Read The Righteous Men (2006) for Free Online

was truly furious.
    He imagined she had acquired this kind of steel as part of her psychological
training: never lose your cool. He admired it in the abstract, but could not
bear to be on the receiving end.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about nothing else for weeks and you “just
realized”. You completely forgot!’ Now the volume was rising. ‘You
had all day—’
    ‘I was working—’
    ‘You’re always working or thinking about work. You don’t even
remember what should be the most important thing in our lives, and I can’t
eat or sleep or shower or do anything without thinking about it.’ Her
eyes were reddening.
    ‘Tell me what they said.’
    ‘You don’t get off that easy, Will. If you wanted to know what
they said, you should have come to the hospital with me. You should have been
there with me.’
    Each of those last four words were heavy as anchors. Of course he should.
How could he have forgotten? It was true what she said: he had thought about
nothing but this story from the moment he woke up.
    He knew he needed to break out of this procedural stage of the conversation
— why had he missed the appointment? — and move fast onto the
substance: what had the doctors said? But how to make the shift? There was only
one person he knew who would instantly understand how to pull off such a
conversational manoeuvre, what psychological trick to play. That person was
Beth.
    ‘Babe, I am completely in the wrong. I can’t believe I missed
that appointment. And I don’t deserve to know what happened. But I really
want to. We will talk about this whole other thing — me obsessing about
work I promise. But, right now, I think you should just tell me what happened.’
    She was sitting now, still holding the wooden spoon. In a barely-audible
whisper, as if the air had been sucked out of her, she finally spoke. ‘They
didn’t examine me; it was just a “chat”. And they said we
should keep trying for another three months before they’ll consider
treatment.’ She sniffed deeply, reaching for a tissue. ‘They said
we are both perfectly healthy, we should give it more time before “taking
the next step”.’
    ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ said Will, half-aware
that this was a tactical error — the premature move into cheer-up mode before
the silent, listening phase was complete. Rationally, he knew that what Beth
needed most was to talk, to get it all out. Not to have to argue, explain or
defend anything. He knew that in his head, but his mouth had had different
ideas, instantly wanting to make things better.
    ‘No, as it happens, I don’t think it is good news, Will. I don’t
think it’s good news at all. It just makes it more fucking mysterious. If
my eggs are so perfect and your sperm is so fucking tip-top, why the hell CAN’T
WE HAVE A BABY?’
    She threw the wooden spoon at the wall, where it splattered tomato sauce
into a Jackson Pollock pattern, turned and fled for the bedroom. Will chased
her, but she slammed the door. He could hear her crying.
    How could he have screwed up so badly? He had promised they would go to the
clinic together, that he would take an hour or two out during the afternoon.
Instead he had gone to work and clean forgot about everything else for the rest
of the day. He had even sent a BlackBerry message about work — to Beth at
the time of the appointment. He knew what his psychologist wife thought. That
he was throwing himself into his career to avoid dealing with the real issue:
four years of marriage, two years of unprotected sex and one year of serious ‘trying’
— and still Beth was not pregnant. Will knew it looked like that, but she
was wrong.
    This was not some new phase. He had always been ambitious.
    Even at college, he had worked hard: when he was not editing Cherwell he was trying to hawk tales of university life to Fleet Street. That was what
he was like.
    The phone rang.
    ‘Will?’
    ‘Oh, hi, Dad.’
    ‘I was just calling to see if you enjoyed the