Cuckoo

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘I will be, darling, trust me.’ Charles sounded solemn, like a bishop. ‘I know how critical it is. I can’t wait to get out of here, in any case. The air-conditioning’s broken down and the court room’s like an oven. Look, I should know more tomorrow. With any luck, the whole thing will be over when I ring you then. Miss you, darling.’

  Oh yes, she missed him, too. She missed the circles round the dots, the rutting hallmarks on her blank, barren charts; she missed him as her partner and accomplice with the Clomid. And yet in some ways, she didn’t want him back. Things were simpler and sunnier without him. Ned had turned a damp July into a sparkling August. It was bad enough, coming home each evening to a dark frowning house, after the bright patchwork days with a man who used the world as his playground, rather than his bank vault. She never asked him in. The house was Charles’ territory. There were barricades around it, which even Frannys weren’t allowed to enter.

  It was Frances who sat there every evening, alone and dutiful, washing off Ned’s hands, gargling away the picnics, filling in her charts. If it weren’t for the charts, she might almost have welcomed a court case which left her free to walk barefoot in pine-woods or learn to beach a dinghy in a force seven easterly.

  On day thirteen, she refused to see Ned – made up some excuse about a headache. She was so tense, she did ache – not only her head, but all of her. Charles had been due home the evening before. He was already two days late. There were only twenty-four more hours to fertilize that precious egg, which had become frighteningly important. The days with Ned had been only squandered time, a parenthesis between the real, serious business of life and parenthood. Ned was a bachelor, a layabout, a law unto himself. She was married, joined, a womb, a receptacle, a woman who must prove her womanhood, however high the cost. She belonged to Charles, she bore his name, his hallmark, and she must also bear his baby, before it was too late.

  ‘N-no, Charles,’ she had stammered. Her voice was ship-wrecked. ‘I simply can’t believe it. Y-you must come home.’

  There were cracklings on the line, strange whistlings and buzzings. She wanted to scream. It was so grotesquely difficult to communicate.

  ‘Charles, you don’t understand. This drug has side effects. It may even be dangerous. What’s the point in my taking it, when you’re never here at ovulation time? We’ll never have a baby.’ Never-never land. The real one, the grey hopeless empty one, where the nevers stretched five thousand miles. Charles sounded a lifetime away, his whipped-cream voice curdled by all the interference on the line.

  ‘I’m distraught about it, darling. Of course I realize what it means to you. I’d simply no idea the case would drag on as long as this. But now they’ve traced the missing funds to a Cayman Trust, so I’ve got to check all the transactions in between.’

  ‘But why can’t someone else do it? What about Bill Turner? He’s got all the facts.’

  ‘Darling, you’re talking nonsense. Turner’s just a lackey. I’m a key witness. I’ve been subpoena’d now. They simply won’t release me. If it were anything else, I’d leave immediately, you know I would. But I can’t defy a judge.’

  She cried. It was a waste of money, crying long-distance. The phone turned her tears into a jarring dissonance. Charles hated tears, in any case. She tried to choke them back.

  ‘Look, Charles, how about tomorrow? If you could make it by tomorrow, we might still be OK – just about.’ It was so confusing with the time being different in their two parts of the world. She had to keep subtracting five hours. Charles’ tomorrow might not even be her own.

  ‘Impossible! Oppenheimer’s flying in and I must be there when he arrives. He’s king, Frances, and the courtiers don’t run off when royalty arrives.’

  King! She almost spat. Heinrich Oppenheimer was just a self-made millionaire with a first-class tailor. All right, she knew he was the power behind her camel coats and Citroëns, but she’d gladly renounce all that, to have a baby. With a child in your womb, who cared if you had only cheap rags on your back, or a Ford Fiesta in the garage?

  ‘Listen, Charles, I’ve got a plan. It could still work out. You meet Heinrich first thing in the morning, have your briefing with him – explain the whole situation at home, if it helps – then catch the next plane back. We could just about make it then, by the skin of our teeth. I’ll meet you at the airport, if you like. We could even book a room at the Heathrow Hotel, so we don’t waste precious time driving back to Richmond.’

  ‘Frances, my darling, you sound absolutely obsessed. It’s simply out of the question. Oppenheimer’s plane doesn’t get in till lunchtime, and that’s already evening, your end. In any case, he’s relying on me to see this whole thing through to its conclusion. I’m not a free agent. The court’s sitting and I must be there – at least three more days.’

  Three more days! The egg would be long since shrivelled, her half of the baby flushed away like a tampon. Anger thrust between the crackling wires. ‘What if I were dead, Charles? I suppose they’d leave me stinking and unburied, before they let you out.’

  ‘You’re not dead, darling. Do be reasonable. We’ve still got next month. Look, I promise you faithfully I won’t go away next month. If it’s anywhere remotely near ovulation time, I shan’t even risk an overnight stay. That’s a solemn undertaking. Now, come on, Frances, try and understand. I miss you. I love you.’

  She didn’t say ‘love you too’, she didn’t even feel it. Only a bleak, gnawing pain, and horrible confusion. She couldn’t really blame Charles – his job had always been like that. And for fifteen years, she’d enjoyed the fruits of it. Emeralds round her throat and Paris in her wardrobe, steak in the freezer, claret in the cellar, charge accounts at Fortnum’s and Harrods, Lillywhites and Simpson’s, her string of credit cards, her new McGregor golf clubs – all were Charles’ bounty.

  But there were other sorts of bounty – kites and cuttle-fish, peanut-butter sandwiches, puddles and paddle-boats. You could always opt for spam and shandy instead of salmon and champagne, and who needed diamond chokers to dam a river or reel in a trout? But that was only a week’s new thinking, play-acting. Five short days of pretending to be a gypsy, dressing as a tramp. It was easy to lunch on bangers and mash in a transport caff, when she could top up in the evening with caneton á l’ orange.

  Or grub in the fields for fungi, when she had Fortnum and Mason truffles swanking in her larder. Hypocritical to swan around with Peter Pan and spend Tinkerbell days grabbing at rainbows, when she’d been made, saved, and subsidized by Charles and Oppenheimer.

  She stayed in all day and tried to turn herself wholly into Frances. But Frances was empty, barren. She locked the door and took the phone off the hook. She didn’t want Laura snooping round, crowing, ‘So when did your hairdresser expire, darling?‘ or ‘No wonder Charles stays away, sweet, if you will wear jeans from the Oxfam shop.’ Or Viv to ring and explain that all Magda needed was love. Or Ned rocketing down the phone with a witch’s potion for her headache and two free tickets for a pop festival. ‘I’ll bring the peace and the pot, and you bring the Snoopy blanket.’

  She didn’t want anything except a baby, a circle round her dot. She wasn’t barren, there was a baby there – she knew it – waiting, only lacking a Charles to kick it into life. The week with Ned had primed and softened her; all that sun and sea, fresh air, wild flowers, new feelings, had worked like some lush fertility rite, blown out the gloom and tension from her womb, and made it fruitful.

  Slowly, she walked upstairs to the top of the house, where she kept her filing system. Drawersful of past PR campaigns, promoting furs and fashion houses, bridal gowns and beachwear; details of all their Richmond furnishings – colour swatches and fabric samples; photographs – Charles as a young man, looking just the same but less assured about it, herself at seventeen, dumpier, and grinning in a way she hardly recognized. The bottom drawer was her baby file, full of articles and cuttings she’d been collecting since she gave up her career: the best form of childbirt
h, the advantages of breast-feeding, lists of equipment, nanny agencies. She took out the folder and sorted through it. The pictures of babies hardly moved her – they all looked much the same, chubby and torpid. It was the mess and mystery of childbirth itself that appalled and fascinated her. Something so natural and yet so strange and undignified, like sex. It both sanctified and sullied every woman who went through with it. Her mind felt prepared now, and her body ready – breasts fuller than usual on account of the Clomid, and a sick, expectant feeling in her stomach.

  She went downstairs again, prowled through all the rooms. She couldn’t eat. Books and music were impossible. Crazy schemes darted through her head. She’d rush to the airport and take the next plane to Nassau. But even then, it would be too late. The flight took at least eight hours, and by the time she’d waited for a plane and hung around for Charles at his hotel … She could hardly drag him screaming from the court room. ‘Beg leave, m’Lud, for your honourable witness to fertilize an egg.’

  Strange, how remote he felt. Not just on the other side of the Atlantic, but wafer-thin and dwindling on another planet. It was Ned who filled the room, sneaking up between the floorboards or grinning from the frames of the self-important pictures of Charles’ ancestors. Ned felt real and solid – the only thing that was. She should never have put him off. Perhaps she ought to phone him and just say something casual and conversational – her headache was better, the rain had stopped.

  She picked up the phone and began to dial … put it down again. It wasn’t Ned she needed, it was Charles. And anyway, she’d always refused to see Ned in the evenings. She was Frances in the evenings, not Franny, and Frances was composed and self-sufficient. If she couldn’t control herself enough to read or work, then at least she’d settle down and do a little cooking. They had an important dinner party later in the month and she could prepare a rum and orange soufflé in advance, and put it in the freezer. She stood at the kitchen table and set herself to grate the peel from seven oranges, a long and fiddly task. A man was talking on the radio in a plump, brandied voice about Balanchine’s collaboration with Stravinsky. She tried to concentrate. She squeezed the orange juice and mixed it with a generous sloosh of rum. The long-case clock struck ten, echoed by the high bray of the chiming Delander, and, at the same instant, the spring door of the Victorian cuckoo-clock burst open and his absurdly smug cuckoo-ooo coughed across the hall. Ten cuckoos, ten chimes, ten peals, ten booms, ten …

  All the clocks were so bloody obedient; none of them late or slow or out-of-time. How could they be, when they were Charles’ property? She flung the pile of carefully grated orange peel into the sink, gulped down the tumblerful of rum and orange juice, and rummaged for the car keys. Sod the soufflé! Damn the rules! She needed air and space and action.

  It was a soft summer night. The scent of stocks lassooed her as she walked across the garden to the garage. The grass looked grey and smoky. Tendrils of clematis reached out to touch her face as she edged along the wall. She was gulping air like rum.

  The car knew where to go. It turned out of Richmond and along the Kew Road, over the bridge, past the old Brentford market. She hardly noticed the route. She was only out for a drive, a change of scene. She had no plans. If the car wanted to take itself to Acton, well, why not? It was as good a place as any. She cruised along the Vale, turned right, then right again.

  The house looked taller and shabbier than she’d remembered it. There were no stocks in the front garden, only dandelions. A grey cat whisked round the side of the house and disappeared. She leaned against the cold stone steps. She’d drive off again in a moment. She was only getting a breath of air. Ned would be out, in any case. Or entertaining a girl, a young kid from Southmead Polytechnic with hair like Magda’s. Why shouldn’t he? He was young and unattached and bound to have a yes-girl. Frannys spent the whole time saying no.

  It wouldn’t hurt to knock. If they’d gone to bed, they simply needn’t answer. And, if they hadn’t, she could always say she was just passing and could she borrow a …

  ‘I was … er … just passing …’

  His legs were bare under the dirty towelling dressing-gown, his hair rumpled and on end. She’d obviously disturbed him with a girl. He’d be furious, embarrassed. She tried to back away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ned, I should have phoned. I …’

  ‘Franny.’ His voice was soft like fudge, an off-guard, sleepy voice without its usual banter.

  Suddenly, her chin was grazing against his dressing-gown and she was drowning in rough brown towelling.

  ‘I wondered … if I could borrow a …’

  ‘Borrow anything, my darling.’

  He pushed her down again. Her head was underwater. She clung to him. He was a buoy, a lifeboat. He was rescuing her, dragging her from the waves and setting her down in the cool green shores of his bedroom.

  She was quite safe. It was only a continuation of the week. She’d lain beside him almost every day, on picnics and in parks, and nothing had happened. She hadn’t let it happen. So it made no difference, really, that they were lying on his bed now, and his dressing-gown had slipped apart, and he was taking off her clothes. She was chilled – that was all – and she needed his hot nakedness to stop her catching cold.

  She tried to keep talking, then she needn’t think. It was just an ordinary evening, and they were relaxing together, putting their feet up.

  ‘I was out for a drive, and …’

  ‘Mmmmmm …’ He was kissing the inside of her elbow and down along her forearm.

  ‘So I thought I’d just drop by and say hello …’

  His mouth was wet and open and had moved against hers. She dodged it.

  ‘You taste of rum, darling. Delicious.’

  She tried to fix her attention on the ceiling. ‘I … hope I didn’t wake you up.’

  ‘Hush, my love, don’t talk.’

  It was so much worse in silence. All the guilts rushed in to fill the empty spaces where the words had been. Yet, it couldn’t be entirely wrong. Rathbone had suggested it himself – well almost. Worse still to do it with the milkman and produce a bald, gingery infant, in a strawberry yoghurt carton. At least Ned was literate.

  She mustn’t enjoy it, that was the key. So long as she regarded it merely as a duty in the larger cause of procreation, a cold, sterile procedure like dilatation or laparotomy, then it couldn’t be wicked. She must dispense with the kissing and the cuddling, cut out everything which smacked of pleasure. Ned was still nuzzling her neck. She rolled over on top of him, shut her eyes, put out her hand and groped down.

  It felt different from Charles’, smaller and more pliable. She tried to slot it in, still not daring to look down. It keeled over and slipped out. She tried again, closing her legs and squeezing. She wanted it to fill and overwhelm her, like Charles’ did, to grind her into pieces, so that she couldn’t think of Charles, or anything, to whiplash her out of her head, into harbour. But the small soft thing was oozing out again, shrinking away from her. She mustn’t let it go. Whatever happened, they must continue with this medical procedure. It was crucial day fourteen.

  Ned crawled out from underneath her and stroked a hand along her breasts. ‘I’m sorry, love, don’t rush me. Let me kiss you first.’

  She hadn’t time for kissing. There was an egg more or less bursting to be fertilized, and every demon in hell ready to pounce if she wavered for a moment. Why were men so damned perverse, Charles dallying in Nassau, and Ned dawdling in Acton, still slowing down the pace.

  ‘Hey, Franny …’

  ‘What?’ She wished he wouldn’t talk, or use her name. She didn’t want to remember who she was. Even Frannys wouldn’t go this far. Safer to be just a body on Mr Rathbone’s couch. She closed her eyes again, tried to steer and coax him in.

  ‘Look, darling, just relax. You seem so tense, on edge, and it’s affecting me, as well. There’s no rush. Let’s just cuddle.’

  No rush! How could she relax when she was terrified he�
�d go completely limp, and her one chance of conceiving would peter out in cosy (barren) cuddles. They were already losing contact. She tensed her muscles and moved her body against him, the way Charles had taught her, circling her thighs and gripping. She could feel Ned stiffen a little, but he was still only a mollusc, compared with the mast that Charles was, and hardly moving at all. They were stranded, becalmed, but they must go on – it would be crazy to stop now. She needed Ned, his kiss of life, life not for her, but for her baby. She rocked backwards and forwards against him, slower, then quicker, using Charles’ own tuition to betray him. Ned suddenly gasped and shouted underneath her. There was a shudder, a tin-pot explosion, and, as he slithered out, she felt sperm trickling down between her thighs.

  She rolled over, bent her knees up right against her chest. She had to harvest every drop of sperm. Ned was kissing her and kissing her. She turned her face away.

  ‘I’m sorry, love. I was lousy, but you took me by surprise. I like a bit of preparation first. Anyway, you’ve been saying no so long, I’ve begun to see you as a sort of Virgin Mary, and screwing Blessed Virgins puts me off. Give me half an hour and I’ll recover.’

  She felt rigid with embarrassment. Now she had his sperm safe inside her, the whole thing seemed shameful. How ever could she have got into his bed, a squalid hole with crumpled sheets that had never seen an iron, threadbare blankets, half a cheese roll mouldering on the bedside table, an outboard engine in pieces on the floor, the smell of naked, sweaty male? He was lying half on top of her, his nose jammed against hers. He didn’t even seem mortified, just sleepy. She longed to creep away, but Mr Rathbone’s instructions precluded it. She had to lie there a full thirty minutes on her back, and by that time, he’d be stiff again. Or fast asleep. He already had his eyes closed and was murmuring silly, sleepy things into her hair. His body felt damp and sticky against her own cool, dry one. She fought a strong temptation to push him off, alarmed by her own anger. She should be grateful, not vindictive. He had saved her, hadn’t he, kindled the Clomid, serviced her egg. But she wanted Charles’ baby, not a yellow-eyed pygmy who’d be born with an instant grin and a dandelion between its teeth. And, if it had to be Ned’s, why couldn’t it have been a beautiful encounter, an immaculate conception? Hot-house flowers blooming in a five-star bedroom, romantic music sobbing through a languorous night, not that sordid, five-minute shipwreck which had beached them on a wasteland.