“There were two of us,” Lucy said, not unwisely. “Why follow me? Why not follow her?”
“I took a chance.”
“And? Did I look more fertile to you?”
“More at ease. Far less desperate. After a few years one gets to know the look. There’s a hunger. It transmits from one woman to another, like a form of biological code. I don’t know how else to explain it. If you haven’t experienced it, you wouldn’t recognise it. I have, so I do.”
“All right. I can see that’s possible, but I don’t know what you want from me.”
The truth was what she wanted. But Deborah wasn’t quite sure how to get at it. She opted again for a form of her own truth. “I’m looking for a surrogate,” she said. “I think you can help me find one.”
“What sort of surrogate?”
“Are there different sorts?”
Lucy considered Deborah. They’d been walking on one of the garden paths, heading towards a large urn that marked one end of the garden, but now Lucy faced Deborah and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. She said, “You’ve not done much homework in this area, have you?”
“Clearly not.”
“Well, I suggest you do so. There are egg donors, sperm donors, surrogacy involving the gestational mother’s egg and donor sperm, surrogacy involving gestational mother’s egg and the natural father’s sperm, surrogacy with the biological mother’s egg and donor sperm, surrogacy with the biological mother’s egg and the natural father’s sperm. If you’re going to go down this route in one form or another, you have to begin with an understanding of how it all works. And,” she added, “all of the legalities relating to it.”
Deborah nodded, hoping she looked thoughtful. “Are you… Do you… I mean, I’m not sure how to ask this, but which route do you generally take?”
“I’m an egg donor,” she said. “Usually, I’m harvested.”
Deborah shuddered at the term, so impersonal, so clinical, so… so agricultural. But usually suggested that Lucy Keverne was open to other possibilities as well. She said to her, “And when it comes to surrogacy?”
“I’ve never been a surrogate before.”
“Before? So with this woman you accompanied to the university…?”
Lucy didn’t reply at once. She looked at Deborah as if trying to read her. She said, “I’m not prepared to talk about her. This is a confidential matter. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course. I see.” Deborah thought a bit of hand wringing would do at this point, plus an expression of desperation, which wasn’t at all difficult for her to manufacture. She said, “I’ve spoken to clinics, of course. What they’ve told me is that I’m on my own when it comes to surrogacy. I mean when it comes to finding a surrogate.”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “That’s how it is.”
“They’ve said a friend, a sister, a cousin, even one’s own mother. But how does someone like me approach all this? What do I do? Begin every conversation from now on with ‘Hullo, would you consider carrying my baby for me?’” And then quite surprisingly, Deborah did feel the desperation of her position, exactly what she wished to project to Lucy Keverne. She blinked hard, feeling tears rise to her eyes. She said, “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
And this, apparently, moved Lucy Keverne, for she put her hand on Deborah’s arm and drew her in the direction of a bench near a pond on which a skin of autumn leaves was floating. She said, “It’s a stupid law. It’s supposed to prevent women from carrying babies for profit. It’s supposed to protect women altogether. Of course, it’s a law made by men. I always find that rather ironic, to tell you the truth: men making laws for women. As if they know the first thing about protecting us from anything when most of the time they’re the source of our problems in the first place.”
“May I ask…” Deborah fished in her bag for a tissue. “You said that you’re an egg donor… But if you knew someone… Someone close to you… Someone in need… If someone asked you… Would you…” Hesitant woman in pursuit of help, she thought. No one else would be likely to ask this question directly of a total stranger.
Lucy Keverne didn’t look wary, but she hesitated. Clearly, Deborah thought, they were getting close to whatever relationship she had with Alatea Fairclough. It seemed to Deborah that Lucy herself had already named the possibilities: Alatea either needed her for her eggs or she needed her to be a surrogate. If there was another possibility, Deborah couldn’t see it. Surely they hadn’t been together to pay a social call upon someone in the George Childress Centre at Lancaster University.
Lucy said, “As I said, I’m an egg donor. Anything else is more than I’d take on.”
“You’d never be a surrogate then?” Hopeful, hopeful, presenting an earnest expression, Deborah thought.
“I’m sorry. No. It’s just… Too close to the heart, if you understand what I mean. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Would you know anyone? Anyone I could speak to? Anyone who might consider…?”
Lucy looked at the ground, at her boots. They were attractive boots, Deborah thought, Italian by the look of them. Not inexpensive. Lucy finally said, “You might want to look in Conception magazine.”
“You mean surrogates advertise in it?”
“God no. That’s illegal. But sometimes someone… You might possibly track down a donor that way. If a woman is willing to donate eggs, she might be willing to do more. Or she could well know someone who’d help you.”
“By carrying a baby.”
“Yes.”
“It must be… well, extraordinarily expensive.”
“No more than having your own child aside from the in vitro part of it. The surrogate herself can only ask you for reasonable expenses. Anything more than that is, of course, against the law.”
“So one has to find a woman of extraordinary compassion, I daresay,” Deborah said, “for her to be willing to put herself through that in the first place. And then to hand the baby over. It would take someone special.”
“It would, yes. That’s what it amounts to.” Lucy Keverne stood then and offered Deborah her hand to shake. She said, “I hope I’ve been some help to you.”
She had, in some ways, Deborah thought. But in other ways there were miles still to go. Nonetheless she stood and expressed her gratitude. She knew more now than she’d known before. How it related to the death of Ian Cresswell— even if it related— was still unclear.
VICTORIA
LONDON
The name Raul Montenegro took Barbara Havers a few steps forward. She got onto a photograph of the bloke, along with an article written, alas, in Spanish. She followed a few links by means of this article and finally found herself looking at Alatea Vasquez y del Torres. She was quite a creation, looking like a South American film star. It was difficult to understand what she was doing in the photo on the arm of a bloke who resembled a toad, warts and all.
This was Raul Montenegro. He was a good eight inches shorter than Alatea, and an even better thirty years older. He wore a frightening Elvis Presley rug and he had a growth on his nose the approximate size of Portugal. But he was grinning like a cat with the cream, the canary, and sixteen mice, and Barbara had a feeling his expression was all about possessing the woman on his arm. Of course, Barbara couldn’t be sure of that, and there was only one way to know for certain.
She printed the page in question and she dug her mobile out of her shoulder bag. She rang Azhar at University College London.
He would help her, of course, he told her when she had him on his mobile. Latching on to a Spanish speaker would not be a problem at all.
Barbara asked should she come to Bloomsbury. Azhar said he would let her know. It would take him some time to locate the person he had in mind who could do the translation she needed. Where was Barbara?
In the bowels of the beast, she told him.
Ah, he said. You’re at work, then? Is it best if we come to you?
Just the opposite, Barbara told him. My life is safe
r if I do a runner.
Then he would ring her as soon as possible, knowing that their meeting would have to take place elsewhere, Azhar told her. And then he said carefully, “I must apologise, as well.”
“Why?” Barbara asked. And then she remembered: his morning altercation with Angelina. She said, “Oh. You mean the row. Well, it happens, doesn’t it? I mean, two people living together… One always wants to think love conquers all. Books and films and happily-ever-after with the love of one’s life. I don’t know much in that department, but what I do know tells me the ever-after’s a road with potholes no matter who you are. Seems to me the way of the wise is to hold on to what’s there, even though it’s not always easy, eh? I mean, what else is there at the end of the day but what we have with our fellows?”
He was silent. In the background Barbara could hear the noise of crockery and raised conversation. He must have taken her call in a cafeteria or a restaurant. This made her think of food and the fact that she hadn’t had any for hours.
He finally said, “I shall ring you back presently.”
“Sounds good to me,” she told him. “And, Azhar…?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks for helping me out.”
“That,” he told her, “will always be my pleasure.”
They rang off and Barbara considered the likelihood of another run-in with the superintendent if she went in search of food. This would take her to the canteen if she had something relatively nutritious in mind. Otherwise, there were vending machines. Or there was leaving the Yard altogether and waiting somewhere for Azhar’s return call. There was also having a smoke, which sounded bloody good to her at that point. This meant slinking off surreptitiously and hoping not to get caught in the stairwell. Or it meant going outside. Decisions, decisions, Barbara thought. She decided to buck up and stay and see if there was anything more that she could dig up by plugging away at Raul Montenegro.
BRYANBARROW
CUMBRIA
Tim decided to go to school without protest because Kaveh was going to have to drive him. It was the only way he was going to get Kaveh alone. And alone was where he wanted the bloke because there was no way the two of them were going to have the little talk they needed to have if Gracie was there. Gracie was already upset enough. She didn’t need to hear that Kaveh had future plans with a wife, with parents, and with Bryan Beck farm that involved the elimination of irritating impediments with the surname Cresswell.
So he surprised Kaveh by getting out of bed on time and getting himself organised to go to Margaret Fox School for Terminal Nutcases such as himself. He helped Gracie get ready by setting out all her breakfast choices and making her a tuna and sweet corn sandwich, which he packed into a lunch bag along with an apple, a packet of crisps, and a banana. She thanked him with a dignity that told him she was still grieving for Bella, so one of the things he did instead of eating his own breakfast was to go to the garden and dig the doll’s coffin out of the soil so that he could stuff her into his rucksack and ultimately get her repaired in Windermere. He replaced the coffin and the soil and made it look the way Gracie had left it after Bella’s funeral. Then he returned to the house in time to bolt down a piece of Marmite toast before they had to leave.
He didn’t say anything to Kaveh while Gracie was in the car. Instead, he waited till they’d dropped her off at her C of E school in Crosthwaite and were well on their way up the Lyth Valley. At that point, he leaned against the passenger door and studied the bloke. What came into his head was the mental picture of Kaveh taking it from his father and both of them sweating so that the dim light in the room shone slick on their skin. Only it wasn’t a mental picture at all but really a memory because he’d seen it all through a sliver of open doorway and he’d been a witness to that moment of ecstasy and collapse, with his dad calling out hoarsely oh God, yes. The whole sight had been sickening to Tim, filling him with loathing and hate and horror. But it had touched something else as well, had stirred in him something unexpected, and the truth of the matter was that just for a moment the blood in him had rushed and heated. So afterwards, he’d used a pocket knife to cut himself and he’d poured vinegar on the wound to cleanse his hot and sinful blood.
But he could see how it had all come about and in the car he noted that Kaveh was young and handsome. A bent man like his dad would have fallen hard for that. Even, as things were apparently turning out, if Kaveh wasn’t so bent himself.
Kaveh glanced at Tim as they headed towards Winster. Loathing, after all, was something one could feel in the air. Kaveh said rather uneasily, “It’s good you’re going to school this morning, Tim. Your dad would be pleased.”
“My dad,” Tim said, “is dead.”
Kaveh said nothing. He shot another look at Tim, but the road was narrow and curved and he couldn’t afford more than just that look, which Tim knew was an attempt to assess how he was feeling and what he was likely to do.
“Which makes things real good for you,” Tim added.
“What?” Kaveh said.
“Dad being dead. That makes things exceptionally good.”
Kaveh surprised him then. They were coming up to a lay-by, and he pulled into it and crushed the brake with his foot. The morning traffic was heavy. Someone honked and gave Kaveh two fingers, but he either didn’t notice or he didn’t care.
“What,” Kaveh asked him, “are you talking about?”
“Dad, dead, and good for you, you mean?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. What are you talking about?”
Tim looked out of the window. There was little enough to see. Next to the car was a drystone wall, and the wall grew ferns like the plumes on ladies’ hats. There were probably sheep somewhere behind that wall, but he couldn’t see them. He could only see the rise of one of the fells in the distance and a wispy crown of cloud encircling its summit.
“I asked you a question,” Kaveh said. “Answer it please.”
“I don’t have to answer questions,” Tim said. “Not from you and not from anyone.”
“You do when you make an accusation,” Kaveh told him. “And that’s what you’ve done. You can try to pretend you haven’t, but that’s not going to work. So why don’t you tell me what you mean.”
“Why don’t you keep driving?”
“Because, like you, I don’t have to.”
Tim had desired this confrontation, but now he wasn’t sure he really did want it after all. There he was in an enclosed car with the man for whom his father had destroyed their entire family and wasn’t there a sense of menace here? Wasn’t the case that if Kaveh Mehran had been capable of walking into Tim’s birthday party and laying down the bald facts like a hand of cards, he was capable of pretty much anything?
No. Tim told himself he would not be afraid because if anyone was going to be afraid, it was Kaveh Mehran. Liar, cheat, rotter, and everything else.
He said, “So when’s the wedding, Kaveh? And what’re you planning to tell the bride? ’S she going to be brought into the picture of what you’ve been up to in this part of the world? Or is that why you’re getting rid of me and Gracie? I don’t s’pose we’ll be invited to the wedding. Guess that’d be a bit much. Gracie’d like to be a bridesmaid, though.”
Kaveh said nothing. Tim had to credit him for thinking a bit instead of blurting out something like his plans being none of Tim’s business. He was probably madly going through responses since the one thing he didn’t know was how Tim had managed to winkle out the truth.
Tim added, “Did you give Mum the news? Let me tell you, that’s not exactly going to make her day.”
What surprised Tim was what he was feeling as he spoke. He didn’t know what to call it. It was filling him up inside and making him want to do something to make it go away, but he couldn’t name what the feeling was, and he didn’t want to. He hated it when he felt something as a result of what other people did. He hated that he reacted to things. He wanted to be like a sheet of glass with everything
rolling off him like rain and the fact that he wasn’t, that he hadn’t managed it yet, that there was no indication that he’d ever manage it …This knowledge was just as bad as feeling something in the first place. It spoke of a kind of condemnation: an eternal hell of being at the mercy of everyone else and no one being at the mercy of him.
“You and Gracie belong with your mother,” Kaveh said, choosing what was the easiest route for their conversation. “I’ve been happy to have you with me. I’d continue to be happy to have you with me, but— ”
“But the wife might not be so happy about that,” Tim sneered. “And with the parents as well, I guess the place would start getting a little crowded, wouldn’t it? Man, this worked out perfect for you, didn’t it? Like you even had it planned.”
Kaveh went perfectly still. Only his lips moved. They formed words and the words were, “What exactly are you talking about?”
There was something behind those words that was unexpected, that sounded like anger but more than anger. Tim thought in that instant that danger was anger with a d in front of it and maybe that’s where danger came from, born out of anger and what people did when anger came upon them, people like Kaveh. But he didn’t care. Let the bloke do anything and what difference did it make? He’d already done his worst.
“I’m talking,” Tim said, “about the fact that you’re getting married, having decided— I s’pose— that taking it up the shoot from a bloke got you what you’d wanted from the first and now that you have it, you’re ready to move on. You reckoned the farm is a good enough payment for what you had to do to get it, so you can bring on the wife and the kiddies now. Only, of course, there’s the problem of me and what I might say in front of the wife and in front of the parents, like ‘What about you and blokes, Kaveh? What about you and my dad? Why’d you change over to ladies, then? Arsehole getting stretched out of shape or something?’”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaveh said. He glanced over his shoulder at the coming traffic. He signaled his intention to rejoin the stream of cars.