by Matt Dunn
‘My, that was fast,’ she says, a little too loudly for my liking.
‘Yes, well, that’s because I don’t live that far away, and the traffic was light, and I’ve got a powerful car, and not…’ I stop talking because, frankly, I just want to drop it off and get going. ‘Where do you want it?’
I hold the pot out towards her, beginning to wish they’d given me a bag to put it in rather than just expecting me to hand it over as is.
‘Just leave it on the counter. Have you put your name on it?’
‘How do you mean?’
She hands me a biro and a sticky label. ‘On the side of the pot.’
It seems strange, but as I sign the side of the beaker, I’m suddenly nervous. I’ve gone through the last fifteen or so years convinced that I was producing a potent cocktail of baby formula, so much so that it had to be restrained behind a protective layer of industrial rubber, but within the space of forty-eight hours I’m going to find out if I’ve been wasting my time. If in fact I needn’t have bothered going through with what is the always-embarrassing ritual of breaking away from whatever, or rather whoever, I’ve been doing to reach into my bedside drawer, locate the little foil packet, fumbling to open it in the dark, and then feeling that momentary swell of pride when I’ve not been able to get the condom on, before realizing that it’s just because I’m holding it the wrong way up.
And as exciting as the prospect of no-jacket-required sex for the rest of my life might be, more importantly I’m nervous because my dreams of starting a family might end right here. This little pot is suddenly taking on a rather large significance–and so I hand it over carefully, as if it’s some explosive substance. Which in a way, I suppose, it is.
‘So, do I call in? For the results, I mean?’
The receptionist nods. ‘Just give us a ring on Friday morning. They’ll be back from the lab by then. But we’ll post you a copy anyway.’
As I walk back out and get into my car, I can’t help but look at my watch. Even though I know it’s only Tuesday, I suspect it’s going to feel like a very long few days.
I’ve got no appointments until the afternoon, so on the way back from the clinic, I decide to go round to see my mother–after all, I’m not the only one who’s going to be affected by my plan of impending father-hood. For a while now she’s been on at me to settle down and start a family, but I reckon if she’s going to suddenly become a grandmother without watching me go through the settling-down part, she might appreciate as much notice as possible.
My mother still lives in the same house that she and my father bought when they got married, on a side street halfway up Richmond Hill, and just round the corner from where my flat is now. When they first moved in, they had a fantastic view of the Thames snaking down towards Eel Pie Island, she tells me. Nowadays it’s not quite so fantastic, obscured as it is by Park Avenue nightclub and a Gourmet Burger Kitchen. But the location’s still pretty good–particularly if you’re partial to the odd burger after you’ve been clubbing. Which maybe, at sixty-one, my mother isn’t, really.
I still speak to her every other day, and call round for dinner at least once a week, and I’ve been doing this ever since I left home. It’s one of the reasons I bought my place so close by, in fact. My dad’s leaving may have been hard on me, but it must have been even harder on my mother, leaving her to bring me up on her own. At least it was just me, I suppose, but I don’t think she ever recovered from his departure. Not enough to want to meet anyone else, anyway.
I’m like my dad, she tells me, although that’s usually when she’s having a dig at me in a you’re-just-like-your-father kind of way. I have to take her word for it, of course, as I can’t remember him at all. Well, not really. Even the few grainy photos I recall seeing before my mother got rid of them all don’t quite capture the spirit, the essence, the smell of him, or how it felt when he picked me up and carried me around on his shoulders. Which I’m assuming he must have done, but because I was still a baby when he left, I can’t be sure it happened at all.
I always ring the bell, even though I have a key for emergencies. Despite a couple of angina attacks last year, my mother is still the kind of person that emergencies don’t ever happen to, but when I have to press the doorbell three times for some reason today, I start to feel a little anxious. I’m just about to try and phone her when I see the familiar silhouette approaching the stained-glass panel in the door, and when she finally lets me in she’s wearing one of those face masks favoured by London cycle couriers and Michael Jackson.
‘William!’ she exclaims, a look of delight spreading across what I can see of her face. My mother is the only person in the world who calls me William, and I’ve given up trying to correct her. ‘I chose that name for you,’ she always says, ‘so it’s up to me to decide how I say it.’
As she moves to kiss me hello, she has to stop herself and take the mask off, and although she doesn’t refer to it, I can’t help but quiz her.
‘What on earth is that for?’
My mother pulls the mask away from her mouth and nose and places it on the top of her head with the elastic still round her ears, so it looks like a cheap party hat.
‘I’ve just been doing some potting,’ she says. ‘In the greenhouse.’
When she motions me to follow her inside, but doesn’t elaborate, I have to ask again. ‘And?’
‘Well, I’ve heard all the stories about those greenhouse gases. And you can’t be too careful…’
‘Mum, that’s not…’ I think about trying to explain, but decide against it, as I’ve got to be back at the office in an hour or so. My mother is always getting the wrong end of the stick, especially when it comes to going ‘green’. For example, she won’t use recycled toilet paper–because she thinks it’s recycled toilet paper.
I help her take the mask off, then follow her through into the kitchen, where she puts the kettle on and gets a couple of mugs out of the cupboard without even asking if I want a cup of tea.
‘What have you been up to this morning?’
‘Oh, not very much,’ I say, a little embarrassed to tell her about my visit to the clinic earlier. ‘I just had to head down to Twickenham, and then across to, er, drop something off in Chiswick.’
‘I thought I heard the car a few times,’ says my mother, shaking her head. ‘I can’t keep up with your comings and goings.’
I wait until we’re sitting down with our tea before I tell her my plan, and I’m expecting her to be pleased at my news. But, for some reason, she doesn’t seem quite as delighted as I’d hoped.
‘So you’re going to have a grandchild? Just like that?’
‘Well, technically, Mum, I can’t have a grandchild. I can have a child, and it’ll be your grandchild, but I can’t actually—’
My mother shushes me. ‘You know what I mean. What a silly idea.’
‘What’s wrong with it? Don’t you think being a father would suit me?’
‘Everything, William. And what do you mean, would it suit you? A baby isn’t a fashion accessory, like your Dolcis and Banana.’
I blow on the top of my tea and take a sip. ‘You’ve been reading the Daily Mail again, haven’t you? Besides, it’s Dolce & Gabbana.’
‘Well, whatever you call it.’ She puts her mug down and folds her arms sternly. ‘A child isn’t something you “get”, like a new car, or a flashy watch. It’s something that’s born out of love between two people. The extension of their relationship. A natural next stage to go to. Not something that you just head out to the shops and buy.’
‘It’s hardly like that.’
‘Of course it is. From what you’ve said, you’re going to go out and find the first suitable girl you can and’–my mother wrings her hands, as she searches for the appropriate word–‘impregnate her. That’s not how to start a family.’
‘Well, again, technically, it is…’
‘No it isn’t. A child needs to come from an inner desire. Not necessity. I loved your
father. And having you was a representation of that. Not like this emotionless scheme that you seem to have devised. And what about the poor girl?’
I’m wincing a little from the onslaught. I can’t remember the last time my mother told me off–and it’s certainly not since I became an adult. ‘She’s not just any poor girl. She’ll need to want this baby as much as me. And we’ll be raising it together.’
‘Yes, but you won’t actually be together, will you? And that’s the important part. It’s bad for a baby if there’s no love in the house.’
‘But you and Dad weren’t together for most of my childhood. And you didn’t do too badly with me.’
My mother shakes her head. ‘I’m beginning to doubt that. And don’t forget that wasn’t through choice. You…you’re starting off on the wrong foot here, William. And that’s not going to be good for the baby. Or anyone, come to think of it.’
I decide to play the emotional card. ‘But I thought you wanted a grandchild, Mum?’
‘I do,’ she says. ‘But not that way. I want you to meet someone, fall in love, settle down…’
‘So do I,’ I reply glumly. ‘But it’s not quite worked out like that, has it? And I don’t want to leave it too late, in case…’ I leave the sentence hanging, but we both know what I could have said.
‘I’m going to be around for a while yet, William. Don’t worry.’ My mother takes my hand in hers. ‘So promise me something. Promise me you’ll at least try to go about this for the right reasons, and in the right way. Not like some…production line.’
I give my mum’s hand a squeeze. ‘I promise, Mum.’
And later, as I say a guilty goodbye to her at the door, I hope she didn’t realize that I had my fingers crossed.
I head back to the office, grabbing an egg and cress sandwich from Pret A Manger on the way, and walk into reception just in time for my two o’clock session with Harry–a skinny, balding, fifty-something multimillionaire software company owner whose biggest dilemma is how he can meet women who aren’t just after his money. I decide against passing on Jen’s advice that he should contemplate plastic surgery, but instead convince him that most of the women he’s attracted to–twenty-year-old pneumatic blondes–might not have his best interests at heart, and therefore if he wants to meet a more wholesome type of girl then he should avoid his regular visits to lap dancing bars, before ushering him out on the stroke of three. I check my appointment book is clear for the rest of the afternoon, tell Jen to put my calls on hold, and sit down at my computer.
For starters, I type the phrase ‘man looking for mother’ into Google, but instead of the result I’m looking for, all I get are a number of links to dodgy websites crammed with pictures of fully grown men wearing oversized nappies. And so, with a quick check that the door is indeed shut, I type in the words ‘internet’ and ‘dating’, and hit ‘enter’.
I’ve never been internet dating before. In fact, I’ve always tended to think of it as something used only by guys who can’t meet women the ‘normal’ way. But it’s become pretty obvious to me that I’ve become one of those guys, in terms of meeting the right kind of woman. Besides, if you’re looking for something specific, you can’t beat the internet nowadays. I found my flat on the web. Bought a lot of the furniture online. And even tracked down the TVR. And look how happy I am with that.
At first, I can’t believe my eyes. There are fifty-one million, seven hundred thousand results. For a moment, it’s almost off-putting, but then I suddenly realize that this is actually a good thing. If there are this many internet dating sites, then there must be an awful lot of single women out there. Hoping that the reverse isn’t true, and that there aren’t just a lot of awful single women instead, I shut my eyes, run the cursor up and down the list, and click on one at random: NewFlames Dot Com.
As the page loads in front of me, I read through the joining blurb. It’s thirty pounds a month, and with less than that to go until my birthday, thirty quid to find the mother of my baby seems like a bargain. I quickly type in my credit card details, and with a surge of excitement, click the button that says ‘Join now’.
‘Please choose a username’ instructs the prompt at the top of the screen. Hmm. I waste ten minutes trying to think of something clever, before just trying ‘Will’, then ‘Will Jackson’, and then even ‘WillJackson’, but they’ve all been taken, and although the computer tells me that I can have ‘WillJackson69’, I reject it on the grounds that it might be misinterpreted as rude. I can’t believe there are sixty-eight other Will Jacksons on the site, but eventually I settle on ‘WillJackson76’–a combination of my name and date of birth.
I flick through the ‘Reasons for Joining’, where I’m supposed to choose from headings like ‘relationship’, ‘marriage’, or ‘fun’–there’s even one that says ‘sex’. And although I see that as being a key part of the process, I can’t really put just that. The page won’t click through unless I choose one, however, and although I can’t see an option to tick ‘a mother for my as-yet-unborn child’, I decide that I can best put that in the ‘About Me’ box. I settle for ‘relationship’, and turn my attention to the rest of the sign-up process.
It’s the ‘Personal Details’ section first, which seems straightforward enough. ‘What do I want from a relationship?’ Good question. Fortunately, there’s a drop-down box, but the options–from ‘pen pals’, which strikes me as a rather outdated term given that any interaction will be conducted through a keyboard, ‘romance’, and ‘fun’, all the way through to the honest ‘sex’ again–don’t quite work for me, as there’s no option to select ‘a family’. Maybe that’ll come later, but, in the meantime, do I just click on ‘not specified’, and run the risk that people won’t read any further? I mean, I will be wanting sex, obviously, but it’s not the first reason I’m on here, is it? Also, any woman who responds to that is hardly going to want to have a baby, is she? After all, that’s going to stop her having sex, according to Tom, although, thinking about it, maybe in their particular case Barbara just wanted to stop having sex with Tom, rather than stop having sex altogether. And ‘fun’? Well, having a baby’s going to be fun. Although not actually during delivery, I suppose. After a few minutes’ deliberation, I decide to stick with the enigmatic ‘not specified’. I can always go into my reasons later.
Next box–my current status. That’s easy: ‘single’.
Third box. ‘Do you have any children?’ Aha. And there’s even a section that says ‘I can’t wait to have children’. Perfect. That’ll do me. I click it and try to highlight it in bold, but, sadly, there doesn’t seem to be that option.
I whizz through the rest of the front page, filling in the height and weight parts, along with a physical description that includes the colour of my eyes and hair, although this seems to be a little superfluous given that most people seem to have photographs on here. Maybe it’s to catch them out if they’re using someone else’s photo? But who’d be that stupid?
I’m stumped a little at ‘Build?’, not knowing whether to click ‘athletic’ or ‘medium’. To tell the truth, I’m quite slim really, but fit with it, thanks to my nightly running habit. But ‘slim’ always seems a bit of a negative word, somewhere next to ‘weedy’ in the overall scheme of things. ‘Built like a racing snake’ is Tom’s usual description of me but I can’t seem to find that in the drop-down list either. And as ‘medium’ is a pretty bland description too, I eventually settle for ‘athletic’, although if they’re expecting someone with more of a Tarzan-like physique, they’re going to be disappointed.
Great. Page one completed. I click on ‘next’, which takes me, not surprisingly, to page two, and ‘Who Do You Want to Meet?’. I fill in the requisite ‘female’, and thankfully there’s a box for ‘can’t wait to have children’ again, which I select. As I scan through the rest of the physical characteristics, I have to stop and think. I don’t necessarily want to seem too picky, even though, of course, I am. I stop short of clicking the ‘con
siderably overweight’ box, and I’d rather she was below six feet tall, but otherwise I decide to come back to this one.
Page two completed–sort of–and onto page three: ‘Refine Your Profile’. I spend a few minutes scrolling down the page, answering more in-depth questions such as whether I have any facial hair or tattoos; all pretty straightforward. But by the time I’ve got onto page four, I’m beginning to find it a little more challenging than I first thought. The questions about cooking, gardening and housework I can just about deal with, but I’m stumped as to whether I’m ‘feminine or macho’, and how much of either I might be. I mean, obviously I’m not feminine, and I have to shave every day, so I guess I’m a little macho, but I thought macho was one of those terms from the seventies, like ‘cool’ and ‘tank top’.
I eventually settle for ‘a little macho’, on account of my slightly hairy chest, but by the time I’ve reached the bottom of the page, I’m starting to wonder if I know myself at all. Am I gentle? How careful, exactly? Would I describe myself as sexy? I look down at my work uniform of sensible grey trousers and white button-down shirt. Not very sexy at the moment. And I almost leave the question ‘How spontaneous are you?’ as I didn’t know you could have degrees of spontaneity–surely you either are or you aren’t?
Right. My interests. Well, at least this should be fairly simple. I speed through the eating-out section, then paint an honest picture of myself in terms of my television, newspaper and magazine habits, plus how much I like the arts; then I misread the ‘Reading–like/dislike’ section and put ‘I’ve never been there’, until I realize they mean books, and not the town.
Finally, just when I’m starting to flag, it’s the ‘About Me’ section. Here there are no pop-down lists to click on. Here I can be honest, and just write a few well-chosen words about who I am, and what I’m looking for. Easy.