“Have you seen anywhere yet?”
“Uh, no, not really. I don’t have much time to look. You know how it is.”
His self-consciousness had returned. “Well, at least nobody’ll know where to find you out of hours,” Kate said, lightly, wanting to draw him out again. Alex looked confused. “Patients, I mean,” she explained, feeling stupid. “I’d have thought being a psychologist was like a doctor, always getting people pestering you at home. Now you’ve moved, though, and gone ex-directory as well, I don’t expect they’ll be able to.”
She was beginning to wish she hadn’t started. But Alex’s frown cleared. “Oh … no, I suppose not.”
They lapsed into silence. Their isolation in the dark intimacy of the cab began to impose an awkwardness on them both. In the confined space, Kate could make out the clean, alcohol tang of Alex’s aftershave. Paul had always drenched himself in the stuff, as though the reek of it declared his masculinity. Alex’s was more subtle. She liked it. The taxi lurched round a bend, throwing her against him. Kate reached out to steady herself, and put her hand on his thigh. She jerked it away and straightened, stammering an apology. Her face was hot as she stared fixedly out of the window. Beside her, she sensed that Alex was equally tense. The air between them seemed charged with awareness, so that the slightest movement was magnified. She slid down the window, letting the breeze splash onto her face, and breathed deeply. Too much wine. “Is it too windy for you?” she asked Alex.
“No, it’s fine.”
There had been no mention of the reason they were together. Alex hadn’t pushed her for a decision, for which she was glad. They might almost have been out on a date, in fact. Kate quickly put that notion out of her head.
“I hope tonight hasn’t been too much of an ordeal,” she said.
“Not at all. I’ve enjoyed it.”
She nearly said, So have i, but stopped herself. She glanced at the taxi driver. He probably couldn’t hear through the glass partition, but she lowered her voice anyway. “I don’t want you to feel you’ve been on trial, or anything.”
“It’s okay, really.” He smiled. “I liked them. They’re a nice family.”
They were approaching Kate’s road. “The next corner, please,” she told the driver. She turned back to Alex, lowering her voice again. “Look, I appreciate how patient you’ve been, and I don’t want to mess you about, but … Well, will it be all right if I let you know in a few days? About what I decide?”
He nodded, quickly. “Yes, no problem.”
“It’s just a big decision to have to make. I don’t want to rush into anything.”
“No, of course. It’s okay, I understand.”
The taxi grated to a halt. Kate reached into her bag and handed the driver a note to cover the fare, against Alex’s protests. She put her hand on the door handle. “Well. Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight.”
There was a moment when neither of them moved, then Kate pressed down the handle and climbed out. “I’ll be in touch by the end of the week,” she told Alex, through the open window.
She phoned him the next evening.
It was a doctor they saw, not the counsellor Kate had met on her first visit to the clinic. The three of them sat in her office around a low, claw and ball-footed table in comfortable leather chairs. Beside them, unused for the moment, was an antique cherrywood desk, dark and rich with the scent of beeswax. Sunlight striped the carpet through the horizontal bars of the fabric blinds. The window itself was closed, but air-conditioning made the office pleasantly cool. The entire hospital seemed to exist in an environment completely separate from the outside world.
“The thing you have to remember, and I really can’t stress this enough, is that legally ‘donor’ and ‘father’ are two different entities,” the doctor was saying to Alex. Dr Janson was an attractive woman in her forties, with carefully styled blonde hair and clothes that supported the hospital’s charges. She had told them that scheduling problems had meant she would see them instead of another counsellor, but Kate wondered if it wasn’t more because she wanted to handle an unusual case herself.
“It doesn’t matter whether the donor is anonymous or, as in this instance, known to the patient,” she continued. “Your responsibility begins and ends with the donation of the sperm. It’s very important that you understand that.”
Alex nodded. He was leaning forward in his chair, listening to what the doctor said with an intent, almost anxious expression. He had been silent for most of the journey from Euston, but then Kate hadn’t felt like talking either.
Satisfied that the point had been made, Dr Janson continued. “Before we go any further, I should say that we’re obliged to offer counselling before you give your consent for your sperm to be stored and used. Not everyone feels they need it, but it’s there if you do. It’s important you fully understand the implications of becoming a donor.”
She waited, a polite smile on her subtly made-up face. Alex glanced uncertainly at Kate. “Er … I don’t think that’s … I mean, no, it’s okay, thanks.”
The doctor inclined her head. “As you wish. Just so long as you’re aware that the offer has been made.”
She took a gold-plated fountain pen from the top pocket of her white coat and unscrewed its cap. “Now, I’ll have to ask you a few questions about your general health and medical background.”
Kate let their voices wash over her as the doctor read out questions and Alex answered. Through the window she could see a small ornamental pond. A miniature willow hung its branches forlornly over the water’s surface. Beyond it, the grounds were set out like a park, a tame landscape of trees and shrubs. This is what I’m paying for. The thought was obscurely disturbing.
She turned away from the window as the doctor handed Alex a sheet of paper. “We need your consent to contact your GP, in case we have to find out more about your medical history, so if you could just fill in this form, please.”
Alex took the form. “I, uh, I don’t have a pen.”
Dr Janson handed him her gold fountain pen. He began to write, then stopped. “Sorry, I don’t, er, I don’t know the surgery’s address.”
His face had gone red. The doctor smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry about it. Just put your GP’s name and then sign it. You can give us the address next time you come. Provided there’s no problem with the blood tests, we probably won’t need it anyway since you’re a known donor.”
Alex wrote quickly and passed back the sheet. The doctor put it to one side and handed him another. “This is a consent form for us to store and use your sperm. Read it carefully before you sign it, and please ask if you have any questions.”
She handed Kate another sheet of paper. “And while he’s doing that, you might as well be filling in your consent form for the treatment.”
It was surprisingly uncomplicated. Kate filled in her name and address, and gave Alex’s name as the donor, then signed it at the bottom. She gave it back to the doctor.