Soon after that, in fact, I did break it off with Brendan and found myself a so-called real man – my future husband. Sometimes I wonder if Jeremy had anything to do with this.
I have to admit that I’m becoming fond of Jeremy. Our week of goofing off has gathered its own momentum – it’s become a long conversation, broken each night when we go our separate ways and picked up again the next day. It’s time stolen out of our normal lives, a Lost Weekend without the alcoholism, though with plenty of wine and lotsa laughs. We see nobody else, none of my friends; we just noodle around London in the sunshine. Emails have filled up my inbox but I can’t be bothered to answer them. I’ve cancelled the couple of things I had to do, what the hell.
And beneath it all thrums an erotic charge – the frisson between a single woman and another woman’s husband. Both of us feel this, I’m sure, but it’s never mentioned. It deepens as the days pass. I even feel it, believe it or not, when we visit Jeremy’s demented and incontinent mother in Marlborough.
In fact, this seems more intimate than everything else we’ve done. He asks me along because he needs moral support. These visits make him guilty, he’s been such an absentee son all these years. On the train he tells me that his mother and Bev have never really hit it off; she thinks Bev’s common and Bev thinks she’s snooty. She also seems to blame Bev for the lack of grandchildren. If they saw more of each other he’s sure it would have improved, but that’s another casualty of living abroad – relationships atrophy.
I haven’t seen Marjorie since Jeremy’s wedding all those years ago but she struggles out of her chair, her joints cracking, and clasps me in her arms.
‘Petra, my darling girl! Where have you been all this time?’ She indicates Jeremy. ‘Has he been looking after you, the naughty boy?’
‘This isn’t Bev, Mother,’ he says.
‘I know she’s not blithering Beverley,’ she snaps. ‘Beverley’s in Gollywog Land.’ She turns to me and smiles sweetly. ‘How are the horses?’
I pause. ‘Er, same as usual.’ Jeremy shoots me a glance.
‘Still riding that rascal Sultan?’ she asks. ‘You had a damn good seat, I’ll give you that.’
Marjorie’s in a care home but her room is crammed with photographs and knick-knacks from the large house from which dementia has exiled her. I wonder who she thinks I am.
‘This isn’t Janie, Mother,’ says Jeremy. ‘It’s Petra, Bev’s friend.’
She ignores him and looks at me, her eyes glinting. ‘Still dropping your knickers for every Tom, Dick and Harry?’
‘Mother!’ Jeremy rolls his eyes at me. I grin back at him.
‘I like to oblige,’ I tell her. ‘After all, we must seek our pleasures where we find them.’
‘Huh! Tell that to his father.’ She points to Jeremy. ‘He couldn’t find a clitoris if it came up and knocked him on the head.’
I hear a small noise from Jeremy but I don’t meet his eye.
‘Let’s not get old,’ I say to Jeremy on the train home. ‘I mean really old.’
‘I think we should make a pact, don’t you?’ He sits slumped at the table, his head in his hands, gazing at our miniatures of gin.
‘How would we do it, Beachy Head?’
‘They’ve got people to stop you nowadays, bloody nanny state.’
‘How, then?’
He lifts his great head and stares mournfully out of the window. I gaze at his reflection, ghostly against the fleeing fields. ‘I’d ask one of the Kikanda, very nicely, to anoint his arrow with poison and shoot me.’
Bev wasn’t pretty, but she brazened it out and acted as if she was, which was just as effective. She also spent a lot of time in front of the mirror. As I said, she was a girly girl and knew how to bat her eyelashes. Her smallness was part of her arsenal. I always remember her size four shoes, sitting on the floor next to my great boats; they looked so dainty and in need of protection. She knew how to cling to a man and look up at him with devotion. Underneath, however, was a steely resolve. I can twist him around my little finger.
Oh she was wily, all right, but I admired her determination. I came from a middle-class background, you see, and she’d had to claw her way up, fighting every step of the way. She was never bitter about her upbringing; just utterly focused on what she wanted. Even at school I sensed something heroic about this.
For a while we were inseparable. She was fiercely possessive, which at the time I found flattering; I still remember the strength of her arm, gripping mine, as we queued for lunch. When I was twelve, however, I teamed up with a girl called Susie, who was more my sort – dreamy and arty. We started drawing a comic strip together featuring a family called the Dingalongs. One day, in break, Bev approached me with a broad smile and gave me a plastic bag filled with what looked like blackberries. I picked these just for you. When I opened the bag, it was full of slugs.
What shocked me more than the cruelty was the sheer doggedness – Bev must have crept around for hours collecting the slugs from people’s gardens. Even as I screamed I remember thinking I wouldn’t want you for an enemy.
Not surprisingly, Bev has been on my mind a great deal this week. When I’m with her husband she’s a ghostly presence at our side. I’m not jealous of her, perish the thought. In fact, in one way I hold all the power. Everything I do is fresh, that’s why. However humdrum, it’s sparkling new for Jeremy, used as he is to the predictability of a long marriage. Surely things must go stale after all those years? He never says this, or criticizes Bev in any way, and I like him for that.
I’m thinking of her as I unlock the door of the basement flat. It’s our last evening together; tomorrow Jeremy flies back to Africa. He wants to have a look at the place, for old times’ sake, and is curious to see what I’ve done to it.
The weather has broken. The air is sultry and the sky heaped with bruised clouds; there’s a rumble of thunder. Inside, however, the flat is chilly. It smells of fresh plaster and our voices echo in the emptiness.
Many tenants have come and gone over the years. While my house upstairs has Miss Haversham’d itself into stagnation, down here the rooms have reinvented themselves with each passing life. I’ve now converted it into a one-bedroom flat – or rather, Alan converted it – by knocking through the poxy little bathroom and making it into a state-of-the-art great big bathroom with roll-top bath, walk-in shower, the works.
Jeremy is disorientated. ‘Where’s your bedroom?’ he asks, though most of his time was spent in Bev’s. Now he’s wandering round her old room, gazing through the window at the yard with its sooty brick walls, a vista with which he’s only too familiar.
He’s distracted. It must be his imminent departure; like all travellers he’s already absent, his emotions packed up with his luggage. He’s wearing unfamiliar clothes, too – chinos and a boring checked shirt, like a Home Counties auctioneer.
I can’t think of anything to say either. My eye’s sore; I feel a stye coming on. Thank goodness he won’t be here to see it.
‘Wasn’t there a fireplace here?’ He’s in the living room, gazing at the wall.
I nod. ‘A gas fire, remember? We dried our clothes in front of it.’
‘Oh God yes.’ He sighs dreamily. ‘Those knickers.’
The room seems so small, for all the past that was packed into it. I remember how big Jeremy seemed, a bull in the proverbial china shop, blundering around in the days when it was filled with furniture, the mismatched armchairs, the junk-shop table with its cigarette burns where we ate spaghetti and played cards. Bev was a demon card-player. I used to admire the way she dealt, her fingers a-blur. She played poker like a pro.
And then, later, the muffled giggles from her room. The thump-thump, like someone slapping washing against a rock.
‘We had fun, didn’t we?’ I say.
‘Lots of fun.’ His words bounce off the walls of the echo chamber.
I have nothing to add. What did we talk about, all this week? Our running jokes have puttered to
a halt, their batteries expired.
Out in the street, somebody rattles a stick against the railings. There’s a rumble of thunder. I look at Jeremy as he stands at the window, blocking the light. He seems to be inspecting the putty around the sashes.
‘All those memories,’ I say. ‘We were so young.’
He nods, his back to me.
‘This flat feels so strange, now it’s empty,’ I say.
‘It certainly does.’
‘Paths not taken, all that. How weird it would be to start again, at the beginning, and have a whole new life.’
Jeremy turns round and stands helplessly, with no armchair to sit in. He clears his throat. ‘I don’t want to go back,’ he says.
‘We can’t go back. It was fun, but we can’t go back.’
He looks at me. The light is fading and I can’t see his face. ‘I mean, I don’t want to go back to Africa.’
There’s a silence. My heart pounds and I can’t speak.
Then he puts his arms around me and kisses me.
White Springs, Texas
THERE ARE CHINESE people living in Lorrie’s town. The guy at the dry cleaner’s; the waiters at the Golden Gateway, down in the little plaza, where she has taken the kids for dim sum. She never sees them out and about, however. They’re sealed off in their own world. She has the suspicion that they only exist when customers open the door, like the light in a closet.
She’s familiar with their bloodthirsty nature, however, from Todd’s collection of DVDs. What is it with men and kung fu? Nowadays Dean has joined his father for slumped sessions in front of the TV, their jaws working as they munch their way through monster bags of potato chips; they look so happy that she hasn’t the heart to remove the bag from her son’s chubby hand.
And now she’s about to meet Mr Wang Lei, whose baby she has agreed to bear. She’s sweating heavily as she sits in the car, eating Doritos. He’s totally, terrifyingly, alien. She doesn’t even know how to address him. Is it Mr Wang Lei, or Mr Lei, or Mr Wang? Do the Chinese use Mr at all? He speaks English but will they be able to communicate?
And what will he think of her? She’s wearing her smart green pant suit, a job-interview outfit. It is a job interview. Yet it’s not a job, it’s her body they’re talking about here. And a new life. A possible new life. Can she psyche herself up to simply considering it a job?
Will he think she’s too fat? Too uneducated? From what she’s read he’s a successful businessman with plenty of money to spend. Enough money to clear her debt, with Todd none the wiser. Mr Wang Lei is paying a third upfront and the remainder on delivery. Delivery, like a UPS parcel. Sharlene, the clinic manager, says that he’s giving three sperm donations to increase the chance of conception. They’re going to put them into some sort of rinsing machine to siphon off the good ones. This is because his sperm count is low. Lorrie, however, is only too fertile. Both her kids were conceived within weeks of coming off the Pill; Todd once joked that she could get pregnant in a crowded elevator. Despite this, it’s still chancy.
Lorrie has told nobody of her plan. Todd thinks she’s gone on a shopping trip. He’s not due to leave for four months; it’s vital that she conceives fast, the time frame is awesomely tight. For she has to conceive, carry the baby to term and give it away before her husband returns from his tour of duty. If it’s late, she’s doomed. He’ll come home to a hugely pregnant wife with some explaining to do. If she doesn’t conceive – well, some of the debt will have been repaid but she will have to lie about where the money came from. She can’t even think about this yet.
At any point he could discover the truth. If that happens all hell will be let loose. Even if he doesn’t kill her – and she’s not sure he won’t – he’ll throw her out. What husband could bear his wife doing such a thing? Worse, doing such a thing and keeping it secret? It’s the ultimate betrayal. She rehearses her protestations – that she was doing it for him, for their future; that it’s she who’s going through the trauma and pain. In her heart, however, she knows this will cut no ice.
No, she can’t think of this, either.
Lorrie is still sitting in the parking lot. KFC cartons and tissues litter the floor of the car; Todd took the kids rollerskating the previous afternoon. It upsets her to see the debris of her family life, the careless innocence of it, but she has moved beyond it now. She’s in another place and utterly alone. And once she gets out of the car, there’s no going back.
The clinic is a low, anonymous building in a suburb of San Antonio; it’s taken her an hour and a half to drive here. There’s a gas station next door. She’s mesmerized by the cars arriving and leaving, the normality of other people’s Monday mornings. Her own kids are at school; her husband’s at the base. At some point she needs to drop by the supermarket; they’re out of toilet rolls and washing powder and she needs to pick up something for dinner. And there’s the ointment for Angie’s eczema, she must remember that.
Sweat trickles down between Lorrie’s breasts. It’s noon; time for her appointment. She brushes off the Doritos flakes, takes a breath and opens the car door.
Two things are giving her the courage to walk across the tarmac. One is Todd’s continued ignorance of the theft. Her state of terror has sunk into a chronic anxiety, a low-level thrumming, but she’s gotten used to this now. If Todd didn’t discover it last week, why should he do so this week, and the next?
The other reason is a crafty plan she has made, to disguise her pregnancy. This will be essential, of course, in its later stages. For Lorrie has discovered something on the internet that might make this whole reckless – no, crazy – scheme possible.
She met Sharlene the week before, for the initial consultation. They have already gone through the formalities: Lorrie’s medical history, the legalities, insurance, psychological profiling, finance. Lorrie has lied about her husband’s involvement, saying that he’s one hundred per cent supportive. They have two kids and understand what joy they bring; he’s happy for his wife to bring that same joy to other couples whom God has not blessed with issue. Lorrie, being a churchgoer, finds the word ‘issue’ slips easily from her lips. Sharlene seems satisfied with this.
Lorrie wants to like Sharlene, her portal into this alarming voyage – not even a voyage, more like a drop into space without a parachute. Sharlene, however, reminds her of a girl who used to bully her at school. She’s young and pretty, with a hard, bright glint to her; she has frosted green fingernails and immaculate make-up. Lorrie, who longs for somebody mumsy, feels overweight and slovenly. This young woman looks as if she’s never seen a baby in her life. She’s running a business.
‘He’s in our little meeting room,’ she says. ‘There’s coffee and cookies.’
She leads Lorrie along a corridor. Lorrie glimpses a cubicle with a washbasin. Somewhere behind a closed door a woman giggles. There’s something flimsy and unsubstantial about this place, like a stage set; she has a weird sense that it’s just been assembled for her, and tomorrow it’ll be gone.
Sharlene opens a door. It’s a beige room with a vase of artificial flowers on the table. The blinds are closed. Mr Wang Lei sits there, talking on his cellphone in a series of loud barks. He’s of indeterminate age – you can’t tell, with the Chinese – and plain and squat, like a smooth-skinned toad. He wears a fawn polyester suit and gold-rimmed glasses.
‘I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted,’ says Sharlene and is gone.
Mr Wang Lei, still talking, looks Lorrie up and down. His face is devoid of expression. She now feels she’s in a brothel; the cubicles, the muffled giggles. This small alien gentleman is sizing her up and soon his sperm will be inside her.
Lorrie’s gripped with panic. She turns to leave, but at that moment he switches off his cellphone, gets to his feet and shakes her hand.
‘I do apologize, madam,’ he says. He pulls out a chair for her. If he’s nervous there’s no sign of it, but how would she know? The word inscrutable springs to mind before she can stop it.
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She sits down. Through the wall comes a whirring sound. It resembles a food processor, or is it something medical? The sperm machine?
He clears his throat. ‘My wife and I are very grateful,’ he says. ‘You are offering us a gift that’s beyond price.’
At the mention of his wife Lorrie relaxes. She’s forgotten about Mrs Wang Lei in all this. According to the paperwork, she has undergone more tests and been confirmed as incapable of conceiving.
‘If I may ask, sir,’ Lorrie blurts out, ‘why don’t you want a Chinese surrogate?’
He seems unfazed by this. ‘We want a strong, healthy American woman, blonde like yourself. There are Chinese surrogates around, Harvard-educated too, but we feel that a biracial child has an advantage in our country. Where, as you’re no doubt aware, surrogacy is against the law.’
He speaks without emotion. They could be discussing any business transaction. She finds this soothing; her heartbeat slows down.
And she can do some straight-talking too. ‘You’ve only seen a head shot. Now you’ve seen all of me …’ She tries to smile. ‘Like, there’s plenty to see …’
‘Dear lady, I’m perfectly satisfied.’
He opens his briefcase and brings out a parcel. ‘I hope you will accept this, from my wife and myself.’
Lorrie opens the parcel, mortified to see that her hands are shaking. Inside is a large notebook, bound in decorated silk. It is embroidered with birds, and has a red-and-gold tassel for a bookmark.
‘If you would be so kind,’ he says, ‘you could perhaps use this as a diary over the coming months. If our procedure is successful.’