I was reading this mesmerising stuff in the office as I prepared for my piece on fertility treatment. I’d interviewed two women who were on the waiting list for IVF at the Lister Hospital. I’d also been to see a woman whose three children
had all started life through egg donation. And I was going to interview the famous Professor Godfrey Barnes. But first, I had to get a quick quote from Citronella.
‘Why can’t she come down here?’ I complained to Jack. ‘It’s a drag having to go up to Hampstead. If she wants to feature on our airwaves then she should get her saggy arse down to City Road.’
‘Minty!’ Jack exclaimed with an astonished expression. ‘It’s not like you to say something like that.’
I stopped, and thought to myself, no, it’s not like me. It’s not like me at
all
– whatever ‘me’ is these days.
‘Mind you,’ Jack added judiciously, ‘I entirely agree. But unfortunately it’s written into her contract that we go to her, and we just can’t afford to alienate Mrs Happy Bot, especially not at the moment.’
So a couple of hours later I found myself standing on her doorstep again. The beautiful Françoise showed me in, and gave me what I thought looked like a conspiratorial smile.
‘How’s the BMW?’ I said mischievously.
‘Ze BMW? What BMW? I just have an old bike.’
‘Oh. My mistake,’ I said.
‘Hello, Arabella,’ said Citronella.
‘Er, it’s Araminta, actually.’
‘Now, did you read my piece this week?’
‘Er, no. Afraid I didn’t,’ I lied. ‘Been rather busy.’
She was holding her handbag – it looked like a padlock – as she ushered me into the study.
‘Tea, please, Françoise!’ she called out, with a smart clap of her sausagey hands. As I got my tape-recorder ready we chatted in a general way about the statistics for infertility – one in six women trying for a baby are receiving treatment at any one time. We talked about the known causes – blocked fallopian tubes, abnormal sperm, ovary disorders and the effects of alcohol and cigarettes. But what I really needed from Citronella were some comments about the moral arguments surrounding fertility treatment. Is it right for doctors to play God, bringing about by science what might best be left to nature? And what
about the ethics of egg and sperm donation, and the risks of multiple births? I unravelled my microphone lead and pressed ‘record’.
‘It is so
sad
that there are
so
many women who are unable to have children,’ Citronella began, with a sympathetic smile. ‘And of course for most women who seek treatment, only a
tiny
number will actually conceive.’
‘Well, 15 per cent,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t call that tiny, compared with a natural conception rate of about 30 per cent.’
‘Oh.’ She looked displeased.
‘And in fact some clinics, like Godfrey Barnes’, have a success rate as high as 25 per cent.’
Citronella ignored this, apparently preferring, like Amber, to eliminate the positive.
‘Now, I’m going to let the listeners in on a little secret,’ she carried on. ‘My own little Sienna didn’t, well …
happen
straight away.’
‘Didn’t she?’ I asked politely, as I stifled an urge to yawn. I really couldn’t have cared less.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She didn’t. And so I myself suffered, for a while, the
agony
of childlessness.’ Her face had now assumed an expression of heroic forbearance.
‘Oh dear.’
‘But for me, the solution was not a test tube or a Petri dish,’ she declared. ‘It was not a syringe full of sinister, hi-tech drugs. No. For me, the solution was – THIS!’ Suddenly Citronella had whipped out a red frilly corset with matching suspenders and was holding it aloft. It looked like something out of the Folies Bergères, painted by Toulouse-Lautrec after nine pints of absinthe. ‘This is what we used to conceive Sienna,’ she went on, laughing coyly. ‘Let me describe it for the listeners …’
‘No, no, really, please, there’s no need,’ I said.
‘It’s a red satin basque, underwired –’ I glanced at her flat chest – ‘and cut enticingly low.’ Anything less enticing than the image of Citronella dressed in this was hard to imagine. ‘It has some very naughty details like these two flaps here –’ she pointed to the chest. ‘And the marabou trim along the
straps. A friend of mine suggested it,’ she went on, ‘when I told her about our problem. So I bought it out of an Ann Summers catalogue, and, well …’ She giggled. ‘It did the trick. Within just three years, we had our daughter, so I can heartily recommend this approach to your audience.’
‘What a nice story,’ I said, whilst feeling sorry for Citronella that she’d had to put on sexy lingerie to get her husband to do the business. ‘However,’ I went on with as much tact as I could muster, ‘I’d like to talk about the moral implications of reproductive medicine, rather than your own experiences.’ I was desperate just to get the interview done, and get out. Eventually I’d managed to extract a couple of usable sentences out of her.
‘I don’t approve of fertility treatment,’ she said. ‘There are too many ethical issues involved. But those poor,
poor
women who are so desperate to conceive are hardly going to concern themselves with that.’
‘I don’t think women
should
concern themselves with the ethics of fertility treatment,’ said Godfrey Barnes. ‘I don’t!’ he added roundly. ‘I don’t give a monkey’s about morals!’
We were sitting in his cluttered consultating room in his clinic near Camden Square, and I was delighted with his brilliantly uninhibited views. This would make great radio, I thought, as the cassette went round and round. He was forthright and robust – no mealy-mouthed circumlocution here. None of that mimsy, attention-killing, ‘Well, on the one hand, this – but on the other hand, that. It depends …’ sort of thing. Oh, no. He was almost reckless in what he said. He was also devastatingly attractive.
‘My motto is, “Let There Be Life!”’ he exclaimed, with a stentorian laugh. ‘I’m here to bring babies into the world.’
This was fantastic. I was enjoying myself. I was actually
enjoying
myself, something I hadn’t done for months – though, obviously, I wasn’t actually flirting with him. It’s very unprofessional to flirt with your subjects. And in any case I wasn’t ready to start flirting with anyone yet. I was still so miserable
about Dom. So, no, I definitely wasn’t flirting. Absolutely not. Though I was glad that I’d bothered to put on scent, make-up, and my smartest little Phase Eight suit with the tiny slit up the side of the skirt. I flicked back my hair, then held the microphone a little closer.
‘So you’ve got a lot of women pregnant then?’ I said, with a kind of jokey provocation. He seemed to like this, because a broad smile lit up his handsome face.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ruffling his right hand through his thick, auburn hair. ‘I’ve made lots of women pregnant, hundreds and hundreds – as you can see!’ He waved his right hand at the noticeboard, which was plastered with photos of babies. There were babies on their fronts, and babies on their backs; there were babies in high chairs, and babies in the bath. There were babies being pushed in their buggies, and babies being dandled on knees. There were babies in blue romper suits and babies in tiny pink dresses. There were twins and triplets. Boys and girls. He seemed to beam at them all with a kind of paternal pride.
‘Do you see yourself as God?’ I asked with a smile. ‘That’s how you’re often described.’
He roared with laughter again, and I found myself laughing too. He really was an exceptionally charming and charismatic man. Thank God I remembered to put on some mascara, I thought, as I gazed into his twinkly green eyes.
‘God is the creator,’ he said. ‘I’m simply
creative.
And don’t forget, these women are paying – and fertility treatment doesn’t come cheap.’
‘Do you ever think it wrong that women should pay?’ I asked. ‘One of “your” babies – if I can put it that way – costs between five and ten thousand pounds.’
‘Is it wrong for someone to pay to have a heart transplant?’ he enquired. ‘Or to pay to have their hip replaced? To me, an inability to conceive is simply a medical disorder, which reproductive science can cure.’ He picked up a clean test tube and began rolling it between his hands. ‘To me, being paid to treat an infertile woman is no more immoral than being paid
to fit an elderly man with a pacemaker. In that instance, life is prolonged,’ he added. ‘In my own case, life is begun.’
‘And finally, to what do you owe your exceptional success rate?’ I asked. He laughed again, his handsome face creasing softly at eyes and mouth. Then, suddenly, his expression changed again, and he seemed hesitant, almost shy.
‘I really don’t know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘I just think I’ve been very lucky.’ And he looked down, and then he looked up, and held my gaze in his. And somehow I didn’t want to look away. In fact, my insides were melting. I wanted to sit there forever, and bathe in the light of his lovely, twinkly green eyes. What a remarkable man, I thought. I could have talked to him forever, but the interview had come to an end.
‘That was
wonderful
,’ I said truthfully as I stopped the tape. ‘I don’t know how I’ll cut it down.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do it very well,’ he said. ‘You seem to be a capable young woman.’
‘Goodbye, Professor Barnes,’ I said, as I stepped out into the waiting room. ‘It was very interesting meeting you.’
‘Goodbye, Minty,’ he replied. He shook my hand, and his eyes twinkled and sparkled again. ‘Now,’ he went on, clapping his hands together, ‘my next appointment is with – Oh, there you are, Deirdre! That’s it – come in, and let’s get cracking!’
‘It was rather embarrassing,’ I said to Amber the following Saturday as we lounged by the koi carp pool in the Sanctuary spa. We were having one of our ‘pampering’ days. Amber had handed in her latest chapter, and my piece on fertility treatment had gone down well. We had decided to reward ourselves with a day of sybaritic relaxation in an all-female environment.
‘What did you do?’ she asked, adjusting her thick white towelling robe. She reeked of geranium oil and patchouli from her recent aromatherapy.
‘I just smiled at her, and said, “Hello, Deirdre!” What else could I do?’
‘Did she seem embarrassed?’ she asked above the gurgle of the fountain.
‘Well, it’s hard to tell. Actually, I think she probably was,’ I said. ‘Not just because I’d seen her in the clinic, but because she hasn’t seen me since –’ I suddenly felt sick – ‘the wedding.’
‘Of course.’ Amber grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘Poor Mint.’
‘So, Deirdre was probably just as embarrassed to see
me.
In fact, I’m sure she was,’ I went on, ‘because she wouldn’t stop smiling. That’s what people do when they’re embarrassed: they smile to cover it up.’
‘I bet it’s the fertility drugs she’s on,’ said Amber with a grimace. ‘All those hormones probably make you go mad.’
‘Or maybe she’s just happy that she’s finally taking some action,’ I suggested. ‘I mean, she was grinning like an idiot as she went in to Professor Barnes’ office. I don’t know why Wesley wasn’t with her,’ I added. ‘Perhaps he’s already done his bit. Poor old Deirdre – I hope it works. She’s so determined to have a baby.’
‘And I’m really determined
not
to have one,’ said Amber with a shudder. ‘The thought of it makes me feel sick!’ I looked at her lovely profile, and thought it a terrible shame. ‘I always think Cyril Connolly put it very well,’ she went on. ‘He said that there is no more sombre enemy to great art than the pram standing in the hall.’
‘Amber,’ I said, fiddling with the frond of a neighbouring fern, ‘can I ask you something?’
‘Yes.’
‘Something rather personal?’
‘Feel free.’
‘You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s OK. Go ahead.’
‘No, really, because it’s quite a difficult thing to ask someone, even if you know them very well.’
‘What IS it?’ she said.
‘And I’d hate you to think I was being nosey.’
‘Out with it.’
‘Sure you don’t mind?’
‘Christ, I hope you don’t conduct your interviews like this,’ she groaned.
‘OK. Right …Amber,’ I said, ‘if you’re so keen not to have kids, then why, er, don’t you get yourself sterilised?’
‘Because, Minty,’ she said, ‘as you
well
know, I’m
terrified
of hospitals.’
Oh. I didn’t know this, actually. I must have forgotten.
‘I’m bored of all these books,’ Amber added with an exasperated shrug. I looked at the pile of them stacked up on the wicker table by her side:
Stop Thinking Start Living; Happy No Matter What; The Power of Positive Thinking; Rainbows Through the Rain; Breaking Up Without Cracking Up; Pulling Your Own Strings; The Power is Within You; Be Happy – Now
!
‘Don’t they help?’ I said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They don’t. Bloody waste of ninety quid.’
After Dominic dumped me I’d found myself looking at selfhelp books like these, but none of them had appealed. I needed a book called,
How to Get Over It When You’ve Been Jilted in Front of Everyone You Know
, or
How. to Maintain a Dignified Silence about a Dreadfully Embarrassing Incident in Your Past. How to Stop Having Homicidal Fantasies about Your Former Fiancé
would be a helpful one, too. Sadly for me, the shops didn’t seem to have books with titles like these.
‘God, Charlie was a bastard!’ said Amber, yet again, as she put down
14,000 Things to Be Happy About.
And then she went on about him, non-stop, for half an hour. About how ‘cruel’ he was to dump her, and how ‘callous’, and how he’d ‘wasted her time’. I mean, it’s ridiculous. She’s so self-deluding. Charlie wanted kids; she didn’t. End of point. I didn’t blame Charlie at all. He was a decent guy. He’d really tried to make it work. But he couldn’t make it work because he and Amber were incompatible – or rather, their goals in life were. She keeps saying that what happened to her was ‘shocking’. But it wasn’t shocking. It was inevitable. And anyone could have seen it coming, because that relationship just wasn’t working.
No, it was what happened to
me
that was shocking. A lightning rod. A bolt entirely out of the blue. I’d had no idea that Dominic could do that to me. I’d had absolutely no preparation for what happened. But do I sit here and bitch about Dominic and what a complete cad and utter bastard he was? No. I don’t. And despite the awful thing that he did, and the fact that I still don’t really understand it, I’m making steady progress. It’s only been three months, but I’m moving on. Unlike Amber. I picked up a copy of
Elle
and idly flicked over the pages. And all of a sudden I found myself staring, mournfully, at one of the male models in a fashion feature. He reminded me a little bit of Dom. Something about the mouth. And his hair was a similar shade of blond. I let out an involuntary sigh.