Book of Lost Threads (3 page)

Book of Lost Threads Linsey looked severely over her pointed little nose. ‘You can leave now if you wish. When we have satisfied ourselves as to your suitability, we’ll explain further.’

Amy said nothing, but managed to look both charming and concerned.

What did I have to lose?
Michael asked Phil later.
Nothing at
all, mate
, said Phil.

Michael explained that his maternal grandparents had been killed in a train crash in India. ‘They liked to travel,’ he said, noting the approving nods. His father’s father had died recently, at the age of seventy-five. ‘Lung cancer. He was a smoker.’

‘You don’t smoke, do you? We don’t want a smoker.’

Michael told his first lie. ‘No. Never seen the sense in it,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘What with Grandad and all.’

‘Do your parents keep good health? No chronic illnesses or allergies?’

The second lie was easy. Phil had coached him on this point. With job interviews, you tell ’em what they want to hear. ‘Nope. Both disgustingly healthy.’ His mother’s asthma was hardly worth mentioning, so he didn’t.

‘Thank you, Mr Clancy. We’ll be in touch in the next few days.’

That night, Michael and Phil speculated over a bottle of rough red. Two bottles, in fact. The best theory they could come up with was that he was to be part of some sort of scientific experiment.

‘No, it makes sense, mate,’ Phil argued. They had already agreed that this was the best explanation, but Phil had reached the stage of drunkenness where he sensed that the brilliance of his logic was best demonstrated by reiteration. He counted off on his fingers. ‘You have to agree, mate: one, there’s the health questions, b, there’s the academic stuff, and four, there’s the . . .

other stuff.’

‘You’re so right, mate.’

Three days later a call came from Linsey. ‘You are the successful candidate,’ she announced. ‘Can you come and see us again? We have a proposition to put to you.’

‘Cool. They’re going to proposition you,’ Phil chortled gleefully.

‘I’d better wear my red shirt then,’ said Michael. ‘They might as well know what they’re getting.’

As before, Linsey answered the door. This time she took him straight into the dining room, where Amy was sitting with a third woman.

Linsey nodded in her direction. ‘Our lawyer, Sally Grainger. Sally, this is Michael Clancy.’

‘Lawyer?’ Michael felt at a distinct disadvantage.

Sally, plump and middle-aged, looked more like his Aunty Joan than a lawyer. To complete the impression, she smiled reassuringly, her small eyes almost disappearing as she squinted at him through her reading glasses. ‘Don’t worry, Michael. You can certainly have your own lawyer. In fact, I strongly advise that you do.’

‘We’ll pay, of course,’ said Amy hastily. ‘All expenses will be paid.’ Her smile was accompanied by the most charming of dimples, and Michael, who had half-risen from his seat, sat down abruptly.

‘I think it’s time you told me what this is all about.’ He frowned, hoping he sounded more resolute than he felt.

Sally and Amy smiled. Linsey tapped impatient fingers on the table. ‘Sally? It’s best you explain as we agreed.’

‘I hope you understand that what I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential.’

Michael nodded, but this clearly wasn’t enough.

‘I must have your word. This will be a verbal contract until the formal one is signed.’

‘You can trust me,’ he replied. ‘I give you my word.’ And he meant it. Michael Clancy didn’t give his word lightly.

‘Very well. Amy and Linsey, as you have probably guessed, are in a lesbian relationship.’

Michael hadn’t guessed or even suspected, but he nodded gravely, one part of his brain trying to remember if there were signs he had missed. The other part continued to listen to Sally who was explaining in her brisk lawyer’s voice.

‘They want a child, but don’t want a man—how can I put it?—too intimately involved in the process. In short, they hope to become pregnant with your sperm, using artificial insemination.’

‘Oh,’ said Michael. Then again, ‘oh,’ followed by an ‘um’.

The lawyer slid a document out of the folder in front of her and continued: ‘A contract has already been drawn up. You supply the sperm at the time Amy is ovulating. You must do this for at least ten cycles in the next twelve months. For this, you will be remunerated: five hundred dollars each month with an additional five thousand dollars if a pregnancy occurs. You will sign an agreement not to have any contact with the child, and for their part, Amy and Linsey will forgo any call on you for financial or emotional support.’ She sat back and Michael became aware of three pairs of eyes looking at him.

He gaped a bit.

‘This is all contingent upon the quality and motility of your sperm,’ Sally added. ‘We would need you to go to a doctor of our choice to verify that you’re fertile.’

‘Um,’ he said again. ‘No strings? I mean, I don’t want a child. Not really cut out to be a father.’

‘No strings,’ confirmed Linsey as she turned to Amy with an intimate smile.

Good grief
, Michael thought.
How can I have missed something
so obvious?

Linsey was explaining further. ‘We decided that we wanted the child to be the best she possibly can be, so it was clear from the start that Amy would be the birth mother.’ She gestured towards Amy and her voice took on a quality Michael hadn’t heard before. ‘She’s so beautiful. I wanted to ensure, as much as possible, that our child will have her blonde beauty and stature.’ She waved a hand as Amy began to protest. ‘No. I don’t want a short plain woman like me. One in the family is more than enough.’ She turned back to Michael. ‘Amy is a musician, so I decided that a father with a scientific mind would broaden the skills base. Our child will be as close to perfect as we can make her.’ Her thin face was alight.

Michael coughed. ‘What if it’s a—you know, a boy?’

‘All the more reason he should be tall,’ was Linsey’s enigmatic reply.

‘We just want a baby,’ Amy said gently. ‘We’ll love it, boy or girl. And don’t worry: we have four brothers between us. There are two grandfathers. He’d have plenty of male role models. We’re not harpies, you know.’ She smiled hopefully. ‘Can you help us, Michael?’

In those days Michael was inclined to quick decisions. What could be the harm? It was a pity the process wasn’t going to be a bit more normal, he thought, but he had a healthy libido and it wouldn’t be too difficult to produce the required sperm. Besides, he was skint.

‘Give me a couple of days to look at the contract,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get back to you.’

He did look at the contract. Just to make sure he would not be encumbered with a child. It all seemed so easy. The next day he phoned the house, where the women were waiting anxiously for his call. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said.

Three weeks later, he found himself following Linsey into a room at the top of the stairs.

She looked at him severely. ‘Here’s the . . . receptacle.’ She held a jar between thumb and forefinger. ‘I bought some magazines I thought might help. Just call when you’re done and I’ll come and collect the jar.’

Finn had first discovered masturbation at the age of thirteen and by now considered himself something of an expert. Taking a moment to recover from his embarrassment, he looked at the magazines and imagined poor Linsey, all beaky disapproval, having to purchase them. It almost distracted him, but this was a job, and he did it with single-minded efficiency.

Having completed the task, he called to Linsey. ‘See yourself out,’ she said and handed him an envelope, which he had the decency not to open until he was in his car. Five hundred dollars. And it was as easy as that.

Michael was a man of his word. He fobbed off Phil by telling him that he was taking part in a secret drug-testing program for a pharmaceutical company. This was a good cover as he had conscientiously given up booze and cigarettes for the duration and told everyone that this was part of the parameters of the experiment. It was also necessary, he explained, to have a beeper so that he could be called on the instant he was needed. This was a bit harder to justify, but his vagueness was put down to the secrecy of the tests. So when the beeper sounded during lectures, in the student canteen or at the pub, he was able to go without too many questions being asked. Amy’s monthly cycle impinged on the ease of his sex life, but the regularity of her periods enabled him to ensure that he was never called while in another woman’s bed.

Six cycles went by. He was quite happy about this. After all, it was five hundred dollars per cycle. On his seventh visit, however, Linsey was out and it was Amy who answered the door. She looked wan and seemed thinner than the last time he’d seen her.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked with some concern.

Amy’s dimple had almost disappeared. ‘I’m fine. Really,’ she said. ‘It’s all a bit of a strain. Linsey’s so determined to have this baby and I feel I’m letting her down.’ To his horror, he saw that she was blinking away tears.

‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised and immediately felt foolish.

He closed the door. The job took a little longer in this frame of mind.

‘Good luck,’ he said as he handed her the jar. And felt even more foolish.

‘Tenth time lucky, maybe,’ he said two and a half months later when Linsey rang to tell him that they were still unsuccessful.

The next time he was summoned, Linsey greeted him as usual, though he was conscious of Amy hovering in the background. He went to head up the stairs but Linsey motioned him into the sitting room, where he sat down on one of the gilt chairs. The two women sat on the edge of the sofa, facing him.

‘As you’re aware, this is the last time for you to . . . assist us,’ Linsey began. ‘You’ve been as good as your word and we appreciate that, don’t we, Amy?’ Amy nodded, started to speak and then fell silent.

‘We had researched the matter extensively before we enlisted you,’ Linsey told him, ‘but we’re starting to think there may be something wrong with our—what would you call it?— our
technique
. Consequently . . .’ Her skin was taut over sharp cheekbones, and dark smudges shadowed her eyes. ‘Consequently, we were wondering if more . . .
conventional
methods might not be required.’

Michael felt a surge of elation. Of course he wasn’t averse to having sex with a beautiful woman—but it was more than that. While he had accepted the terms of the job and done his duty, as it were, he nonetheless harboured a nagging resentment that this beautiful woman didn’t want to have sex with him. In this role there was an affront to his manhood that he had chosen to ignore in his eagerness for the remuneration. He had taken their money, and done what they asked, but now an ugly thought came unbidden:
Let’s see how she feels after having
sex with a real man.
Immediately ashamed, he pushed the thought aside.

‘Fine,’ he said gravely. ‘I understand. Do you mean now?’

‘Now is the right time,’ Amy aspirated the words. He could hardly hear her.

She looked down as Linsey put an arm around her. ‘I know it’s asking a lot, darling,’ Linsey murmured into her hair, ‘but we know it may be the only way. We’ve nearly run out of money.’

Michael took Amy’s hand and felt the tension that ran down her arm to her fingertips. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m not a monster.’

But in the end, he couldn’t do it. At the bedroom door he saw hopeless jealousy transform Linsey’s carefully disciplined features. Amy was even worse. She was actually trembling. Michael was a generous, considerate lover: it was one reason why so many women were attracted to him. Looking at Amy, intuiting her distress, he felt like a brute.

‘Tell you what,’ he said as Linsey turned away. ‘Tell you what. Let’s keep the thing going as it has been for another couple of months before we, you know, take drastic action. I won’t expect payment after today.’

He felt their relief wash over him like a flood.

‘Thank you, Michael. You’re a good man,’ said Linsey with simple grace. Amy just smiled. Her dimple had returned.

So the arrangement continued as before until, several months later, he received a phone call.

‘We’re pregnant,’ they sang into the phone. ‘Michael, we’re pregnant.’

Two days later there was a cheque for five thousand dollars in the mail. A note was attached saying that they were grateful and wished him well, and as the contract stated, he would neither see nor hear from them again.

But even as he breathed a sigh of relief, Michael couldn’t help feeling just a little cheated.

3
Amy, Linsey and Moss

F
OR
A
MY AND
L
INSEY, THE disappointment that had followed Michael’s visit each month only compounded their delight when a pregnancy was finally confirmed. The two women looked at each other in awe at what they had achieved.

‘We’ve done it,’ Linsey breathed.

‘With a little help from Michael,’ Amy giggled.

The two women had first met when Amy went to work as a temp at the Melbourne University Faculty of Commerce, where Linsey was a lecturer in economics. On Amy’s first day, Linsey burst into the secretary’s office, her brusque instructions 24 arrested mid-speech by the sight of the unfamiliar young woman behind the desk.

‘When I saw you,’ an enchanted Linsey later told Amy, ‘I thought of summer—of peaches and honey and lazy blue skies.’

What she actually said at the time was: ‘I need these by—um . . .’

Amy looked up from her typing. ‘I’m just a temp,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to show me what you want.’ And she moved over with a gesture of invitation to come to her side of the desk, where Linsey bent over the manuscript with fierce concentration, trying to ignore the drifting perfume and faint female odour that arose from the seated woman.

For the two weeks that Amy spent at the university, Linsey was distracted. She of fierce efficiency became quiet and absentminded. She worked like a fury on her lecture notes just so she could take them to Amy to format and copy. She replaced her uniform T-shirt with business shirts of crisp white cotton or cream silk. She washed her cap of shining brown hair every night and even tried fluffing it out a bit around her face. She thought constantly of Amy—dreamily imagined intimate dinners, films, concerts—but spoke to her only about work.