“Yeah.”
Kate kept the receiver to her ear, waiting for him to say something else or break the connection. But the line remained silent. She hung up.
Her meal lay untouched on the coffee table. The CD had finished playing, but she didn’t get up to put on another. She sat on the settee, her legs curled under her, idly stroking Dougal who was slumped asleep on her lap. She told herself she had no reason to feel miserable. The whole point of what she was doing was because she didn’t want a relationship. Alex had known from the start what the situation was. This would be her pregnancy; her baby. It would be cruel to let their relationship — or non-relationship, she thought, remembering Christmas — go on any longer. With a sigh she slid Dougal onto the cushion and stood up. She picked up the plate of cold pasta and took it into the kitchen. As she was scraping it into the bin, the phone rang. Expecting it to be Lucy, she went to answer it. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Alex.”
The sound of his voice brought a rush of mixed emotions. He went on before she had time to sort them, not giving her a chance to speak.
“Look, I’ve been thinking. You’re right, we should stop seeing each other, but, well, the thing is, I thought it would be nice to meet one last time. Perhaps after you’ve been to the clinic, or something. You know, for a sort of farewell good-luck dinner.”
The words had come out in a rush. Now he stopped. When he spoke again it was more haltingly. “It seems a shame to — to just end it like this. Without, well, without saying goodbye properly.”
His voice held a note of hope. Kate found her mood had lightened.
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I suppose it does.”
The oak tree by the clinic’s gate was bare and black. Kate passed under it and walked up the drive. The gravel, dry and bleached the last time she had been, was dark and shiny with rain. Although it was only mid-afternoon, the day was reduced to a foggy twilight. Wind tugged at her hair and chapped her cheeks, and then the automatic doors slid open to let her pass into the warmth and light of the clinic. The smiling receptionist took her name and asked her to take a seat. Kate sat by the window. Outside, the February bleakness blustered silently behind the double glazing. She unfastened her coat, already feeling the central heating dispel the chill.
After a few minutes a young nurse, smart in a tailored pale grey and white uniform appeared and led her over to a lift. Kate had only been on the clinic’s ground floor before, but the first floor seemed little different. Their feet were silent on the wide, carpeted corridor. Weeping figs and yucca plants provided a green and healthy contrast to the dead vegetation outside. Soft, piped classical music followed them from hidden speakers.
“The residential area’s down there,” the nurse said, as they passed another corridor. Concealed lighting cast a gentle glow along the double row of well-spaced, limed wooden doors. It could have been a hotel.
“The rooms are all private, obviously,” the nurse added. “There’s a six-month waiting list for them, but I don’t suppose you’ll have got as far as thinking about the birth yet.”
Kate smiled dutifully. “I think I’ll get this bit over first.”
A woman in a crisp white maternity smock came towards them, the only other patient Kate had seen so far. Her stomach bulged, taut as a drum against the smock, but she was beautifully made up. She nodded in return to the nurse’s hello and her glance took in Kate’s damp hair, clothes and left hand. Her smile was perfunctory.
The nurse opened a door and stood back to let Kate enter. The room was windowless and small, but not claustrophobically so. A chair stood at one side, and a small rail at the far end held a row of coat hangers. A dressing mirror was fastened to a partly open door, beyond which she could glimpse a sink and lavatory. Another door, closed, was opposite the chair.
“You’ll find a gown and paper slippers for you to change into. There’s no rush. Just press the buzzer when you’re ready,” the nurse told her, indicating a button by the light switch, “and someone will come and get you. Okay?”
Kate said it was. She waited until the nurse had left with a final smile, then looked around. A single white gown was hanging on the rail. She went over and touched it. It was a soft paper. She remembered how the counsellor at the other clinic had told her that there would be no need to take off her clothes. The Wynguard Clinic clearly took a different view.
She sat on the edge of the chair. Her dislike of hospitals made her shiver. Turning, she caught sight of herself in the mirror, nervously perched with her thighs pressed together, her hands clamped between them. She stood up and began briskly to undress.
Kate didn’t hear any buzzer when she pressed the button, but one must have sounded because almost immediately the inner door was opened. The same nurse smiled at her.
“All ready?” She moved to one side, letting Kate into the next room.
It was bigger than the one she had changed in, but also windowless. A couch stood against the wall. Beside it was what looked like a computer console and monitor. A young woman in a white coat sat by it.
“You’ve had an ultrasound scan before, haven’t you?” the nurse asked. “So you know what the drill is.”
Kate nodded. She had been given a scan when she had first gone to the clinic. She lay back on the couch while the technician put a condom over the end of the scanner’s probe. The nurse pulled on a pair of surgical gloves.
“I’ll need a mucus sample first. So if you can move your legs apart and raise them a little, please?”
Kate did. The clearness and texture of her vaginal mucus was another indication of whether or not she was ovulating.
She had checked it herself that morning, along with her temperature and urine. She was as sure as she could be that she had got the timing right, but she was still anxious to have it confirmed by the clinic. After a few seconds, the nurse stepped away.
“Okay, I’ll just get this checked out.”
She left the room and the young woman took her place at the foot of the couch. She gave Kate an encouraging smile. “Right, just relax.”
That was easier said than done. Kate tried to concentrate on the black and white images on the screen. They were unintelligible to her, but the technician studied them intently as she manipulated the probe. Finally, she gave a nod of approval. Kate felt the probe being withdrawn.
“Super. The follicle’s a good nineteen millimetres. Should be ready to rupture any time, I’d say.”
The technician peeled off the condom from the probe and dropped it into a bin with her gloves. She wheeled away the scanner. “You can sit up again, if you like. Dr Janson’ll be along in a few minutes.”
She went out. The piped classical music drifted on in the background without relieving the loneliness of the empty white room. Kate swung her legs off the couch. The sheet of tissue paper covering it slid around slightly on the underlying vinyl. She looked down at her feet as they dangled above the ground, ridiculous in the elasticated paper slippers. She wondered if she would have had to wear them at a less expensive clinic.
The door opened and Dr Janson walked in. The nurse followed her. Dr Janson’s grey-blonde hair was pinned up in a thick French pleat, immaculate as ever. Her white lab coat seemed incongruous over the elegant clothes she wore underneath.
“Hello,” she greeted Kate, brightly. “Everything all right?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Good. Well, you’ll be glad to know that the timing’s fine. You’re about to ovulate, so we can go ahead with the first treatment as planned.”
Dr Janson smiled. She was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. She looked like a model from an optician’s catalogue, Kate thought.