Dear Thing (8 page)

‘Do you think there’s something going on between them?’

‘Hels!’

‘Well, I have to ask. It’s the obvious question.’

This was what Helen was like: if she thought something, she said it. Claire had to admit that this was one reason why she’d come to visit her sister this afternoon. And the same reason why, quite often, she stayed away.

‘It’s not like that,’ Claire said. ‘They talk football most of the time. They go to the Rose and Thistle, which is always full of men. He treats her like one of the blokes.’

‘As long as you’re sure, then— Sarah! Stop teasing him! Sorry, Claire, I need to sort this out.’

While Helen was out of the kitchen, Claire pictured Romily. Gangly, awkward, with her thick, cropped dark hair with the cowlick at the back that never lay down properly. Her frayed-hem jeans, her battered tennis shoes and her bitten nails; the freckles on her nose like a child’s, the way she sat on a chair always with one leg folded beneath her. Romily didn’t look old enough to be a mother, or to have a PhD. From the back she looked like a teenage boy, the type who would have beetles and snails in jars on bedroom shelves, frogs in her pockets. She melted into corners, lapsed into daydreams or abstract mental classification. She’d always tagged
along, turned up at odd hours according to her own chaotic schedule.

She’d been a fact of Ben’s life when Claire had met him. If she’d ever been hostile to Claire, that would have set Claire’s back up, but she’d never been anything but friendly in an offhand way. Ben said she was shy.

Posie was more vivid in Claire’s mind; she’d spent more time with Posie than with her own nephews and niece, because Romily had needed help with childcare in the early years. Posie was a bright smear of warm limbs and blonde hair, dreamy blue eyes. She had a sweet smell of her own, like apples in a bowl. Claire’s arms knew by themselves how it felt to hold her small body. The little girl was hungry for mothering, for cuddles and exchanges of girly confidences. She looked nothing like Romily, who treated her with absent affection. As if Posie were a favourite specimen that she was fond of but not quite sure what to do with.

There were secret moments, when Posie was asleep in the bedroom they called hers, curled under the quilt that Claire’s grandmother had made. Or when she greeted Claire with a big hug and a kiss. Or when Claire handed her a tissue, or when Posie’s hand crept by itself into Claire’s. In those secret, private moments, Claire sometimes pretended that Posie was hers.

It didn’t do anyone any harm. In reality, Claire knew she couldn’t let herself love Posie too much. It wouldn’t be wise to love her as much as she’d love her own child – not with her full heart. Not when in the morning, after sleeping under Claire’s grandmother’s quilt, Posie was going home with Romily.

Claire knew Posie. She loved Posie. And yet Posie had come from Romily’s body. And now Romily was offering
her body to Claire and Ben, as if it were a bicycle to be borrowed for a little while and then returned.

‘I don’t get why she’d want to do it,’ she said again, when Helen returned from sorting out the squabble. ‘It’s a big commitment.’

‘I wish I’d thought of it,’ said Helen. ‘I couldn’t do it, not after all the problems I had with Sarah. But I wish I’d thought of it. I wish I’d offered.’

She looked sad, and Claire hugged her. ‘Don’t be silly. That’s lovely of you to say, but you couldn’t possibly.’

‘It would’ve solved a lot of problems.’ Helen shrugged. ‘Oh well, no use thinking of it now. But if this Romily is healthy and she’s willing, maybe you should give it a shot. At least she’s a known quantity, right? You know she’s got good genes – she’s clever, isn’t she? You know she can give birth. You like her daughter. You know she’s not going anywhere.’ Sarah toddled into the kitchen, and Helen broke a biscuit in half and gave it to her. ‘You know a lot more about her than you would an anonymous egg donor, or another surrogate. Or the parents of a child you’d adopted.’

‘But it’s the way that Ben went about it, without even telling me.’

‘He’s desperate. You both are, aren’t you?’

Does it show so much?
She looked around at her sister’s modern kitchen, which was saved from being minimalist by the plastic tablecloth, the children’s drawings on the refrigerator. She’d hardly been here at all in the past four years since Josh had been born.

‘What would Mum say?’ she said instead.

Her sister smiled. ‘Ah, well, there’s another thing. Sarah, don’t eat that, you’ve just dropped it on the floor!’

MONTHS AGO, THEY’D
promised to take Posie and Romily to Legoland in Windsor in the first week of the Easter holiday. The night before, Claire lay in bed with her head on Ben’s chest.

‘What if she’s changed her mind?’ she asked.

‘She won’t. Once Romily makes up her mind, she doesn’t change it.’

‘Unlike me.’

He stroked her hair. ‘I went about it the wrong way. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.’

‘No more deciding my life in the pub, all right?’

‘Agreed. But you do want this to happen, don’t you, Claire?’

She’d thought of little else for weeks. All of the calm she’d felt that day under the pear tree had fled. She’d been able to feel calm because she’d been at the end of hope, and now there was this new possibility. Her mind gnawed away at it: pros, cons, legal issues. She’d been on internet surrogacy forums to read the stories. There were happy ones and some sad ones. There were a lot of couples who were looking for
a surrogate and hadn’t yet found one. She recognized the desperation lying under their typed words.

‘For six years,’ she said, ‘every month that’s gone by has felt like another month that’s been stolen from us. Another chance gone. If this is another chance, I can’t pass it up.’

‘So we’ll ask her?’

‘Yes.’ She wished she could feel that calm again. She wished she could know that this was right. But how would they know without trying?

‘Yes,’ she repeated.

Romily twisted her hands in the pockets of her jeans and watched Posie skipping ahead of them down the path towards a robotic dinosaur made out of Lego. The sun was too bright, the park too crowded, and the colours and canned music more or less obscene. She didn’t quite dare to look at Ben or Claire.

Ben hadn’t mentioned their conversation again, not since their secret meeting in February. Aside from texted arrangements about today, they’d barely been in contact. Meanwhile she knew that he and Claire were talking about it. Talking about her.

She glanced over at Claire, walking beside her down the stepped path. She looked breezy and cheerful in white trousers, spotless white pumps and a primrose-yellow top. Romily, as usual, had forgotten to do laundry and was wearing her last pair of black jeans and a green T-shirt with a hole in one sleeve. Claire’s face held no clue to her thoughts.

Wouldn’t she be wondering why Romily had volunteered? What if she had worked it out and told Ben, and now they were going on this outing, which Ben had insisted on paying for, to pretend that everything was all right
because they felt so sorry for her and her unrequited love?

The two of them. A united front. ‘Poor Romily,’ she pictured them saying this morning, in their sun-drenched kitchen, over fresh-brewed coffee and home-baked croissants. ‘Poor, deluded Romily. It’s a good idea to do something nice for her to show her there’s no hard feelings. Let’s include Posie so she’ll remember that she’s not all alone in the world. Even though Posie would just as soon have us for parents, and who can blame her?’

Ouch.

She hurried to catch up with Posie, but Ben slipped in front of her and swung the girl up onto his shoulders. They strode ahead, Posie giggling madly, leaving her with Claire.

‘Er …’ she said. ‘How’s your holiday going so far?’

‘Lovely,’ said Claire. ‘Yours?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘Nice day, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Very nice.’

There was no snarling, no spitting, no ‘stay away from my man’ vibe. Maybe all Claire was thinking about was her baby. Maybe she’d already refused the idea. She’d probably be worried that any baby genetically Romily’s would have an unhealthy interest in aphids.

By the time they got to Pirates’ Landing, Romily was ready to scream. Ben hadn’t spoken a single word to her; he was entirely engaged with Posie, laughing, joking around, going on the rides with her and leaving Claire and Romily to stand there together, watching. Claire kept the conversation light and general, marvelling at the Lego reproductions of London and Paris.

Finally, finally, Posie ran off to play on the pirate ship-shaped playground. Romily took her chance to escape and
buy them all cups of tea, and when she got back to the bench where they’d been sitting, she saw Ben exchange a look with Claire. They were holding hands, sitting close together.

‘We’ve got a few minutes now to talk,’ he said. ‘About the baby.’

Relief. Yes, it was about that after all.

‘Great,’ said Romily. ‘So I suppose the question is, do you want me to have this baby for you or not?’ She gave them their paper cups, which were already starting to become mushy at the seams.

‘It’s an incredibly generous offer,’ said Claire.

‘It’s the single most amazing thing anyone has ever offered to do for us,’ said Ben.

‘Oh, well, it’s only nine months, right? What’s nine months in the scale of things?’

‘Do you really want to do it?’ asked Claire. ‘I know you told Ben you did, but I want to make completely certain that you’re willing. It’s a huge ask.’

Romily looked from one to the other of them. They were so hopeful. They’d be brilliant parents.

‘Sure. Why not?’

Both of them relaxed noticeably, as if they’d been holding the same breath together.

‘Thank you,’ said Claire.

‘No problem.’ Romily kicked her feet, trying to be casual. Posie was still safely occupied in the play park. ‘So how do we go about it, do you think?’

‘Well,’ said Claire. She was suddenly efficient. Much more like the Claire Romily knew. ‘If we’re doing this, we’ll do it properly. We’ll get you started on pre-natal vitamins right away, for a start.’

‘We can make an appointment to see Dr Wilson at the clinic,’ said Ben.

‘Why do I need to see a doctor?’ asked Romily.

‘To make sure you’re healthy,’ said Ben. ‘That your eggs are in good shape and there’s no reason for you not to get pregnant.’

‘A check-up. Right. I can see my own doctor for that, surely?’

‘Dr Wilson can talk you through everything, though,’ said Claire.

‘What’s there to talk about? I’ve had a baby. I know what it’s like.’

‘But this is a complicated procedure. They stimulate egg production, then they extract the eggs, and then they fertilize them and re-implant the embryo. And maybe you’d prefer that we found an egg donor, so you’re not … er, genetically related to the baby?’

‘That would be a delay, wouldn’t it?’

‘Months,’ said Ben.

‘I can see how it might come to it,’ said Romily, ‘but it seems unnecessarily complicated to medicalize it. To bother with the whole test-tube thing.’ She faced Claire. ‘I don’t know how you went through all that. And all the drugs, all the tests.’

‘I – well, we always thought that in the end, it would be worth it.’

‘Does it hurt?’

Claire stiffened. ‘It’s uncomfortable. I wouldn’t say it hurt. Not physically.’

‘Far be it from me to criticize science,’ said Romily, ‘but it seems as if there’s an easier way to do this. We could use a turkey-baster or something for artificial insemination. Then if
it doesn’t work the first time, we can just try again. No doctors, no expensive equipment, no big deal.’

‘No big deal?’ said Claire.

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

‘I’ll do some research,’ said Claire. ‘There has to be an ideal way of going about it.’

‘Romily is a biologist,’ Ben reminded her.

‘But she’s never actually
tried
to get pregnant,’ Claire said, and then she put her hand to her mouth, as if she’d not meant to reveal that she knew that. ‘I mean—’

‘And to be honest, I do know a lot more about the mating habits of Japanese stag beetles than human reproduction,’ Romily said. ‘It can’t be that complicated, though, can it? Hello, Sperm. Hello, Egg. Let’s get together and make a … thing.’

‘A thing,’ Ben repeated. ‘Are you sure that PhD isn’t mail-order?’

‘There is quite a lot you can do to maximize your chances of conceiving,’ Claire said. ‘Basal temperature charts, ovulation kits. I have a lot of it already. We can monitor your cycle, enhance your diet, start you on half an aspirin a day.’

‘Right,’ said Romily. ‘Okay. It’s all new to me, but it’s your baby.’

‘This is really going to happen,’ said Ben. ‘I can hardly believe it.’ He gazed around him, at the children playing. ‘I feel we should be drinking champagne or something.’

‘And what’s wrong with tea?’ Romily asked.

‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’ He grinned at her and at Claire, and raised his paper cup. ‘A toast. To our thing.’

‘To our thing,’ said Claire, tapping her cup against his.

Romily raised her own. ‘To your thing.’

CLAIRE WAS HEADING
down to the staff room for a break-time cup of tea, students chattering around her, when she saw Georgette stepping out of her classroom into the corridor ahead. There was no mistaking the narrow shoulders and hips, the brown hair twisted up into a ballet-dancer’s bun. Georgette spotted Claire as she closed the door and her eyes widened with curiosity. Claire stopped as if she’d just remembered something and made a gesture with her hands, half-frustrated, half-apologetic. Then she turned round and headed back the way she had come.

‘Aren’t you coffeeing?’ asked Lindsay, passing her in the doorway of the music block. Claire shook her head.

‘I didn’t do enough marking over the holiday,’ she said.

‘I’ll bring you one. And a biscuit.’

‘Thanks.’

Lindsay was lovely, in her early twenties, just starting out at St Dom’s. She was in charge of the choral teaching. Claire wondered if she’d talk with Georgette in the staff room during break. If she did, she might be bringing back questions as well as a cuppa and a custard cream.