Chapter Five: Another Egg Bites the Dust

Despite the overwhelming air of pessimism, number three hundred and seventy three tried to stay positive. It was so easy to let depression take over, what with it being pitch black twenty four hours a day, oppressively hot, not being able to move and constantly feeling the powerful, more ambitious clusters breathing down your neck. Nevertheless, where there were eggs, there were possibilities. And better to be inside, still representing some sort of potential than out and only moments away from abject failure. You could end up with nothing to look forward than falling head first into the great, white bowl. No for now it was better to wait.

Better to be a potential something than an almost nothing.

On the other side of the fuzzy bell, the fat one who had managed to squeeze itself out was growing uneasy. It had pushed and fought to get out of that damned egg farm and for what? So it could sit in suspended animation forever! Like a sitting duck! And worst of all, there was nothing it could actually DO to shape its future. NOTHING AT ALL! At least back there, there’d been company, some sort of communal energy and shared ambition. Now outside and all alone, the fat one wished more than anything that it was back inside the follicle where it was warm and where it wasn’t faced with the terrifying possibility of no future. Why had it squeezed itself out, why not wait? Now it would never amount to anything, it was finished before it’d even started! Then it heard a strange noise, faraway at first, a gurgling and whooshing, not dissimilar to the noise it’d heard inside the follicle but now amplified like it was curled up inside a giant speaker. And then before it had a chance to figure out where the noise was coming from, it saw them.

The tails.

Literally hundreds of them. And going so fast! Here was hope! Division, sub-division, growth, more growth, birth and life itself. Breathlessly, it waited. Stop spinning, stay in one place. Make the job easy for those ghostly, spinning tails. But immediately it noticed there was something wrong with these tails. They weren’t doing what they were supposed to. Instead of swimming forwards, towards the egg, they were swimming straight past and then crashing their squishy heads against the spongy inside walls. And as the egg moved to the right, it noticed that only some of them actually had tails. In fact quite a lot of them looked like sickly pearls suspended in milk. And down below at least thirty or more were clinging to the entrance of the cervix. Idiots! The egg jiggled up and down. It used all the dormant energy built up over thirty five years. It moved about five hundredths of a millimeter, all it could muster. But wait! Here was one headed in the right direction. Come on, stay on course. It was now so close that the egg was staring into its ghostly face. Grey dust for eyes. But then it shot straight past and into the wall. The last thing the egg heard was a noise like a pin being dropped on a carpet.

As soon as I felt the cramps start, I knew it was going to fall out. Had I really expected it to be easy? And okay I hadn’t bought baby clothes or picked out a buggy but nevertheless I’d been convinced what with the scratching inside and the unfamiliar fluttering that something was being created in there. And now exactly three and a half days later, everything was falling out again. For a second I considered gathering it together and somehow trying to assemble it into something. I’d don a long, white coat, bubble up my own special recipe for baby juice - some Milk of Magnesia, cinnamon, sun tan lotion and other odds and sods. Except of course the most obvious ingredient was still missing. Damned Tiny Penis.

I eased myself further back so my back was touching the cistern. Yes I was on the toilet. The bad news throne. My back started to throb with the characteristic period ache accompanied by tiny prods in my gut. You are infertile. Infertile I tell you! And I was tired. There would have to be another Attempt. And that meant timing everything all over and finding the right guy or actually finding ANY guy (since neither so far had been ‘right’).

Dear Hairy and Tiny Penis,
I tried not to judge you, I really did. Unfortunately I have a feeling some of your sperm were not quite right and may have been swimming in the wrong direction. The alternative explanation as to why I am not pregnant is too awful to consider.
I carry enough disappointment for the three of us.
From
The girl who’s name you’ve already forgotten

Then I started to feel an ache in my throat. The next step was tears. Especially when I realised I hadn’t got any Tampax. The only thing that cheered me slightly was a pretty accurate portrait of Carla dressed as the Grim Reaper on the inside of the door. I tried to figure out who had drawn it as most of the people that worked in the shop were completely loyal (apart from Simon and I). It kept me distracted for about three seconds but then I started thinking about my collages and why I wasn’t a world famous artist. And still I had no Tampax. I thought about how much I wanted a baby, how it was the only thing giving me a sense of purpose, the only thing standing between myself and a life of working through every section in the bookshop until I ended up in ‘Dementia and Death’. Then I closed my eyes and opened my mouth and made a terrible, groaning noise. The Grim Reaper looked on and nodded sagely. Things were going well.
‘Kate are you in there?’ a voice called out.
I couldn’t bear to have Carla see me like this. I had to pretend I had an ounce of hope.
‘Your break finished twenty minutes ago,’ she said, ‘And as I’m sure you know it’s the busiest part of the day.’
This was delivered in a tone so flat that you had to strain to actually understand the words. Carla would have made a great bomb disposal technician, there was no emotion - it was the voice of a automaton. It was the same voice that said ‘you look terrible’ when you woke up with a hangover, the voice that droned ‘you danced like a fat, old person back there’ when you thought you were at the height of your dancing prowess. The same voice that said ‘you are infertile.’ In contrast, I had too much emotion. I tried to speak but a spit bubble expanded out of my mouth. When it popped, it slapped me in the back of my throat. Was it possible to choke on your own saliva? The door swung shut and the Reaper slopped off to the section marked ‘Hopelessness and Lost Causes’. I bent my head between my knees and studied the pretty, floral pattern on the waistband of my knickers.

After about five minutes I felt my head grow clearer. So it hadn’t worked. At least my baby wouldn’t have a tiny penis. At least he’d have a fair chance of satisfying women when he grew up. At least he wouldn’t be teased at school and have people making terrible hand shapes in the communal showers or girls laughing out loud or even worse just looking terribly disappointed. And then I started to think things through and I realised there were always options. What about a donor? It would definitely be less hassle. No physical contact necessary. But even the word donor conjured up images of laboratories and big chemical tanks with dry ice spilling up over the top. And burly, tattooed men with violent criminal records furiously releasing their seed into plastic cups. Surely only the truly desperate auctioned their own potential offspring? And was it natural? I know what you’re thinking – and having a baby with a complete stranger IS natural?! But stranger or no stranger, having sex with someone is the most straightforward way to have a baby. And it’s amazing or at least it can be amazing. And perhaps I wasn’t being completely honest with myself, perhaps deep down I hoped sex would lead to something more.

This realisation took me by surprise. I’d been adamant that I wanted to do this on my own. Then I remembered my relationship history and hot, warm, cold. Relationships were always doomed. And besides I wanted to be able to control all the variables. I hated the idea of someone else taking over. I had strong ideas about bringing up this baby and someone else’s opinion would merely muddy the waters, weaken my parenting power.

Eventually I managed to drag myself out of the safety of the cubicle. I dug two coins out of my purse and got some Tampax out the machine. Someone had doodled the Reaper onto the dispenser. Was it some sort of omen? You will never have a baby. Turn back while you still can.

I stood behind the till, retail rigor mortis face in place. As I stood there, I thought about Dad. He would have hated to see me like this. He’d always had great advice when it came to relationships. He’d certainly seen right about Pete.
‘It might feel like the end of the world,’ he’d said one afternoon as we walked along the Southbank, ‘But believe me, there’ll be someone who really deserves you.’
It was a beautiful day. One of those days where London looks magical, full of possibilities, instead of a giant mess of cement, pigeons and rubbish. We had a pizza next to the Tate, then went inside to see the installation. An artist had created a giant sunset inside the main hall. Dad and I lay on our backs and stared up at the huge, luminescent, orange ball for an hour. Three weeks later and he was diagnosed with bowel cancer.
Six months and he was gone.

Dad had always given the men in my life a hard time. That one was ‘too miserable’ (he was right), the next ‘a dirt bag’(also right) and he’d described Pete as ‘having something missing’(again an apt description seeing as Pete only ever gave a very small part of himself and usually that wasn’t even the nicest part). Dad always had an inflated sense of who I was, what I could achieve. He refused to see me as a failure. And it wasn’t just me; he also thought George was a genius because of his ‘exceptional computer skills’. Whenever he’d visit me in the shop, he’d always act like it was the Houses of Parliament, walking around, shaking all the different staff members by hand, delicately handling each book like it was a sacred medieval text and not yet another copy of Jordan’s autobiography.

Unfortunately when you get bad news it usually attracts all the other bad memories of everything shit that has ever happened. It’s like an avalanche of woe. Which was how I ended up crying again. I missed Dad. I missed the way he’d offered something separate from Mum. They’d never really worked effectively together (at best they’d functioned, at worst they’d been confused and competitive) but individually they’d been good parents. Dad had provided the optimism, the hope, the silver lining. Mum - the drive, ambition and strange sense of intuitiveness; she always knew what you were thinking.
Perhaps it was wrong to bring up a child with only one parent.
Perhaps you needed a balance.
But what if you were thirty- five and couldn’t find your polar opposite?

A kind-faced, middle- aged lady passed a heap of books over the counter. Why didn’t anyone write books about the things that mattered? ‘How To Survive the Death of The Person You Loved The Most,’ or ‘The Secret of Compromise and How To Accept Lukewarm’. Those books had probably been written a thousand times. The thought didn’t offer any solace. A book can never replicate exactly how you feel in a particular situation or moment. We’re all alone. Now and then we may feel tiny stirrings of something but then we quickly become preoccupied with our difference. I wiped my eyes with the back of my jumper. The lady looked into her handbag, embarrassed. When you talk to customers, apathy is the most common complaint. Why won’t you treat me like a human being? Why won’t you listen? But it’s difficult to get angry when someone blows nose bubbles whilst serving you.

It was inevitable that I’d get drunk after work. And rather than taking me to a dark place inhabited by barren women who lived alone with their useless bundles of useless eggs, it actually made me feel better. If you get the balance just right, alcohol can take you to a rather nice place. A place where Attempt Number Three starts to look like an appealing prospect. And where the fact that Number Two failed is not the end of the world.

‘Your PMT is terrible this month,’ Simon said lighting his first cigarette.
We were sitting at a table outside one of the dodgiest pubs in Honor Oak Park. One of the table legs looked like it had been chewed off by a monster, the ashtray was overflowing with gum, cigarette butts and sinister bits of screwed up foil. Inside was a Guy Ritchie film without the glamour or good looks. We’d gone for a bite to eat first but had both been impatient to drink and get our chops wrapped around some rolled up pieces of paper stuffed with nicotine. I paused mid puff. I’d feel better if I confided in Simon, told him all about the baby journey and the terrible setback. But I knew he’d try and talk me out of it. Simon had been with the same man for five years, they were blissfully happy. They listened to Jonathan Ross every Saturday morning and cooked themselves an American breakfast of blueberry pancakes and streaky bacon. They left little notes for one another, stuck to the fridge or slipped between whatever book they’d been reading. They made a lot of effort.
‘Do you remember that night I had the date at the Curzon?’
‘Is that what’s upset you? I don’t know why I set you two up,’ he paused and took a sip of wine, ‘He reminded me of Pete. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realise it’s lucky he didn’t show up.’
I took another drag of cigarette and sucked deep. A few eggs would be sacrificed. Make hay while the womb lies vacant and all.
‘What’s he look like?’
‘Slim, brown hair, brown eyes, bit of a tan.’
‘Was he average height as well?’
‘I’m not interested, it’s just TV fuzz. One thing I remember, the thing that made me think you’d like him - he had that aloofness you usually go for.’
‘What about kids? What about his hands, what size were they?’
‘I don’t know, why?’
I stubbed the cigarette out. A man with a scarlet face burst out the pub’s front door. He had a trickle of blood seeping out the corner of his mouth.
‘Can you set up another date? He sounds ideal.’
‘Ideal for what? He didn’t even turn up for the first one!’
‘I want sex.’
Blood - mouth was now crouched underneath our table. He looked up with a lascivious expression. Simon offered him a cigarette- he took it gratefully and shuffled towards the kerb.
‘I remember the days when you still believed in relationships.’
I shook my head. Blood-mouth leant back on his haunches, then did a Cossack dance towards the Zebra crossing. Once he’d arrived at the relative safety of the other side, he stood up and swayed out of sight. Would I have to resort to men like Blood-mouth? And would their sperm swim the right way? At first Simon had been suspicious that I needed to meet this man on a specific date. Why not the weekend? Why on a Tuesday? I told him that from now on I was going to be spending more time drawing and making collages. I would no longer go out. I needed another outlet. In a sense I was preparing him. Once I got pregnant he’d need to find other friends to go out with. I wouldn’t be able to continue with the same South London rock and roll.
‘What about our bookshop?’ he said his words slurring.
‘It’s not like I can’t make collages AND work in our shop. In fact we’ll have a look at some of those estate agents. See what kind of rent we’d need to come up with.’

It was a pipe dream. Our discussion grew more fantastical the more drunk we became. It’d started out as a ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have our own shop’ and now whenever we had more than half a bottle of wine, we acted like we were actually going through with it. Like we had money to invest, like we even knew the first thing about business! We were both in denial. We were worker bees. We loved the fact that Carla was the one who had to tot everything up at the end of the night and fill in the dreaded Excel sheets. Simon and I wouldn’t cope with all that hard graft and responsibility. Essentially we wanted a life that was much better than the one we had at the moment but didn’t require more work. I hoped Simon knew it wasn’t serious. We’d have to have a heart to heart once the baby’s presence was confirmed.

Sitting on the bus back to Crystal Palace I thought about my date with Mr Medium Brown. I planned to have sex with him MANY TIMES. In fact if I could swing it we’d have sex all over the most fertile part of my cycle. Day Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen and Sixteen. The period when the eggs were literally busting out of their furry pods.

I will ply him with oysters or whatever rot is supposed to make sperm super-human. I will talk dirty even though I’m no good at it. I’ll beat him with a stick till he’s driven bonkers. I’ll dance around the bedroom with a pair of crotch-less panties. I’ll open that seductive side of myself up, the one that has been snoozing for all these years, let all the inhibitions fly out and wrap themselves round the velvet curtains where they’ll shout obscenities and words of encouragement. YOU HAVE TO BE SEXY! SEXY SEXY! I’ll start with lap dancing, it’s easy enough. I’ll grind up against the bed post until it snaps in two. Then just when he thinks I’m ready, I’ll out - aloof him, make myself so unattainable that he’ll go mad. He’ll chase me round the bedroom. It will be my last big hoorah. He’ll drool. He’ll go blind. He’ll start bumping into tables and chairs - let me at her – SHE IS SEXY! And afterwards, there’ll be no need to raise my crotch over my head. I’ll hang from the chandelier!
Then we’ll do it again until I’m absolutely certain that it’s happened.

I looked down and realised I was rubbing myself backwards and forwards like a sex-starved monster. This is not about sex. This is about making a child. The missionary position will do just fine. Sit tight my slimy, bundles of chromosomes, my future babes. Brace yourself.

One of you precious half-childs is going to be fertilised good and proper.
Thirteen days from tonight.