by Pamela Fudge
She looked relieved. ‘Oh, that’s a good idea – I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself. Thanks, Wendy. It’s all right for Lucy, because her Roland will put up with being bossed about, if I started demanding that Ian do as I say he would just dig his heels in.’
I nodded. ‘Most men would.’
‘Do you want more children?’ she asked me. I should have been expecting the question and had some sort of vague answer ready, but Lucy was looking straight at me, kind of anxiously.
‘Erm,’ I began, ‘let’s just say we would be very happy if it happened, but it’s not on the top of our list of priorities right now.’ I felt I had to add that because I couldn’t bear to have Lucy delving too closely into my personal life or – God forbid - wanting to compare notes. I felt a bit mean for being the teeniest bit glad that Jon and I weren’t the only ones having a problem conceiving. It helped to put things into perspective.
Jade came back then and the subject of possible future children was dropped as we put our energies into persuading our current children to leave the swings and head for home.
‘I love Trixie,’ William declared, apropos of nothing, as we prepared vegetables together for the evening meal.
‘Yes, she’s very sweet,’ I agreed, and went to the fridge for the salmon we were going to use for fish-cakes.
‘It’s not actually fair,’ he declared. ‘How come Tristan has a baby to play with, and Molly and me don’t?’
‘Molly and I,’ I corrected automatically.
‘Molly and I, then,’ he parroted. ‘It isn’t fair, though, because I would like a baby and I know that Molly would as well.’
‘Mmmm,’ I paused to think and then told him, ‘not everyone gets what they want, Will, you know that.’
He gave me an old-fashioned look, and explained patiently, ‘Yes, but it’s not like you have to buy me a baby. You get them free. All you have to do is to grow one in your tummy – just like you grew me.’
If only it was as simple as that, or as difficult. - I hated the fact that I had complicated everything by having an affair that may well have resulted in my son’s birth. I could never regret Will’s birth, however he came into being, but I could and did wish with all my heart that my actions hadn’t put a big black question mark over his conception. I also hated the fact that I had no one to blame but myself for whatever happened in the future.
I toyed briefly with the possibility of a DNA test, as I had done many times before – but I couldn’t face the result spelling out something that I really didn’t want to know. There was also the chance that the result could fall into the wrong hands. Even if it was the result I was hoping for, how could I ever explain my reasons for getting a DNA test done? I had to protect William at all costs, and do everything I could to keep my marriage intact. No, it was crucial that I prove to myself that I could get pregnant by Jon and then every doubt I’d ever had about his fertility would simply go away.
William was still looking askance at me but, thankfully, Jon arrived then and he took over explaining to William why everyone who wanted a baby didn’t get one just because they wanted it, that sometimes you had to wait a while until it happened, and that sometimes it didn’t happen at all.
‘Sometimes,’ he explained carefully, ‘a family might have as many as six children and sometimes they just ended up with one or even, sadly, none at all. Mummy and I were so happy to have you,’ Jon smiled at me, but even as my heart contracted with love for him, the pain of my guilt smote me like a fist, ‘and if we never have another baby you will be more than enough for us, but,’ he put up his hand when Will tried to interrupt, ‘we will see what we can do about a little brother or sister for you. Just don’t be too sad if it doesn’t happen. We won’t be because we will always have you.’
William seemed to digest this, looking from Jon to me and back. I waited for something profound to come out of his mouth, because he was such a wise little boy, but all he said was, ‘Oh, ok, but if we don’t have a baby, can we have a dog instead?’ and we burst out laughing.
Later that evening, when I came downstairs after putting William to bed and reading him a story, I found Jon pouring over the sheets of information on improving sperm production that I had printed from the internet.
‘You’re doing a great job of improving our diet,’ he said, holding out his arms and welcoming me to settle into his lap, leaning his head next to mine so that we could both peruse the information, ‘but there’s a piece here about male fertility supplements and this is what it says, “You can get similar results with micronutrients, but a food supplement is a much cheaper and convenient method to supply the male body with the sperm nutrients needed on a daily basis”.’
‘Oooh,’ I said, nuzzling my face into his neck, ‘I really love it when you talk dirty.’
‘Talking isn’t all I do,’ he grinned, running his hands over me while I wriggled with enjoyment.
‘Mu-u-um,’ a plaintive little voice called from upstairs, ‘can I have a drink of water?’
I stood up, and smiling I said, ‘A drink of water is easy to produce, but unless we really do want a dog in the family we’d better do everything we can to create this baby.’
When I came out of Will’s bedroom, switching off the light and closing the door, I found Jon waiting on the landing.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Just obeying instructions,’ he grinned, reaching for my hand and yanking me into our bedroom. ‘You know, doing everything I can, and practice makes perfect babies, so they say.’
‘Let’s keep it fun – like this,’ I told Jon, when we lay sated in each other’s arms. ‘Let’s not get bogged down with baby-making for its own sake.’ I wasn’t sure why I was saying it, given my desperation for another child, but I guess the saner part of me knew that Jon wouldn’t react well if he felt himself under pressure from me to perform.
‘Mmmm,’ he murmured in my ear, ‘by fun what – exactly – did you have in mind?’
Feeling his body stir and stiffen against mine, I sat up and stared at him. ‘You’re not... again?’
But he was and we did. I felt that if virility made babies we were in with a good chance of success.
The next day, leaving Jon to investigate the best supplements to provide his body with the correct sperm nutrients, I found myself picking up the printed pages again and reading a few pages further on. As a result of the information I ingested I immediately threw out all of Jon’s underpants of the stretchy trunk variety, and invested in much looser boxer shorts.
‘Those jeans you love so much will also have to go,’ I said bossily when he protested, ‘they’re much too tight and you can see for yourself that it says here that your scrotum has to be well aired.’
‘I think you can get arrested for that, love,’ he said ruefully, pulling a worried face.
‘No heated car seats, no laptop on your lap, get plenty of sleep and you’d better start making use of that gym membership you paid so much for,’ I told him sternly.
‘Go on,’ he said, trying to snatch the sheets out of my hand, ‘it doesn’t say that,’ but, of course, as he quickly discovered, it did say exactly that, because exercise was something else that was strongly recommended in those, oh, so, informative sheets.
We threw ourselves whole-heartedly into improving Jon’s fertility by following each and every suggestion provided. So did William, though he had no idea about the importance of the healthier diet and lifestyle we were all enjoying, or the results we were hoping for as a consequence. I think we all benefitted from the freshly sourced, home-cooked food – not that I had ever gone in for ready meals but anything can be improved upon – and from the fact that we spent far more time out in the fresh air that we did in front of the TV.
I honestly hadn’t been expecting miracles but, while I wasn’t as devastated as I had been before, the next time I menstruated I couldn’t help being disappointed all over again.
Jon, coming in from work, correctly interpret
ed my glum expression. ‘Look,’ he pointed out patiently, ‘it says right here on the front page of this information that it will take at least ten weeks before the first higher quality sperm will be found in the seminal fluid.’
‘I know, I really do know,’ I admitted, and I did, too, because I could quote almost word for word the information offered in those now far too familiar sheets, ‘but still...’
‘Come here,’ he said, pulling me close. ‘We’re doing everything we can, sweetheart – in and out of the bedroom. Tell you what, I can always go back to the doctor and discuss just how much of an effect my low sperm count actually has on our chances of conceiving.’
‘No,’ I said, knowing it was the last thing either of us wanted – each for our own reasons. Then realising how sharply the word had come out, I said in a softer tone, ‘No, love, we’ll only be given a lot of the same advice as we’ve already obtained from the Internet. I’m just being silly. Lots of couples take a while to conceive.’
‘Right,’ Jon agreed, looking reassured I thought.
He obviously still had an aversion to having his fertility called into question by the medical fraternity, just as he had when we were trying for a child the first time around. The difference this time was that then he had taken the slur on his masculinity very personally and refused to discuss it even with me, at least this time he was willing to work with me on improving our chances of a pregnancy and I loved him for that.
‘Tell you what,’ I suggested, trying to lighten a mood of my own making, ‘let’s do some fun family things together while we’re working on getting a baby. It won’t be long now before Will’s back at school and then it will be homework and early nights all the way, best make the most of it while he can have a late night now and again without doing any harm.’
‘We did promise him we’d take him to a show,’ Jon remembered. ‘Instead of driving up, though, let’s go up on the train – he’ll absolutely love that – we can do a matinee and come back the same day.’
‘Oh, but Tina...,’ I began.
‘...won’t want us pitching up at short notice – even though she’ll pretend that it’s fine,’ he said with thoughtful truth. ‘We can’t keep treating their house like a hotel. I might give Calum a ring though, because he has great connections when it comes to getting tickets at short notice.’
Of course, it had to be The Lion King. Jon and I had no doubt about that and neither had Calum when they discussed him booking the tickets for us through his contacts. It was William’s favourite of all the Disney films and we had all watched it countless times on DVD – to the point where Will could practically quote the dialogue word for word.
‘We’d come with you,’ Calum said, and Jon said he did actually sound regretful, ‘but I’ll be in America with Leanne on a book tour, and Tina has a celebrity event to cater for. If all goes as planned it will do her company no harm at all, so she’s throwing herself into the whole thing with even more than her usual enthusiasm. When it’s all over and I’m home, we’d love to take up your offer of a few days near the sea, though. That will be just what we need, so thank you both for the offer.’
‘Absolutely perfect,’ I said happily when Jon repeated this word for word back to me.
‘I know you miss having Tina close by and on tap,’ Jon teased. ‘I’m just surprised you haven’t tried to persuade me to buy the house next door to them in London.’
I screwed my nose up and shook my head. ‘No, I wouldn’t want to live in London – not even to see more of Tina. She’d be too busy for that kind of close friendship now anyway, with her business taking off the way it has. I do miss her, though. Oh, I know I have friends, but I don’t share the same closeness with them that Tina and I had.’
‘Well, that’s understandable. You went through a tough time together. There you were, having to deal with me behaving like a chauvinistic pig after we were told that I had a low sperm count and I absolutely refused to accept it – even going so far as to try and put the blame on you. It’s a wonder you didn’t leave me and, looking back, I wouldn’t have blamed you one little bit. At the same time Tina was facing that huge media furore when it came out that she had a teenage daughter by Calum - just as he’d become engaged to a well-known celebrity.’
I tried not to shudder at the memories Jon’s words evoked, and at the reminder of what I had allowed his actions to provoke me into doing. I had tried to be understanding of his feelings and insecurities, though perhaps not understanding enough in hindsight. In fairness, it had been hard to be rational in the end, after months of being told that my weight was obviously to blame for the fact that we had been unable to conceive. Coming across what I’d believed was proof of his infidelity, had been the final straw and the only thought on my mind the night of the wedding was retaliation and if pregnancy should be the result, then so be it.
Having Jon apologise again so humbly for his unfair and cruel treatment of me was unexpected - especially as I now knew full well that the ‘proof’ of his affair had just been me jumping to stupid conclusions. Discovering the truth had shown my flimsy excuse for having a one night stand up for what it was, just an excuse, but, of course, by then it had been far too late to undo my own rash actions or to wish myself un-pregnant in case the wrong man was responsible for the baby I had soon discovered I was carrying.
I still felt sure I had done the right thing all those years ago in keeping quiet - for Jon, for me, and especially for William - but it was so hard carrying round a secret that could ruin so many lives if it ever got out. There had always been just one other person beside me who knew the full facts, and I had always trusted Tina so implicitly that I was able to bury the whole thing deep within my self-conscience for years; to the point that I could almost convince myself that the night in question had never happened.
However, everything had changed since I came face to face with my past that day in the department store. Seeing a face, one that I had never wanted or expected to see again, had forced me to acknowledge there was someone else to be added to the equation, and Tina dismissing my fears wasn’t really helping much anymore. The truth that there was someone out there who had recently recognised me and seen me with my son – which was only one step away from him putting two and two together and working out that the boy might well be his son, too.
Chapter 10
What had started as a simple chat with Jon had resulted in the worst time in my life suddenly coming back with horrifying clarity to haunt and taunt me. I found myself gripping a chair back to stop myself from trembling, but nothing could stop the tears from falling.
Jon was all concern immediately. He rushed to my side, gathered me into his arms and rocked me to and fro. ‘Oh, my love,’ he murmured, ‘I’m so sorry. I know how much you hate talking about how it was for us back then. It was a hugely difficult time, and made far worse by my bloody idiotic behaviour. I can’t believe I was so cruel, I was...’
‘Please, Jon,’ I pleaded, wiping the tears from my eyes. ‘Please just stop. All I want is to forget all about it.’
‘I know, I know,’ he crooned, ‘but – and I know it’s a big ask – but I just need to know that you forgive me for being such a complete jerk. You never have said that you’ve forgiven me.’
No, I haven’t, I thought, and wished I could say out loud that if he was seeking my forgiveness then I might have to ask him to forgive me – and then I would feel obliged to tell him that what I had done that was far, far worse than uttering selfish words.
‘I...,’ I began, wondering where this was going to lead and, even worse as far as I was concerned, where it was going to end, and then the back door flew open and the moment was gone.
‘You aren’t kissing, are you?’ William asked, with typical six year old revulsion in his tone.
We both burst out laughing, at his words and because he was absolutely filthy.
‘How on earth did you get that dirty just riding your bicycle around the back garden?’ I demanded, shakin
g my head. ‘And, look, you’ve even torn a hole in your jeans.’
‘Well,’ he turned his grubby face to me and beamed, ‘I’ve had a lovely time. I built some little jumps out of those bricks left over from the new front wall, and rode over them on my bike. I might have fallen off a few times. I didn’t hurt myself, though.’
‘Jumps?’ Jon looked mystified, as well he might.
‘Yes,’ Will looked at us from one to the other and beaming all the while, ‘like that evil man.’
‘What evil man?’ we said in unison.
‘The one on the TV,’ he said, frowning at us as if we were stupid. ‘You know, the one on the motorbike.’
‘Evel Knievel,’ Jon said, obviously finally understanding, which was more than I did.
‘Who?’
‘The guy who made a living jumping over double-decker buses on his motor bike. Remember? We watched the documentary about him the other night,’ Jon explained patiently.
‘Mummy hid her eyes, and then she said she’d be better ‘ployed making a cake. It was a chocolate one,’ Will added as an afterthought.
I gave Jon a ‘now see what you’ve done’ look. It was obvious to me – as it must be to him - that his taste in TV viewing was having far too much influence on an impressionable little boy.
‘What?’ he asked innocently. ‘How was I to know our son would try to break his neck in an attempt to copy him? He’s just being a normal adventurous little boy and will be off trying something else next week.’
Thinking about the sudden interest in rugby, I had a feeling Jon had hit the nail on the head. Relief that it could be so made me go easy on William, and I laughed as I gathered him up in my arms, dirt and all.