by Tony Parsons
Younger women were easier to meet. They were relaxed about their lives. It was only the older women – that is, women around ten years younger than Rory himself – who were deafened by the sound of their biological clock. And not just the ones who had never had a child. The single mothers were just as bad. The happily divorced women with children were just the same.
Their bodies were in extra time, their eggs were still hopeful of a penalty shoot-out. But even if they had a kid or two already, they wanted one more baby, and one more chance at a perfect family.
Rory couldn’t blame them. He understood. His lonesome heart ached for exactly the same thing.
A proper family at last.
Rory looked at the shattered fragments of his former family, and he yearned for the impossible – to somehow make it whole again. He had no trouble at all understanding the urge to build a family home. And yet so many of the women wanted too much, too soon. After one dinner, one movie, and one trip to bed, he could sometimes feel them sizing him up as partner material, and it always made him feel like bailing out. There was something peculiarly old-fashioned about many of these modern women – the equation of sex with marriage and children. And of course because of the minor surgery on his testicles, Rory wasn’t having children with anyone.
One of the older women – cresting thirty-nine, that fatal shore – actually cried when he told her about his vasectomy.
‘That means I’ll never have your baby!’
This after some Japanese fish, one German film, and a rather uninspiring fuck.
So he stuck to the younger women. Not for the reasons that were usually advanced – the firmness of their flesh, the springy youthfulness of their bodies – but because they didn’t feel as though time was slipping away.
He couldn’t have kids? Fine. Because they didn’t want kids with him. They didn’t want kids with anyone. Not now. Not yet.
‘A baby is something with a big mouth at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other,’ asserted one Cambridge graduate who was currently organising minicabs at the BBC. She was twenty-nine. Rory knew that she would lose the smirk and change the tune somewhere over the next ten years. They all did. But he would be long gone by then.
Men of his own vintage – sixties and seventies kids, veterans of the divorce courts, sometimes more than once – assured Rory that it was perfectly natural to be seeing younger women.
One of them – a fifty-year-old lawyer who was seeing a thirty-two-year-old literary agent – declared that to find your perfect partner (always assuming you were a middle-aged male with a large disposable income) you had to halve your age, and then add seven years.
So a trim thirty-year-old man should be seeing a twenty-two-year-old woman. And a well-preserved guy of forty should be involved with a twenty-seven-year-old. And a fifty-year-old groover should be seeing a woman of thirty-two.
It was perfectly natural for a man of his age to see younger women, Rory was told – however clichéd it felt, and however reluctant he was to be typecast as a dirty old man. It was one of the cruel rules.
‘As men get older, there are more and more women to choose from,’ said the lawyer. ‘For women, it is the other way round. And that’s true no matter what toy boy Joan Collins or Demi Moore is going out with this week.’
The last woman Rory had been seeing was thirty-two – half his own age, plus seven – perfect. At first it was good. She treated his snip like a party trick, as if a vasectomy was rather like being double-jointed. She wasn’t desperate to fulfil her biological destiny. Not right now. Not with him. She thought she had all the time in the world. And she was happy to put away the condoms.
Rory let her down gently after a couple of months. There was nothing wrong with her. She was smart, funny, and great fun under the duvet. But in truth, the sex didn’t feel so very different from getting a takeaway pizza. More and more, that’s what modern sex reminded him of – like an American Hot with extra pepperoni. A moment of pleasure that dissolved in the memory, and soon enough you were famished again. Beyond satisfying that moment of animal hunger, what was the point? Perhaps there wasn’t any.
It wasn’t always this way.
Back in the dark days of his marriage, before his operation, sex always carried with it the promise of something more. After his cut, as the marriage collapsed, sex and procreation were for ever separated – just as society separated them, he always thought. Sex for him would never again mean family, just as the sex you saw in glossy ads never meant family.
The sexual images we are bombarded with every day – what did they have to do with the possibility of a new human being, another life, building a family of your own?
Nothing at all.
All sex was fast sex now, junk sex, quick and easy sustenance – for Rory, for the world – quickly consumed, and just as quickly forgotten. A feverish rut up against the refrigerator while you were slurping down your Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
Instant gratification, disposable pleasure.
And once it had meant far more than that. Once upon a time it had been everything it was today – the hunger, the fever, losing yourself in the body of another human being – and yet infinitely more.
Since his marriage had ended, Cat was the only woman who had made sex feel like something better than a takeaway pizza.
Oh, he wished he had met her first, he wished she was the mother of his son. He ached with all of that empty, pointless wishing. And he missed her. In the end, it was that simple. He missed her so much. Her fierce spirit, her goofy smile, her strength and her kindness. The length of her limbs, her soft breathing when she slept, and the way she looked on a Sunday morning when they were reading the papers and they didn’t need to say a word. He missed it all.
Since it had ended, he had been out with women who were younger, prettier, and wilder in bed, and yet none of them were in the same league as her. That was the mystery that we would never understand, he thought. You couldn’t rationalise it. You could never explain why the heart chose to love who it loved.
He had been truly in love with her – he saw that now – but as much as he missed her, he knew that he could live without her. That was the worst thing about growing older. That was the worst thing of all. Realising that you could keep living without anyone, when it came to the crunch, when it came to goodbye and good luck, take care of yourself and let’s be friends, realising that we are all ultimately alone, taking our pleasures where we can.
When you finally know that you can’t die of a broken heart, he thought, then you know you are truly middle-aged.
So Rory stuck with his younger women. And the irony was that he had never had this much success with women when he was a virile young man.
They liked his body, the way it looked after all the years of constant exercise. They liked his gentle manner. And most of all they liked the sad fact that he could live without any of them.
Once you have used up your store of love, he knew now, you can live without anyone.
That was one of the cruel rules, too.
Paulo swung the Ferrari into the drive and immediately slammed on his brakes.
He slowly reversed back out, the gravel crunching under his wheels, noting the presence of the gardener, the swimming pool guy, a telephone engineer, two unidentified white vans – plumbing? – a couple of cars he didn’t recognise, the builder’s big black BMW X5 and an overflowing skip that hadn’t been there this morning. It was like trying to park on Piccadilly Circus.
There was an empty double garage on the far side of the drive but negotiating a path to it would have been like organising the evacuation of Dunkirk. So Paulo parked out on the road again. As he opened his door a car whistled past him, angrily sounding its horn. After a lifetime in the crawl of city traffic, the speed of these suburban roads appalled him.
The door to their new home was open.
Paulo stepped inside and was assaulted by noises and smells. Banging, welding, something heavy being dropped. Raise
d voices and laughter. Fresh paint and wet plaster. Chewing gum and cigarettes. Feeling like a stranger in his own home, Paulo leaned against the banister, his hand instantly recoiling from its stickiness, his palm covered in a coat of magnolia emulsion.
‘They say moving is as stressful as bereavement and divorce,’ mused their builder, lighting up a hand-rolled snout. ‘Give me bereavement and divorce any day of the week. Looking for the little lady, Paul, mate?’
Jessica was in the back garden, under the parasol of the Indian Ocean garden furniture, considering what looked like architectural drawings with a man Paulo didn’t recognise.
The man was naming a price for a kitchen. At first Paulo thought he had misheard – the price seemed far too high, more like the price of a car. But then the man said that it actually wasn’t that expensive for a kitchen of this quality. And Paulo wondered when the world had changed, and what his mother would say about a kitchen that cost as much as a car.
The man was having to raise his voice because there was a bevy of shirtless young gardeners wielding what looked like hand-held vacuum cleaners, skirting the fringes of the huge garden, blasting stray leaves and twigs into submission. Beyond them the swimming pool guy was dragging the water with a giant fishing net, removing scraps of debris that were being blown into the water by the gardeners. The messy striving for perfection was everywhere.
Paulo looked at his wife. Her perfect features were arranged in a mask of concentration as she studied the drawings. He loved watching her when she didn’t know he was there – he could never believe his luck, really, that this was the woman he got to share his home, his bed, his life with. He always declared that he could watch her for ever, although Jessica always insisted with a smile that fifteen minutes would be closer to the mark.
No, Paulo thought, watching her now with the kitchen man. For ever is much more like it.
Then she suddenly looked up at him and smiled. Always happy to see him again, even after all this time.
‘Jess? Can I have a word?’
But Jessica wanted to introduce Paulo to the kitchen man and, for quite a while, the three of them sat there pondering the virtues of different kinds of wood, granite, tile and kitchen appliance, until the man finally had to rush off to his next appointment.
There was a little shed at the end of the garden, part summerhouse, part storage space. Overriding her protests – she wanted to talk to the chief plumber about taps – Paulo steered his wife to the shed.
‘It will be a beautiful kitchen,’ Jessica said, her eyes shining with excitement.
‘I know, Jess.’
She frowned with concern.
‘Are we all right for money?’
‘If this is what you want, we can always find the money.’
She threw her arms around his neck. A builder whistled.
‘You’re so sweet.’
He lightly kissed her mouth. ‘I just want you to be happy.’
He meant it. If this new place would make her happy, then he would find the money somewhere. If this new kitchen, which would cost more than the home his mother and father lived in, the house they had raised two boys in, was what it took, then show him where to sign. He would give his wife all the things she wanted. But deep in his heart, he wondered if that wasn’t part of the problem.
We are so used to getting the things we want, he thought. All of us. So how do we cope when there’s something we can’t have? Something we want more than anything?
‘Watch out for the staircase,’ she said. ‘The paint’s still wet.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
He realised they were still having to raise their voices because of the gardeners and their leaf machines. But he could not wait until they were really alone. This had to be done now. There was no time to waste. So down in the little summerhouse he showed her the brochure that he had brought home.
There was a colour picture of an Asian baby on the cover, wrapped up in someone’s arms. A woman’s arms. In the background, in black and white, was a generic Asian image, the curved roof of a Buddhist temple, misty green mountains.
Adopting in China, it said on the cover. Yellow words on a red background. Chinese colours, Paulo thought. Jessica looked baffled, and then concerned. As if a perfect day was being taken away from her.
‘What’s this?’ Jessica said, shaking her head. ‘What is this?’
He had seen his wife looking at so many glossy brochures. For kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and every item in them. Beds, sinks, carpets, curtains, tables and chairs. But Paulo knew that these were not the things they needed to turn this house into a home.
There was only one thing that could do that.
‘You don’t want to try IVF again,’ Paulo said.
‘IVF is a medical time bomb,’ Jessica said, flicking through the Adopting in China brochure.
The text was full of black-and-white photographs of frightened-looking Chinese babies, sleeping Chinese babies, smiling Chinese babies. Beautiful babies. Jessica stared at them as if babies were a species she had never encountered before.
‘As you know,’ Paulo said, ‘I think that’s all bollocks.’
She turned on him. ‘Oh, you’re the big expert, are you? You think I’m just afraid to try again, and you’re wrong. This stuff is dangerous, Paulo. There’s research that says IVF causes a greater risk of tumours. That IVF babies are more likely to have low birth weight. Never mind the effects it has on the poor bloody women. Do you know anything at all about the links of IVF to breast cancer?’
Her voice was angry, but there was something else in her, and it felt like fear. He didn’t want her to be afraid. He wanted them to get through this thing together.
‘I read all those articles too,’ Paulo said, as gently as he could. ‘And I’m sorry, Jess, but I still think that’s not the reason you don’t want to try it again. You think babies born normally don’t have problems? Jesus, everybody wants cast-iron guarantees these days. Everybody wants a lifetime warranty. And the world’s not like that.’
She hung her head, and the sadness in her felt like it would overwhelm them both.
‘How pathetic you must think I am.’
‘Come on, Jess, you know that’s not true. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
‘You think – oh, the poor cow has got a Mrs degree. What good is she without her baby? Give her a baby and shut her up. And any baby will do.’
‘That’s not fair. I’m just saying – I think there are millions of healthy babies born by IVF.’
She lifted her chin defiantly, that patented Jessica gesture whenever she found herself in a fight, and he felt a surge of feeling for her.
‘It’s my body.’
‘Yes, it is – and that’s why I want you to at least think about adopting.’
She laughed bitterly. ‘Is that what you think I want? A baby that I picked out on the Internet? A little exotic baby from cute-orphan-dot-com that nobody wants in its own country?’
He placed his hands on the brochure she held, as if it might save them.
‘Just read about it, Jess. That’s all I ask. You know what they say in China? About an adopted baby? Born wrong stomach – find right door.’
‘Everybody would know it’s not my baby.’
Her voice pleading with him, trying to get him to stop, almost frantic with the need to stop talking about trying to love somebody else’s child, and the terrible implication of that love – that they would never have their own child.
‘Who cares what people know, Jessie? Who cares what people think? Who cares?’
Her eyes shone with fury.
‘I bloody care!’
‘Jess – there’s a baby out there somewhere for us. A baby who needs loving parents just as badly as we want a baby. What’s wrong with adopting? I’m just saying – think about it. That’s all. It’s an option.’
Her words were flat and hard, with no hope left, and nothing more to discuss.
‘
Not for me. It’s not an option for me. I want my baby. Not a baby that comes from somebody else. Not a baby that doesn’t look like me. My baby. I don’t want some substitute. I don’t want second best. I don’t want to adopt.’
She handed him back his Adopting in China brochure. The cover and the back page had been crumpled and torn in her hands.
‘I would rather get a fucking cat,’ she said.
Fourteen
‘Table four,’ the chef said, slamming down a plate of tiger prawns. ‘Cat’s table.’
Kirk looked blank.
‘The old guy and the three women. Let’s move it, surfer boy!’
Kirk came out of the steaming kitchen and into the crowded, Saturday-night restaurant. There was something oddly familiar about table four. He thought he recognised the old boy – this erect, silvery David Niven type, a real old-school Brit – and – oh, of course – he had definitely met the tall, good-looking woman next to him. Cat, the manager of the place, who he had been briefly introduced to after the chef gave him a job. There were two more women at the table, but he didn’t see their faces.
‘Your tiger prawns,’ he said, making to place the plate on their overcrowded table. ‘Careful, they’re very –’
Then he was staring into Megan’s eyes.
‘Hot,’ he croaked, the tiger prawns hovering in mid-air.
‘Do you mean spicy-hot or cooking-hot?’ said Jessica.
He had rehearsed their reunion so many times that he was undone by the reality of the moment. For some reason he had imagined that she would have nursed the same feelings, and that she would be glad to see him.
But there was nothing in her eyes that indicated she even recognised him.
‘Sorry, what kind of hot is it?’ said Jessica.
He stared at her. ‘What?’
‘It’s okay, we’ll be careful,’ Megan said, more calmly than she felt, easing the prawns from his grip. What was he doing here?