Kate stared at her. “Lucy, I... I’d never even considered it!“ But as she said it, she knew she had. She liked Jack and, more importantly, trusted him, and the thought of using him as the donor must have been loitering at the edge of her subconscious. It was enough to redden her face now. Both she and Lucy looked away from each other at the same time.
“I’m sorry, but I’d got to say it,” Lucy said, abruptly.
“It’s okay.”
“I know it’s selfish, but I just couldn’t handle that at all.”
“It’s all right, really.”
A silence built between them. Lucy cleared her throat. “So are you going to make a list of possible candidates?” she asked, with forced lightness.
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Who—” Lucy began, then stopped when she remembered they had already gone over that. “I mean, do you think you’ll have any trouble finding someone?”
Kate was as keen as Lucy to leave the brief awkwardness behind. “I don’t know.” She felt obliged to add more. “I suppose the problem’s going to be that I don’t know that many men when it boils down to it. Not well enough to ask, anyway.”
“What about Clive? I’d have thought he was an obvious choice.”
Kate had begun sliding her glass around on the table again. She put her hand in her lap. “He would be, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”
“Because the baby would be mixed-race, you mean? I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you.”
There was a faintly arch note in Lucy’s voice. Kate ignored it. “It wouldn’t, but having to work with Clive again afterwards would. And if I asked him and he said no, that’d be almost as bad.”
“Isn’t there anyone at the gym?”
“No one I’d want to ask.”
Lucy sighed, though whether in sympathy or exasperation it was difficult to tell. “Looks like you’ve got a problem, then, doesn’t it?”
“What problem?” Jack asked, coming up to the table. Neither of them had heard him approach.
“Kate can’t think of a donor,” Lucy said, and Kate tensed, waiting for him to make some joke about himself.
“Just don’t pick anybody with ginger hair,” he said, sitting down. “Wouldn’t be fair to the kid.”
He poured himself a glass of wine. “Who’ve you got it narrowed down to?”
“Nobody, yet,” Kate admitted.
“Spoilt for choice?”
“Hardly. The only people I can think of, I either wouldn’t want to ask or I can’t because it’d cause too many complications.”
She had meant Clive, but realised as she spoke that this last point applied equally to Jack. Lucy gave her a sharp look. “Which really makes a mockery of the idea of a known donor, doesn’t it?” Lucy said, with a slight edge.
Kate tried not to react to it. “Not really. Just because I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask someone who’d see me — and the baby — regularly, it doesn’t mean I’m going to settle for someone I’ve never even met.”
Lucy gave a snort. “Well, if you don’t want anyone you don’t know, and you won’t ask anyone you do know, there’s not a great deal left, is there?”
Kate was about to respond, hotly, when Jack spoke. “Why don’t you advertise?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” Lucy snapped.
“I’m not being stupid,” he said, equably.
“Well, where’s she going to advertise? The post-office window?”
Jack gave Lucy a stark glance before turning to Kate. “Have you thought about putting an ad in the personal columns?”
“Oh, come on!” Lucy exclaimed. “You can’t advertise for a sperm donor in a newspaper!”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because you can’t!”
Jack ignored her. “You can word the ad to specify the sort of bloke you want,” he said to Kate. “You know, intelligent, professional, good-looking. Not ginger-haired. Whatever.”
“For God’s sake, Jack!” Lucy protested. “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this!”
“Why not?”
Kate thought he was enjoying his wife’s outrage. “It’s only like advertising for a job. What’s the difference?”
“What’s the difference? The difference is you don’t have to masturbate at a job interview! I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! You could get anyone answering!”
“So you check them out. And you’re careful which newspapers you place the ad in. Go for something like the Guardian or The Times rather than a tits ‘n’ bums tabloid.”
“Or I could place it in professional journals,” Kate said, fired by the idea. “Target specific groups I know are going to be fairly responsible and intelligent. Like teachers or lawyers.”
“I dunno about lawyers,” Jack said.
She laughed. “Doctors, then. I could advertise in a medical journal. I can’t see a doctor being easily shocked or offended. And they’d be more likely to take it seriously.”
Lucy was looking at her, horrified. “You’re not really considering it!”
“Well,” Kate said, “it’s worth thinking about.”
She batted at a moth that had blundered into her face. It fluttered off into the growing darkness, towards the still-glowing barbecue.
Kate received her first reply on the same day that Paul Sutherland’s case was heard at the magistrates’ court.
