Book of Lost Threads

by Tess Evans

  As none of them actually fell in love with him (or he with them), it seemed only fair to share him around. Most of his women eventually went on to marry lesser but more accessible men. Of the remainder, two never married: one entered a convent, and the other disappeared into the black hole of the Murdoch newspaper empire from whence she later emerged as a waspish commentator on other people’s sex lives.

  The problem with all this female attention was a lack of ready cash to fund his exploits. Michael had a bursary that paid for his books, his scientific calculator and some of his rent, and to supplement this, four nights a week he stacked supermarket shelves for twelve dollars an hour, earning just enough cash to cover the rest of his living expenses. As a consequence, he often had to leave his paramours alone in their beds as he dived into his clothes and hurried to rendezvous with laundry detergent, baked beans, tomato sauce, Tim Tam biscuits and bonus-sized bottles of Coke. There was no doubt that money was short, but somehow he always found a way.

  ‘Hey, Phil, can you lend us a couple of dollars?’ he asked his housemate one day.

  Phil looked up from his newspaper. ‘Pushing your luck, mate. I only have six dollars fifty till I’m paid and you still owe me twenty bucks from last week.’

  ‘Is that a yes or a no?’ Michael had a happy knack of ignoring what he didn’t want to hear. Getting no reply, he began to compile a shortlist of those he hadn’t borrowed from recently. The list was very short indeed. He was close to despair when Phil came over with his newspaper. It was the official student publication, Vox Discipuli.

  ‘Get a look at this, Mike. A job made just for you. Listen: Part-time position. Earn up to $10,000. Applications are invited from males between the ages of twenty-two and thirty. They must be tall and fair, in good health and with an exceptionally high IQ. Special skill in science or maths preferred. Please send CV, academic transcript and two recent photographs (full-length and head shot) to PO Box OIV, GPO, Melbourne. Applications close 24 June. There! What do you reckon? Up to ten thousand dollars, it says. Ten thousand dollars, mate.’

  Michael looked at the advertisement. ‘What do you reckon you’d have to do? It doesn’t say here.’

  ‘Model?’

  ‘Why would they need an academic transcript?’

  ‘Call boy? For super-intelligent females?’

  ‘I could be their man.’

  ‘It might be ASIO, wanting you to seduce enemy scientists.’

  ‘Dangerous blonde Russian babes. Just my type.’

  ‘Go for it, brother.’

  So it was that a few days later, Michael found himself knocking on the door of a very nice house in a very nice suburb. He had received a letter inviting him for an interview and he presented himself punctually.

  The door was answered by a serious-looking young woman in jeans and a neat T-shirt. She was petite, but her voice was that of a much bigger woman: the sort of voice that usually issues from a broad chest; the sort of voice that suggests confidence and authority. He was startled to hear it coming from such a small frame.

  ‘Michael Clancy? I’m Linsey Brookes. Come in.’

  Linsey led him into a small sitting room and he lowered himself gingerly into one of the elegant little chairs as she dashed away down the hall, telling him she wouldn’t be long. He tried to lean back in the chair, but it was impossible to sit any way but straight. He looked around, trying to ignore the gilt curlicues abrading his spine. What struck him most about the room was its order—its uncompromising symmetry, its matching fabrics, its clear preference for right angles. It was a room that strove to keep you in your place and it rigidly resisted Michael’s sudden desire to move the coffee table to a forty-five-degree angle—or, better still, seventeen degrees. Squirming like a schoolboy in the frost of its disapproval, he wished he had worn a subversive red shirt just for the joy of alarming its smug colour scheme and prim furniture. By the time Linsey returned, he was feeling resentful and sullen.

  ‘Follow me,’ she said, and led him to a dining room where another woman sat with her head bent over some papers she was reading. Linsey indicated a chair, and Michael found himself sitting opposite the two women. It didn’t quite feel like a job interview—but then he didn’t have much experience to go by.

  Linsey introduced the other woman as Amy Sinclair. He realised now she was somewhat older than him—Around thirty, he estimated. But what an incredible . . .

  Amy stood to greet him, taking his hand in cool fingers. Like Michael, she was tall and blonde with blue eyes fringed by impossibly dark lashes. Her face was heart-shaped and her mouth generous. He stole a glance at her breasts. Two perfect curves rose from her soft V-necked sweater. Things are looking up, Michael reflected, reluctantly adjusting his gaze to the table and what he realised was his résumé.

  ‘I see you’re an Aquarian,’ Amy noted, glancing at the résumé. ‘That’s a good start.’

  Linsey frowned. ‘But hardly a clincher, Amy.’ She turned to Michael. ‘You seem to meet most of our requirements, but can you be discreet?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And reliable? Are you reliable?’

  ‘Discreet and reliable. That’s me. Anyone will tell you.’

  ‘Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of being able to ask anyone. Your academic and work records seem to speak for your reliability, and you were on time today. Discretion, now. That’s another thing altogether.’ Her dark brows, winged at the outer tips, swooped together. ‘Can you give us an example of your ability to be discreet?’

  Michael was unsettled by Linsey’s keen stare. He gained some time by moving his chair closer to the table and folding his arms thoughtfully. Then he brightened. ‘I never discuss the girls I sleep with.’ This was true. He felt a strange delicacy about discussing his conquests, a courtesy not returned to him by the conquests themselves, who never tired of discussing him.

  Linsey smiled grimly. ‘Unusually discreet, for a man,’ she said. ‘Tell me, are your parents and grandparents still alive?’

  ‘My parents are, but I only have one grandparent.’

  ‘And how did the others, er, die?’

  ‘You want to know how my grandparents died? What sort of job is this?’

  Book of Lost Threads Linsey looked severely over her pointed little nose. ‘You can leave now if you wish. When we have satisfied ourselves as to your suitability, we’ll explain further.’

  Amy said nothing, but managed to look both charming and concerned.

  What did I have to lose? Michael asked Phil later. Nothing at all, mate, said Phil.

  Michael explained that his maternal grandparents had been killed in a train crash in India. ‘They liked to travel,’ he said, noting the approving nods. His father’s father had died recently, at the age of seventy-five. ‘Lung cancer. He was a smoker.’

  ‘You don’t smoke, do you? We don’t want a smoker.’

  Michael told his first lie. ‘No. Never seen the sense in it,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘What with Grandad and all.’

  ‘Do your parents keep good health? No chronic illnesses or allergies?’

  The second lie was easy. Phil had coached him on this point. With job interviews, you tell ’em what they want to hear. ‘Nope. Both disgustingly healthy.’ His mother’s asthma was hardly worth mentioning, so he didn’t.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Clancy. We’ll be in touch in the next few days.’

  That night, Michael and Phil speculated over a bottle of rough red. Two bottles, in fact. The best theory they could come up with was that he was to be part of some sort of scientific experiment.

  ‘No, it makes sense, mate,’ Phil argued. They had already agreed that this was the best explanation, but Phil had reached the stage of drunkenness where he sensed that the brilliance of his logic was best demonstrated by reiteration. He counted off on his fingers. ‘You have to agree, mate: one, there’s the health questions, b, there’s the academic stuff, and four, there’s the . . .

  other stuff.’
<
br />   ‘You’re so right, mate.’

  Three days later a call came from Linsey. ‘You are the successful candidate,’ she announced. ‘Can you come and see us again? We have a proposition to put to you.’

  ‘Cool. They’re going to proposition you,’ Phil chortled gleefully.

  ‘I’d better wear my red shirt then,’ said Michael. ‘They might as well know what they’re getting.’

  As before, Linsey answered the door. This time she took him straight into the dining room, where Amy was sitting with a third woman.

  Linsey nodded in her direction. ‘Our lawyer, Sally Grainger. Sally, this is Michael Clancy.’

  ‘Lawyer?’ Michael felt at a distinct disadvantage.

  Sally, plump and middle-aged, looked more like his Aunty Joan than a lawyer. To complete the impression, she smiled reassuringly, her small eyes almost disappearing as she squinted at him through her reading glasses. ‘Don’t worry, Michael. You can certainly have your own lawyer. In fact, I strongly advise that you do.’

  ‘We’ll pay, of course,’ said Amy hastily. ‘All expenses will be paid.’ Her smile was accompanied by the most charming of dimples, and Michael, who had half-risen from his seat, sat down abruptly.

  ‘I think it’s time you told me what this is all about.’ He frowned, hoping he sounded more resolute than he felt.

  Sally and Amy smiled. Linsey tapped impatient fingers on the table. ‘Sally? It’s best you explain as we agreed.’

  ‘I hope you understand that what I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential.’

  Michael nodded, but this clearly wasn’t enough.

  ‘I must have your word. This will be a verbal contract until the formal one is signed.’

  ‘You can trust me,’ he replied. ‘I give you my word.’ And he meant it. Michael Clancy didn’t give his word lightly.

  ‘Very well. Amy and Linsey, as you have probably guessed, are in a lesbian relationship.’

  Michael hadn’t guessed or even suspected, but he nodded gravely, one part of his brain trying to remember if there were signs he had missed. The other part continued to listen to Sally who was explaining in her brisk lawyer’s voice.

  ‘They want a child, but don’t want a man—how can I put it?—too intimately involved in the process. In short, they hope to become pregnant with your sperm, using artificial insemination.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Michael. Then again, ‘oh,’ followed by an ‘um’.

  The lawyer slid a document out of the folder in front of her and continued: ‘A contract has already been drawn up. You supply the sperm at the time Amy is ovulating. You must do this for at least ten cycles in the next twelve months. For this, you will be remunerated: five hundred dollars each month with an additional five thousand dollars if a pregnancy occurs. You will sign an agreement not to have any contact with the child, and for their part, Amy and Linsey will forgo any call on you for financial or emotional support.’ She sat back and Michael became aware of three pairs of eyes looking at him.

  He gaped a bit.

  ‘This is all contingent upon the quality and motility of your sperm,’ Sally added. ‘We would need you to go to a doctor of our choice to verify that you’re fertile.’

  ‘Um,’ he said again. ‘No strings? I mean, I don’t want a child. Not really cut out to be a father.’

  ‘No strings,’ confirmed Linsey as she turned to Amy with an intimate smile.

  Good grief, Michael thought. How can I have missed something so obvious?

  Linsey was explaining further. ‘We decided that we wanted the child to be the best she possibly can be, so it was clear from the start that Amy would be the birth mother.’ She gestured towards Amy and her voice took on a quality Michael hadn’t heard before. ‘She’s so beautiful. I wanted to ensure, as much as possible, that our child will have her blonde beauty and stature.’ She waved a hand as Amy began to protest. ‘No. I don’t want a short plain woman like me. One in the family is more than enough.’ She turned back to Michael. ‘Amy is a musician, so I decided that a father with a scientific mind would broaden the skills base. Our child will be as close to perfect as we can make her.’ Her thin face was alight.

  Michael coughed. ‘What if it’s a—you know, a boy?’

  ‘All the more reason he should be tall,’ was Linsey’s enigmatic reply.

  ‘We just want a baby,’ Amy said gently. ‘We’ll love it, boy or girl. And don’t worry: we have four brothers between us. There are two grandfathers. He’d have plenty of male role models. We’re not harpies, you know.’ She smiled hopefully. ‘Can you help us, Michael?’

  In those days Michael was inclined to quick decisions. What could be the harm? It was a pity the process wasn’t going to be a bit more normal, he thought, but he had a healthy libido and it wouldn’t be too difficult to produce the required sperm. Besides, he was skint.

  ‘Give me a couple of days to look at the contract,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get back to you.’

  He did look at the contract. Just to make sure he would not be encumbered with a child. It all seemed so easy. The next day he phoned the house, where the women were waiting anxiously for his call. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said.

  Three weeks later, he found himself following Linsey into a room at the top of the stairs.

  She looked at him severely. ‘Here’s the . . . receptacle.’ She held a jar between thumb and forefinger. ‘I bought some magazines I thought might help. Just call when you’re done and I’ll come and collect the jar.’

  Finn had first discovered masturbation at the age of thirteen and by now considered himself something of an expert. Taking a moment to recover from his embarrassment, he looked at the magazines and imagined poor Linsey, all beaky disapproval, having to purchase them. It almost distracted him, but this was a job, and he did it with single-minded efficiency.

  Having completed the task, he called to Linsey. ‘See yourself out,’ she said and handed him an envelope, which he had the decency not to open until he was in his car. Five hundred dollars. And it was as easy as that.

  Michael was a man of his word. He fobbed off Phil by telling him that he was taking part in a secret drug-testing program for a pharmaceutical company. This was a good cover as he had conscientiously given up booze and cigarettes for the duration and told everyone that this was part of the parameters of the experiment. It was also necessary, he explained, to have a beeper so that he could be called on the instant he was needed. This was a bit harder to justify, but his vagueness was put down to the secrecy of the tests. So when the beeper sounded during lectures, in the student canteen or at the pub, he was able to go without too many questions being asked. Amy’s monthly cycle impinged on the ease of his sex life, but the regularity of her periods enabled him to ensure that he was never called while in another woman’s bed.

  Six cycles went by. He was quite happy about this. After all, it was five hundred dollars per cycle. On his seventh visit, however, Linsey was out and it was Amy who answered the door. She looked wan and seemed thinner than the last time he’d seen her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked with some concern.

  Amy’s dimple had almost disappeared. ‘I’m fine. Really,’ she said. ‘It’s all a bit of a strain. Linsey’s so determined to have this baby and I feel I’m letting her down.’ To his horror, he saw that she was blinking away tears.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised and immediately felt foolish.

  He closed the door. The job took a little longer in this frame of mind.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said as he handed her the jar. And felt even more foolish.

  ‘Tenth time lucky, maybe,’ he said two and a half months later when Linsey rang to tell him that they were still unsuccessful.

  The next time he was summoned, Linsey greeted him as usual, though he was conscious of Amy hovering in the background. He went to head up the stairs but Linsey motioned him into the sitting room, where he sat down on one of the gilt chairs. The two women sat on the edge of the sofa, fac
ing him.

  ‘As you’re aware, this is the last time for you to . . . assist us,’ Linsey began. ‘You’ve been as good as your word and we appreciate that, don’t we, Amy?’ Amy nodded, started to speak and then fell silent.

  ‘We had researched the matter extensively before we enlisted you,’ Linsey told him, ‘but we’re starting to think there may be something wrong with our—what would you call it?— our technique. Consequently . . .’ Her skin was taut over sharp cheekbones, and dark smudges shadowed her eyes. ‘Consequently, we were wondering if more . . . conventional methods might not be required.’

  Michael felt a surge of elation. Of course he wasn’t averse to having sex with a beautiful woman—but it was more than that. While he had accepted the terms of the job and done his duty, as it were, he nonetheless harboured a nagging resentment that this beautiful woman didn’t want to have sex with him. In this role there was an affront to his manhood that he had chosen to ignore in his eagerness for the remuneration. He had taken their money, and done what they asked, but now an ugly thought came unbidden: Let’s see how she feels after having sex with a real man. Immediately ashamed, he pushed the thought aside.

  ‘Fine,’ he said gravely. ‘I understand. Do you mean now?’

  ‘Now is the right time,’ Amy aspirated the words. He could hardly hear her.

  She looked down as Linsey put an arm around her. ‘I know it’s asking a lot, darling,’ Linsey murmured into her hair, ‘but we know it may be the only way. We’ve nearly run out of money.’

  Michael took Amy’s hand and felt the tension that ran down her arm to her fingertips. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m not a monster.’

  But in the end, he couldn’t do it. At the bedroom door he saw hopeless jealousy transform Linsey’s carefully disciplined features. Amy was even worse. She was actually trembling. Michael was a generous, considerate lover: it was one reason why so many women were attracted to him. Looking at Amy, intuiting her distress, he felt like a brute.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said as Linsey turned away. ‘Tell you what. Let’s keep the thing going as it has been for another couple of months before we, you know, take drastic action. I won’t expect payment after today.’