June #4
The open evening was at half-past five the following Tuesday.
I left work early, which I’d realised, a little guiltily, was easy to do when you worked alone.
I caught the Tube to London Bridge and this time, when I walked into the waiting room, I was met with about thirty women.
The smell of freshly hoovered carpet had been doused with perfume.
I made a beeline for the makeshift bar – a small table topped with a white paper sheet that looked a lot like the one that had attempted to preserve my modesty during my scan.
I helped myself to a glass of white wine, which, like the bottles set aside for unofficial events at the museum, was lukewarm and a little fizzy.
It was raining outside, and most people, myself included, had small umbrellas dangling from their wrists ; although they were tightly bound, they were leaking onto the floor, which by now was marked with what looked like shiny snail tracks.
I stood with my back to the welcome desk and looked around the room.
If I ignored the odd sighting of a white coat, I could just about convince myself that I was here for a talk that had nothing to do with fertility.
A discussion of gender equality in the arts, perhaps.
A study of the benefits of art education in schools. A call to action to get more works by—
The sputter of a speaker snapped me out of my cultural reverie. Doctor Day was straightening his tie and inviting us to make our way into the next-door events space. Like an obliging flock of ewes, we trotted along after the ram.
I’d been half disappointed by the lack of a baby wall before, and here it was in all its glory.
A Warholian spread of white, black and brown babies beaming unanimously at the camera had been blown up on glossy card and tacked directly onto the back wall.
My first thought was how they’d managed to get eight to ten babies to smile on cue.
The second : if there’s such an even spread of white, black and brown babies, where were all the black and brown women in the room?
I searched each face for a self-conscious wince in the form of a stretched mouth or a squint.
I detected only one ; a woman with mousey hair was apologetically nibbling her lower lip.
I looked back at the babies and, not for the first time, wondered what someone who was half me, half Noah would look like – whether they would inherit his full eyebrows, my amber eyes, whether their ears would be big like his or teaspoon-small like mine.
I wondered about their character. Whether they would be fond of books or art or both.
I tried to imagine if they would sneeze in twos or threes.
How it would feel to have someone call me Mum.
How their arrival might affect my relationship with my own mother.
Would it bring us closer again, I wondered, to how we were before my father died, or at least make me miss her less when I wasn’t with her? A mother for a mother.
When I imagined how it might affect my relationship with Noah, I felt my body grow tense, as if I was bracing myself, on behalf of us both, for a physical assault.
I thought of our life together and how happy we were, how everything would irrevocably change whether we liked it or not.
No more late nights out or long lie-ins, no more last-minute holidays or uninterrupted afternoons spent reading and sketching.
No more just the two of us. The thought knocked the wind out of me, and I was questioning what I was doing there when, once again, Doctor Day’s voice addressed the room.
‘OK, ladies and gentlemen, please can you take your seats.’
I widened my eyes, then scanned the crowd and realised that, yes, there were a couple of men present.
Both were holding their partners’ hands, as if they were worried about getting separated from them and swept away in this choppy sea of women.
I was also surprised to find that lots of the women looked younger than me.
Contrary to medical advice, I’d read that the average age of women freezing their eggs was between thirty-seven and thirty-eight.
But at least a handful here had the kind of youthful skin and figures that made me suspect they were in their twenties.
I picked up a plastic folder off one of the blue chairs in the back row and sat down beside the woman with the mousey hair, who I guessed was closer to my own age.
I began to leaf through the bumf, then apologised when she shifted her leg away from my soggy umbrella, which was rubbing up against her like a wet dog.
‘Oh, no worries,’ she said, smiling as she introduced herself. ‘I’m Robyn.’ It came out in a whisper, either because she was conscious that the talk was about to begin or because she wasn’t all that comfortable being here either.
‘Cathy,’ I whispered back.
Both of us were already juggling our handouts and wine, so in lieu of a shake we politely dipped our heads in greeting.
As she did so, the tips of her fringe kissed her eyebrows, which were fairer than her hair and pin thin.
I decided that yes, she was my age, having grown up at a time when having almost non-existent eyebrows was a thing.
‘Are you still considering it, or have you made up your mind?’ she asked, nudging some hair away from her face with the back of one hand. She was still talking in a hushed voice.
‘Oh, I’m still considering it,’ I replied, nodding. ‘And you?’
‘My mind is pretty much made up,’ she said, adding as if by way of explanation : ‘I’m thirty-six and single.’
I nodded some more.
‘I mean, I am still hoping that I’ll meet someone sooner rather than later and it’ll happen naturally. But if not, at least this will buy me some time.’ She started nibbling her lip again, then pressed the pad of one finger to it, apparently conscious of the habit. ‘What’s your situation?’
I looked towards the screen at the front of the room, hoping to see Doctor Day standing open-mouthed in front of the microphone, ready to go, but he and his team were fiddling with various wires, clearly having technical issues.
When I returned my gaze to Robyn, she was smiling and patiently waiting.
Her eyes were the kind of luminous blue that reminded me of the precious pigment mostly preserved for the Virgin’s robes in Renaissance paintings. ‘Well, actually, I’m married.’
‘You are?’
‘I am.’
She paused and scrunched up her nose, the way you might if you were trying to solve a difficult sum, then asked, ‘So why are you considering freezing?’
I laughed and she did too, though I’m sure both sounded artificial.
‘Are you going your separate ways?’
I felt my body temperature rise a few notches and quickly shrugged off my jacket. It was the first time someone had said it out loud.
‘Sorry, that’s none of my business,’ she said, her own cheeks flushed. ‘I’ve never been good with small talk.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ I said, bundling up my jacket even though it was linen and crumpled like newspaper, and stowing it underneath the chair in front.
My eyes flashed towards the screen again, then back to hers, which were fringed with bare lashes so fair they were almost invisible.
‘He doesn’t want children. My husband doesn’t want children. ’
‘And you?’
I tried to smile as I said, ‘I’m not sure.
I didn’t think so.’ I paused, breathed. ‘But now, maybe, one day.’ Again, I glanced around at the women who, like me, were fortunate enough to be able to take out an insurance policy on their fertility.
‘It probably sounds terrible,’ I said, shifting in my seat, ‘that I’m wondering whether or not to do something that the majority of people could only dream of doing, just to put my mind at ease. ’
‘Not terrible , no.’ When I held my breath, she gave a gentle shrug and continued, in a lowered voice.
‘Look, I’m not really comfortable with any of it – the courting, the access, the cost …
which I can only just about afford. The idea of it being this quasi-feminist solution to having it all.
’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And yet, here I am. Does that make me a hypocrite? I think so. But I also can’t bear to take the risk.
’ She shuddered, as if imagining she were to gamble and end up with a future that was quieter and emptier than the one she hoped for.
I opened my mouth to reply, but Doctor Day got there first :
‘OK, everybody, apologies for the hold-up.’
Conversation petered out ; chairs squeaked. There was at least one cough.
‘Let’s get going.’
As he introduced himself then handed us over to one of the clinic’s medical directors, Robyn took a deep breath, and so did I.
The talk concluded, and there was a clumsy applause, none of us quite sure whether we should be clapping. People were chatting again when I reached forward and snatched up my jacket, which, as predicted, was crinkled with lines.
As I went to stand, Robyn said, ‘Hang on, pass me your phone.’
I handed it over and she handed it back for me to unlock. I watched as she dialled her number and added it to my address book.
‘If you ever want to talk to someone who gets it, even vaguely.’ She smiled, a little embarrassed maybe, as she added, ‘I don’t know anyone else who’s going through it either.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, smiling back, oddly moved by the small but generous gesture. ‘And what you said before, about being a hypocrite?’
She nibbled at her lip.
‘I don’t think you are.’
‘Thanks, Cathy.’
As I slipped on my jacket, she wished me good luck.