The House of Hidden Mothers (49 page)

Toby cleared his throat. ‘So if we find something … anything … I mean he's due next month – so there's nothing we can do now anyway, is there?'

Dr Pardew sat down again next to Toby with a faint sigh. It would be hard getting up again. She knew she owed this man another half an hour. And all the other patients waiting for her, short-changed again. Never enough time. ‘I'm sorry this has all happened like this. Normally you'd be offered genetic counselling. We don't have anyone here right now, but I can get on to that first thing tomorrow. And I will say it again at the risk of sounding repetitive – this may well all be a false alarm, and in ten days' time all you will have to worry about will be welcoming your healthy baby into the world.'

Even though Shyama had been unsure about going out to eat that evening, Tara had insisted she needed a break. Prem was sitting up, chatty, animated; his hand never left Sita's, whom he seemed to recognize so naturally that he thought it odd when she carefully asked him once or twice who she was. In fact, he couldn't remember ever not recognizing her, was shocked by her tears, saddened by her relief that he had come back to them.

‘I haven't been anywhere,
jaan
…' He patted her arm and waved off Tara and Shyama. Half an hour later they found themselves at Koti, the trendy new establishment which had fashioned itself on a Rajasthani bazzar. You had to pay an entrance fee to be admitted.

At first, Shyama assumed the ringing phone was not hers but Tara's, as she had been texting on it every ten minutes, no doubt providing a running commentary of her evening for Dhruv, whom she would see in an hour or so and then repeat the whole story to again.

‘Sorry, Toby!' Shyama said breathlessly, finally finding a quieter spot behind a stall selling carved wooden trunks with heavy brass locks. ‘I should have called earlier … Dad's suddenly turned a corner, he's …'

She had to walk further away to hear everything, found herself leaning against the boundary wall, the stone cool against her back, crickets violining their legs somewhere near her hair. She repeated what Toby suggested she had to do: talk to Dr Passi, get the medical records of the egg donor and email them back immediately. Yes, he had done the right thing to say nothing yet; yes, she understood the baby was fine, she wasn't to worry.

‘Have you got hold of Mr O'Connell?' she managed to say. ‘What hospital are you at? Sorry? What the fuck were you doing in Suffolk?'

Toby, shivering in the hospital car park, spoke without thinking, his mind clouded with worry. He still recalled the easy honesty of their last conversation and hoped that everything he said would reassure her: he'd been hunting down a new home for them, buying clothes and a bed for the baby. Yes, Mala had been with him, but only because Shyama couldn't be, and he had missed her every moment. He offered up the truth as a gift.

All Shyama heard was his assumption that she would sell the house – her house – to fund his pipe dream. All she saw was Toby walking hand-in-hand with Mala, choosing changing bags and tiny knitted hats, wandering around a country place she had known nothing about until now, planning a future in which she was a distant bystander. Flashes of memory spooled into a story, frame by frame: how he had rushed to open the car door for Mala when they first arrived; how he always insisted on escorting her upstairs before her bath; how, many times, she had caught them talking into the night, and their sudden silence when she entered the kitchen; how he had ignored Mala so studiously at first that it was clear he had wanted to look; how, after that, he couldn't stop looking as she glided around making potions, feeding them, the fecund Lady Bountiful doing everything that Shyama did, but better, and so much younger. Shyama had always imagined that she would fight for this relationship if it faltered. Initial worries about losing Toby to a woman his own age had faded when they had embarked on this journey together, a commitment more significant than marriage. Since then she had always assumed that she would be battling different rivals: boredom, wrinkles, the libido-draining sleepless nights that accompanied a small child. But not this. How could she fight the woman who sustained all their hopes of a shared future? Who nourished her lover's child, which she had paid her to carry?

‘Are you in love with her?' Shyama asked him calmly.

‘What?' Any answer he may have given was drowned by the scream of an ambulance siren as it pulled into its bay. By the time Toby had moved far enough away to ask her to repeat what he thought he had heard, the line was dead.

Toby sat by Mala's side all night, checking his phone every half-hour, willing it to ring, waiting to hear Shyama's voice with all the answers. In the morning, he brought Mala treats from the small but well-stocked on-site supermarket: chocolate, apples, milkshake in a carton, glossy magazines. Of course he loved her, but only because he loved the baby she carried. This was what he told himself as he held her hand and watched the long, almost invisible amniocentesis needle puncturing her protruding stomach. He half expected to hear a loud pop and a rude noise as she deflated, revealing the child on the screen, so unmistakeably a small person now with eyelashes and restless fingers, to be a hologram, a hoax. But his boy slept on soundly; the only sign that he had even registered the intrusion into his silent watery world was a sudden twitch of his small and perfect foot.

He left her for a while to have his own blood test, welcomed the discomfort as a distraction, watching the syringe fill with the ruby liquid that contained all his secrets, the inherited flaws of his past, the possibilities of his cellular legacy. And then back to her bedside in the noisy six-bed ward. She looked almost comical in her blue gown, a tiny head and slim legs and feet bookending the enormous dome of her, a beached whale, a python who had swallowed a giant egg. She looked grave with responsibility and only broke into a wisp of a smile when she waved him farewell. His throat felt thick with emotion. He had another nine days of this.

In the car park, he checked his phone again. Shyama had not called, but she had left a short text. ‘Dr Passi out of the country. Told no one else available to give more detailed info on egg donor. Makes no difference now. We have to live with what we have.'

There were more texts and emails but he never got to talk to Shyama directly, despite leaving her regular voice messages. Not that there was anything new to report – every day passed the same way. Mala's bleeding continued on and off so she stayed put; the foetal heart monitor became their reassurance: there he was, tiny horses' hooves galloping their glee. If there was something wrong with this child, he didn't know and didn't care. Toby would bring Mala fruit and magazines and they would eat lunch together, though there was a new formality between them. He kept his conversation light, polite, skimming over the subtext that seemed to underpin every exchange. She held herself carefully all the time now, every shift slow and deliberate. He sometimes had to look away; he did not want to see her tender movements which gave away the unpalatable truth: she was frightened too, because she cared way beyond her job description as womb for hire. How could she not? How could they, any of them, have assumed otherwise?

In the afternoon he would get into the car and drive aimlessly around the country lanes, carefully avoiding any old haunts or places where familiar faces might lurk. Suffolk was a big county but not big enough to lose the fear that clawed at his skin, his chest. A long and at times angry conversation with Mr O'Connell, their obstetrician, the same soothing reassurances, the same tiny note of doubt – he told Shyama all of it and all he ever got back were her typed responses: ‘That's fine', ‘Agree – go ahead', ‘Late here – let u know tomorrow'. The test results, they both knew, would only tell them half the story: Toby's genetic gift or curse. But in the end, did it matter now? They were experiencing the hopes and fears of every parent for the being they had created. And what would they do if their creation turned out to be flawed? Give him back like a faulty product? This child was an x-ray of their shared conscience. If he was anything less than the perfect and carefully chosen baby they had ordered, how they coped with him would expose who they really were: people who wanted to be parents at any cost, or people who decided the cost was now far too high.

Nine days after she had been admitted, Mala was well enough to be discharged. Though it hadn't been a holiday of any description, she looked better, rested; her colour had returned, along with the fresh openness of her face. A kindly orderly had sponged the mud off her maternity trousers. The coat would have to be dry-cleaned.

Despite Dr Pardew's assurances that they could send the test results to London, Toby insisted they would wait for them in Suffolk. If it was bad news, he wanted to be standing on his home soil, pathetic as that sounded. He took Mala back to the nearby hotel where he had been staying, a cheap and cheerful popular chain, clean, no frills, cooked breakfast included. His family farm was less than an hour away. It could have been the other side of an ocean. He tried to imagine Matt's face if he turned up with Mala in tow. He fleetingly wondered when he'd ever be able to pay back that advance.

It turned out that there were no other free rooms on Toby's floor and he worried about Mala being too far away if anything happened in the night. As he had a twin bedroom, he paid a supplement and they stayed in the same room. Only a week ago this would have been wildly inappropriate, but in this strange limbo period it became just another new version of reality. He left the room whilst Mala changed and showered, shivering in the car park as he left another message for Shyama, hoping that this time she would relent and take his call. Mala was asleep when he crept back into the bedroom. She snored gently, while he lay wide awake for most of the night. Once, in the blue light of his phone screen, he saw his child ripple its presence across Mala's stomach. All Toby could hear in his head was,
There were three in the bed and the little one said, ‘Roll over, roll over'
.

They got the call to come back in the next day. Toby noticed that Dr Pardew was wearing exactly the same style blouse as when she had discharged them the day before, but in a different colour. It probably saved time, he thought randomly. His knee shook a little as he shifted in the hard plastic chair.

Dr Pardew pushed her glasses on top of her head and smiled. ‘Well, I have good news. Firstly, we found the translocation in you but not in Mrs Shaw, so the baby is healthy. There's no abnormality.' She faltered in the ensuing silence. ‘Mr Shaw? You do understand, I hope, that the worry is over. I've already let Mr O'Connell know. Horrible that you had to go through the uncertainty, but at least—'

‘Sorry,' Toby interrupted. ‘I have to tell you something … The tests may not be accurate, because …' He trailed away. Once said, this changed everything. He looked at Mala, expecting her frightened face to be staring back at him. Instead she seemed at ease, prepared. She laid a firm hand on his knee to still its quaking. He swallowed and continued. ‘You see … Mala is a surrogate. This child, it's my sperm and a donor egg. From a clinic in India. My wife's out there now, but she wasn't able to find out anything more about the woman whose egg it is, but—'

The doctor raised her fingertips, requesting a pause, looking concerned.

‘No, can I finish?' Toby ploughed on. ‘It means these tests – they're worthless, aren't they? I should have said. I thought … well, I thought you should know.'

Dr Pardew took a moment to scrunitize them both, shuffled her notes and then said, ‘I'm afraid that's impossible, Mr Shaw. I won't muddle this with medical terms, but what the tests do show without any doubt is a genetic link between this baby and Mrs … and you.' She nodded at Mala. ‘It was your egg that grew this child.' She turned back to Toby. ‘And as you said, your sperm. You are both its biological parents. One hundred per cent.'

I THINK I
have always known. He is mine. This was Mala's single thought throughout the fog of the next few days. Throughout all the shouted phone and Skype calls,
hai
, such a
garbard
of slamming doors and Toby stamping like a
balloo
, bear-feet up and down the stairs, throughout the days where she struggled downstairs to make her meals,
theklo
, I am always leaving enough in the pan for him, always finding it uneaten. So much to do now with the sorting of my baba's clothes and toys, working out how to make the seat that goes in the car into a pram,
nahin
, bug-gy. Bug is also an insect, and he will look like a caterpillar wrapped in layers of blankets, a small cocoon with a face peeping out. And yet she couldn't sleep. Every time I lie down, why do you wake up for a dance? But now you are dancing for me, so I will put the second pillow between my thighs, so heavy down there now, you are pressing on my bones, you are coming soon. And she would say it to herself, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud in both Hindi and English.
He is mine
.