The Longing Read online

  ‘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

  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 fro
m 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.’

  Dr Northfield called from across the room: ‘Just remember it was the anaesthetist that hurt you, not the gynaecologist!’ Juliet found this far funnier than she would have in any other circumstances. Being so utterly dependent on them for her health and future happiness she was disproportionately thankful for any demonstration of interest or concern from the two blue-uniformed doctors, even if it took the form of a patronising, schoolboy humour that coming from anyone else she would have dismissed as puerile and unfunny.

  ‘Having put the cannula in,’ Dr Andrews was quiet and far less jovial as he spoke half to himself, ‘I shall – heart only sixty-six p.m., Anthony. Right, my dear,’ the jollying-along tone was assumed once more, ‘I’m going to inject this stuff now, it works very quickly; think of something nice; your husband? Come on now, don’t be frightened.’ Juliet could see out of the corner of her eye the top of a large syringe being slowly pushed downwards. ‘You’re going to soak up quite a lot of this stuff if I’m not mistaken,’ he added, as he looked down at her legs, which were still wriggling in nervous anticipation. A moment later they were still.

  The atmosphere in the small room was changed to one of quiet but casual intensity now that Juliet’s conscious mind was successfully switched off.

  ‘Her oxygen level’s down. We’ve knocked out her breathing, let’s lighten her up a bit. That’s better. Right, she’s all yours, Anthony.’

  With the help of the nurse, Dr Northfield lifted up Juliet’s legs, slotted her feet into the hanging leather loops and pushed back her gown. He pulled a low stool on castors towards him, positioned it between Juliet’s legs and sat down. He pushed the scanner (the jellied penis of her conversations with Harriet) into her vagina, and watched the screen in front of him while he began the search for ripe follicles. When he found a giveaway dark shape he carefully entered it with a fine tube attached to a pump and switched it on so that it sucked the contents into a test tube, which was passed to the waiting embryologist to examine under the microscope for possible eggs. As Anthony bent back down again to continue the search, the part of his mind not engaged in replaying sections of the previous night’s football on Sky Sports was concentrated on listening for the call that would give him the news he waited for. After a short pause it came:

  ‘Egg!’ The call from Dr Chang was clear and definite, as if he were bidding at an auction in a rather noisy hall.

  ‘Good,’ said Anthony, still peering at his screen.

  And then again: ‘Egg!’

  Chapter Six

  He had done it.

  Michael gazed proudly at the evidence of his manhood in the phial in his hand, tucked and zipped himself neatly away and rang for the nurse. While he waited for her to come and collect his potential future offspring, presumably swimming vigorously but vainly in search of a suitable home, he sat back again on the chair, exhausted. As he cleared his head of the fantasies that had eventually produced his orgasm, he found himself staring at the magazines through which he had been riffling in search of excitement. He leant forward to shuffle them into order on the table, turning the topmost one over without thinking, to hide its cover, then smiling to himself as he realised what he was doing. What was he hiding from whom? This room existed for nothing other than its prescribed purpose, and nothing could disguise exactly what he had been up to behind its closed doors. It reminded him of times in his youth when he had hung about the door of the chemist’s, burning with a mixture of excitement and embarrassment at the idea of going in and asking for a packet of condoms, and then amazed at the matter-of-fact reaction of the white-coated man behind the counter when he had finally plucked up the courage to do it. How easy it is for them now, he thought, these young boys. Boxes of them on display in garages; machines in the men’s loos. ‘They don’t know they’re born,’ he muttered to himself out loud. They should try going in and asking for them, like a man. Namb
y-pambies.’ He smiled again, and sighed.

  He could hear the unsettling but strangely familiar sounds of the clinic corridor outside; crisp uniforms swishing past on sensible feet, the occasional trolley or wheelchair with chatty occupant being ferried to one of the myriad rooms that could be reached from this part of the building. How strange to think that every one of the voices he could hear was coming from a body that had begun life with this desperate search of a sperm for an egg. Would his son be quite the same as they? Would an arranged marriage of semen and ova in a test tube really create a human being as full and perfect as one begun with a spasm of desire into the warmth and softness of its mother’s body?

  He looked up at the window, where the open curtain revealed a freshly washed sky. From his chair he could see only the tops of the trees outside, and if he ignored the noise of brakes, revving engines and slamming doors he could make the street disappear, and imagine himself at home in bed, lying back after making sterile but comforting love to Juliet. An oddly sentimental postmasturbatory tristesse came upon him, and he almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all: should he stay a while and mutter sweet nothings to his glassy partner before slipping silently away into the promise of the day’.

  The door opened after a brisk knock and a dark-haired young man popped his head cheerfully round the door. ‘Hello, Mr Evans, I’m Anthony Northfield, one of the gynaes here. I’ve been collecting the eggs from your wife, and you’ll be pleased to hear that we managed to get five, and three of them are in excellent condition. Success achieved at last, I gather?’

  He smiled waggishly as he nodded at the phial in Michael’s hand, as if trying to invoke a bar-room masculine complicity, a knowingness that implied he, too, had laboured desperately for hours over girlie magazines and that as part of the same fraternity they both understood the difficulties and embarrassments involved.