The Sweetness of Liberty James (6 page)

‘I see.' From her expression, Liberty obviously didn't.

‘Oh, darling, I am so proud of you,' said Alain. ‘Forget about my silly vacuous life, I hope this IVF business will bring you
happiness. I don't think it's a walk in the park, you know.' And then, with amazing insight for someone with such a bad reputation, he said, ‘I don't think it is the easiest process if the relationship isn't strong. I just wish you could live your dream.'

‘Whatever do you mean?' she asked. ‘Our relationship is great!' But he just looked at her with his head on one side and changed the subject.

‘Mrs Cholmondly-Radley?' Liberty suddenly realised the nurse had been calling her name and was now standing in reception looking round the room. The nurse smiled at her in a ‘seen it all' kind of way, and said Mr Probert was ready for her now. Liberty followed her up the stairs, which were covered with a rather unpleasant carpet. She laughed to herself, realising that her surroundings really didn't matter.

The nurse knocked on the mahogany door, then stood back sharply. This was a wise move because the door was flung open and round it popped a cheery, slim, impish face. Mr Probert looked more like a long-distance runner than a doctor, but his manner was kind and Liberty felt immediately at ease with him. He gestured to a chair, then sat beside her in the bay window space. His head wobbled as he spoke, making him look like a nodding dog, and as happens in such singularly stressful situations, her mind became transfixed on the oddest of things (she couldn't help focusing on his Adam's apple, a very prominent one, that seemed to have a life of its own, bobbing up, down, up, down . . . oops, where is it now?).

‘Mrs Cholmondly-Radley? Mrs CR?' Liberty suddenly realised he was talking.
Well, of course he is, you silly woman!
She liked being called Mrs CR.

‘Well, what seems to be the problem, Mrs CR?'
Strange question, considering where I am
.

‘No conception after a year and six months of trying for a baby. Well, I can be honest because my husband is not here with me. It's been two years of trying, as I gave up taking the pill that long ago, but I didn't tell him.'

‘Any previous illnesses?'

‘Nothing specific. I had mumps, measles, that sort of thing. My periods have not been regular, but according to those sticks you can buy I do ovulate, and my temperature goes up and down at the right times of the month. We have sex, I hold up my legs for twenty minutes every time afterwards, and – oh, I am talking too much. I am a bit nervous.'

‘No need to be nervous with me,' he said, putting on the seen-all-this-before voice and smiling cheerily. ‘What we need to do first of all is to eliminate all the obvious reasons why things are not happening as they should, and then we will work out what we need to do.' He reeled off lists of blood tests, hormone level checks, said that he would examine her internally then give her a sonic scan, to see whether there was anything he could pick up on.

Forty-five minutes later Liberty found herself up on the bed, legs in stirrups, while Dick Probert – and really, was that his name? – chatted away, waving what looked like a mean dildo at her. Liberty couldn't listen to a word he was saying (is that really going in there?) in-between praying to whoever was up there that she would love a baby no matter what sex it was,
but a boy for Percy would be easier, oh but I don't want to be greedy, but please, please . . 
. ‘Ow!'

‘That, my dear, is your left ovary, looking nice and healthy.'
Oh, for goodness' sake,
she thought, as the no doubt very capable but not so gentle man decided he needed to look ‘a bit further this way, my dear', and with that he guided the internal scanner smartly round and up to what felt like her lower rib cage, while leaning on her right leg as though it were a sturdy tree trunk, with no sensitivity at all.

‘So that's where we go from here!' he announced as he whipped off his thin surgical gloves with aplomb and flung them balled up into the bin. He reeled off more tests, including one only Percy could perform, and explained the whole bionic process of stimulating her ovaries to produce unnatural amounts
of eggs that they would ‘harvest', then select the best, put it with Percy's sperm, all being well in that department, and then grow to blastocyst stage. All being well – golly, that phrase could get tiring – when the cells stopped dividing by two and really got going to show they were a healthy little embryo, they would be implanted back into Liberty's hormone-happy uterus, and all the time Liberty would be injecting herself with hormones and putting horse-sized pills where the sun don't shine.

Thank goodness Percy isn't here,
thought Liberty,
he would run a mile at the thought of injecting me; then again, I might do the same if he came towards me with a needle
. And she smiled listlessly.

‘Well, thank you, I think,' she said, as she heaved her squeezed, thoroughly prodded body off the examination table.

‘No problem,' said Mr Probert. ‘I know it's easy to say, but do try not to worry, we have a very high success rate here. You are a good age, and we haven't found anything that would indicate any problems.'

With a smile, a nod and handing her a large amount of reading material, Mr Probert helped her out of the door. As it closed behind her, Liberty felt a strange sensation of being on a conveyor belt come over her, but on her way out of the clinic she felt a definite spring in her step. At last! Mr Probert had said there was nothing wrong, they were on their way to having a baby! Contradicting herself, she thought if only Percy were there, he would be over the moon! She tried his mobile, but he was obviously still in his conference. She would have a baby! She felt a smile the width of the Thames crossing her face.

About five minutes later she was in the mental condition that anyone who has started the month of IVF knows only too well. Her thoughts ran along the lines of – well, if there is nothing wrong why haven't we had babies yet? What is so wrong with me that I'm the one who can't have babies? It seemed to be making her doubt herself more than ever. She fiddled with the idea of going home to see her mother as Littlehurst was so close,
but she knew she should go back to London to be there when Percy arrived late. He would need a long bath and supper. The drive into London allowed her to sort her thoughts out and feel positive, if a little nervous about the process ahead of them, and she did worry that if the problem was Percy, or rather Percy's sperm, how he would react. When she reached their mews home she was surprised to see his car, and thrilled that he had taken an early flight home to check if she was all right. She walked into the kitchen to pour a much-needed glass of white wine, then put the kettle on instead, thinking that from now on alcohol was a real no-no! And a cup of tea would also be most welcome, after all. Percy's voice could be heard boring down the hall. ‘Hong Kong would be nice, but Shanghai is the place to be now!' He came through the door and looked surprised to see her.

‘Oh, my darling, thank you so much for being here,' she said tearfully. She threw her arms around his neck as he put his phone in his pocket.

‘Well, you know me.'

‘What happened, darling, was your meeting cancelled?' She looked up at him.

‘No, it just finished early.'

‘Anyway, let me pour you a whisky and I can tell you all about my meeting with Mr Probert.'

‘Sorry, love, who's this Probert? New client? Well done, you can tell me over supper. I only popped in on the way from the airport to pick up my other phone. I have to get back to the office. Toodles.'

And off he went, just like that.

Liberty had to let her brain tell her that as little as she wanted to admit it, Percy had obviously forgotten all about her appointment. His conference had been very important. Liberty was never a person to think badly of others, until confronted by strong evidence.
There is no point in winding oneself up over what is often the mind playing games,
she comforted herself. So she did the only sensible thing: said ‘Bugger it, I'm not on
treatment yet', and poured that much needed glass of wine. Then she went through all the forms and paperwork that Mr Probert had given her. And after that she had a long, very hot bath to make herself feel human again, scrubbing the feeling of being a baby factory from her body, and called Scalini, their favourite Italian restaurant in Walton Street. Maybe over a bottle of Chianti Percy would be responsive to the news that he would need to have a sperm check and answer some fairly personal questions about his sexual history. Funny, how women have to put themselves through the most humiliating of examinations as a matter of course every few years, yet ask a man for a few vials of blood and a sperm sample and they will run a mile (or try to) rather than agree.

Meanwhile, Percy, on his way back to the office, was thinking hard. He had forgotten all about her appointment, but the ridiculous name Probert had brought it back.
I still don't really want a baby. Does every man go through this?
he wondered.
It's going to change everything, and knowing Liberty, she's not the sort to put up with a nanny, she's going to want to do it all herself, have no time for me and look a state, with no thought for entertaining my clients. Life will be dull, dull, dull
.

That night, over a plate of pasta and a bottle of wine, Percy said, ‘Well, darling girl, I'm sure they will find whatever is wrong with you and then they will sort something out, but if you insist, I will agree to whatever tests you and this Mr Probert think I need.'

‘This IS the last resort,' said Liberty firmly. ‘We are infertile together, and we have to try either IVF or embryo implantation if we want to have a family. You would have to come to the next appointment with me. I can't believe you forgot about today.'

‘I did not,' spluttered Percy, who as usual had consumed most of the wine, while Liberty sipped sparkling water, her need for alcohol satisfied by her calming drink earlier. ‘If it's so bloody important to you, I will come, I've said I would. Now can we drop it?'

‘Drop it?' squeaked Liberty. ‘You are the one who needs heirs or graces for your bloody pile.' And then she did something that horrified both her and Percy. She burst into tears.

‘Come on, old girl,' reassured Percy in his best way, patting her on the shoulder, whilst looking around the restaurant, hoping that no one had noticed his blubbering wife, which of course they had, but they were doing their utmost to pretend not to be listening. ‘Let's get out of here, and talk on the way home.' With that he threw a wad of notes on the table and guided her out before they had finished their meal. It seemed to be raining, which they both knew meant taxis would be full, so they started to walk, Percy hesitant to take Liberty to a bar where she may start to blub again.

‘I thought you wanted babies as much as I do,' said Liberty. ‘We were doing this together.'

‘Come on, calm down,' said Percy, feeling a bit of a wretch. ‘You know that women always feel this more keenly than men, and it must have been an emotional day for you.'

Feeling somewhat comforted, and in need of his umbrella, Liberty held tightly to his arm all the way home.

Percy reluctantly gave in to the tests, and allowed Liberty to go ahead with the IVF. He reassured himself that if it worked, he could still have fun, despite having a squawking brat in the house.

Mr Probert was lovely, as were his nurses. Tunbridge Wells was lovely. The building was lovely. The weather was lovely. But IVF was GHASTLY. When they tell you about the procedure and give you all the information, there is scant mention of the fact that it will be like PMT times one million. You put up with horrible bloating, terrible flatulence, spots, daily injections, the general self-conscious horror of having various implements stuck up holes only your lover should investigate, being prodded and poked like an experiment, being told that nothing physical is wrong with either of you. But it doesn't help. ‘So why can't we have a baby, then?' sobbed Liberty after the first attempt, when
her tiny embryos had given up the fight for life after only five days of being implanted.

She had wondered how she could wait through the ten long days before doing a pregnancy test, after the procedure to place the two embryos chosen from a dish of seven grade A ones (according to the technician who developed and looked after the dishes of growing cells like a shepherdess, only in scrubs in a laboratory, surrounded by Petri dishes and vats of nitrogen instead of sheep). Those embryos not used were kept for another time or given to a couple unfortunate enough to be unable to make their own.

‘We don't really understand everything about infertility,' explained Mr Probert patiently. He still seemed like a mad scientist to Liberty. He attended all the conferences on the subject, kept up to date with all the latest procedures. But the conferences forgot to stress the human touch. His pre-op room was about as comforting to a patient about to go through an emotional procedure as a gaol cell. It had a specially designed chair to keep her body in the correct position, but it was windowless, and about as big as a tube of Smarties. It gave a horrible feeling of claustrophobia, so no one could relax after being told they had to be as calm and peaceful as possible if the procedure was to work. Liberty could see the set-up was ideal for the medical side of things, but for the patients, not so good.

Percy could barely bring himself to speak to Mr Probert, apart from reluctantly realising he had to go and have his sperm checked. ‘What did I tell you? I am a well functioning male. All the males in my family have produced heirs, otherwise I wouldn't bloody be here, would I?' He gave his sample, which would be separated and injected individually into each egg harvested from Liberty, produced as a result of all the hormones injected into her body.

Percy avoided the clinic. He refused to be there when they implanted the embryos. ‘I won't come to see your gynaecologist. Why would I want to see you so degraded? Legs in stirrups
while a little man with a long syringe plays around with your fanny.'