Suddenly, she pulled her chair back, grabbed her handbag. ‘Actually, I’m going out. Ann’s invited me to a book club.’
She stared at herself in the mirror in the hall. Her round face was ruddy from crying, her eyes pink. Her hair was tied up in a loose ponytail cascading down her back. Her blue cropped trousers were straining a little at the top, pulled in by a white belt. Pink flip-flops and a white T-shirt with a raspberry jam stain completed the look. She pulled her cardigan around her. Nobody will notice, she thought, closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ann leaned across the table and whispered to Katie. ‘Mr Bounce and Mr Clever have survived!’
Katie frowned at her, then suddenly realised she was talking about human embryos, embryos that had been growing in a petri dish in a North Sydney lab and smiled. ‘Brilliant,’ she grinned. Oh yes, she did say something about Mr Men Names, recalled Katie, reaching over for another spring roll – how many had she had? Five or six? They were delicious.
‘Katie, I can’t quite believe it. It will change our life – I’m going in the day after tomorrow and they put them in!’ She patted her stomach protectively.
Katie squeezed Ann’s knee under the table, Katie couldn’t help remembering Paul at Christmas. How angry he was. She frowned with the memory and wiped her greasy hands on a napkin.
‘Paul’s really taking this whole thing worse than me, the stress of it all. He’s happy at the moment, well … but,’ she cleared her throat, smiled, ‘I’ve never seen him like this before. Desperate - wants a girl.’
Katie flinched. ‘But you can’t choose that?’ she sighed, ‘You know, I can’t imagine what you go through, Ann.’ She stared at her blonde-haired friend with the freckles and sparkly earrings and wondered just what went through her mind.
‘No,’ she looked at Katie for a moment and held her eyes. ‘You can’t.’ She looked away and absent-mindedly rubbed her forearm, ‘Please God let me get pregnant …’ Katie looked down and noticed a mark.
‘IVF needles,’ muttered Ann, ‘they’re horrid.’
Ann forced a smile. Katie squeezed her shoulder. She listened as Ann chatted to the woman next to her and was amazed at her courage, at her determination in the face of nature trying to thwart her.
As she looked up she zoned in on Naomi talking to the woman next to her ‘Don’t you just feel, sort of, bored with everything?’
‘With what, life, sweetie?’
When were they going to talk about books?
Katie couldn’t help but listen. Naomi was explaining an affair a friend of hers was having. Was saying the man was fed up with his wife, that she bored him, bored him intellectually and in bed, that he wanted some excitement back. She blushed then, as she explained that her friend told her they’d found plenty of that! Said her ‘mate’ does feel guilty, but is having too much fun. Katie stared at her. No, it couldn’t be, could it?
Katie cast her eyes over Naomi again. She must spend a fortune on her looks. No wonder Tom can’t stop gawping at her. Word in the playground was that she had a boob job, plus her face was so youthful. Hair the colour of dark golden syrup, cropped into an elfin bob. Her glasses boasted the intertwining C’s of Chanel in diamante, perched on top of her head. Finger and toenails painted a matching milky coffee colour. Successful husband, yes. Beautiful boy Billy, yes. Stunning house, yes. She really does have it all, thought Katie, carefully dipping a chicken satay stick into the rich, golden peanut sauce.
Suddenly, Naomi excused herself from the table to go to the bathroom. As she walked past, she glanced down at Katie and gave her a thin smile. On closer inspection, Katie noticed murky circles under her eyes; must be partying too hard, she thought.
*
As Katie pulled into the driveway she noticed the lights were still on.
‘How was your evening? What did you chat about?’ Tom yawned, stretched his hand above his head.
‘We chatted about the school, shoe shops, Matthew McConaughey’s pecs, girls’ stuff – no books …’ she laughed, perching on the edge of the sofa. She looked over at him, saw his serious face.
‘Hey, Katie, sorry about earlier. I’d had it, long day. We should chat. There’s something I need to talk over with you, our accountants contacted us today - about the London house.’
Katie’s heart sank. ‘Before you say anything, I think I know what you’re going to suggest. I know how much we still owe Tom; I saw the figures - I nearly threw up Tom, it was much worse than I thought … still twenty-six thousand …’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I thought with your new job and us cutting back we’d have made more progress … you want to sell the house, don’t you?’ she said, looking up. She felt as though someone had a knife and was twisting it around in her abdomen.
‘Perhaps, Katie. I’ve just been looking at house prices in London - they’re set to fall even more; our mortgage is interest only – and you know the share options have dwindled - we should get out now. Sorry sweetheart ...’ his voice trailed off.
She closed her eyes and conjured up images of her beautiful kitchen, the family photos on the walls … when she opened them again, she was staring at the same photos – only on a different wall, a burnt orange wall – but one that was right beside her. My last hold on the UK, she thought. Tom took her hand in his and they sat in silence. She realised that if the house was sold, they owned nothing in England any more. It would leave a huge hole in her heart.
‘Listen, Katie, I’ve been thinking while you were out - you should do something for yourself, you know, outside the house. Sorry about what I said earlier.’
‘What do you mean?’ she sat up stiffly, felt the folds of her belly settle around her middle and hauled her shoulders back.
‘Remember our honeymoon in Egypt, the Try Dive in the Red Sea?’ Tom said, his eyes shining, he was smiling at her. She sank back down on the sofa next to him.
‘You know I’m terrified of deep water.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he sighed. ‘Look, I suppose it’s too much, with the kids and everything.’
She suddenly felt teary as he put his arms around her. Do I disappoint him so much?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Katie? Can you look after Ed?’ Paul was on the phone, he was talking really fast. Katie had hardly spoken to him in the last few months, their exchanges were mainly pleasantries about the weather in the playground if he’d managed to get off the boats early and come to pick up Ed. She didn’t really want to look him in the eye. Usually muttered something about being late and dashed off.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Ann, ambulance just now … I … there was blood everywhere, Katie, they said something about a coma – God -’
‘What happened?’
‘Ectopic pregnancy-’
‘Ann was pregnant after all? OHMYGOD, I’ll be there right away, Paul, hold on.’
‘My mum’s in Melbourne, Katie, she can’t …’
‘It’s fine,’ Katie said, grabbing her keys and bag, ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’
Speeding down her road, she re-traced the last few months in her head. Remembered Ann complaining of stomach aches a few weeks ago, but pregnant? The embryos must have survived, and yet she had been told it was a slim chance ...
Paul arrived on the doorstep with a subdued Ed holding his hand. Paul’s eyes were puffy, with circles underneath the colour of dark lavender. He wouldn’t look Katie properly in the eye. He handed Ed over and walked away. She took him silently, grabbed his bags and herded him into her car with the others.
When Paul finally came back from the hospital that evening it was past kids’ bedtime. He looked worse than when he left. But Katie had let the boys stay up - Ed was sitting cuddled next to the boys on the sofa dressed as Spiderman; a handsome young lad. Floppy curly brown hair and big, innocent blue eyes with eyelashes which look as though they curl right up to his eyebrows when he stared at you. With a mum who wouldn’t know him if he had crawled up on
to her lap then and lay there all night. All three of them were staring at the TV, with blankeys and rescued teddies watching Ice Age 4 on DVD.
Paul handed Katie a bunch of stargazer lilies. ‘Meant for Ann,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders and shoving the mass of flowers towards her. ‘But she can’t remember who I am, never mind appreciate the flowers, darl, you might as well have them.’
She took the mass of magenta and white blooms from him, inhaling the sweet smell of vanilla.
‘She can’t talk,’ said Paul collapsing onto the sofa. ‘Doctors say that it’s really touch and go …’ his voice faltered. ‘The doctor I spoke to -’ he coughed. ‘Says that it can, can … be fatal …I feel so -’ he looked down at his watch, then stood up, ready to go, a man ready to fight. ‘Says that it sounds like her tubes ruptured, and that she collapsed because her body was in shock due to the internal bleeding …’ He frowned, then looked away sharply.
‘Paul, if there’s anything we can do …’ said Tom.
We can’t really help unless it’s cups of tea with a slice of moral support on the side, reflected Katie, which I suppose is better than nothing. Ann, his effervescent wife has turned into a sleeping stranger who might never wake up or when she does, might be told she can never have any more children. Katie closed her eyes at the thought.
‘You know, Ann and I were looking at baby name books when the pain started – Lily for a girl and Josh for a boy,’ he shrugged, sat down on a nearby chair. ‘Been trying for four years. Didn’t know she was pregnant,’ he said, looking up and shaking his head.
‘But then she got the cramps …’ his voice trailed off and Katie looked over at her best friend’s husband, watched as the All Male True Blue Armour fell away, noticed how his eyes welled up. Suddenly, as if he remembered where he was, he sniffed, checked his erupting emotions and became very factual. He told them the surgeon did all he could, that Ann had to have a blood transfusion, that they’d know in the morning how it had gone, told them the percentage of people who have complications with ectopic pregnancies.
‘Anyway, thanks,’ he said, standing up abruptly. ‘I just feel so bad.’
‘But it’s not your fault Paul,’ Katie smiled, looked at him.
‘Time for a beer - something stronger?’ added Tom, not quite knowing what to do. Paul declined. Said something about taking Ed home. She could imagine that he didn’t want to be alone that night. That he would have probably take Ed into his bed later when he went to sleep, hold him next to him, sob quietly, stroke the little boy’s hair and weep into his soft cheek.
Tom squeezed her hand as they waved Paul off under the Jacaranda tree in the driveway, watched as the pick-up truck headed towards an unknown future.
She stood on the driveway and thought about the night before, about how they had slept in the same bed, yet there could have been an invisible sheet of steel between them, she mused. Katie remembered what he’d said the day before, how pleased he’d seemed that she might ‘do something for herself’; she closed her eyes, thought of Ann, of life and death – saw the ball of sun etched into her eyelids, how would I feel if I lost Tom?
‘You really never know what’s ahead of you in the lottery of life, do you?’ Katie looked up at Tom. He stared down at her, gave a wry smile. ‘No, you’re right.’ For a moment there was the glimmer of the man she married. She saw the young carefree 20-something with blonde hair who used to take her dancing on Saturdays, before the push-up bras were necessary, before the mortgage, before the kids - before all the stresses of their ‘new life’ Down Under. But then he was gone. He had walked back to into the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Katie pulled into the hospital car park. It was weird being back at the hospital, post baby, she thought. Fewer flowers, fewer helium balloons with teddies, more drips, more drugs. Ann was finally out of a coma, but had ruptured one of her fallopian tubes very badly making IVF even more like a Euro-millions lottery win.
Walking into the ward, Katie spotted her huddled under a baby-blue mohair shawl, with a drip attached to her arm and a monitor on her chest. A shadow of the bubbly blonde who sat opposite me in the park, thought Katie, with wind in her hair, sunnies restraining the wayward wisps around her forehead.
‘How you doing?’
She smiled at Katie and rolled her eyes silently. Katie sat down in the chair next to her and held her hand. No wonder Ann couldn’t talk. How could she express what she was feeling, wondered Katie. That her body had let her down. That she could have had a baby, that she could be holding a tiny newborn in a few months, that she might have been saying she was a family of four.
After half an hour, Ann moved her pillows. Katie caught a glimpse of a purple bruise on her wrist. Then Ann turned to her and smiled.
‘Katie, you go, I’m exhausted, thanks for coming,’ she sighed, then rolled over away from Katie who squeezed her hand one final time before she left. How does someone get over something like this? What will Anne do?
*
Flies were landing in the gooey bit of snot that lay just beneath Rory’s nostrils. Katie swatted them away. It was a month after Ann had been in hospital. Greeting her, Katie noticed the cheery smile – as well as mauve-coloured circles beneath her eyes.
‘Bloody flies are everywhere,’ said Katie, swinging her arm uselessly, through the air. ‘I thought it was just in the outback.’
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Ann touched Katie’s arm as they both sat down on a wooden bench. ‘The doctors say that one of my fallopian tubes has been badly damaged with the, um, ectopic pregnancy, that we’ll be lucky to conceive any more so we’ve pushed the fast forward button - found a doctor who will implant several embryos at once.’
Katie was shocked. She watched as Ann gazed at a little girl in the playground, hair neatly plaited at the back, two shiny clips held her curls in place at the front. She was dressed in a white smock covered in ruby-red poppies, with two small pockets at the front. Bending over, she very carefully poured sand into one of the pockets with a blue plastic spade.
‘Great decision,’ Katie leant over and hugged her friend.
‘Paul’s really, really keen to carry on, has read about how you can implant two or three embryos at once, depends on which consultant you use – you know, up your chances.’ Bet he is, thought Katie.
Katie frowned, then turned to her friend and smiled. ‘You, more than anyone deserves a bigger family, but are you sure? Isn’t it dangerous?’
‘No more than what’s just happened …’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, Paul’s looked into it and he’s certain that’s what he, um, we should do. If … if, that fails …’
‘It won’t,’ Katie said quickly, bending over and picking Rory up from the buggy.
‘Well, if it does, it could mean adopting and that takes years. Paul says he can’t wait …’
Katie couldn’t help remembering Paul at their house: how much he wanted a baby. And yet, she thought, part of me understands. Once you become a parent it’s like a light switch is turned on. The switch was there all along, but it was covered in a layer of dust; once you have kids, the dust is blown away, the switch exposed in full view for you to snap on, reveal a full beam of love. All those two really want, she thought, is a sibling for Ed who wears his underpants the wrong way round, for a baby to bring up his breakfast all over her shoulder.
Katie smiled at Ann as they both took in the scene of the boys playing in the sand pit, running around with bare feet and bush hats. Hopping effortlessly on and off their scooters, screaming with joy at being released from the confines of four walls at school.
‘Anyway just so you know, I’ve already been injecting myself every day for a week, I feel dreadful,’ said Ann quietly.
Katie moved Rory to the other side and handed him a biscuit.
‘I was at the clinic at 7am today for blood tests to see if my levels are OK to start with the next round of hormones which stimulate the follicles, but I’m not there yet, they say it’s not quite r
ight. Oh God, Katie, here we go again,’ she said, sighing loudly.
‘Oh honey, it’s going to be worth it.’
‘I know, but this is just the start … we haven’t even got to producing eggs yet …’
Katie didn’t know what else to say. Outsourcing the production of a baby is the alchemy of chemistry and hope, a scientific experiment, tinkering with embryos and emotions.
‘But you know,’ Ann carried on, perking up, ‘even in a week things could be different,’ she carried on, ‘all those people at the clinic - I really wanted to ask if they’d been successful, Katie. Know what I mean?’
No, thought Katie, I know precious little about the journey of IVF snakes and ladders. Ann turned to her and her eyes lit up: ‘Just think - in about nine months, I could be holding a baby!’ a smile spread across her face, ‘You see, they seem to have found the problem; I’m not releasing an egg every month; in a strange way, the ectopic pregnancy has been like an awakening; wish we’d started IVF before,’ she said, her eyes followed the little girl in a red smock.
‘Paul and I were up late last night discussing it all, Paul’s read it all out to me. So, we’re going to fix it,’ she said firmly.
Katie reached for her hand. She must have been reading some impressive IVF leaflets last night, she thought. ‘That’s great, what next?’
She sighed and closed her eyes. ‘Weeks of injecting myself again, stimulating the follicles - then they take the eggs out, fertilize them – then put three or four embryos back in. Increases my chances,’ she said, ‘God, I hope it’s all worth it …’
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