Jane and the realtor looked at him with matching frowns.
‘I’m sorry…?’ questioned Cox.
‘Why did you suggest the Ca…?’ Carver only just managed to switch to Caribbean and knew he sounded as stupid as he looked.
‘There’s a lot of money there,’ repeated the man. ‘It’s a good marketplace.’
‘Advertise it wherever you judge the most likely places to get a sale,’ instructed Jane, impatiently. ‘Put it on for three.’
Now the realtor frowned at her. ‘That was my bottom figure, Mrs Carver. I think we should begin higher. People like to bargain, think they’re getting a deal. Starting at three-seven-five would build in the drop to make a buyer think he’d got his deal and cover your costs and fees.’
‘Three,’ insisted Jane. ‘Thanks for your time, Mr Cox. I look forward to hearing from you.’
In the helicopter, their conversation unheard by the earphone-wearing pilot, Jane said: ‘What was all that about back there?’
‘Just clarifying some things,’ said Carver, inadequately.
‘Sounded more like confusing some things.’
‘You’re giving the place away, you know.’
‘It’s mine to give away, OK?’
‘OK,’ accepted Carver. He didn’t like the new Jane, he decided. At once he contradicted himself. He loved her as much and as deeply as he’d ever done. What he didn’t like was the new attitude. Perhaps his own wasn’t much better.
Rosemary Pritchard was a diminutive, sharp-featured woman with the sort of commanding presence that reminded Carver of the matronly, no-nonsense Hilda Bennett. The clipped voice fitted, too.
Jane said: ‘Thanks for fitting me in.’
‘Fitting you and John in,’ qualified the gynaecologist.
‘OK,’ said Jane, with a touch of renewed impatience. ‘Can you help me…’ The break was a speed bump. ‘… help John and I, to have a baby?’
‘Does John want a baby?’
Rosemary’s quiet-voiced question startled both of them. Jane began: ‘Of course John…’ before Rosemary in turn, but much more definitely, blocked the response.
‘It wasn’t your question, Jane. It was John’s.’
No! thought Carver, at once, and was just as quickly surprised at his reaction. Of course he wanted a child: children. He and Jane had talked about it – planned it or thought they were planning it – until the months had stretched into years, sixteen in fact. But he didn’t want a baby now: not at this precise moment with so much hanging over them. Jane had insisted – arranged without discussing it with him – that he should be here. Invited him, in fact, to have his own voice even if she hadn’t anticipated what he would say. ‘I think we’re rushing things. Because of what’s happened.’
He was conscious of Jane twisting towards him. He didn’t look back at her. She moved to speak but before she could Rosemary said: ‘What do you think of that, Jane?’
Strangely, for someone who’d been about to respond so quickly, Jane didn’t answer.
The gynaecologist said: ‘How long have you both been thinking about in vitro fertilization?’
Hurrying ahead of her husband again, Jane said: ‘A year, at least.’
Once more Carver ignored her demanding look. He said: ‘The question was both. We haven’t both been thinking about it for a year, at least.’
‘Jane?’ prompted Rosemary.
There was still a hesitation before Jane said: ‘It’s time we started a family!’ And maintained the bloodline of a wonderful man, she thought.
‘Is this the time?’ demanded the other woman.
‘I came here to talk about having a baby!’ said Jane. ‘Not to be psychoanalysed!’
‘That’s good,’ said Rosemary. ‘It’s easy to cross boundaries, in this job.’
‘Can we just talk about IVF?’ asked Jane.
‘Sure,’ agreed the other woman, easily. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘How quickly – easily – can I become pregnant?’
The gynaecologist let some silence come between them before, straightening and picking up her pen, she said: ‘I put you on the Pill to regularize your periods: hopefully to make them more comfortable for you?’
‘When my periods became easier I found I didn’t need it,’ said Jane.
‘I didn’t know you’d stopped,’ intruded Carver.
‘You didn’t talk to John about that?’ demanded Rosemary.
‘No,’ Jane admitted.
‘And you didn’t tell me, either, did you?’
‘No.’
Everyone lies – or avoids the truth – with everyone else, thought Carver. Until now he wouldn’t have believed it from Jane or Alice but now he knew both had avoided the complete truth. The rushed awareness of his own hypocrisy – at least towards Jane – surged through him. What had he been doing, for the past eighteen months? Not lying, certainly, because the question had not been put to him. Nor avoiding the truth, he supposed, because again there had been no challenge. But he was certainly morally guilty of lying to Jane by having the affairs with Alice. Or was the moral lie the one to Alice, prepared though she insisted she was to live with their arrangement? Another to join the never-ending list of unanswerable questions.
‘Do you properly know what in vitro fertilization involves, beyond what you’ve read in newspapers?’ asked Rosemary.
‘No,’ managed Carver, just ahead of Jane, who almost as quickly said: ‘Yes.’ Anxious to cover the awkwardness – genuinely to help Jane – Carver said: ‘I’d certainly like to know.’
‘The first – the most important thing – you’ve both got to understand is that IVF is not the absolute guarantee of pregnancy,’ said the specialist. ‘Despite all the claims, only one in ten women successfully becomes pregnant at the first attempt, by which I mean actually having a baby. My personal experience – success rate – is that just a quarter of my patients ever achieve a full pregnancy that produces a healthy child…’
‘What’s it involve?’ demanded Carver. He had to find an escape, not from ever having a baby – a dilemma he had until now refused to contemplate – but from even considering it at this time.
‘For you, a series of tests,’ replied the woman. ‘Neither of you have undergone fertility exploration, have you?’
‘No,’ said Carver, quickly again.
‘A sperm count for you is the most obvious. For you, Jane, a fallopian-tube examination and ovulation monitor…’ She hesitated, looking directly at Jane. ‘At this moment – maybe for some time in the future – I’m not convinced you two can’t create a baby in the normal, unaided way. And until I am, I’m not even going to begin to consider IVF. Doctors don’t fix arms and legs before they’re broken…’
‘If John and I were able naturally to have a baby, I’d have become pregnant by now,’ insisted Jane.
‘There’s no logic in that whatsoever,’ dismissed Rosemary. ‘You’ve a history of menstrual difficulty. Simply coming off the Pill, for however long you have, doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to become pregnant. We’ll run the tests, on both of you. If there’s a problem that we can’t fix, then we’ll move on to IVF.’
‘When?’ demanded Jane.
‘When we’ve discovered if there is a problem. Rushing into IVF if there’s not could actually lessen rather than increase your chances of becoming pregnant.’
‘When can we start the tests?’ persisted Jane.
‘All we initially need from John is a specimen. I could start with you, Jane, next week.’
‘It’s fixed then,’ decided Jane.
‘We’re beginning a procedure,’ said the gynaecologist. ‘We don’t yet know there’s anything to fix.’
‘When next week?’ said Jane, rising.
‘Tuesday, ten,’ said Rosemary. ‘And Jane…’
‘What?’ said Jane, already on her way to the door, Carver following.
‘I am a psychologist, as well as a gynaecologist. Why don’t you and John really talk this through?’
