Inconceivable

“It’s a pretty funny script,” she said, “although it hasn’t got an end yet for some reason. I’ve never heard of the author, but Ewan Proclaimer’s slated to direct and you can’t get any hotter than him.”

Carl enquired what the theme was and you could have knocked me down with a feather when Sheila said infertility.

“It’s absolutely the theme of the moment,” she said. “Lucy you’re our expert on the subject. Would you like to cast an eye over this script for us? Tell Carl what you think.”

I wonder if there’s a scientific name for the depth of the colour of red I must have gone.

“No thanks,” I replied with as much dignity as I could. “I can get all that at home.”

Dear Sam

We held auditions today for Rachel, which was very exciting and also most disconcerting since the casting director has definitely erred on the lower end of Ewan’s age range. The venue was a church hall near Goodge Street on the Tottenham Court Road. Ewan sat behind a long trestle table with Petra, also a PA with blue hair and an earnest-looking young man with a ponytail who is to be the second assistant director. George and I slunk around at the back trying not to ogle the actresses too much. Trevor had come down but had left again; he said he found me and George too sickening. George as usual could not resist doing battle.

“Look, Trevor, when I fancy a girl I just look at her. I don’t try and shag her behind a tree on Hampstead Heath.”

“We don’t all do that,” Trevor replied. He really will have to learn not to rise to it.

Ewan was getting the girls to read one of Rachel’s speeches, which I had basically lifted straight out of Lucy’s book. It’s from the bit where she tried a guided fantasy. Wonderful stuff. There were a couple of actresses who made it sound absolutely marvellous.

“‘I mean, why the hell should I have to imagine a baby? Why can’t I just have one! Far less nice people than me have lots. I know that’s a wicked thing to say but I know I’d be a better mum than half the women I see letting their children put sweets in the trolley at Sainsbury’s… I’d read my child Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh and the only glue it would ever get involved with would be flour and water for making collages.’”

Listening to it was both exhilarating and excruciating. I mean it works so well and yet of course it’s Lucy’s voice, Lucy’s feelings. I really have done a terrible thing. Standing there watching all these gorgeous young women, all ten years younger than Lucy, mouthing her thoughts, made me feel very awkward about myself indeed. But what’s done is done. It’ll be worth it for us both in the end. And I can’t go back now. George was thrilled.

“Very nice speech, Sam,” he said. “The woman’s voice is so much more clearly defined. You’ve obviously really unlocked something.”

That made me feel both better and worse.

Perhaps I should just tell Lucy, make a clean breast of it. But I can’t. Not while she’s all hormonally messed up with IVF. Besides, supposing she stopped me? This is my big break, my chance, and the BBC would probably sue me for the money they’ve already spent. Anyway, Lucy said to me that if I did this thing that I have done she’d leave me, so I can’t tell her, can I? Not yet.

There was one girl who I thought read particularly well. Her name was Tilda, I think. How is it that all these actresses have such ridiculous names? Darcy and Tilly and Saskia and the rest. They’re their real names, too. I don’t think they assume them. It’s as if their mothers know at birth that they’re going to be actresses and christen them accordingly. Or else possibly it’s the other way round and that any girl who has to go to school with a name like Darcy has to get so mouthy there’s nothing else for her but to become an actress.

Anyway, Ewan clearly thought that Tilda had talent, as did I, although like all the girls attending the audition she was ridiculously young for the part.

“Now then, Tilda,” Ewan said.

He was studying the script as he said it and did not even look up from it as he spoke. He did that to all the girls, just to show them how important he was. Power definitely does corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well you don’t get power more absolute than that of a movie director. In their own little world, they are absolute monarchs and it can lead to some pretty off-hand posturing, I can tell you. Especially where nervous quaking little twenty-one-year-old cuties are concerned.

“Now then, Tilda,” Ewan repeated. “Bearing in mind the nature of this story, I’m anxious to underline the fact that despite Rachel’s fears for her fertility she remains a sensual and a sexual being. Would you have any problem with that?”

Tilda was confused. So, actually, was I.

“Uhm, no, I don’t think so,” she said. “In what way exactly?”

“Well,” said Ewan. “I think it’s thematically absolutely essential that we see Rachel’s breasts.”

I must say I was nearly as taken aback as Tilda was. She went bright red, which was of course highly attractive, gulped a bit and replied, “Well… I don’t suppose I’d have a problem with that, probably, if the part really required it.”

“Good,” said Ewan perfunctorily and for a minute I thought he was going to ask her to get them out there and then. I could feel George craning forward in eager anticipation. Thank God he didn’t. I mean I bow to no one in my appreciation of the youthful female form, particularly the bosom, but there are limits.

“Thanks. We’ll be in touch,” said the PA and Tilda retreated as fast as she could. I suppose in some ways Ewan’s question was perfectly fair. It does seem to be something of a rule these days that, whatever the movie, at some point the girl will have to get her tits out. I’m sure that if they were making The Wizard of Oz today poor little Judy would have been caught in the shower when the hurricane struck or at the very least it would have blown her dress off. Some more right-on directors try to make up for it by including an equal and opposite shot of the leading man’s bum, but it’s not the same. I don’t think you’ll find many women sat on their own in front of their videos late at night trying to freeze-frame the bum shots.

Reading back over the last few pages I note how much I seem to be mentioning attractive women. I think that this is possibly a symptom of the fact that Lucy’s and my sex life is currently nonexistent. I must say, I’m seriously beginning to miss it, but there you go. Yet another irony in the life of couples like us, infertile couples, IVF couples, is that when we try for a baby, we stop having sex.

Dear Penny

Drusilla has come up with another plan. I blush even to report it. She rushed into the office at lunch today with a map of Dorset and the train times from Paddington. She says that Sam and I have to go to the West Country, walk to the village of Cerne Abbas, go out onto the hillside and prostrate ourselves naked upon the penis of the great chalk man that is set upon the slope. Then, well, you guessed it, we have to have it off! It seems that this is an even more fertile and spiritual place than Primrose Hill, far far more so, in fact. Drusilla says that hundreds of couples use it and the conception rates are considerably higher than with IVF. On summer nights apparently there’s a queue and the local druid has to bless one of the big toes as a sort of backup bonking area. Drusilla says that in reflexology the feet are connected to the genitalia so doing it on the foot is nearly as good.

I must say the idea of standing in a queue of hippies waiting to have it off on an ancient penis which would no doubt be still warm from the last lot did not appeal to me much, but Drusilla claims that there’s actually a colossal sense of community. She says people who meet there often become lifelong pals, going off to India together in their camper vans and swapping partners. The very least they do is exchange cards at the winter solstice. Anyway, she demanded, what’s preferable? Standing in a queue with some horny hippies or having my body taken over by a gang of mad scientists from outer space (she means the doctors at Spannerfield).

Well, I told her that I was now committed to the IVF cycle and that I certainly did not intend to