Читать книгу The Longing: A bestselling psychological thriller you won’t be able to put down - Jane Asher - Страница 11

Michael and Juliet were quite taken aback when Professor Hewlett suggested IVF treatment. Test-tube babies were something you read about in the newspaper; something that happened to other people, like plane crashes and lottery wins, even something to be slightly disapproved of as unnatural and unnecessary. Back in the large, comfortable consulting room after the results of all the tests had come through, Juliet had tried hard to listen once more to the details of the condition of her ovaries and the problems with hormones, egg quality and elevated levels of this or that substance, but it wasn’t until towards the end of the consultation when the words ‘in vitro fertilisation’ hung in the air that she really tuned in. She sensed then that, although the professor was giving her and Michael every opportunity to feel they were taking some active part in the decisions and alternatives that appeared to present themselves at every turn, they were being guided inexorably towards a particular treatment and that if they did nothing but nod and appear to be following the arguments they would slowly but surely be set on the extraordinary course that must lie ahead.

‘We’ve had considerable success with using IVF in cases such as yours, and thirty-five is a good age to be trying. After thirty-eight or thirty-nine the eggs do tend to be of lesser quality, as I think you know, and although we have many successes after that age – and indeed over forty – you stand a higher chance if you start immediately. My inclination is not to go through the laser or diathermy route with your ovaries, I have a feeling we’d be wasting precious time and there are other factors which lead me back to IVF. We’ll have to monitor you very carefully as there’s a higher risk of overstimulating the ovaries when they’re polycystic, but as I say we’ve had considerable experience with other cases just like yours and I’m very happy to treat you along these lines. You’ll obviously need to discuss this between yourselves and you may feel you’d like a chat with your GP, but I see it quite clearly as the best course of action . . . I’ll get Sally to give you some leaflets and of course I understand that you’ll need to consider the financial implications.’

A strange sensation in the pit of Juliet’s stomach was puzzling her, exciting her, and she turned her thoughts inward to confront it. As Professor Hewlett paused and looked at her she felt she was expected to ask all sorts of intelligent, relevant questions, but for a moment she had to indulge herself in examining this little spark in the very middle of her being. She smiled to herself as she recognised it for what it was; something long forgotten but comfortingly familiar after such a long absence – hope.

Sensing that the appointment was nearing its close, she bent to pick up her handbag from the floor next to her chair, letting her hair fall forward over her face to hide the smile, then brushing it back with her hand as she straightened up again. ‘I don’t think we need even to discuss the money, do we, Michael? I’d just like to get going as soon as we possibly can.’

Michael nodded. ‘Absolutely. It’s not as if we’re rolling in it or anything, you understand, but this is more important to us than anything else. We’d sell everything we’ve got.’

‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that.’ The professor smiled at them as he rose and moved from behind his desk. ‘But it’s very important that you understand exactly what you’re doing and that it’s not going to put too much strain on you both. Now, let me find Sally for you and we’ll see if we can start sorting things out.’

Husband and wife walked back to the car in silence, both deep in their own thoughts but each comfortingly aware that the other was thinking about the same thing. Michael slipped his arm round Juliet’s shoulders and she snuggled against him as they made their way along Weymouth Street and round the corner into Wimpole Street. When they reached the blue Volvo parked sedately in its ‘Pay and Display’ space, she looked at him across the roof as he took out his keys and pressed the button on the small black box that was attached to them. Nothing happened and he pressed it again, and then again, as he waved it vaguely around in the hope of directing its invisible beam more effectively.

She rested her hands on the car roof. ‘What do you think, darling?’

‘It’s the bloody battery, it’s—’

‘What? No. I mean—’

‘Oh, I see! Sorry, sorry.’ He stopped pressing and looked at her. ‘I think we’re going to do it. I think it’s going to work.’

‘So do I.’

He pressed again and the locks lifted with a satisfying click.

After a week and a half of using a nasal spray containing a drug to ‘shut down her system’ as they put it, Juliet started the course of injections which was to stimulate her ovaries and start her on the journey towards egg collection. She was offered the choice of going to her own GP for the injections, going to the clinic daily or even letting Michael administer them, but she had chosen to go to the clinic, loving the feeling of having something positive to do every day, and each time looking forward to the contact with the nurses who were always happy to answer questions patiently and discuss the thrilling subjects of pregnancy and birth over and over again for as long as she wished. She went every day at eight-thirty in the morning before going to work. She would chat to other women undergoing treatment, some of them into their third or fourth try, and sometimes she would feel panic at the thought that this might be her in a year or two’s time, growing ever older and more desperate, nearer every minute to the watershed of forty, and then reaching it and passing on to the downhill slope that would lead further and further from any hope of success. But on the whole it was comforting to be with others who understood and who had already been through the processes that still lay ahead of her.

Every day she was ushered into a small room subdivided by screens and she became quickly accustomed to watching the ritual of her treatment. The top of a glass ampoule would be broken off, the clear liquid it contained sucked up into a syringe, squirted back into a second ampoule of white powder which dissolved instantaneously, then sucked up again before a new needle was attached and plunged into her buttock where the magic liquid was slowly pushed into the waiting muscle. Then after a few minutes relaxing she would set off for the office, feeling better for being filled with a mysterious substance which would work silently inside her body, bringing the fantasy of the baby ever closer to reality.

As the days passed she began to feel quite bloated, and imagined huge sacs of eggs ever expanding inside her.

‘I’m like a chicken, Hattie. If only I could just lay one of the bloody things and let it hatch in one of those incubators.’

‘How do they know when you’ll be ready?’

‘When I’m ripe you mean?’ Only with Hattie could she joke so lightly about this most important of all possible events in her life. With Michael it was too fragile, too serious to discuss in any but the most hushed and reverential of tones, and it was a relief to be having lunch with her friend again in one of their familiar haunts in Kensington, smiling over the lasagne and chatting about eggs and babies as if it were no different from discussing the weather or the government; just much more interesting.

‘They scan me every few days to see how they’re doing. More jellied eyes. I’m getting quite used to it.’

‘And how’s Michael?’

‘Oh, he’s fine. He’s terribly worked up about it, of course. He thinks it doesn’t show, but I can feel his tension zinging about inside him. To tell you the truth it really irritates me sometimes.’ Juliet leant forward over the pink-clothed table. ‘I mean it’s not as if he’s got to do anything but just wait – I’m the one who feels like a battery hen. And who has things stuck up her all the time.’

‘Don’t knock it, darling.’ Harriet raised her eyebrows. ‘Some of us could do with a bit more of that, I can tell you.’

‘Oh no, you’re not pulling that one on me! It’s the most unpleasant experience and even you couldn’t possibly find anything remotely sexy in it at all. Much more fun to produce them the way you did. Michael and I haven’t had it for weeks now. It’s really weird – all those times we were so careful when we were going out together; we’d have given anything not to have had to worry about condoms and all that, and now that there’s no need, it – well, sex just doesn’t seem to have any point somehow.’

‘Mmm. I guess so.’ Harriet took another swig of her wine, covering up the old familiar wince she felt at the reference to love-making with Peter. He had called her the previous night to talk about Adam’s problems at school, and she had hated hearing the television on in the background, unable to stop herself picturing Lauren’s horribly long legs tucked up on the sofa while she watched News at Ten; Lauren’s large, long-lashed eyes fixed on the screen; Lauren’s perfect pink ears half aware of her lover on the phone to his old, discarded, sagging wife.

Professor Hewlett was studying Juliet’s latest scan report and smiled up at her. ‘Well, Mrs Evans, we’re ready.’

How strange it is, thought Juliet idly, that this man who has looked up, through and round me still doesn’t feel he knows me well enough to call me by my Christian name.

‘Oh good. So when do I—’

‘Right, this is what happens. I’ll make an appointment for you to come in tomorrow morning with your husband. We’ll give you a very light anaesthetic and pop you under for a little while. Collect as many decent eggs as we can and introduce them to your husband’s sperm, and then it’s over to Nature for a bit. It’s a very minor procedure and you’ll feel absolutely fine once you’ve woken up and had a cup of tea.’