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‘I know.’
‘No, I’m sure you don’t. You’ve no idea how I loathe myself most of the time.’ She was looking up at him now, still in his arms but pulling away slightly, not crying but with such despair in her eyes that Michael thought it must be only seconds until she was. ‘I feel so empty, and so foolish – it’s hard to explain – as if I’ve just been pretending – how can I—’
‘Pretending what?’
‘I don’t know how to – pretending to live. Pretending I was getting up, pretending I was going to work. No you don’t know what I’m talking about, of course you don’t. I mean – I’m a sham. I’m not real.’
Apart from the necessary discussions about the love-making cycle, it wasn’t often that the subject of the non-existent child was touched upon openly now. For most of the time it was left as an unacknowledged hollow at the base of their marriage, only occasionally referred to obliquely by Juliet as in, ‘Well, at least we don’t have baby-sitter problems.’ Or, ‘I don’t suppose we’d be able to afford this holiday if things had gone according to plan.’ The small upstairs room had always been called the nursery, and the name had become so familiar and ordinary that neither had thought to stop using the word when it became less and less suitable. They had discussed things enough to confirm a willingness on both their parts to pay their way out of the Situation if it were possible, but it always filled Michael with hope when he felt Juliet was trying to put across to him how she really felt. These moments often seemed to follow patches of intense irritation with him, as if something in her was fighting every inch of the way against revealing her true feelings until they burst out of her unbidden and released themselves in a wave of weeping.
It was this intense distress of Juliet’s that made it so difficult for Michael to talk about his own sense of inadequacy and loss. For a man who liked to think he was rational and in control of his feelings it amazed him how much guilt he, too, felt at his failure to produce the required son and heir (it never occurred to him to wonder why he always imagined his offspring as male). But it was more than that – he had unexpectedly found a deep sadness within himself at the thought of never carrying his child in his arms, never kicking a football in the park with a miniature version of himself, never proudly watching the young Evans collecting his degree. As time went by his thoughts became almost biblical: phrases such as ‘Fruit of his loins’, ‘Evans begat Evans’, ‘Thy seed shall replenish the earth’ rattled round his head. The child became a clear picture in his mind until he could have described every detail of hair, figure, expression and face as if the boy really existed. Sometimes he felt he was going mad, but comforted himself with the realisation that this life of the imagination at least gave him a release of emotion which might otherwise have unleashed itself on Juliet.
Even at work he remained good-natured and outwardly at peace. He sometimes envied the ability of his colleagues to release their frustrations in outbursts of swearing and shouting, marvelling at their capacity to show strong emotion on such subjects as parking fines or politics. He thought with amusement of how violent, on a scale ranging from parking meters to childlessness, the manifestation of his own unhappiness would be if it truly reflected the deep wells of despair buried inside him. Not that his restraint made him seem in any way weak or inadequate; on the contrary his gentle but slightly cynical analysis of office problems betrayed a wisdom and maturity that were clearly lacking in the overheated reactions of those surrounding him. His childhood in Nottingham, as the bright-eyed boy of the manager of a furniture shop and a piano teacher mother, had led him to be aware, from his entrance into the local grammar school to his departure from Manchester University with a degree in economics, of how much was expected of him. Ever since seeing his parents’ anxiety at his admittance of any blip in the smooth upward curve of the life they had planned for him, he had learnt to keep his worries to himself.
But the distress over the non-existent child was different. For the first time in his life he felt the lack of any kind of real escape valve for the emotional pressure building inside, but was inhibited by his keen awareness of her own suffering from unburdening himself to the only other person who would be completely in sympathy. He found himself becoming increasingly attached to Lucy, the labrador, but consciously steered clear of imbuing her with too many human attributes, having seen in other couples how easily a pet can become a child substitute, involving, in his eyes, a lack of dignity for both parties.
As it was, he liked to think that Juliet was unaware of just how much he minded, and concentrated on supporting and cheering her.
This policy may have been a mistake.
Chapter Three (#ulink_c79c1a81-2e78-5a6e-a8fa-3e867ecb0adf)
‘And?’
‘Polycystic ovaries.’
‘Poly-what-ovaries?’
‘Cystic.’
‘Oh, right.’
There was a pause while Harriet let this mysterious information sink in.
‘And is that bad?’
The two women stared at each other for a moment, then Juliet made a face. ‘Well I suppose so.’ She went on looking across at her friend, then they both laughed. ‘Well, evidently.’ They laughed more. ‘How would you like cysts on your ovaries’. Not just one, mind you, not just your monocystic, but the full poly. It’s not madly glamorous is it?
Harriet was giggling now, bending over in her chair, relieved to see the old Juliet emerging once more out of the midst of this alien affliction. And Juliet was laughing in relief too, knowing this was the only person she could ever talk to in this way, able to unburden herself without facing the over-solicitous reactions of Michael or the demanding worry of her mother. She was always smugly aware of Harriet’s envy of her own happily surviving marriage, but Juliet’s searing jealousy of her friend’s two children counterbalanced it, giving them a spurious emotional equality. Juliet had sometimes imagined a world where the two of them could combine – a creature half-Harriet and half-Juliet; the perfect happily married mother of two. The other halves – merging to create a woman not only abandoned but also barren – could wander in some eternal limbo for those that don’t fit, for those that break too many of the rules of social acceptability.
‘No, but I mean what can they do about it? Can’t they sort of scrape them off or something?’ This produced another burst of giggling. Harriet scooped her long brown hair (too long for thirty-five as Juliet sometimes idly considered telling her) back behind her ears and wiped smudged mascara from beneath her eyes.
Juliet leant forward and spoke more quietly. ‘You should see how they look inside you, it’s really bizarre. They said I had to have a scan, so of course I thought it would be like the ones you had with Adam, but it’s completely different.’ She pictured herself back on the couch in the small dark room in Weymouth Street; the radiographer had explained what was going to happen, but she had still been taken aback by the jellied penis-shaped instrument with its ultrasonic eye inserted gently into her vagina to gaze unashamedly up and around her womb and ovaries like an all-seeing joyless dildo.
‘God, I just feel so pleased that they’ve found something. I don’t care what I’ve got so long as there’s something I can do. I should be dark, fat and hairy apparently.’
‘What?’
‘The typical polycystic woman is large, dark and hairy. But not always. Obviously. Can I have another glass of wine?’
‘Of course.’ Harriet stood up and reached across the coffee table between them for Juliet’s glass. ‘It’ll have to be the Bulgarian red now, that’s all I’ve got left. Are you sure you’re allowed to drink by the way?’ She moved towards the small kitchen, collecting an old newspaper and abandoned toy gun as she went.
‘Oh don’t be so silly, Hattie. Believe me, if I get pregnant I shan’t touch a drop, but at the moment they tell me anything that helps me to relax is good.’
‘OK. Fine. So how did you get these things?’
‘They didn’t exactly say.’ Juliet stretched in her chair and looked around the comfortable, untidy sitting room. Harriet’s second-floor flat in Pimlico had been a refuge for many years now, in spite of the painful reminders of babies and then, later, of young children that were invariably scattered about. ‘Where are the sprogs?’ she asked.
‘Peter’s got them for the weekend. They’re taking them to Chessington today I think. The ghastly Lauren likes fast rides apparently. She would, of course. Another point to her.’ She was calling from the kitchen, and Juliet thought how little bitterness suited her even from a distance. Her voice always changed tone when the ex-husband or his new love were mentioned, reminding Juliet of the early days at school when Harriet’s sneering and bullying had been so impressive and had made all the girls want to be in her gang. Only after the two of them had been friends for two or three terms had Juliet got to know her softer side which, as Harriet relaxed into the routine of boarding-school life, had become increasingly dominant – until eventually it was Harriet to whom Juliet turned for comfort and advice, and who took her completely under her wing and used her dominance protectively rather than aggressively. It was Harriet who had first realised that something was very wrong as she had watched the skeletal Julie undressing in the dormitory; Harriet who had seen the pocketed food, heard the retching and groaning from the lavatory late at night. Although she had been too young to put a name to it she had sensed very quickly that her friend needed help, and that something quite dangerous was inhabiting her, subtly changing her not only physically but also from within.
The pair had remained friends after they left school. Long indulgent letters were exchanged between Harriet’s bedsit in Paris, where she was taking an interesting but unproductive Fine Art course, and Juliet’s university flat in Exeter, descriptions of suitors dominating the narrative, detailing their prowess in activities ranging from electrical repairs to love-making. But when Harriet met Peter over coffee in the Louvre, a change in tone crept into the letters and Juliet soon sensed love in the air. Back in London a couple of years later they had married, and the original hard and dissatisfied little girl was buried beneath a mound of glorious and uncomplicated happiness.
Juliet had envied Harriet’s complete abandonment in love. Peter was her world, and it was quite startling to see how Hattie adored him. It was the sort of love, Juliet supposed, that most people find only once in a lifetime, and some never find at all. Her own feelings for Michael seemed so contained in comparison, and Juliet often idly wondered if what she felt for him perhaps wasn’t love at all, but a convenient liking and companionship which, overlaid with the glitter of lust, had appeared to be deeper and more important than it actually was. But when the phone call had come from Hattie late that night; when the strange, thick voice had told of her misery at Peter’s infidelity and of her utter hopelessness faced by a future without him, Juliet had had enough of a glimpse into the open soul to see the torment that is always waiting on the other side of such all-encompassing love.
She had thought, gratefully, never to know it herself.
Juliet abandoned the car deep in the recesses of a public car park in Streatham and took from it a large brown holdall and the precious shopping basket with the thankfully sleeping baby in it, and carried them outside. It was almost dark, and she instinctively kept away from the streetlights as she walked quickly towards her destination. A lucky chance had led to her discovery of the semi-derelict house in Andover Road some weeks before; several wrong turns taken unthinkingly while coming back from a shopping trip had led her deeper and deeper into the unknown territory. She had pulled over to the side of the road and taken out her A–Z, but had soon found herself lost yet again in the thoughts that were then dominating nearly every waking moment. Gazing up at the row of abandoned houses alongside her she had sensed a solution, and had begun to formulate her terrible plan.
Now at last she was here. She had her baby back and all else would soon fall into place; when she was ready she would call Anthony and he would come, of that she was sure. Checking both ways to make sure that no one saw her, she slipped down the path along the side of the house and forced her way in through the broken door at the back, then climbed the stairs to the first floor. Once in the large front room she took a car rug out of the holdall, gently lifted the baby from the basket and then placed him carefully down on the tartan wool. He stirred a little in his sleep but didn’t wake, dreaming now of food instead of crying for it; feeling in his dream, rather than seeing, the comforting embrace of his mother and the rush of sweet, warm milk. His brain was as yet filled only with sensations and needs, with emotions, pictures and desires, with no memories older than a few months.
Juliet undid the poppers of his baby-gro, slipped it off his shoulders and rolled it down over his arms and legs. She pulled open the sticky tabs of his nappy and slid it from beneath his body, wincing a little involuntarily at the strong smell of ammonia. He stirred and whimpered. She looked down at his naked form, lit only dimly by the orange light from the lamp post that stood a few doors down the street, and found herself quietly crying. She bent her head to kiss him on his rounded belly, then laid her cheek lightly against him, not letting any of her weight rest on him, but touching him just enough to feel the warm beating softness.
‘Oh my dearest, dearest darling. Oh my sweetest darling. Oh my lovely baby.’
She lifted her head again to look down at him, seeing the gleam where her wet cheek had pressed against him, then as she gazed at him began to feel frightened. She sat up quickly and took off her blazer and laid it over him, panicking at the thought that he was cold. It was very quiet, and the silences between the baby’s whimperings were only broken by the noise of occasional cars turning into the small street, throwing odd swinging shadows from their headlights on to the walls and ceiling of the room as they negotiated the nearby corner. The whiteness of their lights and the thrust of their engines cut through the orangey quietness in sudden bursts of intensity, stirring the unease inside her, and leaving her each time more threatened by the silent darkness in between. She had never before been inside the room, but had assumed it would be completely empty, and only now did she begin to wonder what unknown objects were lurking in the corners, or what remnants of human occupation might be mouldering in unsavoury piles in the shadows. ‘Dear Lord, let him come soon. Let him come,’ she whispered, then closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands and swore quietly to herself, ‘Oh fuck it, fuck it, I haven’t told him yet have I? How can he come when you haven’t told him? Pull yourself together, Juliet, think it through. He’ll come when you tell him.’ She kept her face covered and breathed in the warm sweatiness of her hands mixed with a sharpness from the baby’s urine.
Then, as she knelt beside the baby, head still buried in her hands, eyes tightly closed, she heard something. Without moving her head, she snapped her eyes open behind her covering palms as she flinched and held her breath. She heard it again: a rustling behind her. Not daring to move for fear of what she might see, she kept completely still and focused every effort on listening, feeling her stomach clench in fear. Nothing. She could hold her breath no longer and began to let it out as quietly as she could, straining to listen as she exhaled, hearing only the smallest sound of her own breath escaping into the room, and of the baby’s fast, even breathing. Then – something again – a whisper of a rustle this time, still behind her, and a small dragging sound. As she turned and brought the hands down from her face, she saw the large figure of a man rising up out of the shadows in the corner and at the same moment she opened her mouth to scream.
Chapter Four (#ulink_9104bb39-2a11-5867-96a7-907f6164efbd)
Michael and Juliet were quite taken aback when Professor Hewlett suggested IVF treatment. Test-tube babies were something you read about in the newspaper; something that happened to other people, like plane crashes and lottery wins, even something to be slightly disapproved of as unnatural and unnecessary. Back in the large, comfortable consulting room after the results of all the tests had come through, Juliet had tried hard to listen once more to the details of the condition of her ovaries and the problems with hormones, egg quality and elevated levels of this or that substance, but it wasn’t until towards the end of the consultation when the words ‘in vitro fertilisation’ hung in the air that she really tuned in. She sensed then that, although the professor was giving her and Michael every opportunity to feel they were taking some active part in the decisions and alternatives that appeared to present themselves at every turn, they were being guided inexorably towards a particular treatment and that if they did nothing but nod and appear to be following the arguments they would slowly but surely be set on the extraordinary course that must lie ahead.
‘We’ve had considerable success with using IVF in cases such as yours, and thirty-five is a good age to be trying. After thirty-eight or thirty-nine the eggs do tend to be of lesser quality, as I think you know, and although we have many successes after that age – and indeed over forty – you stand a higher chance if you start immediately. My inclination is not to go through the laser or diathermy route with your ovaries, I have a feeling we’d be wasting precious time and there are other factors which lead me back to IVF. We’ll have to monitor you very carefully as there’s a higher risk of overstimulating the ovaries when they’re polycystic, but as I say we’ve had considerable experience with other cases just like yours and I’m very happy to treat you along these lines. You’ll obviously need to discuss this between yourselves and you may feel you’d like a chat with your GP, but I see it quite clearly as the best course of action . . . I’ll get Sally to give you some leaflets and of course I understand that you’ll need to consider the financial implications.’
A strange sensation in the pit of Juliet’s stomach was puzzling her, exciting her, and she turned her thoughts inward to confront it. As Professor Hewlett paused and looked at her she felt she was expected to ask all sorts of intelligent, relevant questions, but for a moment she had to indulge herself in examining this little spark in the very middle of her being. She smiled to herself as she recognised it for what it was; something long forgotten but comfortingly familiar after such a long absence – hope.
Sensing that the appointment was nearing its close, she bent to pick up her handbag from the floor next to her chair, letting her hair fall forward over her face to hide the smile, then brushing it back with her hand as she straightened up again. ‘I don’t think we need even to discuss the money, do we, Michael? I’d just like to get going as soon as we possibly can.’
Michael nodded. ‘Absolutely. It’s not as if we’re rolling in it or anything, you understand, but this is more important to us than anything else. We’d sell everything we’ve got.’
‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that.’ The professor smiled at them as he rose and moved from behind his desk. ‘But it’s very important that you understand exactly what you’re doing and that it’s not going to put too much strain on you both. Now, let me find Sally for you and we’ll see if we can start sorting things out.’
Husband and wife walked back to the car in silence, both deep in their own thoughts but each comfortingly aware that the other was thinking about the same thing. Michael slipped his arm round Juliet’s shoulders and she snuggled against him as they made their way along Weymouth Street and round the corner into Wimpole Street. When they reached the blue Volvo parked sedately in its ‘Pay and Display’ space, she looked at him across the roof as he took out his keys and pressed the button on the small black box that was attached to them. Nothing happened and he pressed it again, and then again, as he waved it vaguely around in the hope of directing its invisible beam more effectively.
She rested her hands on the car roof. ‘What do you think, darling?’
‘It’s the bloody battery, it’s—’
‘What? No. I mean—’
‘Oh, I see! Sorry, sorry.’ He stopped pressing and looked at her. ‘I think we’re going to do it. I think it’s going to work.’
‘So do I.’
He pressed again and the locks lifted with a satisfying click.
After a week and a half of using a nasal spray containing a drug to ‘shut down her system’ as they put it, Juliet started the course of injections which was to stimulate her ovaries and start her on the journey towards egg collection. She was offered the choice of going to her own GP for the injections, going to the clinic daily or even letting Michael administer them, but she had chosen to go to the clinic, loving the feeling of having something positive to do every day, and each time looking forward to the contact with the nurses who were always happy to answer questions patiently and discuss the thrilling subjects of pregnancy and birth over and over again for as long as she wished. She went every day at eight-thirty in the morning before going to work. She would chat to other women undergoing treatment, some of them into their third or fourth try, and sometimes she would feel panic at the thought that this might be her in a year or two’s time, growing ever older and more desperate, nearer every minute to the watershed of forty, and then reaching it and passing on to the downhill slope that would lead further and further from any hope of success. But on the whole it was comforting to be with others who understood and who had already been through the processes that still lay ahead of her.
Every day she was ushered into a small room subdivided by screens and she became quickly accustomed to watching the ritual of her treatment. The top of a glass ampoule would be broken off, the clear liquid it contained sucked up into a syringe, squirted back into a second ampoule of white powder which dissolved instantaneously, then sucked up again before a new needle was attached and plunged into her buttock where the magic liquid was slowly pushed into the waiting muscle. Then after a few minutes relaxing she would set off for the office, feeling better for being filled with a mysterious substance which would work silently inside her body, bringing the fantasy of the baby ever closer to reality.
As the days passed she began to feel quite bloated, and imagined huge sacs of eggs ever expanding inside her.
‘I’m like a chicken, Hattie. If only I could just lay one of the bloody things and let it hatch in one of those incubators.’
‘How do they know when you’ll be ready?’
‘When I’m ripe you mean?’ Only with Hattie could she joke so lightly about this most important of all possible events in her life. With Michael it was too fragile, too serious to discuss in any but the most hushed and reverential of tones, and it was a relief to be having lunch with her friend again in one of their familiar haunts in Kensington, smiling over the lasagne and chatting about eggs and babies as if it were no different from discussing the weather or the government; just much more interesting.
‘They scan me every few days to see how they’re doing. More jellied eyes. I’m getting quite used to it.’
‘And how’s Michael?’
‘Oh, he’s fine. He’s terribly worked up about it, of course. He thinks it doesn’t show, but I can feel his tension zinging about inside him. To tell you the truth it really irritates me sometimes.’ Juliet leant forward over the pink-clothed table. ‘I mean it’s not as if he’s got to do anything but just wait – I’m the one who feels like a battery hen. And who has things stuck up her all the time.’
‘Don’t knock it, darling.’ Harriet raised her eyebrows. ‘Some of us could do with a bit more of that, I can tell you.’
‘Oh no, you’re not pulling that one on me! It’s the most unpleasant experience and even you couldn’t possibly find anything remotely sexy in it at all. Much more fun to produce them the way you did. Michael and I haven’t had it for weeks now. It’s really weird – all those times we were so careful when we were going out together; we’d have given anything not to have had to worry about condoms and all that, and now that there’s no need, it – well, sex just doesn’t seem to have any point somehow.’
‘Mmm. I guess so.’ Harriet took another swig of her wine, covering up the old familiar wince she felt at the reference to love-making with Peter. He had called her the previous night to talk about Adam’s problems at school, and she had hated hearing the television on in the background, unable to stop herself picturing Lauren’s horribly long legs tucked up on the sofa while she watched News at Ten; Lauren’s large, long-lashed eyes fixed on the screen; Lauren’s perfect pink ears half aware of her lover on the phone to his old, discarded, sagging wife.
Professor Hewlett was studying Juliet’s latest scan report and smiled up at her. ‘Well, Mrs Evans, we’re ready.’
How strange it is, thought Juliet idly, that this man who has looked up, through and round me still doesn’t feel he knows me well enough to call me by my Christian name.
‘Oh good. So when do I—’
‘Right, this is what happens. I’ll make an appointment for you to come in tomorrow morning with your husband. We’ll give you a very light anaesthetic and pop you under for a little while. Collect as many decent eggs as we can and introduce them to your husband’s sperm, and then it’s over to Nature for a bit. It’s a very minor procedure and you’ll feel absolutely fine once you’ve woken up and had a cup of tea.’
Chapter Five (#ulink_252af528-951d-59bd-b919-e91e49d11a94)
It was a particularly beautiful October day; after a brief shower the sky had cleared and as the taxi took them up through Hyde Park the sun caught the few wet leaves still hanging on the trees in glints of liquid gold that were almost dazzling. Juliet had taken trouble with her hair and make-up and was wearing a cream jumper under a tan wool suit that, set against the yellow of her hair, echoed the autumnal colours around them. Michael glanced across at her and saw how good-looking she was. The lines beginning to settle into her skin around her eyes and mouth seemed merely to add to her beauty, giving her face a look of thoughtfulness and weariness that made him long to stop the car, take her in his arms and squeeze the unhappiness out of her until nothing remained but the carefree young girl he had first met. But he too sensed the solemnity and significance of the occasion and had put on one of his best dark suits and the blue patterned silk tie Juliet had given him the previous Christmas, as if the indignity ahead of him could be mitigated by an appearance of ordered formality.
They hadn’t wanted to bring the car, not knowing how long they would have to be, and not trusting to their hitherto good luck in finding a nearby parking space. The taxi dropped them off on the corner of Wimpole Street and Weymouth Street and they walked the few yards to the door of the clinic. Although the building was familiar after Juliet’s many visits for her injections, today it felt different and somehow threatening, and her physical discomfort added to her feeling of unease. Her abdomen felt more bloated than ever, and it frustrated her to carry round what felt like a grossly distended belly and to look down on herself and see a shape only fractionally more rounded than her usual flat contour. The feeling of fullness that she had longed for more than anything in the world was a sham – and to know she was filled not with a baby, but with a chemically induced swelling of her ovaries made it all the harder to bear. On the way there, she had found herself noticing, as she always did, just how many prams and pregnant women they passed on the way. The world seemed to be entirely populated by successfully fertilised females, and she could swear they smiled at her mockingly as she stared at them out of the taxi window. They seemed to belong to a club that was at one and the same time exclusive yet – for everyone but herself – easy to enter.
‘Come with me now, Mrs Evans. The big day, eh?’ Juliet was pleased when Janet’s friendly face appeared round the waiting-room door. The friendly Irish girl was her favourite nurse, and she was relieved to find her on duty. ‘I’ll take you through to change, my dear, and Mr Evans – can you go and do your duty upstairs now?’
Juliet was whisked away and Michael was ushered upstairs to where he was to produce his sperm. This interesting and quirky little room wasn’t new to him; on their very first visit for the initial consultation he’d had to come up here and produce a sample, but today he saw it completely differently. It was one thing to ejaculate for the purposes of investigation and diagnosis, but quite another to produce on demand the sperm that would be used to grow his child. The responsibility weighed heavily on him, and he sensed failure hovering like a nasty taste at the back of his mouth.
Juliet, too, was feeling tense. She was out of the smart tan suit now and wearing one of the strange white cotton gowns that open down the back. Her Irish friend had disappeared to attend to someone else, and another young nurse, new to Juliet, had to tie the tapes for her, adding to her feeling of being out of control and powerless. Perhaps that’s why they put you in these things, she thought idly, so you can’t even dress yourself, so you know you’re completely in their hands.
‘Right, Mrs Evans,’ the nurse said to her briskly but sympathetically, ‘let’s get you along into theatre ready for Dr Northfield who’ll be looking after you today. Just pop these little cotton slippers on and I’ll take you through.’
It looked more like an office than an operating theatre. It was on the ground floor, only about twelve feet square and had grey Venetian blinds at the windows, a black articulated couch that reminded Juliet of a dentist’s chair, a couple of television screens on a table next to what appeared to be a large glass box with a covered tray in it, and a further screen on the other side of the couch. The only obvious sign of the true business of this room was the pair of metal upright rods attached to the lower end of the couch, from which hung two leather loops. A picture flashed through Juliet’s mind of her body stretched out on the couch, legs wide apart, feet strung up in the loops, and eggs being pulled out of her on a string like flags from a conjuror’s hat. She shook the image away as the nurse laid a large sheet over the couch and settled her on to it, leaving her legs for the moment mercifully down and tightly held together.
‘I feel a bit jittery, I’m afraid. I’m not very good at this sort of thing.’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Evans,’ said the nurse, adopting a comforting, motherly tone towards this woman twice her age: her uniform, capability and the nervousness of her charge giving her perfect credibility as being at this moment the more mature and responsible of the two. ‘It’s only natural. But you’ve nothing to worry about. When the anaesthetist gets here he’ll explain it all to you; they’re very good now, you know, you’ll only have a very light anaesthetic and you’ll wake up feeling right as rain and it’ll all be over. I’ll have a lovely cup of tea waiting for you.’ She slipped a black blood pressure cuff over Juliet’s arm and closed the conversation by putting the ends of her stethoscope firmly into her ears as she began to pump up the pressure.
Juliet lay her head back on the couch and took a deep breath to try and calm herself, suddenly sensing, in a flash of insight, just how extraordinary this situation really was. Her husband was somewhere upstairs on his own and she was lying downstairs in an operating room surrounded by virtual strangers, and yet within the next few minutes both of them would attempt to extract from their bodies – or, in her case, have extracted – two small amounts of fluid that could change their lives for ever.
Dr Northfield turned out to be very young, very dark and very attractive. His short-sleeved blue surgical uniform made him look more like a doctor from an American television series than from a small Harley Street clinic and revealed tanned, thickly haired arms that set Juliet imagining a glorious future when the arms of her son would look just like this, and would carry her shopping, comfort her with manly hugs and one day hold her tiny grandchild.
His surprisingly deep voice snapped her out of her daydream.
‘Hello there, Mrs Evans. I’m Anthony Northfield and I’ll be collecting your eggs today. This is Dr Chang, the embryologist.’ Only then did Juliet notice a small, oriental man in a white coat hovering just behind Dr North-field. He nodded and smiled at her, then moved to sit at the table, on which stood a microscope, several glass dishes and the monitor screens.
Dr Northfield moved closer to Juliet. ‘I’ve a couple of little gadgets here I’d like to fix up first if that’s OK. Just relax back on the couch here and we’ll get you comfortable. All right?’
He smiled encouragingly down at her as she settled herself, then picked up what looked like a small finger stall with wires attached, which he fitted on to the end of her finger. ‘Just so’s we can keep an eye on the oxygen in your blood. All clever stuff here, you know!’
Another boyish grin accompanied the fixing of the blood pressure cuff on to Juliet’s upper arm once again, then young Dr Northfield sat back on a black plastic-covered stool and linked his hands in his lap. ‘So. Now we wait for the great man.’
Juliet assumed that he was referring to Professor Hewlett. An unpleasant thrill of panic suddenly shot through her bowels from nowhere at the thought of what was to come, and involuntarily she gave a small gasp.
‘All right, Mrs Evans?’ asked the nurse, leaning over and putting a comforting hand on her arm.
‘Yes, yes of course. Sorry, I’m not very good at all this,’ Juliet said again, and then she noticed the green boots that both the nurse and doctor were wearing. She suddenly pictured them sloshing ankle-deep through blood, and had to shake her head to rid herself of the unwelcome image.
‘You’ll be fine,’ smiled the nurse.
‘Nothing to it,’ added Dr Northfield, ‘it’ll be over before you know it. Just a gentle little doze and we’ll do all the work.’ He smiled at her, and Juliet felt a little calmer.
The door opened and a grey-haired man entered dressed in a short-sleeved blue tunic similar to the young doctor’s. On this larger, older figure it lost all connotations of American television and looked crumpled and well-worn, the material stretched tightly across a generous paunch and its modern styling thrown out by the pair of half-moon spectacles and dramatically untidy hair sported by the wearer. Juliet knew instinctively that this must be ‘the great man’ referred to earlier – no one could get away with looking so dishevelled and eccentric in such a setting without the power and kudos of status.
‘Right, let’s get the show on the road!’
He managed to exude bonhomie and pomposity at the same time in this one short sentence, and Juliet found herself taking an instant dislike to him.
‘Got any good veins there?’ He bent over and tapped at the back of her hand.
‘Mrs Evans, this is our anaesthetist, Dr Andrews. Don’t mind him – his bark’s worse than his bite.’
Juliet felt grateful for this thoughtful introduction, and determined to withhold her instant opinion of the grey-haired figure still tapping at her blood vessels and give herself a chance to like him. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather nervous,’ she volunteered.
‘Yes, my dear, I can see that.’ The grey head, that looked as if it belonged to someone just in from a violent storm, bent over her as the strong, calm fingers fiddled at her arm. ‘Not to worry, I’ll soon have you sleeping like a baby. But you’ll wake up crystal clear, I can guarantee that. Now then, I’m just going to – here we are now, just a little tiny prick and we’ll – good, good. Pass me that cannula would you, nurse? Thank you. Now, give a cough for me, would you? Good, and another one.’
‘I apologise, I’m not a very good patient, I – ow!’ Juliet jumped as she felt a sharp pain in her arm.
‘Just relax, you’re OK. Well done, all finished. Keep quite still now or it might fall out again.’
