The Two Week Wait (23 page)

‘The clinic rang,’ says Cath, as Rich walks into the kitchen. She is cooking supper. ‘They should be ready for us the day after tomorrow.’

Rich slings his jacket on the back of a chair. ‘So it’s really happening at last. Wow. How exciting.’

‘I know.’ Cath grins and jumps up and down waving a wooden spoon, excited as a little girl. ‘I can’t believe it!’

‘So, what’s the plan?’ The smell of garlic and herbs prompts him to open the fridge and pull out a beer, but just as he reaches for the bottle opener, Cath bars his way.

‘Whoa. We need you as healthy as possible.’

Rich pouts, deflated.

‘Bloody hell, darling, I’ve had to go without for ages, and if I get pregnant I won’t be drinking for months. You can manage a couple of days.’

‘Of course.’ He adjusts his expression to show he is amenable. Perhaps he’ll sneak one later, when she’s elsewhere.

‘So apparently her follicles are ready. She just has one more injection tonight, then on Wednesday morning her eggs are collected.’

‘Oh no,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘I’ve got a meeting on Wednesday.’

‘Well, cancel it,’ says Cath. ‘Or reschedule it, rather. We’ve got to keep Wednesday free.’

*  *  *

Adam examines the paperwork. ‘So, tonight it’s this Otrivelle injection to do?’

Lou nods. ‘Later, though. It has to be thirty-six hours before egg collection.’

‘Which is . . . ?’

‘Ten a.m. Wednesday. Though we have to be at the clinic earlier.’

Adam checks his watch. ‘Would you like me to stay, to do it for you?’

‘Don’t feel you have to.’ But Lou can tell he wants to and she’ll only sit around getting anxious, otherwise. She’s softening to his offers of help.
‘Actually, yes, that’d be good. Thanks.’

‘Do you want to get a DVD or something?’

She might not be able to concentrate on a whole film, and they are sitting out on her small roof terrace enjoying the evening sun. ‘Seems a shame to move.’

They look around. It’s a view she never tires of. To the west she can just make out a car wending its way along the spaghetti tracks of the roller coaster, small as an ant at the far end
of the pier. To the east is the concrete crescent of the Marina breakwater, hardly Brighton’s greatest architectural achievement. Between is the sea, calm, flat, green; in the distance is a
ship, Monopoly-sized, maybe a ferry on its way from Newhaven to Dieppe. But tonight it’s the sky that surpasses everything. It’s what Lou thinks of as a Higher Power moment, when the
sun’s rays spread in a giant fan from the clouds to the sea. She half expects to see cherubs tumbling to earth through the billowing vapour.

Adam sighs contentedly.

She has an idea. ‘You know what I really fancy?’

‘What?’

‘A game of Scrabble. We can play here.’

‘You like Scrabble?’

‘I do.’ Maybe he doesn’t think of her as a wordsmith, but she used to play with her father. It only underlines how little she and Adam really know one another. Are we mad, she
worries, embarking on such a major commitment when the main thing we share is a desire to procreate? And what if one of them meets someone else? Whatever they’ve agreed in principle,
it’s sure to change the dynamic between the two of them. She pushes the thought away – there are people depending on them. ‘I’m not
that
good a player though, never
fear. You up for it?’

Adam is already clearing their drinks off the small metal table before them, making room for the board. ‘You bet.’

*  *  *

‘Oops, nearly forgot,’ says Cath, throwing back the sheets and sitting up. Her medication is in the bathroom.

‘Ah . . . before you do that—’ Rich grabs her arm. ‘Come here . . . ’

Cath leans back into him. He smells clean and tooth-pasty. She knows at once what he is after.

‘Let’s not allow the treatment to get in the way the whole time.’ He slips a finger under the shoulder strap of her nightdress and it falls aside.

‘You’re supposed to abstain from any form of sexual activity,’ she reminds him.

‘
I
am,’ he says. ‘Not you . . . ’

‘Mm,’ she sighs as he kisses her breast. He’s right: it is easy to forget, with all the external pressures, to make love.

He sucks a little harder; she can sense his desire, which arouses her more, in turn. He turns his attention to her other nipple, then tracks his tongue down her abdomen, teasing.

‘You really mustn’t come,’ she says, and almost resists. But it feels particularly special to be intimate tonight. As if in spite of it all they are making their baby
together.

*  *  *

Adam puts down the word with a flourish.

‘No way.’ Lou shakes her head. He chuckles and she sees he still has two tiles in his hand. ‘Oh no . . . !’

‘Oh yes . . . ’ He adds them. He’s got rid of all seven letters, an additional score of fifty.

‘No wonder you were happy to play. I might as well give up.’

‘Probably best – it’s time for your injection.’

‘Really?’ The evening has gone so fast. It’s dark; the lights of the pier shine bright against a purple sky, the air is growing chilly.

Inside, Lou lies back on the bed, lifts her T-shirt and braces herself.

‘Ready?’ says Adam.

‘Yup.’ She looks away, a tiny jab, and he is done. ‘Funny to think that might be my last one.’ The procedure seems almost ceremonial as a result.

‘I think I’ll get off home.’ Adam wraps the needle and disposes it safely in the sharps tin supplied with the drugs. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not,’ she says, though she feels a pang of sadness at being left alone. They have been so at ease with one another – as comfortable with periods of silence as they
are with banter or intimate chat – that it’s highlighted how she lacks day-to-day intimacy without Sophia here. She says goodbye and flips up the lock. It’s just her and her
studio. Still, Lou is determined not to be maudlin.

*  *  *

‘Right, that’s it, all done,’ says Cath, returning from the bathroom and climbing back into bed alongside her husband.

But Rich is already asleep. She strokes the back of his neck, thinking how much she cares for him, how blessed she is to have a husband she still fancies so much. Then she leans to turn off the
light, reverses her body until it’s wedged tight alongside his, closes her eyes.

She can’t feel the pessary as such, but she can imagine it gradually dissolving, the progesterone doing its work, thickening the lining of her womb. It’s very strange to think that
somewhere a mirror woman is going through a similar process. She wonders if she is snuggling up to her partner after making love, too.

Adam is driving home from work – he’s escaped earlier than usual. It’s a glorious evening.

If everything goes to plan, the next day he will be on his way to becoming a father: what a strange – and powerful – thought. Not many people end up planning conception so
specifically, to the day, the hour, almost the minute. Such exactitude appeals to the scientist in him. Yet there remains an element of mystery to it all; it’s beyond the realms of his
experience – and he’s excited too. Just then he spies a parking space close to his favourite cafe on the prom; its cornflake-yellow awnings beckon. On impulse he stops the car, reverses
in. He has an urge to pay tribute to this moment.

The counter would usually be closed at this time, but the opportunity provided by sunshine and school holidays is evidently too good to miss and the place is heaving. He purchases a latte, shoos
a pigeon from a chair and sits at one of the green plastic tables by the beach. From here he can see right down the esplanade. On the nearby lawn two teams of middle-aged men are playing
five-a-side football with more enthusiasm than skill, a couple of trim young women are doing star jumps with considerably greater flair, and a party of teenagers is having a picnic. Adam is
perturbed: they appear to be scalding the grass with the heat from their foil barbecue, and their beatbox is turned up way too loud – he can hear it from where he is sitting. On the broad
stretch of tarmac straight ahead an elderly couple dressed in very wintry clothes for such warm weather stroll slowly hand in hand. They’re a marked contrast to a golden-skinned guy in
nothing more than the shortest of shorts and rollerblades who swoops and swirls in great arcs around them, bottom protruding like a cat on heat. He smiles and catches Adam’s eye; clearly he
is showing off to lure suitors, but tonight there’s no way Adam is remotely inclined.

All around, people are chatting and laughing; at the very next table, a father and his son are bantering amiably. The boy must be, what – eight, nine? He has a shiny chrome scooter propped
up against the railings. His shoes, with their Day-Glo laces, look new and trendy, and his face has a healthy glow from a day in the sun, whereas his father’s T-shirt is faded and the back of
his neck is burnt, peeling.

The dad has obviously looked after his son better than he has himself, thinks Adam. I wonder if I’ll be like that, too.

*  *  *

This has to be one of the least appealing roads in the entire country, thinks Rich. Considering it runs close to some magnificent countryside, the view is dull as ditchwater.
Still, perhaps it’s good that he’s driven up and down it so often he could virtually navigate with his eyes shut: he’s tired. As usual he was caught late with work; at this rate
he and Cath won’t get to London till almost midnight.

Cath is leaning against the car window, hypnotized by the white lines flashing past to her left. She appears not in the mood to talk, so he reaches for the button of the radio. But before he has
a chance to select a station, she says, ‘Do you have to? I was hoping to snooze.’

He knows better than to argue. She’s pretty wound up about the next few days, though at least they have a place to stay. Cath’s brother and his family have gone abroad for a
fortnight and Mike has managed to broker a deal with Sukey: while they are away Cath and Rich can use the house. This is a relief. They cannot afford hotel bills too.

Presently Rich sees Cath’s head loll forward then jerk up; he glances across – she is sleeping. Good, he wants her well rested. He feels a surge of love for her. Cath is undertaking
so much, yet in many ways is more sensitive mentally – and certainly physically – than he is. She will need to draw on such emotional strength in the journey that they are about to
embark upon. She is the one whose commitment will be tested, who – should they conceive – will have to look after herself for the duration of a pregnancy. His role is comparatively
simple: providing sperm will only take minutes. Then his life can resume, pretty much as it is now, until – touch wood – the baby comes. He can have a beer, eat badly, relinquish
exercise – it will make no odds.

He checks her again. She looks so vulnerable there in the passenger seat: wisps of hair splayed out against the glass, cheek resting on the makeshift pillow of her cardigan, trusting him utterly
to focus on the road ahead and get her safely to their destination.

*  *  *

It’s approaching 7 a.m., and Lou, too keyed up to sleep, is showered and dressed and gazing out of her attic window. She looks across the rooftops, trying to imprint
today’s seascape on her memory; maybe, if the IVF works, in the future she’ll want to tell her child about this particular morning. It’s hazy, but lately it’s been hot; the
mist should clear. The sky is a watercolour wash: pale blue up high, lilac close to the horizon. The boundary between cloud and sea is scarcely visible and gives the day an uncertain feel, as if
it’s hard to pin down, floating.

Her eye falls on her windowsill, where she keeps some of her most treasured possessions. There, next to the battered Russian dolls she was given as a child and a trophy she won playing tennis as
a teenager, is the photograph Adam commented on of her parents on their wedding day. ‘1971. Same year Bianca married Mick,’ Lou recalls her dad telling her, but it’s hard to
imagine the dates coinciding. She has seen pictures of the Jaggers – Mick, louche in his pale linen suit and trainers, with his long hair and cigarette; Bianca in head-to-toe Yves St Laurent,
audaciously bra-less. St Tropez and St Albans might as well be light years apart: a duo further from her parents is hard to imagine. In this shot, on the steps of the parish church not far from
where her mother lives now, Irene is standing with her court shoes neatly together as if she’s a Girl Guide waiting to have her uniform inspected. Her long dress is elaborately ruched and
frilled, but she couldn’t look more strait-laced if she tried. Her hair is piled up in a bun, hardly the height of fashion then, and there isn’t an inch of décolletage on display
– her collar buttons to her chin and finishes with a ruffle. Beside her, Lou’s father looks scarcely more comfortable. He is three-piece-suited and polished-booted in accordance with
tradition, right down to the white carnation pinned in his buttonhole. He’s holding Irene’s hand, but they’re a pace or two apart, rigid. Not even their heads are inclined towards
one another; their smiles are unsure.

Lou thinks of the decades they spent together, a marriage typified by that same tension. She examines the photo again: they’re like a pair of sunflowers in separate pots; they each have
their own root system, self-sufficient. But, also like sunflowers, they appear fragile in solitude, as if their stems are not quite strong enough to sustain them in isolation.

*  *  *

Adam can see Lou waiting at her window, toots the horn to get her attention. A couple of minutes later he leans over to open the passenger door and she edges awkwardly into the
seat.

‘You OK?’

‘I’m about to pop,’ she says, putting her rucksack between her feet. ‘The eggs must be the size of tennis balls. I swear I can feel them knocking against one another.
Couldn’t get my jeans done up this morning, had to opt for trackie bottoms.’

‘Probably wise to wear something comfortable,’ he says. ‘I made us a thermos of tea if you can fit a cup in.’ He gestures towards the flask slotted into the drinks holder
behind the gearstick. ‘Help yourself.’