Kate felt sick, and prepared herself for the bad news she had been given so many times in the past. She shut her eyes against the unbearable blackness of the screen.
‘And there’s the heartbeat …’
She opened her eyes to see Mr Abadi’s smiling face.
‘A strong, healthy heartbeat.’
Her chest expanded and she whimpered, the sound escaping before she knew she was about to make it. She saw a beautiful pixellated beating white dot. She was engulfed by love.
‘But,’ Jake said, ‘where’s the second one?’
There was no second heartbeat.
Mr Abadi told them that one of their twins had ‘vanished’. This was the word he used, as if he were recounting a magic act involving sawn-through boxes or whipped-away silk curtains revealing an empty space where previously there had been a whole person.
‘OK,’ Jake said. ‘OK.’
Of course, Kate thought. Of course there would have to be sadness too, piercing like a splinter into a moment of joy. That was what she had come to expect of fertility. There was never an uncomplicated reason to be happy.
On the chair, Marisa’s eyes glazed over and she turned her face away from them.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Mr Abadi said. ‘But here’ – he gestured to the screen – ‘there is a great deal to be cheerful about. This, I am very pleased with.’
Leaving the hospital was a mixture of emotions. Kate was surprised how sad she felt at the loss of one of the embryos, and at the same time, there was still a healthy pregnancy and she couldn’t help but feel simultaneously elated at the idea of a baby in her arms.Herbaby. Theirs.
Strangely, it was Marisa who took it the worst. In the taxi on the way back from the clinic, she kept apologising and saying how she felt she was letting them down. They reassured her as best they could, but when they arrived back at Richborne Terrace, she said she wanted to be alone and was going to take a nap.
Jake asked if he could get her anything, but Marisa shook her head and went up to her bedroom where she slept for the rest of the day. Kate and Jake were worried, but they were also excited and they hugged in the hallway. Jake said they should open a bottle of champagne, but to Kate that felt too precipitous, as though they would be tempting fate, so they compromised on a vodka and tonic. Jake made them, pouring triple measures of vodka and barely touching it with the tonic. He squeezed fresh lime juice into each, topping the glasses up with ice cubes from the fridge dispenser and then handed one to her and suggested they sit in the garden.
They took the drinks outside and were silent for a bit, not feeling the need to say anything and also aware that Marisa’s room was just above where they were sitting, so they shouldn’t make too much noise.
After the first round, Jake made another two drinks and Kate began to feel fuzzy-headed and warm.
‘This is one of the advantages of surrogacy,’ she said, holding up her glass. ‘Being able to drink.’
‘We’ve got to take our pleasures where we find them,’ Jake agreed. ‘We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?’
‘We have.’
At the end of the garden, the council estate tower rose high into the sky. Lights flickered on and off in the narrow windows. An aeroplane flew past, leaving a vapour trail across the dusk sky like unravelling cotton wool. As the light failed, they moved back indoors, taking their drinks to the sofa. Kate removed her shoes and socks, placing her legs across Jake’s lap so that he would take the cue to massage her feet, which he did.
He started rubbing her toes, and then her ankles and then he moved up her jeans to her thighs and then her waistband and his breathing shifted and she felt a twinge of pleasure as she imagined what would happen next. He moved her legs apart, sliding in between them and lifting his face to press his mouth against hers. She grabbed hold of his neck with one hand, and put her other hand over his cock, which stiffened obediently through his trousers.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Not here.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, but he carried on kissing her and she carried on touching him and the weight of his chest made it impossible for her to move, so she kept kissing him back, knowing they shouldn’t but being turned on by the shouldn’t and then allowing the shouldn’t to become a must.
They were kissing as Marisa came into the room unnoticed. They were still kissing as she announced, ‘I thought I’d have a baked potato,’ at which point, Kate pushed herself away from Jake. He tried rapidly to compose himself, standing too quickly and wobbling slightly as he swept his hair back into place. He tried to act as though nothing had happened while Kate did the buttons back up on her shirt and smiled at Marisa, seeking to ease the mutual embarrassment.
But Marisa didn’t seem embarrassed. She seemed disgusted, her facewan as she clutched at her stomach. Kate opened her mouth to apologise, but stopped herself. Itwastheir house, after all. They were a couple. They were allowed to show each other affection. They had been so careful, so considerate for months not to make Marisa feel excluded, but they couldn’t carry on like that indefinitely.
Jake was making polite chatter about baked potatoes and grated cheese, trying to gloss over the discomfort as he usually did, but Kate, fuelled by the alcohol, was unrepentant. She’d had enough of Marisa making her feel like an unwanted visitor in her own home. So she stood there, meeting Marisa’s eye, refusing to back down. She was astonished at the anger she sensed radiating from the other woman, as though she were being issued a challenge of ownership or possession. Kate kept staring at her, waiting for Marisa to turn away first. It was important to Kate that she did this and that her power was re-established as the owner of this house and as the mother of this baby. Eventually Marisa blinked and walked out of the kitchen.
Jake, holding a baking potato in one hand, asked if she still wanted it.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Marisa said, pausing at the door.
‘You should eat something, Marisa,’ he implored.
