by Vivien Brown
She rolled over on the bed and let her face sink into the softness of the pillow. It had been a long and tiring day and she felt inordinately glad that she didn’t have to go out tonight. Jake calling to cancel had come as a welcome relief, her comfy pyjamas holding a lot more appeal than the tight jeans and t-shirt and painful push-up bra she’d lined up for their planned evening at the pub.
There had been a time when not seeing Jake would have hurt. When missing out on his company would have left her feeling abandoned and wondering what he was up to instead. Now she hadn’t even thought to ask. Out of sight, out of mind? A vision of Ollie popped into her head. Ollie without Laura, still hurting, but gradually learning to live without her. What if he finally gave up on Laura altogether and started looking for someone else? What a disaster that would be, just as things were finally looking like they could actually work out for them.
A baby, at last. She could hardly believe it, and the urge to rush straight over and tell her brother had been nagging at her ever since they’d got back from the spa. It was only Laura’s very real threat to disappear if she did that held her back.
As for Jake, well, he was a very different kettle of fish, as her gran would no doubt say. There wasn’t much chance of him pining for her if they split up, not the way Ollie had for Laura. Oh, he’d probably knock back a drink or two, but he did a lot of that anyway. And as for babies … she really couldn’t imagine him as any kind of a father, let alone a willing or doting one.
Jake had been a part of her life for a long time, ever since school, when they’d found themselves unexpectedly kissing in someone’s kitchen at an end-of-term party. Neither of them could quite recall how that had happened, but they’d liked it, or what they could remember of it through the inevitable hangovers that followed, and had both been up for a repeat performance as soon as possible. She hadn’t really looked at anyone else since then, or, she was rather ashamed to say, kissed anyone else either, let alone slept with anyone. She wasn’t absolutely sure that Jake could say the same, but sometimes it was easier not to know.
Did she love Jake? It was a question she tried to avoid thinking about. What they had fell much more into the friends-with-benefits camp than the true-love, everlasting-passion category. She’d watched enough romantic films and read enough Mills and Boon to know that something was missing. No shiver of anticipation ran through her, no spark lit up in her eyes, or in his, for that matter, when he came into a room. But being with Jake was easy. She knew what he was thinking, most of the time anyway. Knew his opinions, his likes and dislikes. She was even able to finish his sentences, the way old married couples do. She was all too familiar with the state of his underwear and the holes in his socks too, and with the little wrinkly bits between his legs where there wasn’t much hair, and with the rather smelly workings of his digestive system after they’d eaten a curry. Maybe this was what marriages were built on, the inside-out knowledge of another person, the everyday mundanity of bodily functions and boxers left on the bathroom floor when they should be in a laundry basket, and not on that elusive heart-stopping desire she would so badly love to feel, even if only the once, just to know what it was really like.
But, at the moment anyway, there was no question of marriage. Well, if there was, it was a question he had never asked. Just the thought of it happening and maybe taking her by surprise one day, Jake on one knee brandishing a ring she’d had no part in choosing, was a worrying one. What would she say if he did? What would everyone else say if he didn’t? These things were expected after a while, weren’t they?
She was so glad she’d resisted moving in with Jake when his flatmate Tony had left. There was something about the timing of it all that had made it pretty obvious that him asking her was a lot more about helping to pay the rent without the hassle of advertising for a replacement than it was about two lovers who couldn’t bear to be apart. Here she had her own space, especially since Ollie had moved out and into the flat when he’d hooked up with Laura. Jenny, who’d shared a room with her for years, had dragged all her belongings across the landing within hours of Ollie leaving and decamped to his old room, which, in the absolute certainty that he had found the love of his life and was never likely to come back, she’d immediately painted pink.
‘Beth?’ Jenny flung the door open now and barged in uninvited. The fact that this was no longer her room seemed not to matter a jot. So much for Beth having her own space. ‘Oh, there you are. Mum wants to know if you want any dinner, seeing as you’re not going out?’
‘What is it?’
‘Some kind of lentil stew, by the look of it. And sweet potatoes.’
Beth wrinkled her nose. The smell of it was already finding its way up the stairs. ‘No, make some excuse for me, will you? Say I’ve got a headache or I’m asleep or something. Not sure I can face all that veggie stuff tonight. I might just slip out for some chips later.’
‘Oooh, really? Can you get me some too? Not too much vinegar. Thanks.’
‘Jenny, can we talk about …’
But before Beth could even finish her sentence her sister was gone again, leaving the bedroom door wide open and the cooking smells drawing closer and closer by the second.
Beth pulled out her mobile and scrolled down to Ollie’s number. She hadn’t spoken to her brother in several days, which she knew was not a good idea. Left too long to his own devices, he was likely to go a bit off the rails again, drinkwise, and knowing what she now did, she couldn’t let that happen. And she needed to make sure he kept away from women too. Laura was the only girl for Ollie. Everyone knew that, and she needed to make it her mission now to keep him on the straight and narrow until Laura was ready to confess all. A father! Okay, so Ollie didn’t know that, and was apparently not allowed to know, but he was going to have to start acting more responsibly, like a good father should. And, while Jenny seemed to have appointed herself Laura’s best friend and guardian of her secret at all costs, it was going to be up to Beth to take Ollie under her wing and make absolutely sure that he did just that. Her nails would have to wait for another night. Mission Ollie came first.
‘Hey, Ollie,’ she said when he picked up. ‘How’s things? Yeah, fine. I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, with nothing but one of Mum’s weird rabbit-food concoctions on offer, so I thought I’d see what you’re up to. I don’t suppose you fancy fish and chips, do you? My treat.’
‘Fine. I don’t have any other plans. Twenty minutes?’ He sounded a bit down. She’d have to fix that.
She pulled on some jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt and checked her purse to make sure she actually had enough cash to pay for the food. The customers had been generous today with the tips but they tended to come mostly in fifty pence pieces. Would the chip shop take that many? She laughed to herself. Money’s money. They’d be unlikely to turn her away, especially once two fat pieces of cod were wrapped and starting to go cold on the counter.
She took a last longing look at the bottle of nail varnish and the pile of DVDs that could have made up her evening and crept down the stairs, slipping into her trainers and grabbing her coat before closing the front door as quietly as she could behind her. She knew what her mum could be like when there was a huge vat of something yellow and close to inedible bubbling on the cooker and not enough people to eat it, and she was definitely not going to get caught.
***
It was a bit chilly to sit eating on a wall outside, but the warmth seeping through the greasy paper onto her hands and the steam rising from the freshly cooked fish soon worked their magic.
‘How’s work?’ Beth found the whole idea of teaching as boring as hell, and knew nothing about sport whatsoever, but she had to at least pretend to be interested.
‘Well, they haven’t found me out yet, if that’s what you mean.’ Ollie blew on a chip and pushed it into his mouth in one piece.
‘That’s not what I meant at all.’
‘Look, Beth …’ He swallowed. ‘I know what you’re as
king. Yes, I still like a drink from time to time. No, I do not have a secret stash in the games cupboard. Well, not any more. And no, I do not drink in working hours. Okay? It’s not as if you don’t like a drop or two yourself. Jenny’s told me about you and the mini-bar. So, what was that all about anyway? Your little trip away.’
Thank God it was dark or he might have seen her blush, and blushing was not something Beth did often. Still, she couldn’t think about the spa break without remembering Laura, all pregnant and pale, and so scared that history was going to repeat itself and another miscarriage was going to happen at any moment. Laura begging them to keep quiet, and threatening all sorts if they didn’t.
She did feel guilty about not telling him. They didn’t have secrets, never had, and just thinking about it was eating her up, but she couldn’t take the risk that Laura meant what she’d said about disappearing and that none of them would ever see her again. At least, this way, there was some chance that everything would work out all right once the baby was born.
‘Earth to Beth! You were miles away there. The spa? I asked what that was all about?’
‘Oh, you know Jenny. It was just a last-minute deal, and she can’t resist a bargain. We did a bit of swimming, lay around a lot, ate way too much salad! And, okay, so I might have enjoyed a bottle or three of wine, but we were on holiday so it doesn’t count.’
‘One rule for you, and another for me, eh? Maybe I should go on a little holiday of my own, pack my case with whisky and get away from you lot nagging me.’
‘We both know you can’t. School rules. You’re trapped until half term, mate, whether you like it or not.’
‘I do like it, actually. Work gives me something to do, something to focus on. I’m not all that fond of my own company. No, I was only joking about a holiday. It’s the last thing I need. That long summer break was not good for me.’
‘We noticed.’
They ate in silence for a while, the breath floating out from their mouths and noses like smoky wisps into the chilly evening air.
‘Anyway,’ Ollie said at last, ‘the Head must think I’m responsible enough. He’s given me a job to do.’
‘You’ve got a job!’
‘I mean a special job, like an extra-curricular task. Not that I had much choice about it, but I intend to take it seriously and give it my best shot. You are now looking at the director of the next school nativity play.’
‘You?’ Beth almost choked on a chip. ‘Directing a play? You’ve never even been to watch one.’
‘Oh, yes, I have, Miss Smartypants. It was Hamlet. Or was it Macbeth?’
‘You can’t even remember which one it was! And it’s hardly the same thing. And, besides, that was years ago, when we were kids. I got out of going. Do you remember? I said I had toothache.’
‘Oh, yeah. Hang on, you said you had toothache? You mean you didn’t really?’
‘Course I didn’t. Shakespeare and me – we don’t get on. Never have. Now, give me The Sound of Music and I’d have been there like a shot.’
Ollie laughed. ‘Since when did you get to be such a good liar?’
If only you knew, Beth thought, turning her head just in case he could see it in her eyes. ‘Only when I really have to be,’ she said, and pushed the last of her fish into her mouth to make sure she wasn’t tempted to say anything else.
Chapter 15
Kate, 1986
I was sitting on an underground train with my thighs squeezed tightly together and my knees shaking, trying so hard not to wet myself that I almost missed my stop. Buildings and trees shot past the grimy windows in a blur, and the man opposite was chewing gum with his mouth slightly open and one foot tapping in time to the rattling noises of the train as it whizzed along the track.
It was one of those days when every detail counts. A day when progress would be checked and decisions would be made. I remember that it was cloudy, that the walk from tube to clinic took exactly seven minutes, that one shoe was rubbing and I was in danger of getting a blister. I even remember what knickers I was wearing. Blue, with lacy edges, and a tiny bow at the waist. I just hoped I could keep them dry long enough to get there.
The clinic was as quiet and calming as ever, all pale walls and deep, plush carpets, hoovered to within an inch of their lives. Nothing like the NHS hospital, with its long corridors and plastic chairs, and that odd smell that seemed to hang around every inch of the place. No, this was how the other half lived. I could so easily get used to private medicine and all the hotel-like luxury that came with it, but I really hoped I wouldn’t have to.
When I emerged from the lift, a few women were sitting silently in a circle around the water dispenser, swigging from throwaway cups like there was no tomorrow. Some had their partners with them, but I wasn’t sure what good they were doing. Nobody spoke. I couldn’t join them. Another twenty seconds and my bladder would be bursting open like Niagara Falls, gallons of water tumbling out and flooding everything in sight. I made it to the pristine white loo just in time to tug my trousers down before it was too late.
‘Just start again, Mrs Campbell,’ the girl at reception said when I reported in. ‘It happens. Rather a lot, believe me! There’s plenty of water. Just drink as much as you can and give me a nod when you’re full up again. You won’t lose your slot, it’ll just be put back a while.’ She pointed me towards the circle of women, and one or two looked up and smiled, but I could tell they were all intent on the same task. Like drivers at a petrol station, all trying to cram just one more drop into the tank before the gauge told them there wasn’t room for more.
I don’t know how long it took me, but I read three magazines from cover to cover while I was waiting. Without so much as a poster on the wall to distract me, and no TV, there was nothing else to do. Women came and went, names were called, doors opened and closed. Who knew a bladder could hold so much?
‘Joanne will see you now, Mrs Campbell. Just through there …’
The scan, when I finally made it through to the inner sanctum, showed a cluster of ripening follicles. I couldn’t pretend to know what a ripe follicle was, but according to Joanne, the sonographer, it was good news. The drugs I’d been sniffing up my nose for the last couple of weeks, and the needles they’d been shoving into my bottom, had done their job. I had eggs! Enough to feed an army, by the look of things. We were almost ready for the next stage now. Collecting them. Visions of farmyard chickens and wicker baskets came to mind, but when Joanne slid the scanner through the jelly on my stomach and pushed just a bit too hard, all thoughts, except where the nearest toilet was, flew out of my head. Niagara was back, with a vengeance.
I was booked in for Tuesday. An early start, with an empty stomach, an anaesthetic, a couple of incisions, and wham! My eggs would be out and raring to go. This felt exciting. Scary as hell, but exciting.
Dan moaned when I told him. Tuesdays were team-meeting mornings, he said, and missing one would not be favourably looked upon. Missing taking me to the clinic and being there when I woke up could look a lot worse, I reminded him. Especially with the marks from my heels embedded, and likely to be stinging like mad for some considerable time, in the middle of his bollocks. And how exactly was he going to supply the necessary sperm if he was ensconced in the boardroom at work?
He wisely decided to call in sick and come with me.
***
It didn’t work, but, of course, you know that. First attempts rarely did, so they told us, but that didn’t make things feel any better. I wonder now if fate was trying to tell us something, to guide our hands. Was that when we should have accepted things as they were and given up? All that ‘playing at God’ stuff was too technical, too scientific, too clinical. I felt uneasy about it. Test tubes were cold glass receptacles. Hard. As hard as having to use them. Not warm flesh, a myriad of cells pulsating, burrowing, nurturing. Test tubes weren’t wombs.
Where was the love, the action of body against body, the tried and trusted method that had seen millions
of women create babies since time began? Sex for us – oh, I know you probably don’t want to hear about that – but sex was becoming an act carried out solely with a purpose in mind, something we only did because there might be an end in sight. But that end was slipping further and further away from us. So, what was the point?
The truth was staring me in the face. We were never going to make a baby on our own. Never.
It was already costing us a fortune, our peace of mind, our sanity. It was straining at the bonds of our marriage, pulling us as tight as an elastic band that could snap at any moment, but I couldn’t let it go. Not now we had come so far. Bang, bang, bang, it kept thumping away at me, like a tiny insistent heartbeat, pounding in my head, in my heart. And, for the first time, I realised just how badly I wanted it. To beat the system, beat the odds, stick two fingers up at my stupid useless body and let science make us a family.
I think I wanted it then much more than Dan did. More than anything in the world. But how much of that was real, and how much simply because it was something I couldn’t have? Because some unseen hand was denying me, pushing me down, and I didn’t want to be pushed?
Was that when I got stubborn, dug my heels in, started throwing my toys out of the pram? I can be such a spoilt brat sometimes.
***
Dan sat at the table with a notepad and a calculator, working out what it had all cost and how on earth we were going to pay the electricity bill, let alone think about trying again. I just sat on the sofa with a hot water bottle and cried.
I’d done my best to make it happen. Lay down for hours, willing the three tiny little embryos they’d picked out as the most likely to succeed to hang on in there and not fall out. Taken leave from work to avoid the stress and the questions and being vertical for any longer than necessary. Had no alcohol, no spicy food and no sex, for almost a fortnight. Prayed to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in, but what was there to lose in doing it anyway? But there was no mistaking the end result. It had failed. I had failed. I was bleeding. A lot.
