Prologue: What's My Purpose and Who's in Charge?

It was the same feeling I’d got when I’d witnessed a sparrow being crushed under the back wheels of a car. The teacher held the diagram up and the class gasped. There was something genuinely upsetting about the physical act and it was dangerous showing these images to impressionable children - when do you ever see a penis sawn in half like that anyway? Sex was a difficult enough concept for small minds made of egg custard and Monster Munch to understand. Then like most people I grew up, became more preoccupied with the shape of my hair, then what kind of path I might follow in life, then why it wasn’t really a case of deciding what I wanted because it wasn’t going to happen anyway and my attitude to sex changed. It was too disturbing to think about. Then intriguing. Then down right appealing. And the majority of my experiences were a bit like when you’re swimming in the sea and stick your head underwater. Sometimes you see really beautiful sea life and feel there’s a higher force taking care of you and other times the water forces its way up your nose and you retch and realise it’s quite the opposite. That was how it worked for me anyway.

There followed about fifteen years of baby avoidance, ripping open packets of anti-embryo products with my teeth, the bitter taste of spermicidal gel, shouting in one enthusiastic holiday amour’s face - ‘NO BABIES!’ as we wrestled on the beach. Like most women I took the morning after pill once or twice. I wasn’t ready for children. I couldn’t even decide on a desirable hair shape. I spent huge chunks of time trying to figure out who was in charge and how to meet them and convince them I had a purpose. Most days it was an achievement to have my clothes on the right way round.

And during this time I celebrated the arrival of my period. We were good pals. There were downsides - the pathetic snivelling, the vulnerability that announced itself on the first day but overall it was a great thing – it meant I was free, that I could focus on trying to figure out what my primary purpose was (and who was in charge? IS SOMEONE ACTUALLY IN CHARGE DOWN HERE?) It took me a long time to get established. I was a Wisteria sitting dormant in a pot, just one solitary twig sprouting up towards the sunlight. Each year passed and I kept hidden down in that pot, waiting for some higher purpose to come and bite me in the trunk and then I ventured upwards anyway, without a purpose so I kind of went off to one side. The underwater experiments continued. Some with boyfriends, others with men I’d thought were in charge after drinking too much wine. And then by the time a few buds had appeared on the end of my meagre, twiggy trunk, my friends had already had two, three, some even four children. I knew my purpose was to have children. It wasn’t my only purpose but it was part of it. I didn’t want to become the person who idolises cats and obsesses about what constitutes excellent customer service. By the time I entered my thirty eighth year, my period had become an object of hatred. I couldn’t even say the word without spit flying out of my mouth. We were playing a dangerous game. My period was trying to teach me a lesson about how I’d left it too late. My period didn’t realise that perhaps I really had left it too late. It was the sparrow under the wheels to the power of ten.

Now the books are stacked next to the bed. There’s a digital thermometer balanced on top of these books. One book has so many graphs in it that I think perhaps I’ve missed my purpose- that if I can get my head round these graphs, I’ll overcome my biology. It seems there are a variety of factors at play. There is a minuscule window of time when you can actually fall pregnant. Usually, at my age, it’s the time it takes to light a match. Day fourteen. Or it could be day twelve. That’s working on the assumption that your fallopian tubes haven’t folded in on themselves or got tangled up in with your entrails (I’m still shaky on the biology - even now). I thought fallopian tubes were the size of cardboard toilet rolls. I thought you could make primitive telephonic devices with them. The egg was the size of a ping-pong ball. It turns out it’s like a piece of couscous journeying down a strip of hollow dental floss. No one is in charge. And then there’s basal body temperature. When do even think about your temperature? Do you even own a thermometer? It took me six months to realise that I’d not been doing it right- each day the temperature reading seemed low- it made sense that I’d been hibernating in the pot - I should have been dead! I got my pens out and tried to chart the line but it was just flat- there were no peaks to indicate the couscous had left the nest. By this time I’d imbued enough folic acid that women would have got pregnant just sniffing my urine. I was preparing the groundwork- like the layer of compost scattered on the soil before the vegetable planting begins in earnest. That was thirty-nine summers ago.

Now there is a readying, a miracle about to happen, there are trumpets playing, sonnets about to be composed, there are crispy white linen sheets hanging in the sunlight and a butterfly has landed on my nose. The person in charge is going to reveal that there is order in this world, that there’s a reward if you salute enough magpies, rub the tummy of every Buddha you see and avoid black cats. And all the underwater experiments will have been worthwhile. And the charting. I caught the salmon, reeled him in and he’s kicking and screaming to escape. It is a lonely and exciting time. There is a gargoyle sitting on my feet and he’s scratching his armpits. I can’t sleep. Something is happening.