S T Vasectomy Clinic - 13

 

What do you buy the woman who has everything?”

 

How, over time, those chippy comments had soured her relationship with her mother and indeed with all her extended family. On the rare occasions she saw them it was clear that the only information they received about Cece was based upon her wealth and that information could only have come from her mother. They began to see her as something of a snob and as a result, they all subjected her to a high level of scrutiny.

 

 

She couldn’t do a single thing right so her relationship with them became impossible, she saw them less and less until eventually the connection faded away to threads which frayed over time and then nothing. Cece's mother was still alive, she knew that much and occasionally she deliberated about the way forward once her baby arrived. Should she tell her or would it only cause more harm?

 

It wasn’t clear what exactly her mother had wanted her to do, reject her nice surroundings and go and live in a suburban little fifties semi instead. She was sure her mother would have loved her more under those circumstances and she felt her chest tightening at the thought of it, becoming breathless and anxious. I must stay healthy, she told herself, I won’t let her make me stressed. She sighed, slowed down her breathing and opened the window. The view was pleasant over the illuminated trees in the front. The private road they lived in had old fashioned ‘Mr Tumnus’ style street lamps and the front gardens of the houses opposite were green with trees and smartly manicured shrubs.   

 

The sight of car headlights approaching interrupted her thoughts, she could tell by the extreme reduction in speed as the car went over the humps that it was St John. As she left the room she heard the faint squeaking of the metal gates as they opened. It seemed a long way down, two flights of stairs and it only galvanised her opinion that the upper floor of the house was too remote for a small child. 

 

She rushed to the kitchen to remove her husband’s ready meal from the oven and peel the two boiled eggs he always insisted on having on the side. It was a relief to her that they peeled easily; the mystery of good peeling and bad peeling eggs had baffled her ever since she got married.

 

St John was a large man, not overweight but tall and broad with a solid trunk like a tree, large hands and feet, he had a presence and the large house seemed to fill up when he was home. 

 

‘Everything alright Cece?’ 

 

‘Yes, just getting your dinner out. How did the day end at the clinic?’

 

‘Oh….you know.’

 

Cece’s eyes widened. ‘No, I don’t know.’

 

He took off his coat and hung it up. The smell of his aftershave wafted across towards Cece. It was a gorgeous smell, even after several hours it didn’t wear off. She had purchased for him a fragrance consultancy for his birthday at great expense, together with two bottles of unique scent designed specifically for him. It was a fabulous gift but a mixed blessing since now he smelled irresistible to everybody.

 

He spent a long time lathering up his hands with soap at the kitchen sink. ‘Faith was a bit late,’ he muttered.

 

‘I know, I saw her in the carpark.’

 

‘She just gets on with her work though, I like that.’

 

‘I think she’s slow. I’ve heard she doesn’t leave for hours sometimes.’

 

‘She’s pretty thorough I think. Oh, I let Louise go home early, she had to drop her vehicle off at the garage on the way home and then catch a bus. It all sounded very complicated.’

 

‘They run rings around you, those girls. You’re a soft touch...with some people.’

 

‘Well, I like to think there’s a bit of give and take on both sides. That’s how it works in a small practice, you have to be a team otherwise the staff turnover becomes your biggest problem, you know that.’

 

There was a few minutes of silence as he dried his hands with kitchen roll and then plonked down at the table and peppered his eggs. Cece was sure to sit at the other end of the table so she couldn’t hear him eating them. ‘I was just thinking about this house, St John.’

 

He looked up at her rather surprised as if he sensed something negative was about to be said. She can’t possibly want something else done to this house, he thought, it couldn’t be more perfect. ‘What’s wrong with this house?’

 

‘Well, I was just up on the third floor.’

 

‘Yes, I saw the light on up there. What were you doing up there?’

 

‘It’s a waste of space really isn’t it and I decided it might be dangerous for a child to go up there.’

 

‘Dangerous, why? It’s perfectly safe up there.’ St John looked bewildered with her logic.

 

‘It’s very high and so far away from here in the kitchen. I read all these stories about toddlers going upstairs, away from where their parents can see them and having terrible terrible accidents St John. Imagine if the window was left open, it’s such a big drop from up there.’

 

He coughed and frowned very hard. ‘Let’s just wait and see, take one step at a time Cece.’

 

‘I don’t know what you mean by that. There’s literally two steps to this process, you impregnated a surrogate, that’s the first step and the second one is that we go and collect our baby in twenty six weeks.’

 

‘And a lot of money changed hands, you forgot that step.’

 

‘Not that much money, nine grand, it’s nothing!’ Cece made her hands into claws and held them in front of her while she exhaled loudly. ‘I’m just not sure this house is suitable for a baby St John. I think we should move somewhere smaller and more modern.’

 

St John washed down his eggs with a long drink of water and then wiped his mouth with a napkin. He cut the corner off his shepherd’s pie and then put down his knife and fork. ‘This is the only house I ever want to live in, there’s plenty of space, a wonderful garden, it’s a unique Arts and Crafts building, a dream home, nobody can build houses like this anymore and I plan to be carried out of here when I...,' he threw his hands up in the air, 'expire.’

 

Cece screwed up her face. ‘It’s so old and stale. I’m sick of it and I can’t imagine the baby here, even the room I set up...that was for a baby twenty years ago, not now. The ghost of that baby has grown up and left home. It would be an insult for our little one to have to live here with all those broken dreams.’

 

St John stared at his wife with a look of sympathy and concern. He folded his arms and said, ‘I think I know what’s going on with you, it’s the menopause. It’s very common for women of your age to want change simply for change's sake, it’s a symptom of the menopause and it’s perfectly understandable. Your body is going through change and so your mind is also seeking change.’

 

‘What?’ Cece shook her head and scowled at him.

 

‘Look, you just need to get rid of all these Murano glass vases you’ve got everywhere, they're heavy things, dangerous, put them into storage, you could put them up on the third floor. We’ll put a stair gate up and the house will be perfectly suitable for, you know, whatever the future holds.’

 

Cece blinked and looked very puzzled. ‘Whatever the future holds? I don’t know what you mean by that. We both know what the future holds, that’s the point, that’s why I’m considering our options, to fit in with our future.’

 

St John licked his lips in a way that made his wife feel sick, and filled with inner rage, she didn’t want to see his tongue in any capacity, she wanted to slice it off and his manhood too. She clasped her tiny hands together. Her husband swallowed hard and said, ‘Look, we’ve taken some steps towards securing an infant from a very far away place Cece and you’ve got to remember,’ he put his hands to his mouth and coughed as she watched in disgust. ‘You’ve got to remember that any pregnancy is a risk.’

 

‘But St John, it’s not simply an infant, it’s our baby, it’s your baby, they used your sperm, remember!’

 

St John never lost his temper, he was calm to the point of detached and this apparent lack of concern even regarding the most serious of subject matters was something which caused his wife considerable frustration. He took a swig of water and dabbed the corners of his mouth. ‘I’m just having difficulty imagining it all, that’s all darling. I try but I just can’t picture it in my mind’s eye.’

 

‘Picture what?’

 

‘A child, here in this house with us. The sudden appearance of another human being. I don’t even know what we’re going to tell people. How will we explain it all?’

 

Cece laughed a little and nodded her head. ‘So that’s what this is all about, you don’t know what to tell people. You’re worried about what people will think, what they’ll say. That’s so typical of you, the real issues don’t exist to you. Well let me explain something to you, this baby is real and growing every day and if you don’t want to be part of that then I’ll leave and do it all on my own.’

 

St John shook his head slowly as she left the room, slightly tearful. She retreated to the sanctuary of her master suite, lay back on the bed and played over in her head some of St John’s comments. He was such an emotionless dinosaur, a monster in her mind. The remark he made about the menopause stuck in her head. It was true she did want change but aside from her hormones it was also inevitable that a new arrival in their family would force a seismic shift whether St John liked it or not.

 

Cece had already researched the menopause extensively. She went on a special diet in an attempt to delay it, that hadn’t really worked, however the physical symptoms of her menopause had been minimal. All those nuts and vegetables she consumed had been highly beneficial, there was no middle-aged spread, no hot flushes or night sweats. However the mental side of the menopause was something she hadn’t really accepted. She considered herself a strong person with an unwavering character who wouldn’t be rocked by feminine, physiological programming.

 

Something had changed though, deep within her psyche. She had once enjoyed the attention of men, admiring looks from the doctors, little comments about how lucky St John was to have won her affections. Occasionally she would dwell on such affections and smile to herself as if it were fulfilling some innate essential criteria. This was no longer the case, somehow without her even noticing she found that was no longer moved by attention of any sort and sought more and more time alone. Of course she still wanted to look good but her motivation was more focused on neatness and perfection than on attracting attention from the opposite sex.

 

It was easy to imagine life without St John, worryingly easy in fact but she had to keep in mind that the baby was his, it would look like him and hopefully take on his best qualities.  

 

Her mind drifted onto Yulia and she found herself wondering what the young woman might be doing. She had sent many messages to the agency urging Yulia to have a very healthy diet with lots of fresh air, to keep away from cigarette smoke, raw eggs, cat faeces and other such hazards.  

 

This baby was a real live phantom. It was her baby and yet it wasn’t. Her every thought was now dominated by her dream of motherhood.  Beyond it was a precipice.