by Dani Atkins
The pizzas arrived, delivered with a flourish on huge pieces of slate. The waitress even performed a tiny bow as she placed Noah’s before him. ‘Here you go, superstar.’
Noah was delighted, but I was still too distracted by whatever was happening on the pavement outside the restaurant.
‘Go ahead,’ I urged Noah, who was salivating as he looked at the fully loaded Margarita in front of him. ‘Don’t wait for Daddy, I don’t know how long he’s going to be.’
Determined not to ruin the meal for Noah, I pulled off a triangle of my own pizza and sank my teeth into it, wincing as I instantly burnt the roof of my mouth. Somehow that too became Pete’s fault, which meant by the time he slipped the phone back into his pocket and re-entered the restaurant, I was already mad at him. But my anger evaporated away almost immediately when I saw the expression on his face as he headed towards our table. He looked dreadful. Beneath the tan he’d acquired over the last few weeks, his skin appeared ashen. He looked as if he’d aged ten years from the man who’d left us less than ten minutes earlier. When he took off his sunglasses, there were shadows living behind his hazel eyes that hadn’t been there before.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, all hostility now forgotten. Pete had the look of someone who’d just been told of a death, and I was already mentally cataloguing our elderly relatives, wondering which one it was.
‘Nothing,’ he lied. His eyes flashed meaningfully towards Noah. I was burning with curiosity, but Pete was right, this was Noah’s party, and whatever it was that Pete had heard on the phone, it would clearly ruin it.
Pete did his best to carry on as though nothing had happened. I don’t know if he managed to fool Noah, but he certainly didn’t fool me. He laughed too loudly, and his smile was a rictus, grisly and unnatural. He chomped determinedly through the food in front of him, as though completing a challenge. I doubt he tasted a single mouthful.
We’d agreed that Pete would mention the Cyprus holiday to Noah during the meal, but as we moved from pizzas to small mountains of ice cream – which Noah had no trouble demolishing – Pete said nothing. Was that what the angry phone call had been about? Had he and Maya had a falling out – I refused to call it a break-up, for that implied they were joined in a way I simply couldn’t cope with right then. If they had argued, perhaps she’d withdrawn the offer of the villa, and that was the reason Pete now looked so crushed. It was a theory, but I think even then I knew it wasn’t the right one. Every straw I grasped for slipped frustratingly through my fingers.
Pete settled the bill without even checking the amount and got to his feet. We’d driven to the restaurant in separate cars, so this should now have been the natural conclusion to the evening, but as we stood on the pavement, Pete looped one arm around Noah’s bony shoulders.
‘Why don’t I follow you guys back home?’ Noah’s eyes lit up, as if he’d just won a prize, while mine clouded in confusion.
‘I should probably have a look at the problem you said you were having with the back door,’ Pete added. Fortunately, Noah was still too delighted to hear his father was coming back home with us to notice my mystified expression. Either I’d been struck with a sudden case of amnesia, or my husband had just invented a convenient ruse in order to speak to me in private.
‘The door? Oh, yes. That would be… erm, really useful.’ Fortunately, you don’t have to be very good at acting to fool an eight-year-old, and Noah didn’t seem to realise something was very wrong here. And whatever it was, it had all started with that phone call.
8
Beth
I was there before the clinic opened. I parked in a far corner of the car park, beneath a row of eucalyptus trees, watching through the windscreen as the spaces around me gradually began to fill. My eyes followed the clinic staff as they made their way towards the main building. Some of them had an ‘It’s Friday’ spring to their step; others walked with more reluctance. I recognised no one. But it had been quite a long time since I’d been a patient here; the staff had probably changed many times over in the last ten years.
My attention was continually drawn to the bank of empty spaces reserved for the senior members of staff. The names on the first three bays were unfamiliar to me, but the fourth one bore a small neat plaque reading ‘Doctor M J Alistair’, and just looking at it made my heart beat faster and my palms grow clammy. The bays were filled within seconds of each other as a cavalcade of dark, expensive vehicles swept in quick succession into their allocated spots. Dr Alistair emerged from his car, carrying a large leather briefcase. He was engaged in conversation over the roof of his car with a colleague in the adjacent parking place, even before he’d closed the driver’s door. The vague notion I’d had of hijacking him on his way into the building had been taken from me. Yet my hand remained on the door latch as I watched him disappear from sight into the clinic’s modern interior.
I glanced at the clock on my dashboard – I’d been foolish to arrive so early, but going to the shop would have been almost as impossible as staying at home. I hated lying to Natalie, and yet I’d done so surprisingly convincingly at seven o’clock that morning.
‘A migraine? Oh, that’s horrible. Go straight back to bed and keep the curtains shut.’
I looked at the sunlight streaming in through my kitchen windows, which wasn’t bothering my eyes or my head at all. I was showered, dressed, and three coffees into a day that I already suspected would see a caffeine overload.
‘I’m sure I’ll be in later. Can you handle things until then?’
‘Seriously, Mrs B,’ said Natalie, ‘I can manage just fine. Take the day off.’
More guilt, because she sounded so concerned about a headache that I didn’t even have. I was putting a lot on my assistant’s shoulders, even though I knew she was more than capable of rising to the challenge.
‘And don’t worry about the shop,’ she added warmly. ‘I’ll take good care of your baby until you’re back.’ I did a very poor job of turning my gasp into a cough at Natalie’s unfortunate choice of words. I thanked her and hung up before I was forced to tell yet another lie. I didn’t want them piling up against me, like black marks on some cosmic scoreboard.
Twenty-five minutes before my appointment time, I gave up all pretence of waiting patiently and left my car. Perhaps the doctor would be able to see me early. Perhaps I’d been worrying needlessly, and there was nothing wrong with my scans. Perhaps the urgency I perceived existed only in my head. Or perhaps not.
The foyer was an elegant calming oasis of glass, marble and thick dove-grey carpet. It looked more like an exclusive hotel than a medical facility, which I imagine had probably been the interior designer’s brief. Huge pots of exotic foliage were artfully positioned, but I scarcely glanced at them as I approached the reception desk on legs that felt decidedly shaky.
The young woman behind the highly polished counter looked up from her computer screen with a polite smile of welcome. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I have an appointment with Dr Alistair. My name is Beth Brandon.’ Her fingers flew over a concealed keyboard and a tiny hint of a frown crumpled her brow. ‘I… I’m a bit early,’ I apologised.
‘Please take a seat and I’ll let them know you’re here,’ she said, gesturing towards a low leather couch.
I did as she asked. More waiting. And now a different clock face to study on the ivory-painted walls, as the minutes ticked by with an infuriating lack of urgency. There was a fan of morning newspapers laid out on a low table, but even the headlines couldn’t hold my attention. That wasn’t the type of news I was interested in today.
‘Mrs Brandon?’ For someone who’d been waiting for this moment for the last seventeen hours, I had a surprising urge to pick up my handbag and head straight out the door without ever looking back. It took more courage than I was expecting to quash that instinct and get to my feet.
The doctor’s secretary led me down a maze of carpeted corridors towards a suite of offices. She kept up a stream of polite
conversation, which I suppose I must have responded to appropriately, although I have absolutely no recollection what either of us said. All sounds were muffled beneath the resounding timpani beat of my heart. The musician in Tim would have liked that analogy, and just thinking about him calmed me, as if he was striding beside me. It was only when we came to a halt before a door that the enormity of what I was doing hit me. The last time I was here Tim and I had been a team, undertaking this project to protect our future. Now I was facing it alone.
‘Here we are,’ announced the doctor’s secretary, and it was only in those final seconds that I realised she too was nervous. I had no idea why. She knocked lightly on the door panel, standing politely to one side when a voice from within invited us to ‘Come in’.
My first surprise was that I hadn’t been ushered to Dr Alistair’s private office, where I’d imagined we were heading. Instead, I appeared to be in a small meeting room, with a long lozenge-shaped glass boardroom table. The second surprise was that on the opposite side of that table, lined up and waiting for me like a panel interview team, were four individuals.
My confusion must have been instantly apparent by the way my steps faltered as I entered the room. All four people rose to their feet, but Dr Alistair was the only one I recognised. There were two other men, both dressed in almost identical dark suits, and a middle-aged woman with the kind of fiercely pinned hairstyle that looked both incredibly uncomfortable and complicated to achieve. Dr Alistair was the first to extend his hand across the glass chasm of the boardroom table.
‘Mrs Brandon, good morning. Thank you for coming in to see us today.’
I’m sure my handshake was the type I most detested, weak and floppy, but I was too confused by the veritable crowd of people present at a meeting I’d thought would be for only the two of us. Where were the medical charts, the screens to hold the images of my scans? There was no examination couch, no blood pressure monitor, and not a single neck had a stethoscope swinging from it. It dawned on me slowly that this was not a medical consultation, it was a business meeting.
Dr Alistair introduced me to his colleagues in turn, whose names I immediately forgot almost as soon as they were given to me. But I did retain their job titles: a member of the board; the clinic’s practice manager; and lastly, bewilderingly, their legal representative.
‘Please sit down, Mrs Brandon,’ urged Dr Alistair, as the party on his side of the table took their seats in perfect unison. There was a single upholstered swivel chair on my side of the table, which the secretary held out for me. In her eyes was a brief flash of sympathy, the kind I recognised only too well from the weeks and months after losing Tim. I had to fight a rather embarrassing urge to grab the woman’s hand and ask her to sit beside me, to even things up a little. When her boss thanked and then dismissed her, I got the impression she was glad to leave. Her parting glance as she slipped from the room confirmed that whatever news I was about to receive, it wasn’t good.
I was offered – and declined – refreshments, although I did take a very necessary long sip from the glass of water that had been poured for me. My mouth and tongue felt like sandpaper, but that was hardly surprising. I looked up and interrupted a silent conversation voiced only in eye movements between the four clinic employees on the other side of the table. Dr Alistair gave a small, almost reluctant nod, and cleared his throat. He sounded like he needed the water even more than I had.
‘I’m sure you’ve been wondering why we asked you to come in today, Mrs Brandon… er, Beth.’
Dark-suited man number two, on the doctor’s right, the one whose job was involved in the clinic’s legal dealings, flinched visibly at the use of my forename. A small silent warning bell went off in my head.
I replaced my drinking glass on the table with deliberate care, affording the simple task much more concentration than it required. ‘Well, I assumed I was here to discuss my recent ultrasound scan.’ The practice manager dropped her eyes, but not before I’d glimpsed something that closely resembled anguish in their depths.
I sat up a little straighter, determined not to allow my voice to betray the nervousness that was thrumming through me like an electrical pulse. ‘I thought we’d be discussing the mechanics and the timing of the procedure and how it would differ from my previous two rounds of IVF.’ Dr Alistair met my eyes. Although he was too practised a physician to allow his face to give much away, his features revealed that he’d rather be anywhere else than facing me across this table. ‘But now I’m not sure. Was there something wrong with my scans? Is it bad news?’ That had been my worst-case scenario fear for the last few months. It was the one thing I had no control over. Would my own body reject the plans that my heart and head so desperately wanted?
I looked in turn at each of the four faces opposite me and knew, even before Dr Alistair began to speak, that the problem was so much bigger and so much worse than anything I’d spent sleepless nights worrying about.
‘Your ultrasound scans were absolutely fine. They showed a very healthy uterus. There was nothing on any of the images that would lead us to have concerns about your ability to carry a baby to term.’
There was a long pause. In any other situation it might even be called a pregnant one, but I was in no mood for such irony. In the end, I was the one who filled the silence by saying the word I believed everyone in the room was waiting for.
‘But…?’
There was a pen in Dr Alistair’s hand. It looked expensive, Montblanc, maybe. He’d unclipped it presumably to make notes, but instead was absently gouging the delicate nib into the leaves of a ruled pad in a series of frenzied doodles. I doubted very much if it would ever write properly again.
‘We have a problem concerning your frozen embryo.’
The blood drained from my face. I felt it go.
‘What kind of a problem?’ Whose voice was that? It certainly didn’t sound like mine, although as no one else had spoken, I could only assume that it was.
There was sorrow on the doctor’s face as he slowly destroyed my future. ‘The embryo you and your late husband stored at our clinic is… is regrettably no longer available.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked, aware that my voice had risen significantly in both pitch and volume. ‘How can it not be available? Did the storage tank fail? We were assured that couldn’t happen. We were told there were alarms, and back-up provisions.’
‘There are, there are,’ said Dr Alistair, his hands making calming gestures, which at this point in time were totally redundant. How could I possibly remain calm? My chance, my only chance of having Tim’s baby was slipping through my fingers, and I had no idea what had happened.
‘The clinic, as you know, has numerous safeguards in place to ensure the care of the embryos we store for our patients.’
‘Then what the hell happened to mine?’ I shook my head, as though that would stop the tears that were already stinging my eyes. ‘Ours,’ I corrected quietly. ‘Ours.’
Wordlessly, the practice manager pushed a box of tissues across the glass surface towards me. I focused on that rather than on the face of the doctor who had once again begun to speak.
‘Sometimes, even though everything is in place as it should be… systems fail, things go wrong—’ I saw the legal man’s arm reach over as fast as a cobra and squeeze the doctor’s forearm, halting him.
‘What happened to my baby?’ I demanded. My words were emotive. For the doctors and embryologists it might be just a collection of cells in a Petri dish, but for me it was a child. Mine and Tim’s.
‘You have to know that this terrible situation is totally without precedent at this clinic. Today, with our electronic double-witnessing system, it certainly couldn’t happen. But eight years ago…’
‘What do you mean? What happened eight years ago? How long have you people known there was a problem with our embryo?’
It was the practice manager who spoke then. ‘The discovery was only made yesterday. It’s as much of a shock to
us as it is to you.’
I very much doubted that, but I could no longer speak, for uncontrollable tremors were thundering through me.
‘The problem with the embryo, your embryo, occurred eight years ago,’ Dr Alistair confirmed.
Eight years? But Tim was still alive then, still battling with the cancer that would ultimately defeat him. Eight years ago, I hadn’t even had my first round of IVF.
‘As you know, ten years ago three of your embryos were cryogenically frozen and stored at our clinic,’ continued the practice manager, consulting a thick sheaf of papers before her. ‘Five years later, two of those embryos were used by you in rounds of IVF, which unfortunately were not successful.’ Her eyes went to the doctor. It was clearly his job to pick up the explanation from there.
‘That should have left you with one remaining embryo, which we were hoping to implant now.’
There were tears running down my face, which I didn’t even bother trying to wipe away.
‘What happened to my embryo?’
Whatever I’d been expecting, it certainly wasn’t to see the physician’s own eyes fill with tears, as he shook his head from side to side in disbelief. ‘Eight years ago, one of your frozen embryos was mistakenly removed from its dewar – the container in which it is stored.’ I knew the names of the equipment in the lab; that wasn’t the explanation I needed now, and I think everyone in the room knew that. ‘And that embryo… your embryo…’
‘Died?’ I asked, my voice lost and broken. It was the most terrible thing I could imagine, but there was so much worse to come.
‘No,’ said the doctor, looking in actual physical pain as he forced the words out. ‘Your embryo was mistakenly implanted in another patient.’
The room was spinning, and for one awful moment I really thought I would be physically sick as the doctor’s words infiltrated every cell in my body, like a contamination.