6
Catcott Manor: warm stone and tile, creeper covered, dozing in the morning sun, high on Salisbury Plain. Tom parked the car (an Astra saloon, not his own Mini-Cooper) beside a line of others at the back of the building and switched off the engine.
‘Ready?’
I nodded.
‘Good.’ He touched my shoulder briefly, then opened his door. He was wearing a smart, though somewhat sharp, blazer and light-coloured trousers to fit his image of a salesman, which he’d decided might offer some advantages over a computer expert, while I was wearing a simple dress.
We walked slowly across the gravelled drive to the semicircle of steps that led up to the large front door, which stood open. We pushed through an inner door into a sizeable entrance hall, dim after the sunlight outside. An unoccupied desk stood opposite. We approached. There was a bellpush and a small notice: PLEASE RING FOR ATTENTION.
Tom glanced at me, then pushed his thumb firmly on to it. A bell trilled distantly. We looked around.
At one end of the hall was an open fireplace you could have walked into. Above it hung a picture, but the paint was too darkened to make out any detail. At the other end, the obligatory suit of armour looked too good to be true. A wide staircase with an ornate banister curved upwards.
Footsteps, then a pretty, fresh-faced girl with curly blonde hair appeared wearing a white coat.
‘Hello, you must be Mr and Mrs Jones.’
‘That’s right,’ Tom said.
‘Would you like to take a seat?’ She indicated some chairs next to the armour. ‘Dr Kent will see you shortly.’
‘Thank you,’ we both said, and made our way over. Tom sat next to the armour and examined it for a moment. ‘Fake,’ he whispered to me.
I glanced up at the girl, but she was talking into the telephone. I tried to swallow my heartbeat, tried telling myself that this was how a genuine patient would feel. It didn’t help much.
*
It had been a busy week. Marcus had wanted photos, my birth certificate and other documents from me, and I’d spent the first weekend at Tom and Holly’s house, where he and I had gone over the fiction of our lives together ad nauseam. This turned out to be a good move vis-a-vis Holly. And to be honest it put my feelings about Tom into a better perspective, watching him with Holly and their son.
We had looked over the flat, our ‘home’ in Lambeth. It was frankly dingy, but Marcus swore he would arrange to have it made look homely. ‘Just in case,’ he said.
Marcus and Tom had wrestled with the problem of obtaining plans of the clinic’s security system from the firm that had installed it.
‘They refused to tell us a damned thing until we got a court order,’ said Marcus.
‘Claimed their first duty was to their customer.’ said Tom. They were both quite indignant.
The last weekend, I spent with my mother. I’d debated whether or not to tell her what I was doing, and decided not. She’d worry, she’d want to know why, which, if I told her, would only make her feel guilty.
I decided to be an orphan.
Tuesday evening and night, I stayed with Tom and Holly again, because of our early start in the morning. Holly tried to treat it all as a joke, but you could see that she was worried. She and me both.
*
The phone on the receptionist’s desk buzzed and she picked it up.
‘Mr and Mrs Jones,’ she called. ‘Dr Kent will see you now.’
We followed her down a dim, panelled corridor. She stopped and knocked at a door.
‘Come in.’
We followed her in. A figure had risen from a desk and was coming across to us.
‘Good morning Mrs Jones, Mr Jones.’ She took our hands in turn, her grip firm and steady. ‘I’m Dr Kent.’
She was slightly taller than me, say five and a half feet, with a full figure that just stopped short of being bulky. She was wearing a light-grey skirt and a cream top, with a single rope of pearls round her neck. ‘Do come and sit down.’ She indicated chairs in front of her desk. ‘Thank you, Leila,’ she said over her shoulder, and the receptionist silently left.
She resumed her seat behind her desk. I noticed it was arranged so that the light from the window fell across her face, as it did across ours. Psychology to put us at ease, I thought, as was the fact that her seat was no higher than ours.
‘I trust you had a good journey.’ Her face was square jawed, strongly featured and with very little make-up, framed by iron-grey hair cut in a bob.
‘Fine thanks, doctor,’ Tom replied. ‘Not too bad once we were out of the metropolis.’
‘Good. Now I—’
‘And we’d like to thank you for seeing us so soon. We’re truly grateful, aren’t we, Jo?’
‘Yes.’ I said dutifully, cringing a little inside. His portrayal of a pushy London salesman was rather too accurate for comfort.
Dr Kent said smoothly. ‘As I told Professor Fulbourn, we had a sudden cancellation and I like to make the best possible use of my time. Now, I have your notes here which Professor Fulbourn has sent me, but I hope you’ll bear with me, while I ask some questions.’ Her voice was slightly deep for a woman’s, hut soft and educated. She turned to me.
‘I see you’ve been married for three years. When did you first become worried about infertility.’
Tom said. ‘Since we were married really, wouldn’t you say, Jo?’
Dr Kent turned to him. ‘I’d prefer to hear Mrs Jones’s answers first, if you wouldn’t mind, Mr Jones.’ She smiled to take the sting out of it, although the smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘I’ll come back to you in a moment.’
‘Oh. Sorry, I’m sure.’
‘That’s quite all right. Mrs Jones?’ She had rather piercing grey eyes, I noticed, and her face, which was unlined, seemed to be younger somehow than her body, so that it was difficult to guess her age.
‘Not long after our marriage, as Tom said,’ I replied. ‘We both wanted children, so we stopped using contraceptives and I was surprised when I didn’t become pregnant.’
‘Why were you surprised? It can sometimes take a long time.’
‘I’ve always been very regular and never had any trouble that way. I was certain I would become pregnant quickly.’
‘I notice you’ve never used the contraceptive pill.’
‘No. I—er—’ I glanced at Tom and felt myself redden slightly, ‘I preferred the cap.’
She glanced down at the notes again. ‘Well, it would seem that Professor Fulbourn’s investigations bear out your feelings.’
‘Yes,’ I said simply.
‘So, to sum up your history, you went to your GP a year after you were married, but he didn’t refer you for a further year. You then went firstly to—er—’ she checked the file in front of her, ‘St Martin’s for fertility tests, and subsequently to St Michael’s to try in vitro fertilisation. Would that be a fair summing up?’
‘Yes.’
‘This last six months must have been very distressing for you.’ Statement, not question, and said with real sincerity.
‘Yes, it has been.’
‘I’m sure.’ She turned to Tom. ‘I notice you’ve been married before, Mr Jones. You didn’t have some inkling of the problem then?’
‘My first wife didn’t want children, so the problem never came up.’
‘I see. So when did you first begin to worry, Mr Jones?’
‘About the same time as Jo, really. It was me who suggested she should go to the doctor’s for a check-up.’
‘You assumed that the problem was with her?’
‘Yes, I did,’ he said defensively. ‘I thought at the time it was nearly always the woman—’
‘Whereas you now realise that that’s not the case at all.’
‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘Prof Fulbourn told us.’
‘Mr Jones, this must have been very painful for you as well. Nobody, least of all me, wishes to cast aspersions on your virility. It has always seemed ridiculous to me tha
t what is essentially a medical problem should reflect on a man’s maleness.’ This was said sincerely as well, but part of me wondered whether it was really the best approach.
‘That’s what I’ve always told you, Tom.’ I said, playing the part.
‘Yeah. Yes, you have.’
‘I notice you’ve been offered AID. Donor insemination.’
‘That’s right. But I—we—wanted our own child. Didn’t we, Jo?’
‘Yes, we did,’ I said, still the dutiful wife. Then I looked at him and added quickly. ‘But it would have been our own child, Tom, I…’
‘Well, it’s possible we can help you,’ Dr Kent interposed quickly. ‘Not definite by any means, but certainly possible. Now, the first thing we need,’ she continued crisply, ‘is a sample of your sperm, Mr Jones. Only that way can we tell. Obviously, you’re familiar with this procedure?’
Tom nodded dumbly.
‘And it has been at least three days since you last ejaculated, but no more than seven?’
‘That’s right, yes.’
‘Then I suggest that I quickly examine you now, and then, while you’re producing your sample, I can examine Mrs Jones.’
She stood up and crossed to some screens. ‘If you’d just like to come behind here please, Mr Jones.’
Funny, the proprieties we observe, I thought as Tom disappeared from view. Except for his shoes, twinkling beneath the screens.
A muted instruction, then his trousers flopped over his ankles. He coughed.
Two minutes later, he emerged, rather red faced.
‘I’ll show you the cubicle now,’ Dr Kent said, and he sheepishly followed her out.
A moment later, she came back into the room. ‘Would you like to come through here, Mrs Jones?’
She led me through a connecting door to a bright, well-equipped examination room. A space-age scanner glowed beside the bed.
‘I’ll leave you while you undress,’ she said. ‘Just from the waist down, please. Then, perhaps you’d wait on the bed.’
My heart began beating against my ribs again. Would Fulbourn’s false scar stand up to examination? He’d sworn it would. Perhaps she’d find something we hadn’t thought of, something I didn’t know about?
I’d been on the bed less than a minute when she came back in.
‘You’re ready? Good. Could you put your feet up in the stirrups, please?’
She helped me place my ankles in widely spaced supports above the bed.
Just as well I’ve done this before, I thought. It’s probably the most undignified posture possible for a woman to adopt. She picked up the speculum.
Adopt? That’s the trouble, the stirrups make you feel trapped, defenceless, open to violation…
‘Try to relax please, Mrs Jones.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve never been able to get used to this.’
‘Few people are. Try to think about something else—the end result, perhaps…’
I thought of Harry Jones, and curiously, it seemed to work.
‘That’s better.’ A moment later, she continued, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, in addition to the information in your notes?’ Good psychology to ask me now, when we weren’t face to face.
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘No venereal disease of any kind, problems you’d rather your husband didn’t know about?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Please forgive me for asking. It’s something we have to check.’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, everything seems to be fine here,’ she said a few moments later. The speculum was withdrawn and she helped me to lower my feet.
‘Your husband—I have the impression that he’s had some difficulty in coming to terms with his condition.’ She lay a towel across my midriff. ‘Stay where you are a moment please, I want to do a quick scan.’
‘It’s true about my husband,’ I said, glad of the opportunity to say something about Tom. ‘He’s a very sociable man, an extrovert, one of the lads—it hit him very hard.’
‘I can see that.’
‘He tries to cover it up.’
‘I can see that, too. Has there been pressure on him—on both of you—to start a family?’
‘We neither of us have parents still alive,’ I said carefully, ‘but there has been pressure. Peer pressure.’ I hesitated, drew in a breath. ‘I think the worst moment was when we were out with some friends one evening. They’d had a few drinks and one of them said, “When are you going to start producing then, Tom? I thought you were a family man.”’
I shook my head. ‘He bluffed it out, but it was all I could do to persuade him to stay afterwards.’
‘I can see how it would hurt a man like him. I’m just going to put some jelly on your tummy…’ she squeezed some on to me from a plastic container, then, ‘Does he enjoy his work? He’s a salesman, I believe?’
‘Yes, he sells medical equipment and he’s very good at it, very successful.’ I smiled wanly. ‘That’s how come we can afford all this treatment.’
‘So having a family is important to him?’
‘It’s important to us both, doctor.’
She smiled. ‘I’m sure it is, Mrs Jones. Now, let’s find out what we can see with this.’
She applied the sensor to my abdomen, slid it around experimentally for a moment, then moved it more purposefully while she studied the screen. ‘Ye-es, it all appears to be as Professor Fulbourn noted…now, try to keep very still, please, I want to take some measurements.’ She delicately manipulated the sensor until one of my ovaries was in the middle of the picture, then expanded the image until it filled the screen. It was in colour and the detail was the best I’d ever seen. She pressed a button on the sensor and a cross appeared on the screen, which she manoeuvred to one end of the ovary—then my stomach grumbled and the image shook.
‘Try to keep still, please.’
‘Sorry.’
She placed further crosses and read off the measurements from the digital display on the panel.
‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘everything seems to be satisfactory here.’ She removed the sensor and handed me another towel.
‘So you won’t need to do another laparoscopy?’
‘From what I’ve seen, I’m sure we can accept Professor Fulbourn’s findings. If you’d like to get dressed now, I’ll go back to my office and see if your husband is ready. Would you like to come through when you’re ready?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘Good. No need to hurry.’ She replaced the sensor on the machine and left.
I took a breath. So far so good? I hoped so. I wiped the jelly from my abdomen and slowly got dressed.
Tom was in the office with her when I got back.
‘Please sit down, Mrs Jones. Your husband’s sample has already gone to the laboratory.’
She waited until I was seated before continuing.
‘As I told you both earlier, I can’t say definitely whether we can treat you or not until I have the laboratory results.’
‘How long will that take?’ Tom.
‘About a week. Now—’
‘And how much is it going to cost us?’
She looked at him a moment before replying. ‘I can’t give you an exact figure until I’ve seen the laboratory results, but it will be between three and four thousand pounds.’
‘I see. Half payable before treatment and half after?’
‘No. If we agree to treat you, we would require the full amount before you actually came to stay here. But you’re jumping ahead rather, Mr Jones. I was about to say something about microinjection. It’s a very new technique, although having said that, we have already had some success with it. Success or failure will depend on the quality of your sperm—if our investigations show that your sperm is unlikely to fertilise your wife’s ova, then we would be charlatans if we accepted your money and—’
‘But surely,’ interrupted Tom, ‘if it was good enough for Prof Fulbo
urn to attempt IVF, then it’ll be worth trying with microinjection.’
She looked at him with barely concealed dislike. ‘There is a strong likelihood that that will be the case, but until we’ve completed our tests, I cannot commit myself. There is a further point. I notice that you both used to smoke, but gave it up when treatment started. I trust that is still the case?’
Tom looked down at his hands. ‘Didn’t think it would make any difference, not after Prof Fulbourn told us we’d have to use a donor.’
‘Well, it can make a difference, a big difference. I hope that’s understood.’
He looked quickly up at her. ‘Yes, doctor.’
‘Good.’ She smiled again. ‘I suggest that you have your blood samples taken now, then go home and try not to worry.’
‘That’s easier said than done,’ Tom, gloomily.
Dr Kent stood up. ‘True, but try nevertheless.’ She escorted us to the door. ‘Goodbye, and good luck!’
We looked at each other but didn’t say anything as we walked back to the entrance hall. Leila was waiting for us by her desk.
‘Blood samples,’ she said brightly. ‘Who’s going first? Mrs Jones?’
‘No, Mr Jones,’ I said firmly, propelling Tom forward. He had this thing about blood (his brother had been a haemophiliac) and he tended to feel faint at the sight of it. With a glance back at me, he followed Leila into the cubicle.
‘Don’t you like needles?’ I heard her ask.
‘Not that,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Can’t stand the sight of blood.’
‘Why don’t you close your eyes, then?’
Why hadn’t I thought of that? I wondered.
It was just as we were saying goodbye to Leila that a huge hulking figure in uniform emerged from a passageway, saw us, grunted and quickly withdrew. I had just enough time to register the lantern jaw and close-set eyes in the slab of a face. There was something familiar about it.
‘Ye gods!’ Tom said in a stage whisper to Leila. ‘Who was that? Jaws?’
She laughed. ‘No, that was Cal, our security guard.’
‘Cal?’
She leaned forward conspiringly. ‘Short for Caliban.’ She laughed again. ‘But it’s not his real name, so don’t tell him I said it.’
Deliver Them From Evil Page 5