Surrogate – a psychological thriller (9 page)

Alice wriggled into her knickers and reclipped her bra, asking if she could borrow a hairbrush. She sat at the dressing table brushing her hair. Once again, I was having difficulty comprehending what we had just done. How could I have been so stupid?

Our eyes caught in the reflection. "You know that I'm already pregnant. They did the transfer this afternoon after you left."

"I had no idea it would be that quick," I found myself saying.
She was already carrying my baby?

"They want me to go back in a couple of weeks' time to check that everything's all right."

"After that, when will we see you again?"

"In three months' time, I s'pose. Once they're sure nothing can go wrong."

Alice finished dressing and swiped her mobile phone from the dressing table, checking for messages. "You don't have an iPhone charger do you?" she asked. I shook my head. "Sorry, I use a BlackBerry." I wanted to tell her again that what had just happened was an accident, a one-off occurrence never to be repeated. Never. Ever. "Alice, what I said, Emily must never know ..." The surrogate put her finger to her lips and then pressed her finger against mine. So, it was to be our secret. Inwardly my shoulders sagged with relief. Immediately I started to doubt her; could I trust Alice to be grown up about this, to keep what had just happened as a secret between two consenting adults?

Then she came forward and kissed me on the lips. "I love you," she whispered.

And with that, she was gone.

I sat down at the dressing table she had just got up from and caught sight of myself in the mirror. I ran my hand through my hair, not liking the person I had become. What the hell had just happened? I looked distraught. "Jesus Christ," I said aloud to nobody.

I did not get much sleep that night. What we had done kept revolving in my mind, and I prayed for forgiveness to a God I was not entirely sure I believed in. From now on I would be the best husband in the world, if only God would give me just one more chance and forget this madness. Mole's features and then Alice's appeared and reappeared in my mind, sometimes merging to form a single face looking down on me. I just felt so overwhelmingly guilty. How could I have wrecked the one true thing in my life for a one-night stand with somebody I barely knew?

And that business of her telling me she loved me was alarming. We had only just met, two consenting adults having a one-night stand, I kept reassuring myself, as if telling myself something again and again would make it true.

I hoped she wasn't going to get funny on me. Jesus. Perhaps the best thing would be to confess all and lance this boil before it even grew. Don't be stupid, my other voice warned, Alice has already said she'll keep quiet; if Alice does say anything, just deny it.

By now birds were singing outside my window and I bunched the pillow round, trying to get to sleep, but grey morning light crept in from behind the curtains. These two voices vied for supremacy in my head until I finally dropped off.

The peal of my mobile on the bedside table stabbed me awake.

My fingers scrabbled for the phone as I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I felt dreadful. My brain felt thick and unresponsive just when I needed to think clearly. I was hung-over.

"Hello?" I mumbled.

Mole said brightly, "Morning, darling, how did you sleep?"

"Oh, fine, thanks." I sat up in bed – and then regretted doing so. "Everything went perfectly. I went to the clinic and then came back to the hotel. They'll let us know within a few days whether it's taken. Ah, I lost my wallet and then Emily handed it back to me, wasn't that kind of her? I offered to buy her dinner."

What on earth was I gabbling on like this for? For God's sake, stop talking, Hugo. Why not just confess everything right now, you idiot.

"I'm Emily. Do you mean Alice?"

"Sorry, yes, of course. I've only just opened my eyes."

"So did you meet her at the clinic yesterday? Trevor Wallace-Jones said they like to do the egg transfer as quickly as possible. My god, it's amazing, thinking our baby is growing in her tummy."

"I don't think it happens as quickly as that. The body can still reject the egg. Sometimes they have two or three tries. It can get very expensive."

"I'll give Alice a call and see how she got on. Surely there's no harm in that."

"No, I'm sure that'll be fine," I said, touching my forehead. Were there any aspirin in my washbag?

"Darling, can you get back here for lunchtime? I've got some shopping I want to do. I thought we could go and see a film. Date night."

"Sure. Is there anything you want to see in particular?"

"There's the new Brad Pitt on at the Vue. It's had really good reviews."

"Yes, let's do that. I'll have breakfast and then check out." I suddenly felt an overwhelming rush of love for this person whom I had betrayed, who had done nothing wrong. I felt like an utter shit for how I had behaved. Mole was a beautiful person both inside and out, and that was rare to find. Guilt twisted in my guts like a knife.

"I love you very much," said Mole.

"And I love you too."

We rang off and I lay there for a moment contemplating what to do now. Actually, Ye Olde Country Breakfast was the last thing I felt like eating. The thought of it made me nauseous. Christ, would I ever feel normal again? What I needed was absolution.

I lurched to the bathroom and stared at myself red-eyed in the mirror. I looked awful. Of course, we had rushed up here without having dinner. What had the waiter made of our empty booth when he arrived carrying our steaks? I examined my wine-blackened tongue and started running a shower. My washbag turned up a couple of aspirin, and after a hefty shit and trying to rub last night away under scalding water, I began to feel halfway normal. The idea of having breakfast still made me feel ill, though.

Downstairs a maid was vacuuming the entrance-hall carpet, and I asked the duty manager where the nearest church was. There was one at the end of the village, he said. I stepped over the flex of the vacuum cleaner and out into the high street, nodding to a man walking his dog as I made my way to the church. The modest but pretty church was the first thing you saw on entering the village of Horley.

Why did I feel the need to do this? I couldn't even remember the last time I had been inside a place of worship. The heavy door shuddered open, and a cold and musty smell greeted me. Inside, plaques commemorated local worthies, and a war memorial covered the white walls. My shoes clacked along the stone floor. A regimental flag, so threadbare that it almost frayed to the touch, hung over a tomb: a sculpture husband and wife, their hands clasped in prayer staring sightlessly at the vaulted roof. Fidelity. I ran my hand along the stone folds of the wife's gown and felt immensely sorry for what I had done. Or sorry for myself. Then I knelt in one of the pews and pressed my head against the wooden rail in front of me until it hurt. Good. God, please forgive me for what I did last night, I pleaded. If you give me another chance, I swear I will give a huge donation to this church. I heard somebody else moving around, and doubt seeped into my mind as to whether I was just talking to myself. So I sat up, feeling a little self-conscious. A female vicar had walked in through a side door and was rearranging the altar. She turned and caught sight of me, clearly wondering what this man was doing here in her church so early in the morning.

"Can I help you?" she asked. She was small and practical looking, with her hair cut mannishly short.

"Yes, I was wondering if you could help me. I need to talk."

She looked puzzled. "This isn't the Church of Rome," she said. "We don't do confession."

I stood up as she approached. "Can I ask you a question, then? If you'd done something bad, something you regretted, and you pray for forgiveness, does God automatically forgive you?"

"What, you mean something criminal?"

"No, not criminal. Something personal."

"I can't answer that. God usually answers our prayers. Only in ways we do not expect. Of course, you could always make an act of contrition – a donation, perhaps."

"But you think that God hears us?"

"Look around you. Some of our churches took hundreds of years to be built, vast monuments to the power of prayer. Generations of people believe that prayer works. Who are we to say it doesn't?"

It took me nearly three hours to drive from Wiltshire back to central London. An accident on the M25 slowed traffic to a stop-start crawl, like a throat having trouble swallowing.

My car's rear bumper caught as it dipped down into the underground car park, and I swung the Porsche around, parking in my usual space. Retrieving my overnight bag from the front boot, I blipped the car locked and, swinging the bag over my shoulder, trudged towards the lift. The car park had a hot rubbery smell, and my leg felt stiff from all that driving. What had happened at the hotel had been a moment of madness, an aberration. I had fallen off the horse and was getting back on again. How I longed to see Mole's face. At the same time I felt anxiety – what if she noticed something was different about me? I suspected that women were good at ferreting out any sign of infidelity.

The lift door slid open when it arrived on the top floor, and I stood fumbling with my keys, which jangled as I opened our front door. Dropping my bag in the hall, I called out for Mole. "In here, darling," she called. I walked through into our sitting room and felt shock run through my body.

Alice was sitting on the sofa beside my wife.

Mole rose to greet me with her arms outstretched. "Poor darling, you must be so tired after your drive. Look, Alice has come to see us. Isn't that a nice surprise?"

"Yes, I can see that," I said. My mind was reeling. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. After everything we had talked about, what was it that Alice hadn't understood?

"Would you like a cup of tea? I was just making one."

"That would be great, thanks." This felt like a nightmare I wanted to wake up from but couldn't.

Mole kissed me lightly on the mouth. "Now, don't say no before you've heard me out, but I've asked Alice to come and live with us. I know what you're thinking, but this way I can keep an eye on the pregnancy. She's told me she wants to move to London, and she doesn't have anywhere to live. So I thought, well, why not? Just until she finds a place of her own."

Alice sat dumbly on the sofa.

"Well, I, uh, guess so," I said. "It's just not something we ever really discussed. I know you wanted to monitor the pregnancy and everything, but we never talked about Alice actually living with us."

"It would only be for a few weeks, and it helps Alice out. It would give me comfort too, especially during these early weeks."

"I could pay rent if you want," Alice piped up from where she was sitting.

"There's no need for that," I said automatically, following Mole out into the kitchen. "We've got a spare room."

Mole opened a kitchen cupboard and pulled down the teabags while the kettle rattled with boiling water. I took her arm and said quietly, "Mole, darling, listen to me. We hardly know anything about this girl. Sure, she's carrying our child, but we don't know anything else about her. She could be a thief or have a boyfriend who's a thief. I had this friend who employed a weekly cleaner–"

Mole stiffened. "Goodness, you're paranoid. We know where she went to school, where her last job was, where she was brought up. You've met her twice. She's a nice girl. We're only talking about nine months. Sometimes, the way you talk, it's as if you don't want this baby."

"It's not that, it's–" I so badly wanted to confess what I had done. The words even formed in my mouth.

"Good, that's settled then," said Mole, moving briskly past me. "Now, do you want anything to eat? You must be starving. Go and ask Alice if she takes milk and sugar. We've got some biscuits that need eating up."

Alice had not moved from the sofa. Our dumpy surrogate was leafing through one of Mole's art books on the coffee table. I was so angry I could have torn it from her hands. Alice appeared frightened when she looked up, and shrugged apologetically as if to say, none of this is my fault. I shot a glance towards the kitchen, making sure Emily was out of earshot, and then stood over her. Glancing down, I realised I had unconsciously balled my hand into a fist.

"What the hell are you playing at?" I hissed.

"It weren't my fault. Honest. She insisted. She called me on my phone and said she needed to see me. I tried telling her that I wanted my own place. But she weren't having none of it. You've got to believe me, swear down."

I felt like a tin can that had been kicked down the ribs of a mineshaft. My mind was buffering, figuring out what to do. First I never want to see her again, and now she's going to live with us? I could hear Mole still moving about in the kitchen; we had only a few seconds to finish this conversation. "All right. Look, nothing has changed. You don't say anything about what happened last night, and neither do I. Okay?"

Alice nodded, looking as if she was about to cry. Please, God, don't start with the tears. Mugs were being pulled out of the cupboard. Mole could walk in at any moment.

"Alice, do you take sugar?" she called out.

"Yes. Two please," Alice replied.

I whispered, "If my wife finds out, then my marriage is over."

I mimed putting both hands in the air and making a placatory gesture towards Alice. Okay? Do you understand? Alice nodded. Good, that was settled – we were both back on the same page again. Jesus wept, what a mess. Inwardly, though, I breathed a sigh of relief. Mole walked in carrying a tray with a teapot and three Emma Bridgewater mugs on it. There was that awkward silence when somebody walks back into the room and knows you've just been talking about them. A tremor of uncertainty crossed Mole's face.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

Alice stood up and looked out of the window. "It's a lovely place you've got here. Can you see the Shard from this window?"

"Here, let me help you with that," I said automatically. Mole shook her head.

"No, that's Canary Wharf in the distance," said Mole. "You can't see the Shard from here."

Alice turned back to me. "Will you take a photo on my iPhone? I want to send it to my mate. She'll be dead jealous. Living the dream."

Our surrogate handed me her mobile and slid the glass door to the balcony open to stand with her back to the Thames. There was a seven-story drop from the balcony, and for a moment the thought crossed my mind to push her off it. Stop being so ridiculous, I thought. Instead, I lined up her sallow face in the viewfinder.

"You've really got it sorted here, haven't you?" she said, posing for the photograph. "Some people just don't appreciate what they have."

I will always remember that photograph. It went on Alice’s Facebook page, along with photos of Emily and me getting married.

Mole was already pouring tea when we stepped back inside. "Now," she said. "Shall I be mother?"