Inconceivable (4 page)

Dear Penny Pal,

I
feel a bit sad. I know Sam loves me and I suppose he still fancies me, but he doesn’t bother to show it very much and he never says it. He says he does, of course. He claims that I have selective ears, that I never hear him when he says nice things but only when he doesn’t. I don’t think that’s true. I think he only really says nice things when I ask him to say them, but I can’t be sure. I think that perhaps his mother didn’t cuddle him enough as a child or something. Tonight I made him massage some oil into my lower back and although he did do it I could tell that it was a major inconvenience for him, which made the whole thing pointless. I mean, if aromatherapy is going to have any effect at all I imagine it will be a pretty subtle one, dealing as it does with one’s most delicate biorhythms. Sam’s reluctant vibes will have buggered all that completely. Let’s face it, delicate biorhythms are not exactly going to stand a lot of chance against a great big lump of negativity that just wants to read its newspaper.

He used to be much more tactile but now he doesn’t even bother with foreplay when we have sex. I mean it’s not as if he’s In Like Flynn or anything like that. He’s not rough or insensitive. In fact I think he’s quite a sensitive lover, but he just doesn’t try so much any more. He just cuddles up for a bit until he thinks I’m ready and then he’s off. I sort of try to talk about it but he gets irritable. You see, he thinks it’s inevitable that two people will become less sensuous and erotically aware of each other as the years go by, but I don’t. Sometimes I’d rather just stroke a bit and cuddle than have sex, but I don’t think Sam would see the point.

Dear Book,

I
think Lucy is at the end of her tether. She’s been a bit quiet these last few days and I know it’s because she’s thinking about fertility. There’s been this documentary running on the Beeb about IVF couples and she seems to have learnt it off by heart.

Personally I can’t watch it. I just cannot bring myself to be interested in the sad and desperate experiences of complete strangers. Lucy, on the other hand, tapes it. She tapes anything about fertility, even that arrogant pillock Kilroy who’s on in the mornings. She cuts articles out of the papers (incredible how many there are) and writes off to all sorts of organizations. It’s all a bit heartbreaking, although she’s very good about it, determined not to become emotionally dysfunctional, she’s quite clear on that one. But I must say I do find it slightly alarming how attractive she seems to find baby clothes. Mind you, this is something I’ve noticed in many women. They look at a pair of tiny socks and say, ‘Ahh, isn’t that just so-o-o sweet and just lovely.’

Why is this? I simply cannot fathom it. These are empty socks we’re talking about here, socks with no baby in them. How can women go gooey over a pair of socks? I find Winona Ryder attractive (as I think I’ve said), but I wouldn’t go all gooey over her socks…Well, possibly…I don’t know. Anyway, what I’m saying is that the sight of a group of girls picking up a tiny jacket or a little hat and going ‘Aaaaah’ is a mystery to me.

It’s the same with dolls. Lucy likes dolls. She’s a woman of thirty- one and she loves them. Of course, because she’s a grown-up she has to pretend that there’s some kind of pseudo-artistic attraction, it’s old dolls she likes, interesting ones. She goes on about the porcelain head with the stamp of the German maker on it. But I know that she just loves dolls and that if she thought she could get away with it without looking sad she’d buy a Barbie.

Better stop. Got to read a script tonight, a comic play which has developed out of a new writing workshop we’ve been running at the Beeb. The author has already had a one-act piece put on at the Royal Court or some other gruesome up-its-own-arse, over- subsidized London centre of theatrical wankdom. Lucy tells me we actually saw it but I can’t remember it for the life of me. The new play is called
Fucking and Fucking
. I told him that we’d have to change the title and he looked at me as if I was some kind of fascist. It’s so depressing. It seems only yesterday that I was considered a hip and dangerous young producer because I commissioned sketches about tampons. Now I’m a Nazi for telling young writers they can’t use the word ‘fuck’ in their titles. Of course at the Royal Court they positively insist on having rude words in their titles and anal sex by the end of scene one.

I can’t believe how quickly I’m turning into a sad, reactionary old git.

Dear Penny,

I
’m not putting it off any longer, Penny. I’ve made an appointment to go and talk to my doctor. Five years and a month (soon no doubt to be five years and two months) is too long for it to be bad luck. There is obviously something wrong and quite frankly it will be a relief to know the truth. Anyway, it seems to me that the best way to get pregnant is to go and start the process of some sort of fertility treatment. At least it is according to the seventeen million old-wives’ tales and urban myths I’ve been told over the last couple of years. You hear constantly of people who know people who had decided to start IVF only to get pregnant by conventional means on their way to the first appointment! There are also any number of stories of couples who failed at IVF but then immediately got pregnant by conventional means or by sitting on wet grass or something. Add to this the numerous people who have a cousin who signed up to adopt and then immediately fell pregnant, plus of course the tales of people who got pregnant in the five-mile-high club on the way back from trying to get a Bosnian Baby. All in all I have come to the conclusion that the only absolutely sure way to get pregnant is to be pronounced infertile.

Carl Phipps, our new star, came in to the office again today to drop off his current ten-by-eight. He’s already had an offer of a film and he’s only been with us a few days! I’m afraid this has made him rather grand. We call his type Uhoaas which stands for ‘Up his own arse actor’.

Dear etc,

D
epressed. Very depressed. I met the new BBC1 Controller today. He’s younger than me! This is the first time this has happened. I mean me being older than one of my bosses. I don’t like it at all. He’s a whizzkid from Granada. I think he made some documentary proving that the Conservative Party is funded by a gang of Middle Eastern prostitutes, so obviously that qualifies him to schedule the entertainment of a nation. Looking at him, I suddenly felt the icy hand of mortality upon my shoulder. I’m thirty-eight, I’ll be forty in two years.

I thought about going for a run. I didn’t go, but I thought about it.

I feel very sorry for poor old Lucy at the moment. Not only has she got all this fertility business on her mind, but now it sounds like she’s got a real idiot to look after at work. That new actor, Phipps guy, can’t remember his first name, Cunt or something, although I doubt that could be it. He sounds like a right pain. She went on about him a bit over dinner, so I could tell he’s got right under her skin. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about.

Dear Penny,

I
’m going to see Dr Cooper today. I feel better now that I’m finally acknowledging that there actually probably is a problem and that I’m beginning the process of dealing with it. All the girls plus my mum and Sam’s mum continue to assure me that five years and one month (nearly five years and two months) is not that long to be trying. I continue to be bombarded with the same old drivel about various women who tried continually and energetically for seven years and then bang! out popped triplets. I do wish people wouldn’t all say the SAME BOLLOCKS to me

the time. They might at least vary it slightly. There seem to be more urban myths attached to infertility than there are to famous film stars filling their bottoms with small animals. It will be
so good
to get an informed opinion rather than all this anecdotal hearsay.

Just got back from Dr Cooper’s. He says that five years or so is not actually that long to be trying and that he knows any number of women who tried for seven years and then had twelve apiece. I feel a huge gin and tonic calling.

Dr Cooper has, however, offered to do a blood test to check my hormone levels and a sperm test for Sam. I told Sam about it this afternoon and he took it very well. I thought it might bother him a bit men are so funny about their manhood and anything remotely associated with their willies but he was great and said it was simply not a problem and did not bother him in the slightest.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!,

I
’ve got diluted sperm. I know it. My sack is empty! My balls undone! Can’t write any more tonight.

Dear Pen Pal,

T
he blood test is all set up for next Tuesday. Apparently this will ascertain if I’m ovulating or not. My God, I shall be

annoyed if I’m not. Ten years of condoms, caps, coils and abstinence followed by five years of thermometers, counting days and weeing on traffic lights would all be completely wasted.

Drusilla is horrified at the prospect of me having a blood test. She thinks that modern medicine is totally intrusive (and I suppose wandering about naked at Stonehenge isn’t intrusive). She thinks I should employ visualization therapy, which apparently consists of breathing, relaxing (surprise, surprise) and visualizing. She wants me to visualize a baby inside me, in my stomach, in my arms, in my very soul, a complete and perfect part of me. I said, ‘Drusilla darling, that’s all I ever bloody do,’ and she said that was the problem. I’m obsessive, I need to visualize mystically rather than desperately, I need to allow myself the freedom to dream. Sounds like absolute bollocks to me.

I’ve booked a class for tomorrow night.

Sheila has suggested that I drink more heavily and take up smoking. This is because the only two times she’s ever got pregnant (Joanna and I were amazed, we had no idea she ever had been) were after colossal binges. It happened in her wild youth and resulted in abortions as she had no idea who the fathers were. I told her I’ve had many a drunken shag in my time and sadly the booze method does not work for me.

Sam seems to be going a bit funny over the prospect of his sperm test.

Dear Self,

H
eard an interesting fact about sperm today. Not that sperm is on my mind or anything but the subject came up in a taxi, as it will from time to time. Sperm counts, it seems, are generally down in the Western world. Seriously down, in fact, twenty-five per cent since before the war, or maybe fifty, the cab driver couldn’t remember the exact figure. It seems that for whatever reason, be it additives in the food, pollution, radiation from our mobile phones, or the gunk at the bottom of Pot Noodles, we modern men are considerably less flush in the sperm department than our grandfathers were. Isn’t that strange? I mean modern society’s attitude to old people is basically one of contempt. We don’t want to look like them and they cost too much to run. Most people think of old-age pensioners as being embarrassing wrinkly sad acts, terminally unhip.

‘Poor old Grandad,’ we think.

‘Look at him, sitting in the corner dribbling and sucking his gums, always wanting to watch a different television channel from the rest of the family.’

Now it turns out the man’s got bigger bollocks than all of his patronizing male descendants put together! Spunk is a diminishing commodity. George Formby had more than Tom Jones, who in turn has more than Liam Gallagher. Amazing. Dixie Dean had more capacious testicles than George Best, who had bigger ones than Gazza. Actually, thinking about it, that’s probably why old-time footballers used to wear those huge shorts, it was clearly to fit their bollocks in. In fact it’s probably why when you watch an old pre-war game on film it always looks so slow and uninspired. It was probably as much as the poor bastards could do to drag their enormous scrotums up and down the pitch.

Recently I’ve been feeling slightly old, which is ridiculous at thirty- eight. Except is it? I mean of course I can realistically say that I may not even have lived half of my life yet, but come on, my sixties and seventies are hardly comparable to my twenties and thirties, are they? I mean I may have as many years left, but will there be as much life in them? No bloody way. I already get buggered knees if I play too much tennis.

I don’t like thinking this way. In fact, I don’t really like thinking at all. I’m not really an introspective sort of person. It’s writing these stupid bloody letters that’s making me all self-conscious.

Perhaps I should cut down on the booze a bit. I’ll have a drink and think about it.

Dear Penny,

I
’m afraid Drusilla’s visualization class was a complete and utter washout. Why is it that anything interesting and different always has to be championed by the most unprepossessing people? Honestly, I’m trying to be nice here, but the types at this class made Drusilla (who is madder than the Green Room at the National Theatre) look positively sane.

I arrived at the Community Centre and a large woman with more hair (hennaed) than an old English sheepdog and breasts like Space Hoppers asked me if I wished to purchase some washable hessian sanitary napkins! I mean I ask you, Penny! Ugh, or what?! I’m happy to recycle glass, collect newspapers and rinse out tin cans but I do draw the line at recycling sanitary pads. If that is to be the price of saving the world then I fear that the world must die. And hessian? It would itch, I mean, wouldn’t it? Surely? These hippy birds must have fannies like tanned leather.

I nearly turned around and ran for it there and then, but I’d made the effort so I decided that I’d better give it a go. There’s no point being snobbish about these things, after all. Well, first off there was a ‘greeting session’. This involved us all sitting in a big circle and chucking a beanbag at each other and whenever you caught it you had to say your name. A simple enough exercise, one might have thought, but it was astonishing how difficult some of them found keeping the rhythm. I doubt if any of them had ever been on a Girl Guide camp.

Anyway, after that the leading lady (who was American) took

on what is called a ‘guided fantasy’ which was quite relaxing really when you let yourself go. You have to imagine a cool forest and a path by a stream and things like that, damp mist, a green canopy above, you know the sort of thing. An infinity of calm. I rather enjoyed this bit and nearly nodded off, which was nice because I feel absolutely buggered at the moment. Of course if Sam had been there he would have made some smart Alec comment and ruined it, but if you don’t try to be clever some of these alternative things can be quite good.

Anyway, once she’d got us feeling all sort of ‘drifty’, the American lady told us to try and visualize an imaginary baby being welcomed into our wombs. Well, I’m afraid that was where I lost it. All the relaxation disappeared and was replaced by anger and frustration. My cool forest suddenly turned into London as of now. I tried to get it back but I opened my eyes and looked round the circle at all these other sad, silly women, who were just like me (except I occasionally get my hair done), and I hated them. And I hated myself for being one of them.

Afterwards I told the American lady that I really didn’t think that this was the right approach for me. I told her that I spend most of my time trying not to think about babies because when I do I upset myself. She said that she understood but that I have to allow myself to want, to dream and if necessary to grieve over my current lack of baby. She said that I was fighting my body, resenting it, seeing it as the enemy of all my hopes and that this self-created tension might in fact be getting in the way of conception. Actually, it did sort of make sense and I ended up rather liking the woman, but I still shan’t go again. I just get too frustrated. I keep screaming inside, why the hell should I have to

imagine
a baby? Why can’t I just
have
one! Far less nice people than me have lots, and it’s just not fair. I know that’s a wicked thing to say but I
know
I’d be a much better mum than half the women I see letting their children put sweets in the trolley at Sainsbury’s. And as for these people one sees on the news who seem to have children for the sole reason that they might go on to terrorize entire housing estates and become one-boy crime-waves. Well, the injustice is almost too much to bear. I’d read my child Beatrix Potter and
Winnie the Pooh
and the only glue it would ever get involved with would be flour and water for making collages.

When I got home I found there’d been a letter in the second post. It was from Melinda sending me photos of when we were round at her and George’s place with new baby Cuthbert. I’m holding him and he looks so sweet and it looks like he’s mine. I look like a mother with a child and I’m not. I nearly cried but I remembered my resolution not to be obsessive so I had half a bottle of red wine instead.

Sam’s sperm test is looming. I had originally thought that he was taking it well but now he does seem to be dwelling on it rather.