Bromley, London.
Rebecca took the parcel into her white gloss and black granite kitchen. She almost broke a nail extension getting through the swaddle of brown paper and layers of tape. Frowning, she stared at the tube-shaped black metal.
It must be a car part for Fritz.
The old MG Midget had stood in the garage for five years. Fritz’s enthusiasm for its restoration was periodic. Sometimes, when parts arrived, she hardly saw him all weekend and in desperation had placed a table and two chairs in the garage. She would take a drink and have a sandwich with him rather than sit alone in the kitchen. But why didn’t this package contain an invoice, and why was it addressed to her?
‘Nothing to do with me,’ Fritz said when she placed it before him that evening.
Perhaps the garage had made a mistake. A computer error. Papagopoulos Autos were the only Greeks Rebecca had any contact with. Even so, it didn’t make any sense. She studied the stamps. How long since she’d stood inside a Greek post office? Over ten years?
*
The next morning, Rebecca turned the page of her kitchen calendar and stared at the first of the month. Her stomach flipped, jumpy as a bag of frogs. A spiral of red Biro surrounded the first, and even more scribbling around the fifth. For a second, she recognised a couple of red-rimmed eyes with black numerical pupils, glaring at her.
She closed her eyes and imagined herself in the cellar of her marriage: a small dark place surrounded by cold grey concrete, impossible to go any lower, or be any more alone. Ten years and still no children. Time was stealing Rebecca’s childbearing years, and the walls were closing in. Her only window of escape was the round glass Petri dish in the IVF clinic.
Her last chance loomed ever closer. Please, God, let the procedure be successful. Third time lucky, they say. . . but it wasn’t. Now, about to embark on her last try at in vitro fertilisation, Rebecca was afraid. Whatever the outcome, they decided this would be their final attempt, and then forget it. As if ‘forgetting’ was simple.
Rebecca shoved the mystery parcel on the hall dresser, ready to give to the postman if she should catch him. She glanced at the dresser mirror, noticed the fine lines around her eyes and between her brows, clearly visible in the morning light. As a wedding photographer, she was expected to pay attention to aesthetics, and look the part. The last thing a bride wanted was to see worry lines on the photographer’s face.
Fritz bounded down the stairs and grabbed his briefcase off the hall stand.
‘Morning, handsome,’ she said, slipping her arms around his waist. ‘Coffee? Toast?’
‘Late. Got to run.’ He broke free, pecked her cheek and reached for the front door.
‘Don’t forget we’re at the clinic at six, darling,’ she said, the waver in her voice hardly noticeable.
Fritz stopped, his hand on the latch. ‘Damn . . .’ he said under his breath. Still for a moment, then turning to come back to her.
After ten years, Rebecca’s heart still skipped when her tall blue-eyed blond husband approached. But when their eyes met, a stab of panic caught her.
He took her slender frame into his arms, pulling her close. The scent of freshly applied aftershave zinged about him.
‘Sweetheart, I’m terribly sorry, but you’ll have to cancel,’ he said. ‘I’ve a shareholders’ meeting that’ll probably overrun. Crucial that I’m there.’ He pushed her auburn hair back and kissed her forehead. ‘Don’t look so worried; you’ll get lines. Just reschedule for next week.’ He sighed, peppermint mouthwash clouding his breath. ‘I didn’t realise; the month’s raced by.’
Rebecca peered into his eyes. They dulled as his emotions shut down and her dreams imploded right there in his arms. She forced a smile and nodded, the lump in her throat hard and painful.
‘Don’t worry, darling. It can’t be helped, I guess,’ she managed.
She was ovulating now. Not something to be rescheduled for next week, but she would gain nothing by pointing this out. Fritz had so much going on, he needed to stay focused on the business. She slipped her arms inside his jacket, around his waist, and squeezed. She knew how much Fritz hated the IVF clinic.
‘Right, then,’ he said, pulling away and forcing a boardroom smile. ‘You’ll make me even later, Mrs Neumanner. Don’t wait up, I’ve no idea what time we’ll finish.’
*
Rebecca decided to take the four-thirty bus into town. She enjoyed people-watching on public transport, and it took her mind off the clinic. The passengers were a mixed bunch. Junior school children chatted to their mothers, and older girls whispered and giggled, flicking their hair and glancing around, while teenage boys talked too loudly.
Was she doing the right thing? Yes, yes, of course.
Last time, after she’d miscarried, Rebecca buried herself in photography. Insane with grief, she trekked the parks and city streets through rain, sleet and snow. She tried to find the meaning of life through a Canon lens, tried to focus, tried to zoom in on the beauty of it all.
Rebecca hoped for a girl and, although they never talked about it, fearing a jinx, she suspected Fritz would prefer a boy. There was something not right about going to get pregnant without your man. But, despite her phobia of needles, she’d braved two weeks of fertility injections to increase her egg production. Exactly thirty-four hours ago, she had suffered an injection of something she didn’t remember the name of but was nicknamed ‘the hormone of pregnancy’. This caused her eggs to mature and loosen from their ovary walls.
The treatment was precise.
‘You’ll ovulate thirty-six hours from now,’ the doctor said as the needle plunged into her flesh.
She nodded, winced, and stifled a cry of pain.
The medical staff scheduled her egg retrieval for thirty-five hours after that jab. To re-schedule, as Fritz suggested, was impossible, but perhaps he had too much on his mind to think it through.
Everything had changed a little since their last attempt at IVF, which failed after only two weeks. She’d started to bleed, her emotions plummeting. This time it would work. She refused to consider failure again. All that self-blame . . . hysterical crying, the feeling of worthlessness.
Rebecca got off the bus. The IVF clinic was a hundred metres from the stop. Her boot caught a broken curb. She stumbled, lurched and almost fell. Calm down, she told herself. What difference did it make that she was alone? She could do this . . . yes, she could! Yet her quaking insides did nothing to boost her confidence.
Her thoughts were all questions. Would it work? Would she tell Fritz immediately, or wait until she was sure? Would she hold a perfect baby in her arms in nine months’ time? There lay her greatest nightmare: what would she do if she learned her baby wasn’t perfect? The very thought made her ill. ‘Usually, nature aborts if the foetus isn’t developing perfectly,’ the specialist had said. What if it didn’t, and she gave birth to a grossly deformed child. She’d wanted to ask, yet hadn’t, oddly superstitious about tempting fate.
The building loomed before her. She stared at the double doors. Time to turn back? Phone and cancel? She’d paid up front and prepared. Wouldn’t it be foolish to walk away now? But her feet wouldn’t move forward.
‘Mrs Neumanner, how nice!’ A cheery voice to her left. Her heart thudding with indecision.
She forced herself to turn, smile, and say, ‘Hello’ to her middle-aged gynaecologist, Quentin Alsop.
‘Come, I’ll walk with you. A big day today, yes?’ he said.
She swallowed hard. ‘I’m a little nervous.’
‘You’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’ He cupped her elbow and steered her towards the doors; an action Rebecca hated but she resisted a petulant urge to pull away. Get used to being manhandled, she told herself.
Come on, Rebecca, woman up!
They would put her to sleep and, guided by ultrasound, push a hollow needle through her vagina wall into her ovaries, to suck out the liquid. The embryologist would then search the fluid for eggs.
Please, let there be an egg.
*
Rebecca awoke bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed. A nurse entered.
‘How are you, Rebecca?’
‘Groggy,’ she said. ‘Is there any news?’ There was no need to expand.
The nurse beamed. ‘Ten eggs. Well done, you!’
Rebecca gasped. Ten possibilities of fertilisation in the Petri dish. Ten chances of a perfect child. Ten chances of her dreams finally coming true.
*
Rebecca woke in the night, squinted at the bedside clock, 3 a.m. She turned, slid her hand between the sheets and found a cold empty space where she hoped to find the man she loved. Her other hand lay flat on her belly, another cold empty place where she longed to nurture a tiny life that she would also love. She stared towards the ceiling and allowed tears to spring free and slide into her hair.
*
The next morning, Fritz phoned. ‘Sorry, darling. It turned into a late night so I booked into the hotel rather than disturb you. How was your day?’
‘Good, yes, very good actually,’ she said. ‘I went to the clinic. I’ve to go back in four days.’
Somebody was speaking to Fritz. ‘Sorry, darling, I missed that,’ he said to Rebecca, and then, ‘Can you please give me a minute?’ to somebody who was vying for his attention. He came back to her. ‘Sweetheart, it’s manic here. I’ll speak to you this evening, okay?’
Rebecca found it hard to think of anything but the clinic.
How many of the ten eggs were successfully fertilised? Fritz’s sperm, ‘harvested’ and banked a month back, had saved Rebecca having to go through the fertility injections all over again because Fritz hadn’t been able to keep their appointment.
‘Just in case,’ they’d told Fritz as they handed him the plastic beaker and ushered him into The Men’s Room. ‘Always best to freeze a quantity of sperm.’
The clinic told Rebecca they’d phone with the result the moment they had news. The day ticked by. Rebecca’s hopes descended a little further with each minute, until she resigned herself to failure.
She thought of Naomi. Her sister only had to look at Costa to get pregnant, even before they were married. Her first, Angelos, was born six months after the wedding. Her next, Konstantinos, had made an appearance almost exactly a year after Angelos. Rebecca was jealous. She recalled her nephews when they were toddlers: Angelos and Konstantinos were adorable.
Through the kitchen window, she gazed at her garden of empty dreams and decided to get some fresh air. Plant some bulbs, bring new life to the borders.
Her phone rang as she settled on the kneeler. She dropped the trowel and snatched her mobile from the trug of mixed bulbs.
‘Mrs Neumanner?’ Quentin Alsop, the specialist.
Rebecca’s heart hammered. ‘Yes, that’s me, Rebecca Neumanner.’