by Frances Pye
“Oh, Jules.” Terry ached for her friend. But she knew this wasn’t the way to solve her problem. “Lily, you can’t think this is okay?”
“Well…”
“Mara?”
“If it’s what Jules wants…”
“Thank you, Mara. At least someone understands.”
“Oh, I understand, Jules. I do. I just think…” Terry was ready to carry on trying to persuade her friend that she was wrong until a glimpse of the other woman’s determined face made her stop in midsentence. Clearly, Jules’s mind was made up and no amount of persuasion was going to change it. Particularly not from Terry. She shrugged her shoulders, poured herself some more champagne, and took a long sip.
“So I need your advice. What do you think? Do I get the necessary from a sperm bank? Or the Internet?” Jules looked around at her friends expectantly.
“That’s the choice?” asked Lily.
“Yes.”
“Both seem a bit cold. Couldn’t you find a…a donor? Someone you know? I’m sure Jake would have said a baby deserved something more personal.” Mara and her husband had had the usual range of good and bad times, the usual highs and lows, but since his death she had suppressed all her negative memories, instead exaggerating everything positive until she saw him as the perfect, irreplaceable man. Whose judgment was to be trusted on all things.
“Who, Mara?”
“I don’t know. Someone. Just so it’s not so clinical.”
“I can see me walking up to some man and asking him to kindly give of his sperm. Or inquiring politely of some woman if I could borrow her husband for a night. It’s a lovely idea and I might even get a bit of sex out of it, but it’s not practical.”
“What’s the difference? You know, between the bank and the Internet?” asked Lily.
“The sperm banks vet the men who go to them. They take personal histories and things like that. On the Internet it seems to be about looks. You get a picture and little else. Mind you, they’re all gorgeous. Six feet, blond hair, blue eyes.”
“They would be.” It didn’t happen often, but Mara could be acerbic, especially when it came to stereotyping.
“So what do you all think?”
“Sperm bank. Definitely,” said Lily. “You get what you want right then and there. No complications.”
“If that’s the choice. Yes. I would say sperm bank.”
The three turned to look at Terry. She shrugged and managed to smile at Jules. Ultimately, this was her call. And if she was that determined to have a baby alone, Terry needed to support her, not quarrel with her. “Sperm bank,” she said.
LILY HUMMED softly as she stacked the white porcelain plates in the dishwasher. The kitchen felt cool and shadowy after the bright sun outside.
“Someone sounds happy.” Terry was a dark outline against the light flooding through the French windows. She walked into the room, strolled over to the double, extra-wide steel sinks, and put the stack of dishes piled in her hands down on the counter. A second later, she was followed by Mara and Jules carrying glasses and mugs. Minnie dashed in after them and began circling their legs, hoping for a treat or two.
Terry looked over at Lily. “If I was a betting woman, I’d lay money our Lils had a good time at that wedding yesterday.”
Lily glanced at her friends, smiled smugly, and said nothing.
“I thought you’d taken a leaf out of Terry’s book and given men up for a while.” Jules cut up a bit of leftover roast lamb on a plate and put it on the floor for an ecstatic Minnie.
“All boring things must come to an end.”
“Lily, you cow, how could you keep this a secret? Why didn’t you tell us the moment we got here?” demanded Terry.
“More important, who is he?” Jules asked.
Terry went to the fridge and pulled out a chilled bottle of Möet. “This calls for another drink.” She popped the cork, rummaged in a cupboard for some clean glasses, and poured.
“Okay. What’s his name?” Terry looked over at Lily.
“Sean.”
“To Sean, everyone.” Terry raised her glass and took a sip. Jules and Lily joined her. “To Sean.” Mara left her glass on the stainless-steel counter where Terry had put it.
“Where did you meet him?” Jules wanted to know.
“What’s he do?” asked Terry. Probably another film director. Or, worse, an actor.
“Oh, who cares. What does he look like?” Jules cut to the chase.
“Hey. One at a time. I met him at George’s wedding. He’s a builder. And he’s stunning. Gray eyes. Dark hair. Muscles forever.”
“Gosh, you don’t suppose he’d like to give me some sperm?” Jules said, laughing.
“Did he go for the deal?” Terry asked.
“Sure did. Couple of nights a week, no more. No commitment. No moving in together or partners or marriage.”
“What do you think? Will he last?” asked Jules.
“Yeah, is it going to be thirteenth time lucky?”
“Terry! You’ve been keeping count? It can’t be thirteen, can it?”
“Just a guess. Now, what sign is he?” Terry hoped he was a Sagittarian. Or even a Scorpio. A powerful, freedom-loving man to balance her friend’s strong Leo nature.
“You and your astrology. I didn’t think to ask him. Hard for me to understand right now, but strangely it wasn’t the main thing on my mind.” Lily grinned at Terry and her obsession.
“So will it? Work, I mean?” Jules asked.
“Who knows. Probably not. But I’ll have fun finding out.”
“Poor thing.” Mara had been silent up until now. Though she understood Lily’s desire to be free, she couldn’t help but feel for all the discarded men.
Terry, Jules, and Lily looked affectionately at their empathetic friend. “Now, don’t get all softhearted. I never lie to them. And they agree to the deal. If they don’t, I don’t see them anymore. Simple as that.”
“It’s just…”
“Just sex. That’s all.”
Mara looked unhappy but said nothing more. She’d tried before to tell them why this all made her feel so uncomfortable but hadn’t managed to get her point across. Maybe, if Lily couldn’t see why there was no such thing as just sex, there was no way she was going to be able to explain it, no matter how hard she tried.
eight
Mara was in her long, thin, brick-walled back garden, diligently weeding her serried rows of carrots and onions and potatoes. After Jake’s death, she’d had very few options. No income, no savings, no qualifications, and so no real prospect of a job that would pay her more than minimum wage. She’d found work five mornings a week as a cleaner—Chiswick was full of wealthy families eager to have their chores done for them—which allowed her to be there for the girls when they came home from school, and with the most stringent economies managed to keep her head above water. Just. But there was no room for luxuries. Keen to conceal her desperate poverty from Moo and Tilly, she had looked for ways to make them see their lack of fashionable clothes and foreign holidays as a challenge rather than a problem, had made a game of the leaking roof, had discovered an aversion to eating expensive meat and dug up the back garden to grow free vegetables.
She was picking the last of this year’s string beans when she heard the electronic tones of the first few bars of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” It had been Jake’s idea and it still made her smile. Even though her supposed optimism often seemed to have died with her husband. She pulled off her ancient gloves, wiped her small hands on a scrap of old towel, and hurried into the house. Who could it be at eleven o’clock on a Wednesday?
She opened the door to see an undersize man in a pale blue short-sleeved shirt holding a pile of letters. The postman. It had been so long since she’d had anything sent to her that wouldn’t fit through the post box, she almost hadn’t recognized him.
“Hello, Mrs. Moore. Long time no see. Got some registered mail for you. Sign here.” He handed her a wh
ite envelope and a form. She scrawled her name at the bottom and passed it back.
“Thanks. Hope it’s money, eh? See you.” And he was off, whistling, up the street.
Mara looked at the envelope. It had “Private and Confidential” printed on one side and the address on the rear flap said it had come from Barton, Kirkwood, and Ridgeman, a firm of solicitors based in Bedford Square.
What did a lawyer want with her? Worried, she closed the door, tore open the envelope, and pulled out its contents. There was a three-page, closely typed letter signed by a John Ridgeman. She flipped through it and spotted her name. And the Moores’. Now scared, she focused on the letter. Certain words and phrases jumped out at her: “Gross moral turpitude,” “Immoral earnings,” “Unfit mother,” “Unsuitable accommodation,” “Application for full custody.” The Moores were threatening to take her to court to get the girls.
This was Mara’s worst nightmare coming true. She’d always been afraid it might come to this, but she’d hoped that her letting Moo and Tilly spend a lot of time with their grandparents would be enough to satisfy the Moores. But it hadn’t been. As soon as Jake’s parents had glimpsed a chance, they’d gone on the attack and found out about her past. It probably hadn’t been hard; if they’d hired a detective all he would have had to do was find one of her old clients willing to talk. Or speak to any of her old neighbors.
When she’d started on the game, she’d been twenty-one. Living alone in a bedsit in South London, struggling to afford the rent. Sharing the house in Kentish Town with her friends had lasted about eighteen months; after that they had all gone their own ways. They’d still seen each other regularly, had remained close, but no longer lived together. Lily was married, Jules just starting her own party-planning business, Terry balancing being a bus driver with looking after Paul. Mara was the only one who had stayed still. For five years, she had lived on what she could make from ill-paid jobs. She’d been a barmaid, a waitress, a cleaner, a chambermaid—all the positions where qualifications were unnecessary and the wages below poverty level. Then, she’d met Mrs. Grenville.
She’d been working behind the counter of a corner shop, filling in for a few months while the owner’s wife was having their third baby. She hadn’t thought anything of the middle-aged woman with crimped gray curls when she’d first served her. Just another customer buying milk and cigarettes. But as the weeks passed and she saw her more and more, they began to talk. Later, Mara realized that Mrs. Grenville had been the one asking the questions and she the one answering them, but at the time she was just grateful for what seemed like genuine human contact in the in-and-out, here-and-gone shop.
When the owner’s wife was about to return to work, Mrs. Grenville had offered Mara a job. She had jumped at it without asking what it was; anything that would stop her being out of work again, pounding the streets to find another position before the rent was due. When she found out what she was expected to do, she knew she should turn it down immediately and walk away, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She was so tired of the gray slog of days spent serving cold, greasy burgers, of evenings pulling pints in stale, smoky pubs, of mornings cleaning grubby rooms in shabby hotels that being a call girl didn’t seem all that bad. Mrs. Grenville was offering her security, money, and an unexpected but welcome sense of approval. So long as she did what was asked of her, she was accepted by the madam and even, in an odd way, loved.
Mrs. Grenville found the clients, rich, generous, lonely men who were more often than not charming to Mara. They would take her out to dinner and then on to expensive hotels or luxury flats for the night and send her away in the morning with a large tip on top of what they had already agreed to pay.
Mara’s only experience of sex before working for Mrs. Grenville had been when she was raped at fifteen. Though almost every male she’d met since then had asked her out, she’d turned them all down. She wasn’t interested in men or sex. And that made what she had to do with her clients strangely inoffensive. Here was no violence, no pain, no struggle fought and lost. Instead, it was a transaction, pure and simple. She had something to sell, they wanted to buy.
She knew it was illegal, that most people would call it immoral, and that in the end, a call girl was no more than an expensive prostitute, but it was so easy. Although she’d never been able to lie with a straight face, after some coaching from Mrs. Grenville, she found she was able to fake desire and pretend enjoyment without any trouble. Perhaps because she had never experienced real lovemaking, what she was doing didn’t seem dishonest.
However, she was reluctant to spend the thousands she was earning every week. Making money in that way was one thing, using it to indulge herself another. She rented a small, comfortable one-bedroom flat in Little Venice, looking out on the canals, bought the expensive clothes needed to accompany her clients out to restaurants and clubs, but put the rest of the proceeds in the bank. And she kept her new profession a secret from her friends.
Jake had been the driver for one of her regular clients. One night he’d picked her up from Mrs. Grenville’s to take her to his employer and started talking to her. First, she’d ignored him, suspicious of his motives. Men who knew what she did for a living tended to presume she was there for the taking. But as the months passed and he continued to come and collect her for his boss, she was won over. Mostly by his lack of assumptions—he seemed not to expect anything from her. He was charming but never aggressive. He never made a pass. Was never suggestive. Instead, he was a generous and open person. Not particularly bright, not especially handsome, but seriously sweet.
After months and months of talking in the car, Jake asked her out for coffee on an evening off. She accepted. The next time, they went for a drink, then for dinner. And then again. And again. The tenth time, Jake produced an engagement ring and asked her to marry him. Mara was shattered. She’d had no idea that Jake felt like that about her. No one felt like that about her.
She’d thought being a call girl hadn’t affected her. But when Jake stammered out his offer, the strength of her shocked reaction told her she’d been wrong. Selling herself to hundreds of men had made her believe that she deserved no better. Now Jake was saying that she had as much right to be happy as anyone else. That she was worthy of love. His love. After she managed to stop crying, she accepted his offer.
They married three weeks later, just a quiet ceremony, only Jules and Terry and Lily there for Mara and Jake’s disapproving parents for him. And then they moved into the little house they’d bought with her immoral earnings. Mara had been worried about the sex, scared that after all her experience, Jake would feel like just another client. But the moment he got into bed with her, she’d known the difference. The years of selling her body had been fake. An emotionless, perfectly tuned, but empty performance with the pleasure all on one side. Jake was real.
Seven years later, Mara opened the door in the middle of the night to two policemen, one male, one female. Her first thought was that they must have made a mistake, gone to the wrong house. Then one of them, the woman, she thought afterward, although she could never remember, asked her if she knew a Mr. Jake Moore. Immediately she understood. She didn’t need them to tell her. She knew what a visit from the police in the middle of the night meant. Jake was dead.
He’d been coming back down the motorway after his famous pop-star client decided to stay in Manchester; an SUV had skidded into him at high speed, sending him crashing into the massive lorry in front. The following day, the newspapers were full of the star’s miraculous escape. Leather-clad and handsome, he was interviewed on daytime TV, talking about making the decision to stay in the north. About his near-brush with death. A few papers mentioned Jake, in passing, but none of them talked about his wife mourning at home, or his daughters, who had lost their father.
Mara was beyond feeling resentment about that. Or much of anything apart from grief. Every part of her longed to curl up in a small dark place and hide, to try desperately to pretend that it hadn’t h
appened, but she couldn’t, she had Moo and Tilly to think about. Someone had to look after them, to love them, to make sure they weren’t harmed by the loss of their father. So she just concentrated on moving forward. Doing the next thing that was needed. Telling the girls. Arranging the funeral. The day-to-day business of parenthood.
She clung to the idea of Moo and Tilly. She had loved them before Jake’s death; afterward, she needed them. Because despite what had happened, despite her despair at losing Jake, they made sure that there was still joy in her life. How could there not be when she had them? When she had the pleasure of seeing them grow and change and develop into individuals in their own right? When she saw their curiosity about their world and their delight in every new thing they saw or read or experienced? When they both tried so hard to cheer her up?
Shaking, Mara stumbled over to her old, shabby couch and slumped into it, the Moores’ letter still clutched in her right hand. She couldn’t manage without the girls. She couldn’t. They were her connection to sanity, her reason to carry on, her saving grace. Her living, breathing link to Jake.
And the Moores wanted to take them away.
nine
Dressed in her turquoise and gray aerobics teacher’s outfit, Lily left the set to the sound of the audience’s laughter. Thank God, it had gone okay. Charlie, the producer, gave her a quick hug.
“Pickups?” she asked, wondering if there was anything the director thought needed doing again.
“Not in your scenes.”
Lily grinned. That was a relief. Drenched with sweat, she was desperate for a shower. No matter what she did, the lights always beat her. She probably smelled like a ferret with a hangover. With a quick wave at Charlie and a smile for the floor manager as he walked out onstage to tell the audience what was going to happen next, she slipped away, around the back of the set.
