August #3
It was the same after the egg collection, which I hadn’t anticipated.
The feeling of emptiness that I’d experienced once I’d left the recovery room stayed with me until I began to worry that, once again, I was missing something – a vital organ maybe.
Things with Noah returned to normal, or at least as normal as could be expected.
We slipped back into our old routine, pre-injections.
And yet, there was a palpable distance between us.
When we were eating dinner or watching TV, when we were lying side by side in bed, his elbow brushing against mine, even when we were showering – I felt it.
I assume he did too, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask in case it tipped our precariously maintained balance and one or both of us toppled over the edge.
I watched us tread carefully, as if our marriage were built on foundations as fragile as eggshells.
Instead, belatedly, I phoned Robyn.
‘Hey! How are you?’ Just after she asked the question, a siren sounded at her end.
I waited until the screeching had died down before I replied. ‘Phew, that was loud!’
‘Just walking to the office,’ she said. I could hear her footsteps on the pavement. ‘So, how did it go?’
‘It went … well,’ I replied, wondering what the etiquette was when it came to sharing the number of eggs retrieved, and experiencing flashbacks to getting exam results at school. I decided to keep it vague : ‘Doctor Day was pleased.’
She laughed. ‘And you?’
I tried to laugh too, though it came out as more of a gurgle, the kind you make when your mouth is full of toothpaste. ‘I’m still trying to figure that out.’
‘Did the counselling session help?’
I exhaled.
‘You forgot?’
‘I did.’
‘Well, it’s not too late.’ When I didn’t respond, she added : ‘Like I said, I would recommend it.’
‘OK, I’ll book an appointment later today.’ As I said it, I thought of the wavering balance between me and Noah and felt nauseous. ‘Anyway, what about you?’ I asked, trying to sound positive. ‘How did yours go?’
The few seconds it took her to answer gave me a clue. When she spoke again, her voice sounded softer. ‘Mine didn’t go so well actually.’
I felt my cheeks flush as I scrambled around for the right words. In the end I told her, unhelpfully, that I was sorry. ‘Sorry to hear that, I mean.’
‘That’s OK,’ she said, audibly pulling herself together.
‘And for, well, you know …’
‘What?’
I screwed up my face as I said, ‘It should be the other way around.’
‘Cathy, don’t be crazy.’
‘Am I? Being crazy?’
‘Yes. You are.’ I could no longer hear footsteps. She must have stopped walking. ‘Being uncertain doesn’t mean you deserve less of a chance.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
I could almost hear the forced smile, see the fatalistic shrug, as she said, ‘It’s just one of those things.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I’m going to try to save up and do another round if I can.’
Technically, if I’d wanted to make use of the free counselling session, I should have done so pre-egg retrieval – so the receptionist told me over the phone, matter of fact, when I followed Robyn’s advice and said I wanted to cash it in.
When my voice cracked with uncertainty, she didn’t budge, but a few minutes later – to my embarrassment, yes, but also relief – my tears got me somewhere.
She interrupted my list of reasons as to why I hadn’t taken them up on it before to ask when I was available.
Before I had time to respond, she said there was a gap the next day, mid-afternoon.
I thanked her and said I would take it, jotting down the name and address of a practice in west London.
I caught a couple of buses from the flat to Notting Hill. On the second, I phoned Peggy.
Still, she said everything was fine and good. ‘Actually, there is one thing – though I’m not sure whether it’s worth mentioning.’
‘Go on.’
‘It happened earlier. There was a coffee morning at the village hall, and when your mum went to put some change in the charity pot, her purse was empty.’
‘Completely?’
‘No cash, no cards, nothing.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘Something about switching purses.’
‘Right.’
For a moment, neither of us said anything.
Then : ‘Peggy, I’m going to come home at the end of the month and take her for a check-up. In the meantime, please can you—’
‘I will.’
‘Thank you. And Peggy, one more thing.’ I paused, conscious of what the question I was about to ask represented. ‘Do you think she’s fit to drive?’
‘You want to try stopping her?’
I closed my eyes, and when I did, I saw my mother’s frowning face, indignant.
After a ten-minute walk the other end, I arrived at a red-brick building with a small white sign that told me I was in the right place.
I tried to get a glimpse through the sash windows, but slatted white blinds blocked my view.
The front door was pigeon grey with a brass number nailed to its middle.
When pushing it didn’t work, I tried pulling.
Eventually, I gave up and rang the bell.
There was a buzz and the door clicked open.
Inside, the air was faintly infused with the smell of flowers that needed to be tossed.
Around to the right, a welcome desk. Jostling for space in a slender glass vase was a bunch of sunflowers, their downy stems slimy in murky water, their petals curling back on themselves like neglected cuticles.
I glanced around at the rest of the waiting room, which was very white and very clean, and decided the flowers must have got a free pass because of their sunny disposition.
‘Cathy?’ inquired a bespectacled boy, angling his neck until his oval face emerged from behind a bulky desktop.
‘Hello, yes.’
‘Great, Jos will be with you in a couple of minutes. Would you like to take a seat?’ As he asked the question, he nodded towards a single row of empty chairs, also white.
I was leafing through an interiors magazine, barely pausing on each page before flicking to the next, when Jos appeared in the threshold. She had bobbed hair, which she’d let go naturally grey, and bow lips that curved as she greeted me. My legs felt a little wobbly as I came to standing.
‘Cathy, lovely to meet you.’ She held out a hand with painted nails the shade of marmalade.
‘You too,’ I said, pointing them out to her as if she might not have noticed them herself. ‘I like the colour.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied, smiling. ‘I do, too.’
I followed her up a single flight of stairs, willing the wobbliness to cease, and into her office, which was small and tidy and smelled – more appealingly – of freshly brewed coffee.
‘Fancy a cup?’ she asked, pointing to a half-filled cafetière on a wooden side table and reaching for a second mug. Her own was on a felt coaster by her computer, steam rising from the dark liquid.
‘Please,’ I nodded, sitting down as she gestured towards a chair opposite hers.
Her own blinds were pulled to one side and the windows were thrown open, the room absorbing the bustle of the street below.
She poured the coffee to a background beat of passing cars and muddled conversation.
She was wearing a beaded necklace that swung away from her chest as she leant forward.
The beads were small and brown like lentils.
‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘Milk, please.’
I reached into my bag for my cardigan, then decided, one arm hooked in one sleeve, that I wasn’t cold after all, and bundled it back up again.
I touched a finger to my lips, which were chapped, and reached back into my bag for some lip salve before realising I didn’t have any with me. I breathed in and out.
As she handed me my coffee, she smiled kindly, lines ticking up at the outer corners of her eyes. ‘It’s OK to be nervous, Cathy.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, cupping the mug in both hands, grateful to be able to hold onto something solid. Robyn was right – Jos was nice.
‘So,’ she said, settling into position, ‘I understand you’ve just frozen your eggs?’ As she asked the question, she glanced at a small, cubed clock, the kind you might keep by a bed. The session had started.
‘I have, just last week.’
‘And how are you feeling?’
A ball formed from nothing in my throat. I took a sip of coffee, and when that failed to dislodge it, I took another. I smiled apologetically and tried clearing my throat. My voice broke as I uttered two syllables : ‘OK.’
She rested her coffee back down beside her computer and clasped her hands together in her lap, her marmalade nails complementing her navy-blue trousers. ‘You know, it’s OK not to be.’
A tear had made it halfway down my cheek before I realised I was crying without sound. ‘Sorry,’ I said, instinctively, raising my eyebrows at myself as I wiped it away with my fingers. ‘It’s probably the hormones, or what’s left of them.’
Again, she smiled. ‘Probably.’ She passed me a box of tissues, ready and waiting within arm’s reach, then asked me to tell her a bit about myself. ‘Life, work, family, friends – anything.’ She paused. ‘I notice you’re fiddling with your wedding ring.’
I peered down at my fingers, interlinked around my mug.
I told her the first thing I tell most people – that I work in conservation, that it’s my job to preserve centuries-old paintings for future generations.
As I said it, I wondered when my work had become such an important part of my identity, and if that was a good or a bad thing.
I told her about Noah – I even shared our private joke about me slowing down his inevitable ageing process, which made her laugh – and the life we’d built together in London.
I talked about my mother and Norfolk, how we were close but no longer saw each other as much as I would like.
I mentioned the weekend away, the diary, the purse.
Without saying the word, the one that was beginning to haunt me, I hinted at what I was afraid it all meant.
When I was done, she asked : ‘And why did you decide to freeze your eggs?’