Where There's Smoke (1997)

by Simon Beckett

  "How much more?"

  Kate felt her face going red. "It's…er, five hundred. A cycle."

  Lucy's head came up from the brochure. "Five hundred pounds! Each time you have it done!"

  Kat nodded, uncomfortably. "Christ!"

  "It isn't that bad, really. You know, considering how few places actually do it. They give you two inseminations per cycle. And they'll continue the treatment for up to twelve cycles, instead of nine, like the other place."

  "I should think they bloody will, if you're paying them five hundred quid a shot!" Lucy stared at her, incredulous. "Bloody hell, that's ridiculous! I mean, it could end up costing you five, no, six thousand quid! And there's no guarantee you'll even get pregnant, is there?"

  "There's a good chance. And it might work first time."

  "And it might not!" Lucy put down the brochure. "Look, if you're this serious about having a baby, why don't you just find somebody and…" she glanced over to where Angus and Emily were playing, and lowered her voice "…and sleep with them, for God's sake? There's just as much chance of getting pregnant, and even if you don't, at least you'll have enjoyed yourself! This is just…" She threw up her hands, speechless.

  The last vestige of Kate's good mood disappeared. "So what do you want me to do? Trawl through singles bars and ask anyone who takes my fancy back for a quickie?"

  "No, of course I don't!" Lucy's mouth quirked upwards. "It doesn't have to be quick."

  Despite herself Kate laughed. But she was still angry. "Well, that's what it amounts to, isn't it? I mean, to start off with you say that you disapprove of me having a baby, full stop. Now it's okay for me to get pregnant, provided it doesn't cost me anything, even if I have to turn into Supertart to do it!"

  Lucy's lips were clamped in a tight line. "It's your money, Kate, you can do what you like with it. But millions of other women manage to get pregnant without having to pay six thousand quid for the privilege, and I can't see why you have to be any different."

  There was a shriek of laughter from nearby. They looked around as Angus tottered towards them in an unstable run, hands held up in the air, orange-stained face split in a wide grin. Emily was close behind, laughing, and as she caught up with him Angus tumbled and thumped down onto the grass. Lucy went to pick him up. "Oh, now you haven't hurt yourself," she said, as his face puckered uncertainly. She rubbed the grass stain on his knee. "There, is that better?"

  Angus still didn't seem too sure, but Lucy plonked him back on the lawn. Emily hung back, watching her apprehensively. "I thought I told you that Mummy and Kate wanted to talk?"

  "Yes, but Angus started running over, and I was only -"

  "You were only chasing him. Now go over and help Daddy, like I said. We won't be long."

  "But Mummy!"

  "No buts. Go on."

  Sulking, Emily turned and walked away. Angus ran after her, his fall already forgotten. Lucy came back to the table and sat down. The interruption had taken the heat out of the argument, but Kate waited until the children were out of earshot before she spoke.

  "Look, Lucy, I know you don't approve. But what's the alternative? I don't want casual sex. I don't want any complications. I just want a baby. This way I can have control over who the father is and have the legal and medical protection of using a clinic. You don't get that on a one-night stand, do you?"

  Lucy looked unconvinced. "I know, but it just seems so…impersonal."

  Kate nodded, emphatically. "That's what I want."

  "But what about when the baby gets older? What will you tell it?"

  Kate had asked herself the same question. She attempted an insouciance she didn't entirely feel. "The truth. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

  She believed that, even while she knew it might not be so simple. But the clinic offered advice and counselling on how to deal with it. She would meet that problem when it came. She leaned forward in her seat. "Come on, Lucy. This is what I want. Be pleased for me."

  "I am, but…"

  Scepticism remained on Lucy's face. She looked at Kate for a moment longer, then relented. "I am. Ignore me."

  She gave a wry grin. "Anyway, I thought you hadn't decided anything yet?"

  Kate smiled but said nothing. Lucy stood up. "Come on. Let's go and stop Jack from burning everything."

  They left the shade of the laburnum and went over to the barbecue. Jack had given up fanning the charcoal and was regarding the tray of sausages and marinated meats with a dubious expression, a spatula in his hand. They were still pink and raw.

  "Is it hot enough?" Lucy asked, as they came up behind him.

  "It should be. I've spent long enough fanning the bloody thing." His sparse dark hair was plastered to his forehead.

  "Why don't you put some of that fluid stuff on?"

  He gave Lucy an exasperated look. "I have."

  "Well, I should put some more on, if I were you. It'll be dark at this rate."

  He held out the spatula to her. "Do you want to do this?"

  Lucy threw up her hands. "No, thanks, I cook every day. Having a barbecue was your idea. And don't let Angus get too near, he'll burn himself."

  Jack sighed and steered his son away from the bricks.

  "I hear you've got refinancing from the bank," Kate said, hoping to divert a family squabble. "Congratulations."

  He smiled. "Yeah. I was sweating there for a while. Ten grand down and another three thousand just gone on new hardware. It was looking a bit grim." He stopped, suddenly self-conscious. "Thanks for offering to help out, though. Lucy told me."

  "I'm glad it didn't come to that."

  "Probably as well it didn't," Lucy cut in. "Kate might need refinancing herself now, Jack."

  He looked at Kate, surprised. "I thought the agency was doing well?"

  "I don't mean the agency," Lucy said, giving him a look.

  "No? Oh, right!" His face lightened. "So you're going ahead with it, then?"

  Annoyed at the way Lucy had introduced the subject, Kate just nodded. Jack grinned at her. "Good for you."

  "You don't know how much it's going to cost," Lucy said, pointedly.

  "So what, if it's what she wants?" He winked at Kate. "It's your life. You go for it."

  He turned back to the barbecue, rubbing his hands together. "Right, let's sort this out."

  He picked up the plastic bottle of barbecue fluid and, holding it at arm's length, squirted it liberally on the charcoal. Nothing happened. He took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. "Stand back." There was a whuff as a sheet of pale flame shot into the air. They flinched from the sudden heat. Jack made darting grabs for the wire tray to lift it off as the fire engulfed it, but after a moment he gave up, blowing on his burnt fingers.

  "Do you think you put enough on?" Lucy asked, and they began to laugh as the air above the barbecue shimmered, and the meat started to blacken and curl in the flames.

  They ate green salad and takeaway pizza at the table under the laburnum tree. The remains of the barbecue, charred and foul with the taste of the fluid, lay untouched above the still-hot embers. Angus had become tired and fractious and had gone to bed in tears, while Emily sat on Kate's knee, almost asleep herself. The sun had gone down, but the evening was still warm. Several beer bottles and a bottle of wine sat on the table by the plates. Kate moved slightly, easing Emily to a more comfortable position. The little girl stirred and yawned, hugely.

  "Time for bed, young lady," Lucy said. Emily gave a half-hearted moan of protest. Lucy ignored it. "Kiss Kate goodnight. Daddy'll take you."

  "I want Kate to take me."

  "No, Kate's going to stay with Mummy."

  Lucy motioned with her head at Jack. He took the hint and stood up with a crack of knee joints. Rubbing her eyes, Emily allowed him to pick her up. Her breath was sweet with Cherryade when Kate kissed her.

  Lucy waited until they had gone inside. "So have you thought about who you want to be the donor?" she asked, out of the blue. "Assuming you decide to go ah
ead, obviously," she added, ironically.

  It was a question that Kate had been avoiding. "No, not yet."

  "Any ideas?"

  "Not really."

  Lucy pushed her glass around on the table with her finger. "You must have thought about it."

  Kate had started nudging her own glass around, smearing the wet rings on the table top. She took her hand away. "I haven't got that far yet. I've been too busy trying to find out if I could have it done to worry about anything else."

  "Surely you've got some idea, though?"

  "Lucy, I don't know, all right? Why are you going on about it?"

  Lucy was watching her with a strange expression. "Not Jack."

  "What?"

  "Not Jack. I don't want you asking Jack."

  Kate stared at her. "Lucy, I…I'd never even considered it!"But as she said it, she knew she had. She liked Jack and, more importantly, trusted him, and the thought of using him as the donor must have been loitering at the edge of her subconscious. It was enough to redden her face now. Both she and Lucy looked away from each other at the same time.

  "I'm sorry, but I'd got to say it," Lucy said, abruptly.

  "It's okay."

  "I know it's selfish, but I just couldn't handle that at all."

  "It's all right, really."

  A silence built between them. Lucy cleared her throat. "So are you going to make a list of possible candidates?" she asked, with forced lightness.

  "I suppose so, yes."

  "Who -" Lucy began, then stopped when she remembered they had already gone over that. "I mean, do you think you'll have any trouble finding someone?"

  Kate was as keen as Lucy to leave the brief awkwardness behind. "I don't know." She felt obliged to add more. "I suppose the problem's going to be that I don't know that many men when it boils down to it. Not well enough to ask, anyway."

  "What about Clive? I'd have thought he was an obvious choice."

  Kate had begun sliding her glass around on the table again. She put her hand in her lap. "He would be, but I don't think it'd be a good idea."

  "Because the baby would be mixed-race, you mean? I wouldn't have thought that would bother you."

  There was a faintly arch note in Lucy's voice. Kate ignored it. "It wouldn't, but having to work with Clive again afterwards would. And if I asked him and he said no, that'd be almost as bad."

  "Isn't there anyone at the gym?"

  "No one I'd want to ask."

  Lucy sighed, though whether in sympathy or exasperation it was difficult to tell. "Looks like you've got a problem, then, doesn't it?"

  "What problem?" Jack asked, coming up to the table. Neither of them had heard him approach.

  "Kate can't think of a donor," Lucy said, and Kate tensed, waiting for him to make some joke about himself.

  "Just don't pick anybody with ginger hair," he said, sitting down. "Wouldn't be fair to the kid."

  He poured himself a glass of wine. "Who've you got it narrowed down to?"

  "Nobody, yet," Kate admitted.

  "Spoilt for choice?"

  "Hardly. The only people I can think of, I either wouldn't want to ask or I can't because it'd cause too many complications."

  She had meant Clive, but realised as she spoke that this last point applied equally to Jack. Lucy gave her a sharp look. "Which really makes a mockery of the idea of a known donor, doesn't it?" Lucy said, with a slight edge.

  Kate tried not to react to it. "Not really. Just because I don't think it's a good idea to ask someone who'd see me—and the baby—regularly, it doesn't mean I'm going to settle for someone I've never even met."

  Lucy gave a snort. "Well, if you don't want anyone you don't know, and you won't ask anyone you do know, there's not a great deal left, is there?"

  Kate was about to respond, hotly, when Jack spoke. "Why don't you advertise?"

  "Oh, don't be stupid," Lucy snapped.

  "I'm not being stupid," he said, equably.

  "Well, where's she going to advertise? The post-office window?"

  Jack gave Lucy a stark glance before turning to Kate. "Have you thought about putting an ad in the personal columns?"

  "Oh, come on!" Lucy exclaimed. "You can't advertise for a sperm donor in a newspaper!"

  "Why can't you?"

  "Because you can't!"

  Jack ignored her. "You can word the ad to specify the sort of bloke you want," he said to Kate. "You know, intelligent, professional, good-looking. Not ginger-haired. Whatever."

  "For God's sake, Jack!" Lucy protested. "I can't believe you're suggesting this!"

  "Why not?"

  Kate thought he was enjoying his wife's outrage. "It's only like advertising for a job. What's the difference?"

  "What's the difference? The difference is you don't have to masturbate at a job interview! I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! You could get anyone answering!"

  "So you check them out. And you're careful which newspapers you place the ad in. Go for something like the Guardian or The Times rather than a tits 'n' bums tabloid."

  "Or I could place it in professional journals," Kate said, fired by the idea. "Target specific groups I know are going to be fairly responsible and intelligent. Like teachers or lawyers."

  "I dunno about lawyers," Jack said.

  She laughed. "Doctors, then. I could advertise in a medical journal. I can't see a doctor being easily shocked or offended. And they'd be more likely to take it seriously."

  Lucy was looking at her, horrified. "You're not really considering it!"

  "Well," Kate said, "it's worth thinking about."

  She batted at a moth that had blundered into her face. It fluttered off into the growing darkness, towards the still-glowing barbecue.

  CHAPTER 8

  Kate received her first reply on the same day that Paul Sutherland's case was heard at the magistrates' court.

  There was a delay on the Underground line, and she was late reaching the court building. A light drizzle was falling when she arrived. Too fine to merit an umbrella, it salted her hair with fine beads of water, misting on her cheeks like sweat in the clammy, windless morning. A middle-aged man and woman stood outside on the steps. She was crying, leaning against the man's chest. He stood with one arm around her, staring at nothing over the top of her head. Kate hurried past and went inside.

  She was late, and the case had already been called when she found Josefina and Clive waiting in the corridor outside the courtroom. Only Caroline hadn't been called as a witness, and Kate hoped that the girl would cope at the office by herself.

  She sat next to Clive on the padded bench, torn between begrudging the wasted time and dreading the moment when she would have to go in and testify.

  Predictably, Paul had pleaded not guilty. He had been charged with actual bodily harm—in addition to assault and criminal damage—when the wound to Josefina's arm turned out to be less serious than it had appeared. Until that point, the police had wanted to charge him with GBH, which could have carried a custodial sentence. Kate was glad it hadn't come to that. Despite everything, she didn't want to see him sent to prison.

  She had been resigned to a lengthy wait, but after only ten minutes a clerk emerged from the courtroom and approached them. "Josefina Mojon, Kate Powell and Clive Westbrooke?"

  Kate felt her stomach knot as they gave obedient nods. The man was thin, in a crumpled suit and mismatching tie. He gave a flickering smile that quickly switched off.

  "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we won't be needing you after all," he said. "Mr Sutherland decided to change his plea to guilty at the last minute."

  Paul had been fined two hundred pounds and ordered to pay a hundred and fifty pounds' compensation to Josefina and three hundred pounds' damages to Kate, the clerk told them. He gave details of how the payments would be made and then left. They remained where they were, trying to adjust to the anticlimax. Clive spoke first.

  "Well, the bastard managed to make us all waste a morning. And I bet
that wasn't deliberate."

  Kate didn't bother to dispute it. "I suppose we might as well go," she said. They stood up, but before they got any further the courtroom door opened and Paul Sutherland came out.

  He glared at them. His face was sullen and accusing, the flesh under his eyes swollen. Kate tensed, waiting for him to say or do something. But he just stared at her before turning on his heel and walking away. She let out her breath, slowly.

  "Not the type to forgive and forget, is he?" Clive said.

  "No," she agreed.

  The magistrates' court was in walking distance of King's Cross. Neither Josefina nor Clive made any comment when Kate said she would see them back at the office, but she still felt like a truant as she left them and went into the Underground.

  There was a fault on the Victoria line, so Kate took a tube to Piccadilly Circus. The post-office depot was only a few minutes' walk from there, and Kate left the station with the now customary sense of anticipation. The feeling wasn't as intense as it had been the first few times she had been, but it still made her quicken her step as she drew near.

  She had always supposed that a post-office box would be like a safety-deposit box, a small locker to which she would be given the key. Some were like that but they were more expensive, and Kate had decided there was no real need for one. She went to the counter and handed her security card to the unsmiling, uniformed woman, who took it without speaking and disappeared through a doorway.

  Kate tried not to build up her hopes as she waited. The advert had been running for two weeks now. She had spent hours agonising over its wording before finally settling for a simple, bare statement of fact. "Professional woman seeks donor for artificial insemination."

  Kate had placed it in a variety of different medical journals, from psychiatric to gynaecological. Some had flatly refused to run the ad, and she had felt a hot flush of embarrassment at each rejection. But most had accepted it without comment, and Kate had begun calling into the depot regularly to check for replies. So far, though, her PO box had remained mockingly empty.

  The woman seemed to be gone a long time. When she came back, the white rectangle of the envelope was bright against the blue of her uniform.