Inconceivable (23 page)

, ’No,

Dear Penny,

H
ysterosalpingogram today. It’s not supposed to hurt much, but they say you should take along someone to drive you home just in case you’re upset or in discomfort. Sam, of course, had a very important meeting, which he did offer to cancel but I said

don’t
bother,
I’m fine.’ Drusilla came along, which was nice of her, except she seems to view all hospitals, especially the women’s-only parts, as places of unnatural torture and intrusion where nature is excluded and man insults the gods. This is
slightly
embarrassing when she talks about it loudly in the waiting room.

‘You know half the problems they deal with here can be treated herbally,’ she said so that everyone could hear. ‘There’s very little in life that a rose and lilac enema won’t go some way towards curing.’

The hysterosalpingogram itself was all right. Legs up as per. Quick prod about, as per. Bunch of spotty students staring up me in an intense manner, as per. Then in goes the dye, they tilt it back so that the dye can flow through the tubes. Actually, it was very interesting, because you can watch the progress of the dye on a little television screen. I thought I’d be too squeamish to look, but it was fine, as it turned out. Then they took a few X-rays and that was that. The doctor was in and out in ten minutes and I was in and out in twenty. It was all right, although I did feel a bit sick and faint afterwards. Apparently some women find it more painful. Perhaps my insides are getting desensitized.

Drusilla and I went for a coffee afterwards and I told her about Carl. Amazingly she’s of the same opinion as Melinda was when I talked to her about it. She thinks I should ‘put the poor boy out of his misery and shag him’! I had no idea all my friends were so cavalier about the concept of fidelity. I think with Drusilla it’s actually because she’s sex obsessed and believes that anything and everything should be shagged whenever the opportunity arises. Preferably in groups and at Stonehenge.

I said to Drusilla, Hang on, perhaps we’re jumping the gun here, perhaps poor old Carl doesn’t particularly want to shag me anyway. I mean I know we kissed, but I was upset and he was comforting me. Perhaps he really is just a very nice guy who just wants to be my friend.

’Ha!’
said Drusilla and she said it so loudly that other ladies spilt their coffee. Drusilla never minds about being noticed. I do.

I must say that whatever Carl’s intentions may or may not be towards me, I’m a bit sad about the way all my pals seem to view Sam. I mean obviously as far as they’re concerned I’m married to a sort of sexless, emotion-free geek whom one can betray with impunity. I put this to Drusilla and she replied, ‘Well, you said it, babes,’ which I thought was bloody mean.

Dear Sam,

L
ucy had her pingowhatsit today. She wanted me to go with her but for heaven’s sake I have a job. The BBC pays me to sit twiddling my fingers at Broadcasting House, not at Spannerfield Hospital. Besides which, today I actually had something to do, believe it or not.

The Prince’s Trust are putting on a big concert in Manchester.

Radio 1 is going to broadcast it live and the whole concert has been designated a Light Entertainment Brief, i.e. my responsibility. There are two reasons for this. Firstly there will be comedians on the bill (comedy of course being the new rock ‘n’ roll. Like hell). Secondly, the bill will mainly be made up of ageing old rockers, and nobody at Radio 1 who’s into music wants to touch it with a bargepole. They all think that because some of the artists who are to perform have committed the cardinal sin of being over forty (and doing music that has tunes) the whole thing is terminally uncool and should be on Radio 2 anyway.

So there we are. It turns out that it is to be me who’s heading up the BBC Radio side of the operation, which is why today I found myself back in Quark in Soho having lunch with Joe London. Yes,
the
Joe London, as in lead singer of The Muvvers, a man who bestrode the late sixties and early seventies rock scene like a colossus. They might sneer, back at the office, all those shaven- headed boys wearing yellow sunglasses indoors and girls with little tattoos of dragons on their midriffs, but I was bloody excited to meet Joe London. This was my history. Joe was big when I was at school. I can remember him when he didn’t have a courgette to put in his trousers. Bloody hell, that man couldn’t half rock in the old days.

‘We’re all absolutely delighted at Radio 1 that you can do this show for us, Joe,’ I said.

‘Oh yeah, tasty, nice one, as it ‘appens, no problem, geezer.’

‘And of course the Prince’s Trust are very grateful too.’

‘Diamond geezer, the Prince of fahkin’ Wales. Lahvly bloke, know what I fahkin’ mean? Likes ‘is rock does Charlie, big Supremes fan, and so good with the boys.’

Joe quaffed an alcohol-free lager.

‘What’s it in aid of, ven, vis concert?’ he said.

‘Well, Joe, principally helping young kids with drug abuse.’

Suddenly Joe’s amiable manner changed.

‘Well, I fink vat is fahkin’ disgahstin’, vat is,’ he sneered. ‘Lazy little sods! When we was young we ‘ad to go aht and get our fahkin’ drugs ourselves.’

I was just clearing up this misunderstanding and explaining that the point of the show was to help underprivileged youth when we were joined by Joe’s manager, a huge, spherical man with a cropped head and a cropped beard and no neck. His head just seemed to develop out of his shoulders like the top of an egg. He wore a black silk Nehru suit and silver slippers and he was bedecked in what must have been two or three kilos’ worth of gold jewellery. His name was Woody Monk and he greeted me with a nod before turning to whistle with approval at our waitress whose skirt was even shorter than on the last occasion I’d seen it. I imagine it had shrunk before the gaze of a thousand middle- aged media leerers who stare at it each lunchtime.

‘I remember this place in the sixties when it was a knocking shop,’ said Woody Monk. ‘The birds working ‘ere didn’t look much different actcherly.’

I really was dining with the old school. Joe and Woody were rock ‘n’ roll as it used to be, and it made me feel like a kid again.

These days most pop managers look like Tintin with sunglasses.

I asked Woody Monk if it might be too much to hope that Joe would do some interviews to promote the show.

‘He’ll do as many as you like, we need the profile,’ Monk replied, and then, as if to quell any protests that Joe might have, he showed Joe a copy of the
Sun
featuring an article about the current Rolling Stones tour.

‘Look at that, Joe!’ Monk said. ‘Just look at it. I mean, it’s obscene, disgusting. That is just a totally ridiculous figure, out of all proportion.’

Joe took off his sunglasses and had a look. ‘I don’t know, Woody, I like a bit of silicone myself.’

Monk tried to be patient. ‘I am not talking about the bird, you divvy! I’m talking about this new Stones tour, one hundred million, they reckon! And the Eagles got the same. It’s the arenas and the stadiums,’ Monk explained to me, ‘megabucks, these places gross in humungous proportions. In the old days when people talked about gross on tour they meant waking up with a mouthful of sick and a strange rash on your naughties. But nobody tours for the shagging any more. They do it for the gelt.

Every gig is worth millions of dollars. Can’t stop for a bit of the other, accountant won’t let you.’

Basically, Monk’s point was that Joe needed to tour again in the near future. His latest greatest hits album would be out for Christmas and it needed supporting.

‘Are we releasing another greatest ‘its album, then?’ said Joe.

‘Yeah, but a prestige one. Nice classy cover, all in gold, the Gold Collection…’

‘We done the Gold Collection.’

‘Orlright. The Ultimate Collection.’

‘Done vat too, and the Definitive Collection and the Classic, and the Unforgettable…’

‘Look, Joe!’ Monk snapped. I could see that he was a volatile chap. ‘We’ll call it The Same Old Crap in a Different Cover Collection if you like, it don’t matter. What we have got here is the Prince of Wales flogging your comeback.’

There, it was out, and Woody Monk did not care who knew it. As far as he was concerned this concert was a marketing exercise for Joe London and that was it. I didn’t mind. It meant Joe would promote it for us which was more than any of the modern stars would do these days (‘I’m not doing any fooking press, all right?!’). Joe, however, seemed a little embarrassed, though not, as it turned out, about the charity angle.

‘Vis ain’t a fahkin’ comeback! To ‘ave a comeback you ‘ave to ‘ave bin away and I ‘ave not bin. So vis is not a fahkin’ comeback.’

‘Orlright,’ said Monk. ‘It’s a fahkin ‘still here’ tour, then.’

‘Vat’s right.’

‘You can go on stage and everyone can shout…Fahk me! Are you still here, then?’

I honestly cannot remember when I have had a funnier lunch, and to think I wasted all those years lunching with comedians.

‘Anyway, I gotta go,’ said Monk, turning to me. ‘We’re all sorted, aren’t we?’

I said that as far as I knew we were extremely sorted.

‘Good, ‘cos we don’t want no fahk-ups. Vis gig is very important.’

‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘What with the underprivileged kiddies and all vat.’

‘Bollocks to the underprivileged kids,’ said Monk, hauling his massive bulk to his feet. ‘They should get a bloody job, bleeding scroungers. Fahk ‘em.’

So that was that.

Anyway, enough of my day job, time to get down to my script.

Lucy is sitting opposite on the bed, looking lovely as she always does. She’s very pleased with me at the moment because I seem to be doing so much writing. She thinks it’s all for my book. I’ll have to tell her soon because things are really progressing with the film. I’ve called it
Inconceivable
and I’ve been in to see Nigel to admit that the writer is none other than my despised self. He was a bit taken aback at first but then he laughed and was actually very nice about it. He congratulated me and said that sacking me was the best thing he ever did and that when I picked up my Oscar I was to remember to thank him. It’s interesting.

Ever since he commissioned my movie script I’ve been warming to Nigel and now consider him to be a thoroughly good bloke. Is that desperately shallow of me or evidence of my generous and forgiving nature?

Anyway, the very exciting news is that the BBC really want to get on with it. Nigel feels that the idea is very current and that everybody will be doing it soon. Besides which, the film will be extremely cheap to make, which means that the Beeb can pay for it all by themselves. The reason films usually take years to get together is because that’s how long it takes to raise the money, but we’re already past that hurdle and Nigel is impatient to become a film producer.

‘Movies work in a yearly cycle,’ he explained. ‘The festival circuit is essential for a small picture. Venice, Sundance, Cannes. You need critical heat under you before the Golden Globes in February.’

He actually said ‘critical heat under you’. Strange. Whereas before I would have thought he sounded like a pretentious wanker, now I think he sounds knowledgeable and cool.

The reason Nigel is in such a hurry is that the whole thing about being a Controller at the BBC is that you have to make your mark. When you start looking for a fat job in the independent sector you have to be able to say, ‘It was in my time that we did
The Generation Game
,’ or, ‘Oh yes, I commissioned
Edge of Darkness
and
Noel’s House Party
.’ These days the scramble to be seen to be successful is becoming ever more urgent. People move on so quickly that you have to make your mark quickly too and it seems that, thank you, God, I am to be the beneficiary of Nigel’s haste.

Dear Penny,

W
e went in to see Mr Agnew today at Spannerfield. He gave us our test results and everything remains clear. Sam’s sperm is fine (about ninety million of them, which is enough, surely?) and a sufficient number of them heading in the right direction to pass muster. Also my pingy thingy seems to have come up normal. Mr Agnew assured me that my tubes aren’t scarred, also there are no adhesions, fibroids, adenomyosis, or polyps in the womb, and that the area where the tubes join the uterus is similarly polyp-free. These polyps, it seems, are things to be avoided. I don’t really know what a polyp is. I suppose I think of them as sort of small cysts. Actually, I try very hard not to think about them at all. Quite frankly, just hearing about the eight million things that can go wrong inside a woman’s reproductive system is enough to make me ill. All Sam has to worry about is whether his sperm can swim.

Anyway, Mr Agnew was very nice and agreed with me that since we have uncovered nothing operable or treatable and yet we remain stubbornly infertile, the time may now be right to commence a course of IVF. Mr Agnew said that not only would this give us a chance of becoming pregnant (obviously) but it might also prove useful in a diagnostic sense, i.e. we might discover what, if anything, beyond the most incredible bad luck, is the problem.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘When can we start?’

Seven months, said Mr Agnew.

‘Bollocks to that,’ I replied (in so many words), and Mr Agnew explained that if we go private we can start next month, so that is what we’ll do and I don’t care what Sam says. If I’m going to have to do this I’ll do it as soon as I possibly can and start the long horrible process of getting it over with. Quite apart from anything else, as far as I can see, the NHS is under such a strain that if we can afford to pay we ought to do so and not take the place of someone who can’t. Sam says that that attitude simply reinforces the two-tier system. Well, what if it does? I have a home while other people are homeless, isn’t that a two-tier system? Should I go and sit in a doorway to avoid reinforcing it? I eat ready-prepared meals from Marks & Spencer while people in the Third World struggle to grow a few grains of wheat. How many tiers are there in that system, I wonder.

Anyway, it’s not posh at all. We all get lumped in together and all the profits that Spannerfield makes out of the private patients go straight back into the unit to fund the research programme. Personally I thought that us making a contribution to funding research sounded like a pretty good thing but Sam says that NHS hospitals using private patients to fund their activities is the thin end of the privatization wedge. He says that the people who manage the NHS budget will say to the hospitals, ‘Well, if you’re partially self-funding already, we’ll cut back on your allocation of public money and force you further into the marketplace.’ Hence the financial necessity of having a private system will become entrenched within the funding bureaucracy.

At that point I couldn’t be bothered to argue any further and told him to give all his food and clothes to Oxfam if he felt that strongly about it, which he doesn’t.

Sam has just asked me whether Hysterosalpingogram begins with ‘HY’ or ‘HI’. He seems to have suddenly got very enthusiastic about doing his book and getting all the details right. I know I should be glad, and I am in a way. After all, it was me that made him start it in the first place. It’s just that I wish he’d share some of those thoughts and feelings with me. The way we talk to each other and react to each other has become just a little bit mechanical and predictable. Is that what happens in a marriage? Is it inevitable? I’d love to talk to Sam about that sort of thing but I know he’d just try and change the subject.

Oh well, at least now he’s writing down his feelings, which I’m sure is the first step towards him being able to share them.

I’m trying not to think too much about wanting a baby at the moment. I find it drains me. I wake up feeling all fine and then I remember that according to my life plan I ought to have a couple of five-year-olds rushing in to jump into bed with me. That’s when a great wave of depression sort of descends, which I then have to fight my way out of by reminding myself how incredibly lucky I am in so many ways. Sometimes it works.