The House of Hidden Mothers (23 page)

‘And she's … open, you know? Some of the women don't have any contact with the intended parents, but she seemed keen to stay in touch once she's … you know, a lady-in-waiting at the clinic. Dr Passi says a few of the other surrogates Skype, so there should be no problem teaching her. She seems really bright. That's if you're OK with it? With her?'

Toby kissed her briefly by way of a reply. But later, in bed, he took ages to fall asleep. There was a brief moment when their companiable spooning could have tipped into something more energetic, but eventually both of them decided to pat each other reassuringly and turn away, ready for sleep, which in Toby's case hadn't yet come.

He and Shyama had talked for some time in the darkness, both tipsy on those unbelievably potent cocktails and their shared wonder that they had found someone so quickly, that they might even be back at home in England when, five thousand miles away, their child was being created. Created – was that the right word? Manufactured. Magicked. Whilst Shyama turned to poetry, imagining a plump-faced baby curled up on itself, a beatific smile on its face, Toby could only picture a single cell dividing and subdividing in a bland white Petri dish. He tried not to see a flotilla of tadpoles, each bearing his facial features, swimming aggressively towards a soft spongy egg. He had never resented Shyama for being the one with the problem, even today when, as part of his Intended Parent health check, he'd gone through the whole ‘making a donation' ritual again. The only difference being that, this time, he hadn't needed any visual aids. He'd simply imagined a woman, dark-skinned, faintly spiced, slowly unhooking her sari blouse, her eyes dark and calm as a night ocean.

Dr Passi saw them both the next day in her office to discuss the results of the various tests. The whole room was decorated in gradations of beige: creamy-brown flooring and blinds, abstract prints on the wall chosen for their shade rather than content, a tan leather swivel chair behind an old-fashioned wooden writing desk at odds with the large wafer-thin computer screen which took up most of its surface. The only splashes of individuality came from the large metal natraj mounted on one wall – Shyama had a smaller version back home, the Hindu god Shiva with one foot raised in joyful dance – and on the wall behind the desk, Dr Passi's gallery of success: a noticeboard covered with photographs of tearful, beaming parents holding aloft their newly born babies. From a distance they all looked remarkably similar. Maybe this was the official clinic portrait taken after every birth, the tiny mouths making Os of astonishment or protest, the small fists clenched against the shock of arrival, the two ecstatic adults cradling their future. And almost all of them, Shyama noted with interest, were European.

Beside her, Toby sat ramrod-straight in his wingback chair, feeling slightly seasick – the combination of lack of sleep, a slight hangover and embarrassment at having to discuss his bodily fluids with this woman, just a day after being left in a cubicle with his sample jar and soothing piped music. As Dr Passi rummaged around under her desk making clucking sounds of irritation, he thought for one awful moment that she was going to produce the container and use it as a visual aid. Instead she brought out a single sheet of A4 and quickly scanned it before confirming that Toby's sperm was ‘not only A1 but your motility is tip-top' and she didn't foresee any problems.

‘So we are in a good situation, Mr and Mrs Shaw. Healthy sperm, healthy surrogate. Now all you have to do is choose who will provide your donor egg. Obviously this is a very important decision, as whoever you select will be providing half your child's genetic make-up. We have a comprehensive database here online.'

Dr Passi clicked her mouse and paused a moment before swinging the computer screen round to face them. ‘It's very straightforward, as you can see.' She smiled, navigating the menu with practised ease. ‘So you put in your requirements – ethnicity, age … and as you make each choice the options narrow down your wish list, and then you go into Profile, for example …'

She clicked on the name ‘KAMALA' and her details revealed themselves: height, weight, religion, skin tone, education, the briefest of family backgrounds: ‘Housewife, married to labourer, three healthy children.'

‘Is that all we will know?' Shyama asked eventually, realizing how meeting Mala in person, being able to watch her animated face, hear the curiosity and warmth in her voice, had made a difficult choice so easy.

‘Well, for obvious reasons, we cannot show pictures of our donors …' Dr Passi was still smiling patiently. ‘But I can assure you, we screen them thoroughly, medically, psychologically. Many of the Indian ones I have met myself, and by the way, most of them are very educated, more graduates than housewives, and I can tell you more about them should you wish. Naturally we have more Indian donors here … you did say that you wanted …?'

‘Yes, yes, we did, it's in our—' Shyama began.

‘Ah yes, I have your details up now. Of course, it makes sense. To match the child as closely as possible to your own …' and here Dr Passi searched for the appropriate word, ‘family.'

She then stood up abruptly, her cell phone beeping in her hand.

‘I do apologize, I'm being paged … please feel free to stay here and keep browsing. I won't be long.'

Only after the door swung smoothly shut behind her did Toby dare to speak, his voice scratchy in his throat.

‘Did she really say “browse”? Like we're going shopping?'

‘Yup.' Shyama sighed, already surfing the Indian Donor section and wondering if ticking the Graduate Only option made her a fascist or a realist.

‘It's a bit bloody clinical, this bit …' mumbled Toby.

‘Well, we are in a clinic, not entwined under the stars hoping for a baby made of love,' Shyama muttered back. She felt Toby go quiet behind her. She turned round. He was looking at her strangely, arms folded across his chest. Behind him a water cooler gurgled impolitely.

‘What do you mean? What does that … mean?'

‘Nothing. I … I'm sorry. It's just … this bit should have been my job, shouldn't it?'

Toby came over then and sat next to her, his arm resting on her shoulder. They stayed like that for some time until they made their decision together: ‘Sonia – Hindu Punjabi, 25, five feet three, 112 pounds, fair to wheatish complexion, Arts graduate, two children.'

After they had informed Dr Passi of their choice, of which she heartily approved – ‘I know her very well, a lovely warm woman, very bright, very decent family' – she reiterated that there was no need for them to stay on. With Toby's sample safely frozen and the donor eggs chosen, she herself would oversee the fertilization of the embryo, and once Mala was at the optimum stage in her cycle, she would undergo implantation. And then, ‘We cross our fingers, chant, pray, whatever is your chosen method, and wait for the good news that I am confident Science will provide.'

Shyama and Toby reiterated that they would stay on for the duration of their six weeks' leave, regardless. This was their first trip to India together – why not pretend it was a holiday too? They had vague discussions about flying down to Kerala and booking a houseboat, or staying in the famous ayurvedic hotel that offered yoga sessions and detoxifying massages, or maybe going west to Rajasthan, having a couple of nights at the Lake Palace Hotel, camel rides in the desert, buying one of those hand-painted Jaipuri cabinets Shyama had always wanted. But despite the box of treasures now open to them, they felt unable to leave Delhi yet, just in case some news or complication called them back to the clinic.

So they spent the next week or so rambling around the city, often hooking up with Prem and Sita for some sightseeing, some of the venues doubling as a wander down memory lane for Shyama's parents. They showed Shyama and Toby the derelict single-storey building that had been their first home together, tucked away in a gulley in one of the most expensive areas of the city, surrounded by huge colonial bungalows and fortified palatial embassies on wide, tree-fringed avenues.

‘Back then these were government-owned quarters,' Prem told them, taking in the lush foliage bursting out of the eyeless sockets of the window frames, the group of wild boar that skittered in and out of the surrounding woods. Toby did a double-take when he saw their hairy muzzles snuffling suspiciously at them from the edge of the bushes, continually delighted by how in this country Nature was aggressively, proudly ever-present, even in the centre of the capital. Wild, whipped-looking dogs roamed the streets; noisy birds flew unmolested in and out of the malls themselves; monkeys sat on walls, spitting out fruit seeds as if waiting for a bus; white humped cows chewed thoughtfully in the middle of dual carriageways. He had even seen a rheumy-eyed elephant swaying down a main road, on his back his mahout on a cell phone whilst he gently poked his gigantic steed with a forked steel stick. The animals here had attitude, he liked that. Prem had explained that all true Hindus were vegetarian, ‘As the theory is, all life forms are respected equally,' after which Sita let out what sounded like a derisory snort.

They visited Karol Bagh to eat in a dhaba on a noisy bazaar thoroughfare whose
chole
and
paranthe
were considered the best in town. Shyama and Sita left to browse the bustling market. Toby knew Shyama would come back bearing armfuls of glass bangles which she would never wear, and stacks of bindis which looked no different to the ones she could buy in the shop next door to her salon back home.

Over piping-hot masala chai, Toby enquired how the court case was going. Prem's eyes clouded slightly as he muttered, ‘Good, good, thank you,' and asked Toby how it had all gone at the clinic. Toby muttered something equally anodyne in reply and they lapsed into awkward silence, both relieved when the women returned with their armfuls of bags, in high spirits and complaining loudly about the price of everything nowadays.

Sita pointed out the two-hundred-year-old Sikh Gurudwara temple tucked away in a backstreet now overshadowed by a twelve-storey office block, its orange pennants bearing the Sikh symbol of the Teg Deg Fateh, defiantly jaunty against the dark brick and steel of its giant neighbour. They swung by the college where she and Prem had first exchanged stolen glances across its red-brick dusty courtyard, where a small group of students now stood outside, shouting slogans and giving out leaflets.

Shyama took one: it featured a stern, bespectacled man with the graffiti ‘MOLESTER!' printed in red over his face. It seemed the head of the Economics department had been exacting favours for grades for some years, yet despite the number of female students now brave enough to come forward and expose him, he was still teaching. Shyama noticed how many men were also demonstrating, their voices providing a bass counterpoint to the young women's rhythmic chanting. They seemed relaxed in each other's company in a way she could not recall from her own youthful college days, when she either ran away from men (English boys, too keen and too much hassle) or tried to reel them in (the competition for the handful of eligible Indian boys who weren't Neanderthal or needy was fierce and occasionally bloody).

Sita glanced over Shyama's shoulder, skimmed the leaflet and shrugged dismissively. ‘Nothing new. It was happening when I was here, it will always happen. Only now they're talking about it.'

‘But at least they're talking about it,' replied Shyama. ‘That's half the battle, isn't it?'

‘The next battle is how many of those girls who spoke out will be gossiped about. How many of them won't make a good marriage.'

‘If it was my daughter, I'd give her a medal,' Toby said firmly. ‘And go round later and beat the perv up,' he muttered to Shyama.

‘If only it were that easy,
beta
,' smiled Sita faintly and patted him on the arm.

‘And any bloke who judged her wouldn't be allowed anywhere near her,' Toby added, emboldened by this gesture of physical affection from Sita.

‘You will find that children have to make their own mistakes.' Sita was now carefully avoiding Shyama's eye. ‘Sometimes it's like watching a traffic accident in slow motion. You can see it coming. You can shout out to be careful or get out of the way. But in the end, the best you will be able to do is pick up the pieces.'

‘And not say I told you so,' Shyama added.

‘Hah, exactly.' Sita lifted her eyes to Shyama for a moment and then said lightly, ‘When did you last talk to Tara?'

‘Oh, a few days ago, maybe? Well, I left a message on her phone … the Skype connection's really dodgy at the hotel.' Shyama could hear herself gabbling under her mother's watchful gaze.

‘Then maybe try again today, yes? Our Skype connection is fine, isn't it, darling?' Sita took Prem's arm and continued walking, leaving Shyama fuming behind her.

‘God, I hate it when she does that,' she muttered to Toby, stumbling as they picked their way over the potholes on their way to the car.

‘What?'

‘She should just come out and say it, rather than this whole passive-aggressive shit.'

‘She was just asking you to keep in touch with your daughter. You're too sensitive sometimes, Shyams.'

‘Yes, OK, just because you got brownie points for your white-knight-on-his-charger speech. Theoretical daughters are always perfect.'

‘I don't expect perfect,' Toby said sharply, stopping in his tracks. ‘Do you remember what that bloke said to us on our first ever scan?'

Shyama's stomach contracted at the memory, long buried. Both of them in one of the basement ultrasound rooms in Dr Lalani's clinic a couple of lifetimes ago, mesmerized by the fuzzy image of the first and only child they had ever managed to conceive, a floating blue planet suspended in a universe of possibilities, its tiny heart flickering like a distant star.