by Livia Ellis
This is exactly what I agreed to. Providing of sperm. There was no discussion about the delivery method. This is how she wants it.
Wouldn’t it be better to do it the regular way?
We’ve done it that way. It doesn’t seem to work that well. We’re going to do it this way. This way there are results. Chop chop. She has people on standby waiting for my sperm.
She really does just want my sperm. She isn’t trying to trap me?
Did I hit my head?
No. What if I told her I could get her the sperm of the Latin Pop Star? Would she want it?
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Chop chop times a ticking.
I can’t work under pressure.
We both know that’s a lie.
Could she at least come and talk dirty to me, or something? Maybe let me look at her boobs?
No. She has a call with Beijing she’s already late for. She has every confidence in me.
I go into the bedroom.
The magazines are nicely fanned out on the bed. The specimen cup with its blue lid stares like an eye. Sure enough, there is a magazine for foot fetishists. Who knew?
I look at the bed. I poke around in the cupboards. I find my braided leather belt I thought Elon took. I’ll need to apologize for that. I find my pajamas. I find my comb. This used to be my space. Now it’s just filled with ghosts.
The door opens.
Am I done?
No. Why does she still have all my stuff?
No reason.
Admit it. She misses me. She’s tempted to take me back.
She will admit to nothing. It’s not like she sniffs my t-shirts and wears my pajamas. She never uses the yacht. She didn’t think to clear it out. She can arrange to have it all packed up and sent to me.
Did she change the locks and the codes?
No.
Leave it. I’ll come on my own and pack it up.
She’ll let security know to not call the police if they see lights. But I am not to use the yacht for entertaining and we both know what she means.
I won’t. I told her. I’m different.
What does Russian Barbie think of my giving up my sperm?
She doesn’t know. I never said I’d perfected monogamy. I’m just trying to do better.
So she’s like a cheat free zone. Doesn’t really count because it’s her.
Yes.
I am something else. It never ceases to amaze her how I can twist anything to suit my need to justify.
Can I move along the semen production?
Can I at least touch her boobs? Look at them?
Unbelievable. Take my trousers off.
I love it when she talks dirty to me. I drop my trousers.
She gives me a nudge and I fall back on the bed covered in skin magazines. We neck and I get a tug. She very nicely holds the specimen cup for me.
I reach for the remote as she spins the lid on the cup.
Am I planning on staying? Is living with six women starting to lose its glamour?
It’s like the sorority house from hell. I’m due back with the Latin Pop Star in a few hours. I have no interest in going home before I go back to his hotel.
What’s that like? Is he all ego and masculinity? Perhaps not terribly bright?
He’s very nice.
Hold on. Her phone vibrates. She picks up the specimen jar. She leaves for a minute then returns. She hands me my phone. I have missed calls. My mother and Renata.
I’m fighting with my mother and Renata has been terrorizing me all day. I’ve had a shitty day. I wanted it to be a great day and it’s been a shitty day. Who did she give my sperm to?
It’s in safe hands. Why am I fighting with my mother?
She wants to be on that asinine realty show they’re filming at Wold Hall.
And?
It’s classless. I’m trying to protect the family name.
That ship has sailed. I should just let her do it. Or better, why don’t I do it? They’d probably pay more for me than for my mother.
No.
Whatever. I never really did have a head for making the wise business decision. Why is Renata terrorizing me? Renata is terrorizing her too.
How?
Renata called looking for money a few weeks back.
What did she do?
Offered her a job. She feels sorry for her.
And?
She wanted cash but didn’t want to work for it. Can’t help people that won’t help themselves.
I check my phone. Why do I have a call from the police? And two from a hospital?
Do I want curry? Do I have time for a curry? Because she could kill a curry. The hormone shots are maddening. All she wants to do is eat curry and really salty chips. Maybe we actually need to talk about getting back together. Maybe it’s not the worst idea in the world. Talking can’t hurt anything.
Yes. Curry and really salty chips then talk. I have time. I don’t need to be back to the hotel before midnight.
She’ll order while I find out why the police are after me.
I call the hospital first. I’m on the phone a minute before I hang up.
Do I want vindaloo?
I need a ride to the hospital. Does she have her car?
Yes. Is it my mother?
No. Renata.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
8:00pm
The hospital is as monolithic and unoriginal as every other hospital I’ve been in throughout my life. A nurse in a pale pink tunic in the intensive care unit tells me to wait. I’m shown a chair and offered tea or coffee. Hot beverages in this situation make me leery. It’s never good when they offer hot beverages.
I decline and wait.
Me waiting in hospitals. It’s this thing that occupies too much of my time. I should have been a doctor. At least I’d get paid to let the fluorescent lights burn my eyes.
The doctor I speak with is old and tired. He’s done this before. I imagine somewhere in him there is a person that wants to care, but he could really give a shit.
Before he reaches into his core to try to find a grain of comfort for me, I stop him.
Just tell me what Renata’s condition is. This isn’t the first time she’s tried to kill herself. I’ve been down this path with her before. Personally I would appreciate it if I were taken off her medical records as her next of kin.
He looks at me like I am the world’s biggest asshole. He might be tired, overworked, underpaid, a victim of socialized medicine, and ready for four fingers of scotch, but at least he’s willing to make an effort. Instead of answering he gestures for me to follow him.
I follow.
He takes me to a private room that is dim except for the lights from the machinery.
The lump of plastic casings and bandages on the bed is an unidentifiable mummy.
My friend Renata. She’s brain-dead. I don’t need to worry about getting another call. There are papers that need to be signed. She needs to be taken off life-support.
I move closer simply because I don’t believe him. There is a space between the cone around her neck and the helmet over her head that reveals her face.
It’s Renata. I’d know her anywhere and in any condition.
The doctor clears his throat. If I’ve had sufficient time to say goodbye there are those papers.
Piss off. Piss off and go the fuck away.
He leaves. If he wanted me to feel like an asshole it worked. I feel like an asshole. More than that. I feel broken. The first girl I ever loved is dead but for a bunch of machinery keeping her bits warm.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve faced death so many times and in so many ways, but this is a first for me. Grandmother’s slow and steady decline. Grandfather’s sudden demise. Dad’s instant death. This is something else. I don’t know if she’s still in there. We’re in this gray space together in this room. It’s the Schrödinger’s cat of death.
A woman joins me in the room. She has that look on her face. I know that look. Piti
ful and kind, but she still has a job to do. There is a cross pin on her lapel. I think she might be a nun. Interesting.
She asks if I would like to be alone, or do I want company?
Is she a nun?
Yes. Does that bother me?
I don’t believe in god.
God believes in me.
The nun and I sit together.
I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to pull Elon into this and he is the only person I can imagine calling. His time will come soon enough to manage the everlasting repercussions of Renata’s demise. He’s going to have a lifetime of explaining to Anna. This moment is one I can shoulder alone.
I talk to the nun. She’s the most extraordinary listener I have ever met.
How did we get here? This is the question I ask as I sit in the chair next to her bed with my elbows on my knees and my hands folded under my chin. Would we be here if I hadn’t ignored the dozen texts from her? Is this my fault? Could I have been a better friend? Am I culpable? What could I have done differently? How did we get here?
The nun is kind. She has no answers for me other than I cannot blame myself for another person exercising their free will. The only thing I can do is seek the answers in the glint of the sun on the water and the rustle of the wind through the leaves.
My friend Elon would like her.
She has no answers for me. But she has a request. There is no good time for her to ask, but she must ask. Renata was a healthy young woman. Troubled in mind, that is no doubt, but healthy in body.
I know what she wants. I don’t want to hear her say it. I just ask for the clipboard.
She hands me the clipboard and a pen.
I need to sign in about twenty places. I give her the clipboard back.
She is going to give me a moment alone to say goodbye. She has the dignity and presence of place not to run from the room with the signed release. She’s very good at her job.
I’m left alone with Renata, my question still unanswered. How did we get here?
Perhaps the answer to a question walks into the room. It is the nurse in the pink tunic.
She is so very sorry to bother me.
The police have just arrived. They need to speak with me. She offers me tissues.
I didn’t realize I was crying.
I take the tissues and she puts a hand on my shoulder. It’s kind and comforting. She’ll wait with Renata while I speak with the police.
This seems so utterly ridiculous, but I don’t dissuade her. As I walk out the door she checks monitors and her watch. Time is ticking. My grief is an obstacle between Renata and a lot of people wanting to get their jobs done.
There are two of them. They both seem young. Maybe I just feel old.
Am I Oliver Adair?
Yes.
They start talking at me. They’re very sorry. They need to ask me a few questions. Has Renata been depressed? Has there been any indication that she was suicidal? They are aware she has an infant. Have I spoken with anyone about her having the baby blues?
I nearly explode. I really nearly explode. Baby blues? Is that what they call it when a women has a condition as serious as post natal depression? What a trite, condescending, stupid, and demeaning moniker. Baby blues indeed. They each need to be slapped repeatedly until those words never pass their lips again. The indignity of putting a cutesy tag on something so serious is personally offensive to me. They can piss off.
Instead of arresting me, they find inner patience. I admire the fact that they take my wrath with calm. It must be the world’s shittiest job what they do. This must be the worst part of it. Confronting the survivors of the dead.
They’re very sorry.
I’m sorry. I genuinely am. I do respect law and order and all of those things. I don’t even know what happened to Renata. If it helps, I’m just a friend of Renata. I’m not her husband or her boyfriend if that’s what they’re thinking.
They look at each other. I can see them play a mental game of ro-jam-bo. Neither of them want to tell me what brought Renata to her death bed.
Renata nearly fell in front of a Central Line train. She was pulled back before she fell in front of a train, but not before the impact resulting in the head trauma.
They look at each other again.
Just tell me the truly horrific thing they are not telling me.
The young man that tried to pull her back lost his footing and his life.
No.
They’re very sorry. This is what happened. There will be an inquest. They will need my cooperation. They know that Renata attempted to contact me no less than eighteen times in the previous twenty-four hours.
No. I have nothing to do with this.
I’m handed an envelope that has been opened. Inside is a letter in Renata’s looping handwriting. It’s all my fault. Everything is my fault. If I’d only loved her the way she needed to be loved we could have been happy. Like her handwriting, the recriminations loop around and around over both sides of three pages of A4 paper. If I were the police I’d want to ask me questions too. This is her ultimate punishment. This is her getting the very last word.
The kindness in their eyes has been replaced by inquisitiveness. There are questions that need to be answered. A boy is dead. There is CCTV footage. It’s not pretty. She was nothing if not determined.
I don’t know what to say. I’m very sorry. What a hollow shitty thing for me to say. It’s all I have for them.
They will be in contact with me.
Just one question. Do they have one of these six page epistles for Elon Sorensen?
They look at each other.
I need to know.
Their next stop is to speak with him.
I need to call him first. I’ll save them the trip and ask him to come to the hospital.
This is much appreciated. They’d prefer the news come from a friend.
They should wait to decide how much they appreciate my intervention until after they meet Elon.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
9:00pm
Renata is a vampire. Even in death, she takes life.
Elon stands over her bed studying her. After ten minutes of silent observation, this is all he says. I told him everything after he arrived and before the police got to him. He gave them the name of the number for the person who is paid a great deal of money to manage these things for him, took the letter with his name across the envelope, then dismissed them.
That’s all he can say?
He nods. What more do I want to hear? Her final act was to take a life. It’s the ultimate expression of her selfishness. Before dying, she needed to destroy one more person.
I should have let the police just show up and tell him.
Probably not a good idea. He and Roland are quarreling.
Why?
The short summary: Roland refuses to live with a man that has no purpose in his life other processing oxygen into carbon dioxide. He needs to find a purpose. Saving the whales was actually a suggestion. He needs to do something other than spend money and slowly plod his way to death.
Does this have anything to do with the Mummy & Me incident?
That little bitch Brittany called Roland at work and tattled. Told Roland we were not welcome back at Mummy & Me without adult supervision. Apparently Roland finds the fact he is twelve years his senior to be a struggle enough as it is without him acting like a child.
Roland is not in his forties.
He is. He’s forty-one.
Is not.
Is. Roland looks really fucking good for forty-one.
Elon nods. Roland should think he’s really fucking lucky to have an incredibly hot, extremely wealthy, and much younger boyfriend, but apparently he doesn’t.
He doesn’t?
No. Apparently there is more to life than looks, money, and youth.
Shocking. The inhumanity of it.
Do I know what pisses him off the most?
I can’t even begin to imagine.
Roland insists on working. He told Roland he didn’t have to work. He refused to be supported. How is his money not good enough for Roland?
There is an immense sense of personal satisfaction that comes from being self-reliant. That’s me speaking from experience.
He’s going to ask me a question and he wants an honest answer.
Ask.
Is it really an unconscionable waste of his abilities and intelligence to spend his days watching reality TV and flying to Milano once a year just to buy belts?
Yes. On both these points I must agree with Roland.
Roland didn’t mention either. It’s been on his mind independent from Roland being a self-righteous do-gooder prick. What do I think of him doing something like going back to school?
Sounds like something other than endless hours of Judge Judy. What would Roland think?
The guideline seems to be anything is better than nothing. Roland doesn’t care what he does as long as he does something.
Hence the whole save the whales thing?
Yes. Which is absurd. How does Roland think his family made the money to buy the first boats that become more money to buy the ships?
Whaling?
Yes. Whaling. He’s Norwegian for fucks sake. Where else does Roland think their shipping empire sprang from? Fucking trolls?
Probably not trolls. Probably not whaling either. Most people find whaling to be distasteful.
Whale meat is delicious.
No it’s not.
Yes it is.
He’s just saying that to be contrary. I know he doesn’t like whale meat.
Our bickering masks the bigger issue. The one that is laying on the bed in front of us.
The nurse in the pink tunic walks in. She still has that kind smile. Her trips into the room become more frequent. There is more checking of monitors and glancing at the watch. She leaves again.
Elon speaks first. We need to let them do what they need to do. We need to do what we need to do. That’s not going to happen until I say goodbye.
How do I say goodbye? This is the fourth person I’ve said goodbye to in a year. I still can’t figure out how it’s done.
Am I struggling with this?
Yes. I am struggling with this.
I was always weak where Renata was concerned. He never thought he’d say it, but maybe it’s a good thing he impregnated her and not me. If it had been me I probably would have done the noble yet idiotic thing and actually married her.
