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She followed him through a glass door into a large rectangular room that ran away to the right across the back of the house. To the left were double doors into another room, in front of her beyond a large dining table was a set of bi-fold doors, opening she assumed to the garden, and on her right at the far end of the room was the kitchen area.
Not that there was much kitchen.
‘Ahh. I see what you mean.’
He chuckled again. ‘Yeah. It’s a mess. I got the bi-folds put in and the dividing wall taken out, so I lost most of the units, but to be honest I haven’t got the time or energy to decide what I want in here and it’s a big job, starting with taking the floor up and re-screeding it because they weren’t quite level. So I’m learning to love the tiny scraps of seventies worktop and the ridiculously huge sink and the utter lack of storage, but it’s only me so it’s fine. And the pub’s handy when I get desperate,’ he added with a grin. ‘So, coffee. Caf, decaf, black, white, frothy?’
She stared at him, slightly mesmerised by the sight of him propped against the sink with his arms folded, relaxed and at ease. It was gradually dawning on her just how incredibly attractive he was, how well put together, how confident, caring, thoughtful, sexy—
‘Hello?’
She pulled herself together and tried to smile. ‘Sorry. I was just a bit stunned by the kitchen,’ she lied. ‘Um—can you do a decaf frothy?’
‘Sure, that’s what I’m having.’ He flipped a capsule into the machine, put a mug under the spout and pressed a button, put milk into the frother and then propped himself up again and frowned thoughtfully at her.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Well, nothing you want to hear. You told me to butt out.’
‘Are we back to that?’ she said with a sigh.
‘Yes, we are, because... Iona, if you want a baby, why wouldn’t you look for a partner?’
‘I’ve tried that,’ she said, really not wanting to go there. ‘And, anyway, that’s not what it’s about.’
He looked puzzled, then shrugged. ‘OK, so why not go through a proper sperm bank or clinic? The risks to you are huge if you don’t use a donor regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. They won’t have had genetic testing, no sperm quality check—it’s a minefield, even if you don’t take into account the risk of picking up a life-changing infection such as Hepatitis or HIV. The screening process is so thorough, so intensive, the physical and mental health screening, sperm quality, family medical history, motivation—and the children have the right to trace their fathers now once they’re eighteen, so nobody’s going to be doing it for anything other than the right reasons. Why on earth would you go anywhere else?’
‘I wouldn’t. I haven’t. I’m not that stupid, so you can relax and stop fretting. I wasn’t serious about picking up a random stranger, I was winding you up, really, but I am looking for a sperm donor. That much was true.’ She studied him thoughtfully. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about it,’ she added, searching his eyes, and something in them changed again.
He looked away briefly, then back, the silence between them somehow deafening in the quiet room.
‘Yeah. I do,’ he said finally, as if it had been dragged out of him. ‘I’ve done it, but that was years ago, before I properly understood the knock-on effect of it.’
Wow. ‘Knock-on effect?’ she asked, still processing the fact that he’d been a donor. Ironic, since she’d mentally given him ten out of ten, but he didn’t need to know that.
‘Yes. Wondering—you know—about the children, if there are any, if they’re OK? That sort of stuff.’
‘Can they contact you?’
‘No, because I did it before the law changed, but I can still provide contact details if I want to via the HFEA, and I could also find out how many children there are, their ages, their genders, but I can’t contact them to find out if they’re OK, and that troubles me. Are they happy? Are they safe? What are their parents like? Are they still together? Are they well? I just don’t know, and it’s unlikely I ever will, and it bugs me.’
‘But it’s not your worry, surely?’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said emphatically. ‘I know they aren’t technically my children, but in a way they are because without me they wouldn’t exist, so morally I feel responsible. What if they’re unhappy? What if someone’s hurting them? It’s unlikely, I know that, but still I worry. Of course I worry.’
‘But as you said, it’s highly unlikely and, anyway, you’ve signed over that right, that responsibility. They’re not your children, any more than this would be my child. I’m doing it for my sister, and I won’t have any rights, I know that because I’ll sign them all over to Isla and Steve when they adopt it, but I’m fine with that. That’s why I’m doing it, not because I want a child.’
His eyes widened and his jaw dropped a fraction. ‘You’re going to give it away?’ he said. ‘Iona, that’s—Will you be able to do that? It’s going to take so much courage. What if you change your mind when it comes to it? Are you able to change your mind?’
Her heart gave a little hiccup, but she ignored it. ‘I won’t change my mind, because there’s no room in my life for a child now, and I don’t know if there ever will be, and this is something I can do for Isla and Steve, and I want to help them because I love them.’
‘Yes, of course you do, but—’ He rammed a hand through his hair, his eyes troubled. ‘I only gave away my DNA and that feels hard enough sometimes. You’re talking about cradling your own baby inside your body for ninemonths! How will you be able to give it away, even if it is to your sister? I know you love her and you know her very well, so you know the baby will be safe and loved, but—what about you, Iona? How will you feel? And what if they split up? What if their marriage breaks down?’
‘It won’t! And this is my sister, Joe—my identicaltwin sister, so genetically it would be identical to a child of her own. It could be her own. It’ll be just like being the incubator for their own baby, and I want to do it for her because I love her and I want to help her—’
‘I know you do, but...?’
‘But? How many siblings do you have?’
‘None.’
‘None?’ She laughed disbelievingly. ‘None. So how can you possibly judge my motives?’
‘I can’t. I’m not judging your motives, I wouldn’t presume to do that and I’m sure you’re doing it for the all right reasons. I have immense respect for your courage in even contemplating it. I’m only thinking of the impact it would have on you, knowing how hard it’s been for me, and what I’ve done is nothing compared to what you’re talking about. Please tell me you’ve thought it through.’
‘I thought you were making me a coffee?’ she said, changing the subject abruptly, and he swore softly, threw away the one he’d made ages ago and dropped another capsule in the machine. Then he scrubbed a hand through his hair again and sighed as he turned back to her.
‘Sorry.’
‘Are you?’
He sighed again. ‘Yes and no. I know I keep banging the same old drum, Iona, but I’m really worried about you now.’
‘You really don’t need to be, Joe, I do know what I’m doing. It’s not an idle thought. I’ve researched it, I’ve considered it at length, discussed it endlessly—I’m not stupid.’
‘I never said you were. Just maybe too kind for your own good. Whose idea was it?’
‘Mine. All mine.’
‘And they said yes?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, they said yes, but not until they’d tried to talk me out of it, but I could tell they didn’t really want to do that, they just wanted to be sure that I was sure, and I am.’
‘Have you ever been pregnant?’
She shook her head, feeling a pang of regret because they’d tried and failed. ‘No. Have you?’ she asked, and he laughed.
‘I don’t believe so.’
‘Then how can you lecture me on what it’ll feel like?’
‘Because I have imagination? Because I have empathy? Because I know how hard I’ve found even doing what I did?’
‘But it’s different to your situation. I know who the baby’s going to, and I know it’ll be loved and cherished and brought up with my values. Did you have any control over who had your sperm?’
He shook his head. ‘No. And that’s at the root of my worries, I have to admit, because I can never be utterly sure my ch—’ He cut himself off. ‘My offspring will be loved and cared for as I would have loved and cared for them.’
She searched his eyes—those gorgeous, penetrating, honest eyes—and she could read them clearly, could see the genuine worry he felt for his unknown children, the responsibility he felt for their happiness over which he had no control.
‘You’re a good man, do you know that?’ she said softly, and he laughed and turned away, making a production of spooning out the froth onto her new coffee.
‘Chocolate sprinkles?’
‘Is it powder?’
‘No, it’s flakes of real chocolate.’
‘Oh, yes, please. I love those.’
‘Me, too. Here.’
He handed it to her, and she went up on tiptoe and brushed a kiss against his cheek.
‘Thank you.’
He looked slightly startled. ‘It’s only a coffee.’
‘It’s not for the coffee, it’s for caring—about the children you don’t know, about me—just—for caring.’
He hesitated, staring down into her eyes, and then he gave a fleeting smile.
‘You’re welcome. I didn’t mean to interfere, but I can’t stand by and watch a friend sleepwalk into potential unhappiness without saying anything.’
‘Am I a friend?’ she asked, and he gave her a thoughtful half-smile.
‘I think you could be. I’m not in the habit of spilling my guts to people who aren’t.’
He turned back to the coffee maker, and she perched on a chair at the big old table, a funny warm feeling inside, and watched him make his own coffee, his movements as deft and sure as they’d been in Resus. He rinsed out the milk frother, sat down opposite her and met her eyes.
‘Talking about spilling my guts, it’s a bit late to worry about this, but you’re the only person outside my family who I’ve ever told about any of this stuff, so I’d be grateful if you’d keep it to yourself.’
She nodded, surprised that he’d even felt he had to ask her. ‘Of course I will. I’m amazed you told me. It’s not the sort of thing people talk about—and snap, by the way. Only my sister and brother-in-law know. We haven’t even told the rest of the family.’
‘Yes, I can understand that.’ He gave a wry chuckle. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you, by the way, it just sort of came out, but—Iona, please be careful, and if you do decide to do it, do it properly? Don’t go and have some unpremeditated random one-night stand with someone just because they’re tall and blond and have good bone structure.’
That made her laugh. ‘I was sort of joking, but it’s what my brother-in-law looks like, and we’ve been trying to find a sperm donor who at least has some of his physical characteristics. They tried IVF and got a few live embryos, but the quality wasn’t great and none of them implanted, although nobody could say why for certain. Steve’s sperm quality isn’t good, so she’s tried AI with a tall, blue-eyed blond donor, which didn’t work, and I’ve tried AI three times with Steve’s semen and not got pregnant.’
A little frown appeared fleetingly between his brows. ‘I didn’t realise you’d got that far down the line,’ he said slowly.
‘Oh, yes. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, Joe. We’ve been talking about it for ages. That’s part of the reason I took this job, to be nearer to them. So, anyway, it needs to be another sperm donor since the one she tried has reached his limit of donations, and we can’t find another one that ticks all the boxes on any of the donor sites, at least not the physical appearance boxes. And, yes, I know that’s the least important thing in a way, but it’s tough enough for them without the child looking like a cuckoo in the nest. Maybe I need to go on a cruise up the fjords and try and find a Viking,’ she added lightly, winding him up again, and he spluttered into his coffee and wiped the froth off his lip, his eyes brimming with laughter.
‘Do you know who goes on fjord cruises? Tourists, Iona. People like my parents. And, believe me, they don’t look like Vikings.’
‘Oh, well, there goes that idea, then.’ She laughed, then sat back, cradling her coffee. ‘Tell me about them—your parents.’
‘My parents? What can I tell you? My dad’s called Bill, my mother’s Mary, they’re in their late sixties. Dad’s an ex-army officer, invalided out after an explosives accident that left him with—well, let’s call them life-changing injuries, for want of a better description. And as if that wasn’t enough, my mother, who was pregnant at the time, lost her baby.’
‘Oh, Joe, that’s awful. That’s so sad.’
He nodded. ‘They think it was probably the shock of the severity of his injuries that caused her miscarriage. It might have been, or it might not, but because of his injuries it was their last chance and they lost it. Hence why I’m an only child. And despite his best efforts to get rid of her, my mother’s stuck by him and they have a great relationship, but underlying it all is this sadness, a sort of grief I guess for the baby they lost and the children they never had.’
‘Hence why you were a sperm donor,’ she said slowly, understanding him now at last. ‘To help people like them.’
‘Yes. Or at least partly. I was four when the accident happened, and I spent a lot of that year living with my aunt and uncle here, and it was the nearest they got to having their own children and we’re still really close. Elizabeth, my aunt, is my father’s much older sister, and she’s widowed now, but she and her husband built this house in their thirties as their family home, and the family never happened. She’s never got over that.’
‘Does she know what you’ve done?’
‘Oh, yes. She was the first person I told and she’s been hugely supportive.’ He smiled fondly. ‘Oddly, I can talk to her about things I could never tell my parents.’
‘I don’t think that’s odd. I feel the same. There are things I can tell my aunt I’d never tell my mother.’ She looked up at him again, watching his face carefully as she spoke because she’d just had a crazy idea and she didn’t know how it was going to land.
‘Talking of families—are you busy this weekend?’
‘Why?’ he asked warily, turning his head slightly to the side and eyeing her suspiciously.
‘Because I need a plus one. My baby brother’s getting married tomorrow, and I have to go to his wedding, and I really, really don’t want to go on my own.’
He frowned. ‘Are you suggesting I should come with you? Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to another wedding as long as I live, not after my catastrophic car crash of a marriage.’
She laughed wryly, even though it wasn’t funny. ‘I can understand that. It’s exactly why I don’t want to go, except I never got to the altar. I found out three days before my wedding that he’d slept with the stripper on his stag weekend, and when I challenged him he said something about it just being drunken high spirits, so when I asked him if he’d still been drunk on the subsequent four occasions he started grovelling, but I’d had enough so I called it off, and then he went round slagging me off to all our friends, saying I’d dumped him without hearing his side of it.’
‘What side? It sounds to me like you’re well off out of it.’
‘Oh, tell me about it, but I still don’t want to go to Johnnie’s wedding on my own with all the friends and relatives who would have been at mine, who’ll feel morally obliged to come and tell me how sorry they were and try and get all the juicy details. Especially not since it’s also the same church I should have got married in less than two years ago.’
‘Where is it?’ he asked, surprising her.
‘Where? Norfolk. A village just west of Norwich, not all that different to this one, but at least it’s a nice, easy drive.’
He grunted. ‘It’s not the drive I have issues with, it’s the wedding. Watching someone making their vows and wondering if they have the slightest idea what they’ve let themselves in for.’
‘What, like your parents, who by the sound of it are devoted to each other? Or your uncle and aunt?’
He gave a sharp sigh. ‘They’re different.’
‘No, they’re not. They sound like my sister and brother-in-law, and my parents, and my uncle and aunt. And Johnnie and Kate love each other to bits. They always have. They’re childhood sweethearts, and they’re wonderful together, but I just know I’m going to cry and make an idiot of myself and everybody’ll think it’s because of...’
‘So you want me there to—what? Pass you tissues?’
She laughed at that, at the thought of him handing her tissues like a production line as she sobbed her way through the ceremony that she’d been denied.
‘Well, I think you need to do something fairly mega to make up for being arrogant and then stealing my stethoscope. Is it really too much to ask?’
She was only joking, never for a moment thinking he’d agree, not now she knew he’d had an apparently disastrous marriage, and he stared at her slightly open-mouthed for a moment.
‘I didn’t steal it. I just forgot to give it back.’
‘So you’re not denying you were arrogant?’ she said with a little coaxing smile, and to her surprise he groaned and rolled his eyes. Was he weakening?
