Nomance

by T J Price

  Carla had a lucrative agreement with Rupert, and a good funeral jacked up the profits no end. If this makes Carla seem insensitive then one must recall that Romance had only just about scraped through the last financial year. That put death into some kind of perspective. She wasn’t being morbid. She didn’t want them all to die. Just two, or three every twelve months. Any more than that and she would have to cough up more tax. Besides, she wasn’t 100 per cent immune to grief. These bereavements took time to recover from. But recover she did, because in time other customers became old and decrepit in their turn, replacing those who had gone before. Why, one day even Serena would be old enough to need a funeral.

  So then, who said Carla didn’t have anything nice to look forward to?

  And Carla was such an optimist in respect to death in all its many guises. Reading about fatal car crashes, heart attacks and tragic suicides in the local newspaper invariably provided her with a certain thrill of anticipation.

  And here was a delicious daydream for you – a fatal car crash, a lethal heart attack and a case of tragic suicide all within a fortnight (assuming the relatives chose Rupert Nodes and his excellent service) and she wouldn’t have to get pregnant!

  The door banged open and Kitty, the young assistant, clumped in.

  Carla started from her reverie and found herself back in the mundane, everyday world where three Rupert Nodes funerals within a fortnight was just another wild and crazy dream.

  She eyed Kitty, a great big tall, thickset girl of eighteen, and said, ‘Fill all the buckets, like I showed you. I’m going to talk to Gwynne. He’s stopped off work to help you out. Come through if you need me for anything.’

  Kitty leaned towards Carla as she spoke and stared hard at her lips, as if she were trying to read them. There was an interval before she nodded in comprehension, or what passed for it.

  Kitty was built on an almost gross scale. One of the latest generations of kids, so pumped up by the chemical nutriments in fast food that they were almost deformed. There was no chance of Kitty getting lots of flowers from lovesick gentlemen. A pound of beefsteak, possibly . . . and no doubt she’d appreciate it more, too. The pity was, no gentlemen were waiting in the wings. The girl could already lug bags of peat around with ease, so who knew what she’d be capable of on a diet of beefsteak?

  Carla went out back into the large and chilly livingroom where she found Gwynne playing on his Gameboy. He had it up on full volume.

  ‘Don’t get playing that thing in the shop,’ Carla yelled. ‘You’ll frighten the customers!’ Gwynne paused the programme, but continued to glare down at the machine. She added, ‘Mrs Wanless hates loud noises. She almost died when that shelf fell down.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Gwynne looked up with interest.

  ‘Just help Kitty out, will you? You know how she loses track.’

  Carla’s voice lost all its harshness when she recalled how stupid Kitty was. There was something so comforting about it. Her own policy for hiring staff was to avoid anyone with qualifications. The ones with certificates could never do the job at all, which made them far worse than those without any certificates, who were merely incompetent. And apart from not being able to do the job, those with qualifications always suckered some other employer into taking them on and left her in the lurch. Carla could sleep at night knowing Kitty wasn’t going to get another job in a million years. That made having to repeat the same instructions every day, like it was for the very first time, so much easier to bear. Then too, once she was set in motion, Kitty was a methodical beast. Carla believed the shop could burn down around her and she would carry on spraying the spider plants. Yes, she would stick at it regardless till the firemen came to haul her away. Two at each end.

  ‘Turn it off!’ Carla yelled.

  Gwynne had begun playing his Gameboy again and the room was filled by the groans of alien warriors dying in battle.

  ‘It’s all right now,’ Gwynne assured her, sounding as cheerful as he ever did. ‘The Neckroids have won.’ He beamed down at the screen and its frozen picture.

  Carla waited, knowing her presence would soon become too annoying to ignore. And so, soon enough, Gwynne gave her his attention – as much as he could muster – and Carla explained what had to be done in the shop today and how he must slow down when he spoke to Kitty and not expect her to remember anything he had ever told her before. If Kitty was to do something again, then he must explain it again.

  Gwynne frowned at her. ‘Why do you have to go to the doctor?’

  For a second Carla considered telling him and perhaps obtaining a little sympathy for what she was trying to do for them. But then she changed her mind – Gwynne’s sympathy would not be worth the effort.

  Four: Stepping on the Scales of a Cold Fish

  As the receptionist guided Carla into the surgery, Gerald stepped from round from behind his desk and shook hands with her.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said with a crisp informality. His tan, she noted, looked like it had been topped up since they had last met. ‘Please.’ He indicated that she should sit next to him in one of the two patients’ chairs. There was a large file on his desk and pointing to this, he said, ‘Those are the case notes of the couple you may be able to help.’

  ‘I don’t have to read any of that, do I?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. I happened to be reading them before you arrived.’ He leaned over and opened the file, from which he took a form, blank except for two names and an address. ‘These are the prospective parents, though. If we go ahead, you can meet them any time you like. Juliet and Philip Westhrop,’ he read, ‘of Ladbroke Grove.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Oh? Well, yes, some people prefer to maintain a distance, for emotional reasons.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Carla said drily. These Westhrops sounded just like the snooty types who bought flowers from Romance. Not a lot of flowers, mind, just enough to keep her hanging by her fingertips from the poverty line. And while she hung from the poverty line, she flapped around, didn’t she? Like an old, sorry, wet blanket at the mercy of the icy gusts of economic decline . . . suddenly, Gerald’s smooth, plausible voice interrupted her bulletin-sized reverie. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I said, Carla, that I imagine you’d like to hear about the standard arrangements.’

  ‘Yes, all right then.’

  Gerald went on to give her a outline of the service he offered to both parents and surrogates, and what was expected of her if she got involved. What must have been five long minutes later, he concluded, ‘Well then, I think I have told you everything you need to know.’

  Carla was quick to disagree. ‘I’ve been here fifteen minutes and you haven’t told me anything.’

  Gerald looked baffled for a second. ‘Oh, of course, I forgot! How could I? Yes, the fee will be five thousand pounds.’

  ‘Five thousand!’

  Gerald sympathised. ‘I’m every bit as disappointed about this as you are, Carla. Yes, I do think nine months of backbreaking work deserves so much more than five thousand pounds. Especially if you consider a plumber, for instance, will earn as much in three months just for draining boilers and tightening nuts. And here you are, bestowing the gift of life. Still, the fact is, people nowadays are far more willing to shell out on a properly flushing loo than the gift of life. It doesn’t seem right, does it? What can I say? That’s the open market for you. As I explained over the phone, the full ten thousand was already looking optimistic. But what’s happened since then is that another surrogate has come along and offered to bear the child for six.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it any better myself. You see, I’m in a sort of halfway house here and I understand how both sides feel. If you look at it the way I have to sometimes, from the point of view of the prospective parents, you can see that for them it’s like any large investment. Like buying a new car, for example. If they hear they can get the same model, a Ford Escort maybe, for a thousand less, what ar
e they going to do? They are going to buy at a thousand less, aren’t they? Be fair now.’

  ‘Why should I always have to be fair when the system isn’t fair?’

  ‘Very good question. The best answer I can give is that if you accept the five thousand, then I promise I shan’t go back to surrogate number one. I shan’t preside over a Dutch auction.’

  ‘Oh, I bet they’d love a Dutch auction.’

  ‘I take ten per cent, of course.’

  ‘What the hell for?’ Carla cried.

  ‘As your agent. My time costs something, you know, and there are the phone calls to cover, stationary, insurance etcetera. It all mounts up.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Carla pouted fearsomely.

  ‘Look, if you want to go it alone I can give you the name of a charity. They’d put you in contact with parents and you can negotiate for yourself.’

  ‘No, no.’ Carla submitted to her fate with a scowl. She assumed Gerald would put the word out and no one in the surrogacy business would deal with her. She was stuffed – the story of her life.‘You did tell me to expect less over the phone, I suppose.’ She sighed. ‘So, when do I start?’

  ‘Will today do?’

  ‘Might I get more if I waited a bit?’

  ‘This is not a light undertaking, Carla. Yes, we could wait until a wealthier couple came along. But I can’t say when that might be. What I would say is – gather ye your rosebuds while ye may.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ve already said I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good. We will then.’

  ‘It’s just that you should have given me a more realistic figure on Cyprus.’

  ‘Oh, I realise that. But you know how it is when you’re on holiday, you get carried away.’

  Carla felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach. ‘Anyway, I have a business to run. So I’ll sign up now, shall I?’

  ‘Carla,’ Gerald smiled, ‘there’s so much more to surrogacy and child bearing than signing a form. Yes, there is a form to sign, but that’s not nearly so important at this stage as a complete physical examination. I’d like to do that now, just to keep the process moving along.’

  ‘I don’t think – ’

  Gerald stood up and began pulling rubber gloves on. Carla fell silent, while paradoxically letting her mouth drop open. For his part, Gerald kept talking, almost as if the two of them were still chatting away on a day-to-day level. Except now, Carla was no longer in the conversation, as such, because Gerald was doing no more than describing what was happening as it happened.

  ‘We are checking your weight in the first instance. Here are the scales and now you step onto them. Hm, a trifle overweight – ’

  Carla interjected a whinge. ‘Well, we both know who’s to blame for that.’

  Gerald stopped describing what was happening as it happened. ‘Who is to blame, Carla?’

  ‘The Government, of course.’

  ‘The Government?’

  ‘That’s right. They’re taxing me out of existence. I don’t drink or smoke and the only way I can tackle the stress is to eat.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ Gerald said, after a moment. ‘There’ll be a diet I’d like you to follow. I’ll get the sheets printed up before you go.’

  ‘These diets don’t work. I’ve tried them before,’ Carla said with disdain.

  ‘No, this isn’t about losing weight, this diet is to improve the health of the child. And yours, of course. Nothing strange. Plenty of fresh fruit, nuts and pulses. And no pills. Just a cod liver oil capsule every Saturday night.’ He chuckled as he said this. ‘Just the one, mind.’

  Carla chuckled too, thinking, You know where you can stick your cod liver oil capsule, don’t you?

  Five: Complaining for Two

  Six months later Romance was taking a delivery of potting compost.

  The compost came every year about now and signified that summer had reached its apogee. After compost-day, the nights started drawing in again. Carla watched as the van driver and his mate made a neat pile of bags in the middle of the shop. When they had finished, she signed the delivery note and they left.

  In ways such as these Carla marked the progress of the seasons. And how monotonous the routine had become! The years accumulating like vacant lots in a decaying city.

  Oh, but for this year, at least, midsummer was going to be a little bit different.

  For a start, she was expecting somebody else’s baby and Gerald, the doctor, had said she must be careful about lifting heavy things. That meant Gwynne would have to carry the compost bags for once.

  As soon as she had seen the van men off she went up to his room, where he was sprawled on his bed.

  ‘I’m pregnant and I’m not allowed to lift bags of compost, and Kitty’s got a strain, so come and shift them out the shop now. Otherwise the customers will go flying over them.’

  Gwynne stared up at her in blank amazement. Carla smiled back. Only dropping a brick on his head could have brought her more satisfaction. Not that Gwynne was the sort to start complaining straight away, even when a brick was dropped on his head. For now, he just-about murmured, ‘Okay.’

  Somewhat later, though, having lugged the bags of compost out back and finding that he was late for work, he let off what might be interpreted as an expression of righteous disapproval about the fact that Carla was pregnant all of a sudden.

  ‘Don’t expect me to look after it.’

  But no, he wasn’t giving vent to righteous disapproval at all. Carla knew him better than that. Gwynne simply meant what he said – he wasn’t going to look after it.

  As he turned away and skulked away down the hall, Carla laughed out loud at his retreating back. Little did the sucker know that she wasn’t going to have to look after it either!

  All in all, she couldn’t care less what Gwynne thought. But the opinion her customers was another matter.

  Her main anxiety till recently had been about what her customers might say when they noticed she was pregnant. See, there was a chance they would put her on the spot with a hideously awkward question. Or so it had seemed for a few weeks of fretful tossing and turning by night. However, her morbid fears had faded away as her bump became visible and yet was never remarked on. She came to understand that while her customers might ask her how much a Busy Lizzie cost, they were never going to put themselves out so far as to enquire about the bun in her oven. In the great scheme of things, the bun in Carla’s oven was always going to be a piddling irrelevance compared to their Busy Lizzie.

  Sublime indifference – for that she could count on her customers 200 per cent. There was a good chance they wouldn’t even spot the difference between her and the temp she would hire when she needed to take a week off work for the birth.

  Having to hire a temp – now that was something worth Carla’s time and effort to fret over. It was yet another of those extra expenses she hadn’t seen coming until it was too late, like all the jars of chillie pickle she’d had to buy recently in order to feed her craving. This pregnancy was getting to be less a money spinner by the day. No doubt that was why she had started getting these weepy spells. From time to time a near unbearable frustration would well up within her and reduce her to tears.

  If pregnancy always stuffed you up like this then she could well understand why fewer women were having children these days. Actually, it was sobering to realise how much better off she was compared to most pregnant women – at least she going to get a cash lump sum at the end of her term instead of a baby.

  It just goes to show, she told herself, there’s always someone worse off than you.

  And this very formula, as applied to Gwynne, was her most tried and trusted source of comfort.

  Six: Love’s in Superstore

  At work, later that day, Gwynne was glassy-eyed and bad mannered, rather than plain bad mannered.

  The way that his whole life had been turned upside down this morning was preoccupying him. In the past he had always banked on Carla being a failed lesbian. It comfor
ted him to believe there was no chance she would ever bring a bloke home who might try and turf him out of the house. However, after Carla’s shocking revelation, this had begun to look like a distinct possibility. See, it stood to reason that someone who had already gone to the trouble of getting Carla pregnant would also go to the trouble of turfing him out the house.

  Gwynne frowned.

  Then he frowned harder.

  He was still frowning by lunch time, when he sat down in the staff canteen.

  His frown looked much like his usual scowl, but it was, in fact, a different animal. This frown betokened deliberative thought, rather than any other pain in his head. He was trying recollected all the blokes who had ever come into the shop. That wasn’t so difficult. Romance didn’t have many male customers. And anyway, could any man who bought flowers be up to the job of getting Carla pregnant?

  No, the more likely propositions were the van drivers who delivered the stock – bog peat and the like. The salesmen were a bit too flash for Carla, but the van drivers looked like right psychos. And psychos, Gwynne had always felt, had a distinct advantage when it came to the wooing and winning of a woman. That said, it was also true that psychos never failed to display good taste. Somehow he couldn’t picture one taking Carla to bed. To the back of a garage, maybe . . .

  That’s when the answer hit him!

  She’s been raped!

  At that, a great weight was lifted from his mind. The last thing a rapist would do was move in with his victim. Gwynne heaved a hearty sigh of relief and slouched back in his chair with a rare smile.

  Charmaine, the office trainee, who had walked into the canteen just a moment before, smiled back. Then, without warning, like she had acted before she could think about it, she sat opposite him and said, ‘You ought to crack your face more often, mate, you’d be less ugly.’

  And Gwynne picked it up from there.

  Over the days to come, this harshness of tone would lessen until they spoke to each other without any particular inflection whatsoever.