Inconceivable

by Ben Elton

  I went to Oddbins today and downgraded from single malt to blended.

  Dear Penny,

  I am really quite proud of Sam. He was absolutely immovable on the private operation bit. I had no idea he had retained such a firm grip on his political principles. Good for him.

  I’ve booked the private operation for the end of next month.

  I mentioned my political fears to Sheila at work because she’s a bit of an old lefty and she said something awful. She said, ‘Yes, but the reason that we all worried about Thatcher’s hand was because it was about essential surgery, which is what the Health Service is for. Fertility treatment is hardly essential, is it? It’s more of a personal indulgence.’

  She actually said that, and she was trying to be nice. Well, I suppose it’s what a lot of people think. Perhaps I’d think it myself if fate had dealt me different cards.

  Dear Sam,

  Well, I knew that it was only a matter of time before the axe fell and it fell today. I finally lost my job. I think the whole corridor knew before I did. Trevor avoided my eye and Daphne looked distinctly upset. I’m a pretty easygoing sort of boss and I think she’s scared they’re going to give her to some twenty-eight-year- old Armani clothes hanger who thinks only American sitcoms are funny.

  Anyway, there was a warning sign in every face, so by the time I got to Nigel’s office to which I’d been summoned I was ready for anything. In a way it wasn’t so bad.

  ‘Radio,’ said Nigel.

  ‘Radio,’ I said.

  ‘Radio,’ said the Head of Radio and Television, who was also in attendance. ‘I’m extremely keen to up our light entertainment output in sound-only situations. Your massive experience in bringing on the best of the new comedians and writers makes you the perfect person to head up this major new entertainment initiative.’

  Which of course means that it would be more trouble and expense to sack me than to shift me to a job where it doesn’t really matter what I do. On the other hand I had been expecting immediate redundancy, or, at the very best, the post of Programme Coordinator: Daytime South West, so this was, in a perverse, reverse kind of way, quite good news.

  ‘What’s the job title?’ I asked.

  ‘Chief Light Entertainment Commissioning Editor, Radio,’ said the Head of Radio and Television.

  I let it hang in the air a moment, waiting for the words ‘deputy’ or ‘sub’ or ‘Midlands’ to follow. They didn’t, but you can’t be too careful. I heard a story of a bloke who went to see the DG and thought he’d been offered ‘Controller, BBC1’ but actually after the DG said the word ‘one’ he coughed and in that cough managed to add ‘Planet Green Initiative, Bristol Environment Unit.’ The poor man was on the train pulling out of Paddington before he’d worked out what had happened.

  So there I was, the new ‘Chief Light Entertainment Commissioning Editor, Radio’.

  ‘What about the money?’ I said.

  ‘The same,’ Nigel replied, to my delight, ‘if you go quietly and don’t write any bitter whistle-blowing articles in the Independent media section or Broadcast magazine.’

  And so the deal was done, effective immediately. I was to clear my desk that very day. One slightly dispiriting thing. I’d asked Nigel if I could take Daphne with me over to Broadcasting House (where my new office is to be). He said fine but then she refused!

  I could tell that she thought that radio was a definite step down and could see no reason why she should have to share in my reduction of status.

  ‘No, thank you, Sam,’ she said. ‘It’s very kind of you but I’m the personal secretary to the ‘BBC Controller, Broken Comedy and Variety’, which is a television post. I am not personal secretary to the ‘Chief Light Entertainment Commissioning Editor, Radio’.’

  So there you go. Was it Kipling who said they were more deadly than the male? (Women, that is, not personal secretaries.) I must say it was lucky that Lucy did not require one of her servicings on demand tonight because I don’t feel much of a man at the moment. I can still support us in the style to which we are accustomed, but at what cost to my pride? If I thought I had a nothing job before, I don’t know what I’ve got now. A timeserving sideways shunt of a dead-end grace-and-favour pile of shite, that’s what. I mean, radio entertainment’s fine up at the posh end, the Radio 4 clever quizzes, witty, ‘varsity stuff and edgy alternatives, but all that’s already spoken for. I’ve been dumped down at the Radio One yoof end and they don’t want comedy. They want attitude and I’m a deal too old to give them that.

  Anyway, to my surprise Lucy was quite positive about the situation. She seemed to think that it was a good thing. She pointed out that I’d never liked my job anyway, and now I’d have the time to do what I really want to do, which is write.

  Well that of course brought on the same old row.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s a good idea,’ I said. ‘I’ll just bash off an award- winning script now, shall I? Except hang on, that’s right, I remember, I haven’t written a bloody word in years.’

  A bit bitter, I know, but it had been a pretty rotten day. Lucy always hates it when I get negative on her.

  ‘And do you know why?’ she snapped. ‘Because you’ve given up on your emotions, that’s why. If you live your life entirely superficially how do you expect to write anything?’

  Well, this sort of thing carried on back and forth until we went to bed, both pretty depressed. Lucy was out like a light, emotionally exhausted, poor thing, what with all that infertility about the place and having a completely useless husband. I, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. What Lucy had said kept ringing in my ears.

  Maybe I do avoid my writing so that I don’t have to explore my emotions? Or is it the other way round? Do I ignore my feelings so that I’ll be sure that I’ll have nothing to write about? Either way it’s a pretty sad effort. Then I began to wonder what my emotions would be if I had any. What was happening inside me?

  Did I care much about losing my job? No, I didn’t really care much about my job because I was no good at it. In fact I didn’t deserve it in the first place. I was no good as a commissioning editor because I was too bloody jealous of the people I was commissioning, which was pathetic. So what did I feel? When I wasn’t avoiding my feelings? That I want to write? Who cares?

  That I love Lucy? Well that’s not a bad subject. Love always goes down well. That I want Lucy and me to have children? I certainly feel that. I may never say it, but I want more than anything else in the world for Lucy and me to have children.

  And then it struck me! It was such a shock that I went cold. It was so obvious! How could I have missed it! That’s what I would write about! I sat bolt upright in bed. The whole thing seemed to leap into my mind fully formed. It made me dizzy there was so much of it coming to me at once.

  ‘I’ve got it, Lucy!’ I shouted and she nearly fell out of bed in shock.

  ‘Got what?’

  I could hardly form a coherent sentence I had so much to say.

  The words tumbled out in a stream.

  ‘My theme. The inspiration I need! It’s so obvious, darling, I can’t think how I’ve missed it. I’ll write about an infertile couple! It’s a real modern drama, about life and the absence of life…There’s jokes, too. But proper jokes. Sad jokes, which are the best kind.

  Sperm tests, postcoital examinations, guided fantasy sessions…

  Imagine it! The disintegration of this couple’s sex life, the woman beginning to think about nothing but fertility, going all tearful over baby clothes…Adopting a gorilla…’

  Writing it down now I admit it looks a little insensitive but I swear I didn’t mean it to be. After all, I was talking about writing a story, a fiction, about two fictitious people, not us at all. Perhaps I could have put it better, but I was so excited. This was the first decent idea I’d had in years.

  ‘The thing will write itself,’ I said and the ideas just kept tumbling into my head and straight out of my mouth…

  ‘How about a scen
e where the woman can’t decide which herbal teabag would be most aromatherapeutically conducive to her biorhythms? Or some sort of open-air ritual…It’ll be bloody hilarious…’

  I would have gone further. I could have gone on for hours. I was really on a roll, as they say, but at that moment Lucy stopped me. Well, when I say stopped me, she threw half a cup of cold herbal tea in my face.

  ‘How about a scene where the woman throws her herbal tea all over the callous bastard who wants to rape her soul for a few cheap laughs,’ she said.

  It took me a moment to cut through the bitter irony to realize the point she was making. I was astonished. I’m not astonished now, of course, having had time to reflect on what she was getting at, but at the time I couldn’t work out her attitude at all.

  ‘What!’ I exclaimed. ‘But you said! You said! You told me to look within!’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to try to turn our private misery into a public joke!’ I’ve hardly ever seen her so angry. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing if we are infertile. If we did have kids you’d probably expect them to pay their way by becoming child prostitutes!’

  This was pretty strong stuff. I mean, I understood that she was upset and everything, but child prostitutes? Come on.

  ‘You don’t understand anything!’ she said. ‘I’m thirty-four. I’ve been trying for a child for over five years! I may well be barren, Sam!’

  Well now I admit that I lost it a bit too. I mean it seems to me that Lucy has developed a habit of seeing the fertility thing as being pretty much exclusively her problem, just because I deal with it in a different way to her. I mean I’m in this marriage too, aren’t I? I have feelings and I had thought that I was under orders to get in touch with them. I mean, maybe we are infertile.

  I don’t know, perhaps we can’t have children. But if we can’t, what does she want me to do about it? Go into mourning? Weep and wail over the absence of a life that never even existed in the first place?

  I’m afraid I put this point to Lucy and she took it as confirmation of her long-nurtured suspicion that I don’t care whether we have a baby or not. In fact I probably don’t even want one. After this I probably said too much. It’s just that I don’t think she was even trying to see it from my point of view.

  ‘And what if I don’t?’ I said. ‘Does that make me a criminal?

  Have I betrayed our love because I happen to place some value on my own existence? On my career and my work? Because I have not committed my entire emotional wellbeing to the possibility of some abstract, non-existent life which we may or may not be able to produce?’

  Lucy was near to tears but like the bastard that I am I pressed my advantage.

  ‘I mean isn’t this near deification of the next generation all a bit bloody primitive? A baby is born. Its parents devote their lives to it, sacrificing everything they might have hoped to have done themselves. Then, when that baby is finally in a position to fulfil its own destiny and also the dreams its parents had for it, that baby has its own baby and the whole thing starts again. It’s positively primeval.’

  Lucy got up and went and made herself a cup of herbal, which I hoped she wasn’t planning to throw at me. When she came back she said, ‘It’s life, Sam! It’s what we’re here for, not…not to make bloody films.’

  But that’s the point, isn’t it? As far as I’m concerned I am here to make films! Or at least to fulfil and express myself in one way or another. I mean I only have one life, don’t I? And it’s the one I’m living, not the one I may have a hand in creating. I know that sounds selfish but is it actually any more selfish than seeking to replace yourself on the planet? I don’t know. Anyway, I tried to calm things down a bit, so that we could get some sleep if nothing else.

  ‘Look, Lucy, I’m sorry…I don’t want to upset you. Of course I want us to have a baby, it’s just…it’s just…’

  Lucy was not in the mood to be calmed.

  ‘It’s just you want to write a comedy about it,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, if you ever even so much as mention the idea of exploiting our personal misery for your profit again I’ll leave you. I will, Sam. I mean that, I’ll leave you.’

  With that she turned her back on me and we lay there together in grim, wakeful silence.

  Dear Penny,

  I had a pretty rotten night last night. Sam and I had a row. He thinks I’m a mawkish self-indulgent obsessive and I think he’s an arrogant self-obsessed emotional retard. However, I’ll write no more of that at the moment because there was dreadful news this morning which certainly puts my little worries into perspective.

  Melinda rang at about nine to say that Cuthbert had been taken into hospital with suspected meningitis. He’s at the Royal Free in Hampstead and Melinda is in with him. We won’t know the full picture for a day or two, but it might be very serious indeed. Poor Melinda must be going mad. If it is meningitis then even if Cuthbert survives it’s going to mean brain damage and all sorts of complications. Of course it might not be. All we can do is wait. I can hardly bear to think about it. Sam, of course, seems completely unmoved by the news. I know that he isn’t, but that’s how he seems.

  Dear Book,

  I don’t know what Lucy wants from me. We heard horrible, horrible news from George and Melinda today. Cuthbert has suspected meningitis. Lucy’s got herself very upset about it indeed, which I think is unhelpful. There’s no point presuming the worst, after all, and so far it’s only suspected. Of course I understand that Lucy is feeling particularly emotionally raw at the moment where babies are concerned, but I don’t see what she thinks I can do about it. When we heard I said, ‘Oh dear, that’s absolutely terrible. Poor George and Melinda.’ I could see immediately that she did not feel that this was a sufficiently emotionally charged reaction, so I said, ‘Oh dear’ again, but it just sounded worse. It’s frustrating. Of course I’m worried about it and terribly sorry for George and Melinda but I don’t know what else I can say. I rang George and asked if there was anything I could do but of course there isn’t. I felt an idiot even asking. What possible thing would I be able to do?

  Dear Penny,

  No news on Cuthbert. Tests still being carried out.

  I went for my interview with the private doctor today. Dr James. He seems quite nice but he won’t actually be doing the operation. All he’ll do is refer me to some clinic in Essex or somewhere else miles away. One ten-minute appointment, one letter, one hundred pounds, that will do nicely, thank you.

  I was nearly late for the appointment, in fact, because the address was in Harley Street. 298AA Harley Street. Well I couldn’t believe it, this poxy little flat must have been half a mile from Harley Street! All the way along Weymouth Street. It’s absolutely ridiculous that these doctors can attach a snob value to an entirely false address. I mean, honestly, we might as well

  say we live in Harley Street. Anyway, Dr James saw me promptly, which was a new experience for me, and they also offered coffee and biscuits which I did not have as I imagine that in the private sector the going rate for a custard cream is about ten quid. I told Dr James how far I’d got with investigating infertility and as expected he booked me in for a bellybutton broadcast. It makes me feel quite ill even to think about it.

  Afterwards I went up to the Royal Free in Hampstead to see Melinda and Cuthbert. It was heartbreaking. All these tiny babies and little toddlers so sick and scared. It just isn’t fair. Melinda is bearing up but has had very little sleep and looks pretty grim. Cuthbert was in an isolation ward and I didn’t see him, but Melinda says he looks so vulnerable and fragile that she could hardly bear it. She says every fibre of her being wants to do something to protect him but there’s nothing she can do. So she just sits and waits, consumed with weird feelings of guilt plus fear and also terrible visions of Cuthbert in pain or dying or becoming damaged. Then she started crying and I cried too, which was absolutely ridiculous as I was supposed to be comforting her. So I told her about Sam and me shagging on top of Primrose Hill which made her laugh, but of
course the story doesn’t have a funny ending because it didn’t work. Then she asked me about Lord Byron Phipps and I told her not to be silly and that that was all forgotten about. Little did I know.

  Anyway, when I left the hospital I had to go and sit on a bench on the Heath for a while because I was too upset and emotional about poor little Cuthbert. I mean obviously he’s not mine but I know him pretty well and quite frankly any baby in torment has always broken my heart. I suppose it would do anyone. I rang Sam on his mobile just for a chat, but he’s in the process of tying up the loose ends of his old job and I could tell he was busy. ‘So no news, then?’ he said, which really meant, ‘Why the hell are you calling me?’ Sam is very practical in that respect.

  Anyway, I wasn’t feeling much better when I got back to work, which I’m afraid was not necessarily a very good thing. You see, when I got to the office, in, as I must point out again, a highly vulnerable and emotional state, the place was empty save for Carl Phipps! He was standing over my desk reading a contract.

  There is no point denying that he looked handsome. Very handsome. He’d hung up his big coat and was standing there in a baggy white shirt open to the chest. What with his tight black Levi 501s and his Cuban-heeled boots all he needed was a rapier and he could have fought a duel.

  ‘Sheila and Joanna are down at the Apollo press call,’ he began to explain, but then he said, ‘You’ve been crying.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ I lied pathetically.

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Lucy. I hate to see you cry.’

  Well, that was it. Suddenly I was in floods and before I knew it he had his arm around me and was comforting me. I honestly do not think that at this point he was making a move on me. At least if he was it was a very subtle one. No, I genuinely think that he was just trying to be nice. Although I’m not sure if men are ever