Inconceivable (10 page)

Sam,

S
till no news on the sperm test.

Also still no word from Tosser about giving me a job.

However, I’ve also still heard nothing further from the Channel Controller about my sensational faux pas over the mixed-up letters and am beginning to dare to hope that I may have got away with it. After all, Nigel isn’t such a bad bloke, is he? He’s trying to drag the Beeb into the twenty-first century and all that, isn’t he? And he’s got a sense of humour, hasn’t he? He’d see the funny side, on the quiet. I mean when he was an Arts Editor I remember he did that documentary on Ken Dodd. Marvellous stuff. Really, really marvellous earthy, populist stuff. It compared Dodd to a Shakespearean clown. They did a bit of Dogberry and Verges from
Much Ado
to illustrate the point. Hilarious, particularly when they duelled with loaves of French bread, absolutely hilarious. I must tell Nigel how hilarious I found it.

Yanton Nabokobovich did the interview, I recall, and called Doddy a true subversive. ‘Isn’t every joke really a small revolution?’

Yanton enquired. ‘An act of rebellion undermining the status quo?’

‘If you like, missus! Ha ha!’ said Doddy.

Brilliant telly.

Of course Nigel’s got a sense of humour and he’s a bloody good bloke as well. Old Nige won’t let me down.

Had a fascinating debate with the Complaints and Standards people at the Weekly programme briefing. George was in the chair and we were debating acceptable names for vaginas.

Amazing. There we were, five men earnestly debating whether ‘fanny’ was an acceptable term to use before nine o’clock. I told Lucy about it and she went back on her old thing about men being intimidated by fannies. She pointed out that there are any number of words for penis that can be used pretty much with ease on the Beeb knob, willy, percy, portion, member, todger, tackle, dangler, sausage, John Thomas, Dick Dastardly, meat and two veg and Uncle Tom Cobblers and all. However, when it came to female genitalia almost everything was too rude. She’s right, of course. ‘Vaginas’ are ruder than ‘penises’, even ‘fanny’ is on the edge. ‘Muff’ might pass, but again only just. The meeting was quite stumped. In the end we came up with ‘fou fou’, which is a term somebody’s mother used. I can’t see our tough young lady comediennes buying ‘fou fou’. We’ll be lampooned in the media section of the
Independent
before we know it.

Still no news on the sperm test, or did I mention that?

ad nauseam.

Dear Pen Pen,

D
rusilla came into the office today and caught me having a cup of coffee. She says caffeine is the enemy of womankind and insisted I drink a cup of squeezed lemon juice to purge myself. Then she asked if I’d given any more thought to the business of the Primrose Hill ley lines, because there’s a full moon next Thursday and the long-range weather forecast is good. The woman is out of her mind.

I also had lunch with Melinda and baby Cuthbert. He really is gorgeous and I’m sure that the slightly disconcerting impression of a permanent scowl will disappear as his mouth gets bigger. We ordered our salads (followed by cake) and inevitably Melinda produced her photos. Even though Cuthbert was sitting right in front of me in the flesh (and such a lot of flesh too, great folds of it), Melinda insisted that I look at nearly two hundred pictures of him. Which was nice (because he really is gorgeous, although slightly like a miniaturized Reggie Kray), but a tiny bit tiresome. How I wish we lived in times when the taking of a photograph was a rare and precious thing. When five or ten images sufficed to cover a person’s entire childhood. Nowadays people take millions of shots on computerized cameras and then reel them off on their home printers

Besides which, now that video cameras come with little playback screens it’s possible for people to show you their ghastly videos as well, sometimes while they’re actually recording them. Melinda didn’t go that far, but she had had an entire set of prints done for me, which really is too much.

I did think about showing Melinda a picture of Gertrude (just the one from the

Big Issue,
not the glossy one) but decided I wouldn’t. I thought that she might think it sad. Not that she’d have any reason to.

After about half an hour Cuthbert started crying and when I say crying what I mean is attempting to reduce London to rubble by the sheer force of sonic vibration. Melinda breastfed him at the table, which I thought was very right and feminist of her, although I do wish she hadn’t burped him quite so vigorously afterwards. Most of it hit the floor but I fear a splash or two of milky vomit may have landed in people’s food.

Actually, I had thought that you weren’t supposed to burp them any more.

I can’t deny, though, that it all made me feel broodier than ever. Despite Cuthbert not having a volume-control button and his indiscriminate vomiting and his slightly moth-eaten-looking patch of coarse black hair, looking at him did make me just long for one of my own. Particularly when I saw his little Peter Rabbit jumper. It was just so sweet. All my life I’ve looked forward to rediscovering Beatrix Potter via my children, so that did hit me rather hard. I must say, though, that I didn’t much like the baseball cap Melinda had bought him from OshKosh. It had ‘Yeah, I know I’m cute’ written on it, which I thought was a bit sickmaking (and sadly not

entirely
true).

I’d never buy a cap like that for a child because what a parent is really saying with that kind of stuff is ‘Look how beautiful my baby is.’ Which is not really on, not for the British, anyway. It’s not how we go about things. Or is that a wrong thing to say these days?

Also Melinda had just bought one of those ‘Baby On Board’ stickers for their Fiat. Sam says he’s astonished that George allowed it, and that nobody buys those any more. I must say, I can’t say I like them overmuch. I mean, what is the parent trying to say to other road users? And what are other road users supposed to make of it? ‘Thanks awfully for the tip because I’d been thinking about driving into the back of you, but since you’ve got a kid in the car I’ll cover the brake.’ It’s absurd. I’m going to have my own sticker made. ‘Sadly my husband and I have not yet been blessed with the divine gift of a child but we’d still prefer not to die in a car crash, thank you.’

Anyway, when we’d finally exhausted all the photos and cleaned the vomit off everything I got round to telling Melinda all about my strangely daunting encounter with Carl Phipps, or Heathcliff as I often think of him. I know I was only going to tell you, Penny, but I just could not keep it to myself. Well, guess what? Melinda thinks I should shag him! Yes!

Shag
him. I couldn’t believe it! Melinda of all people. She’s normally so proper. But she said that this was different, that these were special circumstances on account of the fact that Carl Phipps is acknowledged as one of the most dishy men in the country. Did I think, Melinda enquired, that if Sam got the chance of slipping one to Sharon Stone he would pass it up?

‘Yes, I bloody well do!’ I said. Rather too loudly, in fact, because people looked.

I don’t think Melinda really meant it. I mean, she’s never been at all indulgent of the idea of infidelity. I remember one New Year’s Eve George gave me a kiss and she got quite funny about it. I mean it was quite a long kiss, I admit, but it

was
New Year’s Eve and the bonging takes a very long time if you start at one and go on to twelve.

Reading between the lines, my guess is that George is probably not seeing to Melinda’s needs properly at the moment. I believe this often happens after a baby. The hubby starts to see the wife as a mother not a lover and feels strange about lusting after the thing that is feeding his child. Also, Melinda hasn’t quite got her figure back yet (poor thing). That’s understandable, of course, it’s only been a couple of months and it’s

far
too early for her to worry about that sort of business. Although I did think that three cakes was a little bit reckless. I only had one and a bit.

Anyway, I told Melinda that I had no intention of betraying Sam because I love him and that sexually he gives me everything I need. Which is

basically
true, on the whole, I suppose. Certainly it’s true about loving him, anyway. Although sexually I must confess to being not particularly satiated at the moment. The problem is that he seems to think of nothing but the result of his sperm test. In fact he’s obsessed with it. Which is not, I have to admit, particularly attractive in a man.

Yo, stud!,

Y
es! Yes! Yes!
Yes
!!! All RIGHT! Result, my son! Here we go, here we
go
! Result! Re-flipping-sult! Sorted. Oh yes! Sorted for sure.

Passed! Passed my sperm test. The letter arrived this morning.

At first I didn’t want to open it. It was just like my ‘A’ levels. I remember I was grapepicking in France and I had to ring home and get my mum to open the envelope. I can remember walking round that French phonebox for half an hour, too nervous to make the call. Of course I couldn’t hang around for half an hour this morning because I had to go to work, but I did make Lucy open the envelope and read the letter for me. As she slid a knife along the crease of the paper everything seemed to be in slow motion. I can remember thinking that now at least the waiting was over, whatever fate might bring.

I must say things started pretty grimly. There was no personal element at all, no ‘Dear sir,’ no ‘Brace yourself, mate,’ no ‘Better get yourself a drink, you sad pathetic excuse for a man, because you have no sperm.’ Just a printed form on which they fill in your results with a ballpoint pen. So much for our more caring society. They do not even offer counselling.

Well, Book, I am here to tell you that at first I thought that all was lost. The very opening line (under the deceptively bland heading ‘motility’) said ‘30% sluggish’. Honestly, that was the very word they used.
Sluggish
. A horrible, horrible word, reminiscent of slimy snail-like creatures that can’t be bothered moving their arses on garden paths in order to avoid being stamped on. Sluggish! It’s such a loaded term, not clinical at all.

I wanted a doctor’s reaction, not a critic’s! And if they’re going to use unscientific language couldn’t they have thought of a more friendly expression? Like ‘relaxed’, perhaps, or ‘unhurried’? If they’d told me I had relaxed sperm I could have handled it. Cool, laid-back sperm, sperm that liked to hang out and chill with the other guys. That would be fine. But ‘sluggish’? It’s almost as if they were trying to be unpleasant.

Anyway, the next line was worse! Yes, worse! I nearly cried. It said ‘41% swimming in the wrong direction’! I mean, what a thing to say about the very stuff of a man’s loins! My head was spinning. I thought, I’ve got
stupid
sperm! The stuff’s backing away up my dick all these years! Then I thought, ‘Hang on, this is ridiculous!’ This test is rigged. How are they supposed to know what’s the right direction, for heaven’s sake? They’re in a plastic pot! I had this vision of all my sperm desperately groping about hither and thither, banging their heads against the sides of the container, lashing their tails around like fish in a bucket, thinking, ‘We’re genetically programmed to find an egg here. Where is it?’

By the end of the letter I was ready to slit my wrists.

In conclusion it said, ‘90% useless’! Bad swimmers, poor motility. A load of rubbish in general.

So now the full and terrible truth was upon me. I’m not a man.

I’ve failed my sperm test!

I was already asking myself whether they’d let me take it again.

If it was like your driving test, I mean I had four goes at that when in actual fact I should have passed on the first time except that my examiners were a bunch of total Nazis. Then of course it dawned on me that the sperm tester must be a Nazi too! A jealous, small-minded petty official dedicated to ruining the lives of better men. A hopeless and inadequate man, embittered because his own sperm were small and sickly and couldn’t find their way out of his trousers. A man who took his revenge upon society by becoming a sperm tester and failing anyone who came up with the real goods.

That had to be it. Give a fellow a sperm tester’s uniform and suddenly he thinks he’s Hitler!

I was on the very point of phoning my MP and demanding a full recount when Lucy pointed out that stamped at the bottom of the form in big letters was the word NORMAL.

Oh, the relief! It turns out that my pathetic percentages are par for the course, that pretty much all sperm is 90 per cent rubbish.

Apparently there’s only a couple of decent wrigglers in an entire wristful. For all the macho pride and posturing of us men, most sperms just simply aren’t up to it. They’re sluggish. They’re stupid. They’re always wandering off in the wrong direction. They don’t know where they’re going.

Lucy said they sound exactly like a pub full of blokes, which was
quite
funny, I suppose.

Anyway, that was it. Passed. Normal. I was so pleased I danced round the kitchen and spilt my coffee.

‘Normal!’ I shouted. ‘Oh yes! Normal! Ordinary! Run of the mill!’

Then I thought, hang on, normal? Ordinary? A bit disappointing, really. I mean, let’s face it, ‘Superb’ would have been a better result. Probably just an off day. Still, whatever, I’m off the hook.