‘Clever Mother Nature,’ Amber crooned as Perdita chomped on her placenta. ‘It’s stuffed with vitamins, you know.’
This was amazing: that someone so repulsed by human childbirth could take to feline obstetrics with such aplomb! The kittens squeaked like toy rats as Perdita licked their wobbly little bodies and gently batted them with her front paws to make them feed. And she was purring and purring, and then her body tensed again.
‘
Three
!’ we said two minutes later.
‘Triplets will be hard work for her,’ said Amber. ‘She’ll have to have help.’
That seemed to be it. Twenty minutes went by and she had three damp kittens swarming blindly over her tummy – they looked as though they were doing breast-stroke through her fur. And we were just half-covering the box with a blanket so that it would be nice and dark and calm, when something happened. She contracted again and a fourth kitten slithered out. This one was black, unlike its siblings, and smaller. And it didn’t move in a normal way. Its tiny limbs flailed discoordinatedly, and it’s head lolled wildly about. Perdita sniffed it, but she didn’t lick it. In fact, she ignored it completely. So we dabbed off the membrane with cotton wool, and nudged it towards her, but she treated it as though it wasn’t there.
‘Perdita, will you please look after your fourth baby,’ said Amber, slightly crossly. And she pushed the kitten towards her again, but to no avail. By now, half an hour had passed and the little black one still hadn’t fed. And despite Amber’s efforts to make Perdita attend to it, Perdita didn’t want to know. The kitten was just lying, stiffly, on the newspaper, still damp, while its three siblings sucked for all they were worth. It mewed constantly, as though in pain, and its tiny chest heaved fitfully up and down. Every time we placed it on one of Perdita’s nipples, it fell off, as though it had no strength.
‘It’s going to die,’ said Amber quietly. ‘Minty,’ she said, and she was in tears now, ‘I think this one’s going to die.’ It certainly looked very sick. It was just lying still now, panting
pathetically. There was clearly something seriously wrong.
‘What shall we do?’ said Amber as she tried, yet again, to make Perdita feed it.
‘I don’t know,’ I said with a sigh. I flicked quickly through her cat book, but there was nothing on sick new-born kittens.
‘I’m going to ring Laurie,’ Amber announced. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to four. ‘I’m going to ring him,’ she said again. And she went into the hall and dialled. After a few seconds, I heard her speak. She was describing the kitten to him, and its symptoms, and telling him that it was lying very still in a corner of the box. Her voice was breaking and Laurie was obviously telling her to keep calm, and advising her on what to do.
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘He’s going to come round.’
‘But he’s got an exam today.’ She looked at me. ‘Yes – I know. He told me we should rub it very gently as that helps the circulation.’
So that’s what we did, in turns, until we heard Laurie’s knock on the door. He was wearing jeans and his pyjama shirt. His hair was standing up, from sleep. He examined the kitten, and tried to get Perdita to feed it, but she remained wilfully oblivious to its existence. Its breathing was very quick and shallow now.
Laurie sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But there’s nothing to be done.’
‘What do you mean, nothing?’ said Amber.
‘This is nature’s way,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Animals are ruthless. When they detect something wrong with one of their litter, they just ignore it and let it die.’
‘It’s going to
die
,’ said Amber miserably.
‘If I could do anything, I would. But I can’t,’ said Laurie. ‘It’s clearly very sick, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to let nature take its course.’
Amber was in floods by now, and I was crying too. And you might say, well, it was just a kitten – how could they be
so soft? But it was terrible to sit there, unable to help, while its little life ebbed away.
After Laurie let himself out, we sat up for about an hour longer. By now it was six o’clock. The kitten’s breathing was ever more shallow, and it no longer made any sound. So we drew the blanket half over the box and wearily went to bed.
‘Do you want me to bury it?’ I said as we climbed the stairs. Amber just nodded and sniffed.
I awoke three hours later, with a feeling of dread. I had swung my legs out of bed, and was steeling myself to go and look in the box, when I heard Amber cry out.
‘IT’S ALIVE!!!’ she yelled. I heard her run upstairs and then she threw open my door. ‘Minty, the kitten’s
alive
! It didn’t die!’
I rushed downstairs and there it was, latched on like the others, Perdita blithely feeding it as though nothing had ever been amiss.
‘I don’t understand it,’ I said. I was now crying too. ‘It’s wonderful, but I just don’t understand.’
‘It’s a
miracle
, Minty,’ said Amber ecstatically. ‘That’s what it is, a miracle!’ She was in raptures. She was laughing and crying, and she went straight to the phone, then stopped herself.
‘I can’t ring Laurie!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s sitting an exam.’
‘Leave him a message then.’
‘Laurie,’ I heard her say, ‘it’s Amber. Thank you so much for coming last night. I’m very pleased to say your diagnosis was wrong. The kitten is alive and well! It’s feeding! It’s a miracle. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s OK now. It’s been resurrected. So we’re going to call it JESUS!’
‘Are we?’ I said, slightly horrified, as she put the phone down.
‘Yes. It was raised from the dead.’
‘Can’t you call it Phoenix, or Lazarus? I think we might offend a few people.’
‘No. We’re going to call it Jesus,’ she said with a mad laugh – she was beside herself with joy. And then she made another
call, from which I deduced she was ringing the local paper.
‘Hello,’ she said, ‘is that the newsdesk? This is Amber Dane and I want to tell you the good news about Jesus. Jesus
lives
!’ she added, ecstatically. ‘Jesus has risen and oh …oh, really? Well, I just thought, you know, local interest and all that. A nice little animal story …OK. You’re full up this week …What? Really? …Oh, I see …Gosh! Well, thanks. Goodbye.’ And then she came into the kitchen where I was making tea. ‘They said they don’t want to know about Jesus.’
‘How surprising,’ I said wryly.
‘No, the editor says they’re much more interested in God.’
‘God?’ I repeated.
‘Yes. God.’
‘As in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost?’
‘No. As in Godfrey Barnes, the famed fertility doctor. Apparently, he’s been a rather bad boy!’
I bought the
Camden New Journal
on my way to the Tube. And there it was. Splashed all over the front page: ‘CAMDEN IVF DOC IN BABY SHOCK’. And there was a big photo of Professor Barnes on the steps of his clinic. Underneath, it read: ‘
Famed Fertility Specialist Godfrey Barnes Admits Fathering Hundreds of Babies.
’ All the other papers had headlined the story too. ‘IVF DOC FOR THE CHOP!’ said the
Mail.
‘GOD FATHER’ said the
Mirror.
‘PAPA DOC!’ said the
Sun
, rather wittily, I couldn’t help thinking, though I was astounded by the story. All those babies. They were
his.
Apparently he’d used his own sperm. He’d been doing it for years. The whistle had been blown as a result of the new openness about fertility treatment. As people had begun to admit they’d had it, so they’d talked about their specialists. And it had been observed that a large proportion of the children born the Barnes way had auburn hair and twinkly green eyes. Naturally, a few husbands started to suspect – they’d put two and two together, and come up with four. And four was the right answer. Or rather, four hundred. Because that’s how many there were. Naughty,
naughty God. Now he’d been hauled before the General Medical Council and charged with Serious Professional Misconduct. Some of the husbands were threatening to sue, others were threatening to leave. And it was only a matter of time before criminal charges would be pressed. Poor Godfrey. Poor, silly man. I tried to imagine the bill from the Child Support Agency – it would run into millions.
One of the papers claimed it must be an ego thing – that God had become a megalomaniac. But Godfrey was quoted as saying that his sole aim was to help women conceive. ‘It’s my job to bring babies into the world,’ he’d said to me. Well, he’d certainly done that. This was the ultimate in assisted conception. Most had been done
in vitro
, but in some cases pregnancy had apparently been accomplished by natural means: ‘
Come on in, Deirdre, and let’s get cracking
!’
I thought, with a jolt, of Wesley, and wondered what to do. And the answer was of course to do nothing. Or rather, to say nothing. And that’s what we all did. Just as everyone had tactfully kept shtoom about Mum, so we all kept quiet about Wesley. Because everyone at London FM knew that Godfrey Barnes had treated Deirdre. But Wesley brought the subject up himself.
‘Godfrey Barnes is clearly round the twist,’ he said airily at the morning meeting. ‘He was Deirdre’s specialist, you know.’
‘
Was
he?’ we all said.
‘Yes. But I’ve talked to her and there’s no question of our baby being …involved.’
‘Oh, no,’ we all said in unison, shaking our heads, ‘of course not.’ And that was it. We covered the story in the programme, and Sophie had booked one of the other top IVF specialists to come into the studio, live. And though the case was clearly sub judice, the man was doing his best to slag off Godfrey now that Godfrey was down.
‘I’m afraid some fertility specialists think they’re superhuman,’ he said. He shook his head sadly, but his face shone with
Schadenfreude.
‘They come to think rather a lot of themselves,’ he went on. ‘They think of themselves as “personalities”,’
he enunciated distastefully. ‘Appearing on TV makes them feel like stars. But then what happens is they drop right out of the sky.’
‘Well, Godfrey Barnes is a very interesting and charismatic man,’ I said.
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ he replied. ‘But now we all know how he managed to achieve such an astonishingly high success rate.’
‘He’s alleged only to have used his own sperm where the partner’s sperm was quite useless,’ I pointed out. ‘In effect, he was just the sperm donor.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, if it was me,’ I said, playing Devil’s advocate in God’s defence, ‘and I was faced with the choice of anonymous sperm donation or Professor Barnes’, I know exactly which I’d go for. And I imagine that despite this …scandal’ – I hated using that word, although that’s exactly what it was – ‘many of his patients will remain very grateful to Godfrey Barnes.’
I was right. A week later, Godfrey was struck off. And when I switched on the news that night, there was a noisy protest outside the GMC. About fifty women were standing outside with buggies and baby slings and small children. They were chanting, ‘STUFF THE GMC!’ and holding up banners saying ‘WE LOVE GOD!’
‘Thank God,’ said Mum, the following Saturday. We were sitting by Perdita’s box, watching the kittens. They had been feeding all morning, and had now conked out, engorged with milk. They hung on to her pink underside, sleepy and sated, like ticks hanging on a dog. Perdita blinked at us benignly, and purred like a propeller. Then she scooped a protective paw round her dozing brood.
‘Thank God,’ said Mum again.
‘I know,’ I sighed, ‘it’s such a relief. Amber and I were convinced he’d die. He was in a terrible way.’ But Jesus seemed to have recovered now from his unpromising start. Like his siblings, his eyes were still sealed, but in five days he had doubled in size. His coat was soft as swan’s-down, his whiskers like lengths of cobweb. All the kittens were sweet, but this one was special because he’d hung on in there, and come through.
‘I’m not sure about the name, though,’ I said. ‘I don’t really think it works – Fluffy, Muffy, Tinky-Winky and
Jesus
? But Amber insists.’
‘Thank God,’ Mum said a third time.
‘It’s OK, Mum. Don’t worry. He’s fine now. He’s absolutely
fine.
’
‘Fine,’ she repeated, wonderingly. ‘That’s what I mean. Thank God it’s only a fine.’
Oh, right. Mum was still clearly shell-shocked by her close shave with the Law. She had been fined two thousand pounds, which Dad had paid. The missing five thousand had been
handed over to Camfam, and Dad had very generously donated five thousand to the Canine Prosthetics Association – a cause he does not really support – in order to make good their loss.
‘Thank God,’ she murmured again.
‘It’s OK, Mum, it’s all over now.’ Indeed it was. It was over in more ways than one. She had escaped prosecution, but Camfam had struck her off and, within days, all her other charities had dropped her like a stone. Mum was finished as a fund-raiser. Her charitable ‘career’ was at an end. She was clearly finding this hard to adjust to, but at least she had avoided jail.
‘I’ll have to find something else to do,’ she said. This was true. ‘No more balls.’
‘Well, you can still go, as a punter.’
‘It wouldn’t be the same,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be so …exciting.’
‘There are other things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well …bridge. And golf – Dad could teach you to play. You could do that together.’
‘Yes,’ she said, cautiously, ‘perhaps I could. Do you know,’ she added quietly, ‘he never said a thing. He never reproached me in any way. He just paid up, and that was that.’
‘That was nice of him.’ He was probably feeling guilty about his affair.
‘Yes,’ said Mum thoughtfully, ‘it was very nice of him. Minty,’ she went on, as she stroked Perdita’s ears, ‘didn’t you say you’d seen Daddy standing outside Sadler’s Wells?’
‘
Did
I?’ I’d decided this was best forgotten.
‘Yes, you did. At least, I think you did.’
‘You know, I can’t remember that at all.’
‘Really, Minty?’
‘Really. I have no recollection of that whatsoever.’
‘Oh, then, I must have been …mistaken.’
‘Yes, I think you were.’
‘Balls,’ she went on dreamily.
‘What?’
‘Golf balls. You’re right. Daddy and I could play together. I mean, we’re going to have time now, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you’ll have all the time in the world.’
And then the kittens woke up, squealing and squirming and began burrowing into Perdita’s side like moles. Suddenly we heard the front door creak open, and Amber came in, face flushed. She’d been for a celebratory lunch with Laurie. He’d had his last exam the day before.
‘He’s exhausted!’ she said. ‘He’s taken ten exams in the space of one week. The culmination of seven years’ work. But he thinks they went well,’ she added, happily. ‘And I’ve got good news too.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, thanks to me getting tough with Hedder Hodline after that Nice Factor course we did, Minty, the publicity department have finally come up trumps.’
‘They have?’
‘They’ve got me extensive coverage for
Animal Passion
,’ she said with a grin. ‘Including,’ she added with an air of triumph, ‘a review in next week’s
Sunday Times
!’
‘
Have YOU got the Habitat habit
?’ enquired Joanna Lumley huskily as I entered the building on Monday. ‘
Make your home more Habitatable
,’ she punned in that sexy, marshmallowy voice. ‘
For fine furniture, soft furnishings and the latest household accessories – be uninhibited. In Habitat – it’s where it’s at.
’
Mmmm, I thought. Interesting.
‘
Step into Harvey Nichols
,’ suggested Mariella Frostrup as I stepped into the lift. ‘
And step out again in style. Harvey Nichols, not so much a store – more a way of life.
’ Very interesting.
‘Hi, Minty!’ said Peter, our Sales Director, cheerily as we stood at the coffee machine on the third floor. He was smiling broadly and his face was burnished with a golden sheen.
‘You look well,’ I said, as I put the money in.
‘Just back from the Seychelles,’ he said airily. ‘It was a freebie.’
‘So, we’re hitting our targets again, then?’
‘We’re doing more than that!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’re turning advertisers away!’
‘The ratings must be up.’
‘The ratings are great!’ he replied. ‘We’ve added 15 per cent this month alone, according to RAJAR.’
‘Well, I try my best,’ I said modestly. ‘I say, the coffee’s improved.’
‘Oh, it’s not
you
, Minty!’ said Peter. ‘No disrespect,’ he added quickly. ‘You’re doing a great job, but it’s Melinda we all have to thank.’
‘
Melinda
?’
‘That late-night show of hers.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s the most offensive presenter on the airwaves. It’s cult.’
‘
Cult
!’
‘Yeah. That’s what she calls them sometimes. People love it. We’re hoping they’ll move her show to a daytime slot.’
‘Well …’ I murmured. I was lost for words. Clearly things were beginning to look up at London FM. I sat in the production office and flicked through the weekend’s papers while I sipped my cappuccino. I opened the
Weekly Star
and had a quick look at Sheryl von Strumpfhosen: ‘A Sun-Neptune alliance will enable you to forget recent unhappiness,’ she wrote. ‘Don’t be afraid to reveal aspects of yourself kept hidden until now.’ Then I glanced through the
Sunday Semaphore
, where Citronella Pratt was fulminating against God. ‘Godfrey Barnes got his just deserts,’ she declared. ‘This mountebank has caused women untold agony and pain.’ Not as much agony and pain as
she’d
caused them, I thought. ‘This scandal only goes to show that fertility treatment is fundamentally flawed,’ she went on. ‘Only God the Father can bestow the gift of life, not false “Gods” like Professor Barnes.’ I was distracted from this dreadful drivel by a knock on the office door. A delivery man was standing there with a trolley piled high with huge cardboard boxes.
‘This
Capitalise
?’ he enquired.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Sign here, luv,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a load more round the back.’ So I scribbled my name on the sheet, then idly inspected the cartons. Digiform Systems was emblazoned across them in large, emphatic black lettering.
‘Great!’ said Sophie, as she swept into the office in a cloud of Joy. ‘It’s the new Sadie’s.’
‘Sadie’s?’
‘Studio Audio Digital Editing equipment.’
‘Oh, I know what it means. I thought we couldn’t afford them.’
‘Well, the station’s enjoying a bit of an upturn,’ she said. ‘In addition to which, we got them at a knock-down price.’
‘We did?’
‘Yes,’ she said, as she removed her Jean-Paul Gaultier mac. ‘Thanks to my excellent connections.’
‘Connections?’
Sophie removed a pair of gold-plated nail scissors from her Chanel 2005 bag and began to snip off the masking tape.
‘I have a …well,
friend
,’ she began coyly. ‘She’s my special friend, actually,’ she added with a little laugh. ‘Anyway, Lavinia is the Chairwoman of Digiform, the digital broadcasting equipment company.’
‘I see.’
‘I like older women,’ she confided. ‘And Lavinia’s my …’
‘Sugar Mummy?’ I just stopped myself from saying. Now I knew why Sophie was wearing wall-to-wall designer wear.
‘ …lover,’ she went on. ‘And she offered us a 40 per cent discount if we bought in bulk.’
‘Gosh.’
‘And so London FM is about to embrace the brave new digital age. Don’t you think it’s fantastic, Minty, that we’re changing at last!’
Oh yes, I thought, we’re changing. We’re undergoing radical change. But Jack clearly believed there was still room for growth.
‘We need to rethink the schedules,’ he said at the meeting
a little later. He’d let Sophie take us through the forward planning for
Capitalise
, and then he’d stood up to talk about the sound of the output overall.
‘We need more arts coverage,’ he announced. ‘A film review programme possibly; maybe a slot for painters to discuss their work; more items about books.’
We all nodded. That sounded good.
‘Now, this is all up for grabs,’ he went on, ‘so I’d like you to give it some thought. Other stations may be dumbing down,’ he concluded, ‘but at London FM we’re wising up.’
Spread out on the boardroom table was the usual odd assortment of magazines from which we culled ideas for the show. There was
OK
! and
Celebrity Bulletin
, as well as
National Geographic, Newsweek
, and
Time.
There was also last week’s copy of the
National Enquirer.
As the meeting came to an end I was just idly turning the pages when my eye caught a showbiz section called ‘Behind the Screens’. There was Gwyneth Paltrow with Ben Affleck; Jennifer Aniston with Brad Pitt; Liz Taylor stepping out with Rod Steiger …And suddenly I felt sick. For there, at the bottom of the page, was Joe. With Unknown Girl. Standing outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. And the caption read, ‘Introducing British scriptwriter Joe Bridges. Bridges – no relation to Jeff – is new in town, but his star is rising fast. The studios have been quick to spot his potential, as has actress Kelly-Ann Jones. The pair were snapped together at a gala premiere Tuesday last.’
One short paragraph and my day – no, my week – had been ruined. Once again Sheryl von Strumpfhosen had got it completely and utterly wrong. How could I possibly ‘forget past unhappiness’ when forced to confront photos of Joe with twinkling starlets.
The pair
, I thought bitterly. That’s what it had said: ‘Pair’.
‘She’s pretty,’ said Sophie. She was reading over my shoulder. ‘Don’t you think so, Minty?’
‘What? Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose she is.’
‘How’s your love life these days?’ Sophie enquired as we walked slowly back to the office. I found this line of enquiry
a little intrusive, but on the other hand, she’d confided in me. ‘Don’t you have anyone special?’
‘No,’ I said, bleakly. ‘I don’t. I did,’ I added, ‘but it all went pear-shaped.’ But not pair-shaped. Our relationship had been
im
-paired.
‘Do you mean your …wedding?’ Sophie asked with a delicacy and tact which she had failed to evince a year before.
‘My wedding?’ I said. ‘Oh no, I wasn’t thinking of
that.
I was thinking …’ I sighed ‘ …of someone else.’
‘What happened?’ she asked quietly.
‘Nothing happened,’ I said, aware of a tightness in my chest. ‘I missed the bus, that’s all.’
‘Well, there are other buses aren’t there, Minty?’
‘They’re not as good.’
‘I’m sure you’ll meet someone else,’ she said as we went into her office.
‘I suppose so. I don’t know. How did you meet Lavinia?’
‘At the Candy Bar. She stuffed a twenty-pound note into my bra.’
‘How romantic.’
‘It was, actually,’ she said with a giggle as we sat down to discuss the day’s script. ‘Everyone’s got their “how we met” stories, haven’t they? In fact …’ she looked very thoughtful, ‘we could do something about this in the programme.’
‘Could we?’
‘Yes, it’s the wedding season, isn’t it? June Swoon and all that. I think we should do a
Capitalise
special on how to find love and romance.’
‘Romance?’ I said with a grim smile. ‘It’s not exactly my forte.’
‘Yes,’ said Sophie animatedly, ‘romance. We’ll do it next Tuesday,’ she added as she looked at the rota. ‘I think it’ll be a
big
hit.’
‘I will SMITE them!!’ yelled Amber early the following Sunday morning. She had just come back with all the papers and had spread them out on the kitchen table.
‘I will SMITE them!’ she shouted again.
‘Who?’ I said, coming in from the garden. ‘And with what? The jawbone of an ass?’
‘Those BASTARDS!’ she said. ‘That’s who I’m going to smite.’
‘Why?’ I asked. Then I looked at the papers, and knew.
‘NOT SO GREAT DANE!’ said the headline to the review of her book in the
Mail.
‘BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE,’ said the
Independent on Sunday.
But worst of all, by far, was the one in the
Sunday Times.
‘THIS DANE’S A DOG’S BREAKFAST!’ it screamed.
‘Dog’s breakfast!’ she spat. ‘Dog’s breakfast? I’ll give them dog’s breakfast! I’ll feed them
to
the dogs at Battersea
for
breakfast. That
bitch
!’ she shouted. ‘That
bitch
, Lottie Botty!’
I scanned through Lottie Botty’s review, wincing at every other line: ‘ …wooden dialogue …bizarre plot …breathtaking incompetence …lamentable style.’ Oh God. The one in the
Semaphore
was no better. ‘This Dane’s not so much the dog’s bollocks as a pig’s ear,’ it concluded. And as for the
Observer
– I’m afraid this is their kindest comment: ‘Amber Dane is a fully paid-up member of the lumpen prosetariat.’
Amber’s erupting fury had now melted into a lava flow of tears. She was sitting, hunched over the table, soaking the newsprint, when we heard a creak on the stairs. It was Laurie, in his boxer shorts. And I’m not going to explain why Laurie appeared in his boxer shorts on a Sunday morning, because you’re all grown-ups and you know.