Author: Moobs

Perhaps you have had the experience of having a relationship crack, splinter and fail only to discover that all those sad songs on the radio that normally cause you to grind your teeth are suddenly full of the deepest truths and most perceptive observations. How could you not have noticed that Celine Dion was singing out for you; weaving your pain into her session musicians’ syrupy noodlings?

There is a sort IVF equivalent. Whenever we are in the middle of a treatment cycle, the media seems to go infertility mad. Front page of the Evening Standard (London’s evening paper) last night carried a story about womb transplants. This morning the radio was headlined cheerily with the news that, as I have turned 40, any child we succeed in having is pretty much guaranteed to be autistic. The story hung in the bedroom like a breath of stale air as Penny got up to get herself to her early morning scan.

We have been twice delayed but it looks as if we are ready for egg retrieval and sperm deposit on Thursday (known in our house as “NHS wank day”).

The autism story reminded me that should P, by some miracle, conceive that is only the start of the worries. People we love have lost children through miscarriage; lost children at birth; given birth to children with birth defects that made survival impossible; lost children to illness; lost children to drugs; the permutations of possible tragedy seem endless. Then there are the existential concerns that pepper many of the blogs I read: are they good mothers; are they turning into their own mothers; how do they stop the nastiness of the world seeping under the doors and round the windows to poison the childhoods of those they adore; will their neighbours ever stop complaining about the dog poo?

This will sound odd, but I long for those worries. I want my chance to strive to make sure we have a kid who “turns out alright”. I don’t understimate how the concerns will eat at me. I will oppressed by the thought that my every reaction to my child indicates there is more of my father in me than I can bear, but to hold P’s hand again as she drops the pregnancy test to the bathroom floor and to feel myself brace for what is to come as she starts to sob – the reality of that seems somehow worse now than the worries to come. 

Back when I was at university it was well understood that a particular History don had a good working relationship with the security services. Over a pint or more in the beer cellar (and in whispers) the gossip suggested that his job was to spot likely candidates for espionage and guide them from dozing in the library to stalking the back streets of Sofia armed with an exploding fountain pen.

It was with some excitement, therefore, that I saw that a neatly typed note had been stuck to the green baize college noticeboard, signed with the don’s name. It said “a gentleman from the Civil Service will be visiting college to discuss careers in public service”. I smiled, relishing the discretion of the don’s language. A gentleman from the “civil service” – beautifully put! Word spread quickly and by four o’clock a line of us had formed, hair neatly combed, Sandanista-supporting t-shirts swapped for shirt and tie; all trying to look like we could mix a martini with one hand whilst throttling the life out of an enemy of the State with the other.

I was not, it had to be said, an obvious candidate - well not since the British Security Services abandoned their former practice of recruiting only communists and then being amazed when they defected. I was a member of CND and a would-be firebrand of the Labour Club. My prospects of recruitment therefore depended on their having not found out anything at all about me. However, with their past track record that seemed decent enough odds.

I was invited into the room by the previous candiate as he left. I settled myself into a chair and tried to look deadly. Opposite me was a man in his 30s. He was clean-shaven and had mousey hair receding faster than he no doubt would have liked. He gave me a warm smile and asked me what I saw myself doing in the public service. I didn’t feel I could say “sleeping with pneumatically-busted double agents and firing off live rounds”. I realised that, like the History don, I needed to demonstrate a certain discretion.

“I would like to travel”

There was a long pause: “Yes, go on”.

I wondered whether I’d said enough. He obviously thought not.

“I would like the opportunity to use foreign langauges”

“Uh-huh” he encouraged. I was running out of innuendoes.

“And travel to places that … you know … one might not ordinarily get to see”

“Sounds like the Foreign Office” he interjected.

“Well … sort of … but perhaps a bit less diplomatic”.

He shifted in his chair and moved his hands so that he showed me his palms.

“Well” he said “I’m from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries so I don’t really know a great deal about the Foreign Office. I did spend 4 months in the Department of Transport – would that be the kind of thing that would interest you?”

The answer was no. I rose sadly from my chair and shook his hand, only then wondering if it might be covered with some swift-acting contact poison (it wasn’t).

“Before you go” he added

“Yes?” I said, turning back.

“Could you ask the next person to come in?”

I have been laughing a lot recently. By laughing I mean laughing out loud. Explosively. Not just a narrowing of the eyes and a quiet nod of appreciation at an amusing point well-phrased. I mean tea and snot shooting out of my nose.

Some of this convulsing has been caused by blog-reading. There are a lot of funny people out in the gabbling mega-canteen that is the blogosphere. However, a great deal of the laughter has been produced by my reading Bill Bryson’s new book.

Bill Bryson is the best anecdotalist since Peter Ustinov (whom he succeeded as Chancellor of Durham University) and his “Lost Continent” had a profound effect on me: It made me give up any thought I may silently have nurtured of writing anything other than dull books about Law. The book had exactly the tone I had longed to be able to produce and was radiantly funny in a down-trodden self-deprecating way. Every couple of pages was comedic set-piece deployed without apparent artifice and with disarming charm.

I knew, so to speak, that I was beaten. His “voice” was my voice, the one I had been nurturing but mature and natural and funny whereas mine was squeaky and forced.

He moved back to the US from Britain a few years ago (and has since returned) and once, on our way to a holiday in Vermont, we stopped in his new home town for a meal. I decided that we should go visit him. In that crazed way that fans have of seeing their heroes I assumed he would welcome a group of English tourists, freshly full of meat and fries, arriving on his doorstep. Surely the warmth of my regard for him would immediately counter his annoyance at being descended upon and his latent fear that he had finally met the psychopathic reader who would finish him off? I explained my plan to P and my companions who edged away from me on the restaurant benches and explained what “stalking” meant.

Then, one day about 2 years ago, I was walking up a staircase at St Pancras tube station when Bill Bryson appeared at the top of the flight. I immediately recognised his somewhat dumpy ruffled charm. My brain edged up a gear. “It’s him” I thought, superflously. “I should say something to him”. I reasoned that anyone who publishes must appreciate feedback. I know I scour the comments page after every blog entry craving the affirmation that a comment brings. But what to say? I thought hard. Nothing came. I thought harder still till you could almost hear the brain cells squeaking as they rubbed together. Nothing. At that moment I snapped out of it. Bill was now about 2 foot away from me and from the unnerved look on his face it was apparent that I had spent the whole climb staring fixedly at him while my brain tried, unsuccessfully, to do it’s thing.  In a moment he was gone and he and I were spared the torturous embarrassment of my actually speaking.