She pushed the envelope across the table towards him. “Now, please, no arguments. I insist.”
He was clearly unhappy, but after a second he picked it up. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
He put the envelope in his pocket, still unopened. Kate glanced out of the window. “We’ll be at Euston in a few minutes.”
She cleared her throat. “Look, I don’t quite know what to say, but … well, I really am grateful for what you’re doing. Thank you.”
Alex kept his head averted. “I’m glad to do it.”
Kate hid her embarrassment behind a no-nonsense tone. “All the same, I really appreciate it. And I’ll find out from the clinic how many extra visits you have to make, and send you a cheque.”
He looked up, sharply. “Aren’t we … I mean, won’t I see you again?”
“I don’t think there’s any point.”
She was unprepared for how blunt that sounded. “If there are any problems, or anything you want to ask, you can always ring me. You’ve got my number. But I don’t expect there will be. And the clinic’ll keep me notified with how things are going.”
“Oh … yes, I suppose … yes, you’re right.”
They didn’t speak again for the rest of the journey. When the train pulled into the shadow of the station, they avoided looking at each other as they left their seats and filed out of the carriage with the rest of the passengers. The platform was hot and airless. Kate turned and held out her hand. “Well. Thanks again.”
Alex took it. His palm was hot and dry, and she remembered the other occasion on which she had shaken it, outside the restaurant the first time she had met him. She pushed the memory to one side. His blue eyes were troubled as he looked at her. He seemed about to say something, but then he dropped his gaze. “Bye.”
Kate let go of his hand with a last polite smile, and set off down the platform. She wished she had waited until they had reached the concourse to say goodbye, because now they both had to walk in the same direction anyway. But there was no sound of his footsteps following hers. She told herself it was the claustrophobia of the busy platform and the diesel fumes that suddenly seemed depressing, and determinedly walked faster.
She heard someone running only a second before the shout.
“Kate!” She turned around. Alex slowed as he reached her, and the urgency on his face gave way to confusion.
“Look, I was just wondering …” he began, breathlessly, “I mean, if not, it’s okay, but …” He seemed to gather himself. “Well, I–I just wondered if you wanted to go for a — a drink some time?”
Kate didn’t even need to think of reasons why she shouldn’t. It was far better to make a clean break now, rather than invite complications later. There was no point delaying it.
Alex stood in front of her, nervously waiting for her answer. She smiled. “I’d like that.”
CHAPTER 11
The summer burned itself out. The days were bleached by a sun that scorched grass and cracked the earth, while the nights hung unmoving in a breezeless haze. Newspapers ran features on global warming and droughts, and garden hoses were sneaked out after dark to sprinkle desiccated lawns and plants away from the censorious eyes of watchful neighbours.
Kate began to see Alex regularly, once a week to start with, but then more often as the reserve between them slowly dropped away. The results of his first sample and set of blood tests came back clear, and he began his trips to the clinic, going once or twice a week as far as Kate could tell. He still hadn’t cashed the cheque for expenses, though, she saw when she received her bank statement.
“I said I’d take it, I didn’t say anything about cashing it,” he told her with a grin, when she confronted him. She argued, but this time he was insistent. “We can sort it out later,” was as far as he would commit himself.
He rarely alluded to the visits, and Kate didn’t press for details. She knew he was sensitive about them, and didn’t want to risk embarrassing him. She had spoken to Dr Janson after Alex’s first session at the clinic. It had not gone well. “Non-productive” was the term Dr Janson used.
“Nothing to worry about,” she had told Kate. “It happens to quite a lot of men. They find the whole idea of masturbating to order a bit off-putting at first. Especially in a hospital cubicle.”
Kate had decided against asking Alex about it, realising that was probably the last thing he needed. He made no mention of what had happened, but cried off from meeting her as they’d arranged, claiming he had too much work. He sounded tired and depressed, and the faint stammer, which had become hardly noticeable, was more pronounced than ever.
Her relief when the clinic told her there had been no problems with his next sample was as much for his sake as for her own.
They continued to go out together. They would meet in some pub or wine bar, generally one with a garden, where they could sit outside in whatever cool there was.
One night Alex convinced her to go to an arthouse cinema in Camden, where they sat in sweltering discomfort and watched The Wicker Man. Afterwards, Kate joked that in the final conflagration scene Edward Woodward had probably been cooler than the audience. They spent the rest of the evening good-naturedly arguing the point in a Chinese restaurant.
She didn’t admit to herself how much she looked forward to seeing him. It was one thing to appreciate her luck at having found a donor she liked and respected, but Kate veered away from considering the extent to which she enjoyed his company. When she thought about it at all, she rationalised that it was only natural to want to know him better, so that she could one day tell her child (and the thought of her child still gave her a little dip of vertigo) what sort of person its father was. There was nothing wrong in that, she told herself. But she didn’t think about it too often.
Only once was there a slightly discordant moment, and at the time Kate thought little of it. She had met Alex for a drink, and as they found a table in the pub’s beer garden she noticed a smear of black on the back of his Levi’s. “Have you got decorators in at work?” she asked.
“No, why?”
She grinned and nodded at the patch. “You’ve got paint on your jeans.”
“Where?” He craned around to see.
“At least I think it’s paint,” she said. “It might be ink.”
Her grin faded. Alex was staring at the black patch. His face was drained of colour.
“What’s the matter?”
He quickly straightened. “Nothing. I–I just …” The colour was coming back into his face now. He sat down. “I d-didn’t know it was there, that’s all.” His stammer was noticeable again.
“It might come out,” Kate said. “You might be able to buy some sort of cleaning solvent if it’s ink — “
“It isn’t ink.”
She was surprised at his vehemence. He dropped his eyes. “I mean, I think it’s p-paint. I–I must have leaned against something.”
Kate gave an uneasy nod of acceptance as she sat down. She regretted having pointed it out to him, although she couldn’t see why it mattered what it was, or why it should have upset him so much. But the brief awkwardness raised between them by the incident soon faded in the warm evening. It was probably just embarrassment at meeting her in paint-or ink-stained jeans, she decided. She never saw him wear them again.
They saw quite a lot of Lucy and Jack. Alex enjoyed playing with the children, and he and Jack would preside over barbecues in the back garden with varying degrees of success. Lucy was pleased but exasperated by Kate’s relationship with him, even though Kate insisted she didn’t have one.