Inconceivable

Fumet is a very aggressive man, which is all right in itself – certain types of agent and manager have always been aggressive. What puts Fumet beyond even the most distant pale is that he is also self-righteous. He seems to see any failure on the part of the BBC to grant a series to any of his acts as evidence of a vicious conspiracy to deny the young people of Britain the cornedic nourishment for which their souls are clearly crying out. The idea that the BBC might think some of his acts less than good does not cross his mind.

“What the fuck was that malarkey all about, then, Sam, dumping my boys at One Nine Oh?” Fumet said when I called him back. “I’d better warn you now, mate, that Dog and Fish are one phonecall away from going to Channel Four. One fucking phonecall and they’re with Michael, OK? And the BBC can fuck off.”

Well, I was in no mood for this. Normally I have to admit that I’m a bit of a pushover. To be honest, I just can’t be bothered to argue with these people. The worm, however, can turn and show his teeth (if worms have teeth) and a worm who has just been crap in bed with the wife he loves and who is counting on him to fill her up with sperm is likely to turn like a U-bend.

“What is going on, Aiden, mate…” and I commenced to give him the most exquisitely phrased bollocking of his entire life. Unfortunately it was all wasted because after he’d told me to fuck off he’d hung up.

Later, I told Lucy about the whole incident over supper, and that led to a slight misunderstanding. She said that she was sorry about today, and I thought she meant she was sorry about me getting shat on by arrogant, no- talent twatheads. So I told her not to worry. I told her that it was my job. Well, it turned out that she was actually talking about our lunchtime sex session. She’s been concerned that I might feel used – “milked for my sperm like a farmyard animal” was how she put it. So when I said, “Don’t worry, it’s my job,” she thought I meant having sex with her was my job and said, “I hope you don’t see it as a job,” in a very tart voice indeed. But I of course still thought she was talking about my work and therefore took her tart retort as a snide reference to the pathetically unfulfilling way I earn a living and said, “Yes, it’s a job, a bloody boring job. There’s certainly no satisfaction to be had in it.”

Misunderstandings all round and quite an atmosphere had developed before we got it sorted out, after which I immediately put my foot in it again. Lucy remarked that this confusion perhaps indicated that we should be setting time aside to be tender and close with each other and communicate more. Well, I thought she was just trying to be nice to me, so I told her not to bother on my account as I wasn’t bothered either way. It turned out that she was actually appealing for a more tender and sensual attitude on my part, so me saying I wasn’t bothered was the worst thing I could have said.

After that we didn’t talk any more and she started clearing the plates in a marked manner.

Dear Penny

I got my fucking period today.

I’m writing this with a hotwater bottle clamped to my tummy because of the cramps. Oh, how I love being a woman. I’ve known it was coming for days.

“What’s that dull aching feeling, I wonder?”

“Why, that’s a little warning that you’re going to be bent double in agony for a couple of days living off painkillers, and by the way it looks like you’re barren as well.”

Drusilla says I have to learn to love my periods, that they’re part of the sacred cycle of the earth and the moon. Words failed me at that juncture, which was fortunate really because had I thought about it I would have told her to get on her sacred cycle and ride it off a sodding cliff.

It really is so depressing, Penny. The grim, clockwork inevitability of my body failing to perform the functions for which it was designed. A few months ago I broke down on the M6, my car, that is, not me, although quite frankly I nearly did as well. It was awful, just sitting there waiting for the breakdown people to come. Completely useless, sitting in an apparently perfectly serviceable car but not able to get anything to work (it was a blocked fuel line, by the way). Millions of other cars kept whizzing by and they were all working but I was stuck, absolutely stuck, and there was nothing I could do about it. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was. Well, my whole life’s like that really. Month after month I’m stuck, my car won’t work and I have no idea how to make it go. All there is left for me to do is to try and seek help, to face that long trudge up the hard shoulder in search of a phone that probably won’t work in order to call an emergency service that will take for ever to respond and when they do won’t be able to find the problem or have the right tool to fix it. Meanwhile, the entire rest of the female sex are whizzing past in Renault people carriers with eight babyseats in the back. Am I dragging out this analogy too far? If so I don’t care.

Look, I know I’m whining here, but if I can’t whine to my imaginary friend who can I whine to? My periods are absolutely horrible and the crowning nightmare of my apparent infertility is the idea that this abject misery, which I have endured twelve times a year since I was thirteen, might be for nothing. I mean, if it turns out my whole plumbing system is irrevocably buggered and that I might just as well have had a hysterectomy twenty years ago I shall just die.

Dear Book

Failed again. Arse. Lucy says that Sheila says the bloke on Oprah said that I’m not supposed to use that word. “Failed”, that is, not “arse”. Apparently the “fail” word implies a value judgement. If we say that we’ve failed then that means in some way it’s our fault, which of course it isn’t. Lucy has read eight and a half million books on the subject of infertility and while they don’t agree on many things they do all seem to feel that a positive outlook is essential.

Well, bollocks to that. We’ve failed again. Lucy has got her period, Restricted Bonking Month was a complete washout. She’s in bed right now, with the light off, groaning. I’m sure the main reason she wants a kid is to have nine months off having periods. They seem to be so awful for her. She says I can never know how bad it feels, but to give me some idea she says it’s like being kicked in the balls over and over again for two days. Sounds terrible, although how she would know what being kicked in the balls is like I don’t know.

I always feel at such a loss at these times. So impotent. Whoops, wrong word there, but you know what I mean… I mean I know what I mean… for heaven’s sake, I think I’m going mad. Nobody’s going to read this but me and yet I’m beginning to address this pointless exercise to a third person. I must get a grip.

Anyway, as I was remarking, I feel so useless at period time. I watch Lucy groaning away and I really haven’t got the faintest idea what’s going on with her. All I know is that her gut swells up like a football, which is doubly sad because it makes her look pregnant. I think all small boys should be given lessons about menstruation when they are eleven. I mean, we were never told anything about it when I was at school. I’ll bet they still gloss over it, and as you get older you don’t like to ask. I mean obviously I know the basics, but the details you have to pick up off the tampon ads on the telly and it’s most confusing. They use all this code language and imagery like “protection” and “freedom” and “all-over freshness” and there’s wings involved and the blood’s blue and frankly you just don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on at all.

Dear Penny

Felt better today, physically, anyway. Mentally I’m still feeling low. The brutal truth is that it is now sixty-one periods since Sam and I started trying for a baby. That’s five years and one month. What’s more, when I come to think about it, prior to that we weren’t exactly being careful. In fact we had at least a year of relying on withdrawal. I wanted to get preg even then and I remember thinking that if one night he didn’t get it out in time I wouldn’t mind a bit. I know now that he might as well have left it in until Christmas, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Because, basically, I have to face facts. I am Sad. I’m Barren. My womb is a prune.

There, I’ve said it. I don’t care, it’s how I feel. What’s the point of this book if I can’t be honest? Excuse me, Penny, got to get a tissue.

I’ve been crying, Penny, sorry. I tried reminding myself about the homeless and the starving people in Africa, but it didn’t work. Anyway, I’m back now. Don’t worry, I’m not about to collapse or have a breakdown or anything, it’s just that sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed, that’s all.

And, yes, I know that a lot of women wait a lot longer than five years and a month (actually six years and one month in my case, if you count the careless