‘I’m tired,’ she said.
‘What do you think about surrogacy? Or would you rather talk about it later?’
She began to cry, then, without feeling particularly sad. He handed her a napkin and she blotted her cheeks with it. In the corner of the cafe, a baby started wailing, as if in echo of her own unhappiness, and the mother unbuttoned her blouse and began to breastfeed. The baby, instantly calmed, suckled away intently. Looking at them, Kate was overcome with a mixture of jealousy and awe. She was desperate. She wanted nothing so much as she wanted a baby. She was incapable of seeing anything other than this. She felt she would die if she did not become a mother.
‘I think maybe it’s a good idea?’ she said. ‘I just … I hadn’t expected to feel so much grief for something I can’t do.’
‘Oh my love,’ Jake said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘And can we even afford it?’
‘Of course we can. We can remortgage the house if it comes to it. This is more important, isn’t it?’
She nodded, then said: ‘Do you still love me?’
His face broke.
‘Why would you even ask that? I love you more than anything. And we’ll get through this. Together. OK?’
‘OK.’
Within two weeks, they had contacted a surrogacy organisation which invited them in for a chat. Carol, a competent, grey-haired woman in a plain cotton shirt and sensible court shoes sat down with them and said, ‘I’m going to give you quite a lot of information here.’ She laughed, in a way that reminded Kate of her old Biology teacher. ‘Are you ready?’
She told them that it was illegal to pay for a surrogate in the UK, other than covering their expenses; that any surrogate would have to be acting out of an altruistic instinct to want to help; that there was then a three-month ‘getting to know you’ period before anyone signed anything; that they would have to decide whether to use Kate’s own eggs, or the surrogate’s; that they had a website where potential surrogates could match with couples like them; that there were regular conferences and social events where prospective parents outnumbered potential surrogates three to one. They took home a dozen leaflets and read them in the kitchen, sitting across from each other, drinking strong mugs of tea. It was nice to have a project, to have something they were more in control of, rather than outsourcing it all to male consultants who spoke in a medical language designed to alienate.
The following month, Carol invited them to a social event taking place in a hotel in Coventry.
‘It’s a theme party. Gangsters and Molls. I don’t know if that’s your kind of thing. But if it is, you should come along. You’ll meet a lot of couples with similar journeys to yours and it can be very healing to share stories with people who understand.’
Both Kate and Jake hated fancy dress, but they decided it was worth it and so they ordered costumes from Amazon: a cheap polyester flapper’s dress for Kate, accessorised with fake pearls and a cigarette holder; a baggy pinstripe suit for Jake. They drove to the Grand Eastern Hotel in Coventry, a two-storey building in yellow brick with beige carpets patterned with burgundy diamonds. The room was sparsely furnished and sterile: a bed with a foam mattress; a kettle with individually wrapped packets of sugar and creamer; shower gel and shampoo mixed into the same plastic dispenser which was fixed to the tiled wall in the bathroom. The view out of the window was of the car park. They made vodka tonics from the minibar and drank them sitting on the bed, and then they looked at each other and started to laugh at the weirdness of the situation. It was the first time Kate could remember laughing like that in ages.
‘Do you think we’re drinking too much?’ she asked Jake, and she wasn’t sure how seriously she meant the question.
‘If you can’t knock back a couple when you’ve been through what we have, then when can you?’ he said.
‘I guess.’
They got dressed in their costumes, and Kate put on a dark red lipstick and Jake told her she looked so hot that she would have to wear the same outfit when they got home so that he could have sex with her while she was wearing it. Kate, lightly buzzed from the vodka, felt beautiful again. They held hands as they walked along the corridor to the conference hall where the party was being held. It had been decorated with gold helium balloons and ‘WANTED’ posters of Al Capone. The room was already half full of guests. They headed straight to the bar. Kate was nervous, and didn’t know why. They asked for vodka tonics from the barman.
‘Single or double?’
‘Double,’ Kate and Jake said simultaneously.
An unfamiliar voice came from behind.
‘I like your style.’
They turned to find a woman standing there. She had tousled blonde hair, held back with a feathered headband and was wearing a man’s suit, with a silk camisole underneath. Her skin was tanned and she had a nice smile. She was pretty and approachable, the kind of person you would cast as the fanciable sister of a male lead in a mainstream movie.
‘Hi,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Marisa.’
Now
18
‘I feel like I’m going mad,’Marisa says. ‘I just want to talk.’
‘OK,’ Kate says, making her voice as soothing as possible. ‘I understand. Let’s talk. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’
