve come to different conclusions about our future. Right now I want us to have a baby more than anything in the world. I want to be a father. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. And while I’m accomplished at hiding this knowledge from the world at large, it makes me feel a greater sadness and emptiness than I’ve ever known. But I don’t tell Izzy. I don’t tell anyone. It’s going to have to be my secret.

PART TWO
    (November–December 2000)

    People say, ‘All you write is about relationships.’ I’m like, yeah, well, you got anything more interesting? There are a million variations. I could write a million songs about them.

    Aimee Mann, singer–songwriter

worked
    It’s Monday morning, a little before ten o’clock when I settle down at my desk and turn on my computer, listening to its gentle harmonica wheeze of a ‘good morning’. Like all good office workers I have no intention of using it for a good half-hour and have started it up merely to state my intentions to the world that I will be working soon(ish). It’s taken for granted at Louder that we work late, so the boss doesn’t worry too much if we’re not in by ten a.m. – nine times out of ten we’re sleeping off the previous night’s activities (gigs, after-show parties, band showcases) endured in the name of work. I haven’t been on such nocturnal outings for a long while, though. I just haven’t wanted to.
    My usual itinerary for the first half-hour at work is to have breakfast at my desk – a toasted bagel and coffee – then flick through the day’s newspapers, but today the new issue of Louder is in the office so I read that instead – I like to double-check the sections I’ve edited. To my left Bill Reed, Louder ’s features editor, is sitting with his feet up on his desk, listening to an advanced promotional tape of the new Busta Rhymes album on the office hi-fi; to the right of me Jon Cassidy, Louder ’s staff writer, is going through his morning post; and at the desk opposite Mark Attwood, Louder ’s assistant editor, is on the phone arguing with his girlfriend. All of the art department are at their computers at the back of the office; the three members of the production department are at their desks in the middle of the office; and the rest of editorial, Col Campbell, the news editor, and Liam Burke, the junior writer,