Dear Thing Read online

  No. Surely not?

  She wiped her palms on her jeans and went into the bar. Here, the windows had been slightly tinted and the lights were turned low, presumably to give lunchtime drinkers the illusion of being in a sophisticated night spot. Ben was at a table in the far corner. He jumped up when he saw her enter and rushed over to her.

  ‘Rom. Thanks so much for coming. I wasn’t sure you would be able to get away at such short notice, but I didn’t know if I could find another spare hour during the day.’

  ‘Oh well, you know. Those insects have been dead for a long time; half an hour isn’t going to make much difference.’

  He laughed, but his face was worried. ‘How are you?’ he asked her. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  He touched her lightly on her shoulder to guide her to the table. ‘I’ve ordered you a coffee, but maybe you’d prefer a pint?’

  ‘Coffee is good.’

  He’d already drunk half of his and as he sat across from her he seemed jumpy, as if he’d had too much caffeine. She stalled by selecting brown and white sugar lumps from the bowl on the table and dropping them one by one into her drink. They made small ripples. He was watching her in a way he didn’t usually watch her. Almost as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  ‘So,’ she said, her heart pounding, trying to keep the spoon from rattling against her cup. ‘A secret meeting, Mr Bond?’

  ‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Saturday night.’

  She made a noncommittal sound and carefully poured in the milk.

  ‘I’ve been turning it and turning it around in my head. Looking at it from every angle. I haven’t said anything to Claire, not yet. I needed to see you first.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He was rubbing his thumb across his palm, first with one hand and then the other, as if he were trying to find the right words to say. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. He’d been arguing with Claire. He’d kissed Romily at the quiz.

  No. Wishful thinking. But how could she think about anything else, with him looking at her like that?

  ‘Can you—’ he began, and then shook his head. ‘We drank an awful lot that night. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t remember what you said.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It was – I mean, it could change everything. So I have to be certain that you absolutely meant it.’

  She couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Meant what, exactly?’

  ‘About having the baby for us.’

  It swept over her like a wave of cold water. ‘That’s it?’ she said. ‘That’s all? That’s what you’ve been looking at from every angle.’

  ‘Well, yes. It’s a big step.’

  Of course. Ben wanted a baby. He didn’t care about why she’d offered to do it. To understand why she’d offered, he’d have to love her back.

  Interesting how the end of hope felt much the same as the end of despair.

  ‘What else would there be?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing.’ She was blushing, but she raised her cup to her lips to cover up. ‘It’s just a big step, as you say.’

  A big step that she’d been successfully pushing out of her mind because she’d been too worried about losing her friendship with Ben.

  ‘You’re regretting it,’ he said immediately. ‘I can see you’re uncomfortable. That’s fine, Romily. That’s why I wanted to meet up. I wouldn’t want to put any pressure on you. It’s amazing that you even offered.’

  ‘Do you …’ She stalled for time. ‘Do you think that Claire would go for it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I had to ask you first. It all depends on you.’

  He was still watching her that way, as if his entire life depended on her. Which it did, because he wanted her to have his baby.

  Now was her chance. The moment to say she’d been drunk, that she’d been too impulsive. She could say that she needed some more time to think about it, that she wasn’t sure if it would work out with her job or with Posie. She could say she was too afraid of getting attached to the baby and being unable to give it up.

  The thing was, all of those would be lies. She’d been drunk, yeah, and she was always impulsive. But she’d meant it when she’d offered: because Ben wanted a family so much, because she had a womb going spare. And there was no real, logical reason not to mean it still. She’d been pregnant before, and she knew she could do it again. She could do her work just fine while incubating a foetus, and schedule time off for the delivery in advance. Posie might find it a little strange, but she’d adjust. And Romily really did have no desire for another child.

  There wasn’t a single good reason not to have a baby for Ben and Claire. And here he was in front of her. It would make him so happy, and all she had to do was use a turkey-baster and spend nine months making herself eat healthily and drink milk. It would give him everything he wanted, and for Romily, nothing would really change.

  And she’d been telling the truth on Saturday night. Even knowing now that he could never love her, even having always known, she would do anything for Ben.

  She met his eyes for a moment, and then had to look away, at the sugar bowl. All that sweetness jumbled together.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  7

  A Known Quantity

  ‘ROMILY SAID WHAT?’

  ‘Romily has offered to have the baby for us,’ Ben repeated. ‘She’s offered to be a surrogate.’

  Claire turned off the programme they’d both been watching. Or pretending to watch; Ben had been jumpy all evening, all through dinner, as if he had something he really wanted to say. Claire had never imagined it would be this.

  ‘She says she’s happy to use her eggs,’ he continued, ‘and we can use my sperm for artificial insemination. She knows she can conceive and carry a baby to term, because of Posie. She doesn’t want any more children. I’d be listed on the birth certificate as the father so I’d have legal rights anyway, and we could formalize adoption to give you rights within weeks of the baby’s being born. We have one or two things to be cautious of, but there should be no real issue with a private adoption with all parties consenting. I’ve been researching the legal ins and outs.’

  ‘When did Romily say this?’

  ‘On Saturday, in the pub.’

  Claire crossed her arms. ‘You were deciding our reproductive future in the pub?’

  ‘Not deciding, no. Just talking about it. But isn’t it an amazing idea, Claire? Don’t you think we should consider it? It would be my baby, genetically. And yours by adoption. You wouldn’t have to go through a single moment of treatment. And we’d have a child. A child all our own, from the moment it’s born. It could come straight home with us from hospital. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’ve made up your mind about all of this without thinking of me at all.’

  ‘I am thinking about you. It’s a way that we can have a family without you having any more treatment.’

  ‘Because Romily would be having my baby.’ She shook her head. ‘No way.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should even consider it? Maybe not now, but in a little while, after we’ve had some time to get over the miscarriage?’

  As if she could forget all about the life that, so briefly, had lain inside her. The thought seemed so empty and cruel.

  ‘For one thing, it’s none of Romily’s business. For another thing, I can’t believe that you discussed it with her. And for a third, how could she have a child and give it up?’

  ‘She wouldn’t be giving it up,’ Ben said. ‘It would never be hers in the first place. Genetically, yes, and legally until the adoption papers go through. But in all the ways that matter, the baby would be ours. She doesn’t want any more children. She’s giving us a chance to have our baby, Claire.’

  ‘You mean, I couldn’t make children for you so now you want to use another woman.’

  ‘That’s not it at all.’ Ben reached for her, but Claire st
ood up.

  ‘That’s it exactly. You went behind my back and came up with this crazy idea, just when you knew I was finally getting some peace.’ Something occurred to her. ‘Is this why you were so happy yesterday morning? Because you’d come up with this?’

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything to you about it until I was sure that Romily really meant it. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.’

  ‘My hopes up?’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘I’d decided the hoping was finished, Ben. You haven’t heard anything I’ve said.’

  She turned to leave the room. Behind her, she heard Ben say, ‘We could still have the swing on the pear tree.’

  Claire perched on a chrome stool in her sister Helen’s newly redecorated kitchen. The sleek breakfast bar was covered with a wipe-clean tablecloth.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Helen, ‘it’s not such a bad idea, in the abstract. Josh, give that back to your sister.’

  ‘I had it first!’

  ‘I don’t care. You’re older than her, give it back.’

  Claire watched her nephew stomp across the slate floor out of the kitchen. ‘You can’t seriously think it’s a good idea that my husband wants another woman to have his baby.’

  ‘On the other hand, you’d have a baby at the end of it.’ Helen offered Claire another biscuit. ‘And people pay a lot of money to have a surrogate. Presumably she’d do it for free.’

  ‘This isn’t about money.’

  ‘But it never hurts to consider it.’ A wail came from the other room. ‘Josh! Give it back to your sister!’

  ‘But why would Romily even want to do it?’

  ‘You’ve been friends since university, haven’t you?’

  ‘She was friends with Ben before I ever met him, so that’s how I knew her. We haven’t really spent much time together, just the two of us. We don’t have much in common.’

  ‘Aren’t you godmother to her daughter?’

  ‘That’s because she asked Ben to be godfather and I was part of the package.’ Claire nibbled at a biscuit. ‘It makes sense to have a godmother and godfather who are married. I’d do the same thing, if we … Anyway, she’s Ben’s friend mostly.’

  ‘Do you think there’s something going on between them?’

  ‘Hels!’

  ‘Well, I have to ask. It’s the obvious question.’

  This was what Helen was like: if she thought something, she said it. Claire had to admit that this was one reason why she’d come to visit her sister this afternoon. And the same reason why, quite often, she stayed away.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Claire said. ‘They talk football most of the time. They go to the Rose and Thistle, which is always full of men. He treats her like one of the blokes.’

  ‘As long as you’re sure, then— Sarah! Stop teasing him! Sorry, Claire, I need to sort this out.’

  While Helen was out of the kitchen, Claire pictured Romily. Gangly, awkward, with her thick, cropped dark hair with the cowlick at the back that never lay down properly. Her frayed-hem jeans, her battered tennis shoes and her bitten nails; the freckles on her nose like a child’s, the way she sat on a chair always with one leg folded beneath her. Romily didn’t look old enough to be a mother, or to have a PhD. From the back she looked like a teenage boy, the type who would have beetles and snails in jars on bedroom shelves, frogs in her pockets. She melted into corners, lapsed into daydreams or abstract mental classification. She’d always tagged along, turned up at odd hours according to her own chaotic schedule.

  She’d been a fact of Ben’s life when Claire had met him. If she’d ever been hostile to Claire, that would have set Claire’s back up, but she’d never been anything but friendly in an offhand way. Ben said she was shy.

  Posie was more vivid in Claire’s mind; she’d spent more time with Posie than with her own nephews and niece, because Romily had needed help with childcare in the early years. Posie was a bright smear of warm limbs and blonde hair, dreamy blue eyes. She had a sweet smell of her own, like apples in a bowl. Claire’s arms knew by themselves how it felt to hold her small body. The little girl was hungry for mothering, for cuddles and exchanges of girly confidences. She looked nothing like Romily, who treated her with absent affection. As if Posie were a favourite specimen that she was fond of but not quite sure what to do with.

  There were secret moments, when Posie was asleep in the bedroom they called hers, curled under the quilt that Claire’s grandmother had made. Or when she greeted Claire with a big hug and a kiss. Or when Claire handed her a tissue, or when Posie’s hand crept by itself into Claire’s. In those secret, private moments, Claire sometimes pretended that Posie was hers.

  It didn’t do anyone any harm. In reality, Claire knew she couldn’t let herself love Posie too much. It wouldn’t be wise to love her as much as she’d love her own child – not with her full heart. Not when in the morning, after sleeping under Claire’s grandmother’s quilt, Posie was going home with Romily.

  Claire knew Posie. She loved Posie. And yet Posie had come from Romily’s body. And now Romily was offering her body to Claire and Ben, as if it were a bicycle to be borrowed for a little while and then returned.

  ‘I don’t get why she’d want to do it,’ she said again, when Helen returned from sorting out the squabble. ‘It’s a big commitment.’

  ‘I wish I’d thought of it,’ said Helen. ‘I couldn’t do it, not after all the problems I had with Sarah. But I wish I’d thought of it. I wish I’d offered.’

  She looked sad, and Claire hugged her. ‘Don’t be silly. That’s lovely of you to say, but you couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘It would’ve solved a lot of problems.’ Helen shrugged. ‘Oh well, no use thinking of it now. But if this Romily is healthy and she’s willing, maybe you should give it a shot. At least she’s a known quantity, right? You know she’s got good genes – she’s clever, isn’t she? You know she can give birth. You like her daughter. You know she’s not going anywhere.’ Sarah toddled into the kitchen, and Helen broke a biscuit in half and gave it to her. ‘You know a lot more about her than you would an anonymous egg donor, or another surrogate. Or the parents of a child you’d adopted.’

  ‘But it’s the way that Ben went about it, without even telling me.’

  ‘He’s desperate. You both are, aren’t you?’

  Does it show so much? She looked around at her sister’s modern kitchen, which was saved from being minimalist by the plastic tablecloth, the children’s drawings on the refrigerator. She’d hardly been here at all in the past four years since Josh had been born.

  ‘What would Mum say?’ she said instead.

  Her sister smiled. ‘Ah, well, there’s another thing. Sarah, don’t eat that, you’ve just dropped it on the floor!’

  8

  Building Blocks

  MONTHS AGO, THEY’D promised to take Posie and Romily to Legoland in Windsor in the first week of the Easter holiday. The night before, Claire lay in bed with her head on Ben’s chest.

  ‘What if she’s changed her mind?’ she asked.

  ‘She won’t. Once Romily makes up her mind, she doesn’t change it.’

  ‘Unlike me.’

  He stroked her hair. ‘I went about it the wrong way. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.’

  ‘No more deciding my life in the pub, all right?’

  ‘Agreed. But you do want this to happen, don’t you, Claire?’

  She’d thought of little else for weeks. All of the calm she’d felt that day under the pear tree had fled. She’d been able to feel calm because she’d been at the end of hope, and now there was this new possibility. Her mind gnawed away at it: pros, cons, legal issues. She’d been on internet surrogacy forums to read the stories. There were happy ones and some sad ones. There were a lot of couples who were looking for a surrogate and hadn’t yet found one. She recognized the desperation lying under their typed words.

  ‘For six years,’ she said, ‘every month that’s gone by has felt like another month
that’s been stolen from us. Another chance gone. If this is another chance, I can’t pass it up.’

  ‘So we’ll ask her?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wished she could feel that calm again. She wished she could know that this was right. But how would they know without trying?

  ‘Yes,’ she repeated.

  Romily twisted her hands in the pockets of her jeans and watched Posie skipping ahead of them down the path towards a robotic dinosaur made out of Lego. The sun was too bright, the park too crowded, and the colours and canned music more or less obscene. She didn’t quite dare to look at Ben or Claire.

  Ben hadn’t mentioned their conversation again, not since their secret meeting in February. Aside from texted arrangements about today, they’d barely been in contact. Meanwhile she knew that he and Claire were talking about it. Talking about her.

  She glanced over at Claire, walking beside her down the stepped path. She looked breezy and cheerful in white trousers, spotless white pumps and a primrose-yellow top. Romily, as usual, had forgotten to do laundry and was wearing her last pair of black jeans and a green T-shirt with a hole in one sleeve. Claire’s face held no clue to her thoughts.

  Wouldn’t she be wondering why Romily had volunteered? What if she had worked it out and told Ben, and now they were going on this outing, which Ben had insisted on paying for, to pretend that everything was all right because they felt so sorry for her and her unrequited love?

  The two of them. A united front. ‘Poor Romily,’ she pictured them saying this morning, in their sun-drenched kitchen, over fresh-brewed coffee and home-baked croissants. ‘Poor, deluded Romily. It’s a good idea to do something nice for her to show her there’s no hard feelings. Let’s include Posie so she’ll remember that she’s not all alone in the world. Even though Posie would just as soon have us for parents, and who can blame her?’

  Ouch.

  She hurried to catch up with Posie, but Ben slipped in front of her and swung the girl up onto his shoulders. They strode ahead, Posie giggling madly, leaving her with Claire.