Having sat in my fair share of doctor’s surgeries of late, I really am not thrilled about sitting in another. This one is unnaturally sterile, from the plastic plants to the shiny leaflets, and staff in matching tops. All whiter than white. It feels like the sort of place where one would come to either get some fillers or an intimate wax. Instead, I’m here with two sisters who look abnormally anxious on my behalf.
‘Stop shaking your leg,’ Meg says, sitting next to me, clutching a hand around my knee.
‘All right, Mum,’ I grunt back.
I do like that look she gives me when I compare her to our mother. It’s a look that gets me through the day. Beth cranes her head every time a door opens and closes. She was the one who put two and two together and got Oscar but she looks like she just wants answers, to find that missing jigsaw piece. Frankly, I’m disappointed that somewhere this posh doesn’t have a hot beverages machine.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’ I ask, looking around. Since we’ve been here the lady in reception keeps smiling at me and then looking sad that I don’t remember her. Because this place doesn’t feel like a place I’d frequent. Although mildly ridiculous, the sex club I understand, the university also feels logical, but this is completely not where I thought I’d end up.
‘The number of this place is on your phone. He’s the only Oscar we can link you with,’ Beth says.
‘I really hope you’re not having an affair with this man,’ Meg says.
‘Lucy wouldn’t do that… not with everything Emma went through…’ Beth says, defending me. She’s my favourite sister now.
‘Would I though?’ I ask. ‘Maybe he’s got a giant schlong. You’d expect a doctor to know his way around.’ Meg closes her eyes, hoping the receptionist didn’t hear that. ‘You two are too much. It could be a very simple explanation that we’re in a book club together, or share an allotment… or run a multi-million-pound drugs ring.’
‘What if he’s your actual father and it turns out Mum had an affair with him thirty years ago?’ Beth says.
Meg isn’t playing into this and I’m disappointed that she lacks the imagination.
‘No, the most likely reason is that you were probably having sex with an old man.’
‘You sound jealous. B, do you have any sweets? You always have sweets,’ I ask, sighing out loudly.
‘That’s because I’m the best sister.’ She rifles around in her handbag and pulls out a family bag of Haribo. This is why we keep Beth. Meg’s hand reaches over my body to steal some and I elbow her out of the way. She always seems to think she’s entitled to the gummy cola bottles. A woman from across the way looks over at us curiously trying to figure out the dynamic of this sister sandwich, wishing we’d conduct ourselves with more decorum but working out why we don’t quite match. I wish I knew. Like I wish I knew why I have a connection to a doctor at a high-end fertility clinic in London.
It started after I slept with the Spaniard and then unearthed his cheating to scenes of drama where the actual police did indeed show up, though not before Gabriella called herself an Uber and got the hell out of there. Beth rang and I walked through the streets of London and listened to how the sisters had done their best investigative journalism to find out that one of the numbers on my phone belonged to this fertility clinic, Vitro (which, knowing me, they thought was a nightclub). Further digging led them to discover one of the doctors here was called Dr Oscar Jacobs. Oscar. So he wasn’t an old lover, an adversary, the name of a child whose party I once commandeered. No, it was the name of a fifty-something-old doctor who liked a lemon-yellow tie and whose beard looked like he’d borrowed it off a man of the mountains. The mystery had been unearthed and, frankly, it was slightly disappointing, to me at least.
To the other sisters though, it sparked some surprise. Lucy was interested in her fertility? Lucy avowed to us with much indignation that motherhood was not her thing. She liked her vagina, she wanted to preserve it for the future and not have it ruined by the spoils of childbirth. Why would she be here? Had she suddenly grown up and realised she wanted a future with more stability? With children? The only other reason Emma could think I might be connected to this place was because of STDs, while Grace reckoned it was because maybe a doctor had realised my vagina had broken some world record and he was analysing it now for research. This was unusually hilarious for Grace but they’re both still cows. That said, we got in contact with the clinic and made an appointment. Let’s get some confirmation about why Dr Oscar is pinned to my notes.
A door suddenly opens to the left and a couple leave, one crying, I think with joy, but the three of us sisters go quiet for a moment, trying hard not to stare as they make their way to the reception desk. They are followed out by someone I will assume to be Dr Jacobs as he looks exactly like his profile picture on his website. He looks around the room and grins widely to see me, putting his arms out in preparation for a hug. We hug? OK then. I stand up.
‘LUCY!’
‘DR JACOBS!’ I reply as he wraps his arms around me. I guess he may have seen my vagina so I will afford him this level of intimacy but Beth and Meg look completely bemused by his warm reception of me. He stops hugging me to stand back and study me, looking at my head. I wish people would stop doing that. He’s working out what to say next as his gaze bounces towards me and my sisters.
‘You’ve brought company this time? Is everything all right?’ he asks.
‘Oh, these are my sisters, Beth and Meg. Do we know each other?’
He looks at Meg, wondering if this is some elaborate prank.
‘I’d hope so with the number of times you’ve been in here? Seriously? Is everything OK?’ There is concern there, which makes me less dubious about him.
‘I was in an accident about two months ago and I’m having problems recollecting events.’
His expression drops for a moment and he ushers us into his office, away from the gaze of others.
‘You were? Lucy!’ he says with some shock, closing the door. ‘It explains the new look. What happened?’
‘I tried to take on a bus. And lost,’ I say, as we all enter the room and take our places on a long white leather sofa.
His shoulders slump for a moment and he looks me up and down in what I hope is not a sexual way. Dear god, I hope the familiarity here is not from the fact we slept together. You’re lovely but you’re old.
‘So retrograde amnesia?’ he asks.
‘Possibly dissociative…’ Meg intervenes. ‘The psychologists can’t decide at the moment.’
‘So you have no idea who I am or what this place is?’ he asks.
‘I know you’re a doctor and this is a fertility clinic but basically…’ I get out my phone and scroll down to the note where his name is pinned with the date. ‘This was on my phone so obviously quite important. Maybe it was an appointment? Have I done a party for your kids maybe? But you said I’m here a lot. Did I work here? Was it because of something else?’
‘Was she ill?’ Beth asks.
He pulls a chair over to the sofa, looks over the top of his glasses to read the note on my phone but then smiles broadly.
‘You have no record of your time here?’ he asks.
‘The one thing we learnt with Lucy is that she does not have much of a paper filing system,’ Meg contributes. ‘Her inbox was like a car crash too.’ She’s not half wrong. When we tried to look through my emails, there were 6,475 unread, the majority of which seemed to be confirmation of password changes and Boohoo discount codes.
‘Then this might be a bit of a revelation…’ He wanders over to some bookshelves in the corner of his office and retrieves a file that looks like a catalogue of sorts. He runs his fingers down the dividers and page numbers and then brings it over to us. All three of us sit here waiting, wondering, part of me hoping that this is a very complicated coffee menu. He sits down and turns the folder around. It’s a picture of my face. Lucy, 29, BA in Drama Studies and English Literature, MA in Philosophy in Literature, DipEd in Dance Psychotherapy, blonde hair, blue eyes, 5’11.
‘What sort of clinic is this?’ Meg questions, slightly worried as this seems to be a catalogue of women, and all our minds jump to the wrong conclusions. Do they farm women? Christ, was I an escort? Is this a ruse for something?
‘Lucy was an egg donor.’
Meg and Beth go deathly quiet at the reveal. I won’t lie, it takes me a moment to process that as my mind just goes to the kind of eggs one can eat with bacon and I picture myself here donating them to the good doctor for his breakfast. I hope I carried them in a wicker basket. Eggs?
‘She was one of our more popular donors too. I mean, you’re very attractive and well-educated and your profile always appeals to our many couples looking for donor eggs so they can start families of their own.’
Meg can’t seem to speak. Lucy did good things too? The same Lucy who does drinking and jokes and cartwheels at inopportune moments without knickers on?
‘How many times has she done this?’ Beth asks.
He scans over some records. ‘Twice.’
‘But she’s Lucy, she occasionally smokes and drinks like a fish. How would she have been suitable?’ Meg mumbles.
‘But…’ Beth says, working it out. ‘She was fit and active too. Remember she used to go on those months of health kicks and diets. She’d tell us she was detoxing her body.’
‘She was an ideal candidate,’ Dr Jacobs explains. ‘I apologise, this is a lot to perhaps get to grips with…’
We all sit back in the sofa to absorb the information. ‘Did I ever say why…?’ I ask the doctor.
‘Well, without sounding crass, it paid well so I think that was attractive to you but you also once told me you never wanted children of your own so you didn’t want all these good genes to go to waste. You were always very amusing, Lucy, but I did get the sense that behind the financial rewards you wanted to do a good thing.’
Beth starts to tear up now at the thought of it all, this secret altruist who used to harvest her organs to pay her rent but also leave some sort of legacy in the world. It brings a smile to my face to know that next to that all-singing, all-dancing and all-swearing Lucy, there was at least a part of me that was trying to do something decent. Meg’s brow tells me different though.
‘I just can’t get my head round this… the ethics…’
‘Lucy was very relaxed about it all. She was offered counselling as a donor and she understood her rights and those of the parents. She was always very popular in the clinic, very chatty. I think we knew everything about you, more than a normal doctor should. You had a cat with an amusing name…’
‘Pussy?’
‘That was it. You used to show us pictures and ones of all your family. You persuaded my receptionist, Janine, to leave her husband.’
That’s why she was smiling at me. It’s quite an image to think of me with my legs akimbo chatting to Janine about her shit husband and how she could do so much better in life. But then again, it’s not a surprise.
‘I could never quite tell if you came in here all chatty to mask your worry about the procedures or if it was just what you were like,’ Dr Jacobs continues.
‘No, it’s all her,’ Meg adds.
He smiles, telling me he’d already thought as much. ‘Look, I can send you away with all the literature and forms you signed, just to verify it. Maybe if the circumstances have changed, we can also review those documents,’ the doctor says calmly.
‘No, it’s OK. It’s just another thing new to process,’ I reply. ‘So you just scooped the eggs out? Like frogspawn?’
Dr Jacobs laughs. ‘To a point.’
‘And now there’s a whole jar of them stored in a fridge somewhere?’
‘Yes, Lucy. In ice cube trays.’
‘Really?’
‘No.’
This does make Beth and Meg laugh for which I’m glad as it breaks this strange tension in the room.
‘So, we know why you’re pinned on my notes then. This date, 9th February. Was it an appointment I had then?’ I ask.
He pauses for a moment, wondering whether to divulge. Given that he’s obviously had me in stirrups and foraged my eggs out of me, I don’t think there are any more secrets we can keep from each other. He goes over to a desk drawer and rifles through it, before he pulls out a card and brings it over.
Oscar Avery, 7lbs 12oz, born 9th February 2022
A picture of a baby wrapped up like the most edible wrap sandwich you could imagine lies next to the words, his eyes closed, hand tucked under his cheek. He looks familiar.
‘A lot of egg donation is anonymous. You find out about the donor and then that’s it, but the Avery family wanted to know you more and asked for contact. Mum asked us to send on certain details with her thanks.’
‘And they named their baby after the doctor who helped them get pregnant,’ Beth concludes, tears rolling down her face. ‘Lucy, that’s your baby.’
‘But it isn’t…’ I mumble. ‘I helped to do this?’
Dr Jacobs nods and I laugh, in shock, in wonder. That’s a baby, a real-life baby. He’s so cute it hurts my bloody eyes.
‘Oh, Lucy…’ Meg says, holding tightly onto my arm.
Are they proud of me, finally? Look at me doing big girl things when you guys weren’t looking.
‘Though come on, right, is he not the most handsome little bubba you’ve ever seen?’ Beth smiles through her tears while Meg studies my face as I take it all in. Does she see the glow? Because this really does make my heart hurt with joy. I helped a family make a baby. While I was trying to take on the world, I did something good in these last ten years, I tried to do something good, for balance.
‘How many other of Lucy’s eggs have been turned into babies?’ Meg asks, making it sound as if they’ve been grown from the ground like the cutest of potatoes. She has a point though. Is the doctor going to bring out a catalogue of babies that I’ve enabled? Are they on every continent?
‘Three, Oscar being one of them.’
My eyes widen for a moment. ‘So I’m basically building an army.’
‘Of sorts. You used to joke and call them your minions.’
‘That’s quite a scary thought, Lucy. Three little babies out there running around just like you. God help the world,’ Meg mutters.
I pause for a moment. The enormity of the situation, the consequences, feels huge but it’s countered by the fact that out there, a couple – a few couples – got to start a family, have a baby. I don’t care if they inherit none of me but just to have let them borrow my biology feels good.
‘Are you OK, hun?’ asks Beth as I sit there staring at the baby picture in my hands.
‘Do you think I can meet him?’ I ask Dr Jacobs. Meg and Beth look at each other anxiously. ‘I know the boundaries, I’m just curious.’
‘I can certainly ask. I’m glad you’re OK, Lucy,’ he says, putting his hand in mine.
‘Oscar. That’s a good name.’
And for a moment, my mind wanders to this baby of mine, who isn’t really mine at all. And I’m holding him and kissing him on the forehead before I hand him over. Hey, kid. Go take on the world and have a shitload of fun. Ask all the questions, drink all the drink, laugh and love so very hard but only the right people because there are a lot of douches out there. You don’t belong to me in any shape or form but, by god, you are real and you are destined for greatness. Oscar. That’s a really really good name.
‘Lucy… Lucy?’
And as my mind wanders, something weird starts happening. It’s strange because I can feel Dr Jacobs’ hand in mine but I can’t. Why can’t I bend my fingers? Grab his hand, come on, Luce. His hand is right there. I look down at my hand but it doesn’t seem to be mine. I open my mouth to speak and can’t make the sound come out, my jaw feels loose, numb. Come on, Luce. Speak. But the feeling extends to my right eye, to my neck. Fuck. Breathe, Lucy. Tell them you can’t feel anything.
I can hear Meg screaming as my body collapses into itself. Get out into reception and tell them we need an ambulance here, immediately. Beth scrambles out of the room, her handbag dropping to the floor and its contents tumbling out. Sweets everywhere. Don’t waste the sweets. Lucy? What’s wrong? I think she’s having a stroke of some description. Lucy! Don’t you dare, come on. I’m here. It’s me, Meg. I’m here. I feel her hands gripped around me, her breath to my cheek. Doctor, please. I don’t know what to do. We need to lie her down. There’s a sharp pain to my head, an excruciating pain, and my body suddenly loses control of itself. I think she’s having a seizure. Control her neck. LUCY! CAN YOU HEAR ME? I want to say yes, so very loudly. I want to scream it. I’m here. I’ve always been here.